Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 27-28/2023
Iranians go from 'harassment' to hajj happiness after Saudi pact
Agence France Presse/June 27/2023
If a landmark reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran has eased tensions in the Gulf, clouds have also lifted at the hajj pilgrimage, where Iranian visitors finally feel welcome again. Seven years of enmity between the Sunni and Shiite powers had made for a cool reception for Iranian pilgrims joining worshippers from around the world for the massive event. But at the current hajj, held three months after Riyadh and Tehran agreed to repair relations, the atmosphere is suddenly very different. A n Iranian tour operator who has joined the hajj on several occasions said he was feeling "comfort and safety" in Saudi Arabia for the first time. "Yes, we were subjected to harassment," said the 55-year-old who did not want to give his name, citing the sensitivity of the matter. "We felt that our presence was not wanted in the first place," he added, speaking in broken Arabic near the Grand Mosque in Mecca. "But all that has changed now after the reconciliation." The January 2016 schism was related to religion, as Riyadh cut ties following demonstrations at its Iranian missions over Saudi Arabia's execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr. In March, the two sides announced a surprise, Chinese-brokered detente. This month, Iran reopened its Riyadh embassy and the Saudi foreign minister visited Tehran. The rapprochement has had a knock-on effect around the region, where Saudi Arabia and Iran have backed opposing sides in a number of conflicts and disputes.Saudi Arabia opened talks with Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels, who they have been fighting at the head of an international coalition since 2015, and repaired relations with Syria's isolated leader Bashar al-Assad.
'We have become friends'
The hajj has previously proved a sticking point between Riyadh and Tehran. No Iranian pilgrims were allowed in 2016, the year that ties were ruptured, as the two sides were unable to organise a protocol for them to attend. Saudi Arabia and Iran traded accusations in 2015, when 464 Iranians were among 2,300 pilgrims killed in a stampede, the worst in a series of hajj disasters. In 1987, Saudi security forces clashed with Iranian pilgrims who organised an unauthorised protest, resulting in the deaths of more than 400 people including 275 Iranians, according to an official toll. This year, however, the Islamic Republic's flag is conspicuous at Mecca, adorning hotels and buses reserved for Iranian visitors. "Now things are back to normal. I feel comfortable and safe," said the tour operator, who said his family had joined him for the pilgrimage this year. More than 86,000 Iranians, including 300 aged over 80, are on this year's hajj, according to Iranian media reports, after Saudi Arabia removed Covid-era caps on numbers and a maximum age limit. "There was some fear, but people love to come to God's sacred house," Sarwa Al-Boubsi, 34, told AFP in the lobby of a hotel designated for Iranians in Mecca. "There has been reconciliation, we have become friends. The situation is better than before," added Boubsi, wearing a black abaya. Officials from the two governments say they are also working to restore access to umrah, the year-round Saudi pilgrimage that remains off-limits to Iranians. Saudi merchant Al-Waleed, who did not want to give his family name, said the resumption of ties was good for business as Iranian pilgrims visit in large numbers. "It is in everyone's interest that peace prevails between the two countries," he said in his shop, in between haggling over the price of a rosary with an Iranian woman. Zainab Magli, from Ahvaz in southern Iran, praised the hospitality of the Saudis. "Their reception (this year) is beautiful. Since we entered Saudi Arabia, we have not been harmed," said the 47-year-old woman, who has visited before to perform umrah."We neither harm them nor do they harm us," she said.

Iran Discusses Nuclear Deal with Europe, Throws Ball into US Court
IRNA/27 June 2023
Iran conveyed its "explicit" stance to the European parties on the nuclear talks, throwing the ball into the US court to decide on negotiations to exchange prisoners and revive the 2015 agreement, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani. Iranian and Western officials have said the US is in talks with Iran to chart steps that could lead to an "understanding" to limit Iran's nuclear program, release some detained US citizens, and release some Iranian assets abroad. A Western official told Reuters last week that the key US objective is to keep the nuclear situation from worsening and to avoid a potential clash between Israel and Iran. The Western official said the idea was to create a status quo acceptable for all, getting Iran to avoid the Western redline of enriching to 90 percent purity, commonly viewed as weapons grade, and possibly even to "pause" its enrichment at 60 percent. During a press conference, Kanaani rejected "media speculations" about an informal understanding between Tehran and Washington regarding negotiations. He asserted that Iran was committed to the negotiating table to secure the rights of the Iranian people. The US government denied reports it was seeking an interim agreement, using its carefully crafted deniability to leave open the possibility of a less formal "understanding" that could avoid congressional review. Kanaani said that the prisoner exchange was still on the agenda, adding that Iran is waiting to see whether the US government was ready to decide. The spokesman asserted that Iran was serious about achieving results but must see whether Washington is ready to reform its former wrong policies. He explained that the chief negotiator, Ali Bagheri-Kani, conveyed "explicit" messages from Tehran during his recent negotiations with European officials. US and European officials have been searching for ways to curb Tehran's nuclear efforts since the breakdown of indirect US-Iranian talks. The willingness to restart discussions illustrates the rising urgency in Western capitals about Iran's program. On June 13, Bagheri-Kani held talks with diplomats from the European Troika, and they touched on a wide range of issues, according to a statement by the German Foreign Ministry. A week later, the Iranian negotiator met the coordinator of the nuclear talks and EU foreign policy official, Enrique Moura, in Doha. There had been more than one round of indirect talks in Oman between US National Security Council official Brett McGurk and Iran's chief nuclear negotiator. Kanaani pointed out that Bagheri-Kani discussed various important issues, including negotiations to lift the sanctions, and described the atmosphere of the negotiations as "serious and frank."He said the meeting conveyed Iran's clear position to the European parties and listened to their views."The spokesman noted that Washington is taking contradictory steps as it insists on negotiating and resolving contentious issues, including the nuclear agreement, while attempts are to implement new legal frameworks to maintain and tighten sanctions on Iran. Iran's position is clear, he asserted, adding that Tehran has proven that it has not and will not restrict its foreign relations and the provision of its national interests to the fate of links with a specific country or cause and issue."In our foreign relations, we work based on national interests."
Asked about the Iraqi Kurdistan region obtaining defensive systems from the US to "confront Iran," Kanaani asserted that without doubt, the Iraqi government would clarify the matter, adding that regional authorities must also explain. He explained that according to the bilateral relations based on security agreements between the two countries, the Iraqi federal government is expected to fulfill its duty in securing the border. "We did not and will not trust the US government," the government agency ISNA quoted him as saying in this regard.The US government sees its interests in instability and tension in the region, he said. Regarding the Russian use of a large number of Iranian-made drones in Ukraine, Kanaani said that Tehran held negotiations with the Ukrainian side in Muscat, and they failed to provide evidence of Iran's arming of Russia, noting that Kyiv rejected an Iranian request for a second round of talks.
Kanani said the Western accusations against Iran were "politicized," and Tehran would never support the Ukrainian war.

Reason behind cautious US response to Russia rebellion
Associated Press/June 27/2023
On the surface, the turmoil in Russia would seem like something for the U.S. to celebrate: a powerful mercenary group engaging in a short-lived clash with Russia's military at the very moment that Ukraine is trying to gain momentum in a critical counteroffensive. But the public response by Washington has been decidedly cautious. Officials say the U.S. had no role in the conflict, insist this was an internal matter for Russia and decline to comment on whether it could affect the war in Ukraine. The reason: to avoid creating an opening for Russian President Vladimir Putin to seize on the rhetoric of American officials and rally Russians by blaming his Western adversaries. Even President Joe Biden, known for straying from talking points, has stayed on script. Biden told reporters Monday that the United States and NATO weren't involved. Biden said he held a video call with allies over the weekend and they are all in sync in working to ensure that they give Putin "no excuse to blame this on the West" or NATO. "We made clear that we were not involved. We had nothing to do with it," Biden said. "This was part of a struggle within the Russian system." Biden and administration officials declined to give an immediate assessment of what the 22-hour uprising by the Wagner Group might mean for Russia's war in Ukraine, for mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin or for Russia itself. "We're going to keep assessing the fallout of this weekend's events and the implications from Russia and Ukraine," Biden said. "But it's still too early to reach a definitive conclusion about where this is going."Putin, in his first public comments since the rebellion, said "Russia's enemies" had hoped the mutiny would succeed in dividing and weakening Russia, "but they miscalculated." He identified the enemies as "the neo-Nazis in Kyiv, their Western patrons and other national traitors." Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia was investigating whether Western intelligence services were involved in Prigozhin's rebellion.
Over the course of a tumultuous weekend in Russia, U.S. diplomats were in contact with their counterparts in Moscow to underscore that the American government regarded the matter as a domestic affair for Russia, with the U.S. only a bystander, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.
Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said that Putin in the past has alleged clandestine U.S. involvement in events — including democratic uprisings in former Soviet countries, and campaigns by democracy activists inside and outside Russia — as a way to diminish public support among Russians for those challenges to the Russian system. The U.S. and NATO "don't want to be blamed for the appearance of trying to destabilize Putin," McFaul said. A feud between the Wagner Group leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and Russia's military brass that has festered throughout the war erupted into the mutiny that saw the mercenaries leave Ukraine to seize a military headquarters in a southern Russian city. They rolled for hundreds of kilometers toward Moscow, before turning around on Saturday, in a deal whose terms remain uncertain. Biden's national security team briefed him hourly as Prigozhin's forces were on the move, the president said. He said he had directed them to "prepare for a range of scenarios" as Russia's crisis unfolded. Biden did not elaborate on the scenarios. But national security spokesman John Kirby addressed one concern raised frequently as the world watched the cracks opening in Putin's hold on power — worries that the Russian leader might take extreme action to reassert his command. Putin and his lieutenants have made repeated references to Russia's nuclear weapons since invading Ukraine 16 months ago, aiming to discourage NATO countries from increasing their support to Ukraine.
"One thing that we have always talked about, unabashedly so, is that it's in nobody's interest for this war to escalate beyond the level of violence that is already visited upon the Ukrainian people," Kirby said at a White House news briefing. "It's not good for, certainly, Ukraine and not good for our allies and partners in Europe. Quite frankly, it's not good for the Russian people."Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over the weekend, telling him, "'No matter what happened in Russia, let me say again, no matter what happened in Russia, we in the United States would continue to support Ukraine's defense and sovereignty and its territorial integrity." Biden said.
The Pentagon is expected to announce Tuesday that it is sending up to $500 million in additional military aid to Ukraine, including more than 50 heavily armored vehicles and an infusion of missiles for air defense systems, U.S. officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the aid had not yet been publicly announced. Biden, in the first weeks after Putin sent tens of thousands of Russian forces into Ukraine in February 2022, had issued a passionate statement against the Russian leader's continuing in command. "For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power," he said then, as reports emerged of Russian atrocities against civilians in Ukraine. On Monday, U.S. officials were careful not to be seen as backing either Putin or his former longtime protege, Prigozhin, in public comments. "We believe it's up to the Russian people to determine who their leadership is," Kirby said. White House officials were also trying to understand how Beijing was digesting the Wagner revolt and what it might mean for the China-Russia relationship going forward. China and Russia are each other's closest major partner. The White House says Beijing has considered — but not followed through on — sending Russia weaponry for use in Ukraine. "I think it'd be fair to say that recent developments in Russia had been unsettling to the Chinese leadership," said Kurt Campbell, coordinator for the Indo-Pacific at the White House National Security Council, speaking at a forum hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "I think I'll just leave it at that." China values Russia as a friend in part to keep from standing alone against the U.S. and its allies in disputes. With Russia's invasion and resulting international sanctions sapping Russian resources and now sparking a rebellion, McFaul said, Ukraine and its allies could make the case: "'Xi Jinping, you know, if you want your buddy to stay in power, maybe this is the time to put some pressure on him to wrap up this war.‴

Biden: US, NATO played no part in Wagner mutiny
Associated Press/June 27/2023
President Joe Biden declared Monday that the United States and NATO played no part in the Wagner mercenary group's short-lived insurrection in Russia, calling the uprising and the longer-term challenges it poses for President Vladimir Putin's authority "a struggle within the Russian system." Biden and U.S. allies supporting Ukraine in its fight against Russia's invasion emphasized their intent to be seen as staying out of the mercenaries' stunning insurgency, the biggest threat to Putin in his two decades leading Russia. They are concerned that Putin could use accusations of Western involvement to rally Russians to his defense. Biden and administration officials declined an immediate assessment of what the 22-hour uprising by the Wagner Group might mean for Russia's war in Ukraine, for mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin or for Russia itself. "We're going to keep assessing the fallout of this weekend's events and the implications from Russia and Ukraine," Biden said. "But it's still too early to reach a definitive conclusion about where this is going." Putin, in his first public comments since the rebellion, said "Russia's enemies" had hoped the mutiny would succeed in dividing and weakening Russia, "but they miscalculated." He identified the enemies as "the neo-Nazis in Kyiv, their Western patrons and other national traitors."And Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the special services were already investigating whether Western intelligence services were involved in Prigozhin's rebellion. Over the course of a tumultuous weekend in Russia, U.S. diplomats were in contact with their counterparts in Moscow to underscore that the American government regarded the matter as a domestic affair for Russia, with the U.S. only a bystander, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. American diplomats also stressed to Moscow that they expected Russia to ensure the safety of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and Americans detained in Russia, Miller said. In a video call between Biden and leaders of U.S.-allied countries over the weekend, all were determined to give Putin "no excuse to blame this on the West," Biden told reporters at the White House. "We made clear that we were not involved. We had nothing to do with it," Biden said. "This was part of a struggle within the Russian system." Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, said Putin in the past has alleged clandestine U.S. involvement in events — including democratic uprisings in former Soviet countries, and campaigns by democracy activists inside and outside Russia — as a way to diminish public support among Russians for those challenges to the Russian system. The U.S. and NATO "don't want to be blamed for the appearance of trying to destabilize Putin," McFaul said. A feud between Prigozhin and Russia's military brass that has festered throughout the war erupted into the mutiny that saw the mercenaries leave Ukraine to seize a military headquarters in a southern Russian city. They rolled for hundreds of kilometers toward Moscow, before turning around on Saturday, in a deal whose terms remain uncertain. Biden's national security team briefed him hourly as Prigozhin's forces were on the move, the president said. He had directed them to "prepare for a range of scenarios" as Russia's crisis unfolded, he said.
Biden did not elaborate on the scenarios. But national security spokesman John Kirby addressed one concern raised frequently by the public, news media and others as the world watched the cracks opening in Putin's hold on power — worries that the Russian leader might take extreme action to reassert his command. Putin and the Kremlin have made repeated references to Russia's nuclear weapons since invading Ukraine 16 months ago, aiming to discourage NATO countries from ratcheting up their support to Ukraine. "One thing that we have always talked about, unabashedly so, is that it's in nobody's interest for this war to escalate beyond the level of violence that is already visited upon the Ukrainian people," Kirby said at a White House news briefing. "It's not good for, certainly, Ukraine and not good for our allies and partners in Europe. Quite frankly, it's not good for the Russian people."In the aftermath of the mutiny, both Prigozhin and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made public comments Monday aiming to play down the crisis. In an 11-minute audio statement, Prigozhin said he acted "to prevent the destruction of the Wagner private military company" and in particular in response to an attack on a Wagner camp that killed some 30 of his fighters. Biden spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over the weekend, telling him, "'No matter what happened in Russia, let me say again, no matter what happened in Russia, we in the United States would continue to support Ukraine's defense and sovereignty and its territorial integrity." Biden said. He said he intended to speak with Zelenskyy again late Monday or early Tuesday. The Pentagon is expected to announce Tuesday that it is sending up to $500 million in additional military aid to Ukraine, including more than 50 heavily armored vehicles and an infusion of missiles for air defense systems, U.S. officials said Monday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the aid has not yet been publicly announced.
Biden, in the first weeks after Putin sent tens of thousands of Russian forces into Ukraine in February 2022, had issued a passionate statement against the Russian leader's continuing in command. "For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power," he said then, as reports emerged of Russian atrocities against civilians in Ukraine. On Monday, U.S. officials were careful not to be seen as backing either Putin or his former longtime protege, Prigozhin, in public comments. "We believe it's up to the Russian people to determine who their leadership is," Kirby said. White House officials were also trying to understand how Beijing was digesting the Wagner revolt and what it might mean for the China-Russia relationship going forward. China and Russia are each other's closest major partner. The White House says Beijing has considered — but not followed through on — sending Russia weaponry for use in Ukraine. "I think it'd be fair to say that recent developments in Russia had been unsettling to the Chinese leadership," said Kurt Campbell, coordinator for the Indo-Pacific at the White House National Security Council, speaking at a forum hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "I think I'll just leave it at that." China values Russia as a friend in part to keep from standing alone against the U.S. and its allies in disputes. With Russia's invasion and resulting international sanctions sapping Russian resources and now sparking a rebellion, McFaul said, Ukraine and its allies could make the case: "'Xi Jinping, you know, if you want your buddy to stay in power, maybe this is the time to put some pressure on him to wrap up this war.'''

Israel OK's plans for thousands of new settlement homes
Associated Press/June 27/2023
Israel's far-right government has approved plans to build over 5,000 new homes in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Israeli media said, a move that threatened to worsen increasingly strained relations with the United States. The decision defied growing U.S. criticism of Israel's settlement policies. It also raised tensions with the Palestinians at a time of rising violence in the occupied territory. Multiple Israeli media outlets said the Defense Ministry planning committee that oversees settlement construction approved some 5,700 new settlement homes. The units are at various stages of planning, and it was not immediately clear when construction would begin. COGAT, the defense body in charge of the planning committee, did not respond to requests for comment. The international community, along with the Palestinians, considers settlement construction illegal or illegitimate and an obstacle to peace. Over 700,000 Israelis now live in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem — territories captured by Israel in 1967 and sought by the Palestinians for a future state. "The Netanyahu government is moving forward with its aggression and open war against the Palestinian people," said Wassel Abu Yousef, a Palestinian official in the West Bank. "We affirm that all settler colonialism in all the occupied Palestinian territories is illegitimate and illegal." Peace Now, an anti-settlement watchdog group, said Israel has now approved over 13,000 settlement housing units this year. That is nearly three times the number of homes approved in all of 2022 and marks the most approvals in any year since it began systematically tracking the planning procedures in 2012.
Israel's government, which took office in late December, is dominated by religious and ultranationalist politicians with close ties to the settlement movement. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a firebrand settler leader, has been granted Cabinet-level authority over settlement policies and has vowed to double the settler population in the West Bank. The Biden administration has been increasingly outspoken in its criticism of Israel's settlement policies. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the settlements "an obstacle to the horizon of hope we seek" in a speech to the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC. On Monday, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the U.S. was "deeply troubled" by the reported decision to build more settlement homes. "The United States opposes such unilateral actions that make a two-state solution more difficult to achieve," he said. Despite the criticism, the U.S. has taken little action against Israel. In a sign of its displeasure, the White House has not yet invited Netanyahu for a visit — as is customary following Israeli elections. And this week, the U.S. said it would not transfer funds to Israeli institutions for science and technology research projects in the West Bank. The decision restored a longstanding policy that had been canceled by the pro-settlement Trump administration. Ahead of Monday's vote, Israeli Cabinet Minister Issac Wasserlauf, a member of the far-right Jewish Power party, played down the disagreements with the U.S.
"I think the alliance with the U.S. will remain," he told the Army Radio station. "There are disagreements, we knew how to deal with them in the past." Simcha Rothman, another far-right member of the governing coalition, accused the Biden administration of having a "pathological obsession" with the Israeli government. Netanyahu's government, the most right-wing in Israel's 75-year history, has made settlement expansion a top priority. Senior members have been pushing for increased construction and other measures to cement Israel's control over the territory in response to a more than year-long wave of violence with the Palestinians. Last week, four Israelis were killed by a pair of Palestinian gunmen who opened fire next to a Jewish settlement. Monday's approvals included 1,000 homes announced by the government last week in Eli, the scene of the shooting. Israel expanded its military activity in the West Bank in early 2022 in response to a series of deadly Palestinian attacks. Over 135 Palestinians have been killed in fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year. Roughly half of them were affiliated with militant groups, though Israel says that number is much higher. But Palestinian stone-throwers and people uninvolved in violence were also killed. Some 24 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks. Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians claim all three territories for a future independent state. Israel has annexed east Jerusalem and claims it as part of its capital — a claim that is not internationally recognized. It says the West Bank is disputed territory whose fate should be determined through negotiations, while Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Two years later, the Hamas militant group overran the territory.

Israel summons Ukraine envoy over pro-Russia accusation
Agence France Presse/June 27/2023
The Israeli foreign ministry said Tuesday it was summoning the Ukrainian ambassador for a "clarification," after the Ukrainian embassy accused "the current Israeli government" of "a clear pro-Russian position". "In light of his repeated remarks against Israel's policy, Ukrainian ambassador Yevgen Korniychuk has been summoned for a clarification that will take place at the foreign ministry on July 3," a ministry statement said. "The Israeli government continues to advance cooperation with Ukraine, as agreed between the countries," the statement said. "The ambassador's conduct is not helpful."Israel has adopted a cautious approach since Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February last year, seeking to maintain neutrality between the warring sides. It has sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine during the conflict but stopped short of delivering weapons. On Sunday, the Ukrainian embassy charged that "the current Israeli government" had "opted for a path of close cooperation with the Russian Federation". It noted a "near absence of Israeli humanitarian assistance to Ukraine" and a recent statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel needed to cooperate with Russia to keep up its long-running air campaign against Iranian targets in Syria. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, Netanyahu also said that weaponry handed to Ukraine could fall into Iranian hands and be turned against Israel. "The Israeli leadership, hiding behind verbal demagoguery about their neutrality (albeit no longer concealing it) actively forges relations with the Russian Federation," the Sunday statement said. "In reality, on the ground, the so called 'neutrality' of the Israel government is a clear pro-Russian position," the Ukrainian embassy added. "We urge Israel government to change its position and to support Ukraine with defensive means, to support freedom and democratic world order." The embassy's statement, published on its social media platforms, came four days after Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov had a "very productive call" with his Israeli counterpart Yoav Gallant. "We discussed the current situation on the ground and the perspectives of a project to protect Ukrainians from aerial threats. Iranian drones pose a security threat to both of our countries. We count on Israel's assistance in countering it," Reznikov said in a statement.

Pope's envoy for peace in Ukraine on a mission to Moscow tomorrow, Wednesday
NNA/June 27/2023
The Vatican announced that Italian Cardinal Matteo Tsubi, envoy of Pope Francis for peace in Ukraine, will visit Moscow on Wednesday and Thursday, three weeks after his visit to Kiev. The Holy See said in a statement today, reported by “AFP”, that “on June 28 and 29, 2023, Cardinal Matteo Maria Tsubi, Archbishop of Bologna and head of the Italian Episcopal Synod, accompanied by an official from the State Secretariat, will visit Moscow as an envoy of Pope Francis.”He added, "The main objective is to encourage humanitarian initiatives that can help push for a solution to the current tragic situation and find ways to reach a just peace."

President Putin Had Telephone Conversation With Saudi Crown Prince
NNA /June 27/2023
Mohammed bin Salman expressed support for the Russian government in its efforts to protect constitutional order, the Kremlin said. --- RT

Russia drops charges against Wagner
AP/June 27/2023
Russian authorities said Tuesday they have closed a criminal investigation into the armed rebellion led by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, with no charges against him or any of the other participants. The Federal Security Service, or FSB, said its investigation found that those involved in the mutiny "ceased activities directed at committing the crime." Over the weekend, the Kremlin pledged not to prosecute Prigozhin and his fighters after he stopped the revolt on Saturday, even though President Vladimir Putin had branded them as traitors. The charge of mounting an armed mutiny carries a punishment of up to 20 years in prison. Prigozhin escaping prosecution poses a stark contrast to how the Kremlin has been treating those staging anti-government protests. Many opposition figures in Russia have received length prison terms and are serving time in penal colonies notorious for harsh conditions.
The whereabouts of Prigozhin remained a mystery Tuesday, The Kremlin has said Prigozhin would be exiled to neighboring Belarus, but neither he nor the Belarusian authorities have confirmed that. An independent Belarusian military monitoring project Belaruski Hajun said a business jet that Prigozhin reportedly uses landed near Minsk on Tuesday morning.On Monday night, Putin once again blasted organizers of the rebellion as traitors who played into the hands of Ukraine's government and its allies. The media team for Prigozhin, the 62-year-old head of the Wagner private military contractor, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Prigozhin's short-lived insurrection over the weekend — the biggest challenge to Putin's rule in more than two decades in power — has rattled Russia's leadership. In his nationally televised speech, Putin sought to project stability and control, criticizing the uprising's "organizers," without naming Prigozhin. He also praised Russian unity in the face of the crisis, as well as rank-and-file Wagner fighters for not letting the situation descend into "major bloodshed."Earlier in the day, Prigozhin defended his actions in a defiant audio statement. He again taunted the Russian military but said he hadn't been seeking to stage a coup against Putin. In another show of stability and control, the Kremlin on Monday night showed Putin meeting with top security, law enforcement and military officials, including Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, whom Prigozhin had sought to remove. Putin thanked his team for their work over the weekend, implying support for the embattled Shoigu. Earlier, the authorities released a video of Shoigu reviewing troops in Ukraine. It also wasn't clear whether he would be able to keep his mercenary force. In his speech, Putin offered Prigozhin's fighters to either come under Russia's Defense Ministry's command, leave service or go to Belarus. Prigozhin said Monday, without elaborating, that the Belarusian leadership proposed solutions that would allow Wagner to operate "in a legal jurisdiction," but it was unclear what that meant. ---

Lukashenko: The tension between Wagner and the Russian army was not properly addressed
NNA/June 27/2023
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko saw that the tension that had existed for some time between the Russian army and the Wagner armed group, which carried out a rebellion in Russia over the weekend, had not been properly addressed.
"We ignored the problem and thought it would disappear on its own, but it did not happen. There are no heroes in this case," Lukashenko said in remarks reported by "AFP" on the official news agency "Belta". Lukashenko said: "My position (is the following): If Russia collapses, we will remain under the rubble and we will all die," to justify the assistance he proposed to the Kremlin to settle the crisis with Wagner. Also, the Belarusian president confirmed that he had ordered his army to "prepare for combat" when the Wagner rebellion broke out in Russia. "I gave orders to the army to be fully ready for combat," he said.

Putin thanks the soldiers for preventing a "civil war"
NNA/June 27/2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked the military personnel who prevented a "civil war" during the Wagner armed group's rebellion last weekend and paid tribute to the army pilots who were killed by the rebels, according to "AFP". Putin said during a ceremony in Moscow: "With comrades-in-arms, you stood in the face of these unrest, the result of which was inevitable chaos....In fact, you prevented a civil war," he said, calling for a minute of silence for the souls of the pilots who were killed by the rebels, "while they were performing their duty magnanimously."He stressed that "no Russian soldier participating in operations in Ukraine has been returned to Russia to stop the Wagner Group insurgency.""We did not have to withdraw combat units from the special military operation area," he said.

US 'deeply troubled' by Israel's approval of settler building permits
 Reuters/June 27/2023
The United States on Monday objected to a decision by Israel's nationalist-religious government to approve the construction of around 5,700 additional housing units for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank. The United States was "deeply troubled" by the move, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters, adding that U.S. officials had made clear publicly and privately to Israel their opposition to moves that advance settlements. Most countries deem the settlements, built on land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, as illegal. Their presence is one of the fundamental issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "We believe that settlements are an impediment to a negotiated two-state solution," said Miller. The plans for approval of the housing units in various areas of the West Bank were approved by Israel's Supreme Planning Council. Final approvals were given to 818 units while the others were in various stages of approval. Jewish settler leadership praised the decision. "I thank the Israeli government for the continued development of Israeli settlement," said Shlomo Ne'man, head of the West Bank Gush Etzion Regional Council and chairman of the Yesha Council. "Especially in these difficult days, this is the most appropriate Zionist answer to all those who seek to destroy us."Palestinians seek to establish an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as their capital. Israeli settlers cite Jewish historic connections to the land. Peace talks that had been brokered by the United States have been frozen since 2014. Washington, which has at times had a tense relationship with the six-month old coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has repeatedly warned Israeli officials that settlement expansion is an obstacle to peace with Palestinians. "The expansion of settlements undermines the geographic viability of a two-state solution, exacerbates tensions, and further harms trust between the two parties," a U.S. National Security Council spokesman said. "We are similarly concerned by reports of changes to Israel's system of settlement administration that expedite the planning and approval of settlements," Miller said. Since entering office in January, Netanyahu's coalition has approved the promotion of more than 7,000 new housing units, most deep in the West Bank. "The Israeli government is pushing us at an unprecedented pace towards the full annexation of the West Bank," the Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now said in a statement. A surge of violence over the past few weeks in the West Bank has included rampages by scores of Israeli settlers in Palestinian towns and villages that drew international condemnation and concern from the White House. The violence followed the killing of four Israelis in a Hamas gun ambush. The Israeli military said on Monday that an Israeli soldier was suspected "of taking part in a violent confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians" last week in the Palestinian town of Umm Safa. "The soldier was apprehended and investigated by the Israel police," the military said in a statement.

Lukashenko says told Putin not to kill Wagner chief
AFP/June 27/2023
Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko said Tuesday he had urged his ally President Vladimir Putin not to kill the head of the mercenary Wagner group, which last week attempted to topple Russia's top brass. Lukashenko, a long-time ally of Putin, claimed to have negotiated an end to the armed insurrection and has said he will take in exiled rebels and Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. "I said to Putin: we could waste (Prigozhin), no problem. If not on the first try, then on the second. I told him: don't do this," Lukashenko said during a meeting with security officials, according to state media. Lukashenko earlier confirmed Prigozhin, who led the deadly march on Moscow last week, will be in Belarus on Tuesday, under a deal that ended his revolt. The 68-year-old authoritarian leader has been hit with Western sanctions for cracking down on opposition figures and allowing Russia to attack Ukraine last year from Belarusian territory. Kremlin critics have accused Putin of orchestrating the killings of several prominent government opposition figures and the near-fatal poisoning of politician Alexei Navalny.

Saudi Crown Prince, Putin Discuss Situation in Russia
Asharq Al Awsat/June 27/2023
Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince and Prime Minister, telephoned on Tuesday Russian President Vladimir Putin, reported the Saudi Press Agency. He expressed Saudi Arabia’s relief at the successful de-escalation of situation in Russia, and the Kingdom’s wishes of further security and stability in Russia. Putin expressed his gratitude to Crown Prince Mohammed for his gesture.

At least 3 dead in building collapse in Egypt's coastal city of Alexandria
Associated Press/June 27/2023
At least 3 people were killed when a 14-story apartment building collapsed in Egypt's northern coastal city of Alexandria, authorities said Tuesday. The high-rise in the Mediterranean city's neighborhood of Muntazah collapsed early on Monday and initial reports said eight people were missing beneath the rubble. On Tuesday, the city authorities confirmed that three bodies had been pulled out but did not say if anyone was still missing. Two people were reported injured in the collapse but have since been discharged from hospital. It was also not immediately known what caused the collapse but such incidents are common in Egypt, where shoddy construction is widespread in shantytowns, poor city neighborhoods and rural areas. The city's governor, Mohamed Al-Sharif, said search efforts at the site were underway and that an investigation into the cause of the collapse was launched. Some 16 families lived in the building as full-time residents while the rest of the apartments were being rented out to beachgoers that come to Alexandria for a break during the scorching summer months. With real estate at a premium in big cities like Alexandria and Cairo, developers seeking bigger profits frequently violate planning permits and extra floors are often added to buildings without permission. In February six people were killed in the Nile Delta city of Damanhour after cooking gas cylinders exploded in the basement of a four-story building, collapsing the entire structure. Egyptian authorities have in recent years launched a crackdown on illegal construction and in many places, moved residents from unsafe houses and shantytowns to newly built cities. Violators of building permits have also been jailed and in many cases, illegally built buildings have been destroyed.

Fire engulfs high-rise in UAE, No reports of injuries
Associated Press/June 27/2023
A fire tore through a high-rise residential building in the United Arab Emirates early Tuesday before being brought under control, according to videos circulating online. There were no immediate reports of injuries from the blaze in Ajman, one of the seven emirates that makes up the UAE, which also includes the futuristic cities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The footage showed a corner of the building engulfed in flames reaching from the ground level to the top, with debris falling to the street below. Ajman News, a local media outlet, later reported that the fire had been brought under control. Footage on its Instagram showed the blackened exterior of the building and firefighters on the street below. There was no immediate comment from UAE officials. The UAE has seen a number of similar fires in recent years that have been linked to flammable cladding on many of the country's ubiquitous high-rises. On New Year's Eve in 2015, a blaze raced through an upscale hotel and residential complex near the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world's tallest skyscraper. Some 15 people were injured in the fire and the evacuation. Dubai police ended up blaming exposed wiring for the blaze. Regulations imposed after that fire call for all such cladding to be replaced with flame-resistant material.

UN says detainees face cruel treatment in Guantanamo detention center
Associated Press/June 27/2023
The first U.N. independent investigator to visit the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay has said the 30 men held there are subject "to ongoing cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment under international law." The investigator, Irish law professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, said at a news conference releasing her 23-page report to the U.N. Human Rights Council that the 2001 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania that killed nearly 3,000 people were "crimes against humanity." But she said the U.S. use of torture and rendition against alleged perpetrators and their associates in the years right after the attacks violated international human rights law — and in many cases deprived the victims and survivors of justice because information obtained by torture cannot be used at trials. Ní Aoláin said her visit marked the first time a U.S, administration has allowed a U.N. investigator to visit the facility, which opened in 2002. She praised the Biden administration for leading by example by opening up Guantanamo and "being prepared to address the hardest human rights issues," and urged other countries that have barred U.N. access to detention facilities to follow suit. And she said she was given access to everything she asked for, including holding meetings at the facility in Cuba with "high value" and "non-high value" detainees. The United States said in a submission to the Human Rights Council on the report that the special investigator's findings "are solely her own" and "the United States disagrees in significant respects with many factual and legal assertions" in her report. Ní Aoláin said "significant improvements" have been made to the confinement of detainees but expressed "serious concerns" about the continued detention of 30 men, who she said face severe insecurity, suffering and anxiety. She cited examples including near constant surveillance, forced removal from their cells and unjust use of restraints.
"I observed that after two decades of custody, the suffering of those detained is profound, and it's ongoing," the U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism said. "Every single detainee I met with lives with the unrelenting harms that follow from systematic practices of rendition, torture and arbitrary detention. " Ní Aoláin, concurrently a professor at the University of Minnesota and at Queens University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, said there was "a heartfelt response" by many detainees to seeing someone who was neither a lawyer nor associated with the detention center, some for the first time in 20 years. During the visit, she said, she and her team scrutinized every aspect of Guantanamo. Ní Aoláin said many detainees she met showed evidence of "deep psychological harm and distress – including profound anxiety, helplessness, hopelessness, stress and depression, and dependency." She expressed grave concern at the failure of the U.S. government to provide torture rehabilitation programs to the detainees and said the specialist care and facilities at Guantanamo "are not adequate to meet the complex and urgent mental and physical health issues of detainees" ranging from permanent disabilities and traumatic brain injuries to chronic pain, gastrointestinal and urinary issues.
Many also suffer from the deprivation of support from their families and community "while living in a detention environment without trial for some, and without charge for others, for 21 years, hunger striking and force-feeding, self-harm and suicidal ideation (ideas), and accelerated aging," she said.
Ní Aoláin expressed "profound concern" that 19 of the 30 men remaining at Guantanamo have never been charged with a single crime, some after 20 years in U.S. custody, and that the continuing detention of some of them "follows from the unwillingness of the authorities to face the consequences of the torture and other ill-treatment to which the detainees were subjected and not from any ongoing threat they are believed to pose." She stressed repeatedly that using information obtained by torture at a trial is prohibited and she said the United States has committed to not using such information. She also found "fundamental fair trial and due process deficiencies in the military commission system," expressed concern at the extent of secrecy in all judicial and administrative proceedings, and concluded the U.S. failed to promote fundamental fair trial guarantees. Ní Aoláin made a long series of recommendations and said the prison at Guantanamo Bay should be immediately closed, a goal of the Biden administration.
Among her key recommendations to the U.S. government were to provide specialized rehabilitation from torture and trauma to detainees, ensure that all detainees whether they are "high-value" or "non-high value" are provided with at least one phone call every month with their family, and guaranteed equal access to legal counsel to all detainees. The U.S. response, submitted by the American ambassador to the Human Rights Council, Michele Taylor, said Ní Aoláin was the first U.N. special rapporteur to visit Guantanamo and had been given "unprecedented access" with "the confidence that the conditions of confinement at Guantanamo Bay are humane and reflect the United States' respect for and protection of human rights for all who are within our custody.""Detainees live communally and prepare meals together; receive specialized medical and psychiatric care; are given full access to legal counsel; and communicate regularly with family members," the U.S. statement said. "We are nonetheless carefully reviewing the (special rapporteur's) recommendations and will take any appropriate actions, as warranted," it said. The United States said the Biden administration has made "significant progress" toward closing Guantanamo, transferring 10 detainees from the facility, it said, adding that it is looking to find suitable locations for the remaining detainees eligible for transfer. The report also covers the rights of the 9/11 victims and the rights of the detainees released from Guantanamo who have been repatriated to their home country or resettled. Ní Aoláin stressed that victims of terrorism have a right to justice, and called it "a betrayal" that the U.S. use of torture would prevent many from seeing the perpetrators and their collaborators in court. She also said children whose families accepted compensation in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and waived their rights should be able to pursue compensation and health care. As for the 741 men who have been released from Guantanamo, she said, many were left on their own, lacking a legal identity, education and job training, adequate physical and mental health care, and continue to experience "sustained human rights violations," poverty, social exclusion and stigma. The special rapporteur stressed that the United States has international law obligations before, during and after the transfer of detainees and must provide "fair and adequate compensation and as full rehabilitation as possible to the men who were detained at Guantanamo."

Judge to weigh whether to move Trump's New York criminal case to federal court
Associated Press/June 27/2023
A U.S. judge is set to hear arguments Tuesday over President Donald Trump's attempt to move his criminal case in New York out of the state court, where he was indicted, to a federal court where he could potentially try to get the case dismissed. Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein will listen to the afternoon arguments, though he isn't expected to immediately rule. Trump's lawyers sought to move the case to Manhattan federal court soon after Trump pleaded not guilty in April to charges that he falsified his company's business records to hide hush money payouts aimed at burying allegations of extramarital sexual encounters. While requests to move criminal cases from state to federal court are rarely granted, the prosecution of Trump is unprecedented. The Republican's lawyers say the charges, while related to his private company's records, involve things he did while he was president. U.S. law allows criminal prosecutions to be removed from state court if they involve actions taken by federal government officials as part of their official duties. Trump is alleged to have falsified records to cover up payments made in 2017 to his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to compensate him for orchestrating payouts in 2016 to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. Trump has denied having had affairs with either woman. Trump's lawyers have said those payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses and not part of any cover-up. The Manhattan district attorney's office, which brought the case, has argued that nothing about the payoffs to either Cohen or the women involved Trump's official duties as president. If a judge agrees to move the case to federal court, Trump's lawyers could then try to get the case dismissed on the grounds that federal officials are immune from criminal prosecution over actions they take as part of their official job duties. Moving the case to federal court would also mean that jurors would potentially be drawn not only from Manhattan, where Trump is wildly unpopular, but also a handful of suburban counties north of the city where he has more political support. In state court, a criminal trial was set for March 25 in the thick of the primary season before next year's November presidential election. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg pursued the case after Trump left office. He is the first former president ever charged with a crime.

US mediates new talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan
LBCI/June 27/2023
The United States on Tuesday opened three days of peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan, its latest attempt to quell a conflict that has flared repeatedly. Secretary of State Antony Blinken opened closed-door talks with the adversaries' foreign ministers at a State Department office just outside Washington, the second such negotiation session he has led in as many months. "We continue to believe that peace is within reach and direct dialogue is the key to resolving the remaining issues and reaching a durable and dignified peace," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said ahead of the talks, which he added would cover "very sensitive" areas. Russia has historically been the mediator between the two former Soviet republics but the United States and European Union have been increasingly active as Moscow gets bogged down in its invasion of Ukraine. Armenia has repeatedly accused Russian peacekeepers of failing to live up to promises to protect ethnic Armenians in line with a 2020 ceasefire negotiated by Moscow after six weeks of fighting left thousands dead. Russia last week pressed Azerbaijan to let traffic through the Lachin corridor that links Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly ethnic Armenian area effectively controlled by Yerevan since war during the collapse of the Soviet Union. The International Committee of the Red Cross said Azerbaijan had blocked access for convoys delivering aid to Karabakh, raising concerns of shortages of food and medicine. Russia said that Azerbaijan was violating its obligations to allow traffic to flow. Azerbaijan has insisted that civilians and aid convoys can travel through, with the blockade since December nominally staged by Azerbaijani activists to protest illegal mining.

France starts search for executed German WWII soldiers
AFP/June 27/2023
A search began in France on Tuesday for the remains of dozens of German soldiers said to have been executed by French Resistance fighters during World War II. Coming 79 years after the alleged killings, the search was sparked by statements from a 98-year-old former resistance fighter, Edmond Reveil, who has gone public with the allegation in recent years. Reveil was part of a commando that he said took 46 German soldiers they had captured, as well as a French woman suspected of collaborating with the Nazi occupiers, to a wooded hillside on June 12, 1944, and shot them dead.
The reason for the killings, in the southwestern Correze region, was that the members of the local resistance group, made up of around 30 militia and communist partisans, were too few to guard the prisoners, Reveil told AFP. "If we had let the Germans go, they would have destroyed Meymac," the nearby town, he said. He had previously told the local newspaper La Vie Correzienne: "We felt ashamed, but did we have a choice?" The handful of people who knew about the incident mostly kept quiet over the decades, though historians told AFP that it was sometimes mentioned in private. A dig was even started in the 1960s to shed light on the affair, but was quickly stopped, "perhaps because of pressure", said Meymac's mayor Philippe Brugere, who added that he had been unable to find any record of that search in the town archives. A fresh investigation was launched when Reveil began to talk publicly about the incident in 2019, and started giving media interviews. Brugere called the search for the truth "honorable", saying it was necessary for people to "look at history with honesty". But the resistance veteran association Maquis de Correze deplored the "media buzz" sparked by the revelations, which it said could become a "pretext for sullying the memory of the Resistance". Reveil, who has not given his reasons for speaking out after so many years, said he recalled each of the German soldiers "taking out his wallet to look at a family picture before dying". After the killings the shooters were "told not to talk about this", he said. "It was a war crime," he added. But local historian Herve Dupuy said a better term for the executions was "a fact of war", given that the German occupiers did not treat the French resistance fighters as combatants under the Geneva Convention, but as "terrorists". France capitulated to Germany in June 1940 and was governed as Vichy France, a German client state, until 1942, when the country was taken over completely. The French Resistance, formed by groups of various political leanings, continued to fight against German forces and the Vichy collaboration. The movement led a guerrilla war against Germans and supplied the Allies with intelligence, crucially ahead of the Normandy landings in June 1944. Its precise impact on the outcome of the war is still the subject of debate among historians, as is the extent of French collaboration with Nazi Germany.

Clashes Heard in Sudan’s Capital as Eid Holiday Begins
AFP/June 27/2023
Artillery fire and clashes could be heard on Tuesday in parts of Sudan's capital, residents said, despite a unilateral ceasefire declared by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, announced a truce for Tuesday and Wednesday in an audio message after his forces took control of a major police base in southern Khartoum where it seized dozens of vehicles and large stocks of ammunition. The army did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Multiple ceasefire deals and announcements have failed to stick since fighting between the army and the RSF erupted in mid-April, including several brokered by Saudi Arabia and the United States at talks in Jeddah that were suspended last week. The war has brought widespread destruction and looting to Khartoum and has triggered unrest in other parts of Sudan, especially in the western region of Darfur where attacks and ethnic violence spread. The RSF has been widely blamed for looting and occupying civilian buildings across Khartoum, while the army has tried to push the paramilitary force back with air strikes and heavy artillery. In his audio message, Hemedti said the RSF would establish a special committee under a senior commander to investigate violations, which would be treated "with severity and seriousness". "We affirm clearly that our long-time position is that we reject and we condemn any violations committed against citizens," he said. Almost 2.8 million people have been uprooted by the fighting, with more than 2.15 million internally displaced and nearly 650,000 fleeing into neighboring countries, according to estimates from the International Organization for Migration published on Tuesday. Residents say those fleeing attacks by militias and the RSF in the Darfur city of El Geneina have been killed or shot at as they try to reach Chad by foot.  A senior UN refugee agency official said on Tuesday that many women and children had been arriving in Chad with injuries.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on June 27-28/2023
Blood, Oil And Golf: Western Hypocrisy On COP-28
Amb. Alberto M. Fernandez/MEMRI/June 27/2023
Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates | MEMRI Daily Brief No. 495
It was almost a year ago that Joe Biden made that trip to Saudi Arabia. That one where the puerile obsession of the American media was focused on whether or not Biden would meet with or even shake hands with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman.[1] The trip was about trying to repair a frayed relationship but also about oil – the Americans wanted the Saudis to pump more oil and gas. That same message was delivered to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and the Americans also sought to take steps to help both Venezuela and Iran, near pariahs and bitter American adversaries, produce more fossil fuels for international consumption. There were reasons, of course. The goal was to try to tame runaway domestic inflation and to try to hurt Russia, a major global energy producer, in its war in Ukraine.
Fast forward six months from that 2022 Saudi trip and 27 members of the US Congress (five senators and 22 members of the House of Representatives) sent a letter to the US Climate Envoy John Kerry calling on him to pressure the United Arab Emirates to remove their choice as president-designate of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties 28 (COP 28).[2] What was the transgression of Sultan Al-Jaber that prompted this congressional letter, all of whom were Democrats and most of them on the far-left spectrum of that party? Al-Jaber is not only the Climate Envoy of the UAE but also the chairman of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), one of the largest oil companies in the world.[3] A second version of the letter was signed by 99 members of the European Parliament led by far-left French MEP Manon Aubry of the La France Insoumise party.[4]
COP28 is this year's edition of the U.N. Climate Change Conference, to be held in Dubai later this year. It is not the first time that this conference has been held in an OPEC member country – COP18 was held in Qatar. Perhaps because they want to play hard as well as work hard, past climate summits were held at beach resort towns in Bali, Cancun, and Sharm El-Sheikh.
The congresspeople felt that having an oil company executive heading the conference "risked undermining the very essence of what is trying to be accomplish." It is an interesting notion coming from political representatives of the globe's largest oil producer and second largest polluter, the United States. A cynic might note the deep hypocrisy of fossil fuel giant America begging the world for more oil and gas in July 2022 and then complaining about (foreign) fossil fuel six months later.
The tension, which transcends the unfairly targeted Sultan Al-Jaber and even oil-rich UAE, is whether nations should be completely fazing out oil, coal, and gas – something UN Secretary General Guterres and others have called for – or whether the focus should be on reducing emissions, the position of oil producing states (and Western oil companies).[5]
As often happens in multilateral venues, there seems to be a disconnect between the rhetoric and agenda of international bureaucrats and the way the world is actually run on the ground. While some European countries aggressively pursue a green agenda, putting their farmers out of work and aching to slaughter cattle herds, others turned to burning coal in the winter of 2022-2023. There is, of course, nothing at all preventing Western countries from shutting down their own fossil fuel production and polluting industries, nothing except the fury of their own citizens.[6]
There is strong element of moral preening and posturing by the West when it comes to this and similar conferences. A June 14 Financial Times editorial called on al-Jaber/UAE to ensure that "the Dubai COP makes the headway that has eluded so many of its predecessors."[7] So there was not enough progress made at those past conferences held on the beaches of Bali or Cancun?
I suspect that a considerable part of the fury directed at the organizers of COP28 is a type of projection. Our global elites have yet to have the really hard conversation with their own citizens (aka "voters") that sustainable development goals and climate mandates will mean that they must – for their own good – be poorer, more diminished, and constrained in the very near future.
And while there is no greater sacred cow for the powers that be than climate change (gender ideology likely comes second), the high dudgeon on COP28 is actually a subset of a much broader range of moral narratives that the West, especially the dominant progressive/left-leaning class in the West, unleashes against seemingly transgressing foreign states. Ironically, in the Middle East, both Israel and Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been the victims of this tongue lashing.
At least some of the outrage is prompted because these countries are truly independent, have their own agendas and refrain from playing the clapping seal role that the West prefers from foreign audiences.
The same West that engineered decades of billion-dollar arms sales to the Gulf financed by petrodollars now chides OPEC members for wealth and influence obtained from that black gold that the same West prioritized for decades. There is also a cultural dimension here. How dare, for example, Saudis take over professional golf,[8] say the same people who are silent about Chinese influence in the American film industry (or even about Chinese and Ukrainian payoffs to highly-placed Americans).[9]
All too often these days, in terms of regime propaganda toward the Other, the West is able to generate only two faces – high indignation toward those they believe fall short of those (constantly shifting) Western standards and crocodile tears toward the miserable unfortunates in the developing world.
It used to be that arrogance and cultural colonization towards foreign countries was seen as a characteristic of the political right. Today it is just as likely to come from the Western left or far-left. Non-Western foreigners (or even Europeans like Viktor Orban) who stand up as equals and who refuse to swallow the latest nostrums or to play the role of either supplicant or victim make our elites very uneasy, whether that is Nayib Bukele in El Salvador or MBS and MBZ in the Middle East.
*Alberto M. Fernandez is Vice President of MEMRI.
[1] See MEMRI Daily Brief No. 396, Biden's Saudi Close-Up, July 11, 2022.
[2] Commondreams.org/news/us-congress-john-kerry-uae-cop28, January 30, 2023.
[3] Abcnews.go.com/US/oil-executive-appointed-lead-cop28-climate-conference/story?id=96390139, January 12, 2023.
[4] Whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/sen-whitehouse-mep-aubry-lead-transatlantic-letter-calling-for-climate-talks-free-of-fossil-fuel-industry-interference, May 23, 2023.
[5] Usnews.com/news/world/articles/2023-06-16/bonn-climate-talks-to-prepare-for-cop28-summit-end-with-little-to-show, June 16, 2023.
[6] Time.com/6201951/dutch-farmers-protests-climate-action, July 29, 2022.
[7] Ft.com/content/0a9a9b92-d947-4afc-8c88-a45c16206e82, accessed June 26, 2023.
[8] Nytimes.com/live/2023/06/06/sports/pga-liv-golf-merger#pga-liv-merger, June 6, 2023.
[9] Msn.com/en-us/news/politics/what-hunter-biden-whistleblower-testimony-reveals/ar-AA1cWdgW, June 22, 2023.
https://www.memri.org/reports/blood-oil-and-golf-western-hypocrisy-cop-28?fbclid=IwAR3EMVuyouD7uT2kFOO3GwXWQBzU1xs2gxc2OQczbbLRq5vskVA1Nq5TZGU

The Palestinians No One Talks About
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/June 27, 2023
facebook sharing buttontwitter sharing buttonemail sharing buttonwhatsapp sharing buttonlinkedin sharing buttontelegram sharing button
Even if the anti-Israel activists are made aware that Palestinian students living under the Palestinian Authority are being hauled off and tortured by their own leaders, they are not likely to speak out because there is no way to blame Israel or hold it responsible.
The Palestinian Authority crackdown on students is also being ignored by the international media and human rights organizations that regularly attack Israel but indefatigably refuse to see any wrongdoing on the part of Palestinians. Many foreign journalists covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict make it their business actually to hunt for any story that reflects badly on Israel.
If these activists really cared about Palestinians, they would be speaking out against the arrest and torture of Palestinian students at the hands of Palestinian security forces, the need for better education, jobs and above all better, less corrupt governance for Palestinians. They would also be insisting on freedom of speech and of the press for Palestinians, and protesting the reported forcible closing of human rights groups such as Lawyers for Justice, instead of denouncing Israel day and night.
The crackdown is part of an ongoing effort by the Palestinian Authority to silence and intimidate its political rivals and deter others from speaking out against Abbas and senior Palestinian officials.
In May, the Islamic Bloc won the elections for the student council at Birzeit University, defeating the Palestinian Authority-affiliated student list.
The Palestinian Authority, plainly speaking, which is rapidly losing credibility among its youths, appears to have difficulty accepting the results of the elections in which its supporters were defeated. That is most likely the real reason the newly-elected chairman of the student council was arrested.
Hassan, in recent weeks, was not the only student from Birzeit University to be arrested by the PA security services. At least another four students have been taken into custody for unknown reasons: Yahya Qassem, Fawzi Abu Kweik, Omar Kiswani and Obaida Qatouseh.
[S]he noticed bruises all over his body.... "My son told me that he has been warned not to tell anyone about the torture [in Palestinian prison]...." — Mother of Yahya Qassem, Twitter, June 17, 2023.
Lawyers for Justice, a Ramallah-based independent Palestinian organization, reportedly now being forcibly shut down by the PA, said that it has documented 20 cases of arbitrary arrests by the Palestinian security forces since the beginning of June.
"Additionally, [the Palestinian security forces] have endangered the rights of detainees by fabricating new charges against them or re-detaining them under the pretext of review or appeal. In addition, the group has observed the presence of signs of torture on the bodies of many detainees...." — Lawyers for Justice, Facebook, June 18, 2023.
It is time to call out the anti-Israel activists on US campuses for their hypocrisy and lack of respect for Palestinian human rights. By ignoring the plight of their Palestinian colleagues who are being arrested and tortured by fellow Palestinians, the anti-Israel activists are in fact proving that they are also anti-Palestinian.
While anti-Israel activism on US campuses has increased over the past two years, no one seems interested in what is happening on the campuses of Palestinian universities in the West Bank. Students are being arrested and tortured by the Palestinian Authority security forces. (Image source: iStock)
While anti-Israel activism on US campuses has increased over the past two years, no one seems interested in what is happening on the campuses of Palestinian universities in the West Bank. Students are being arrested and tortured by the security forces of the Palestinian Authority (PA). The activists leading the anti-Israel campaigns in the US appear so blinded by their hatred for Israel that they are unwilling to help the Palestinians whom they so profess to care about by commenting that the PA security forces are cracking down on Palestinian university students. Even if the anti-Israel activists are made aware that Palestinian students living under the PA are being hauled off and tortured by their own leaders, they are not likely to speak out because there is no way to blame Israel or hold it responsible.
The Palestinian Authority crackdown on students is also being ignored by the international media and human rights organizations that regularly attack Israel but indefatigably refuse to see any wrongdoing on the part of Palestinians. Many foreign journalists covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict make it their business actually to hunt for any story that reflects badly on Israel. These journalists believe that the conflict is between the good, poor Palestinian people and the bad, powerful Jews, and their reporting is usually -- and inaccurately -- based on this assumption.
Anti-Israel students on US campuses are free to spew as much hate as they want against Israel. They know that they will not get arrested or harassed by anyone. Palestinian students on Palestinian campuses in the West Bank, however, are not free to express their views or criticize the Palestinian Authority. Those who dare to criticize the PA or oppose its policies often find themselves behind bars.
The anti-Israel students and activists in the US do not care about their Palestinian colleagues in the West Bank. Why? Because the Palestinian students are not being targeted by Israel. Instead, they are being arrested and physically assaulted by the Palestinian Authority security forces.
If the Palestinian students were being arrested or harassed by Israeli security forces, the anti-Israel activists on US campuses would have screamed and called for Israel to be condemned. Yet, when Palestinian students are being targeted by Palestinian security officers, Israel-haters look the other way.
The anti-Israel activities on several campuses in the US have nothing to do with the Palestinians. They are far more about hating Israel and Jews than helping the Palestinians.
If these activists really cared about Palestinians, they would be speaking out against the arrest and torture of Palestinian students at the hands of Palestinian security forces, the need for better education, jobs and above all better, less corrupt governance for Palestinians. They would also be insisting on freedom of speech and of the press for Palestinians, and protesting the reported forcible closing of human rights groups such as Lawyers for Justice, instead of denouncing Israel day and night.
These anti-Israel activists, by the way, would be well advised to visit Israel to see the tens of thousands of Arab students attending Israeli universities and colleges. Ironically, Arab students enjoy more freedom on Israeli campuses than the students living under the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. The Arab students in Israel can demonstrate freely and even carry Palestinian flags and protest against Israeli government policies and measures, unlike their colleagues at Birzeit University and other academic institutions in the West Bank.
During the past few weeks, the security forces of the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank-based governing body headed by Mahmoud Abbas, have stepped up a long-term crackdown on university students and political activists in the West Bank. The crackdown is part of an ongoing effort by the Palestinian Authority to silence and intimidate its political rivals and deter others from speaking out against Abbas and senior Palestinian officials.
The crackdown reached its peak in mid-June, when Palestinian security officers used violence to arrest Abdel Majid Hassan, chairman of the newly-elected student council at Birzeit University, north of Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinians. According to eyewitnesses, the officers used batons and pepper spray as they violently dragged Hassan into their car.
The Palestinian Authority has refused to say why Hassan was arrested. Palestinian sources, however, said the reason for the arrest could be Hassan's alleged affiliation with Hamas. The sources pointed out that Hassan was a member of the Islamic Bloc, a student list known for its affiliation with Hamas. In May, the Islamic Bloc won the elections for the student council at Birzeit University, defeating the Palestinian Authority-affiliated student list. The arrest of Hassan, the student council chairman, is likely the result of the victory of his list (Islamic Bloc) in the elections.
Hassan's sister, Shatha, accused the Palestinian security forces of torturing her brother:
"Oh God, may every blow on your body, every bruise on your face, and every pain you felt be a curse that would chase them in this world and in the Hereafter."
The Palestinian Authority, plainly speaking, which is rapidly losing credibility among its youths, appears to have difficulty accepting the results of the elections in which its supporters were defeated. That is most likely the real reason the newly-elected chairman of the student council was arrested.
Hassan, in recent weeks, was not the only student from Birzeit University to be arrested by the PA security services. At least another four students have been taken into custody for unknown reasons: Yahya Qassem, Fawzi Abu Kweik, Omar Kiswani and Obaida Qatouseh.
The mother of Yahya Qassem also accused the Palestinian security forces of torturing her son. She said that when she saw her son in a PA court for the first time since his arrest in early June, she noticed bruises all over his body, adding:
"My son deserves all love, not beatings and torture.... My son told me that he has been warned not to tell anyone about the torture [in Palestinian prison]. We live in a jungle and my son is being held in a cell where he's being tortured."
On June 17, Birzeit University students announced an "open-ended sit-in strike" on campus in protest of the arrest of their colleagues. Other students went on hunger strikes to protest the Palestinian Authority's repressive measures against their colleagues.
On June 23, four student lists at Birzeit University announced that they had decided to close the campus completely and suspend studies, including exams, to protest the arrest of their colleagues by the Palestinian Authority. A statement issued by the student lists read:
"We hold the Palestinian Authority and its security agencies responsible for the closure of the university and the safety of the detained students... We see that the Palestinian Authority has escalated its onslaught. The students reject politically motivated arrests."
On June 24, the families and colleagues of the detained students held a protest in the center of Ramallah during which they condemned the Palestinian Authority crackdown on university students.
Lawyers for Justice, a Ramallah-based independent Palestinian organization, reportedly now being forcibly shut down by the PA, said that it has documented 20 cases of arbitrary arrests by the Palestinian security forces since the beginning of June:
"The group 'Lawyers for Justice' closely monitors the alarming escalation of arbitrary arrests carried out by the Palestinian security forces. This campaign has targeted university students, political activists, and human rights defenders. Since the beginning of June, the group has documented 20 cases of arbitrary arrests, conducted by the Preventive Security Service and the General Intelligence Service."
According to the organization, 13 were arrested on the basis of political and party affiliation, six related to university election results, including the arrest of a staff member at Birzeit University, and one arrest related to freedom of opinion and expression. Lawyers for Justice added:
"The group has also noticed attempts by the security agencies to circumvent the law through attempts to legitimize detentions. Additionally, they have endangered the rights of detainees by fabricating new charges against them or re-detaining them under the pretext of review or appeal.
In addition, the group has observed the presence of signs of torture on the bodies of many detainees, and/or their testimonies before the prosecution or the court indicating that they have been subjected to torture."
The clampdown on Palestinian university students serves as yet another reminder of the double standard that the international community and media apply when dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Those who are turning a blind eye to human rights violations committed by Palestinians against their own people are doing the Palestinians a terrible disservice because they are allowing these leaders to continue silencing those who risk their lives to speak out against corruption and dictatorship.
It is time to call out the anti-Israel activists on US campuses for their hypocrisy and lack of respect for Palestinian human rights. By ignoring the plight of their Palestinian colleagues who are being arrested and tortured by fellow Palestinians, the anti-Israel activists are in fact proving that they are also anti-Palestinian.
*Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.
© 2023 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Cause for celebration in states that suffered Wagner’s brutality
Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/June 27, 2023
Yevgeny Prigozhin was one of Vladimir Putin’s closest confidants from the earliest days of his presidency, which makes the developments of the past days profoundly damaging for the president’s authority. Far from the rejuvenated Soviet empire Putin aspired to on the eve of his Ukraine invasion, Russia today resembles a diminished and chronically unstable banana republic.
As recently as a decade ago, post-Soviet Russia wielded little diplomatic influence in the Middle East and Africa. Moscow’s current dominant position across these areas had been wholly due to Prigozhin’s Wagner mercenary organization.
Wagner came wading in to shore up Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in Syria, enabling the Damascus regime to re-entrench itself throughout much of western Syria as Wagner planes reduced entire cities and regions to bones and rubble. Wagner likewise came bloodily marching into the Libyan morass. There were even fears in Lebanon of Moscow and Wagner exploiting the political chaos to leverage the establishment of additional Mediterranean military bases.
In recompense for Wagner’s services, the revenue-hungry Prigozhin frequently negotiated control of oil reserves, and mines for precious minerals and resources. In Central African Republic Wagner received unrestricted logging rights and control over gold mines. Gold was also the key prize in Sudan, where Wagner sided with the paramilitary leader Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, fueling the bloodshed there with weapons funneled through the Darfur region.
Across West Africa, Wagner unleashed a major propaganda campaign against French and Western influence, facilitating the group’s maneuverings to become the powerbroker of choice. In the guise of waging an anti-militancy campaign alongside the Malian army, Wagner is culpable in the indiscriminate murder of hundreds of civilians, making the security situation infinitely worse.
Putin also appointed Prigozhin to run massive cyber-troll farms, spreading disinformation, undermining democratic processes and staging cyberattacks against critical infrastructure. Some experts believe that these activities at the time of the 2016 US presidential election played a significant role in swinging the vote in favor of Donald Trump.
In the Ukraine conflict, however, Prigozhin massively overplayed his hand. After the cream of his elite forces were butchered in the Bakhmut meat grinder, tens of thousands of convicts were thrown into the mix as cannon fodder. As the death toll soared, it was widely assumed that Prigozhin’s foul-mouthed attacks on the Ministry of Defense had Putin’s tacit approval, including threats that “those who don’t give us ammunition will be eaten alive in hell.”
The events of the past few days not only constituted a real-time diminution of Russia’s global prestige, but also exposed the Wagner mercenaries as dangerous and unpredictable liabilities.
Nevertheless, after Prigozhin occupied the key city of Rostov and deployed his tanks toward Moscow, Putin denounced him as a traitor who had delivered “a stab in the back to our troops and the people of Russia.”
With Prigozhin now to be exiled in Belarus, it is inconceivable that Wagner can survive as an independent entity. Fighters whose loyalty isn’t in question are likely to be subsumed within the moribund control of Moscow’s myriad security apparatuses. Having witnessed the monster he created marching upon the gates of Moscow, Putin is unlikely to repeat the mistake of allowing any ally or paramilitary movement to enjoy such autonomy.
Although Prigozhin has gained messianic popularity among nationalist Russians frustrated with the failures of conventional military leaders, the seizure of tens of millions of dollars of Wagner funds, and severance of his official connections, appear to render him a spent force. Given the unaccountable tendency of Kremlin critics to carelessly fall out of upper windows, or come into contact with fatal toxins, how long will Prigozhin even be allowed to remain alive, exiled in a state that has become an appendage of Mother Russia?
The events of the past few days not only constituted a real-time diminution of Russia’s global prestige, but also exposed the Wagner mercenaries as dangerous and unpredictable liabilities. Consequently, Bashar Assad in Syria, Khalifa Haftar in Libya, Dagalo in Sudan, and all the other dictators and warlords who relied on Wagner for military muscle will be nervously wondering what this means for them. Distracted as he is with a losing war in Ukraine, would Putin even desire to retain fingers in so many pies in these unstable and problematic locations? A sanctions-encumbered Iran can’t secure Syria on its own, so the status quo there could quickly unravel.
When paramilitary armies are allowed to mushroom to a size at which they can outgun the regular army, it is difficult to envisage any happy ending. Such militias are originally created to compensate for glaring weaknesses or lack of ideological zeal within the army, but their establishment exacerbates the underlying problems by further undermining the army’s prestige and monopoly over the use of force — so the logical end-point for such movements is to confront and ultimately forcibly replace the army.
In Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen we have exactly this scenario, with massive Iran-backed militias. Iraq’s Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi has nearly doubled in size to about 230,000 fighters in the past couple of years, with a significantly expanded $2.7 billion budget and large parts of the economy under its control — making Iraq truly a militia state. Developments in Russia have remarkable parallels with events in Sudan, where the army and an armed-to-the-teeth paramilitary organization embarked upon war against each other, at catastrophic cost to the country.
When militia movements are allowed to recruit tens of thousands of fighters and deploy multimillion-dollar budgets, their commanders will never be satisfied with being an uncouth appendage of the army; they will always seek to convert paramilitary muscle and ill-gotten wealth into supreme political power.
Such entities will continue to act as a murderous sword wielded over our heads until — as with Prigozhin — menaces such as Hassan Nasrallah, Dagalo, Esmail Qaani and Qais Al-Khazali are consigned to irrelevant and ignominious exile.
• Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.

Is it time for the international community to take sides in Sudan?
Osama Al-Sharif/Arab News/June 27, 2023
With the bloody crisis in Sudan now in its third month and with no sign that either party is close to securing a decisive military victory, worst-case scenarios for the strategic African country are already unfolding.
The war between the Sudanese national army led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces led by his bitter rival Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo is now spreading beyond the capital Khartoum and its twin sister, Omdurman. Neither side has been able to take full control of the capital and nearby urban centers. The fact that the regular army has failed to repulse the lightly armed RSF, at least from Khartoum, has baffled observers.
It is not clear how the conflict erupted, with each side blaming the other. Al-Burhan claims that Dagalo was not happy with the framework agreement that was supposed to come into effect in early April because it stipulated that the RSF be merged into the army, thus denying him control of his own militia, which he used as a mercenary organ to engage in military adventures outside Sudan. In addition, it would have ended his control over illicit gold mining activities in the country itself.
On the other hand, Dagalo, who was Al-Burhan’s deputy in the Transitional Sovereignty Council, blames his former partner for staging a coup against the civilians in the government and forcing a military confrontation after it became clear that Muslim Brotherhood leaders and remnants of the former Omar Bashir regime were calling the shots in the armed forces.
Dagalo and Al-Burhan were both instrumental in supporting the regime of former dictator Bashir for many years and together they toppled the civilian government in an October 2021 coup.
With a military and political impasse kicking in, the humanitarian catastrophe is spreading. More than 2.5 million people have been displaced, with thousands of others seeking refuge in neighboring countries. So far, more than 2,000 people have been killed, but that number is likely to rise in the coming days.
Entire districts of Khartoum no longer have running water or electricity and many hospitals have been taken out of service. Relief efforts have stalled and a political settlement remains elusive as the two sides continue to breach the short-term truce deals mediated by Saudi Arabia and the US.
Multiple reports speak of atrocities being committed against civilians, including gang rapes, summary killings and ethnic cleansing. The situation in Darfur is especially dire, with reports that Arab militiamen associated with the Janjaweed, a precursor to the RSF, are attacking non-Arab villages and committing atrocities that are triggering sectarian and ethnic strife. El Geneina in Darfur has already been declared a disaster area by the UN and local officials. On June 14, the governor of West Darfur was killed, allegedly by militiamen loyal to Dagalo, after he described the violence in Darfur as genocide. Some reports have accused the army of committing murder as well. But the fact that Darfur is traditionally known as a tribal base for Dagalo shifts attention to the bloody history of the Janjaweed in that province.
A civil war is not far-fetched, while fears that some provinces might seek to separate cannot be discounted.
The International Crisis Group last week reported that “the conflict is spreading outside the capital, plunging other areas into horrendous and, in some cases, inter-ethnic bloodletting. Darfur, long a tinderbox, has exploded into fighting along ethnic lines, with dozens killed and tens of thousands uprooted from their homes.”
The chaos created by the war and the tensions it is causing among tribes is reviving attempts by separatist groups in other parts of the country. Reports suggest there are at least 80 armed movements in Sudan, with some taking up arms again against the central government.
On Monday, it was reported that the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North fighters attacked army bases in the Blue Nile and South Kordofan states, inflicting heavy losses. The army said it had repulsed such attacks, but the development is serious since this group had signed a peace agreement with Khartoum. The rebel movement is led by Abdulaziz Al-Hilu and includes tens of thousands of men with access to heavy weapons. Residents said it was not yet clear what position Al-Hilu might take in the conflict, but the buildup of his forces raises fears of further clashes.
With both sides refusing to negotiate, Sudan is quickly descending into uncertainty. A civil war is not far-fetched, while fears that some provinces might seek to separate cannot be discounted. Furthermore, the power vacuum will entice religious extremist groups to emerge — a development that is of concern to Sudan’s neighbors, especially Egypt. On this subject, the International Crisis Group said that “such a war would likely splinter the country, devastating the population, while creating a haven for … militants, mercenaries and traffickers, who in turn could bedevil the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and the Mediterranean and Red Sea basins for years to come.”
The war in Sudan is proving to be both complex and multilayered, with multiple actors, including outside powers, and motivations involved. The stakes include the bitter struggle for political power, resource control and deep ethnic and religious divisions. Beyond the immediate fallout, there is also the long-term humanitarian catastrophe and regional instability.
Like all regional crises, various countries have adopted conflicting views on what is going on and some have taken sides as well. Some countries, like China and Russia, are supporting the Sudanese government, while others, including some Gulf countries, have historical links to rebel groups and the RSF. Others have taken a more neutral stance — for now.
What matters now is to save the territorial and political integrity of Sudan, which remains a country rich in natural resources, while its stability is geopolitically vital for the Red Sea basin, the Horn of Africa and the entire continent. For now, the lesser of two evils would seem to be to back the national army to extend its authority over the entire country, while empowering regional and international bodies to prevent the further internationalization of the crisis. Only then can a political settlement be reached. A defeat of the national army would sink Sudan into a black hole.
• Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman.
Twitter: @plato010

The Future of Repatriation from Northeast Syria
Devorah Margolin/The Washington Institute/June 27/2023
From potential SDF trials to Assad’s steady normalization, the widening number of “known unknowns” has increased the urgency of taking action on Islamic State detainees.
The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) recently announced that due to the international community’s slow response to the repatriation of thousands of individuals affiliated with the Islamic State (IS), it will begin to hold “fair and transparent trials in accordance with international and local laws related to terrorism.” The announcement comes after representatives from more than eighty countries gathered in Saudi Arabia on June 8 for a ministerial meeting convened by the Global Coalition Against Daesh, where U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reminded attendees, “We know that repatriation is the only durable solution.” His statement stood out in this context because citizens from many coalition states are still being detained indefinitely in northeast Syria.
While the United States has proactively advocated for repatriation across two administrations, most other countries around the world have been reluctant or slow to take such action. To date, approximately 5,500 Iraqis and 2,700 third-country nationals (i.e., not Syrian or Iraqi) have been repatriated from detention camps, and the international community is on track to repatriate more such individuals in 2023 than in years past. Although this is a step in the right direction, it means that more than 10,000 third-country nationals from almost 60 countries remain in detention in northeast Syria, including approximately 2,000 men and boys and 8,000 women and minors. These numbers do not include the more than 18,000 Syrians and 25,000 Iraqis who are also being held indefinitely.
With numerous international conflicts dominating daily headlines, much of the international community is no doubt fatigued by the challenges emanating from the fight against IS and the repatriation of IS-affiliated individuals. Yet the AANES announcement and other developments show that these challenges will only proliferate without concerted attention from Washington and its coalition partners.
The “Known Unknowns”
The “known unknowns” in northeast Syria—that is, factors capable of destabilizing the precarious situation and thus affecting IS-affiliated individuals detained in the area—have multiplied to an alarming degree in recent months. These factors center on five main issues, some more imminent than others:
The AANES trial announcement. Very little is known about when these trials may begin or who would face prosecution. What is known is that U.S. support for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—a key military actor in the AANES—has been a vital component of the fight against IS. As noted by Gen. Matthew McFarlane, commander of the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR), the SDF is America’s “lead partner” in Syria and has been throughout the anti-IS campaign. Yet the decision to place foreign nationals on trial in the AANES could hurt this relationship. The wider international community is unlikely to find consensus on this issue either. For instance, NATO ally Turkey views the SDF as a hostile entity, arguing that it is linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)—a U.S.-designated terrorist organization and Ankara’s longtime domestic nemesis.
Increased normalization of the Assad regime. This potentially destabilizing factor has come to the forefront amid a pair of recent developments: the Arab League’s decision to welcome Syria back with seemingly open arms, and the quadrilateral talks between Turkey, Syria, Russia, and Iran. Although such moves will not change the situation on the ground overnight, one cannot discount what they might mean for the disputed territory in northeast Syria and its thousands of third-country detainees. For example, if normalization empowers Bashar al-Assad to take over the area, he could take any number of steps with regard to these detainees, from releasing them to roam free, to imprisoning or killing them, to holding them for ransom as negotiation tools with their countries of origin.
Ongoing threats from IS. According to a recent CJTF-OIR report, “ISIS capabilities remained ‘degraded’ due to Coalition-assisted counterterrorism pressure, but the group continued to pose a threat.” These threats include the group’s longstanding insurgency (which has tapered down but persists), its use of gang violence in northeast Syria and Iraq, and its external and internal threats to the security of detention camps and prisons. IS has explicitly noted that it sees these individuals as key to its future success.
Possible Turkish intervention. Turkish forces have previously launched incursions into northeast Syria, and the SDF has warned that a future intervention could oblige it to pivot vital resources away from fighting IS and maintaining its prisons and detention centers. A conflict between Turkey and the SDF would also put the United States in an uncomfortable position between its NATO ally and its top local partner.
Climate change and natural disasters. The humanitarian crisis in the northeast is not limited to the status of detention camps; it also includes broader national factors such as Syria’s political crisis creating more food insecurity in a country already plagued by a “severe and long-term drought.” Moreover, the February earthquakes in Turkey and Syria highlighted their deep vulnerability to major natural disasters. If another such incident hits northeast Syria—an area not officially governed by a state—it could result in even greater difficulties getting proper aid to those affected.
Policy Implications
Although some of the above “known unknowns” have been at play for quite some time, the recent announcements regarding AANES trials and Assad’s normalization should give the coalition greater cause for concern about the future of northeast Syria and IS-affiliated individuals detained there. Recent efforts spearheaded by the United States have underlined this precarious situation to more reluctant governments, many of which claim that their slow response stems from the difficulties they will face in prosecuting these individuals—especially adult women—upon their return. Yet successful prosecutions against IS-affiliated women in the United States, Germany, and the Netherlands show that best practices for meeting this challenge exist and need to be emulated.
The AANES announcement in particular indicates that local frustration with the slow international response to this issue has come to a head. The decision to leave third-country nationals in northeast Syria is destabilizing the area, not only by taking resources away from the rebuilding effort, but also by distracting from the fight against IS cells still in operation there. If IS manages to seize new territory, having large numbers of its affiliates nearby would only widen its recruiting base. And as described previously, Syrian normalization could likewise create a host of destabilizing scenarios and threats involving these detainees across the Middle East and beyond. Normalization might also lead Washington to gradually change its policy in Syria and perhaps even withdraw its forces. To be sure, repatriation is not risk-free. Yet coalition members have already demonstrated effective ways to mitigate these risks, such as sharing best practices on gathering evidence; holding responsible parties accountable; adapting risk assessments to the needs of each individual and state; operating a clear dual communication strategy for civil society and those being repatriated; and creating a trauma-informed care approach to these individuals. Each country will need to apply these best practices differently based on their unique capacities and legal systems. In the end, even effective repatriation will not solve all of the region’s problems. Yet simply leaving these individuals behind in Syria will create a much greater risk to the international community.
*Devorah Margolin is the Blumenstein-Rosenbloom Fellow at The Washington Institute.

Sly Media!
Amal Abdulaziz al-Hazzani/Asharq Al Awsat/June 27/2023
The recent uprising by Russian Wanger militia leader Yevgeny Prigozhin against the Russian Defense Minister has caught many by surprise. Prigozhin has been voicing his criticisms on the ministry's inadequate logistical support for the past month. However, this particular development does not greatly concern me at the moment, as the intelligence and military battle continues to unfold with no immediate resolution in sight.
One notable aspect is the emergence of reports, during the coverage of the coup attempt, that exaggerated the power of the Wagner Group and their purported advance towards Moscow, to overthrow the ruling regime, including President Putin. The reports, mostly from Western news agencies, were biased and naive, leading global public opinion to believe the impending collapse of the Russian capital. The anticipation of Moscow's downfall became widely accepted as an almost inevitable outcome.
With a force of 25,000 armed fighters, the Wagner Group lacks the capability to exert a substantial influence on the ground in a country that boasts the world's second-largest army. Undoubtedly, the media plays a pivotal role in military warfare, as it has the power to shape a biased narrative of the conflicting parties and present it to the public. While it is acknowledged that complete neutrality in the media is unattainable, it is crucial to maintain a certain level of professionalism and credibility, irrespective of underlying motives.
Within hours, headlines and Western news agencies dominated the news about the Wagner Group commander, portraying him as a superhuman figure advancing towards the Russian capital to overthrow it. By the end of the day, reports from Belarus revealed that it had mediated for Prigozhin with the Kremlin to secure his exile after his withdrawal from the battlefield in Ukraine, and the narrative of the alleged advance appeared theatrical and disconnected from reality. Regardless of the political background of what happened, were we following accurate news?
50 years ago, Ahmed Said of "Sawt al-Arab" radio in Cairo and Mohamed Hassanein Heikal of "Al-Ahram” newspaper played a significant role in shaping the Arab public opinion. Their influence was such that the Arab citizens were deceived and fed with falsehoods regarding the outcome of the 1967 defeat, which was falsely claimed to have never happened. The ordinary citizens, relying on the radio, were held captive as they eagerly awaited the truth, that which is devoid of wishes or fabrication. Eventually, the truth was exposed as lies have a limited lifespan. However, by then, the media establishment had already formed their molds to serve their own objectives.
Since then, and until today, communication and information transfer methods have evolved, ranging from email and satellites to social media, smart technology, drones, and artificial intelligence. However, these advancements primarily serve the purpose of efficiency and convenience, and they do not inherently impact the neutrality or credibility of the news, unless the institution itself upholds these principles as fundamental values. While it is understandable that the United States and European countries have interest in supporting Ukraine against Russia and maintaining robust internal intelligence agencies. However, how can the audience trust the information provided by their media about the events on the battlefield and which party committed crimes against humanity or initiated attacks on residential areas, bridges, schools, and other news?
The evident bias displayed by the Western media, which serves as the primary source of information regarding the Ukrainian conflict, raises doubts about the accuracy of the news being delivered. Trust forms the bedrock of the people's connection with the media. Once this trust is shaken, the media's voice, be it through "Sawt al-Arab" radio or the screens of "CNN" - will fall on deaf ears!