Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 01-02/2023
Western countries are watching with a dead conscious a new massacre committed against the Armenian people in Nagorno-Karabakh/
Elias Bejjani/September30, 2023
Text of Bishop Aoudi's sermon delivered today, October 1, 2023, during the Divine Mass that he presided over in St. George’s Cathedral
Aoudi/Instead of going into details about the priorities of the future president, wouldn’t it be more effective to elect this president and let him work with his government?
Pope Francis calls for dialogue between Azerbaijan and Armenia
Hezbollah official decries 'US veto' on consensus in Lebanon
Beirut 'Freedoms March' attacked by mob accusing it of backing homosexuality
Bassil says some are 'delusional' regarding presidential file
Gebran Bassil advocates administrative decentralization as Geagea criticizes opposition
MP Boustani to LBCI: Reaching an agreement on a presidential program is even more crucial than electing a president
The quest for a compromise: Lebanon's political stalemate and the third option
Lebanon's star-studded summer: Festivals' success story
FPM denies circulated news that Aoun, Bassil's convoy was subjected to provocation during their Bekaa Valley tour
Beirut First Club wins over Al-Hikma Beirut as champion of 2nd Doha International Basketball Tournament
Foreign Ministry denounces terrorist attack on Turkish Interior Ministry's Security Directorate in Ankara
Hezbollah official decries 'US veto' on consensus in Lebanon

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 01-02/2023
Pope says Nagorno-Karabakh experiencing a humanitarian crisis
More than 80% of Nagorno-Karabakh's population flees as future uncertain for those who remain
Bomb attack targets Turkish capital, Kurdish militants claim responsibility
Suicide bomber detonates a device in the Turkish capital. A second assailant is killed in a shootout
Migrant boat washes ashore in Israel, fate of passengers unknown
Russia's Medvedev says British training troops in Ukraine could be legitimate targets
Ukraine aid is dropped from government funding bill. That raises questions about future US support
Zelenskiy says nothing will weaken Kyiv's resolve against Russia
Pro-Russia party wins Slovakia election, intends to end support of Ukraine
Slovak populists opposed to Ukraine aid win election
Biden urges Congress to pass Ukraine aid after govt. shutdown deal
Ontario government expands list of ailments pharmacists can treat
Iraq wedding fire caused by ‘gross negligence,’ government investigation says

Titles For The Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 01-02/2023
The Persecution of Christians, August 2023/’Whenever They Want to Kill, They Kill’/Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/October 01/2023
Negotiators get their turn as Nagorno-Karabakh’s demise approaches/Yasar Yakis/Arab News/October 01, 2023
How societies can confront disinformation campaigns/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/October 01, 2023
Europe’s internal ruptures need urgent repair/Dr. Theodore Karasik/Arab News/October 01, 2023
Abbas and Netanyahu left the UN with no hopes of peace anytime soon/Yossi Mekelberg/Arab News/October 01/2023

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on October 01-02/2023
Western countries are watching with a dead conscious a new massacre committed against the Armenian people in Nagorno-Karabakh
Elias Bejjani/September30, 2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/122696/122696/
What a disgrace, and hypocrisy is unfolding.
The Western countries that laud civilization, Freedom, human right, democracy and take pride in raising the banners of the international covenant of human rights, have lost everything that is humanity, conscience, self respect, credibility and morals.
These countries, due to their secularism, selfishness, atheism, ingratitude, and regression to the original sinful human nature, have become completely estranged from all their values, history, national and humanitarian obligations and commitments.
Yes, unfortunately, all these countries, cloaked satanic competition, corrupt and secularism, have sunk up to their ears in everything that sadistic and commercial priorities.  They have abandoned their previous conception and assessment of everything that is human, faith-filled  and of eternal values.
These countries, led by Russia are stupidly, dead in their conscience, faith, and hope, are watching a new massacre of a horrific ethnic cleansing committed by Azerbaijan and its ally, Turkey, against the Armenian people in Nagorno-Karabakh
The Armenian people in Nagorno-Karabakh are killed, abused, tortured, displaced from the land of their ancestors, uprooted from their history roots by force, and ethnically cleansed.
Meanwhile Russia in particular, and the countries of the West in general, without a single exception, are not lifting a finger, but rather blessing the massacre, allying themselves with its perpetrators, and cheering for them.
What a shame, these satanic secular regimes are worshiping earthly riches, abandoning all values, principles, human rights and the Armenians' destiny of freedom.
What is sad and painful at the same time, is that the Armenian people, whom the Turkish Ottoman Empire exposed to the most horrific crime in history between the years 1914-1915, have once again been left prey to the predatory human monsters represented by Azerbaijan's dictator Ilham Aliyevnt, and his Islamic fundamentalist Turkish ally, President Erdogan, who are both drowning in the mire of hatred, fanaticism, historical hatred and deeply rooted sickening grudges.
What is totally condemned is this ungrateful West has allowed the Azerbaijan’s corrupt, blustering dictator Ilham Aliyev, and his ally, the traitorous and hateful Turkish, President Erdogan, to repeat the brutal massacres committed by their Ottoman ancestors against the Armenian people.
In conclusion, the West has blessed Aliyev's - Erdogan's brutality, and their thirst to shed Armenian blood, despite the fact that Turkey is a member of the NATO alliance, that is supposed to protect peace, freedoms and democracy.
It remains that the West's satanic and inhumane shameful silence in regards to the massacres  perpetrated against the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh is fully denounced and condemned
Background
The Armenian Genocide, Armenian Massacres, or Armenian Holocaust (Armenian: Հայոց Ցեղասպանութիւն) (Turkish: Ermeni Soykırımı) was the systematic mass killing and expulsion of Armenians that took place in the territories of the Ottoman Empire by the government of the Society of Union and Progress during World War I. Although separate massacres have been committed against Armenians since the middle of the year 1914 AD, it is agreed that the date of the beginning of the genocide is April 24, 1915 AD, which is the day on which the Ottoman authorities gathered hundreds of Armenian intellectuals and notables, arrested them, and deported them from Constantinople (Istanbul today) to the province of Ankara, where they were killed. Most of them died.

Text of Bishop Aoudi's sermon delivered today, October 1, 2023, during the Divine Mass that he presided over in St. George’s Cathedral
Instead of going into details about the priorities of the future president, wouldn’t it be more effective to elect this president and let him work with his government?
NNA/LCCC/Google Translation/October 1, 2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/122744/122744/
The Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Beirut and its dependencies, Bishop Elias Aoudi, presided over the Divine Liturgy service in St. George's Cathedral. He delivered a sermon in which he said: “The Evangelist Luke shows, in today’s Gospel, a basic rule that man must adopt in order to build his relationship with his fellow man, on the example of the relationship that God has established with us, his creation. This rule summarizes every virtue and commandment, every good deed and opinion. It is free love towards everyone, which does not ask for anything in return: “For if you love those who love you, what credit do you have? For sinners also love those who love them.”
He added: “A person who loves his brother shows his love towards him through his mercy and forgiveness towards him, as the Lord Jesus did when he loved us to the cross, laying down himself for our salvation. He commanded us, saying: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” The Apostle John says: “He is Atonement for our sins, and not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). Some may ask how we can be merciful. The Lord Jesus provided an answer to this question by saying: “Love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing, and your reward will be great.” And you will be children of the Most High, for He is gracious to the unthankful and the wicked” (Luke 6:35), and adds: “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn anyone, and you will not be judged. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you... For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” » (Luke 6: 37-38). Mercy is revealed above all in forgiveness: “Do not judge, and you will not be judged...” The Lord did not intend to overturn the scales of human justice, but rather reminded his disciples that they should stop issuing judgments and condemnations, and look to Self in order to realize and get rid of one's own sins.
He continued: “Forgiveness is the backbone on which all the life of the Christian community is based, because in it the free love with which God first loved us is revealed. Why should a Christian forgive? Because he has been forgiven. Didn’t the Lord teach us in the Lord’s Prayer to say: “And let (forgive) “We have what we owe, just as we leave (forgive) those who owe us”? The Lord taught us to forgive the other, and then he set this forgiveness as a condition so that we in turn obtain His forgiveness, and of course there is no one who does not need God’s forgiveness. Therefore, we must always live forgiveness. , so that we always obtain it. This means to forgive offenses, to forgive many things that bother us, because many offenses and sins have been forgiven us. If God, our Creator, has forgiven us, then why do we not in turn forgive others? This pillar of forgiveness shows us the freeness of God’s love, which He first loved us and gave himself for us to save us.”
He said: “Judging and condemning another who sins is a wrong act, not because we do not want to acknowledge the sin, but because condemning the sinner breaks the bond of brotherhood with him and bypasses the mercy of God who does not abandon any of his children. We have no authority to condemn our brother who sins. We are not in a higher position than him, but rather we have a duty to restore him to the dignity of his sonship to the Father, and a duty to accompany him on the path of his repentance, while condemning his sin, and not to him personally, since “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). It is the duty of each of us to expose sins. and condemning evil deeds, and at the same time helping the sinner to repent.”
He added: “If forgiveness is the first pillar, then giving is the second pillar. The Lord tells us: ‘Give, and it will be given to you... For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you’” (Luke 6:38). God has blessed us with much more than we deserve. But He will be more generous to those who were generous here on this earth. The Lord Jesus did not speak about what would happen to those who do not give, but rather He gave us the metaphor of “measure” as a warning to us. The amount of love that we give determines the measure of the measure with which He will measure to us, that is why He told us “As you would have people do to you, so do you to them” (Luke 6:31). The Lord’s words are characterized by a consistent logic that we must pay attention to, because with the same amount that God gives to us, we must in turn give to others, and with the same amount that we give to others, He will give to us. God".
He continued: “The commandment to love is the greatest of the commandments that the Lord Jesus gave us (Matthew 22: 37-39). “Let us love one another, for love is from God, and every lover is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4: 7 - 8). Love brings mercy, and it is the only path we must take. We need to be more merciful, not to speak ill of others, and not to judge them, envy them, or humiliate them. We must forgive, be merciful, and live our lives with the love that does not allow a Christian person To lose the identity that he received from the Lord, but rather to make him realize that he is a son of the Father. In love, mercy, giving, and forgiveness are manifested. Thus, the heart expands and shines with love. Selfishness and anger make the heart shrink and harden like stone. Do we want a heart of stone, or a heart full of love? We would rather have a heart full of love than be merciful.”
He said: “In our talk about mercy and love, it appears before our eyes how much our country lacks these two sincere elements. Mercy is absent from everyone, from officials towards the people, and from members of the people among themselves. This indicates that love has become extinct, and has been replaced by narrow personal interests that have become The first and only pillar of some politicians, bankers, merchants, monopolists, employees, doctors and others who selfishly and greedily advance their interests, not caring about the suffering of their brothers.”
He added: “It is also unfortunate what we hear from leaders and officials who accuse each other and exchange blame, reproach and condemnation, driven by goals and interests that do not benefit the country and do not get it out of the abyss it is in. Each party places the blame of obstructing the election of a president on the others. It may be true, but who Some of them facilitate the matter, abandoning their interests, conditions, and connections, calling only for the implementation of the constitution and the election of a president who will be an inspiring and inspirational leader, with a message of reform, and not a leader who people follow, whether he is unjust or unjust? Morals, humanity, love, sacrifice, giving, these are what we lack in this country in order to We can rise. Countries interested in Lebanon are disturbed by the behavior of all parties, and are wondering about the feasibility of continuing their interest in Lebanon, while officials continue not to bear responsibility and prolong the life of the vacuum. Instead of elaborating on setting plans, programs and priorities for the future president, would it not be more beneficial for the country to elect this president? And let him work with his government?
He continued: "Our country needs an authority that addresses all the problems facing it and burdening its people, and the longer the impasse lasts, the more Lebanon will be emptied of its people who emigrate to it in pursuit of a decent life. They excel and innovate, and Amin Maalouf is the best example of which Lebanon is proud, while the waves of displacement to Lebanon increase with what... It causes problems and burdens.”He concluded: “Our call today is to have mercy and love, so that we may truly be children of God, so that His Holy Name will be glorified because of us, and we will become children of the Kingdom.”

Pope Francis calls for dialogue between Azerbaijan and Armenia
NNA/October 1, 2023
Pope Francis called for "arbitrating the language of dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan," expressing his hope that an agreement would be reached to end the humanitarian crisis between them, according to "Russia Today".
The Pope said after his usual sermon, which he delivered today, Sunday, in St. Peter’s Square: “These days, I am following the tragic situation of refugees in Nagorno-Karabakh.”Addressing the faithful from the window of the Apostolic Palace, he added: “I reiterate my call for dialogue between Azerbaijan and Armenia. I hope that the negotiations between the two parties, with the support of the international community, will contribute to reaching a long-term agreement that will end this humanitarian crisis.”

Hezbollah official decries 'US veto' on consensus in Lebanon
Naharnet/October 1, 2023
Hezbollah central council member Sheikh Nabil Qaouq has noted that “there are foreign, international and domestic initiatives to resolve the presidential crisis but no progress towards a solution.”“This is because the challenge and confrontation folk have torpedoed all these initiatives due to deep-rooted grudges and failed bets,” Qaouq said. “They don’t want a solution, consensus or understanding, but rather conflict, internal confrontation and dragging the country into strife. Their project intersects with the objectives of the July 2006 war, but let it be known that we will not accept and will never accept for a day to come on which anyone passes any Israeli goal that we had defeated in Wadi al-Hjeir and the Khiyam Plain,” the Hezbollah official added. Moreover, Qaouq said that there is a “foreign veto” on consensus and rapprochement in Lebanon. “This is totally clear in the U.S. stance, seeing as it is prohibited for the Lebanese to meet, agree and sit together, and when the Swiss Embassy called for a meeting gathering the Lebanese parties, the U.S. objected and the meeting was called off,” Qaouq charged. He added that “the group of challenge and confrontation through its foiling of initiatives and agreements has become a heavy burden on the country, because it is the reason behind all these crises and does not want a solution.”“We in Hezbollah and the Amal Movement are night and day searching for any chance to rescue the country, while they are searching night and day for any chance to incite, create tensions, obstruct and drag the country into strife, but we will not give up our responsibilities and will not be dragged into any incitement,” Qaouq added.

Beirut 'Freedoms March' attacked by mob accusing it of backing homosexuality
Naharnet/October 1, 2023
A demo dubbed “Freedoms March” was attacked and besieged by a mob Saturday in downtown Beirut after it was accused of “promoting homosexuality.”The attacks against protesters and journalists left several people wounded and the besieged individuals were eventually evacuated in Internal Security Forces armored vehicles after several hours of chaos. Media reports identified the attackers as members of Islamist groups who came from Tariq al-Jedideh and Beirut’s southern suburbs as well as militants from the hardline Christian group Soldiers of God. The march had been scheduled to head at 4pm from the Riad al-Solh Square towards the Interior Ministry in Sanayeh. Videos circulated online showed the attackers beating up some activists and bloodying them up and shouting insults and slurs at others. The attackers said that they reject “all types and forms of perversion on Beirut’s streets,” calling on the interior minister to immediately ban the march “because we will prevent it from passing through any road in Beirut and will confront the participants.” The Progressive Socialist Party meanwhile said “the attack on the people in central Beirut is totally condemned and rejected regardless of any consideration.”
“Security forces must arrest the attackers and refer them to the judiciary, seeing as it is their duty to perform their role in preserving freedom,” the PSP added. A statement recited by one of the march’s organizers said the demo was called “Freedoms March” in protest at “the authorities that are repressing individual, journalistic, syndical and other freedoms.”“It is a reaction against all the repressive stances and the strenuous efforts to muzzle mouths in favor of the hardline trend that does not tolerate intellectual, sexual, gender and political diversity,” the statement said.
Rainbows, school books, movies and drag shows have all been targeted in Lebanon in recent weeks as politicians, religious leaders and vigilante groups step up a campaign against the LGBTQ+ community in a country that has long shown relative tolerance. In August, several dozen men from the Soldiers of God group trashed a Beirut nightclub hosting a drag show. They beat up several people, driving some patrons to hide in a bathroom. The education minister also recently banned a game of Chutes and Ladders that was distributed to schools as part of a USAID project because it was decorated with a rainbow, Lebanese media reported. A video circulated online showed a man in the northern city of Tripoli using black paint to cross out a rainbow on the side of a van distributing books. In early August, caretaker Culture Minister Mohammed Murtada requested for the General Security Directorate to ban the movie "Barbie," saying it "promotes homosexuality and transgenders." The Directorate, however, ruled that the movie is permitted and it eventually started showing in early September. In a recent meeting, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, several government ministers and the head of the Maronite Church Cardinal Beshara al-Rahi discussed homosexuality. Afterward, the premier told reporters that "there is unanimity to abide by moral Lebanese and family values."Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, called in a recent speech for the death penalty on people engaged in same-sex acts, calling homosexuality "a clear and present danger." He accused NGOs of circulating books for school children that promote homosexuality and called for the books to be banned.

Bassil says some are 'delusional' regarding presidential file
Naharnet/October 1, 2023
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has warned some domestic political forces against being “delusional” regarding the presidential file. “Delusional are those waiting for the balances of power to change so that their candidate reaches the presidency, such as betting on a strike against Hezbollah or Iran, the fall of (Syrian) President (Bashar) al-Assad, or betting on a Syrian-Saudi or Saudi-Iranian understanding,” Bassil said during a visit to Zahle.

Gebran Bassil advocates administrative decentralization as Geagea criticizes opposition
LBCI/October 1, 2023
In a visit to Zahle, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) leader, Gebran Bassil, continued championing the administrative decentralization slogan before the crowds for sheer tension. However, the application of any item of administrative decentralization has remained absent since President Michel Aoun took office until today. This article was originally published in, translated from Lebanese newspaper Nidaa al-Watan.Bassil, who began his tour with a visit to former MP Cesar Maalouf, who was a member of the Strong Republic bloc in the previous parliamentary elections, emphasized the importance of adopting administrative decentralization and the credit fund for their positive impact on the development of Lebanese regions, enabling them to keep up with progress and competition for the better, without restricting them to the legislative and executive authorities. Samir Geagea, the leader of the Lebanese Forces Party, spoke about ideological differences with the resistance group, stressing that the hostility is not because of these differences but because that group "wields its power in the country and wants to rule without knowing how." The most apparent evidence is that it had the presidency, a parliamentary majority, and a ministerial majority in recent years, yet it failed."Geagea's words came on the second anniversary of the launch of the Sovereign Front for Lebanon, where he considered that the resistance group clings to the Lebanese people and the Lebanese state until it leads them to destruction while still insisting on renewing itself for another six years by bringing its candidate. Nevertheless, the opposition was vigilant and made a great effort to prevent this renewal, although it was not easy."Geagea pointed out that the other group managed to hold onto the country after 30 years of Syrian tutelage, followed by the control of Hezbollah and some Lebanese mercenaries. He said, "So, we are facing a very capable internal opponent regarding finances. Its budget exceeds $40 million from abroad alone, in addition to its well-known trade, smuggling, tax evasion, and customs evasion, as well as its military and security apparatus. Its latest act was the assassination of comrade Elias Hasrouni." Deputy Speaker of Parliament Ali Hassan Khalil, an aide to Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, noted that the other group rejected Berri's initiative to call for dialogue, leading to a new stalemate. He considered that some are raising their demands to a level they know is difficult to achieve, and no one threatens us, whether with federalism, self-administration, or amending the essence of our system. Hezbollah's position was expressed by its deputy, Hussein Al-Hajj Hassan, who considered that the election of a president is still facing internal and external obstacles. Some parties inside refuse dialogue and reconciliation, and some parties outside engage in obstruction. Al-Hajj Hassan pointed out that "the failure to elect a president has negative consequences on the Lebanese people in the fields of health, education, and infrastructure," stressing that "the president's election is the key to solving and addressing all issues." Meanwhile, the Minister of Interior in the caretaker government, Bassam Mawlawi, affirmed that the Syrian refugee crisis is no longer tolerable and threatens Lebanon's demographics and identity. He said, "We are doing our duty as a ministry and a government, but it is no longer acceptable for the UNHCR to deal with this issue in this manner. The UNHCR cannot continue to operate independently without considering the presence of the Lebanese state and laws, especially regarding the handover of the database of Syrian refugees to the General Security." Mawlawi asked, "How can you ask us to protect Syrian refugees in Lebanon without their data? We do not accept this, neither us nor the government, and it will not be accepted from today onward."

MP Boustani to LBCI: Reaching an agreement on a presidential program is even more crucial than electing a president
LBCI/October 1, 2023
Strong Republic Bloc member MP Nada Boustani affirmed the bloc's commitment to electing a president for the republic as soon as possible. However, she acknowledged the current difficulty in achieving this goal, emphasizing that reaching an agreement on a presidential program is even more crucial than electing a president. On LBCI's "Nharkom Said" TV show, Boustani considered that "To overcome the crisis, we are obliged to prioritize and agree on key issues." She also clarified, "We did not reject the dialogue called for by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. We mentioned that certain conditions must be met for this dialogue to succeed." Boustani underlined that the presidential election is a purely Lebanese matter, asserting, "The presidential deadline is distinctly Lebanese, and our decision is independent."

The quest for a compromise: Lebanon's political stalemate and the third option
LBCI/October 1, 2023
Under the title of "third option," a new external initiative is making its way to resolve the presidential crisis. This initiative is divided between the meetings of the Qatari envoy, Fahd bin Jassem Al Thani, in Beirut, shrouded in mystery, and the contacts of the French envoy in Riyadh, along with the members of the Quintet Committee, which has not yet produced a therapeutic formula. This article was originally published in, translated from online newspaper Al Anbaa. According to sources close to the online newspaper Al Anbaa, the discussions of the Qatari envoy revolve around three fundamental issues: the necessity of relying on the third option and stepping back from clinging to the presidential candidates Sleiman Frangieh and Jihad Azour, searching for a candidate equidistant from all parties, and working earnestly to rescue the Lebanese economy from collapse by encouraging investment in all sectors, with Qatar playing a fundamental role in this regard. The shift towards the third option was confirmed by MP Adib Abd al-Masih, a member of the Renewal Bloc, who is part of the parliamentary delegation visiting the United States. He described it as the logical solution reached by the Quintet Committee after nine months of communication with local political forces. This is aimed at breaking the vertical deadlock that has paralyzed the MPs, as they have failed to secure an absolute majority for either of the competing candidates, Frangieh and Azour, who will be asked to withdraw from the presidential race for the reasons mentioned above, making room for the search for other candidates. Regarding the Amal-Hezbollah duo's insistence on Frangieh, Abd al-Masih stated, "As long as Frangieh has not obtained an absolute majority in all previous election sessions, he should withdraw from the candidacy. The country cannot remain paralyzed indefinitely." Abd al-Masih revealed that "Deputy Assistant US Secretary of State Evan Goldstein informed them that he would visit Lebanon next December, and the Lebanese people would have a president by that date," considering that "Army Commander General Joseph Aoun has the best chance so far, according to the American official, and Qatari efforts are heading in this direction." As long as matters are still within the framework of persuading the concerned political forces of the need to opt for the third option, and until now, some have not been convinced of it, while others have not been convinced of the necessity of discussing the matter, the central knot remains in place, waiting for stakeholders to embark on the settlement that is indispensable to complete the presidential process.

Lebanon's star-studded summer: Festivals' success story
LBCI/October 1, 2023
Several Arab and international stars have chosen to light up the nights of festivals and concerts in Lebanon this year. Artists, musicians, and DJs numbering more than 30 have performed at the Lebanese events this summer, a number that is almost double that of the previous year. In Lebanon, there is a strong demand for artistic performances and concerts, whether by Arab or foreign artists, from a diverse audience with tastes ranging from Eastern to Western. This creates a beautiful and sophisticated interaction, especially given these events' grand and distinctive organization, which has not seen any significant security incidents over the years. This is a positive exchange for both parties: the visiting artist and the host country. In terms of numbers, foreign artists' fees for a concert range from $10,000 to as much as a million dollars, depending on their popularity and the size of the event. Furthermore, Lebanon benefits from attracting these stars. In addition to work visa fees, there is a 7.5% income tax on the expenses of foreign artists in hotels, restaurants, and transportation, which goes into the treasury. Moreover, there is an 11% VAT tax on ticket prices and a 17% tax on the profits paid by the contracting company. Additionally, 10% of the contract value signed by the foreign artist, plus a 2% share of the total ticket sales, goes to the solidarity fund for Lebanese artists, including musicians, actors, painters, sculptors, and others. International festivals enhance tourism in the regions and help portray a positive image of Lebanon to the world, which has only recorded successes.

FPM denies circulated news that Aoun, Bassil's convoy was subjected to provocation during their Bekaa Valley tour
NNA/October 1, 2023
The Free Patriotic Movement's media and communication committee categorically denied, in an issued statement this evening, the circulated news that the convoy of President General Michel Aoun and MP Gebran Bassil was subjected to provocative acts or to any incident of any kind during the two-day tour in Central and Northern Bekaa this weekend. The statement affirmed that the tour was crowned with success and characterized by popular warmth, openness and communication with many of the region's prominent dignitaries.

Beirut First Club wins over Al-Hikma Beirut as champion of 2nd Doha International Basketball Tournament
NNA/October 1, 2023
Beirut First Club was crowned champion of the second Doha Qatari International Basketball Tournament, defeating Al-Hikma Beirut, champion of the first edition, 90-62, in the final match that took place between them on Saturday evening in the Al-Gharafa Club hall near Doha. Winning the title was the best preparation for the Beirut First Club team, which will participate starting tomorrow in the Arab Club Championship, which is also hosted by the Qatari capital. It is worth noting that Lebanese Coach Joe Ghattas won the title in its first edition with the al-Hikma Beirut and in its second with Beirut First Club.

Foreign Ministry denounces terrorist attack on Turkish Interior Ministry's Security Directorate in Ankara
NNA/October 1, 2023
In an issued statement on Sunday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants condemned the terrorist attack on the Security Directorate of the Turkish Ministry of Interior in the capital, Ankara, this morning, and wished “a speedy recovery to the two injured security personnel.”

Hezbollah official decries 'US veto' on consensus in Lebanon
NNA/October 1, 2023
Hezbollah central council member Sheikh Nabil Qaouq has noted that “there are foreign, international and domestic initiatives to resolve the presidential crisis but no progress towards a solution.”“This is because the challenge and confrontation folk have torpedoed all these initiatives due to deep-rooted grudges and failed bets,” Qaouq said. “They don’t want a solution, consensus or understanding, but rather conflict, internal confrontation and dragging the country into strife. Their project intersects with the objectives of the July 2006 war, but let it be known that we will not accept and will never accept for a day to come on which anyone passes any Israeli goal that we had defeated in Wadi al-Hjeir and the Khiyam Plain,” the Hezbollah official added. Moreover, Qaouq said that there is a “foreign veto” on consensus and rapprochement in Lebanon. “This is totally clear in the U.S. stance, seeing as it is prohibited for the Lebanese to meet, agree and sit together, and when the Swiss Embassy called for a meeting gathering the Lebanese parties, the U.S. objected and the meeting was called off,” Qaouq charged. He added that “the group of challenge and confrontation through its foiling of initiatives and agreements has become a heavy burden on the country, because it is the reason behind all these crises and does not want a solution.” “We in Hezbollah and the Amal Movement are night and day searching for any chance to rescue the country, while they are searching night and day for any chance to incite, create tensions, obstruct and drag the country into strife, but we will not give up our responsibilities and will not be dragged into any incitement,” Qaouq added. --- NAHARNET

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 01-02/2023
Pope says Nagorno-Karabakh experiencing a humanitarian crisis
VATICAN CITY (Reuters)/October 1, 2023
Pope Francis on Sunday called for talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia to restore peace in Nagorno-Karabakh, adding that the region was experiencing a humanitarian crisis. "I have been following the dramatic situation of the displaced people in Nagorno-Karabakh in recent days and I renew my call for dialogue between Azerbaijan and Armenia, hoping that talks between the parties... will foster a lasting agreement that will put an end to the humanitarian crisis," the pope said during his Sunday prayer. More than 100,000 refugees have arrived in Armenia since Azerbaijan's military operation to retake control of Nagorno-Karabakh, the United Nations said on Saturday. The pope also said he was praying for the victims of the explosion at a fuel depot near the city of Stepanakert in Nagorno-Karabakh.

More than 80% of Nagorno-Karabakh's population flees as future uncertain for those who remain
YEREVAN, Armenia (AP)/October 01/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/122755/122755/
The exodus of more than 80% of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh raises questions about Azerbaijan's plans for the ethnic Armenian enclave following its lightning offensive last week to reclaim the breakaway region.
The Armenian government said Friday evening that more than 97,700 people, from a population of around 120,000, had fled to Armenia since Azerbaijan attacked and ordered the region's militants to disarm. The enclave's separatist government said it would dissolve itself by the end of the year after a three-decade bid for independence.
Some people lined up for days to escape Nagorno-Karabakh because the only route to Armenia — a winding mountain road — became jammed with slow-moving vehicles.
Armenian Health Minister Anahit Avanesyan said some people, including the elderly, had died while on the road to Armenia, because they were “exhausted due to malnutrition, left without even taking medicine with them, and were on the road for more than 40 hours.”
On Thursday, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan alleged that the exodus of ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh amounted to “a direct act of an ethnic cleansing and depriving people of their motherland.” Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry strongly rejected Pashinyan’s accusations, saying the departure of Armenians was “their personal and individual decision and has nothing to do with forced relocation.”
Laurence Broers, an expert on the Caucasus with the London-based think tank Chatham House, said it was unlikely that significant numbers of Armenians would remain in Nagorno-Karabakh and that “the territory will become homogenous.”
“If you define ethnic cleansing as actions by force or through intimidation to induce a population to leave, that’s very much what the last year or so has looked like,” he said.
During the three decades of conflict in the region, Azerbaijan and separatists inside Nagorno-Karabakh, alongside allies in Armenia, have accused each other of targeted attacks, massacres and other atrocities, leaving people on both sides deeply suspicious and fearful.
While Azerbaijan has pledged to respect the rights of ethnic Armenians in the region, most are now fleeing, because they don’t believe that Azerbaijani authorities will treat them fairly and humanely or guarantee them their language, religion and culture.
In December, Azerbaijan blocked the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, accusing the Armenian government or using it for illicit weapons shipments to the region’s separatist forces.
Armenia alleged the closure denied basic food and fuel supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan rejected the accusation, arguing that the region could receive supplies through the Azerbaijani city of Aghdam — a solution long resisted by Nagorno-Karabakh authorities, which called it a strategy for Azerbaijan to gain control of the region. In the 1990s, the Azerbaijani population was itself expelled from Nagorno-Karabakh and hundreds of thousands of people were displaced within Azerbaijan. As part of its “Great Return” program, the government in Baku has already relocated Azerbaijanis to territories recaptured from Nagorno-Karabakh forces in a 2020 war.
Analysts believe Azerbaijan could expand the program and resettle Nagorno-Karabakh with Azerbaijanis, while stating that ethnic Armenians could stay or exercise a right to return in order to “refute accusations that Karabakh Armenians have been ethnically cleansed,” Broers said.
A decree signed by the region’s separatist president, Samvel Shakhramanyan, cited a Sept. 20 agreement to end the fighting under which Azerbaijan would allow the “free, voluntary and unhindered movement” of Nagorno-Karabakh’s residents to Armenia.
Some of those who fled the regional capital, Stepanakert, said they had no hope for the future.
“I left Stepanakert having a slight hope that maybe something will change and I will come back soon, and these hopes are ruined after reading about the dissolution of our government,” 21-year-old student Ani Abaghyan told The Associated Press.
“I don’t want to live with the Azerbaijanis," said Narine Karamyan, 50. “Maybe there are some people who will return to their homes. I don’t want that. I want to live as an Armenian.”
After six years of separatist fighting ended in 1994 following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nagorno-Karabakh came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by Armenia. Then, during a six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan took back parts of the region in the south Caucasus Mountains along with surrounding territory that Armenian forces had claimed earlier. Nagorno-Karabakh was internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan’s sovereign territory.
Armine Ghazaryan, who crossed into Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh with her four young children, told the AP that it was the second time she had been displaced from her home, saying she had previously sheltered with her children in her neighbors' basement during the war in 2020.
“At least we live in peace here. At least we stay in Armenia," she said upon arriving in the Armenian town of Goris.
On Monday night, a fuel reservoir exploded at a gas station where people lined up for gas to fill up their vehicles to flee to Armenia. At least 68 people were killed and nearly 300 others were injured, with more than 100 others still considered missing after the blast, which exacerbated fuel shortages that were already dire after the blockade.
On Friday the State Emergency Service of Nagorno-Karabakh's interior ministry said 170 remains and body fragments had been collected and would be sent to Armenia for DNA identification.
Avanesyan, the Armenian health minister, said 142 people who were injured after the fuel tank exploded were taken to Armenia for treatment and that some of them were in very serious condition.
On Thursday, Azerbaijani authorities charged Ruben Vardanyan, the former head of Nagorno-Karabakh’s separatist government, with financing terrorism, creating illegal armed formations and illegally crossing a state border. He was detained on Wednesday by Azerbaijani border guards as he was trying to leave Nagorno-Karabakh for Armenia along with tens of thousands of others. Vardanyan, a billionaire who made his fortune in Russia, was placed in pretrial detention for at least four months and faces up to 14 years in prison. His arrest appeared to indicate Azerbaijan’s intent to quickly enforce its grip on the region.
Another top separatist figure, Nagorno-Karabakh’s former foreign minister and now presidential adviser David Babayan, said Thursday that he would surrender to Azerbaijani authorities who ordered him to face an investigation in Baku.

Bomb attack targets Turkish capital, Kurdish militants claim responsibility
Reuters/October 01/2023
ANKARA: Two attackers detonated a bomb in front of Turkish government buildings in Ankara on Sunday, leaving both of them dead and two police officers wounded, and a Kurdish militant group claimed responsibility for the attack. Authorities called it the first terrorist attack in the capital in years. CCTV footage obtained by Reuters showed a vehicle pulling up to the Interior Ministry’s main gate and one of its occupants quickly walking toward the building before being engulfed in an explosion, while the other remains on the street. The blast killed one of the attackers and authorities “neutralized,” or killed, the other, the interior minister said of the incident that rattled a central district that is home to ministerial buildings and nearby parliament. In a speech at the opening of a new parliamentary session hours later, President Tayyip Erdogan called the morning attack “the latest attempt” to inflict terror on Turks. “Those who threaten the peace and security of citizens have not achieved their goals and never will,” he said. The ANF News website, which is close to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, said a group called the ‘Immortals Battalion’ had carried out the attack, citing a PKK statement. The statement described the bombing as a ‘suicide attack’ planned to coincide with the opening of parliament and carried out by “a team of ours linked to our Immortals Battalion.”The PKK is designated as a terrorist organization by Turkiye, the United States and the European Union. It launched an insurgency in southeast Turkiye in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict. The bomb on Ataturk Boulevard was the first in Ankara since 2016, when a spate of deadly attacks gripped the country. Video afterward showed a Renault cargo vehicle parked there, windows shattered and doors open, amid debris and surrounded by soldiers, ambulances, fire trucks and armored vehicles. A senior Turkish official told Reuters the attackers had hijacked the vehicle and killed its driver in Kayseri, a city 260 km (161 miles) southeast of Ankara, before carrying out the attack. One of the injured officers suffered shrapnel injuries, he added. “Two terrorists came with a light commercial vehicle in front of the entrance gate of the General Directorate of Security of our Ministry of Internal Affairs and carried out a bomb attack,” Ali Yerlikaya, the interior minister, said on social media platform X. He added the two officers were slightly injured in the incident at 9:30 a.m. (0630 GMT). “Our struggle will continue until the last terrorist is neutralized,” he said, echoing condemnation by other Turkish officials.
PAST ATTACKS
Police said they carried out controlled explosions for “suspicious package incidents” in other parts of Ankara. Authorities did not identify any specific militant group. The incident comes almost a year after six people were killed and 81 wounded in an explosion in a busy pedestrian street in central Istanbul. Turkiye blamed Kurdish militants for that. During a series of bloody incidents in 2015 and 2016, Kurdish militants, Islamic State and other groups either claimed or were blamed for several attacks in major Turkish cities. In March 2016, 37 people were killed in Ankara when a bomb-laden car exploded at a crowded central transport hub. Ankara’s chief prosecutor launched an investigation on Sunday into what it also called a terrorist attack. Turkiye’s parliament is expected to consider ratifying Sweden’s bid to join NATO in coming weeks, after Turkiye had raised initial objections and delayed enlargement of the bloc. Erdogan did not mention Sweden or NATO, but told members of parliament that agreeing a new constitution was a priority for the new session. The parliament speaker said its agenda would not surrender to terror.
Charles Michel, European Council president, said he strongly condemned what he called the terrorist attack, while EU Commissioner for Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi said it supports Turkiye “in its fight against terrorism.”

Suicide bomber detonates a device in the Turkish capital. A second assailant is killed in a shootout
ANKARA, Turkey (AP)/October 1, 2023
A suicide bomber detonated an explosive device in the heart of the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Sunday A second assailant was killed in a shootout with police, the interior minister said. The attack occurred hours before Parliament was set to reopen after its three-month summer recess with an address by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Two police officers were slightly injured during the attack near an entrance to the Ministry of Interior Affairs, minister Ali Yerlikaya said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. The assailants arrived at the scene inside a light commercial vehicle.
“Our heroic police officers, through their intuition, resisted the terrorists as soon as they got out of the vehicle,” Yerlikaya later told reporters. “One of them blew himself up while the other one was shot in the head before he had a chance to blow himself up.”
“Our fight against terrorism, their collaborators, the (drug) dealers, gangs and organized crime organizations will continue with determination,” he said. The minister did not say who was behind the attack and there was no immediate claim of responsibility. Kurdish and far-left militant groups as well as the Islamic State group have carried out deadly attacks throughout the country in the past. Last year, a bomb blast in a bustling pedestrian street in Istanbul left six people dead, including two children. More than 80 others were wounded. Turkey blamed the attack on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, as well as Syrian Kurdish groups affiliated with it. Security camera footage on Sunday showed a vehicle stopping in front of the ministry, with a man exiting it and rushing toward the entrance of the building before blowing himself up. A second man is seen following him.
Earlier, television footage showed bomb squads working near a vehicle in the area, which is located near the Turkish Grand National Assembly and other government buildings. A rocket launcher could be seen lying near the vehicle.
Turkish authorities later imposed a temporary blackout on images from the scene.
Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said an investigation has been launched into the “terror attack.”“These attacks will in no way hinder Turkey's fight against terrorism,” he wrote on X. “Our fight against terrorism will continue with more determination.”
Police cordoned off access to the city center and increased security measures, warning citizens that they would be conducting controlled explosions of suspicious packages. The two police officers were being treated in a hospital and were not in serious condition, Yerlikaya said. Egypt, which has normalized ties with Turkey after a decade of tensions, condemned the attack. A terse statement from the Foreign Ministry offered Egypt’s solidarity with Turkey. The U.S. Embassy in Ankara and other foreign missions also issued messages condemning the attack. Erdogan’s speech will be closely watched for indications as to when Turkey’s parliament may ratify Sweden’s membership in NATO. Stockholm applied for NATO membership alongside Finland following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year. While Finland has since joined, Turkey blocked Sweden’s membership in the military alliance, accusing it of being soft on groups that Turkey considers to be security threats. Only Turkey and Hungary are yet to ratify Swedish membership.

Migrant boat washes ashore in Israel, fate of passengers unknown
JERUSALEM (Reuters)/October 1, 2023
A rubber boat washed up on a beach in Israel on Sunday with no one on board, only what appeared to be the belongings of would-be migrants. Israeli authorities said they found the dinghy along the Mediterranean coast near the city of Netanya with nothing but a messy pile of personal items, food, water and travel documents, including three from Somalia. Police said they were searching the waters nearby for signs of survivors and released a photograph of the boat. What looked like clothing, an air pump and several makeshift, inflatable lifebuoys were among the items that covered the boat's floor. The travel documents are still being investigated, the police said. According to the United Nations' International Organization for Migration, more than 187,000 people crossed the Mediterranean so far this year, and the group has recorded 2,093 deaths along the central Mediterranean route. The migrants often make the perilous crossing in small, unstable boats. Many come from Africa, fleeing conflict or in search of a better life in Europe.

Russia's Medvedev says British training troops in Ukraine could be legitimate targets
MOSCOW (Reuters)/October 1, 2023
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday suggested that British soldiers training Ukrainian troops in Ukraine would be legitimate targets for Russian forces, as would German factories producing Taurus missiles should they supply Kyiv. Medvedev, who is deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, and has become an increasingly hawkish and anti-Western figure in Russian politics, said such steps by the West were bringing World War Three closer. In a post on Telegram, Medvedev first directed his ire towards recently appointed British Defence Minister Grant Shapps, who said in a newspaper interview that London wants to deploy military instructors to Ukraine, in addition to training Ukrainian armed forces in Britain or other Western countries as at present. "(This will) turn their instructors into a legal target for our armed forces," Medvedev wrote on Telegram. "Understanding perfectly well that they will be ruthlessly destroyed. And not as mercenaries, but namely as British NATO specialists."Medvedev then turned his focus to Germany, vilifying those who want Berlin to supply Ukraine with Taurus cruise missiles that could strike Russian territory and try to limit Moscow's supply to its army. "They say this is in accordance with international law. Well, in that case, strikes on German factories where these missiles are made would also be in full compliance with international law," Medvedev said. "These morons are actively pushing us towards World War Three," Medvedev said.

Ukraine aid is dropped from government funding bill. That raises questions about future US support
WASHINGTON (AP)/October 1, 2023
Congressional supporters of Ukraine say they won't give up after a bill to keep the federal government open excluded President Joe Biden's request to provide more security assistance to the war-torn nation. Still, many lawmakers acknowledge that winning approval for Ukraine assistance in Congress is growing more difficult as the war between Russia and Ukraine grinds on. Republican resistance to the aid has been gaining momentum in the halls of Congress. Voting in the House this past week pointed to the potential trouble ahead. Nearly half of House Republicans voted to strip $300 million from a defense spending bill to train Ukrainian soldiers and purchase weapons. The money later was approved separately, but opponents of Ukraine support celebrated their growing numbers. Then, on Saturday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., omitted additional Ukraine aid from a measure to keep the government running until Nov. 17. In doing so, he closed the door on a Senate package that would have funneled $6 billion to Ukraine, roughly a third of what has been requested by the White House. Both the House and Senate overwhelmingly approved the stopgap measure, with members of both parties abandoning the increased aid for Ukraine in favor of avoiding a costly government shutdown. The latest actions in Congress signal a gradual shift in the unwavering support that the United States has so far pledged Ukraine in its fight against Russia, and it is one of the clearest examples yet of the Republican Party’s movement toward a more isolationist stance. The exclusion of Ukraine funding came little more than a week after lawmakers met in the Capitol with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who sought to assure lawmakers that his military was winning the war, but stressed that additional aid would be crucial for continuing the fight.
After that visit, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that one sentence summed up Zelenskyy's message in his meeting with the Senate: “‘If we don’t get the aid, we will lose the war,” Schumer said.
Yet, McCarthy, pressured by his right flank, has gone from saying “no blank checks” for Ukraine, with the focus being on accountability, to describing the Senate's approach as putting “Ukraine in front of America.” He declined to say after the vote on government funding whether he would bring aid for Ukraine up for a House vote in the coming weeks.
“If there is a moment in time we need to have a discussion about that, we will have a discussion completely about that, but I think the administration has to make the case for what is victory,” McCarthy said.
Biden said in a statement after Congress averted a shutdown that “we cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted.” He called on McCarthy to “keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine” and push through “the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment.”
In the Senate, both Schumer and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky pledged to move quickly to try and pass the full White House request. But it was clear that goal will be increasingly difficult as more rank-and-file GOP senators have questioned the aid or demanded that it be attached to immigration policy that would help secure the southern border — echoing similar demands in the House. Florida Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican who voted for the spending bill after the Ukraine aid was stripped out, said that Congress needs to have “a conversation with the American public.” He said he was optimistic after seeing the money taken out of the bill. “In my state, people want to be helpful to Ukraine, but they also want to be helpful to Americans," Scott said. "And so they want to really understand how this money has been spent.”Democrats said they were disappointed by the lack of Ukraine funding, but expressed determination that they would get the aid to the war-torn country.
“We will not stop fighting for more economic and security assistance for Ukraine,” Schumer said after the bill passed. “Majorities in both parties support Ukraine aid, and doing more is vital for America’s security and for democracy around the world.”
Leading up to Saturday's vote, Pentagon officials expressed alarm at the prospect of no extra funding for Ukraine. In a letter to congressional leaders dated Friday, Michael McCord, under secretary of defense, wrote that the department has exhausted nearly all the available security assistance. “Without additional funding now, we would have to delay or curtail assistance to meet Ukraine’s urgent requirements, including for air defense and ammunition that are critical and urgent now as Russia prepares to conduct a winter offensive and continues its bombardment of Ukrainian cities,” McCord said.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said after the vote that U.S. assistance was vital as Ukrainians “fight to defend their own country against the forces of tyranny. America must live up to its word.”
Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he would like to send a clear message to the world about U.S. support for Ukraine by passing legislation, but believes the Pentagon has “enough draw-down money” to last through December. He said he believes McCarthy still supports funding for Ukraine. “I think the speaker has always had a good position on Ukraine. I think he's dealing with a caucus that's got fractures that he has to deal with and none of them can be ignored when you've got a four-seat majority and 15 nuts in the conference,” Rogers said, referring to far-right lawmakers who have staunchly opposed funding for Ukraine. Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he heard McCarthy tell Zelenskyy during his visit that “we will give them what they need.”“Unfortunately, the message that speaker and the former president is sending is that they can't be relied upon,” Meeks said, adding a reference to former President Donald Trump, who has called on Congress to withhold additional Ukraine funding until the FBI, IRS and Justice Department “hand over every scrap of evidence” on the Biden family’s business dealings. The U.S. has approved four rounds of aid to Ukraine in response to Russia’s invasion, totaling about $113 billion, with some of that money going toward replenishment of U.S. military equipment that was sent to the frontlines. In August, Biden called on Congress to provide for an additional $24 billion. Saturday's move by the House to act first on government funding left the Senate with a stark choice: either go along with a bill that fails to help Ukraine, or allow what could have been an extended government shutdown to occur.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., expressed frustration at the outcome.“Every day that goes by that we don’t get the additional money is a day Russia gets closer to being capable of winning this war,” Murphy said. Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Ukraine should not be deterred, and that aid can be approved by other means. “Neither our friends nor our enemies should look at this as being some change in the United States’ commitment to Ukraine,” Risch said.

Zelenskiy says nothing will weaken Kyiv's resolve against Russia
KYIV (Reuters)/October 1, 2023 at 3:07 p.m. EDT
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a speech released on Sunday that nothing would weaken his country's fight against Russia, a day after the U.S. Congress passed a stopgap funding bill that omitted aid to Ukraine. Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said separately he had received reassurances about further military assistance in a telephone call with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. "Secretary Austin assured me," he wrote in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, using flags in place of country names, that U.S. support to Ukraine "will continue" and that Ukrainian "warriors will continue to have a strong back-up on the battlefield." A Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson said Kyiv was working with its American partners to ensure a new budget decision would include funds for the country, and that U.S. support was intact. Zelenskiy, in a recorded speech marking the Defenders Day holiday, did not address the vote in Congress directly, but reiterated his determination to fight to victory. No one could "shut down" Ukraine's stability, endurance, strength and courage, he said, echoing a Ukrainian verb often used to refer to power outages caused by Russian attacks. He added that Ukraine would only stop resisting and fighting on the day of victory. "As we draw closer to it every day, we say, 'We will fight for as long as it takes.'"U.S. President Joe Biden said on Sunday that Republicans had pledged to provide Ukraine aid through a separate vote and U.S. support could not be interrupted "under any circumstances."Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko also sought to reassure Ukrainians about future U.S. support in comments on Facebook, stressing that previously approved funds would be unaffected. "Support for Ukraine remains unwaveringly strong in the U.S. administration, in both parties and chambers of the U.S. Congress, and most importantly, among the American people," he wrote.

Pro-Russia party wins Slovakia election, intends to end support of Ukraine
Joe Fisher/United Press International/October 1, 2023
The pro-Russia Smer-SSD party won the largest share of seats in Slovakia's parliament during weekend voting, vowing to cut off the country's support for Ukraine. Smer-SSD, led by former Prime Minister Robert Fico, led all other parties with 22.9% of the vote, official media reported. However it will need to form a coalition with other parties to form a government. The Hlas-SD party, led by Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini, finished in third place with about 14% while the Slovak National Party won 5.7% of the vote. Those three parties together will hold 81 seats in the 150-seat parliament, good for a six-seat majority should they agree to form a ruling coalition. The pro-European Progesivne slovensko, or PS, led by Michal Simecka, finished in second place with 18% of the vote. Fico recently told reporters that his party would completely end support of Ukraine against the invasion of Russia. Slovakia has supplied surface-to-air missiles, helicopters and fighter jets to Ukraine. "If Smer enters government, we will not send a single round of ammunition to Ukraine," Fico said, according to the BBC. Fico resigned as prime minister in 2018 following the murder of a journalist who was reporting on potential links between organized crime and government officials. He was among several Slovak politicians that 27-year-old Jan Kuciak named in his reporting. His fiancée, Martina Kušnírová, was also killed. Fico was congratulated by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. "Guess who's back! Congratulations to Robert Fico on his undisputable victory at the Slovak parliamentary elections," Orban wrote. "Always good to work together with a patriot. Looking forward to it!"

Slovak populists opposed to Ukraine aid win election
Agence France Presse/October 1, 2023
A populist party that wants to stop military aid to Ukraine and is critical of the EU and NATO has won Slovakia's election, results showed on Sunday. The Smer-SD party led by former prime minister Robert Fico scored 23.3 percent, beating the centrist Progressive Slovakia on 17 percent, with almost all votes counted. The 59-year-old Fico has vowed that Slovakia will not send "a single round of ammunition" to Ukraine and has called for better relations with Russia. Analysts predict a Fico government could radically change Slovakia's foreign policy to resemble that of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Smer is set to clinch 42 seats in the 150-member parliament and so will need coalition partners for a majority. The leftwing Hlas-SD, which emerged in 2020 when a group of Smer lawmakers quit Fico's party, is one potential partner, with an expected 27 seats. Hlas is led by Peter Pellegrini, who became Slovakia's premier in 2018 after Fico had to step down amid nationwide protests following the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee. Kuciak uncovered links between the Italian mafia and Fico's government in his last article published posthumously. Pellegrini told reporters it was not a good idea to have two former prime ministers in a single government, but "that doesn't mean such a coalition is impossible."Analyst Branislav Kovacik from Matej Bel University in the central city of Banska Bystrica told AFP he expected Pellegrini to join in a coalition. "He may not sit in the cabinet. He may become the parliament speaker, he already did that in the past and did a good job."The two parties could team up with the nationalist Slovak National Party (SNS), which is expected to win 10 seats, for a parliamentary majority of 79 seats. Fico already formed a government with the SNS, which is also opposed to military aid for Ukraine, twice in the past. Slovakia has been one of Europe's biggest donors to Ukraine as a share of its GDP. Slovak Defence Minister Martin Sklenar visited Kyiv just ahead of the vote, and on election day Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Slovakia for "standing with Ukraine".
Closer to Hungary'
"We must carefully listen to what Fico is very openly saying," independent analyst Grigorij Meseznikov told AFP. "He is spreading pro-Russian narratives and... that's a serious thing. It won't be so easy to make good on the threat, but... he will try, and we'll be closer to Hungary then," he added. Hungary is seen as a troublemaker in the EU, frequently criticised over rule-of-law issues and hampering EU and NATO efforts to help Ukraine. Slovakia's next parliament will also include the centrist OLaNO party of maverick former premier Igor Matovic, in office in 2020-2021, who got involved in a fistfight with a Smer member during the heated campaign. OLaNO led a three-party coalition that is set to win 16 seats. The centrist Christian Democrats and the right-wing SaS also garnered enough votes to have seats in parliament.
'The natural choice'
Voting for Smer in Bratislava, Eliska Spisakova said the party was "the natural choice for the working poor, people like me"."I have a high opinion of (Fico), he focuses mainly on the needs of us Slovaks," she told AFP. The election campaign was marked by particularly high rates of online disinformation, often targeting Progressive Slovakia chairman Michal Simecka, a European Parliament vice-speaker. A study by the Globsec think tank last year showed a majority of Slovaks believe popular conspiracy theories. Slovakia emerged as an independent country in 1993, following a peaceful split with the Czech Republic after Czechoslovakia shed four decades of totalitarian communist rule in 1989. Although many Slovaks have experience with the Moscow-steered communist regime, many have voted for populists who share Kremlin views.

Biden urges Congress to pass Ukraine aid after govt. shutdown deal
Agence France Presse/October 1, 2023
U.S. President Joe Biden has welcomed a deal to avert a government shutdown but called for Congress to swiftly approve aid to Ukraine after it was left out of the agreement. "We cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted," Biden said in a statement. "I fully expect the Speaker will keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment," he added, referring to Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy. Lawmakers must now wrangle on a separate bill on $24 billion in military assistance to Ukraine that Biden wanted in the budget, with a vote possible early next week, U.S. media reported. Hard-right Republicans had strongly opposed the inclusion of Ukraine aid in the deal, despite support for it from moderate Republicans, including McCarthy. Biden added that the deal to avert a shutdown was "good news for the American people" but added that "we should never have been in this position in the first place."

Ontario government expands list of ailments pharmacists can treat
The Canadian Press/October 1, 2023
TORONTO — Ontario has granted its pharmacists more prescribing powers.
The provincial government announced Sunday it was adding six conditions to the list of those that pharmacists can diagnose and treat, effective immediately, bringing the total to 19. "Pharmacist prescribing has been a huge success in our province. In less than one year, Ontario has become one of the leading jurisdictions in all of Canada in providing health care services through pharmacies," Health Minister Sylvia Jones said at a press conference at a drugstore in Toronto's west end. The province granted pharmacists prescribing power for 13 common ailments at the beginning of the year, and Jones said 89 per cent of pharmacists are now participating in the program. She said there have been 400,000 assessments across Ontario since the beginning of the initiative. The government first announced plans to expand pharmacists' prescribing powers in its March budget. It's added acne, canker sores and yeast infections to the list, along with nausea and vomiting related to pregnancy, diaper rash and parasitic worms such as pinworms and threadworms. Initially, pharmacists were granted the power to prescribe for ailments such as hay fever, oral thrush, pink eye, dermatitis, hemorrhoids and urinary tract infections. The prescribing program is a pillar of the province's plan to chip away at a massive health-care backlog. Jones said there's been some progress on that front, with surgical waitlists and the average time spent in an emergency room both on the decline. The Ministry of Health has also sought feedback on a plan to allow pharmacists to prescribe flu medication, administer flu shots to babies and administer RSV vaccines, when available, ahead of an expected fall viral surge. More controversially, the Progressive Conservative government passed a health reform bill back in May allowing more private clinics to offer certain publicly funded surgeries and procedures.

Iraq wedding fire caused by ‘gross negligence,’ government investigation says
Reuters/October 01/2023
BAGHDAD: A fire that swept through a crowded wedding hall in a northern Iraqi town killing more than 100 people was blamed on “gross negligence” and lack of safety measures, the results of a government investigation into the disaster said. The investigation results, announced at a news conference on Sunday by interior minister Abdul Amir Al-Shammari, said the owner of the hall and three other staff members had allowed 900 people into the venue when it was designed for a maximum of 400. “The fire was accidental and unintentional and occurred due to gross negligence,” the investigation findings said.
“Using flammable decoration helped the fire to spread quickly and transformed the hall to a fireball,” Shammari said. The blaze trapped people inside the wedding hall and rescue teams struggled to reach them because exit doors were few and small, Shammari said. At least 150 people were injured in the fire, which was in the Christian town of Hamdaniya — also known as Qaraqosh. The interior minister put the death toll at 107 and said the investigation panel had proposed that the government should provide financial support to families of the dead and injured. The investigation also made recommendations that legal action should be taken against local officials. Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani visited victims of the blaze at two local hospitals on Thursday and pledged to hold those responsible to account.

Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 01-02/2023
ريموند إبراهيم/معهدغيتستون/قائمة مفصلة بوقائع أضطهاد المسيحيين في العالم خلال شهر آب/2023/عندما يريدون القتل يقتلون
The Persecution of Christians, August 2023/’Whenever They Want to Kill, They Kill’
Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/October 01/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/122749/122749/
Muslims surrounded and murdered a Christian man. — newsintervention.com, August 22, 2023, Pakistan.
Around 2 a.m., Muslim Fulani herdsmen launched a raid—the third of its kind on the same Christian majority village where people were sleeping after a long day’s work. They slaughtered 21 villagers. — International Christian Concern, August 10, Nigeria.
“Nigeria’s Middle Belt region that has been rocked by violence with tens of thousands of Christians killed over the past 20 years.” — International Christian Concern, August 10, Nigeria.
Muslims began yelling “Away with him!” Others grabbed the microphone from the pastor and “started tearing off pages of the Bible and Christian literature.” Now, gathered together, the Muslims began stoning him. — Morning Star News, August 1, 2023, Uganda.
“Others were saying that Allah has granted to them authority to kill all infidels. Another Muslim sprayed what looked like acid [on Pastor Robert], while another hit him with a thorny object and stepped on the evangelist’s back and the stomach.” — Eyewitness, Morning Star News, August 23, 2023, Uganda.
“[I]nfidels” cannot “preach in this town or come and mislead our people here… We are going to fight in the cause of Allah to kill all of you.” — Sheikh Hiisa Mubaraka, Morning Star News, August 23, 2023, Uganda.
“There is an ongoing Genocide against 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh.
The blockade of the Lachin Corridor by the Azerbaijani security forces impeding access to any food, medical supplies, and other essentials should be considered a Genocide under Article II, (c) of the Genocide Convention: ‘Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.'” — Luis Moreno Ocampo, former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, concerning Artsakh, an ancient Christian region under Azerbaijani control, August 4, 2023, Azerbaijan.
“Starvation is the invisible Genocide weapon. Without immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks.” — Luis Moreno Ocampo, August 4, 2023, Azerbaijan.
“[T]he neighbors told her that they should let her [teenage] daughter marry their son so that she could convert to Islam and be led from the ‘delusion of their faith to the true religion,’ but if she refuses to convert, they have the right to do whatever they wish to her daughter.” — International Christian Concern, August 11, 2023, Egypt.
During a Muslim demonstration against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, on Sunday, Aug. 27, in Vienna, Austria, a man, armed with two hammers, smashed and destroyed the new glass door of Saint Stephan’s Cathedral. Pictured: Saint Stephan’s Cathedral.
The following are among the murders and abuses inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of August 2023.
Muslim Attacks on Christian Churches
Pakistan: All hell broke loose on Aug. 18, after some Christians were accused—falsely, it was quickly revealed—of desecrating a Koran in Jaranwala. Thousands of enraged Muslims rampaged against the region’s Christians, prompting hundreds to flee their homes. Among other damage, the rioting Muslims set 25 churches aflame, destroyed or damaged 400 Christian homes, and desecrated at least one Christian cemetery. According to the Rev. Deacon Daud Irshad:
“I saw with tears in my eyes how the mob desecrated crosses on the roofs of the churches and in graveyards and ruined church buildings. They burnt so many Bibles and altars… The condition in Pakistan is very bad… So much hatred, jealousy, envy and enmity from the Muslims towards Christians. It seems that we Christians are like animals to them. Whenever they want to kill, they kill, and whenever they want to spare, they give free hand.”
Separately, on Aug. 3—nearly two weeks before the above false blasphemy pretext had arisen, several armed Muslims raided Lala Zarr Church in Peshawar during worship service. They opened fire inside the church, causing damage, although no fatalities. They also dragged Pastor Zulfiqar Gill across the floor and beat him with the butts of their rifles.
Kenya: On Aug. 22, a gang of Muslims connected to the Somali terrorist group Al Shabaab (“the youth”) torched a church and eight homes in Salama Village. Discussing the destruction caused to his church, Pastor Peter Muthengi of Salama Redeemed Gospel Church said:
“I had speakers, chairs and many other items inside my church, all of which have been reduced to ashes. I lost property worth Sh300,000. I appeal to the government to find a permanent solution to the insecurity incidents in this place. We’re tired of these recurrent attacks.”
Later that day, the same terrorists killed two truck drivers by slitting their throats.
Indonesia: In the first of three incidents of Muslim hostility to churches, on Aug. 2, a Christian congregation — after getting all the necessary, and exhausting-to-obtain, permits to build a church, and after raising the necessary funds, and, finally, after building the church — “suddenly faced a new problem”:
“The road to their church building was unexpectedly closed off by a wall, making access to their new building nearly impossible…. This has made it very difficult for church members to reach the church building since the alternative roads are impassable due to large holes and other obstructions.”
Then, on Aug. 9, in a separate incident, about 30 Muslims “used hammers and clubs to break huge holes in the walls” of a Pentecostal church under construction in Kabil village. The attackers claimed the church did not have a permit to exist, which the report characterizes as “a common tactic by hard-line Muslims in Indonesia where applications for permits are ignored or denied and carry onerous requirements.”
In fact, “the church had a letter allowing the construction from the Batam Free Zone Authority,” said its pastor. Even so, apparently to appease the Muslim rioters, authorities reached an agreement “stipulating that construction of the church building would be halted until a permit is issued”—although the chance of that ever happening has now enormously diminished.
Finally, on Sunday, Aug. 6, Muslims protested against a group of Christians for holding a church service in a warehouse, and further told them to forget about constructing a church building nearby. The Muslims held signs saying that they “sternly refuse worship activities that are in violation of government regulations.”
Cyprus: Plans to convert an ancient monastery into a mosque in the Turkish-occupied north of Cyprus were described as “rubbing salt in the island’s sectarian wounds.” According to an Aug. 20 report:
“An announcement late last month of a proposal by local Islamic groups to build a Muslim prayer centre (masjid) on the grounds of the Apostolos Andreas Monastery sparked national outrage…
“Cyprus has been divided for almost half a century following Turkey’s invasion of the island in 1974, which led to the establishment of the puppet state of the Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognised only by Ankara… The occupation of Cyprus is a major sticking point in EU-Turkish relations and one of the many reasons for Turkey’s famously stalled application to join the EU.
“A local bishop has condemned plans to build a permanent Islamic prayer centre on the grounds of the monastery, which is currently undergoing restoration work. According to the bishop, Turkish officials have already moved Islamic prayer mats into the monastery without consulting with monks and are preparing for the long-term construction of a mosque on site.
“The move has stirred up very recent historical memories on the island, where an estimated 550 Greek Orthodox monasteries, churches, and chapels were desecrated following the Turkish invasion, with many Christians forced to flee the northern half of the island for fear of persecution.”
Also in August, a Turkish man videotaped himself walking around the same Apostolos Andreas Monastery while reciting the Islamic shehada—”There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His messenger” — and harassing an elderly priest.
Sweden: A Muslim migrant videotaped himself attacking Holy Family Catholic Parish in south Stockholm. He smashed a window with a hurled stone, while shouting “I’m going to rape Jesus,” and “Sweden, I’m going to f*ck Jesus in there now. Allahu Akbar!” Afterwards, “Fares Aziz” uploaded the video to TikTok.
Austria: During a Muslim demonstration against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, on Sunday, Aug. 27, in Stephansplatz , Vienna, a man, armed with two hammers, smashed and destroyed the new glass door of Saint Stephen’s Cathedral. Police, who were already present in large numbers, were able to arrest the man as he left the cathedral anteroom. However, they would not reveal his nationality. The report adds that the man was likely “suffering from psychosis.” The Cathedral priest, Toni Faber, said, “We are of course horrified.”
Italy: In broad daylight, on Aug. 17, a “foreign” looking man “threw himself” against a church and started attacking it with a “fury that explodes suddenly, blindly.” A video of the incident is available here. Another report states:
“Yet another case of intolerance on the part of a migrant against the symbols of the Catholic religion . The latest episode was recorded in Turin, right in the center, where a foreigner threw heavy stones against the portal of the church of San Carlo Borromeo…. Some passers-by filmed the scene and from the recorded images the man can be heard inappropriate sentences against Christians [such as ‘F*cking Christians!’]….
“First, the stranger threw various objects and then, having found a boulder, he vented all his anger against the windows. The fury with which the foreigner attacks the church is blind. An unprecedented violence that is filmed from afar by passers-by, terrified of being attacked with the same vehemence themselves…. San Carlo, moreover, is one of the most important religious buildings in Turin, a 17th century building…
“Those present immediately raised the alarm and the police arrived on the scene, managing to disarm the man and make the square safe again. The foreigner was immobilized on the ground waiting for the arrival of an ambulance, which then transferred him to hospital…. For the moment there is no news about his identity or his status in the area, but what is impressive is the violence with which he attacked a symbol of Christianity.
“It is not the first case of this type, either in Italy or abroad. These types of attacks are increasingly frequent: in France…[and] last January in Spain. The sexton was killed and the perpetrator was identified as a 30-year-old Moroccan man, under investigation for terrorism . Phenomena of this type are spreading, without there currently being a concrete possibility of stopping them, due to the growing number of followers of extreme Islam who arrive in Europe mixed among illegal immigrants.”
Muslim Slaughter of and Violence against Christians
Pakistan: Muslims surrounded and murdered a Christian man: “[A]nother Christian man has been killed by a mob of Islamic fundamentalists in Sheikhpura Punjab, Pakistan. A viral video…shows a frenzied mob targeting a man named Malik Ijaz, while the gunshots could be heard in the background. The mob barged into his house and vandalized it. They looted and threw the belongings on the road. Later, Ijaz was shot dead. In addition, a church was also desecrated by the radical Islamists belonging to Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP). They also inscribed phrases related to Allah and Prophet, on the walls of the Church. The erasure of which could potentially incite another blasphemy case.”
Nigeria: A few of the incidents in August of the genocide of Christians include:
Aug. 9: Muslim terrorists killed a Christian woman, Gloria Isa, as she slept at her home. Aug. 23: Muslim gunmen “shot to death” the Rev. Jeremiah Mayau, a 61-year-old pastor of a Baptist church. According to a press statement, “The incident occurred when the cleric was [working] on his farm. It was barbaric.”
Aug 10: Around 2 a.m., Muslim Fulani herdsmen launched a raid—the third of its kind on the same Christian majority village where people were sleeping after a long day’s work. They slaughtered 21 villagers. According to the report: “The Heipang community has lost more than 100 villagers in attacks over the past two decades, with no arrests. Villagers in Heipang and Mangu blame radicalized Fulani militants and herders for causing the attacks on the mostly Christian farming communities. They say the government is complicit and unable to prevent the attacks – a common thread in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region that has been rocked by violence with tens of thousands of Christians killed over the past 20 years.”
Aug. 3: Muslim gunmen abducted two church ministers from their homes in Niger State, Paul Sanogo and a seminarian named Melchior. Uganda: Rioting Muslims stoned a pastor unconscious during the funeral of a former Muslim turned Christian. While officiating, Pastor Davidson Okirori, 39, cited the Koran, the Hadith, and the Bible, in order “to witness the love of Christ to Muslims who had gathered at the funeral,” he later said from a hospital bed (where he was recovering from wounds to his head, back and arms):
“I heard a young man shouting, ‘You kafir [infidel], stop misleading us—if you came to bury your people, bury them, but don’t use the Koran without getting ablution. This is blasphemy to our Allah!'”
Muslims began yelling “Away with him!” Others grabbed the microphone from the pastor and “started tearing off pages of the Bible and Christian literature.” Now, gathered together, the Muslims began stoning him:
“They were throwing stones where I was standing, and one hit my head and I fell down. A Muslim man hit me with an object on my mouth, and from there I do not know what happened again. I found myself in Mulago Hospital with blood all over my body and my clothes.”
The report concludes:
“Christians outnumbering the Muslims at the funeral managed to restrain the assailants, who seized the Koran and Hadiths and took them to their nearby mosque, chanting the jihadist slogan, ‘Allahu Akbar [Allah is the greatest], we have won, we have won.'”
Separately, on Aug. 11, Muslims thrashed another preacher and 20 other Christians at an open-air evangelistic event. After Pastor Robert Faisali Miya cited Koran verses that “acknowledge the uniqueness of Christ,” Muslims began chanting the jihadist slogan, “Allah Akbar [Allah is greatest],” and a Muslim sheikh, Hiisa Mubaraka, ran to the podium and knocked the evangelist down. According to an eyewitness,
“Others were saying that Allah has granted to them authority to kill all infidels. Another Muslim sprayed what looked like acid [on Pastor Robert], while another hit him with a thorny object and stepped on the evangelist’s back and the stomach.”
The sheikh continued crying aloud that “infidels” cannot “preach in this town or come and mislead our people here… We are going to fight in the cause of Allah to kill all of you.” He also told the about 20 Muslims in attendance “to destroy church properties.” According to the report:
“Christians who tried to rescue the evangelist were injured as Muslims beat them and [Pastor Robert] Miya with walking sticks, while other Muslims damaged the podium, loudspeakers, microphones, public address system and keyboard…The Christians eventually overpowered the Muslim assailants, who retreated to a nearby mosque as the event organizers rushed the evangelist to a nearby clinic…. More than 20 Christians were injured on their heads, while others had broken hands.”
France: On Sunday morning, Aug. 6, in Marseille, six people described as of “North African appearance,” attacked and robbed one of four French citizens in what appeared to be an anti-Christian hate crime. Prior to the assault, one of the Muslims, on seeing two baptismal medallions around the necks of one of the Frenchmen, said: “Hey, you have that chain—are you a Christian?” An affirmative answer was immediately followed by a violent punch to the chest and the medallions torn off. The report notes that the assailants sped without bothering to steal “their victims’ watches or mobile phones.”
General Muslim Persecution of Christians
Azerbaijan: While discussing the situation in Artsakh, an ancient Christian region under Azerbaijani control, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, said on Aug. 7:
“There is an ongoing Genocide against 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh.
“The blockade of the Lachin Corridor by the Azerbaijani security forces impeding access to any food, medical supplies, and other essentials should be considered a Genocide under Article II, (c) of the Genocide Convention: ‘Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.’
“There are no crematories, and there are no machete attacks. Starvation is the invisible Genocide weapon. Without immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks.
“Starvation as a method to destroy people was neglected by the entire international community when it was used against Armenians in 1915, Jews and Poles in 1939, Russians in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) in 1941, and Cambodians in 1975/1976.”
Egypt: In an Aug. 12 post, Sameh ‘Asker, a secular author and activist, discussed the long history of and methodology behind the abduction and forced conversion of Christian women and girls in Egypt. After rhetorically asking, “So, how are things now after 10 years of revolutions?” the Egyptian analyst answered:
“More sectarian incidents in Upper Egypt, and organizations dedicated to Islamizing Coptic women and ignite sectarian strife—without the arrest of a single sheikh or leader in this realm of savagery…. I repeat my warning of sectarian strife [overwhelming] Egypt soon, behind which stand Salafist organizations and preachers on the Internet claiming that they convert Copts to Islam. They specifically target girls and women for social reasons, as they are the weakest link through which the Salafists control the church and impose their conditions on the Copts.”
A separate Aug. 11 report discusses the constant “pressures” that Christians, especially impoverished ones, experience to convert to Islam from surrounding Muslims:
“These pressures sometimes come in the form of financial offers, marriage proposals, or even blatant accusations and framing for crimes they did not commit. Christian widows or Christian girls whose father has passed away are even more vulnerable to the external pressures to abandon their Christian faith and access the socioeconomic support that comes with converting to Islam.”
The report goes on to offer a recent example concerning a Christian widow and her teenage daughter:
“After the death of her husband, this brave woman continued to operate their family community grocery market. However, their neighbor’s son began harassing her teenage daughter. When she confronted her neighbor about the matter and respectfully appealed for them not to take advantage of her, the neighbors told her that they should let her daughter marry their son so that she could convert to Islam and be led from the ‘delusion of their faith to the true religion,’ but if she refuses to convert, they have the right to do whatever they wish to her daughter. Fearful for both her and her daughter’s life, future, and dignity, she was forced to relocate to a new area.”
Finally, an August report published by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom explored the situation of Christian and other minorities in Egypt and concluded that Egypt should be placed on the U.S. Special Watch List for engaging in or tolerating severe violations of religious freedom.
“[S]ystematic restrictions on freedom of religion or belief remain in place in Egypt, including actively enforced blasphemy laws, non-recognition of certain religious communities, and severe restrictions on religious expression. State security and the courts continue to arbitrarily detain and prosecute religious freedom advocates and members of religious minorities. Further, some government initiatives that appear to address specific religious minorities’ concerns have not significantly advanced religious freedom for Egyptians of all religious backgrounds…. As such, USCIRF maintains its recommendation that the U.S. Department of State place Egypt on the Special Watch List for engaging in or tolerating severe violations of religious freedom. The U.S. government should actively leverage its robust bilateral relationship with Egypt to encourage the Egyptian government to take additional steps—especially those affecting legal frameworks and judicial processes—toward ensuring religious freedom. As a country that has demonstrated an interest in making improvements, Egypt is well positioned to go beyond cosmetic gestures toward religious tolerance’ and make systemic changes to its laws and criminal justice system that significantly advance religious freedom for all Egyptians…”
*Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West, Sword and Scimitar, Crucified Again, and The Al Qaeda Reader, is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
*About this Series
While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians by extremists is growing. The report posits that such persecution is not random but rather systematic, and takes place irrespective of language, ethnicity, or location. It includes incidents that take place during, or are reported on, any given month.
© 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.

Negotiators get their turn as Nagorno-Karabakh’s demise approaches
Yasar Yakis/Arab News/October 01, 2023
President Samvel Shahramanian on Thursday signed a decree to dissolve all state institutions of the self-declared Republic of Artsakh — aka Nagorno-Karabakh — as of Jan. 1, 2024.
Against the backdrop of this news, the number of arrivals in Armenia from the region reached 65,000, which is more than half of the population. Their departure followed a short military flare-up that took place two weeks ago, when Armenian forces intensified their placement of land mines in the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as being part of Azerbaijan.
Other complicated international transactions took place in the meantime. The US authorities agreed to the release of €7.5 billion ($7.9 billion) of Iran’s blocked assets. In exchange for this gesture, Iran issued a statement saying that, “if Armenia is attacked, we will become part of the conflict.” It seems that something is brewing between Iran and Armenia at America’s behest. This was preceded by a joint military exercise between the US and Armenia. Washington is probably planning to use Armenia as a tool to put additional pressure on Russia in the Ukrainian war.
Whether it is unrelated or not, Armenian militants had intensified their military activities in the border area between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan proper. The Azeri authorities warned several times that such activities would not be allowed in a territory that is part of Azerbaijan.
Russian President Vladimir Putin may have sensed the US move and issued a message saying that “Karabakh is an Azerbaijani territory.”
Hopefully, the ultimate aim of the US will not be to push Turkiye, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh into a multilateral dispute. Foreseeing such an eventuality, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week proposed convening a quadrilateral meeting that would include himself, Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
When the Azerbaijani forces launched a successful anti-terrorist action two weeks ago, the military clashes took only one day. The next day, Karabakh Armenians held a meeting early in the morning and signaled that they agreed to the cessation of hostilities. They also agreed to be integrated into Azerbaijan. The negotiations will probably start soon. In fact, as they are Azerbaijani citizens, there will be no problem integrating them into the Azerbaijani population. They will benefit from the advantages of a prosperous Azerbaijan.
Demonstrators gathered in front of the government office in the Armenian capital Yerevan shouted slogans accusing the government of not being able to defend the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh and called for Pashinyan’s resignation. Demonstrators have also attacked the Russian Embassy in Yerevan. Pashinyan said he had received threats both from inside and outside the country.
Azerbaijan reportedly plans to give full citizenship status to every Armenian who lived in the region before 1992.
A former politician from Nagorno-Karabakh, Artak Beglaryan, wrote on social media: “Azerbaijan army blocked our defense in less than one day. A number of the strategically important positions fell in the hands of the Azerbaijani army. Most important was that the Armenians lost control of the key positions on the roads to Stepanakert. Therefore, trying to resist would have caused more casualties. What is important now is for the Armenian fighters is to draw lessons from what happened and secure the lives of the Karabakh Armenians.”
During the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War of 2020, the Azerbaijani army drew a circle around the seven provinces it liberated. In April this year, the Azerbaijani army took under its control the Lachin Corridor that used to link Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh. It was evident that weapons and ammunition were smuggled into the region under the noses of the Russian peacekeeping forces.
Independent observers believe that, when Azerbaijan’s recent anti-terror operation started, Armenian militiamen had stocks of food and ammunition that would only last for 10 days. In other words, the resistance of the Karabakh Armenians was always going to collapse sooner rather than later.
After the military clashes came to an end, the Karabakh Armenians proposed a ceasefire agreement composed of four articles. Firstly, all Armenian soldiers who stayed in the region after the 2020 war would be withdrawn. No Armenian soldier would be left in the region under the Russian peacekeeping force. Secondly, all weapons in the hands of the Nagorno-Karabakh administration would be collected and the military forces disbanded. Thirdly, all heavy weapons would be collected, taken out of the region and destroyed. And, finally, negotiations between the Nagorno-Karabakh administration and the Azerbaijani government would begin on Sept. 21 and the integration of the Karabakh people into Azerbaijan would be initiated.
There were about 130,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh at the time. The Azerbaijani authorities reportedly plan to give full citizenship status to every Armenian who lived in the region before 1992. Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanyan admitted the reality and added that the ethnic Armenian population may well continue their existence in Nagorno-Karabakh under the Azerbaijani administration.
The Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement pointing out that a comprehensive ceasefire had been secured in the area under its command and it would be implemented under the surveillance of its peacekeeping force. This may have been part of a Russian plan to dissolve the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The centuries-old hostility between Azerbaijanis and Armenians may not fade away overnight but, with goodwill on both sides, their strained relations may become smoother as time goes by.
One thing that is for certain is that it is now the turn of negotiators, not guns.
*Yasar Yakis is a former foreign minister of Turkiye and founding member of the ruling AK Party. X: @yakis_yasar

How societies can confront disinformation campaigns
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/October 01, 2023
One of the biggest challenges that each individual and society faces is detecting and dealing with the prevalence of false information in the world today.
The spread of false information comes in two forms. If incorrect information is spread knowingly, with an intention to misstate facts and mislead people, it is called disinformation. But if it is unintentional, it is referred to as misinformation. Nevertheless, the outcome of both disinformation and misinformation appears to be the same.
As a result, it is critical to find ways to counter all forms of disinformation and misinformation, including conspiracy theories, fake news, doctored photos, manipulated audios and videos, and scams. The emergence of deep-fake technology and artificial intelligence has exacerbated this issue due to the fact that they make it easier to spread inaccurate information and make it seem real, credible and legitimate.
Often, bots, fake accounts and people who unknowingly share false information make disinformation spread much more rapidly. In other words, the ripple effects of sharing false information should not be underestimated. The reach of disinformation can be increased exponentially when people with large online followings endorse or share it. In addition, what makes the distribution of false information so fast is people’s easy access to online content, particularly through mobile devices.
The spread of misinformation and disinformation can have several consequences. First of all, infodemics can negatively impact people’s decision-making when it comes to their health, subsequently impacting their nation’s healthcare system. “Incorrect interpretations of health information, which increase during outbreaks and disasters, often negatively impact people’s mental health and increase vaccine hesitancy, and can delay the provision of healthcare,” a review by the World Health Organization noted. It added that the spread of “unreliable evidence on health topics amplifies vaccine hesitancy and promotes unproven treatments.”
Misinformation about climate change, which is funneled into distorting and opposing scientific research and findings, is one of the major obstacles to the world taking concrete and meaningful action to tackle the climate crisis. This is due to the fact that unified and collective measures are required to resolve the negative impacts of climate change. If there is division and discord, the task becomes much more difficult.
On a larger scale, the dissemination of false information and news can be a threat to a country’s national security. In the last few years, many malicious groups have attempted to affect the political process in certain nations. These entities launch disinformation campaigns by spreading dishonest or fake news on popular social media outlets, which have hundreds of millions of users. They also generate and disseminate fabricated headlines and videos, while propagating inaccurate pictures. Terror and militia groups also rely on spreading disinformation to recruit members.
The emergence of deep-fake technology and artificial intelligence has exacerbated this issue.
Using propaganda in an attempt to influence people for political and financial gain has also become common. Perpetrators try to undermine and erode people’s confidence and trust in state institutions and norms, create deep divisions and discord, inflict damage on other nations’ internal politics and ultimately shape the political discourse in a way that advances their own ideological and geopolitical interests.
Some of the major social media outlets that have been used to spread disinformation are X and Facebook. These outlets have banned many accounts in recent years for engaging in inauthentic behavior, including spreading propaganda and disinformation in many countries. Unfortunately, some people are all too willing to naively, or perhaps even maliciously, lap up every shred of misinformation and augment every iota of propaganda. Some groups that are behind disinformation campaigns may also attempt to manipulate the media, which could damage the reputation and integrity of long-established outlets. This should be of concern to all reputable media outlets.
Misinformation and disinformation prevent the progress and advancement of a healthy and viable civic society. While raising awareness about every misinformation campaign is critical, one effective and long-term approach that could be used to counter disinformation is to increase media, digital and news literacy among the population. This should include teaching people, preferably from a young age, how to verify the legitimacy of any information and check its sources.
If every individual learns that one of their responsibilities is to check the legitimacy and accuracy of the information they read, then society will become more resilient to disinformation campaigns. Reading various sources and perspectives also helps with detecting false information. Not everything that is written or broadcast online should be accepted as legitimate.
Promoting professional and independent journalism, which relies on high-quality analysis and reports, is also critical to fighting false information. Some people may prefer to read the work of professional, investigative and independent journalists or experts. Also, social media outlets and tech companies must develop a system that detects false information and makes it extremely difficult for those who intend to spread disinformation to easily sign up, spread inaccurate information and monetize their channels. In addition, large news outlets ought to spot and expose false information.
Journalists, scholars, technology companies, engineers, policy analysts and politicians can cooperate with each other and set up an institution to effectively detect and reverse-engineer these kinds of actions and behaviors. Finally, it is incumbent on the international community to combat widespread global misinformation campaigns.
In a nutshell, enhancing media and digital literacy in society and promoting high-quality journalism should be two of the core pillars in any effort to combat disinformation campaigns and attempt to shape a society that is educated and instinctively resilient to efforts to spread false information.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. X: @Dr_Rafizadeh

Europe’s internal ruptures need urgent repair
Dr. Theodore Karasik/Arab News/October 01, 2023
Europe’s unity is an important question, especially in the face of today’s regional and global challenges. Never before has the continent faced such a myriad of threats and problems. While a wall of weapons will now be built from Finland to the Balkans to halt Russia, how the politics of the continent works in the near future becomes salient.
There is no “United Europe,” really, and the situation needs to be repaired by the stakeholders. Across a spectrum of interests, the European continent is facing not only a long-term threat from Russia and its campaign in Ukraine, but also beyond to the political, economic and social pressures that affect each state. Ongoing processes and long-term consequences need to be thought about.
Currently, European unity is strong at the security level, and rightfully so, but the European states must remain united in the face of the ongoing confrontation with Russia. Thanks to NATO, the ability of the continent to pull together the force structure that helps to empower Ukrainian operations against the Russian occupation of its lands is a net positive, for now. The process of arming Ukraine has been lengthy, with much haggling over European contributions to Kyiv, including how quickly and from whom. Turkiye has shown how important it is to the new construct. The negotiations have been frustrating for Kyiv, which sees European unity and the continent generally as its savior.
But there are problems within Europe itself that will test the continent’s unity on the security front, with energy, climate change and social grievances falling under this mantle. The continent’s scholars and policymakers arguing their narratives about what they call “a broken security paradigm” is leading to a major intellectual error in how Europe approaches Russia. Moscow is expanding everywhere right now, including partnering with North Korea. It is as if they are unaware of how history works on the continent, where two world wars have already been fought. The necessity to use a security prism across many domains is key right now.
It is vital to recognize the importance of security’s superior place in keeping European states focused on the key issues of today: war with Russia until at least 2024, climate change and energy evolution. These are important for their near-term stability. France and Germany are two European countries that stand out as being subject to internal debates over policy, while pro-Russian states such as Hungary and Serbia face European pressures but continue to challenge the continent’s unity. Kosovo is a hot button issue that could erupt. Moreover, to Europe’s south, North Africa continues to destabilize, especially in the wake of the devastating earthquake in Morocco and flood disaster in Libya.
There are problems within Europe itself that will test the continent’s unity on the security front.
Then there is the island of Britain, no longer part of the EU, which has risen to be a major driver in keeping its European neighbors on the same page regarding helping Kyiv. Brexit-affected Russian calculations regarding Ukraine continue to have consequences and now a Eurocentric view of what is happening on the battlefield is prominent, ignoring the viewpoints of other major countries, such as the increasingly global Gulf powers. European narratives pollute the media space and create opportunities for hostile actors.
Issues outside Europe can affect its internal political landscape. Canada’s honoring of a former German SS official in its parliament last week shocked Europeans. The Canadian parliament is supposed to represent liberal democracy and the German ambassador standing up and applauding an actual member of the SS was not just some embarrassing or exceptional incident, but a sign of political degeneration and perhaps worse to come. The apologies from the speaker, the prime minister and others ring hollow, as they do not in any way actually acknowledge the significance of paying tribute to a member of the Waffen-SS as a war hero in a country that fought on the allied side during the Second World War. This type of stunt is costly for Ukraine’s efforts in the European political context and shows how Canada is woven into the European fight to stop Russia.
This Canadian event came after Polish-Ukrainian fighting over food security issues between the two countries — a dispute that made Moscow salivate at their divisions. Russia wants European fragmentation at all costs and, in the current milieu, there are ample disputes that Moscow can use to push its agenda in areas outside of Ukraine, such as key countries in Africa.
European exceptionalism during this period of geostrategic change is a double-edged sword: it is beneficial to fill gaps, yet mistaken if suffering from a superiority complex. The EU and other continental organizations are putting forward opportunities for potential positive change. When attitudes of dominance in policy enter the picture because of certain agendas, then useful policy actions become less likely. This factor plays out in negotiations over climate change, economic policy, sanctions actions and new logistical lines for a changing world. The EU needs to conduct necessary land and farm reforms before it can invite Ukraine into the organization. Fighting over this agricultural aspect is a major food security issue, in which endless debate delays necessary European action.
There are also divergences on policy on China. Germany and France disagree on their China policies and what to do with Beijing’s interests in Europe. China has stakes in more than 20 ports on the continent, showing Europeans that they have not paid attention to Beijing’s business prowess relating to logistics requirements.
Europe needs to wake up to its weaknesses. America is facing an election next year and is undergoing stresses and strains that reverberate across the Atlantic. Importantly, Europe has pulled itself together on the security front for the current and future challenges concerning Russia, but it remains divided on what comes next and how each state on the continent maintains their social welfare during the coming economic and climate change challenges.
*Dr. Theodore Karasik is a senior adviser to Gulf State Analytics in Washington. X: @KarasikTheodore

Abbas and Netanyahu left the UN with no hopes of peace anytime soon
Yossi Mekelberg/Arab News/October 01/2023
Many question the purpose of the annual pilgrimage to the UN General Assembly every autumn, as leaders descend on the landmark building on Manhattan’s 1st Ave. to deliver a 15-minute speech which, contrary to the organization’s charter, hardly leads to any improvement in the state of international affairs or the human condition.
One of the issues that has occupied much of the UN’s attention over the past 75 years has been the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the organization has had very little success in terms of resolving it.
For the better part of the past two decades, it has been Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who speaks on Israel’s behalf and President Mahmoud Abbas who represents the Palestinians, two leaders who are long past the zenith of their power and competence.
This year, as in many previous years, Netanyahu’s speech was characterized by an arrogance sprinkled with considerable delusional elements, while Abbas came across in his address as desperate and powerless. Each blamed the other for the current impasse between them, with no self-reflection on their own considerable contributions to this sorry state of affairs; although it might be naive to expect either leader to have honed this important human skill.
What is staggering on such occasions is that the speakers, and not only Abbas and Netanyahu, act as if the world is completely oblivious to what is happening in their own political backyard. In the case of these two, they preside, loosely speaking, over societies that are enduring a deep sociopolitical crisis which, to a large extent, derives not only from the long history of the conflict between their peoples but also from their own failed leadership over many years.
And there is another element that characterizes both of these leaders: They are in denial about the indisputable fact that they are in the twilight of their political careers and have little credibility or legitimacy, among their own people or abroad. Furthermore, they completely fail to recognize that they are a major cause of the problems faced by their respective nations and so can hardly be part of the solution.
Between the two of them, it was rather obvious that it is the Israeli leader who most cherishes this occasion on the world stage, even if he spoke to a nearly empty chamber. Meanwhile his Palestinian counterpart stood before the world’s leaders with little faith that deliverance from his people’s predicament of living under occupation, siege and exile would come from this forum.
It is no secret that when it comes to sympathy and empathy, the Palestinians are receiving a great deal from large sections of the global community, but it is doing hardly anything to change the situation.
Despite a plea by Abbas to the UN membership to follow the organization’s own resolutions — there are many hundreds of them, and international law is utterly logical — he knows that given the current international conditions, the vast majority of UN members who would like to see an end to the Israeli occupation, and with it the daily violations of basic human rights of millions of Palestinians, fall into one of two groups. Either they believe it is no longer possible to bring about a two-state solution, do not think it is worth investing in and are playing a waiting game for radical changes, in both Israel and Palestine, in terms of leadership and approach to resolving their conflict before they are prepared to actively return to this toxic environment; or they have simply become apathetic and desensitized to the Palestinians’ predicament at a time when there are other, more pressing international issues to attend to.
Netanyahu’s attempt to act as statesman before the UN General Assembly was less than convincing.
There is hardly disagreement about the ills of the occupation and the fact that consecutive Israeli administrations have done their utmost to destroy the prospect of a two-state solution by entrenching the occupation though the illegal building and expansion of settlements, packing them with hundreds of thousands of Israelis, and establishing an apartheid regime in the West Bank.
However, people also know that Abbas has already exceeded by 16 years the term in office he was elected for, and hardly enjoys legitimacy even among his own people. It could be argued that his greatest contribution to the Palestinian cause would have been to announce to the General Assembly that not only was he now resigning, but in the process would be dismantling the Palestinian Authority and handing back responsibility for the security and welfare of the Palestinian people to the international community and the occupying force.
While for Abbas, relations with Israel are naturally the be-all and end-all, Netanyahu has always had the luxury, at least in his own mind, of marginalizing and being dismissive of the issue. Instead, he loves to play-act a charade of being the visionary world leader, discussing a range of issues, from global security to artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, his credibility dwindles as he faces protests wherever he goes and leads a government that is abhorred internationally.
In one passage of his speech, he revealed what he is scheming at when it comes to the Palestinians. His path to settling the conflict with them is to first normalize relations with the rest of the Arab world and as a result, according to him, the Palestinians will “finally embrace a path of genuine peace.”
In Netanyahu’s mind, this scenario will allow Israel to dictate the conditions of any future peace agreement, which will fall considerably short of creating a fully-fledged independent Palestinian state with a contiguous territory. At best it will be a state the survival of which depends on the mercy and good will of Israel.
While Washington and Riyadh remain cautious about the possibility of normalized relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, Netanyahu is overplaying this card as if it were a done deal.
In his precarious political situation in Israel — where protests against the government have been taking place continuously for 38 weeks now, and his far-right partners in the coalition government are not smart enough to understand the strategic value of normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia for the long-term security and well-being of the Jewish state, or too zealous to accept any concessions to the Palestinians to achieve this goal — Netanyahu’s attempt to act as statesman before the UN General Assembly was less than convincing.
As the speeches by Abbas and Netanyahu only underlined, this is an asymmetric conflict and that is a major factor that is preventing a fair and just resolution, as one side holds most, if not all, of the cards. It is therefore for the international community to correct this imbalance.
Until the world’s leaders are ready to do so, by embarking on a concerted effort to bring the sides together to negotiate peace in earnest, which after all is why the UN was established in the first place, the prospects for a peaceful resolution will remain as remote as ever.
*Yossi Mekelberg is professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House. He is a regular contributor to the international written and electronic media. X: @YMekelberg