by dailystar.com.lb — Emily Lewis — BEIRUT: Caretaker Energy Minister Nada Boustani Monday awarded Lebanese company ZR Energy the contract for importing 150,000 tons of gasoline on behalf of the state to avoid a fuel crisis, after the announcement was delayed a week. ZR Energy offered to provide 95 octane gasoline at market price, plus $38.90 per ton, with a fee of $0.80 for discharge at any additional port. The caretaker minister was originally set to announce the winning bid on Dec. 2, but decided to postpone the conclusion of the bidding by a week to “allow more competition,” after only two companies submitted offers. Three companies had submitted bids to the state tender by Monday: ZR Energy, Lebneft FZE and Oman Trading International. A fourth company, which Boustani did not identify, also submitted a bid but did not provide the correct documents as outlined in the book of terms. Boustani had published the book of terms and opened the offers live on television in an effort to “increase transparency.”

Oman Trading International offered to provide gasoline at market rate, plus $46.80 and $1 for discharge at an additional port, while Lebneft FZE offered $39.36 with $0.75 for an additional port. The 150,000 tons make up around 10 percent of Lebanon’s annual gasoline consumption. According to the minister, this first attempt to hold tenders for the state to import gasoline was a “trial run” to decide whether the state could in the future be responsible for purchasing a larger share of Lebanon’s fuel needs. “Congratulations to the winning company and to the Lebanese people, the state has entered the market,” Boustani said after she announced the winning offer put forward by ZR Energy.

ZR Energy, registered in Dubai, is owned by Lebanese businessmen Teddy and Raymond Rahme, who founded the ZR Group in 2005 and are stakeholders in several Lebanese banks. Raymond Rahme is implicated in a U.S. lawsuit involving the death of American businessman and arms dealer Dale Stoffel in 2004 in Iraq, where he allegedly acted as a middle man between Iraqi Defense Ministry officials and Stoffel’s company. The $25 million paid to Rahme’s Lebanese account by Iraqi officials was never transferred to Stoffel, who was assassinated on Dec. 8, 2004. Rahme is also implicated in a lawsuit filed by Kuwaiti logistics firm Agility and French telecoms company Orange for the misappropriation of millions of dollars. The Daily Star could not reach Rahme for comment Monday. Boustani said at Monday’s news conference that “the market is always open to any company that wants to import petroleum products,” and that the ministry would announce a tender for the import of diesel Wednesday. She repeated her assertion that the first shipment of gasoline should arrive within 15 days “if the procedures are finished quickly.” However, according to the tender documents, the shipment may not arrive in Lebanon until Jan. 6.

BEIRUT (AP) Bassem Mroue— Lebanese journalists are facing threats and wide-ranging harassment in their work — including verbal insults and physical attacks, even death threats — while reporting on nearly 50 days of anti-government protests, despite Lebanon’s reputation as a haven for free speech in a troubled region. Nationwide demonstrations erupted on Oct. 17 over a plunging economy. They quickly grew into calls for sweeping aside Lebanon’s entire ruling elite. Local media outlets — some of which represent the sectarian interests protesters are looking to overthrow — are now largely seen as pro- or anti-protests, with some journalists feeling pressured to leave their workplaces over disagreements about media coverage.

The deteriorating situation for journalists in Lebanon comes despite its decades-old reputation for being an island of free press in the Arab world. Amid Lebanon’s divided politics, media staff have usually had wide range to freely express their opinions, unlike in other countries in the region where the state stifles the media. The acts of harassment began early in the protests. MTV television reporter Nawal Berry was attacked in central Beirut in the first days of the demonstrations by supporters of the militant group Hezbollah and its allies. They smashed the camera, robbed the microphone she was holding, spat on her and kicked her in the leg. “How is it possible that a journalist today goes to report and gets subjected to beating and humiliation? Where are we? Lebanon is the country of freedoms and democracy,” Berry told The Associated Press.

Outlets like MTV are widely seen as backing protesters’ demands that Lebanon’s sectarian political system be completely overturned to end decades of corruption and mismanagement. Rival TV stations and newspapers portray the unrest — which led to the Cabinet’s resignation over a month ago — as playing into the hands of alleged plots to undermine Hezbollah and its allies. Many of those outlets are run by Hezbollah, President Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement and the Amal Movement of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. These media regularly blast protesters for closing roads and using other civil disobedience tactics, describing them as “bandits.”

For Berry, the media environment worsened as the unrest continued. On the night of Nov. 24, while she was covering clashes between protesters and Hezbollah and Amal supporters on a central road in Beirut, supporters of the Shiite groups chased her into a building. She hid there until police came and escorted her out. “I was doing my job and will continue to do so. I have passed through worse periods and was able to overcome them,” said Berry, who added she is taking a short break from working because of what she passed through recently.

Hezbollah supporters also targeted Dima Sadek, who resigned last month as an anchorwoman at LBC TV. She blamed Hezbollah supporters for stealing her smartphone while she was filming protests, and said the harassment was followed by insulting and threatening phone calls to her mother, who suffered a stroke as a result of the stress. “I have taken a decision (to be part of the protests) and I am following it. I have been waiting for this moment all my life and I have always been against the political, sectarian and corrupt system in Lebanon,” said Sadek, a harsh critic of Hezbollah, adding that she has been subjected to cyberbullying for the past four years. “I know very well that this will have repercussions on my personal and professional life. I will go to the end no matter what the price is,” Sadek said shortly after taking part in a demonstration in central Beirut.

by AFP — Sunni Muslim leaders threw their weight behind the Saad Hariri, the country’s caretaker Prime Minister who resigned in late October over massive public unrest shaking Lebanon, his key contender said Sunday. Businessman Samir Khatib had been put forward as the likely successor to 49-year-old Hariri, but he said a visit to the […]

by AFP — WASHINGTON: Key lawmakers called Sunday for a halt to a Saudi military training program after a shooting rampage at a US naval base in which a Saudi officer killed three American sailors. US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he has ordered a review of vetting procedures while defending the training program that brought Mohammed Alshamrani to Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida. Alshamrani, a 21-year-old second lieutenant in the Saudi Royal Air Force, opened fire in a classroom at the base on Friday, killing the three sailors and wounding eight other people before being shot dead by police. The FBI: Rachel L. Rojas, FBI agent in charge said Sunday the shooting was being investigated with the “presumption” it was an act of terrorism, but that authorities had yet to make a final determination.

FBI are reportedly focused on finding several unaccounted for Saudi nationals linked to the shooting, as additional details have emerged about the shooter’s movements in the weeks leading up to the rampage. “The fact that the FBI has not been able to, the reports say, the FBI has not been able to talk to every airman. I mean, I can’t imagine that,” US Senator Scott said on “Fox & Friends.” “If the Saudi government is our ally, our partner, they will make sure that there is full cooperation, not one airman needs to leave this country until the complete investigation.”

Alshamrani was reported to have posted a manifesto on Twitter before the shooting denouncing America as “a nation of evil.” “We need to suspend the program until we investigate,” Senator Lindsey Graham, an influential Republican on national security issues, said on Fox News. “I like allies. Saudi Arabia’s an ally, but there’s something really bad here fundamentally. We need to slow this program down and reevaluate,” he said. US media reported that six Saudi nationals also assigned to the base have been questioned, and that Alshamrani had shown videos of mass shootings at a dinner party the night before the attack. In a pre-taped interview that aired on Fox News Sunday, Esper confirmed that several Saudis have been detained, including “one or two” who filmed the shooting on their cellphones. He said it was unclear if they began filming before the shooting began or after it started.

Authorities believe the gunman made social media posts criticizing the U.S. under a user handle similar to his name, but federal law enforcement officials are investigating whether he authored the words or just posted them, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Also, investigators believe the gunman visited New York City, including Rockefeller Center, days before the shooting and are working to determine the purpose of the trip, the official said. All international students at the Pensacola base have been accounted for, there have been no arrests, and the community is under no immediate threat, Rojas said at a news conference. A Saudi commanding officer has ordered all students from the country to remain at one location at the base, authorities said. “There are a number of Saudi students who are close to the shooter and continue to cooperate in this investigation,” Rojas said. “The Saudi government has pledged to fully cooperate with our investigation.”

Earlier in the week of the shooting, Alshamrani hosted a dinner party where he and three others watched videos of mass shootings, another U.S. official told the AP on Saturday. Alshamrani wounded two sheriff’s deputies, one in the arm and one in the knee, before one of them killed him. Eight others were also hurt. Both deputies were expected to survive. Alshamrani used a Glock 9 mm weapon that had been purchased legally in Florida, Rojas said. Family members and others identified the three dead as Joshua Kaleb Watson, a 23-year-old graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy; Airman Mohammed Sameh Haitham, 19, of St. Petersburg, Florida, who joined the Navy after graduating from high school last year; and Airman Apprentice Cameron Scott Walters, 21, of Richmond Hill, Georgia. The official who spoke Saturday said one of the three students who attended the dinner party hosted by the attacker recorded video outside the classroom building while the shooting was taking place. Two other Saudi students watched from a car, the official said.

VETTING

(AP) — Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Sunday welcomed a Lebanese-born Swiss real estate mogul who purchased Nazi memorabilia at a German auction and is donating the items to Israel. Rivlin called Abdallah Chatla’s gesture an “act of grace.” Chatila, a Lebanese Christian who has lived in Switzerland for decades, paid some 600,000 euros ($660,000) for the items at the Munich auction last month, intending to destroy them after reading of Jewish groups’ objections to the sale. Shortly before the auction, however, he decided it would be better to donate them to a Jewish organization. Among the items he bought were Adolf Hitler’s top hat, a silver-plated edition of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and a typewriter used by the dictator’s secretary. The items are to be donated to Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.

by AFP — BEIRUT: A man in Lebanon tried to self-immolate during a protest in Beirut on Saturday, the Lebanese Red Cross said, before protesters extinguished the flames. Protesters in Riad al-Solh Square smothered the flames with jackets and blankets, an AFP photographer said. The man, who did not lose consciousness, was evacuated in a […]

by middle-east-online.com — BEIRUT – On the edges of a protest in Lebanon’s capital, 24-year-old cartoonist Mohamad Nohad Alameddine bites through sticky tape and plasters one of his political sketches to a side wall. “I haven’t been able to work with newspapers, so instead I come down and stick them up in the street,” says the unemployed artist, who graduated this year with a master’s degree in press cartoons. Until this autumn, Alameddine had been poking fun at his country’s political and economic ills in sketches he posted online.

But from October 17, anti-government protests swept across the country, giving him a broader audience as protesters denounced the very same issues he had been drawing all along. In public spaces, he and friends stuck up gags about failing electricity and trash management plans, as well as sketches mocking a political class perceived as corrupt. In one cartoon, a skinny man stripped down to his underpants stands in front of a leader carried in on a gilded throne. “We want your underwear to pay back the debt,” says the moustachioed politician, clutching a lit cigar.

Now in the grips of a dollar liquidity crunch, Lebanon is staggering under a public debt of $86 billion. Wherever there was a protest, “I’d go down and stick up a related cartoon,” says Alameddine, who signs his drawings as Nougature. “A lot of people encouraged me.” In late October, the government stepped down, but a deeply divided political class has yet to form a new one. Inspiration everywhere Last month, Alameddine drew his same long-nosed politician clutching the leg of his throne. “Don’t worry my love, I’d never leave you,” says the character he has called President Nazeeh, dressed in a rabbit-themed pyjama onesie. Alameddine says the fictional leader is his way of criticising the traditional ruling class without naming names. “President Nazeeh headed a militia in the civil war and then became a political figure” after the 1975-1990 conflict, he says. “We see how he deals with people, what he does under the table, what he says in public, how he manages corruption rings – but in a funny way,” he says. “In the end you want to laugh at what’s hurting you.”

By Paulina Dedaj | Fox News — The Saudi national who killed three people Friday morning after opening fire in a classroom at a naval air station in Florida reportedly hosted a dinner party earlier this week where he and several others watched videos of mass shootings, a U.S. official said Saturday. Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, who was identified as […]

by bbc.com — The US and Iran have conducted a prisoner swap in a rare sign of co-operation between the two countries. The exchange involved a Chinese-American researcher convicted of spying in Iran and an Iranian scientist held by the US. Both deny wrongdoing. Iran’s foreign minister said he was glad as he announced the exchange. Hours later, US President Donald Trump tweeted: “Thank you to Iran on a very fair negotiation. See, we can make a deal together!”

Who were the prisoners?

Xiyue Wang was arrested in Iran in 2016 for “collaborating with foreign governments”. Massoud Soleimani, a stem cell expert, was arrested at a Chicago airport last year. He was accused violating trade sanctions by trying to export biological material to Iran. Iran and the US have had an increasingly strained relationship in recent years and share no diplomatic links. Both have thanked the Swiss government for its assistance as an intermediary facilitator.

What happened?

Mr Wang was flown in a Swiss government plane from Tehran to Zurich, and then to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where he will undergo medical check-ups before heading home. Mr Soleimani was also flown to Zurich and then on to Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted photos of himself with Mr Soleimani after his release. He was the first to announce the news, via a tweet. “Glad that Professor Massoud Soleimani and Mr Xiyue Wang will be joining their families shortly,” he wrote. In a formal statement, US President Donald Trump said Mr Wang had been “held under the pretence of espionage”. “Freeing Americans held captive is of vital importance to my Administration, and we will continue to work hard to bring home all our citizens wrongfully held captive overseas,” the statement said. Hua Qu, Mr Wang’s wife, wrote in statement: “Our family is complete once again. Our son Shaofan and I have waited three long years for this day and it’s hard to express in words how excited we are to be reunited with Xiyue. “We are thankful to everyone who helped make this happen.” Princeton University, where Mr Wang was studying as a postgraduate, said in a statement it was “overjoyed” with the news of his release and was looking forward to “welcoming him back to campus”.

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s outgoing prime minister called on several Arab and world leaders Friday to help his country secure credit lines for imports from friendly nations as the tiny Mediterranean country passes through its worst economic and financial crisis in decades. According to a statement released by his office, Saad Hariri sent letters to […]