by latimes.com —Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, imprisoned since the military removed him from office in 2013, died Monday after collapsing in court, officials said, putting the nation’s authoritarian-minded government on the defensive over his treatment in custody. The country’s first democratically elected president and a leader of the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood movement, the 67-year-old California-educated Morsi lasted only a year in office before his defense minister, Abdel Fattah Sisi, moved to wrest power from him. Sisi has been president ever since.

Egyptian authorities did not immediately disclose the cause of death. The public prosecutor said in a statement that Morsi was taken to a hospital after his collapse, and pronounced dead there. It said there would be a forensic report, but did not say when that was expected. Security jitters were immediately apparent after the death announcement. Egyptian media said the Interior Ministry had ordered a state of the highest alert. But in Tahrir Square — the epicenter of the Arab Spring protests that set in motion events that led to Morsi’s presidency – the mood was calm, with little obvious sign of extra police vigilance, although some street cafes were closed. On a nearby bridge over the Nile, Egyptian families were enjoying a night out, with vendors selling balloons and snacks. Morsi’s death, which followed years of reports of his health deteriorating in prison, was a dramatic new inflection point in Egypt’s tumultuous journey from the massive Arab Spring protests of 2011 that toppled Hosni Mubarak, a dictator of decades’ standing, and the country’s subsequent slide into a new era of repression under Sisi.

State television said Morsi collapsed during a court session that was part of his trial on espionage charges, one of dozens of legal proceedings that punctuated his years of imprisonment on an array of charges. At one point he was sentenced to death. In early courtroom appearances, he defiantly maintained that he was the country’s legitimate president. After he yelled angrily at judges, the authorities soundproofed the cage-like dock in which the accused are customarily held.

Washington (CNN) — The US will send 1,000 additional US forces and more military resources to the Middle East amid tensions with Iran, the Pentagon announced Monday. “In response to a request from the US Central Command for additional forces, and with the advice of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and in consultation with the White House, I have authorized approximately 1,000 additional troops for defensive purposes to address air, naval, and ground-based threats in the Middle East,” acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said in a statement. “The recent Iranian attacks validate the reliable, credible intelligence we have received on hostile behavior by Iranian forces and their proxy groups that threaten United States personnel and interests across the region,” Shanahan said, adding that the “United States does not seek conflict with Iran.” Shortly before the announcement the Pentagon released a detailed set of photos that it said showed Iranian boats removing a mine from one of two tankers attacked in the Gulf of Oman on June 13. The US attributes the attack to Iran. Tehran has vigorously denied the charge.

“The action today is being taken to ensure the safety and welfare of our military personnel working throughout the region and to protect our national interests,” Shanahan said. “We will continue to monitor the situation diligently and make adjustments to force levels as necessary given intelligence reporting and credible threats.” News of the additional troop deployment comes as the State Department announced Monday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel Tuesday to the command center that oversees Middle East military operations. A day earlier, Pompeo said the Trump administration is still mulling military action against Iran.

by _richardhall — independent.co.uk — Beirut has launched a hop-on/hop-off bus tour service as the Lebanese capital experiences huge visitor growth. The number of tourists heading to Beirut has always risen and fallen depending on the political situation in the country. The 1960s was remembered as a golden age for tourism in Lebanon, and Beirut was often called the “Paris of the Middle East”; a playground for the rich and famous. But that was brought to an abrupt halt when civil war broke out in 1975. Then after years of steady recovery, and record numbers in 2010, a war in neighbouring Syria in 2011 hit the industry again. A diplomatic spat with Saudi Arabia led to the Kingdom banning its citizens from visiting Lebanon for more than a year from 2017, dealing another blow. But according to recent numbers, tourists are flocking to Beirut again. Nearly two million came in 2018, with Europeans and Americans accounting for more than half of that number. The Lebanese government has spent the past few years trying to diversify the industry to attract tourists from beyond the Gulf, and it appears to be working.

It perhaps shouldn’t be a surprise then that the city now has its own hop-on/hop-off bus tour. Three double-decker City Sightseeing buses now prowl the city throughout the day, navigating Beirut’s notoriously traffic-ridden roads. Josh Eyre, visiting from London, is among the handful of tourists on board the bus on Friday. “I’m really enjoying it. It reminds me a bit of Tbilisi. Lots of snazzy new buildings up against lots of different architectural styles, historically. It’s an important cultural crossroads.”

(MENAFN) Lebanon’s oil and gas sector is being targeted by companies from Russia and Europe for investments while the country sets for offshore drilling this year’s end. Energy Minister Nada Boustani, speaking to Agence France Peesse, confirmed that “several big companies have visited Lebanon.” According to the Lebanese minister, “we are talking about Gazprom (Russia), […]

by libyaobserver.ly — Lebanese press sources reported that the judicial judiciary in Lebanon has suspended prosecutions against Hannibal, the son of Muammar Gaddafi, for lack of jurisdiction, in the case regarding the abduction and attempting of the killing of a Lebanese doctor in Libya. The sources added that the judicial judiciary said that such cases fall […]

BEIRUT,  (Xinhua) — Elias El Khoury, CEO at company Promoteam, reported an increasing demand by the Lebanese on residential properties in Greece, Portugal and other countries that offer investment opportunities in return for residency permits and citizenships. “Demand by the Lebanese on such kinds of investments has increased in the past year because of the […]

BEIRUT (Rahnuma): Nizar Zakka, who has barely been out of Tehran’s Evin Prison 24 hours after spending nearly four years in it, still feels the impact of what happened to him. After his release, Zakka summarized what happened to him — his tears streamed down his face more than once during the interview. Zakka said he visited Iran only four times previously on official invitations, and on a fifth after an invitation from the country’s vice president to participate in a conference on informatics. “Three days after my participation in the conference, I did not feel that I was an unwanted guest and had not received any remarks. On my way back to the airport, a car with people in civilian clothes intercepted us. They took me out of the car and spoke to me in English saying that no one would see me anymore,” he told Arab News. “They arrested me, and said that they would kill me. There was no explanation for what happened, and I was tortured. They asked me to say on camera that I was working with the Americans and I planned on overthrowing the regime in Iran. I was there because of an official invitation. So, I refused their request. I felt that if it was going to end in death, why not resist what was happening to me unjustly? “They knew that I was innocent, but it seems that they wanted to send a message. The kidnappers were members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and they wanted to show that they could do what they wanted. I was an activist in the field of human rights and had free access to the internet, and expressed my opinion at a conference in Tehran. They exploited this as a weak link for international companies, to send them a message that they are forbidden to enter Iran. They succeeded, they stopped coming to Iran — they feared their safety.”

Sham trial

Regarding the trial he was subjected to, he smiled. “It was only for show. I stood in front of the judge and they began to mock me. One of them said that I was detained for inciting the revolution in Ukraine. I laughed and told the judge they had the wrong file. The representative of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps read out the accusations, without asking me a single question, and that’s how I was sentenced. The cell I stayed in had 50 detainees living in the worst conditions.” He said that in the cell, he knew Americans Ziyu Wang and Karen Godafari, former Iranian Vice President Hamid Mashaki, and Mahdi Rafsanjani, the son of former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani. He said that he also met “an Iraqi detainee and many Iranians, Kurds and Arabs. There were many Iranian diplomats, all accused of treachery because it is the easiest charge. “Every person who was arrested was subjected to physical torture of all kinds, which later turned into a psychological torture. I slept every night hoping not to wake up the next day.” As for his contact with the outside world, Zakka said: “At first they allowed us to call family members, but only for 4 minutes that would go by without speaking, and later, when they transferred me to the public prison, those who ran it allowed us a 15-minute phone call. They dealt with us more compassionately than the Revolutionary Guard did. “A year ago, I met with the director general of the Lebanese Directorate of General Security, but nothing happened. I lost hope. I was informed that Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil spoke about my release date during Ramadan. The month went by, then Eid came, and nothing happened. Two days ago, those who imprisoned me came to tell me that I would be released.”

by bbc.com — Nizar Zakka, who is a US permanent resident, arrived in Beirut on a plane with the head of Lebanon’s General Security directorate, Abbas Ibrahim. The information technology expert was arrested while visiting Tehran in 2015 and was subsequently sentenced to 10 years in jail for anti-state activity. Zakka was freed following a request by Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun. But Iranian state television cited official sources as saying that his release was secured only after Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Iran-backed Lebanese Shia Islamist militant group Hezbollah, intervened. Accompanied by Colonel Abbas Ibrahim, head of the Lebanon’s General Security intelligence agency, Zaka headed directly to the presidential palace,for a meeting with Lebanese President Michel Aoun and his family. A spokesman for Iran’s judiciary said an Iranian court had agreed on Zakka’s “conditional release,” adding that the man would be handed over to Lebanese authorities.

The spokesman, Gholamhossein Esmaili, did not give details of the conditions of Zakka’s release. Lebanon’s president and foreign minister had urged Iran to grant an amnesty to Zakka, and Iranian media reported on June 10 that he was to be released “only because of the respect and dignity” Iran has for Iran-backed Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah. A Washington, D.C., resident and a U.S. Green Card holder, Zakka was head of an Arab IT organization that advocated for Internet development in the Middle East. He was detained in September 2015 in Tehran after attending a government-organized conference. In 2016, the 52-year-old was sentenced to 10 years in prison and handed a $4.2 million fine after a court convicted him of espionage — a charge he denied. He had been invited to speak by Iran’s then Vice-President for Women and Family Affairs, Shahindokht Molaverdi. Zakka was arrested while on his way to the airport to leave the country by men believed to belong to the Revolutionary Guards and was transferred to Tehran’s Evin prison, where he was kept in solitary confinement for almost a year. In October 2016, the judiciary said Tehran’s Revolutionary Court had sentenced Zakka to 10 years in prison for co-operating with a foreign enemy state – an allegation rejected by his family and associates. An appeals court upheld the sentence at the end of 2017.

Last September, Ms Molaverdi told the Associated Press that the government of President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate, had “in no way approved” Zakka’s prosecution by the hardline judiciary. “We did all we could to stop this from happening, but we are seeing that we have failed to make a significant impact,” she said. Last week, it emerged that Lebanon’s president had asked the Iranian authorities to pardon Zakka as a gesture to mark the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. On Tuesday, Iranian judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili announced that the relevant court had agreed to Zakka’s conditional release because he had served at least a third of his sentence and shown good behaviour. Mr Esmaili revealed Iranian officials had been told by Hezbollah’s leader that the move would be “expedient”, but he insisted “no political issue has been involved”, the judiciary’s Mizan Online news agency reported.

Zakka is one of a number of dual citizens and foreign nationals detained in Iran, mostly on spying charges, in recent years. The Americans being held include:

The document calls on Catholic schools to resist ‘attempts to negate the male-female duality of human nature’ A Vatican department has issued a sweeping denunciation of so-called gender theory, and affirmed the principles of human dignity, difference, and complementarity. “In all such [gender] theories, from the most moderate to the most radical, there is agreement that one’s gender ends up being viewed as more important than being of male or female sex,” the Congregation for Catholic Education wrote June 10, in a new document entitled “Male and Female He Created Them.” “The effect of this move is chiefly to create a cultural and ideological revolution driven by relativism, and secondarily a juridical revolution, since such beliefs claim specific rights for the individual and across society.”

The document says it aims to set out an intellectual framework “towards a path of dialogue on the question of gender theory in education.” Published at the beginning of “Pride Month,” during which many cities and corporations mark the campaign of LGBT advocacy, the document says that the Church teaches an essential difference between men and woman, ordered in the natural law and essential to the family and human flourishing. “There is a need to reaffirm the metaphysical roots of sexual difference, as an anthropological refutation of attempts to negate the male-female duality of human nature, from which the family is generated,” the document explains. “The denial of this duality not only erases the vision of human beings as the fruit of an act of creation but creates the idea of the human person as a sort of abstraction who ‘chooses for himself what his nature is to be.’”

The text, signed by Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, outlines the philosophical origins of the gender theory movement, and notes the broad movement to enshrine its distinct anthropology in policy and law. The Congregation explains that, beginning in the middle of the twentieth century, a series of studies were published which proposed that external conditioning had the primary determinative influence on personality. When such studies were applied to human sexuality, the document says, they did so with a view to demonstrating that sexuality identity was more a social construct than a given natural or biological fact. “These schools of thought were united in denying the existence of any original given element in the individual, which would precede and at the same time constitute our personal identity, forming the necessary basis of everything we do.” “Over the course of time, gender theory has expanded its field of application. At the beginning of the 1990s, its focus was upon the possibility of the individual determining his or her own sexual tendencies without having to take account of the reciprocity and complementarity of male-female relationships, nor of the procreative end of sexuality,” the document says. The result was a “radical separation between gender and sex, with the former having priority over the later.”

  This is an opinion article and does not necessarily represents khazen.org by Joe Macaron —lobelog.com —– On May 13, while The New York Times reported that the White House was reviewing military plans to attack Iran, a plane carrying the State Department’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs David Satterfield quietly landed in […]