by Joseph Haboush| The Daily Star BEIRUT: The militant who opened fire at the Lebanese Army and Internal Security forces on the eve of Eid al-Fitr late Monday has been killed, an eyewitness told The Daily Star. Abdel-Rahman Mabsout, an Islamist who fought with Daesh (ISIS) in Syria and was arrested by Lebanese security forces in 2016, […]

By David D. Kirkpatrick – nytimes.com —This is an opinion article does not necessarily represent khazen.org opinion

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, the 29-year-old commander of the almost negligible air force of the United Arab Emirates, had come to Washington shopping for weapons. In 1991, in the months after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the young prince wanted to buy so much military hardware to protect his own oil-rich monarchy — from Hellfire missiles to Apache helicopters to F-16 jets — that Congress worried he might destabilize the region. But the Pentagon, trying to cultivate accommodating allies in the Gulf, had identified Prince Mohammed as a promising partner. The favorite son of the semi-literate Bedouin who founded the United Arab Emirates, Prince Mohammed was a serious-minded, British-trained helicopter pilot who had persuaded his father to transfer $4 billion into the United States Treasury to help pay for the 1991 war in Iraq. Richard A. Clarke, then an assistant secretary of state, reassured lawmakers that the young prince would never become “an aggressor.” “The U.A.E. is not now and never will be a threat to stability or peace in the region,” Mr. Clarke said in congressional testimony. “That is very hard to imagine. Indeed, the U.A.E. is a force for peace.” Thirty years later, Prince Mohammed, now 58, crown prince of Abu Dhabi and de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates, is arguably the most powerful leader in the Arab world. He is also among the most influential foreign voices in Washington, urging the United States to adopt his increasingly bellicose approach to the region.

Prince Mohammed is almost unknown to the American public and his tiny country has fewer citizens than Rhode Island. But he may be the richest man in the world. He controls sovereign wealth funds worth $1.3 trillion, more than any other country. His influence operation in Washington is legendary (Mr. Clarke got rich on his payroll). His military is the Arab world’s most potent, equipped through its work with the United States to conduct high-tech surveillance and combat operations far beyond its borders. For decades, the prince has been a key American ally, following Washington’s lead, but now he is going his own way. His special forces are active in Yemen, Libya, Somalia and Egypt’s North Sinai. He has worked to thwart democratic transitions in the Middle East, helped install a reliable autocrat in Egypt and boosted a protégé to power in Saudi Arabia.

At times, the prince has contradicted American policy and destabilized neighbors. Rights groups have criticized him for jailing dissidents at home, for his role in creating a humanitarian crisis in Yemen, and for backing the Saudi prince whose agents killed the dissident writer Jamal Khashoggi. Yet under the Trump administration, his influence in Washington appears greater than ever. He has a rapport with President Trump, who has frequently adopted the prince’s views on Qatar, Libya and Saudi Arabia, even over the advice of cabinet officials or senior national security staff. Western diplomats who know the prince — known as M.B.Z. — say he is obsessed with two enemies, Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. Mr. Trump has sought to move strongly against both and last week took steps to bypass congressional opposition to keep selling weapons to both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. “M.B.Z. has an extraordinary way of telling Americans his own interests but making it come across as good advice about the region,” said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser under President Barack Obama, whose sympathy for the Arab Spring and negotiations with Iran brought blistering criticism from the Emirati prince. When it comes to influence in Washington, Mr. Rhodes added, “M.B.Z. is in a class by himself.” Prince Mohammed worked assiduously before the presidential election to crack Mr. Trump’s inner circle, and secured a secret meeting during the transition period with the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The prince also tried to broker talks between the Trump administration and Russia, a gambit that later entangled him in the special counsel’s investigation into foreign election interference.

by vox.com — Kelsey Piper  — In the past five years, machine learning has come a long way. You might have noticed that Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are way better than they used to be, or that automatic translation on websites, while still fairly spotty, is hugely improved from where it was a few years ago. But many still don’t quite grasp how far we’ve come, and how fast. Recently, two images made the rounds that underscore the huge advances machine learning has made — and show why we’re in for a new age of mischief and online fakery. The first was put together by Ian Goodfellow, the director of machine learning at Apple’s Special Projects Group and a leader in the field. He looked over machine-learning papers published on the online open-access repository arXiv over the past five years, and found examples of machine learning-generated faces from each year. Each of the faces below was generated by an AI. Starting with the faces on the left, from 2014, you can see how dramatically AI capabilities have improved:

In 2014, we’d just started on the task of using modern machine-learning techniques to have AIs generate faces. The faces they generated looked grainy, like something you might see on a low-quality surveillance camera. And they looked generic, like an average of lots of human faces, not like a real person. In less than five years, all of that changed. Today’s AI-generated faces are full-color, detailed images. They are expressive. They’re not an average of all human faces, they resemble people of specific ages and ethnicities. Looking at the woman above on the far right, I can vividly imagine a conversation with her. It’s surreal to realize she doesn’t exist. How did we come so far so fast? Machine learning has seen a flood of new researchers and larger research budgets, driving rapid innovations, and a new technique invented in 2014 made a huge difference.

BEIRUT (Xinhua) — French Ambassador to Lebanon Bruno Foucher said Friday that French President Emmanuel Macron will visit Lebanon in the second half of this year after the Lebanese parliament passes the 2019 state budget, local media reported. “The president will come after Lebanon gets over with its 2019 budget. France and the international community […]

 washingtonexaminer.com — As we mourn the loss of Maronite Patriarch Emeritus Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir, we are reminded of his legacy of being a courageous defender of the sovereignty of Lebanon in the face of Syrian occupation. It is striking that he passed at a moment when tensions between Iran and the United States are running high and threaten to drag Lebanon into an unwanted conflict. Lebanon is a unique experiment in religious pluralism with religious freedom, freedom of the press, and a rich Christian history. Entangling foreign influence jeopardizes Lebanon’s sovereignty and causes instability, which could wreck Lebanon’s multiconfessional society. The only institution with the strength to defend Lebanese sovereignty is the Lebanese Armed Forces. U.S. support for the LAF is crucial to the role they play in providing stability and displacing other armed groups within Lebanon. With Congress in the throes of appropriation season, now is the time to consider what more we can do to strengthen the LAF as part of U.S. policy to counter destabilizing foreign influence and maintaining religious pluralism in Lebanon.

Lebanon, historically the heart of Christianity in the Middle East, is the last safe haven for Christians in the region. The current Lebanese political system, where Christians hold the presidency and half of the Parliament, is the only one in the Middle East where all religious sects share a delicate balance of political power. Iran, through its proxy Hezbollah, is positioning itself to force a realignment of power, by which Christians would lose their 50% share. If such a scenario were to be realized, it would result in a mass exodus of Christians from Lebanon. Given Iran’s growing presence in Syria and Iran’s increasing influence in Iraq through proxy militias in Christian areas, Lebanon would become the final domino to fall in Iran’s Shia Crescent, granting it access to the Mediterranean and Israel’s border. Should Iran draw Lebanon into a regional conflict or indirectly take control of the government, the Christian community would suffer irreversible and fatal consequences.

Thankfully, Lebanon is not yet a proxy state of Iran, and Hezbollah is far from controlling the government, only holding one major ministry: the Ministry of Health. Lebanon’s legitimate security institution, the LAF, can be used to weaken Hezbollah from within, by depriving the terrorist organization of its mandate to protect the southern border and by unquestionably displacing Hezbollah in domestic security. For over 10 years, the U.S. has invested in making the LAF a professional fighting force. Now, U.S. security assistance should focus on giving the LAF the distinct and prohibitive competitive advantage over Hezbollah. This is the best way to declaw Hezbollah from within and to avoid a conflict, internal or external, that would cause unspeakable human suffering on all sides. In addition, the LAF has to maintain and increase its vigilance against other destabilizing armed threats, such as the many Palestinian armed factions and the infiltration of ISIS through the enormous 1.5 million displaced Syrians in Lebanon, creating a fertile ground for terrorist groups. The examples of terrorists sprouting from camps are numerous, such as Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, and consistently increasing. Lebanon must also secure its porous border with Syria, over which fighters and weapons cross almost unchecked.

President Trump meeting with Kim Yong Chol this past January 18 in the Oval Office. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead, File) by foxnews.com —North Korea has executed five officials for their part in the failed second summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, according to a South Korean newspaper. […]

  By Zeina Antonios and Leila Molana-Allen report — In Syria, we often hear about opponents of the Assad regime who have been behind bars since the beginning of the country’s civil war. But another group of detainees remain surrounded in secrecy. There are more than 600 Lebanese citizens still in detention in Syria, after […]

by Nyree McFarlane —thenational.ae — Lebanese soprano Hiba Tawaji, 31, found fame four years ago via the French version of talent quest, The Voice, and her latest career milestone also comes out of France. The Arabic singer is the voice of Princess Jasmine in the French version of Disney’s new film Aladdin. She sang Parler […]

by By Tom Perry and Ellen Francis — BEIRUT, (Reuters) – The heavily indebted Lebanese government approved a draft budget to cut its large deficit on Friday, aiming to ward off a financial crisis which top leaders have warned is bearing down on the country unless it carries out reforms. The draft 2019 budget, which will cut the deficit to 7.5% of GDP from 11.5% in 2018, is seen as a critical test of the government’s will to launch reforms that have been put off for years by a state riddled with corruption and waste. Lebanon’s bloated public sector is its biggest expense, followed by the cost of servicing a public debt equal to some 150% of GDP, one of the world’s heaviest debt burdens. The budget could help unlock some $11 billion in financing pledged at a Paris donors’ conference last year for infrastructure investment, if it wins the approval of donor countries and institutions. “Now, praise God, we are done. The budget is complete,” Information Minister Jamal Jarrah said after a cabinet session. One more meeting to seal the process will be held at the presidential palace on Monday before the draft is referred to parliament for approval.

Fears the budget would lead to cuts to state salaries, pensions or benefits triggered weeks of strikes and protests by public sector workers and military veterans. Measures to rein in the public sector wage bill include a three-year freeze in all types of state hiring and a cap on extra-salary bonuses. State pension will also be taxed. However a temporary public sector salary cut mooted by some early in the process was not included. A big chunk of the deficit cut stems from tax increases including a 2% import tax and a hike in tax on interest payments. The government also plans to cut some $660 million from the debt servicing bill by issuing treasury bonds at 1% interest rate to the Lebanese banking sector.

“THE JURY’S STILL OUT”

The final cabinet approval had been obstructed by a dispute over whether more needed to be done to bring the deficit lower. But Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, speaking to local media, said “all the clauses and articles” had been agreed. Nobody had raised any objections when Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri said “we are done” at the end of the session, he added. Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, who had been demanding further debate, signalled no objection to the cabinet decision. “We have started along the path of controlling the deficit and reducing it and we will continue through subsequent budgets,” Al-Jadeed television quoted him saying.

  by John Pontifex — catholicherald.co.uk —Archbishop Warda says that, with the exception of Hungary, Western governments have failed to help An Iraqi Church leader has met Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and called on the Government to provide urgent help to prevent persecuted minority faith groups from dying out in their ancient homelands. At […]