BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon’s new government must reassure international donors it is serious about reforms to tackle a financial crisis as it looks initially to secure up to $5 billion in soft loans for basic goods, its finance minister said on Thursday. The government that took office on Tuesday faces an emergency in which banks have imposed controls, the Lebanese pound has weakened and protesters have turned to violence which a senior U.N. official described as “politically manipulated”. “The entire international community has its eye on what this government will do,” Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni said in televised comments. “What is its programme, what are the reform steps, is it ready for support or no?” Lebanon is looking to secure $4 billion to $5 billion in soft loans from international donors to finance purchases of wheat, fuel and medicines, The Daily Star newspaper had earlier quoted the minister as saying. “This injection will cover the country’s needs for one year,” said Wazni.

Bank restrictions on access to cash, inflation and job losses have hit people hard. Increasingly violent though more limited protests have replaced jubilant demonstrations against a political elite blamed for driving Lebanon towards collapse. Interior minister Mohammed Fahmi said the state would not tolerate attacks on security forces who he said would protect people’s rights, including freedom of expression. On Wednesday, protesters broke stone slabs off buildings in a luxury commercial district of Beirut to hurl at barricades guarded by security forces blocking paths to parliament. “This looks more like a political manipulation to provoke the security forces, to undermine civil peace, to fan up sectarian strife,” Jan Kubis, U.N. special coordinator for Lebanon, wrote on Twitter, mentioning attacks on security forces and vandalism of state institutions and private property. The new government was set up with backing from the powerful Iran-backed group Hezbollah and its political allies. Major political parties that have Western backing, including that of former premier Saad al-Hariri, are not part of the cabinet.

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  -هذه انتفاضةٌ على كلِّ شيءٍ لأنَّ المواطنين يَنقُصهم كلُّ شيء. وهذه نقمةٌ على جميعِ المسؤولين لأن هؤلاءِ أَهملوا حقوقَ الناسِ مدى ثلاثينَ سنة. ليلةَ 14 تموز 1789، هَروَل الدوق "دو لاروشفوكو" يُبلغ الملِكَ لويس السادس عشر بسقوطِ الـــ"باستيل" فقال له الملِك: "ما هي إلا انتفاضة"، فأجابه الدوق: "بل هي الثورة". دَهاءُ الثوراتِ أن تُرهِبَ السلطةَ من دونِ أن تُخيفَ الشعب. لذا، كلّما انحرفت الثورةُ في لبنان نحو العنف، بَطُلت أن تكونَ كذلك وأَصبحت "أحداثًا" يُـحَلَّلُ ردعُها. بالمناسبةِ، كان يُستحسنُ بمجلسِ الأمنِ المركزيِّ (20/01) استعمالُ كلمةً أخرى غيرَ "الردع"، فاستذكارُ "قوّاتِ الردع" ممزوجٌ بالحربِ والدمعِ...

مرتكزاتُ لبنان سَقطت، وما بقي منها غيرُ كافٍ ليبقى لبنانُ كما هو شكلًا وضمونًا: لبنانُ الكبير ضَربَته الديمغرافيا. الاستقلالُ ضَربه الانحيازُ. السيادةُ ضربَها تداولُ الاحتلالات. الوِحدةُ الوطنيّةُ ضَربَتها القوميّاتُ المتضارِبة. الدستورُ ضَربَه التخطّي والتعليق. الهويّةُ ضَربها انتحالُ الصِفة. الصيغةُ ضَربها تَعدّدُ الولاءات. المساواةُ ضَربها السلاح. التعدديّةُ الحضاريّةُ ضَربها اتّساعُ الفوارقِ في أنماطِ الحياة. اتفاقُ الطائفِ ضَربه التباسُ موادِّه وسوءُ التطبيق. الديمقراطيّةُ ضَربتها التوافقيّة المعطِّلة. النظامُ الليبراليُّ الاقتصاديُّ والماليُّ ضَربه اختلالٌ في قطاعاتِه وجشعُ أركانِه وغيابُ الطبقةِ الوسطى، ولبنان الرسالةِ ضَربه الخلافُ على دورِه ورسالتِه.

Davos, Switzerland, (APP  – 23rd Jan, 2020 ) :Key Lebanon party leader and former foreign minister Gebran Bassil on Thursday faced accusations …

by theguardian.com - Stephanie Kirchgaessner -- The Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos had his mobile phone “hacked” in 2018 after receiving a WhatsApp message that had apparently been sent from the personal account of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, sources have told the Guardian. The encrypted message from the number used by Mohammed bin Salman is believed to have included a malicious file that infiltrated the phone of the world’s richest man, according to the results of a digital forensic analysis. This analysis found it “highly probable” that the intrusion into the phone was triggered by an infected video file sent from the account of the Saudi heir to Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post. The two men had been having a seemingly friendly WhatsApp exchange when, on 1 May of that year, the unsolicited file was sent, according to sources who spoke to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. Large amounts of data were exfiltrated from Bezos’s phone within hours, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Guardian has no knowledge of what was taken from the phone or how it was used.

The extraordinary revelation that the future king of Saudi Arabia may have had a personal involvement in the targeting of the American founder of Amazon will send shockwaves from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. It could also undermine efforts by “MBS” – as the crown prince is known – to lure more western investors to Saudi Arabia, where he has vowed to economically transform the kingdom even as he has overseen a crackdown on his critics and rivals. The disclosure is likely to raise difficult questions for the kingdom about the circumstances around how US tabloid the National Enquirer came to publish intimate details about Bezos’s private life – including text messages – nine months later. It may also lead to renewed scrutiny about what the crown prince and his inner circle were doing in the months prior to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post journalist who was killed in October 2018 – five months after the alleged “hack” of the newspaper’s owner.