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War in Ukraine leaves Lebanon hungry

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By Nicole Di Ilio -- al-monitor.com -- BEIRUT — On a hot July morning, Ali Samir Nabbouh stood for more than two hours outside a bakery in Beirut’s southern suburbs, desperately waiting for a bag of bread. The shop had not yet raised its shutters, and he jostled among a restless crowd all eager to be first served. “I had to feed Fatima and Sarah, my two daughters. I couldn’t miss my turn,” he said. Nabbouh, a 45-year-old divorced father with a part-time job, was struggling for yet another day to bring some pita bread to the table. Not long ago, to do so was a given for all walks of life in Lebanon. But even the staples of life are out of reach for many now. Not only has the number of bread bundles decreased in weight, but their cost has also increased by 550%. Exorbitant prices are now beyond the means of many. Today, what was considered the food of the poor, accessible to all, has become a luxury good. “Just a few months ago, Arabic bread cost 1,500 Lebanese pounds. Now, it reaches around 25,000,” Nabbouh said. “We are not looking to buy anything extra. We’re just trying to buy some food. And we have to beg for help to eat.” With its currency in freefall, its economy shattered and its flatlining legislature incapable of offering reprieve, Lebanon was one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to a supply shock. And then came Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin’s invasion not only brought its neighbor to its knees, but it also decapitated Ukraine’s wheat export industry and, in doing so, sparked unprecedented prince hikes and scarcity of grain across its main export markets in the Middle East. As of early February, just before the Russian invasion, more than 95% of Ukraine’s grain exports — wheat and maize — were shipped via the Black Sea, and half were sent to the Middle East and North Africa. But after Ukraine’s southern ports Odessa, Kherson and Mykolaiv became battlegrounds, the key corridor was closed, suffocating the maritime trade that Lebanon relied upon.

Biden's Middle East expedition: Reputation dinged, interests secured?

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By ALEXANDER WARD and JONATHAN LEMIRE -- politico.com -- JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — President Joe Biden’s four-day Middle East trip was a stark demonstration of how, on the global stage, the importance of values at times gets downplayed in the cold pursuit of the national interest. Biden’s swing through Israel, the West Bank and Saudi Arabia saw the United States engaged in a great game, seeking a larger foothold in the region as Russia and China muscle their way in. Armed with hugs and fist bumps, Biden both literally and figuratively embraced traditional allies who sought rekindled ties to their most important security partner. That coziness resulted in historic agreements to bring Jerusalem and Riyadh closer together, a crown prince seemingly more open to ending the war in Yemen and a renewed push to solve the intractable conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

But getting there came at a cost. The president’s reputation as a champion of human rights suffered a potentially significant blow once the image of his fist bump with Mohammed bin Salman beamed across screens worldwide. Though Biden raised the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in his meeting with the kingdom’s de facto ruler, who Biden and the U.S. intelligence community believe ordered the killing, his main objective wasn’t to lecture. It was to maximize America’s influence in the Middle East. Biden came to deal with “the needs of the free world, and particularly the United States, and not leave a vacuum here, which was happening as it has in other parts of the world,” he told reporters Friday night in defense of his trip. It will take weeks, months and years to know if it was all worth the media nightmare the president and his team endured.

The diplomatic gamble had an eye toward the long term even as immediate concerns loomed large, namely the need for increased oil production to erase the West’s energy deficit following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Should many of the initiatives pan out — especially the hoped-for normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia — Biden and his coterie may deem the visit in the scorching heat a success. To hear the administration tell it already, Biden didn’t have to minimize anything to boost America’s standing and make strategic gains this week. If anything, U.S. officials say the president bolstered his reputation as a savvy statesman. “You can’t advance your values and advance your concerns about human rights by not traveling, by staying home, by not having conversations,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told POLITICO on the sidelines of the president’s meetings in Jeddah. “The way you prove that human rights are, in fact, an integral part of your foreign policy is to get out on the road and have those conversations.”

Saudi Arabia opens airspace to Israeli flights

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by cnn.com -- Kyle Blaine and Eliza Mackintosh -- (CNN)Saudi Arabia on Friday opened its airspace to all civilian carriers, including all flights to and from Israel, in a step toward normalizing relations between the two nations as US President Joe Biden tours the Middle East. In a statement shared hours before he was due to fly directly from Israel to Saudi Arabia, Biden hailed the kingdom's decision, saying that it could "help build momentum toward Israel's further integration into the region." The Biden administration has for months sought to formalize security and economic deals between Saudi Arabia and Israel, in a bid to set the stage for a normalization deal between the two countries.

Riyadh is believed to have a covert relationship with Israel but has yet to officially disclose those diplomatic ties. In 2020, then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly flew to Saudi Arabia for a covert meeting with the kingdom's de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman -- a claim that was denied by Riyadh's top diplomat. A possible normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia has been hailed as the "crown jewel" of agreements between the Jewish state and the Arab world. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan normalized relations with Israel in 2020 as part of a wave of agreements at the end of former President Donald Trump's term.

MBS denied ‘personal responsibility’ for Khashoggi killing after US-Saudi fist bump

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by nypost.com -- President Biden said Friday that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman denied having any role in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in a much-anticipated face-to-face meeting between the two leaders. “With respect to the murder of Khashoggi,” Biden told reporters during hastily scheduled remarks in the city of Jeddah. “I raised it at the top of the meeting, making clear what I thought of it at the time, and what I think of it now.”

When asked about the response of the crown prince, commonly known as MBS, Biden said: “He basically said that he was not personally responsible for it. I indicated I thought he was. He said he was not personally responsible for it and he took action against those who were responsible.” It was impossible to know if the meeting unfolded how Biden described since the press corps were removed from the room before the talks got underway. “Jamal Khashoggi, will you apologize to his family?” NBC reporter Peter Alexander shouted at MBS, who was seated opposite Biden along a long table at a royal palace in the Saudi city of Jeddah.

Rifi not convinced with Hezbollah as resistance, urges disarmament

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by naharnet -- MPs Ashraf Rifi, Michel Moawad, Fouad al-Makhzoumi and Adib abdel Massih announced Friday the program of their new parliamentary bloc, Tajaddod. Rifi demanded the hand over of any illegal "Lebanese or non-Lebanese weapons" to the state, considering that Hezbollah's arms have lost their resistance character. "We demand the extension of the authority of the state on all Lebanese territories without any exceptions," Rifi said. Moawad, for his part, considered that the loss of sovereignty is the main reason for the collapse. "Lebanon cannot be isolated from the world," he said, adding that reforms, stability and prosperity cannot be reached "in the presence of two weapons and two decisions.

Minister Sejaan Azzi: رئيسٌ جديدٌ أم جُمهوريّةٌ جديدة؟

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سجعان قزي

@AzziSejean

في مخيِّلةِ كلِّ مواطنٍ يَسكنُ رئيسُ جُمهوريّة. يَحلُمُ به ويَتوق إلى وصولِه إلى الحُكم. هكذا، تَفرِزُ المخيِّلةُ الشعبيّةُ اللبنانيّةُ أربعةَ ملايينَ رئيسِ جُمهوريةٍ، فيما نَفقِدُ مرشّحًا للأربعةِ ملايينَ لبنانيّ. السنواتُ عِجاف. يَستحقُّ هذا الشعبُ المعذَّبُ رئيسًا يُلاقي أحلامَه ويُعيدُ إليه عِزّتَه.

كلمّا قَرأ مواطنٌ لبنانيٌّ أو مواطنةٌ قِصّةَ عظيمٍ من التاريخِ يَتحَسّرُ على لبنان ويَتمنّى أن يَحظى بمثلِه. لِــمَ هذا الحُـرْم، بل هذا العُقْم؟ وحين يَحلُم اللبنانيّون برئيسٍ تَسرَحُ مُخيَّلتُهم وتَرسُمُ بَطلًا يُطِلُّ من قلبِ الأحداث، من مسيرةِ النضال، من طيفِ الشهداء، من نَبضِ الشعب، ومن ثقافةِ العصر. وحين يَحلُمُ اللبنانيّون برئيسٍ تتراءى لهم شخصيّتُه ولا يُفكِّرون بصلاحيّاتِه. صلاحيّاتُ الرؤساءِ الكبار هي شخصيّتُهم. الهيبةُ تُحدّدُ الصلاحيّاتِ لا العكس. لكنَّ اللبنانيّين التائقين إلى حلمٍ جديدٍ يَخلِطون بين مفهومَي الزعامةِ والرئاسة. في ضميرِ الشعوبِ الأسطوريِّ، الرئيسُ هو شخصيّةٌ تَبدأُ زعامتُها بالرئاسةِ أو زعيمٌ يُتوّجُ زعامتَه بالرئاسة. لكنَّ الأوّلَ مفقودٌ والثاني ممنوع.

Foundation: $250 million US lawsuit filed over Beirut blast

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BEIRUT Associated Press writers Kareen Chehayeb and Lujain Jo — Families of some of the victims of Beirut’s deadly port blast have filed a $250 million lawsuit against an American-Norwegian firm suspected of involvement in bringing the explosive material to the port, a Swiss foundation announced Wednesday. Accountability Now, which says its mission is to support Lebanese civil society efforts to put an end to the impunity of the country's leaders, said the lawsuit was filed Monday. There are nine plaintiffs who are either Americans or relatives of an American, the group said. The move comes as a domestic investigation in Lebanon has been stalled since December, following legal challenges brought by officials wanted for questioning against the investigative judge working on the case. Hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate, a highly explosive material used in fertilizers that had been improperly stored in the port for years, exploded on Aug. 4, 2020 killing nearly 220 people, injuring over 6,000 others and causing damage worth billions of dollars.

The Lebanese probe shows that most government officials knew of the dangerous material stored at the port. The blast worsened the country’s economic meltdown rooted in decades of corruption and mismanagement that began a year earlier. Accountability Now said the $250 million lawsuit filed in Texas names U.S.-Norwegian geophysical services group TGS, which owns the British firm Spectrum Geo, saying it had entered into a series of “highly profitable but suspicious contracts with the Ministry of Energy in Lebanon.” It added that in 2012, Spectrum chartered the Moldavian flagged vessel Rhosus to come to Beirut while carrying 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate on board. “This claim will force TGS to disclose Spectrum’s communications with various third parties who are all relevant to the investigations in Lebanon,” said Zena Wakim, a lawyer for Accountability Now who assisted the plaintiffs.