George Nader poses backstage with President Donald Trump at a Republican fundraiser in Dallas, Texas, October 25, 2017

This is an opinion article and does not necessarily represents khazen.org 

WASHINGTON (AP) by Desmond Butler, Tom LoBianco  — After a year spent carefully cultivating two princes from the Arabian Peninsula, Elliott Broidy, a top fundraiser for President Donald Trump, thought he was finally close to nailing more than $1 billion in business. He had ingratiated himself with crown princes from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who were seeking to alter US foreign policy and punish Qatar, an archrival in the Gulf that he dubbed “the snake.” To do that, the California businessman had helped spearhead a secret campaign to influence the White House and Congress, flooding Washington with political donations. Broidy and his business partner, Lebanese-American George Nader, pitched themselves to the crown princes as a backchannel to the White House, passing the princes’ praise — and messaging — straight to the president’s ears. Now, in December 2017, Broidy was ready to be rewarded for all his hard work. It was time to cash in. In return for pushing anti-Qatar policies at the highest levels of America’s government, Broidy and Nader expected huge consulting contracts from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, according to an Associated Press investigation based on interviews with more than two dozen people and hundreds of pages of leaked emails between the two men. The emails reviewed by the AP included work summaries and contracting documents and proposals.

The AP has previously reported that Broidy and Nader sought to get an anti-Qatar bill through Congress while obscuring the source of the money behind their influence campaign. A new cache of emails obtained by the AP reveals an ambitious, secretive lobbying effort to isolate Qatar and undermine the Pentagon’s longstanding relationship with the Gulf country. A lawyer for Broidy, Chris Clark, contended the AP’s reporting “is based on fraudulent and fabricated documents obtained from entities with a known agenda to harm Mr. Broidy.” “To be clear, Mr. Nader is a US citizen, and there is no evidence suggesting that he directed Mr. Broidy’s actions, let alone that he did so on behalf of a foreign entity,” Clark said. The AP conducted an exhaustive review of the emails and documents, checking their content with dozens of sources, and determined that they tracked closely with real events, including efforts to cultivate the princes and lobby Congress and the White House. The cache also reveals a previously unreported meeting with the president and provides the most detailed account yet of the work of two Washington insiders who have been entangled in the turmoil surrounding the two criminal investigations closest to Trump. Lobbying in pursuit of personal gain is nothing new in Washington — Trump himself, in fact, turned the incestuous culture into a rallying cry when he promised to “drain the swamp.” “I will Make Our Government Honest Again — believe me,” Trump tweeted before the election. “But first, I’m going to have to #DrainTheSwamp in DC.” Broidy’s campaign to alter US policy in the Middle East and reap a fortune for himself shows that one of the president’s top money men found the swamp as navigable as ever with Trump in office.

by albawaba.com — Observers have raised several questions regarding Hezbollah’s change of policy in light of regional and international developments. Hezbollah opponents link this change to rising sanctions against the party and its leaders, while supporters say the party’s decision is merely internal and linked to the fight against widespread corruption in all state institutions. The […]

by broadwayworld.com – Noor Gharzeddine’s debut feature is a must see, exploring gender roles and domestic violence through a cultural lens. This gripping and tender feature was written by Samuel Cyrenius Anderson. A month into its festival run, Are You Glad I’m Here has already shown at ATLANTA Film Festival, Riverrun International Film Festival and is […]

by Business Insider – Jake Kanter– The Cambridge Analytica data debacle was billed as Facebook’s biggest crisis, but it looks like it didn’t even leave a scratch on the company. Facebook weathered the worst of the storm and usage actually increased, according to a client note from Goldman Sachs, citing ComScore figures. In other words, the […]

by lebaneseexaminer.com – Lebanese American University students sailed a ‘Phoenician ship’ from Byblos to the Beirut port — and it was all made out of plastic bottles, the National News Agency reported. Students worked with the ‘Chreek’ environmental nonprofit to collect more than 50,000 plastic bottles to build the ship. More than 25,000 were used […]

Nadine Labaki’s ‘Capernaum’ wins Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival – Many viewers took to social media following the “Capernaum” premiere to praise Labaki for her new film, which has already racked up a string of distribution deals – by AFP — The Lebanese director became only the second woman ever to win the top […]

by Angela Johnson, business insider   While much of the ceremony at the royal wedding Saturday at England’s St. George’s Chapel. kept with royal tradition, much of the Harry and Meghan’s wedding was as unique as the couple themselves. One of the biggest changes were to the vows Markle took. Like Princesses Diana and Kate before her, Markle […]

By Mary Rezac London, England,catholicnewsagency.com — (CNA/EWTN News).- In 1936, when British King Edward VIII declared that he intended to marry Wallis Simpson, he abdicated the throne. Opposition to the union was strong – Simpson was doubly-divorced, and many thought she was only after Edward for his money. Besides general disapproval from the elite, a more definite obstacle stood in the couple’s way – as King, Edward VIII was the head of the Church of England, which at the time did not allow divorced persons to remarry if their first spouse was still alive. In order to marry Simpson in a civil ceremony, he abdicated the throne in December, and was succeeded by his brother, George VI. Last November, another royal engagement was announced. On Nov. 27, Kensington Palace announced that Prince Harry, who is fifth in line for the throne, is engaged to Meghan Markle. Like Simpson, Markle is an American and divorced. Furthermore, Markle has Catholic ties in her family. Obstacles which just a few years ago might have disqualified the couple from ascending to the crown – divorce, Catholic connections – no longer require the Prince to abdicate his place in the line of succession to the British throne.

What has changed?

Father James Bradley, a Catholic priest in the U.K. and a former Anglican, told CNA that because of the previous rules of the Anglican Church, Edward was essentially obligated to abdicate because “he would have been in a relationship which the Church of which he was Supreme Governor did not approve.” In 2002, a synod of Anglican bishops officially changed Anglican doctrine regarding divorce, declaring that while “marriage should always be undertaken as a ‘solemn, public and lifelong covenant between a man and a woman’…some marriages regrettably do fail and that the Church’s care for couples in that situation should be of paramount importance…there are exceptional circumstances in which a divorced person may be married in church during the lifetime of a former spouse.”

The Anglican Church does not define exactly what qualifies as exceptional circumstances; this is primarily left up to the presiding minister to determine whether a second church wedding can be allowed. One instance in which the Anglican Church forbids a second church wedding for divorced persons is if the new relationship contributed to the breakdown of the first marriage, Ed Condon, a Catholic canon lawyer in the U.K., told CNA. This was what prevented a church wedding for Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005. “If there’s been no openly scandalous reasons or contributing factors, that would allow the Anglican authorities to say well, you can have a church wedding,” Condon said. Harry and Markle will be married in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. But accepting attitudes about divorced monarchs is indicative of a broader breakdown of marriage that can be seen, particularly in the West, Bradley noted. “The opposition to Edward VIII was, first of all, that society didn’t recognize divorce as something that was good at the time, and now it does, unfortunately,” he said. Currently, “(the) new head of the [British] Supreme Court is pushing for no-fault divorce. We’ve gone from a situation where divorce was such a social issue that you couldn’t remain monarch and be married to a divorced person, and now we’re in a situation where the Supreme Court is pushing for no-fault divorce,” he said. “So it’s the complete collapse of marriage as we see in America and the rest of the West.”

Royals marrying Catholics

Markle attended an all-girls Catholic school in L.A., prompting speculation that she may have been baptized as a Catholic, although she told Vanity Fair earlier this year that she was not raised as one. Numerous British sources reported that Markle was brought up Protestant, and was baptized and confirmed in the Church of England before her wedding to Harry. However, if she were a Catholic, this too would have been an obstacle to her marrying into the royal family until very recently. Opposition to Catholics ascending to the throne dates back to King Henry VIII, who broke from the Catholic Church in the 1500s in order to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon, and marry another, because he blamed Catherine for failing to produce a son who could succeed to the throne. The Succession to the Crown Act 2013 allowed heirs to the throne to marry Catholics, among other changes. However, the law still stipulates that the acting British sovereign mustn’t be a Catholic.

Article does not necessarily represents opinion of khazen.org 

by Talal F. Salman –executive-magazine.com– With the world’s population expected to grow by 2 billion—reaching almost 9.5 billion by 2040—one of the major structural changes that would need to keep pace is the development of infrastructure. The world is expected to need close to 100 trillion dollars worth of infrastructure investment by 2040, mainly in developing countries, according to estimates by the UN and the World Bank. This sum is required to meet the demands of clean water, sanitation, electricity, transport, and telecommunications, in addition to schools and hospitals. The sum is also likely to increase, given the escalating impact of climate change. Around 20 percent of the required funds will not be available if national economies, which are financially interconnected now more than ever, do not plan accordingly. The availability of funds is a blessing that a country such as Lebanon might not realize. While other developing countries might struggle to generate savings or attract investment in their local economies, the Lebanese financial system is sitting on 320 percent of GDP in deposits—one of the highest in the world. There is no doubt that the infrastructure in Lebanon has been severely neglected since the end of the civil war. The lack of proper investment in electricity, telecoms, sanitation, transport, and water is causing major costs to the economy, to the productive capacity of all sectors, to household income, and to the health of every individual. The deposits in the Lebanese financial systems, with the proper use of available cheap international loans and guarantees, can help Lebanon close its infrastructure gap while minimizing borrowing.

Economic Stimulus

The CEDRE investment conference on April 6 was testament to the commitment of the international community in helping Lebanon to achieve the economic security it needs and to compensate for the seven years of near zero growth, due to the impact of the Syrian war. The repercussions for the Lebanese economy—which stands at $53 billion in size currently—is around $30 billion so far, a massive challenge for any country. The support that Lebanon received at CEDRE provides much-needed confidence, and can have great results if properly executed. The right investment in infrastructure is known to boost growth—in the case of Lebanon it could lead to a 3 percent increase in GDP in the current environment. However, the Lebanese economy has the potential to grow at 6 percent a year in the absence of external factors impacting our ability to grow, and within a proper policy-making framework.

The involvement of the private sector through public-private partnerships (PPP) is important to attract capital. However, the cost of infrastructure projects that are not commercially viable and thus not eligible for PPP—$11 billion out of the $17 billion worth of projects proposed—are intended to be financed through concessional loans. This means that even if the cost of debt is low, it is still debt being added to the third most indebted country in the world (Lebanon has a public debt equivalent to 151 percent of GDP). Debt service cost is around 10 percent of GDP, 50 percent of government revenues, and 36 percent of total government expenditures, all among the highest in the world. Therefore, adding debt to the government’s balance sheet does not seem to be the best approach. Let’s take a look at PPP and what is the best model for Lebanon to use the pledged investments from the CEDRE conference to its advantage:

Firstly, PPP is not privatization, which is the complete divestiture of a public asset to the private sector, and it is not a procurement contract where the government hires a private company to construct a road or a power plant for example, or to provide a service. Even though the term is globally used to encompass a wide range of relationships between the public and private sector, a proper partnership is one that defines two major factors needed for the success of infrastructure projects—especially greenfield ones, which are new projects as opposed to upgrades to existing infrastructure. Those two factors are financing and risk. The allocation of financing refers to what portion is to be invested by the private sector and what portion is to be invested by the government. The allocation of risk determines who is responsible for the design, implementation, operation, and maintenance of the project.

Gulf countries, joined by the United States, on Wednesday imposed further sanctions on Hezbollah leaders, proclaiming the Iran-backed Lebanese group a terrorist organisation and dismissing the distinction between the party’s political and armed wings. Additional US sanctions targeted Hezbollah’s top officials, including its leader Hassan Nasrallah and his deputy Naim Qassem. The measures were imposed […]