BEIRUT: Lebanese lawmakers designated Prime Minister Saad Hariri for a third term in office Thursday, less than three weeks after elections that saw his movement lose ground in parliament.
"The head of state summoned prime minister Saad Hariri and tasked him with forming a government," said a statement posted on social media by the office of President Michel Aoun.
The presidency made the announcement after Hariri, 48, was endorsed by a vast majority of members of parliament after only a few hours of consultations.
Hariri said in a statement that he would seek to form a new government as quickly as possible in order to implement some of the reforms pledged earlier this year to secure key foreign aid.
"I thank all my fellow deputies who entrusted me with forming a new government, hoping we will do so as soon as possible for the benefit of Lebanon and the Lebanese," he said.
Speaking to reporters before leaving the presidential palace, he reaffirmed his policy of "disassociation", a term used to describe efforts to keep Lebanon out of the region's conflicts.
"The new government will need to consolidate its policy of disassociation and continue efforts to face the refugee crisis," he said.
The small Middle eastern country has seen its population increase by a third with the influx of refugees pouring in from neighbouring Syria, which has been torn by war for seven years.
A conference dubbed CEDRE and held in Paris in April raised $11 billion in low-interest loans and aid for Lebanon, whose public debt stands at 150 percent of gross domestic product, the world's third highest rate behind Japan and Greece.
Hariri's Future movement lost a third of its seats on May 6, when Lebanon held its first legislative election in nine years and voters reinforced the weight of the Shiite group Hezbollah and its allies.
The Iran-backed party, the only group to have kept its weapons after Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, and its allies control more than half of parliament's 128 seats.
That is expected to protect the US terror-listed organisation from attempts to push for its disarmament, a cause long championed by Hariri and his Sunni-dominated bloc.
While Hezbollah had been content in recent years exercising its influence on the government via second-tier portfolios and its political allies, observers predict it will this time ask for bigger ministries.
The movement's leader Hassan Nasrallah is scheduled to give a televised speech on Friday.
Lebanon's unique sectarian power-sharing arrangements provide for parliament to be split equally between Christians and Muslims and stipulate that the president be Maronite, the premier Sunni and the speaker Shiite.
Speaker Nabih Berri, who has held the position since 1992, was given a new term on Wednesday.
Hariri has been prime minister since December 2016 and served his first term from 2009 to 2011. His father, who was assassinated in 2005, also served two terms between 1992 and 2004.
Lebanon President Michel Aoun has designated Saad Al-Hariri as PM: Presidency Office
Lebanon President Michel Aoun has designated Saad Al-Hariri as PM: Presidency Office
Israel says it will maintain control of Gaza-Egypt crossing
Israel also will approve the movement of all people and goods
RAFAH: Israel said it will maintain control of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip during the first phase of the ceasefire with Hamas.
A statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Wednesday denied reports that the Palestinian Authority would control the crossing.
The truce, now in its fourth day, is supposed to bring calm to the war-battered Gaza for at least six weeks and see 33 Hamas-held hostages released in return for hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
The statement said European Union monitors would supervise the crossing, which will be surrounded by Israeli troops. Israel also will approve the movement of all people and goods.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Around 100 hostages still remain in Gaza, after the rest were released, rescued, or their bodies were recovered.
Israel’s military campaign has killed over 47,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health authorities, who say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities but do not say how many of the dead were fighters. Israel says it killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Algeria and US sign MoU on military cooperation, Algeria defense ministry says
- Defense ministry said the MoU focuses on military cooperation
ALGIERS: Algeria signed a memorandum of understanding with the United States on Wednesday that focuses on military cooperation, its defense ministry said in a statement.
The MoU was signed during a meeting between Deputy Defense Minister Said Chengriha and Michael Langley, commander of the US Africa Command, the ministry added.
Pakistan’s most populous Punjab province launches cash cards for minorities
- Punjab government to provide $37.65 per family every quarter to minorities under ‘Minority Card’
- Pakistan’s minorities have suffered attacks from religiously motivated militants in the recent years
ISLAMABAD: The chief minister of Pakistan’s most populous Punjab province, Maryam Nawaz, launched cash cards for minorities on Wednesday, stressing the importance of undertaking measures to ensure they are not marginalized in the country.
Nawaz announced the ‘Minority Card’ in October last year during the Hindu festival of Diwali. Through the card, the provincial government will provide Rs10,500 [$37.65] per family every quarter to Sikhs, Christians, Hindus and other minorities residing in Punjab.
The chief minister had said that 50,000 individuals from minority communities in Punjab would receive the card during the first phase of its launch. She had said that the provincial government would increase both the number of beneficiaries to 75,000 and the per quarter funds as well.
“I am very happy that that for the first time in Pakistan and Punjab’s history we have launched the minority card,” Nawaz said at the launching ceremony of the card.
She thanked Punjab Minority Affairs Minister Sardar Ramesh Singh Arora and the Bank of Punjab for helping the provincial government in “making and implementing” the card.
Emphasizing that minorities were like the “crown on her head,” Sharif said the true identity of minorities was not non-Muslims but “true Pakistanis.” She distributed minority cards among participants at the ceremony.
Pakistani minorities have often suffered attacks at the hands of religiously motivated militants and hard-liners. There have been dozens of instances of mob violence against religious minorities in the South Asian nation in recent years, including an attack on Christians in Punjab’s Jaranwala town in August 2023. An angry mob had torched churches, homes and businesses targeting the Christian community there over blasphemy allegations.
In the country’s southern Sindh province, Hindus have frequently complained about forced conversions, particularly of young girls, and attacks on temples.
Over 96 percent of Pakistan’s population is Muslim, according to the population census of 2023, with the remaining four percent comprising 5.2 million Hindus, 3.3 million Christians, 15,992 Sikhs and others.
WEF panel stresses correlation between environmental degradation and security
DUBAI: “Safeguarding Nature, Securing People” was the title of a panel gathering at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday which discussed the connected issues of environmental degradation and security.
The discussion also highlighted the impact of land degradation, droughts, and extreme weather events on human and national security.
Ibrahim Thiaw, undersecretary-general of the UN and executive secretary of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, moderated the session and opened by saying that in many countries, security concerns were focused on “national security, armed forces and intelligence services, but we know that the environment is also affecting us deeply.”
Ilwad Elman, chief operating officer of the Elman Peace Centre, said that only recently had we “begun to draw the strong correlation and the intersection of the two crises of human security and (that) caused by environmental stressors and environmental aggregation” and added: “In Somalia, “we find ourselves right at the nexus of that.”
She added that food and water insecurity posed not only environmental challenges but also had a “direct linkage to the desperation that yields young people particularly to be motivated to join armed groups” — not because they agreed with the ideology, but “to be able to survive.”
Elman explained the Elman Peace Centre works on “sustainable peace building” and “the rehabilitation and reintegration of young people.”
It focuses on climate resilience even though that is not its main mandate because “the environments we’re sending people back to are changing so rapidly our peace building interventions were not sustainable,” she said.
Such crises are not only limited to developing countries. Ukraine, which supplies food to 400 million people globally, was unable to do so due to the war, according to the country’s Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Vitalii Koval.
Some 60 percent of Ukraine’s income comes from agrarian food exports, which has been drastically impacted. This, combined with the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam, has had disastrous consequences for the country, he said.
Koval added: “It is very important that the world community should elaborate new mechanisms to respond, and these mechanisms need to be immediate — not tomorrow, not sometime in the future, (but) today.”
Conflicts undoubtedly exacerbate environmental stressors, but the opposite is also true.
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir said: “Land degradation leads to conflicts, leads to violence, leads to extremism, leads to terrorism, leads to migration, leads to political instability, and leads to all of us paying an extremely high price to deal with the consequences of an issue that, had we paid attention to at the outset, would have cost us a fraction of the resources.”
The link between environmental degradation and security was “very clear, but we have not been paying sufficient attention to it,” he added.
Both Al-Jubeir and Elman said environmental and land degradation were not issues limited to desert or developing countries.
They pointed out the wildfires in California and the impact of such issues on declining water levels on Germany’s Rhine river and the Panama Canal. Drought has meant lower water levels, which means fewer ships can pass through, resulting in delays and increased shipping costs.
Elman also highlighted how the “discourse of climate change has only recently shifted from a very Global North perspective, overlooking the lived realities, the indigenous best practices and solutions from communities on the ground. Resources are distributed in a way that is, I would say, still very imperialistic.”
For example, Elman addressed a meeting of the UN Security Council on the effects of climate change on international peace and security in 2021. The resolution, put forth by Ireland and Niger, was vetoed despite 111 member states being in favor of it.
And so, she said, there was a need for “spaces that are able to move the agenda forward and recognize it as a security threat of global impact, and if the Security Council is not the place for that, other avenues need to be explored.”
Al-Jubeir responded: “If it’s not efficient enough, you do it unilaterally.”
Multilateralism was great for talks, he added, but “if those talks do not lead to concrete results, there should be nothing in the way of preventing countries who have the means to engage with other countries directly and put in place mechanisms that actually work.”
As an example, he said Saudi Arabia launched the Middle East Green Initiative that brought together over 22 countries in the region to help them adopt a circular carbon economy, along with other funding and knowledge-sharing programs that ensured a comprehensive approach.
Houthis announce the release of the Galaxy Leader ship's crew, transferring them to Oman
- Crew of 25 included mariners from Philippines, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and Mexico.
DUBAI: Yemen's Houthi rebels said Wednesday they released the crew of the Galaxy Leader, a ship they seized in November 2023 at the start of their campaign in the Red Sea corridor.
The Houthis said they released the sailors after mediation by Oman.
The crew of 25 included mariners from the Philippines, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and Mexico.
The Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they hijacked the ship over its connection to Israel. They then had a campaign targeting ships in international waters, which only stopped with the recent ceasefire in Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
