Kuwait joins Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia

Kuwaiti Deputy FM at the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia signing ceremony in Jakarta. (KUNA)
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Updated 04 September 2023
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Kuwait joins Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia

  • Treaty establishes a set of guidelines to govern inter-state relations in the region

KUWAIT: Kuwait, represented by Deputy Foreign Minister Sheikh Jarrah Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, signed the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia in a ceremony that took place in Jakarta, Kuwait News Agency reported on Monday. 

The TAC is a peace accord signed in 1976 to establish a set of guidelines to govern inter-state relations in the region based on mutual respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and non-interference in the internal affairs of one another.

Besides the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which include Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore, countries not located in Southeast Asia have also been entering into the agreement.

In July, Saudi Arabia became the 51st country to join TAC during Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan’s visit to Jakarta.
 


Syrians work to avoid return to dictatorship

Updated 5 sec ago
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Syrians work to avoid return to dictatorship

  • Exiled activists have returned home and Damascus public spaces are abuzz with previously banned meetings

DAMASCUS: In a Damascus courtyard, Syrian activists brainstormed strategies to ensure their country does not return to authoritarianism, in a scene unimaginable under president Bashar Assad’s rule.

Since opposition fighters ousted the longtime ruler last month, the Syrian capital’s public spaces have been abuzz with previously banned civil society meetings.

Exiled activists have returned to the country for the first time in years, often leading to moving reunions with friends who stayed behind throughout the civil war.

Now, with Assad out, the activists who spearheaded the revolt want to ensure their voices count.

In the arched courtyard of a traditional Damascus home, Syrian activist Sawsan Abou Zainedin recounted meeting the country’s new leader Ahmad Al-Sharaa earlier this month.

“We stressed the essential role that civil society needs to play in the political transition,” said the director of a coalition of dozens of nongovernmental groups called Madaniya.

And “we insisted on the need to not only name people from the same camp” to form the interim authorities, she added of the Jan. 4 meeting.

Al-Sharaa, who leads a group called Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, has named people close to him to key ministerial posts.

His armed group severed all ties with Al-Qaeda years ago, and his authorities have sought to reassure Syrians and the international community that they will respect the rights of minorities.

The new Damascus authorities have suspended the Assad-era constitution and the parliament.

Al-Sharaa last month said it could take four years before elections could be held, and up to three years to rewrite the constitution.

He said HTS would be disbanded at a so-called national dialogue conference to bring together Syrians of all political stripes.

His Foreign Minister, Asaad Al-Shaibani, said last week a committee is to be set up to prepare the meeting, for which no date has been announced.

Abou Zainedin said she and Asfari had requested “absolute transparency” in the preparation of that conference.

The Damascus authorities have appointed new officials to head other bodies too.

Lawyer Abdulhay Sayed said the conference would be “crucial” as long as representatives of civil society and unions were invited. Their inclusion would allow for “checks and balances” to prevent a return to authoritarianism, Sayed said.

The lawyer is among more than 300 people to have called for free and fair elections at his profession’s bar association after the new authorities replaced an Assad loyalist with a man of their choice.

“We’re in a constitutional void, in a transition period after 62 years of the Baath party’s rule,” Sayed said.

The national dialogue “conference has to establish a roadmap for an electoral law toward electing a constituent assembly in a year,” he added. “This assembly will be tasked with drawing up a permanent constitution and later could become a parliament.”

Syrian feminists also insisted on participating in all discussions toward building the country at a gathering earlier this month.

They are concerned that HTS’s ideology will exclude women from politics and public life.

Lawyer Joumana Seif said women had “a great role to play” in the new Syria and wanted to “actively” take part in the national conference. “We dream of rule of law,” said the rights advocate, whose father parliamentarian Riad Seif was jailed under Assad’s rule.

Wajdan Nassif, a writer and activist, spoke to fellow feminists after returning from exile.

“We don’t want a new oppressor ... We don’t want to see any more prisons,” she said.

“Syrian women need to take part (in discussions) in their own right ... We don’t want a repeat of the past.”


The journalists behind Sarkozy’s Libya corruption woes

Updated 11 min 6 sec ago
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The journalists behind Sarkozy’s Libya corruption woes

  • Sarkozy, a conservative with two convictions in other cases, has always maintained he is innocent and points to his key role in ousting Qaddafi

PARIS: Every day at the Paris court trying ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy over alleged corruption with Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, the journalists who helped uncover the extraordinary allegations are following proceedings.

Fabrice Arfi and Karl Laske have spent 14 years documenting the links between Sarkozy’s entourage and the late Qaddafi, who is alleged to have funded the rightwinger’s 2007 election campaign with cash and offshore bank accounts.

The pair from the Mediapart news outlet have traveled the world for secret meetings with sources, tracked money to a host of tax havens, and been sued five times over their reporting — always unsuccessfully.

What is arguably the most shocking corruption trial in modern French history is the pinnacle of their work, sparking pride but also pressure for a duo with a track record in uncovering financial crime. “When you see a former president and three former ministers sat together on four folding chairs, with the justice system asserting ‘you were corrupted by a dictator,’ you know you are a witness to a historic event,” Arfi said in an interview.

“I don’t know what the outcome will be — it’s not down to me to say if they will be found guilty or not — but it shows that our work was not for nothing.”

Pushed on whether he thought the trial would have taken place without his and Laske’s relentless digging, he awkwardly conceded that “they played a role.”

“With all due modesty, without our investigation, prosecutors might not have opened their case,” added Arfi, the 43-year-old son of a police officer whose regular scoops have helped turn Mediapart into a profitable independent news site.

The Libya investigation began in 2011 when an individual contacted the newsroom, offering confidential information.

Arfi and Laske traveled abroad — Arfi withholds all of the details to protect the source — and received a computer hard drive said to belong to an infamous Franco Lebanese arms dealer called Ziad Takieddine.

When they returned to their hotel, they realized they had been given a potential goldmine — “Ali Baba’s cave,” Arfi says — containing Takieddine’s personal diary, emails, bank transfers and even photographs.

While French investigators were already looking at Takieddine’s role as a middleman in French arms deals in the 1990s, Arfi and Laske began verifying and confirming his more recent dealings with Qaddafi.

“We didn’t understand everything to start with. There are bits that are like pieces of the puzzle that only make sense once you have found the others,” he explained.

The first articles on Takieddine’s ties to Sarkozy allies made a few waves but the allegations would become more serious as Arfi and Laske dug deeper.

In 2012, during the presidential election campaign in which Sarkozy was seeking a second term, they published a document that caused a political earthquake — and a lot of professional soul-searching.

“We published in the middle of an election campaign, which is a difficult time for a news outlet,” Arfi explained. “But withholding it would have been worse.”

The document, handed over by a source with access to Libyan archives after the 2011 fall of Qaddafi, purported to show an offer of $50 million from the dictator to fund Sarkozy’s campaign, signed and stamped by Libyan intelligence chief Moussa Koussa. Sarkozy lost the election and sued, alleging the document was fake.

It, along with other evidence unearthed by Mediapart, will be presented during the trial which is scheduled to last until April 10.

Takieddine’s hard drive was also handed over to police by Arfi’s source.

Sarkozy, 69, alleges that he is the victim of a conspiracy between politically biased judges, police and left-leaning Mediapart.

In his first comments in court last week, Sarkozy called Arfi and Karl Laske “thugs” and angrily told judges that “you will never ever find a single euro, a single Libyan cent in my campaign.”

Arfi claims Sarkozy has been successful in deflecting public attention, using the same playbook as other right-wing populists.


Talks underway to open Egypt-Gaza border crossing for aid: Egypt state media

Updated 35 min 38 sec ago
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Talks underway to open Egypt-Gaza border crossing for aid: Egypt state media

CAIRO: Egyptian state media reported Wednesday that coordination was underway to “open the Palestinian Rafah crossing to allow the entry of international aid” into Gaza, citing an Egyptian security source.
Egypt was “preparing to bring in the largest possible amount of aid to the Gaza Strip,” following news of a ceasefire deal reached between Israel and Hamas, state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram said.
It cited a report from Al-Qahera News, which is closely linked to state intelligence.
Mediators said Israel and Hamas agreed Wednesday to a ceasefire and a deal to release hostages held in Gaza, but Israel cautioned that the final sticking points needed to be ironed out.
Pressure to put an end to the fighting had ratcheted up in recent days, as mediators Qatar, Egypt and the United States intensified efforts to cement an agreement.
The Rafah border crossing has been closed since May, when the Israeli military seized the area and closed the Palestinian side of the crossing.
Egypt has repeatedly said it will only recognize Palestinian authority over the crossing.
Al-Qahera News on Wednesday said the framework agreement comprised of three interconnected phases.
The first would last 42 days and involve a temporary halt to military operations on both sides.
It would also require the withdrawal of Israeli forces away from population centers and toward Gaza’s borders, as well as the temporary cessation of flyovers by Israeli warplanes and reconnaissance aircraft for 10 hours each day.


International reaction to Gaza ceasefire deal

Palestinians react to news on a ceasefire deal with Israel, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on Wednesday. (Reuters)
Updated 15 January 2025
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International reaction to Gaza ceasefire deal

Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire deal on Wednesday, mediators said, pausing a devastating 15-month war in Gaza and raising the possibility of winding down an Israeli military operation that has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians.
The deal, coming after weeks of painstaking negotiations in the Doha, promises the release in phases of dozens of hostages held by Hamas since it led an attack on Israel in October 2023 that killed at least 1,200 people.
International response to the deal, which is yet to be confirmed by Israel, overwhelmingly welcomed the agreement.
US President Elect Donald Trump welcomed the deal ahead of US official comment and focussed his comments on the Israeli hostages.
"We have a deal for the hostages in the Middle East. They will be released shortly. Thank you!" he said in a post on his Truth Social platform.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told reporters in Ankara that the ceasefire deal was an important step for regional stability. Fidan also said Turkish efforts for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would continue.

More to follow ...

*With AP and Reuters


Shiite blocs fail to attend opening day of talks on forming new Lebanese government

Updated 15 January 2025
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Shiite blocs fail to attend opening day of talks on forming new Lebanese government

  • Hezbollah and Amal refuse to participate after MPs choose Nawaf Salam as prime minister-designate, rather than caretaker PM Najib Mikati as Hezbollah expected
  • Change Alliance says ‘Lebanon has entered a new phase,’ calls for quota-free government in which women are properly represented

BEIRUT: The speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri, failed to attend a scheduled meeting on Wednesday with Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam, as the Shiite Amal and Hezbollah blocs refused to participate on day one of non-binding consultations on forming a new government.

The talks will continue until Thursday evening with the aim of gauging the opinions of parliamentary blocs, independent MPs and reformist MPs about the structure and participation in the new government.

The failure of the Shiite blocs to attend was a response to what Hezbollah MP Mohammed Raad described as a “trap” and act of “exclusion,” after a majority of MPs this week voted for Salam as prime minister-designate, rather than the incumbent caretaker PM, Najib Mikati, as Hezbollah had expected.

On the eve of the consultations, both the newly appointed President Joseph Aoun and Salam stressed that “there is no intention to break or exclude any party in the country, but rather to promote unity and partnership.” However, Hezbollah and Amal maintained their positions and refused to participate in the talks.

Adding to the uncertainty, Amal Movement MP Qassem Hashem stated that “not attending the consultations does not mean boycotting the government or the prime minister-designate.” He said the blocs were “taking a political stance, not one directed against the prime minister-designate, as what he said yesterday offers grounds for engagement.”

According to media reports, “communication between Salam and Berri has not ceased, and the period between the conclusion of non-binding parliamentary consultations and the subsequent negotiations on the formation of the government between the parties is expected to determine whether the Amal and Hezbollah blocs will choose to participate in the government.”

On the question of whether the aim of the refusal to participate was to send a message abroad, Berri said: “Lebanon must move forward.”

Independent MP Ibrahim Mneimneh told Arab News: “It is essential today to approach matters with wisdom and to return to communication. No party should feel excluded or perceive any intention to undermine the other, and all must unite in the endeavor of state-building.”

Regarding allusions by Hezbollah to the issue of losing legitimacy, Mneimneh said: “The matter of legitimacy is more of a political issue than a constitutional one. Therefore, when those with concerns are reassured, I believe that matters will proceed normally. This phase is crucial for state building, and it is expected that everyone participates in this process.”

The opening day of the consultations were limited to the parliamentary blocs, which predominantly represent partisan trends.

MP Mark Daou, representing the Change Alliance, said: “Lebanon has entered a new phase. We demanded a smaller government consisting of new faces in which women are represented, far from partisan quotas, with the necessity of playing a major political role, and without mixing the parliament with the ministry, and without returning to the trilogy: army, people, resistance.”

MP Taymour Jumblatt, leader of the Democratic Gathering bloc, said after talks with Salam: “We have an opportunity to build the state of the future. We focused on the necessity of communicating with everyone and opening a dialogue with everyone, as no one can cancel the other. We also hope that political actors will ease the pressure on (President) Joseph Aoun and Nawaf Salam.”

MP Ibrahim Kanaan, representing the Independent Consultative Gathering, said: “The designated prime minister is eager to engage with everyone and cooperate with them. We hope that the Shiite duo (Hezbollah and Amal) will join hands with us.

“In light of our objectives, all obstacles can be overcome and it is crucial to have political will behind those appointed to the government to facilitate and ensure the success of the mandate.

“There is a pressing need for courage, decisive action and implementation, particularly regarding administration, finance and financial accounts.”

MP Sagih Atieh said the National Moderation bloc called for a “ministerial portfolio, the acceleration of the government formation process, and the inclusion of all parties in it.” During the talks, he added, “Salam emphasized the principle of balanced development.”

The head of the Free Patriotic Movement, MP Gebran Bassil, said: “The appointment of Salam is not a defeat for anyone but a victory for the reformist ideology.”

He added that his bloc “has not made any demands regarding the government and is ready to assist, believing that the government should represent parliamentary forces but consist of specialists.”

MP George Adwan, speaking on behalf of the Strong Republic bloc led by the Lebanese Forces party, called for “the government’s plan to align with the speech delivered by the president when he took the oath.”

He added: “We do not wish to return to any previous political formulas, including ‘army, people and resistance.’ The state’s authority must extend over all of its territories, while the era of national consensus governments must come to an end.”

Adwan reiterated his bloc’s calls for “a fight against corruption and for an indictment to be issued in the Beirut port explosion case within the next few months.

“Additionally, we will not accept any plan that would involve writing off depositors’ funds. We also want the negotiations with the International Monetary Fund to be relaunched, while the new government must reflect the proper representation of the Lebanese people.”

MP Tony Frangieh said the Independent National Bloc wants “the formation of a government composed of competent individuals and capable of addressing the current challenges. We did not discuss our participation in the government. Nawaf Salam possesses the wisdom needed to save Lebanon. It is important for all the country’s components to communicate, as the government requires the broadest consensus possible.”

The head of the Lebanese Kataeb Party bloc, MP Sami Gemayel, said he wants a government “composed of competent individuals. We will let President Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Salam decide on the form of the government.”

He added: “What we see today is far from exclusionary and I wish we had not been excluded in the past.”