BEIRUT: The European Union has offered Lebanon a financial package of 1 billion euros ($1.07 billion) to support its faltering economy and its security forces, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Thursday during a visit to Beirut.
Von der Leyen said the package would help bolster basic services, including health and education, though she added it was crucial for Beirut to “take forward economic, financial and banking reforms” to revitalize the business environment and banking sector.
Speaking alongside Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides, she said support to the Lebanese army and other security agencies would be focused on providing training, equipment and infrastructure to improve border management.
Lebanon’s economy began to unravel in 2019 after decades of profligate spending and corruption. However, vested interests in the ruling elite have stalled financial reforms that would grant Lebanon access to a $3 billion aid package from the International Monetary Fund.
As the crisis has been allowed to fester, most Lebanese have been locked out of their bank savings, the local currency has collapsed and public institutions — from schools to the army — have struggled to keep functioning.
In parallel, Lebanon has seen a rise in migrant boats taking off from its shores and heading to Europe – with nearby Cyprus and increasingly Italy, too, as the main destinations, researchers say. Both Syrians and Lebanese are on board.
Both Von der Leyen and Christodoulides said they hoped Lebanon would conclude a “working arrangement” with Frontex, the EU’s border agency.
Lebanon is home to hundreds of thousands of Syrians fleeing the conflict in their homeland since 2011. Echoing other Lebanese officials, Mikati said on Thursday they were further straining Lebanon’s collapsed economy and that most of Syria was now safe enough for them to go back.
But the United Nations says Syria is still too dangerous for displaced nationals to return. Last year, Syrians were still being arrested or conscripted when they were being forcibly returned by Lebanese authorities.
Christodoulides said the protracted presence of Syrians in Lebanon needed to be addressed.
“Let me be clear, the current situation is not sustainable for Lebanon, it’s not sustainable for Cyprus and it’s not sustainable for the European Union. It hasn’t been sustainable for years,” he told reporters.
EU offers $1 bln in economic, security support to Lebanon
https://arab.news/gbtcu
EU offers $1 bln in economic, security support to Lebanon
- The funds would be available from this year until 2027
- Von der Leyen said the support package would help bolster basic services in Lebanon, including health and education
Russia security chief meets Taliban officials in Kabul
- Shoigu, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, met an Afghan cohort in Kabul headed by Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Abdul Ghani Baradar
KABUL: Top Russian security official Sergei Shoigu visited Afghan government officials on Monday, assuring them Moscow will soon remove the Taliban from its list of banned organizations, Kabul said.
Since the Taliban surged back to power in 2021 visits by foreign officials have been infrequent because no nation has yet formally recognized the government of the former insurgent group.
Taliban government curbs on women have made them pariahs in many Western nations but Kabul is making increasing diplomatic overtures to its regional neighbors, emphasising economic and security cooperation.
Shoigu, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, met an Afghan cohort in Kabul headed by Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Abdul Ghani Baradar.
He “expressed Russia’s interest in increasing the level of bilateral cooperation with Afghanistan,” Baradar’s office said in a statement released on social media site X.
“He also announced that, to expand political and economic relations between the two countries, the Islamic Emirate’s name would soon be removed from Russia’s blacklist.”
The Islamic Emirate is the name the Taliban government uses to refer to itself.
Russian news agencies quoted Shoigu as saying he wanted “constructive” ties with Kabul, without saying if he had floated Moscow removing the Taliban from its list of banned groups.
“I confirm the readiness to build a constructive political dialogue between our countries, including in order to give momentum to the process of the internal Afghan settlement,” Shoigu said, according to the RIA Novosti news agency.
He also said Russian companies plan to take part in projects in Afghanistan on extracting natural resources.
Analysts say Moscow may be eying cooperation with Kabul to counter the threat from Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) — the Afghan-based branch of the Sunni militant group.
In March, more than 140 people were killed when IS-K gunmen attacked a Moscow concert hall.
Taliban authorities have repeatedly said security is their top domestic priority and have pledged militants staging foreign attacks will be ousted from Afghanistan.
“The Taliban certainly are our allies in the fight against terrorism,” Russia’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Dmitry Zhirnov, said in July.
“They are working to eradicate terrorist cells.”
Syria state TV says Israel struck bridges near border with Lebanon
- The defense ministry said “the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of Lebanese territory, targeting crossing points that it had previously hit” between the two countries
DAMASUS: Syrian state television reported Israeli strikes on several bridges in the Qusayr region near the Lebanese border on Monday, with the defense ministry reporting two civilians injured in the attacks.
Israel’s military has intensified its strikes on targets in Syria since its conflict with Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon escalated into full-scale war in late September after almost a year of cross-border hostilities.
“An Israeli aggression targeted the bridges of Al-Jubaniyeh, Al-Daf, Arjoun, and the Al-Nizariyeh Gate in the Qusayr area,” state television said, with official news agency SANA reporting damage in the attacks.
The defense ministry said “the Israeli enemy launched an air aggression from the direction of Lebanese territory, targeting crossing points that it had previously hit” between the two countries.
The attacks “injured two civilians and caused material losses,” it added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, based in Britain, said the attacks had “killed two Syrians working with Hezbollah and injured five others,” giving a preliminary toll.
Earlier, the monitor with a network of sources in Syria had said the “Israeli strikes targeted” an official land border crossing in the Qusayr area and six bridges on the Orontes River near the border with Lebanon.
Since September, Israel has bombed land crossings between Lebanon and Syria, putting them out of service. It accuses Hezbollah of using the routes, key for people fleeing the war in Lebanon, to transfer weapons from Syria.
Iraqis sentenced to prison in $2.5bn corruption case
- A criminal court in Baghdad specializing in corruption cases issued the prison sentences ranging from three to 10 years, a statement from Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said
BAGHDAD: An Iraqi court on Monday sentenced to prison former senior officials, a businessman and others for involvement in the theft of $2.5 billion in public funds — one of Iraq’s biggest corruption cases.
The three most high-profile individuals sentenced — businessman Nour Zuhair, as well as former prime minister Mustafa Al-Kadhemi’s cabinet director Raed Jouhi and a former adviser, Haitham Al-Juburi — are on the run and were tried in absentia.
The scandal, dubbed the “heist of the century,” has sparked widespread anger in Iraq, which is ravaged by rampant corruption, unemployment and decaying infrastructure after decades of conflict.
A criminal court in Baghdad specializing in corruption cases issued the prison sentences ranging from three to 10 years, a statement from Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said.
Thirteen people received sentences on Monday, according to member of Parliament Mostafa Sanad.
Most of them, 10, are from Iraq’s tax authority and include its former director and deputy, he added on his Telegram channel.
Iraq revealed two years ago that at least $2.5 billion was stolen between September 2021 and August 2022 through 247 cheques that were cashed by five companies.
The money was then withdrawn in cash from the accounts of those firms.
A judicial source told AFP that some tax officials charged were in detention, without detailing how many.
Businessman Zuhair was sentenced to 10 years in prison, according to the judiciary statement.
He was arrested at Baghdad airport in October 2022 as he was trying to leave the country, but released on bail a month later after giving back more than $125 million and pledging to return the rest in instalments.
The wealthy businessman was back in the news in August after he reportedly had a car crash in Lebanon, following an interview he gave to an Iraqi news channel.
Juburi, the former prime ministerial adviser, received a three-year prison sentence. He also returned $2.6 million before disappearing, a judicial source told AFP.
Kadhemi’s cabinet director Raed Jouhi, also currently outside Iraq, was sentenced to six years in prison — alongside “a number of officials involved in the crime,” according to the judiciary’s statement.
Corruption is rampant across Iraq’s public institutions, but convictions typically target mid-level officials or minor players and rarely those at the top of the power hierarchy.
11 killed in Kurdish-led attacks in north Syria: war monitor
- Seven Turkiye-backed militants were also killed in the attack and in an operation by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces that control swathes of northeast Syria.
BEIRUT: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Monday 11 people including civilians were killed in attacks by a Kurdish-led force on positions of Turkiye-backed militants in north Syria.
“A woman, her two children and a man were killed... in the bombing of a military position... used by Ankara-backed factions for human smuggling operations to Turkiye,” the Britain-based monitor said.
It said seven Turkiye-backed militants were also killed in that incident and in an operation by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that control swathes of northeast Syria.
SDF special forces infiltrated a Turkiye-backed group’s military position and killed three militants, said the monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.
The SDF also booby-trapped a military position as they withdrew, in an attack that killed another four pro-Turkiye militants but also four civilians including a woman and her two children, the Observatory said.
On Sunday, 15 Ankara-backed Syrian militants were killed after the SDF infiltrated their territory, the monitor reported earlier.
The SDF is a US-backed force that spearheaded the fighting against the Daesh group in its last Syria strongholds before its territorial defeat in 2019.
It is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), viewed by Ankara as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Turkish troops and allied armed factions control swathes of northern Syria following successive cross-border offensives since 2016, most of them targeting the SDF.
Republican senator blocks promotion of US Army general associated with Afghanistan withdrawal
- President-elect Donald Trump and his allies have decried the United States’ military withdrawal from Afghanistan and vowed to go after those responsible for it
WASHINGTON: A Republican senator has blocked the promotion of US Army Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue, who commanded the military’s 82nd Airborne Division during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and was the last American soldier to leave the country in 2021.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the hold had been placed by Senator Markwayne Mullin, who did not respond to a request for comment on why he blocked the promotion.
The Pentagon on Monday said it was aware of the hold on Donahue, who had been nominated for a fourth star by President Joe Biden to lead the US Army in Europe and Africa.
“We are aware that there is a hold on Lt. Gen. Donahue,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters.
President-elect Donald Trump and his allies have decried the United States’ military withdrawal from Afghanistan and vowed to go after those responsible for it. In August, Trump said he would ask for the resignation of every senior official “who touched the Afghanistan calamity.”
“You have to fire people when they do a bad job. We never fire anybody,” Trump has said.
Reuters has reported that Trump’s transition team is drawing up a list of military officers to be fired, in what would be an unprecedented shakeup at the Pentagon.
While the image of Donahue, carrying his rifle down by his side as he boarded the final C-17 transport flight out of Afghanistan on in August 2021, has become synonymous with the chaotic withdrawal, he is seen in the military as one of the most talented Army leaders.
“The finest officer I ever served with, Chris Donahue is a generational leader who is now being held up for political purposes. At the tip of the spear defending this country for over three decades, he is now a political pawn,” Tony Thomas, the former head of US Special Operations Command, posted on X.
Under Senate rules, one lawmaker can hold up nominations even if the other 99 all want them to move quickly.
