Middle East Experience

If Israel’s parliament does not act, a special legal status accorded to the settlers will expire at the end of the month..
Source: Albawaba
Full Article: Israeli settlers may lose special West Bank status

Tehran sought "products for the development and production of weapons of mass destruction and delivery technologies."
Source: Jerusalem Post
Full Article: Iran increased efforts to obtain illicit nuclear missile technology - German intel

On Thursday, prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat..
Source: Albawaba
Full Article: Lebanon prosecutor requests charges against central bank chief

'The lesson from the 1967 war: We must teach our children not what we learned from our grandparents'
Source: Jerusalem Post
Full Article: Six Day War: Palestinians gloomy but hold out hope 55 years later

Unlike Oslo and the other experiments, we should start from the end point – Israel’s urgent need to determine our borders.
Source: Jerusalem Post
Full Article: 1967 to 2022: Ending 55 years of ‘temporary’ drift and chaos

A senior cleric and representative of Iran’s supreme leader was unharmed after being attacked in central Iran on Friday, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.A man tried to attack Ayatollah Yousef Tabatabai-Nejad after Friday prayers in the central city of Isfahan but “failed due to the intervention of the bodyguards” of the senior cleric, Tasnim reported.“After prayer today, a young man around 25 years old, who must have had a problem, attacked me. But with the vigilance and intervention of law enforcement agents, his move failed and fortunately no harm was done to me or anyone else,” Tasnim quoted Tabatabai-Nejad as saying.For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.“The young man has been arrested and is currently under interrogation to determine what motivated him to do what he did,” he added.Tabatabai-Nejad is the representative of Iran’s supreme leader in the province of Isfahan and the Friday prayer leader of the city of Isfahan, the province’s provincial capital.He also represents the province of Isfahan in Iran’s Assembly of Experts, a clerical body that selects and monitors the supreme leader.Tabatabai-Nejad has been at the center of controversy on several occasions due to his beliefs and remarks.In 2020, he said women who do not fully cover their hair should be made to feel “unsafe” in public.Wearing a headscarf and covering all parts of the body were made mandatory for women in Iran soon after the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979.In April, Tabatabai-Nejad described Jews as “extremely stupid, cowardly and the dumbest creatures of God.”Read more:Member of Iran’s IRGC died in ‘accident’ at his home in recent days: IRNAIran vows ‘immediate response’ to any Western move against it at IAEAIran ‘deliberately flooding’ Yemen with drugs: Minister
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: Iran supreme leader representative unharmed after attack: Report

The US State Department has updated its fact sheet on Taiwan again, to reinstate a line about not supporting formal independence for the Chinese-claimed, democratically-governed island.Last month the State Department changed the wording on its website on Taiwan, removing wording both on not supporting Taiwan independence and on acknowledging Beijing’s position that Taiwan is part of China, to anger in Beijing.For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.Washington said the update did not reflect a change in policy. That wording has now been changed again, to reinstate a line saying “we do not support Taiwan independence.”The change was first reported by Taiwan’s official Central News Agency on Friday, and appears to have happened on May 28, the date at the top of the fact sheet.A State Department spokesperson said on Friday that the fact sheet was again updated to reflect Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent speech on China, in which he said the United States does not support Taiwan independence.“We oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-Strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means,” the spokesperson said, referring to the strait separating the island from the Asian mainland.Other US officials have echoed that position in recent weeks, saying long-standing policy has not changed.Taiwan is already a de facto independent state, though with only very limited international recognition. Washington has no formal ties with Taipei, but is its most important international backer and arms supplier.Taiwan’s official name remains the Republic of China, the name of the government that fled to the island in 1949 after losing a civil war with the Communist Party who set up the People’s Republic of China with its capital in Beijing.China’s government in 2005 passed a law giving Beijing the legal basis for military action if it judges Taiwan to have seceded or to be about to.Taiwan’s government says only the island’s 23 million people have the right to decide their future, and while it wants peace will defend itself if attacked. Read more: Putin’s invasion of Ukraine forces Biden to rewrite US security plan
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: US updates fact sheet, again, says does not support Taiwan independence

Lebanon’s central bank governor and his brother are suing the state over what they say were “grave mistakes” made by a public prosecutor in his investigation of whether they had embezzled public funds, according to a copy of the lawsuit.Their claim has led to concerns that the public probe into the two brothers could stall, after similar lawsuits paralyzed an investigation into the devastating 2020 explosion at Beirut’s port.For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.Public prosecutor Jean Tannous has been investigating allegations of embezzlement and other misconduct at the central bank involving $300 million in gains made by a company owned by Raja Salameh, brother of Lebanese Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh.The brothers have denied the accusations.This week, they filed a suit against the Lebanese state accusing Tannous of committing “grave mistakes” through the course of his probe, according to a copy of the lawsuit seen by Reuters on Friday.Tannous declined a Reuters request for comment while Riad Salameh did not immediately respond to a similar request.The document alleges that Tannous is biased and lacks the legal authority to access bank information, arguing that only the central bank’s special investigation commission has that prerogative.The commission is typically headed by the central bank governor. Salameh told Reuters earlier this year he stepped back from presiding over it as far as it pertains to his case, “so there is no conflict of interest.”The lawsuit also claims that Tannous’s attempt to obtain account information from commercial banks in January as part of the probe violated banking secrecy laws. It also accuses Tannous of circumventing official channels to coordinate directly with judiciaries abroad on the probe.Riad Salameh is facing judicial probes in at least five European nations over the same accusations of embezzlement and money-laundering.In May, French investigative judge Aude Buresi traveled to Beirut and met with Tannous, Lebanon’s top prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat, and other judges.During her visit, the central bank’s special investigation commission handed over account information on Raja Salameh from nine Lebanese banks to Oueidat, in the first known case of such information-sharing.Nizar Saghieh, the head of rights watchdog Legal Agenda, said the lawsuit could “freeze the case indefinitely” as it was filed to a public court whose members have yet to be named.Similar lawsuits filed to this body have managed to stall another state investigation into the causes behind the Beirut port blast, which killed more than 215 people.Read more:Lebanese security chief fears political paralysis, social collapseLebanon parliament re-elects Nabih Berri as speakerState Department calls on Lebanese leaders to work with ‘urgency’ to rescue economy
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: Lebanon cenbank governor, brother sue state over ‘mistakes’ in embezzlement probe

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted a major rewrite of the Biden administration’s National Security Strategy, according to people familiar with the matter.Early versions of the text, which is still being finalized, show how the administration’s priorities are shifting in response to Putin’s war in Ukraine and the burgeoning partnership between Beijing and Moscow.For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.The document’s publication, originally slated for this past January, was delayed after US officials came to believe that a Russian invasion of Ukraine was likely. It is now being substantially rewritten to reflect the ways the world has changed since the war began, the people said. It’s not yet clear when it will be published, and one of the people emphasized it may still undergo changes.The new draft emphasizes the importance of both Europe and Asia to US national security interests, a shift from an earlier version that focused more squarely on China and Asia. Rather than downplaying the importance of China, the document argues that events in Europe and Asia are intricately connected, according to the people.Produced by every administration since Ronald Reagan’s presidency, the National Security Strategy provides one of the most important windows into the White House’s thinking on foreign policy issues.The document, mandated by Congress, is designed to help lawmakers evaluate the administration’s budget priorities for national security; to clarify US relationships with allies, partners, and adversaries; and to ensure that representatives from across the US national security apparatus speak to foreign counterparts with one voice.Spokespersons at the National Security Council didn’t respond to a request for comment.Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent speech on US policy toward China suggests one potential formulation for the way the document will weigh threats from Beijing and Moscow. Russia, Blinken said, is a “clear and present threat,” whereas China is “the most serious long-term challenge to the international order.”More fundamentally, the strategy is likely to argue that neither Russia’s challenge in Europe nor China’s in Asia can be dealt with in isolation.“For us, there is a certain level of integration and a symbiosis in the strategy we are pursuing in Europe and the strategy we’re pursuing in the Indo-Pacific,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters on May 18. “President Biden’s unique capacity to actually stitch those two together is, I think, going to be a hallmark of his foreign policy presidency.”In particular, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has brought China’s ambitions toward the democratically-governed island of Taiwan into sharp focus for US policy makers. Even before the war began, Biden officials argued that China would likely view America’s response to the Ukraine crisis as a proxy for how it would deal with more aggressive action by Beijing against Taiwan.Since the war began, American officials have viewed several developments as sending a powerful message to Beijing, including the rapid deployment of sanctions against Russia in partnership with European allies, the bolstering of European defense budgets and the willingness of NATO allies to abandon decades of more cautious policies to aid Ukraine with financial and military support.“The Chinese are going to watch this very, very carefully,” Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said last month of Putin’s war in Ukraine. “It’s going to take some time for them to sort out.”Officials in President Xi Jinping’s government have repeatedly rejected accusations that they seek to attack Taiwan, which China views as part of its territory despite never controlling it. At the same time, Xi’s government has warned that the US is taking a “Cold War approach toward Asia.”Beijing has sought to counter that by bolstering ties with Pacific Island nations while reiterating its claims to disputed areas of the South China Sea.The Biden administration’s focus on the interconnected nature of Europe and Asia has also been driven by a growing recognition of the partnership between Beijing and Moscow, as well as the willingness of Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea to sanction Moscow over the invasion, the people said.The result has been a burgeoning US dialog with Asian nations about events in Europe and with European countries about events in Asia, officials say. Whereas discussions with European nations about the Indo-Pacific during the Obama administration were “difficult, challenging, often suspicious,” they are now “deeply productive,” White House Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell told the Center for Strategic and International Studies on May 9.The revised security document is also expected to feature a clearer articulation of the link between emerging transnational threats such as climate change and traditional geopolitical competition, one of the people said. Outer-space, for example, is both a transnational issue as well as a venue where geopolitics plays out, the person said.The Trump administration published its National Security Strategy, which focused on “American sovereignty,” in December 2017. The Biden administration published its “Interim National Security Strategic Guidance” in March 2021, but is yet to publish its full-fledged National Security Strategy.Read more: US announces new military aid package for Ukraine worth $700 mln
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: Putin’s invasion of Ukraine forces Biden to rewrite US security plan

Microsoft has announced that it detected and disabled cyberattacks over the last three months from a group based in Lebanon with ties to the Iranian government targeting over 20 organizations inside Israel and one intergovernmental organization in Lebanon.According to statement released on Thursday, the group named POLONIUM was working in coordination with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security “based primarily on victim overlap and commonality of tools and techniques.”For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.Microsoft has suspended more than 20 OneDrive applications created by the POLONIUM group.“Our goal with this blog is to help deter future activity by exposing and sharing the POLONIUM tactics with the community at large,” Microsoft’s blog post read.The ties between Tehran and the hackers align “with a string of revelations since late 2020 that the Government of Iran is using third parties to carry out cyber operations on their behalf, likely to enhance Iran’s plausible deniability.”Earlier this week, FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed that the US foiled a cyberattack by the Iranian government against a children’s hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. The FBI head said it was “one of the most despicable cyberattacks I have ever seen.”Detailing the attempts to target Israeli and Lebanese groups, Microsoft said POLONIUM had been focusing on critical manufacturing, IT, and Israel’s defense industry since February of this year.Microsoft also said that an IT company was used to target a downstream aviation company and a law firm in one incident.“Multiple manufacturing companies they targeted also serve Israel’s defense industry, indicating a POLONIUM tactic that follows an increasing trend by many actors, including among several Iranian groups, of targeting service provider access to gain downstream access,” Microsoft revealed. “This blog will also expose further details that show Iranian threat actors may be collaborating with proxies to operationalize their attacks.”Read more: US will join Europe to back IAEA resolution against Iran: State Department
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: Lebanon-based hackers linked to Iran’s government targeted Israeli groups: Microsoft