Family's tribute to 'irreplaceable' British embassy worker found 'strangled' in Lebanon following night out

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by AP - BEIRUT -- Lebanese authorities have detained a man suspected in the killing of a British woman who worked at the U.K. Embassy in Beirut and whose body was found near the city over the weekend, a police official said Monday. The woman's murder was a "criminal act" and was not politically motivated, the official said, adding that the suspect had confessed to the killing. The woman, later identified by British media and friends as Rebecca Dykes, was found on the side of a motorway on Saturday. Sources told CBS News partner network BBC News that it appeared Dykes had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death. When she was found, there were no items pointing to her identity and she had no money or a cellular telephone. Authorities released a drawing of her in order for people who know her to come forward and identify her. The suspect, identified as Tariq H, has confessed to killing Dykes after trying to sexually assault her, a Lebanese judicial official said on Monday. "When he began to sexually assault her, she resisted. She was able to escape from the car and started to scream, until he took her back to the car and strangled her," the source added. An Uber spokesman said in an email: “We are horrified by this senseless act of violence. Our hearts are with the victim and her family. We are working with authorities to assist their investigation in any way they can.”

According to Dykes' social media profiles, she was employed by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) which also issued a statement following confirmation of her death. "Our thoughts are with Becky's family and friends at this very upsetting time," DFID said, adding that the Foreign Office was working with authorities in Lebanon as the police probe gets underway. The British Foreign Office said it was in contact with the Lebanese authorities over the incident.

In an official statement released by the Foreign Office on Monday, the University of Manchester graduate's family said: "For Becky to have her life cruelly taken away in these circumstances is devastating to our family. "Becky is simply irreplaceable and we will never fully recover from this loss." The family continued that they are "grateful that the investigation is moving at pace" and thanked the authorities for acting "quickly and thoroughly". "Becky was genuine, generous, and loving, as anyone who knew her would agree. She was intelligent, ambitious, and dedicated to her work. "Becky had a love of travelling, and was passionate about helping people. "She always wanted to make the world a better place - her humanitarian work in Beirut was testament to that."

Meanwhile, Britain's Foreign Office confirmed the death of an embassy staffer who worked for the Department for International Development. In a statement released by the Foreign Office, the family requested that the media respect their privacy "at this very difficult time." "We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Rebecca. We are doing all we can to understand what happened," her family said. "The whole embassy is deeply shocked and saddened by this news," said British Ambassador to Lebanon Hugo Shorter in a statement, "Our thoughts are with Becky's family, friends and colleagues for their tragic loss."

According to her LinkedIn page, Ms Dykes had been working as a programme and policy manager with the Department for International Development. She had also been a policy manager with the Libya team at the Foreign Office (FCO). Before that she was based as an Iraq Research Analyst with the FCO. The University of Manchester graduate also had a masters in International Security and Global Governance from Birkbeck, University of London, and was a former pupil of Malvern Girls' College and Rugby school. A spokesperson for Uber said: "We are horrified by this senseless act of violence. Our hearts are with the victim and her family. We are working with authorities to assist their investigation in any way we can." The Foreign Office said it was in contact with the Lebanese authorities and confirmed the arrested. "Following the death of a British woman in Beirut, we are providing support to the family," an FCO spokesperson said. "We remain in close contact with local authorities. Our thoughts are with the family at this difficult time."

On Monday, a police official said the suspect was traced through security cameras that showed his car driving from Beirut to the area where Dykes' body was found, just north of the Lebanese capital. "He was detained at his apartment," the official said. He added that once the plate number of the vehicle was traced through security cameras, the suspect, who is a Lebanese citizen, was identified. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency said the suspect is a taxi driver who picked up the woman from Beirut's Gemayze neighborhood, known for its restaurants and pubs, then drove to a nearby neighborhood where she lived but did not drop her off there. Instead, the suspect drove the car to the site where Dykes' body was later found. NNA said the man tried to sexually assault her, then strangled her with a rope. The police have not confirmed those details. The murder has shaken Lebanon, where such crimes, particularly against foreigners, are relatively uncommon. Earlier, a forensics official told The Associated Press that the woman was strangled with a rope and that authorities were investigating whether she was also sexually assaulted. Both the police and the forensics official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters. Dykes' friends said she was planning to fly home for Christmas on Saturday.

Saudi Arabia has the best military equipment money can buy — but it's still not a threat to Iran

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Article represents opinion of the author 

• by Ben Brimelow - Business Insider 

In the past few years, Saudi Arabia has led an intervention in Yemen's civil war, been the driving force behind a diplomatic crisis between Qatar and its neighbors, and involved itself in the politics of Lebanon. All of these things appear to have one common objective: to push back against the influence of Iran. But experts say Saudi Arabia's ambitions are limited by its military, which is considered an ineffective force even though the kingdom is one of the world's largest spenders on defense. "The fact is, Iran is better at doing this stuff," said Michael Knights, a Lafer fellow at The Washington Institute who specializes in the military and security affairs of Iraq, Iran, and the Persian Gulf. "There's nobody in the Iranian General Staff that's afraid of Saudi Arabia on the ground," Knights said. Saudi Arabia's struggles in Yemen — where its years-long conflict with the Houthi rebels has no end in sight — reveals its shortcomings against an adversary like Iran "What we are really talking about is how they stack up in a proxy war," Knights said. "It's what they are doing in the region nowadays."

One of the largest spenders on defense

Saudi Arabia's military faces two main problems. It is too large, making it more susceptible to organizational and quality issues, and its arsenal is designed for a large conventional war rather than the proxy wars of the 21st century. For all Saudi Arabia's military ineffectiveness, it's hard to blame the kingdom's equipment. Last year, Saudi Arabia was the fourth-largest spender on defense products in the world, just behind Russia. According to IHS Jane's, a British publishing company specializing in military, aerospace, and transportation topics, Saudi Arabia was the world's largest importer of weapons in 2014. Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute shows that Saudi Arabia was the second-largest importer of weapons in both 2015 and 2016. Arms imports into the kingdom have increased by over 200% since 2012, according to the institute. The weaponry being bought is not low quality, either. The majority of Saudi Arabia's military hardware is bought from US companies. In fact, 13% of all US arms exports in 2016 were headed into the kingdom. Companies from the UK and Spain were the second- and third-largest sellers. The Royal Saudi Air Force arsenal includes Eurofighter Typhoons, perhaps the most advanced fighter jet fielded by European militaries, and American F-15 Eagles, the undisputed king of the skies for three decades and still formidable. The Saudis even have their own model of the Eagle — the F-15SA (Saudi Advanced), which just started being delivered this year. The Royal Saudi Land Forces, the Saudi army, have everything from M1A2 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles to AH-64D Apache Longbow and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. Virtually every vessel in the Royal Saudi Navy was built in American shipyards, specifically for Saudi Arabia. Its newest frigates, the Al Riyadh class, are modified versions of France's La Fayette-class frigate. Saudi Arabia is one of the best-equipped nations in the world. Yet the Saudi military does not strike fear into the hearts of its adversaries, or would-be foes.

The proxy war in Yemen

Evidence of the Saudi military's shortcomings can be seen just south of the Saudi border in Yemen. Almost three years after Saudi Arabia, supported by other Gulf and Arab states, launched a military intervention to support Yemen's ousted president, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, Iran-backed Houthi rebels are still active and continue to hold Yemen's largest city and capital, Sana'a. Additionally, the Houthis have proved capable of launching high-profile attacks against the Saudis. Those include multiple cross-border raids into Saudi Arabia, successful attacks on Emirati and Saudi navy ships, and the launching of ballistic missiles into the heartland of the kingdom. In a more recent embarrassment, a report from The New York Times suggested that a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis that exploded at an airport in the Saudi capital of Riyadh was actually not shot down as previously claimed by the Saudi military.

Why there has been no victory in Yemen

The Saudis have had a hard task in Yemen. They have to operate in the Houthi heartland against a well-trained, well-funded, and well-supplied fighting force. Saudi Arabia, however, has not deployed significant land forces into Yemen that would be required to win on the battlefield. "We don't know if the Saudi military is able to have a significant impact on the Yemen war, because we've only seen the deployment of Saudi airpower," Knights told Business Insider. "Generally, an airpower-only campaign is not going to have a great impact — particularly in this type of complex terrain with an enemy who is very adept at hiding from airpower and often looks like civilians," he said.

Saudi army Yemen

Knights estimates that 10,000 to 20,000 troops would be required to have the desired affect. Yet the Saudi military has not deployed its ground forces — most likely because the Saudi leadership knows that, as Knights says, they "suffer from significant weaknesses." These weaknesses include a lack of logistical equipment and experience needed to carry out such a campaign. "They have no experience in an expeditionary operation," he said, noting that the Desert Storm campaign against Iraq — which Saudi Arabia did contribute to — was largely an American effort. Additionally, Saudi ground forces as a whole are not trained well enough to where they would be able to perform successfully in large-scale operations. As such, a Saudi ground force in Yemen may cause more harm than good. Bilal Saab, the senior fellow and director of the Defense and Security Program at the Middle East Institute, told Business Insider that Saudi Arabia understood the potential harm of its ground forces. In an email, Saab said Saudi Arabia would not deploy large contingents of ground forces "because their casualties would be severe and they most probably would cause tremendous collateral damage in Yemen."

What can be done

In Knights' view, Saudi Arabia needs to downsize its military, focus on quality recruitment and training, and make units that are capable of fighting alongside and training local allies. Today, local militias and tribal groups form the majority of the ground force battling the Houthis, and few if any Saudi soldiers assist them — save for a few special forces units. "As a result," Knights says, "there is no credible military pressure on the Houthis." The proxy battle in Yemen is just one example of Iran's growing influence across the Middle East. Hezbollah, for instance, is better armed and organized than Lebanon’s official military. Hamas, engaged in ongoing conflict with Israel, is also publicly backed by Iran and a number of militias in Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units receive training, funding, and equipment from their neighboring country. Saudi Arabia's arsenal, though impressive, also needs to be built up with its desired applications in mind. For now, those seem to be proxy wars against an enemy that is rarely in uniform, as opposed to one fought against a conventional army from the Cold War era.

Lebanese The Insult among Oscar nominees for Best Foreign-Language Film

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Ahram Online - Choosing from a total of 92 submissions, the US Academy of Motion Picture Art and Sciences announced Ziad Doueiri's The Insult among nine films shortlisted for the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar. The Insult, a Lebanese comedy drama, is the only film from the Arab world to make it to the shortlist. Other entries include A Fantastic Woman (Chile), In the Fade, Fatih Akin (Germany), On Body and Soul (Hungary), Foxtrot (Israel), Loveless (Russia), Félicité (Senegal), The Wound (South Africa) and The Square (Sweden). The comedy drama The Insult "deals with our deep wounds that we have not talked about since the end of the civil war in the 1990s," the director explained in an interview with Ahram Online. "In less than two hours, The Insult sums up 40 years of deliberate blindness. The story of this film is about a clash between a Palestinian and a Christian Lebanese in Beirut. When they go to court the bitterness of the past haunts everyone. "In this sense, the film opens the question of the impossibility of building a healthy future unless you reach real reconciliation with the past."

Since his first feature film, West Beirut, in 1998, Lebanese cinematographer, film director and writer Ziad Doueiri has secured himself a place on the international cinema scene. West Beirut (À l'abri les enfants), a comedy drama, won a total of eight awards at numerous prestigious international festivals, among them the François Chalais Award at the Cannes Film Festival (1998), the Best Film Award at the Carthage Film Festival (1998), and the International Critics' Award (FIPRESCI) at the Toronto International Film Festival (1998), where he was praised for his “youthful, energetic and unconventional approach to human values in the midst of civil war and its tragedies.” His next feature, crime drama Lila Says (Lila dit ça, 2004) as well as The Attack (2012), also brought him awards; the latter film causing controversy based on thematic choices, and banned in a number of Arab countries. The Insult won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor (Kamel El-Basha) at this year’s Venice Film Festival.

Most recently, The Insult was screened within the inaugural El-Gouna Festival (22-29 September) and won Silver Star for Best Feature Narrative Film. The final list of films that compete for the Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar will be announced 23 January 2018, and the 90th Academy Awards ceremony will take place 4 March at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Centre. For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture

Hungary to renovate 30 Lebanese churches

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The Daily Star BEIRUT: Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil received Thursday evening a delegation from Hungary to discuss a Hungarian aid package to renovate Lebanese churches, a statement from Bassil’s media office reported. "The renovation process will include more than 32 churches across Lebanon," Peter Heltai, ambassador-at-large of the Hungary Helps Initiative, said, according to the statement released Friday. "Lebanon is one of the pillars of peace, diversity, and coexistence in the Middle East."

Hungary Helps is a governmental initiative that aims to help troubled communities in their local contexts. Hungary also prioritizes improving the lives of Christians in the Middle East. "It is important, because of migration and the humanitarian conflict in the Middle East, to establish an approach aimed at bringing refugees back to their countries and finding a long-term and lasting solution to this conflict," Heltai said. The Hungarian government is also reportedly planning projects that would further strengthen the economic ties between Hungary and Lebanon. Earlier this year, Hungary donated 1.5 million euros ($1.8 million) to assist in the reconstruction of the over thirty churches, according to the Hungary Helps website. "Lebanon plays a crucial role in the preservation of the Christian communities," Hungarian Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Peter Szijjarto said, off the initiative.

Lebanon gives go-ahead to first offshore energy exploration

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BEIRUT, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Lebanon’s cabinet approved a bid on Thursday by a consortium of France’s Total, Italy’s ENI and Russia’s Novatek, in the country’s much-delayed first oil and gas offshore licensing round, a government source told Reuters. Exploratory drilling is expected to start at the beginning of 2019, Energy and Water Minister Cesar Abi Khalil said in a statement. “Congratulations to the Lebanese people on the passing of the oil decree and on Lebanon entering the club of oil countries,” Abi Khalil said on Twitter in response to the decision. Lebanon is on the Levant Basin in the eastern Mediterranean where a number of big sub-sea gas fields have been discovered since 2009, including the Leviathan and Tamar fields located in Israeli waters near the disputed marine border with Lebanon. Data suggests there are reserves in Lebanon’s waters, but so far no exploratory drilling has taken place to estimate reserves.

The first licensing round for exploration and production rights in five blocks (1, 4, 8, 9 and 10) was re-launched in January after a three-year delay caused by political paralysis. After being without a president for more than two years, Lebanon in January installed a new government and reactivated the licensing round. Total-ENI-Novatek was the only consortium to submit an offer out of the 51 companies which qualified to bid, bidding for blocks 4 and 9. Block 9 borders Israeli waters. Lebanon considers Israel an enemy state and has an unresolved maritime border dispute with it over a triangular area of sea of around 860 sq km (330 square miles) that extends along the edge of three of the five blocks put up for tender. The exploration phase will last up to five years with a possible one-year extension, the Lebanese Petroleum Administration, the state body that manages the offshore sector, said. The government gave no other details of the agreement with the three energy companies. But under a model exploration and production agreement published by the Lebanese government in January, companies that make a discovery must produce oil and gas for 25 years with a possible further five-year extension.

Companies must pay royalties to the state equal to 4 percent of gas produced and a varying percentage (between 5 and 12 percent) of any oil produced. A percentage of the oil and gas is allocated to the companies to cover their costs. Diana Kaissy, executive director of the Lebanon Oil and Gas Initiative (LOGI), a non-governmental organisation promoting transparency and policy development in the hydrocarbon sector, said the contracts will likely be signed in January. Kaissy said there was a legislative framework for drilling to begin, but four other draft laws for the sector were still being discussed: sovereign wealth fund legislation, an onshore petroleum law, legislation for a national oil company and a petroleum assets law. LOGI wants to make Lebanon’s nascent hydrocarbon industry as transparent as possible and says it will be using freedom of information laws to make the government’s evaluation of the consortium’s bid available for public scrutiny. (Reporting by Lisa Barrington and Laila Bassam; Editing by Adrian Croft)

Lebanese army to get $120 mln in U.S. aid

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BEIRUT(Reuters) - The United States, which wants to prevent violence spilling over from Syria into Lebanon, will give the Lebanese army $120 million more in aid to boost border security and counter-terrorism work, the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon said on Wednesday. Lebanon will get six MD 530G light attack helicopters, six Scan Eagle drones, and communication and night vision equipment under the new programmes, Ambassador Elizabeth Richard said after she met Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri. The United States has given the Lebanese Armed Forces more than $1.5 billion in assistance over the past ten years, the Embassy has said previously. The United States hopes to strengthen the Lebanese army to stop the spread of violence over the border from neighbouring Syria and help it become the sole military force defending the country. Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group, which Washington regards as a terrorist organisation, is a powerful military force in the country and also fights in Syria for President Bashar al-Assad. Lebanon hosts around 1.5 million Syrian refugees. (Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Richard Balmforth)