Pompeo Says Hizbullah Impeding Dreams of Lebanese, Stealing State's Funds

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by naharnet - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday urged Lebanon to pick a side as he visited the country on a regional tour to build a united front against Iran. He especially expressed concern over the role of Hizbullah, an Iran-backed movement that is targeted by U.S. sanctions but holds three cabinet posts in Lebanon. "Lebanon and the Lebanese people face a choice: bravely move forward as an independent and proud nation or allow the dark ambitions of Iran and Hizbullah to dictate your future," he said during a joint news conference with his Lebanese counterpart Jebran Bassil. "The U.S. will continue to use all peaceful means, everything at our disposal to choke off the financing, the smuggling, the criminal network and the misuse of government positions and influence," by Hizbullah, he said. "We will not hesitate to call out those who actively and passively support those activities," he added.

Pompeo also accused Hizbullah of being an obstacle in the face of the Lebanese people's dreams. “We believe that our work is already constraining Hizbullah's activities and we will continue to support Lebanon and its people,” Pompeo was quoted as saying during the press conference. “It will take courage for Lebanon to stand up to Hizbullah's criminality, terror, and threats,” he added. Pompeo also accused Hizbullah of putting Lebanon on the frontlines of Iran's proxy campaigns and of “stealing” the Lebanese state's funds. "How does stockpiling tens of thousands of missiles in Lebanon territory for use against Israel make this country stronger?" asked Pompeo, referring to Hizbullah's arsenal that the group boasts can strike any part of Israel. "Hizbullah and its illegitimate militia put the entire country on the front lines of Iran's misguided proxy campaign," Pompeo added.

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Saudi crown prince launched covert campaign to silence dissenters prior to Khashoggi killing: report

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by thehill.com --Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched a covert campaign to silence dissenters more than a year before the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the New York Times reported Sunday. American officials with knowledge of classified reports told the Times that the group of operatives which killed and dismembered Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October carried out several other missions against dissidents. According to the officials, who called the group the Saudi Rapid Intervention Group, members of the team were involved in at least a dozen operations starting in 2017. Missions included forcibly repatriating Saudis from other Arab countries and detaining and abusing prisoners, the Times reported.

A spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington told the Times that the kingdom “takes any allegations of ill treatment of defendants awaiting trial or prisoners serving their sentences very seriously.” The Saudi government has maintained that the killing of Khashoggi was carried out by rogue agents as part of an interrogation that went off track. They have said that those responsibly are being prosecuted for the incident. Saudi Arabia cracking down on dissidents is not new, but efforts to do so escalated sharply after Prince Mohammed became crown prince in 2017. “We’ve never seen it on a scale like this,” Bruce Riedel, a former C.I.A. analyst now with the Brookings Institution, told the Times. “A dissident like Jamal Khashoggi in the past wouldn’t have been considered worth the effort.”

Lebanon’s tobacco addiction comes with a medical bill

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by thearabweekly.com -- By Samar Kadi-- Recent studies indicated that most shisha smokers in Lebanon are women and young Lebanese are among the heaviest shisha smokers in the world. - “It is a nice pastime, especially when we sit with friends in cafes, chatting while having a smoke,” said Nada Cherif. Cherif said she was never enticed to smoke cigarettes but she is a regular user of nargile — also known as shisha, hookah or water pipe — which has become an epidemical trend in Lebanon. Cherif insisted that she is not a tobacco addict. “I have friends who smoke the nargile more than once a day and alternate with cigarettes,” she said.

Lebanon has been ranked among the world’s highest tobacco-consuming countries in recent years. In 2015, a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) put Lebanon third for the highest cigarette consumption per capita. “It is no surprise that we have the highest cancer rate in the region,” said Nadine Chatila, director of communications at the American University of Beirut Medical Centre (AUBMC). “The problem is that indoor smoking is allowed in many public places. Shisha is easily accessible and you can even have it delivered to your home at a very cheap price." AUBMC’s cancer department estimates that 8,000 cases of cancer are reported in Lebanon annually. Dr Nagi Saghir, professor of haematology-oncology and director of the breast cancer centre at AUBMC, has stated that cases are divided equally between the sexes and that, among the 4,000 cases of cancer in women, 1,700 are breast cancer. Oncologist Dr Joseph Makdessi noted that cancer prevalence has risen globally, not only in Lebanon, with lung cancer being the most common type of the disease. “Almost 90% of lung cancer cases are related directly to smoking,” Makdessi said. “Among females, cases of breast cancer are the highest, whereas prostate cancer is the most common among men.” While smoking could be one of the main causes for lung cancer, other factors are relevant for the increase in cancer cases, Makdessi said.

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Lebanese Nizar Zakka to contest by-poll from Iran jail

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by arabnews.com --BEIRUT: A Lebanese citizen imprisoned in Iran, Nizar Zakka, announced in a message he sent from Tehran’s Evin prison that he will run for the by-election to fill the vacant Sunni seat in the district of Tripoli in northern Lebanon. Zakka, an information technology expert, was kidnapped in September 2015 on his way to Tehran airport after having accepted an invitation from Iran to attend a scientific conference. He was a permanent resident of the US, where he served as secretary-general of the Arab ICT Organization in Washington. Iranian authorities have accused him of “spying for the US.” Zakka pledged in a message distributed by his family and lawyer to be Lebanese voters’ “loud voice in Parliament, and the voice of every ordinary citizen who has lost his right in a state that knows no justice.” He wrote that the Lebanese state had conspired against him when he was kidnapped and “detained in one of the most appalling prisons in the world.” He added: “For four years, I have been living in an underground grave between sewers and rats.” Zakka saluted Prime Minister Saad Hariri and the parties, civil society organizations and personalities that have supported him and his cause. “Not a day goes by while I am in prison that I do not remember Mohamad Chatah, and I am sure that had he gotten invited to Iran and responded to the invitation, he would have met the same fate,” Zakka wrote. Chatah, a Lebanese politician and economist, was assassinated in 2013 by a car bomb in Beirut. He was born in Tripoli, served as finance minister in 2008, and was among the most prominent advisers to Hariri’s Future Movement.

Cheat. Bribe. Lie. Here's how the college admissions scam allegedly worked

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By Eric Levenson, CNN, 

The college admissions scheme revealed Tuesday is the largest of its kind ever prosecuted, federal prosecutors said, and features 50 defendants across six states, millions of dollars in illegally funneled funds and a handful of the country's most selective universities. But at its core, the alleged scheme is remarkably simple -- and brazen. Cheat on standardized tests. Bribe the people who decide which students get admitted. All the while pretending that money was for charity. "I'll speak more broadly, there were essentially two kinds of fraud that Singer was selling," US Attorney Andrew Lelling said, referring to William Rick Singer, the figure at the center of the scheme. "One was to cheat on the SAT or ACT, and the other was to use his connections with Division I coaches and use bribes to get these parents' kids into school with fake athletic credentials," Lelling said at a press conference in Boston. A total of 50 people were charged in the case. Those arrested include two SAT/ACT administrators, one exam proctor, nine coaches at elite schools, one college administrator and 33 parents, according to Lelling. Here's how the plan worked, according to prosecutors.

Cheating on the ACTs and SATs

Of course, students who score higher on standardized tests such as the ACT and SAT are more likely to get into selective colleges. Given that, Singer facilitated cheating on those exams for students whose wealthy parents paid for his services. Singer pleaded guilty in court on Tuesday to four federal charges and admitted that the case against him was accurate. According to the indictment, he arranged for a third-party -- generally Mark Riddell, who is charged with two conspiracy counts -- to secretly take the test in the students' place or replace their responses with his own. How did Riddell allegedly take the tests without being noticed by the test administrators? Well, prosecutors said, Singer bribed them. Igor Dvorskiy, who administered SAT and ACT tests in Los Angeles, and Lisa "Niki" Williams, who administered the tests at a public high school in Houston, are both accused of accepting bribes to allow Riddell to take the tests. Both are charged with conspiracy to commit racketeering, according to the indictment. Parents who hired Singer as part of the scheme allegedly paid between $15,000 and $75,000 per test, the indictment states. CNN has reached out to Riddell, Williams and Dvorskiy.

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Military Tribunal Sentences Journalist for Criticizing Lebanese Security Agency

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by hrw.org --Aya Majzoub -- The sentencing of Lebanese TV correspondent Adam Chamseddine to three months in jail for “insulting” a security agency in a Facebook post is the latest escalation in the crackdown on speech criticizing public officials and state institutions. The prison sentence, the second issued to a journalist in absentia by a military court and one in a growing list targeting journalists, reflects all that is wrong with the continued prosecution of journalists for exercising their right to free speech. Chamseddine’s post criticized State Security for leaking details of an investigation of a detainee who had AIDS. Chamseddine claimed that the same State Security interrogators used a similar tactic with Ziad Itani, who was exonerated in 2018 of spying for Israel, knowing that in both cases, public opinion would turn against the suspects. There has been an alarming increase in the use of Lebanon’s criminal defamation laws, which authorize imprisonment for up to three years for insulting state officials and institutions. SKeyes, an organization that monitors free speech in Lebanon, recorded more than 90 prosecutions against journalists, artists, and activists since October 2016, with 62 in 2018 alone. Digital rights group, Social Media Exchange said the number of cases over online posts almost quadrupled between 2017 and 2018.

Military courts have such broad jurisdiction over civilians they can end up in military court for any interaction with security services or their employees. Defendants, lawyers, and Lebanese human rights activists allege that authorities are using this power to silence dissent. Chamseddine is only one of many outspoken journalists, activists, and human rights lawyers who have been tried in military courts. Those who have been tried in military courts have described torture, forced confessions, incommunicado detention, lengthy pretrial detention, decisions issued without an explanation, seemingly arbitrary sentences, and a limited ability to appeal. Such trials violate defendants’ rights to due process and international law. In Chamseddine’s case, local media reported that he was tried in absentia because he failed to receive appropriate legal notice to appear for questioning or in court. The threat of arrest and the possibility of ending up before a military court have a deep chilling effect on critics of Lebanon’s government and state institutions. At a time when the state has failed to deliver even the most basic of services to its citizens and has engaged in serious rights violations, public debate should be encouraged, not persecuted.