President Aoun, PM Salam form Lebanon government

Update This handout picture released by the Lebanese presidency shows President Joseph Aoun (C) meeting with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri (L) and designate Prime Minister Nawaf Salam at the presidential palace in Baabda, east of Beirut on February 8, 2025. (Lebanese Presidency/AFP)
This handout picture released by the Lebanese presidency shows President Joseph Aoun (C) meeting with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri (L) and designate Prime Minister Nawaf Salam at the presidential palace in Baabda, east of Beirut on February 8, 2025. (Lebanese Presidency/AFP)
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Updated 09 February 2025
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President Aoun, PM Salam form Lebanon government

President Aoun, PM Salam form Lebanon government
  • Salam’s cabinet of 24 ministers, split evenly between Christian and Muslim sects, was formed less than a month after he was appointed
  • Lebanon is also still in the throes of a crippling economic crisis, now in its sixth year

BEIRUT: Twenty-six days after Nawaf Salam was assigned to form a Lebanese government, the decrees for its formation were announced on Saturday from the Presidential Palace.

President Joseph Aoun accepted the resignation of Najib Mikati’s government.

The Council of Ministers is scheduled to hold its first session at the Presidential Palace next Tuesday.

In a speech after announcing the formation of the government, Salam said he hoped that “it would be a government of reform and salvation, because reform is the only way for Lebanon to rise.”

He added: “With President Aoun, we launch the workshop to build a new Lebanon.”

He said that “the diversity of ministers’ names will not hinder the function of government, and no government formation will satisfy everyone. We will work in a unified manner. I am keeping in mind the establishment of a state of law and institutions, and we are laying the foundations for reform and rescue. There is no room to turn back time, and we must begin work immediately.

“The government will have to work with parliament to complete the implementation of the Taif Agreement and proceed with financial and economic reforms.

“The government will be a place for constructive joint work and not for disputes. I am determined to lay the foundations for reform and rescue in cooperation with President Aoun.”

Salam continued: “This government will strive to restore trust and bridge the gap between the state and the aspirations of the youth. It must work toward the full implementation of the Taif Agreement, proceed with financial and economic reforms, and establish an independent judiciary.”

He emphasized the importance of “ensuring security and stability in Lebanon by completing the implementation of Resolution 1701.”

He said: “It is difficult for any government formation to satisfy everyone. However, the government will endeavor to be cohesive, and diversity will not serve as a source of obstruction to its work, nor will it provide a platform for narrow interests.”

The government included Tarek Mitri as deputy prime minister, Michel Menassa as defense minister, Ahmad Hajjar as interior minister, Youssef Raji as foreign minister, Yassine Jaber as finance minister, Ghassan Salameh as culture minister, Laura Khazen Lahoud as tourism minister, Kamal Chehade as minister of displaced persons and artificial intelligence, Nora Bayrakdarian as minister of sports and youth, Rima Karami as education minister, Adel Nassar as justice minister, Rakan Nasser Eldine as health minister, Mohammed Haidar as labor minister, Joseph Sadi as energy minister, Amir Bisat as economy minister, Charles Hajj as telecommunications minister, Joe Issa El-Khoury as industry minister, Fayez Rasamny as public works minister, Nizar El-Hani as agriculture minister, Fadi Makki as minister of administrative development, Tamara Zein as environment minister, Hanin Sayyed as social affairs minister and Paul Marcos as information minister.

Salam’s government during Aoun’s presidency has broken the norms established by Hezbollah and its allies over three terms, which dictated that the government be composed of direct party representatives and that Hezbollah maintain a significant influence capable of obstructing decisions at every critical political or security juncture.

A technocratic government has been formed, one that is widely acknowledged and uncontested by political parties.

Despite pressure from Hezbollah and the Amal Movement over the past few weeks to form a government similar to its predecessor, both the president and the prime minister-designate stood firm. As a result, they eventually formed a government that reflects the reformist spirit expressed in Aoun’s oath speech.

The new government has no members affiliated with the Free Patriotic Movement, but it does have representatives close to the Lebanese Forces Party.

Notably, it includes five women, and for the first time, a ministerial portfolio has been dedicated to artificial intelligence.

The government consists of 24 ministers. Its formation was delayed from Friday to Saturday due to disagreements over Shiite representation.

At noon on Saturday, Salam presented three candidates to the Presidential Palace for selection to fill the fifth Shiite seat in the administrative development portfolio.

Fadi Makki, former adviser to Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in 2002, was chosen.

Makki is known for pioneering the application of behavioral economics in public policy across the Middle East.

The announcement of the new government coincided with the conclusion of the two-day visit by US deputy envoy for the Middle East, Morgan Ortagus, who held discussions with several Lebanese officials.

Ortagus’s statement at the Presidential Palace on Friday caught many by surprise, when she said: “The US expresses its gratitude to our ally Israel for defeating Hezbollah. Hezbollah must not be part of the government in any way. It must remain demilitarized and militarily defeated.”

According to Salam’s office, Ortagus met him and reaffirmed “the US support for Lebanon in this new era and government.”

Salam emphasized to Ortagus the need for “international pressure to ensure Israel’s complete withdrawal from the occupied Lebanese territories by the Feb. 18 deadline. This withdrawal must occur without delay or procrastination, in full compliance with international resolutions.”

Ortagus also met the parliament speaker, Nabih Berri. Notably, during this meeting, she was not wearing the Star of David ring she had worn during her earlier meeting with the president on Friday.

While Ortagus did not make a statement, Berri’s media office reiterated that “Israel’s continued occupation of Lebanese territories necessitates our resistance.”

In a separate development, Israeli forces continued to demolish homes in villages along the southern border.

Meanwhile, for a third consecutive day, deadly clashes intensified in north-east Lebanon along the Syrian border and in villages straddling Lebanese and Syrian territories.

On Friday, Aoun held a phone conversation with Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa. They both agreed to coordinate efforts to control the situation on the Lebanese-Syrian border and prevent civilian casualties.

The border town of Jarmash was targeted by missiles and drones, while additional missiles landed near the Lebanese town of Qasr, leaving one civilian seriously injured.

After the shelling of the border area, the Lebanese Red Cross transported eight wounded people to hospitals in Hermel.

The Lebanese town of Qanafez, on the northern border of Hermel, was hit by artillery shelling from the Qusayr countryside, breaking a night of relative calm.

Armed clansmen intercepted and shot down three Shaheen drones over the northern border villages of Hermel, after they were launched from Syrian territory.

According to the Lebanese National News Agency, they also destroyed a tank in the town of Jarmash.

Lebanese media reports indicated that 10 members of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham were killed, while three others were captured in the aftermath of the clashes.

The clashes broke out last Thursday when forces aligned with the new Syrian administration advanced on the border town of Hawik as part of a sweeping operation to “seal off smuggling routes for weapons and contraband.”


NGOs fear new rules will make helping Palestinians ‘almost impossible’

NGOs fear new rules will make helping Palestinians ‘almost impossible’
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NGOs fear new rules will make helping Palestinians ‘almost impossible’

NGOs fear new rules will make helping Palestinians ‘almost impossible’
  • Since the war in Gaza broke out, aid organizations have been contending with a ‘slippery slope’ when it comes to Israeli authorities’ tolerance for their work
  • COGAT, the Israeli body responsible for overseeing Palestinian affairs, presented a plan last month for reorganizing aid distribution
JERUSALEM: Aid workers in the Palestinian territories told AFP they are concerned that rules recently floated by Israel could make already difficult humanitarian work “almost impossible.”
Since the war in Gaza broke out with Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, aid organizations have been contending with a “slippery slope” when it comes to Israeli authorities’ tolerance for their work, said one senior NGO staffer.
But after COGAT, the Israeli body responsible for overseeing Palestinian affairs, presented a plan last month for reorganizing aid distribution, that slope has gotten “much steeper,” with some NGOs deeming the proposed changes unacceptable, she added.
COGAT did not respond to AFP’s request for comment.
The staffer and others interviewed requested anonymity for fear of repercussions for their operations in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip, where responding to the acute humanitarian crisis brought on by the war had already been a Herculean undertaking.
“The ability to deliver aid and adhere to humanitarian principles in Gaza, the access restrictions we’re facing in the West Bank... All of these things, when you put them together, you just feel like you’re watching the apocalypse,” she said.
“We basically have a fire extinguisher trying to put out a nuclear bomb.”
According to NGOs, COGAT presented a plan at the end of February that aims to reinforce Israeli oversight of aid by establishing logistics centers linked to the army and by enforcing tighter control over the entire humanitarian supply chain.
“Logistically, it will be almost impossible,” said one member of a medical NGO, wondering whether such organizations would be forced to declare individual recipients of various medications.
COGAT’s stated objective, according to the NGOs, is to combat looting and the misappropriation of aid by militants.
But the NGOs say they believe looting is currently marginal, and that the best way of avoiding it is to step up deliveries.
Israel, meanwhile, cut off aid deliveries to Gaza entirely early this month over an impasse with Hamas on how to proceed with a fragile ceasefire.
“The thinking (of COGAT) was that Hamas would rebuild itself thanks to humanitarian aid,” said a representative of a European NGO, “but that’s false, and humanitarian aid won’t bring them rockets or missiles.”
Israel “just wants more control over this territory,” he added.
The NGOs said COGAT did not specify when the new rules would take effect.
A separate government directive that came into force in March established a new, stricter framework for registering NGOs working with Palestinians.
It requires organizations to share extensive information on their staff, and gives the government the right to reject employees it deems to be linked to the “delegitimization” of Israel.
NGOs operating in the Palestinian territories already face numerous difficulties, and even outright danger, particularly in Gaza.
At least 387 employees have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, according to a recent UN estimate.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, which was recently banned from operating in Israel, said the humanitarian community is wondering “how far can we go while remaining principled,” and at what point that would no longer be the case under the new rules.
Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO network PNGO, said organizations “need to all work against” the new restrictions, adding that he believed the rules’ actual goal was to “prevent accountability and any kind of criticism on Israel toward what they committed” in Gaza and the West Bank.
“Lives are at stake,” he added.
The head of an international NGO agreed that a “red line has been crossed and I think we should oppose it.”
But one humanitarian in the medical sector said a principled stand would only draw flak from the Israelis, and “given the needs (of the Palestinians), principled positions don’t hold water.”

Doctor at Brown University deported to Lebanon despite US judge’s order

Dr. Rasha Alawieh. (Supplied)
Dr. Rasha Alawieh. (Supplied)
Updated 17 March 2025
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Doctor at Brown University deported to Lebanon despite US judge’s order

Dr. Rasha Alawieh. (Supplied)
  • Alawieh, a Lebanese citizen, has an H-1B visa authorizing her to work at Brown University, yet she was detained on Thursday after returning from travel to Lebanon
  • Her expulsion is set to be the focus of a hearing on Monday before a federal judge in Boston, who demanded information on whether his order had been “willfully” disobeyed

BOSTON: A Rhode Island doctor who is an assistant professor at Brown University’s medical school has been deported to Lebanon even though a judge had issued an order blocking the US visa holder’s immediate removal from the country, according to court papers.
The expulsion of Dr. Rasha Alawieh, 34, is set to be the focus of a hearing on Monday before a federal judge in Boston, who on Sunday demanded information on whether US Customs and Border Protection had “willfully” disobeyed his order.
US District Judge Leo Sorokin, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, said he had received a “detailed and specific” timeline of the events from an attorney working on Alawieh’s behalf that raised “serious allegations” about whether his order was violated.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Rasha Alawieh was removed after arriving at Boston airport

• Judge questions if Customs and Border Protection disobeyed his order

• Court hearing set for Monday

The agency has not said why she was removed. But her expulsion came as Republican US President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to sharply restrict border crossing and ramp up immigration arrests.
A CBP spokesperson, Hilton Beckham, in a statement said migrants bear the burden of establishing admissibility and that the agency’s officers “adhere to strict protocols to identify and stop threats.”
Alawieh, a Lebanese citizen who lives in Providence, was detained on Thursday after arriving at Logan International Airport in Boston after traveling to Lebanon to see relatives, according to a lawsuit filed by her cousin, Yara Chehab.
She had held a visa to be in the United States since 2018, when she first came to complete a two-year fellowship at Ohio State University before then completing a fellowship at the University of Washington and then moving to the Yale-Waterbury Internal Medicine Program, which she completed in June.
While in Lebanon, the US consulate issued Alawieh an H-1B visa authorizing her entry into the United States to work at Brown University, the lawsuit said. Such visas are reserved for people from other countries who are employed in specialty occupations.
Despite that visa, CBP detained her at the airport for reasons her family members have still not been provided, according to the lawsuit, which argued her rights were being violated.
In response to the lawsuit, Sorokin on Friday evening issued orders barring Alawieh’s removal from Massachusetts without 48 hours’ notice to the court and requiring her to be brought to a court hearing on Monday.
Yet according to the cousin’s attorneys, after that order was issued, Alawieh was flown to Paris, where she was then set to board a flight for Lebanon that had been scheduled for Sunday.
Sorokin on Sunday directed the government to provide a legal and factual response by Monday morning ahead of the previously scheduled hearing and to preserve all emails, text messages and other documents concerning Alawieh’s arrival and removal.
Concerns have also been raised in other cases about whether the Trump administration is complying with court rulings blocking parts of its agenda.
The Trump administration on Sunday said it has deported hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador under seldom-used wartime powers, despite a federal judge’s order temporarily barring such deportations.

 

 


Sudanese police accuse RSF paramilitaries after 11 bodies found at bottom of a well in Khartoum

Sudanese police accuse RSF paramilitaries after 11 bodies found at bottom of a well in Khartoum
Updated 17 March 2025
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Sudanese police accuse RSF paramilitaries after 11 bodies found at bottom of a well in Khartoum

Sudanese police accuse RSF paramilitaries after 11 bodies found at bottom of a well in Khartoum
  • The bodies of 11 people were recovered Saturday from the deep well in the Fayhaa neighborhood of the city
  • Police say the victims were killed by paramilitary by the paramilitary RSF when itwas controlling the area

CAIRO: Sudanese authorities said Sunday many bodies have been found at the bottom of a well in the capital, Khartoum, a few days after the military cleared the area from a notorious paramilitary group.
The bodies of 11 people, including women and children, were recovered Saturday from the deep well in the Fayhaa neighborhood of the city, according to police.
Col. Abdul-Rahanan Mohamed Hassan, head of the civil defense’s field team in Khartoum, said a search of the the area was mounted after residents reported that they found a dead body in the well.
“We found inside this well different characters (bodies), males and females, adults and children,” Hassan said, adding that authorities were still searching the well.

Police say the victims were killed by the Rapid Support Forces before being thrown into the well when the paramilitary force was controlling the area. The military retook the area earlier this month as part of its sweeping advances in Khartoum and its sister city of Omdurman.
There was no immediate comment from the RSF.
Afraa Al-Hajj Omar, a resident of the nearby Hajj Youssef neighborhood, said that the RSF killed many people in the area and their bodies were left for days in the streets. She said many bodies were thrown in the well. “They robbed us, beat us, and tortured us,” she said.
Sudan was plunged into chaos in April 2023 when simmering tensions between the military and the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces exploded into open warfare across the country.
At least 20,000 people have been killed, though the number is likely far higher. The war has driven more than 14 million people from their homes and pushed parts of the country into famine.
The fighting, which wrecked Khartoum and other urban areas has been marked by atrocities including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, especially in the western region of Darfur, according to the United Nations and international rights groups.
The war has intensified in recent months, with the military making steady advances against the RSF in Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.


Syria’s new rulers seek aid boost at EU conference

Syria’s new rulers seek aid boost at EU conference
Updated 17 March 2025
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Syria’s new rulers seek aid boost at EU conference

Syria’s new rulers seek aid boost at EU conference
  • Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shibani is expected to take part in the event, along with dozens of European and Arab ministers and representatives of international organizations

BRUSSELS: The interim government in Damascus will take part on Monday in an annual international conference to gather aid pledges for Syria, facing dire humanitarian problems and an uncertain political transition after the fall of Bashar Assad.
The conference has been hosted by the European Union in Brussels since 2017 — but took place without the government of Assad, who was shunned for his brutal actions in a civil war that began in 2011.
After Assad’s overthrow in December, EU officials hope to use the conference as a fresh start, despite concerns about deadly violence this month that pitted the new, Islamist rulers against Assad loyalists.
“This is a time of dire needs and challenges for Syria, as tragically evidenced by the recent wave of violence in coastal areas,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said.
But she said it was also “a time of hope,” citing an agreement struck on March 10 to integrate the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which control much of Syria’s northeast, into new state institutions.
Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, the group that toppled Assad, is designated as a terrorist organization by the United Nations. But EU officials want to engage with the new rulers as long as they stick to pledges to make the transition inclusive and peaceful.
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shibani is expected to take part in the event, along with dozens of European and Arab ministers and representatives of international organizations.
EU officials say the conference is particularly important as the United States under President Donald Trump is making huge cutbacks to humanitarian and development aid programs.
Last year’s conference yielded pledges of 7.5 billion euros ($8.1 billion) in grants and loans, with the EU pledging 2.12 billion for 2024 and 2025.
About 16.5 million people in Syria require humanitarian assistance, with 12.9 million people needing food aid, according to the EU.
The destruction from the war has been compounded by an economic crisis that has sent the Syrian pound tumbling and pushed almost the entire population below the poverty line. ($1 = 0.9192 euros)

 


Families of Syrians who disappeared during its civil war say the search must go on

Families of Syrians who disappeared during its civil war say the search must go on
Updated 17 March 2025
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Families of Syrians who disappeared during its civil war say the search must go on

Families of Syrians who disappeared during its civil war say the search must go on
  • A United Nations-backed commission on Friday urged the interim government led by Ahmad Al-Sharaa to preserve evidence and anything they can document from prisons in the ongoing search for the disappeared

DARAA, Syria: Family members of Syrians who disappeared in the country’s 14-year civil war gathered in the city of Daraa on Sunday to urge the newly installed interim government to not give up on efforts to find them.
The United Nations in 2021 estimated that over 130,000 Syrians were taken away and disappeared during the war, many of them detained by former President Bashar Assad’s network of intelligence agencies as well as by opposition fighters and the extremist Daesh group. Advocacy group The Syrian Campaign says some 112,000 are still missing.
When rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham overthrew Assad in December, they stormed prisons and released detainees from the ousted government’s dungeons. Families of the missing quickly rushed to the prisons seeking their loved ones. While there were some reunions, rescue services also discovered mass graves around the country and used whatever remains they could retrieve to identify the dead.

Family members hold pictures of their relatives who disappeared in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war, during a protest calling on the interim government to not give up on efforts to find them, in the city of Daraa, Syria, Sunday, March 16, 2025. (AP)

On Sunday, the 14th anniversary of the countrywide uprisings that spiraled into civil war, Wafa Mustafa held a placard of her father, Ali, who was detained by the Assad government’s security forces in 2013. She fled a week later to Germany, fearing she would also be detained, and hasn’t heard from him since.
Like many other Syrians who fled the conflict or went into exile for their activism, she often held protests and rallied in European cities. Now, she has returned twice since Assad’s ouster, trying to figure out her father’s whereabouts.
“I’m trying, feeling both hope and despair, to find any answer on the fate of my father,” she said. “I searched inside the prisons, the morgues, the hospitals, and through the bodies of the martyrs, but I still couldn’t find anything.”
A United Nations-backed commission on Friday urged the interim government led by Ahmad Al-Sharaa to preserve evidence and anything they can document from prisons in the ongoing search for the disappeared. The commission also urged the new government to pursue perpetrators.
Some foreign nationals are missing in Syria as well, notably American journalist Austin Tice, whose mother visited Syria in January and met with Al-Sharaa. Tice has not been heard from other than a video released weeks after his disappearance in 2012 that showed him blindfolded and held by armed men.
Syria’s civil war began after Assad crushed largely peaceful protests in 2011, one of the popular uprisings against Arab rulers known as the Arab Spring. Half a million people were killed during the conflict, and more than 5 million left the country as refugees.