https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/lebanon-warns-israel-against-encroachment-on-its-resources

Lebanon warns "Israel" against encroachment on its resources

Lebanese President Michel Aoun discussed Today with Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati the issue of the entry of the Energean Power vessel into the disputed maritime area with "Israel", noting that any activity in that area currently constitutes a "hostile act."

The Lebanese presidency issued a statement, in which it said that Aoun discussed with Mikati "the entry of the Energean Power vessel into the disputed maritime area with "Israel" and asked the army command to provide it with "accurate and official data to build on the matter."

President Aoun said that "Negotiations to demarcate the southern maritime borders are still ongoing, and any action or activity in the disputed area constitutes a provocation and a hostile act."

Mikati: Enemy's encroachment on Lebanon's water wealth is extremely dangerous

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Sunday, that "the Israeli enemy's attempts to create a new crisis, by encroaching on Lebanon's water wealth, and imposing a fait accompli in a disputed area in which Lebanon adheres to its rights, is extremely dangerous, and would cause unimaginable tensions," he added "nobody can guess its repercussions."

Mikati warned of the "repercussions of any incomplete step, before completing the mission of the American mediator, whose resumption has become more than an urgent necessity," calling: "the United Nations and all concerned to remedy the situation and compel the Israeli enemy to stop its provocations."

The caretaker PM concluded: "The solution is to return to negotiations on the basis of not giving up Lebanon's full rights to its wealth and water."

Mikati's statement came after the new European ship "Energean Power", which was built specifically for the Karish field, located off the southern Lebanese coast with Palestine, crossed the Suez Canal. The ship has been set on its way from the port of Singapore to the shore of the Palestinian village of Tantura.

Earlier on Friday, the Suez Canal Authority announced: "the success of the first crossing of its kind in the history of the canal of a floating unit for the production, processing, and storage of liquefied natural gas (FPSO) by crossing the world's newest unit, Energean Power, within the convoy of the south."

The ship crossed the canal supported through the towing and guiding of four tugs belonging to the Suez Canal Authority. This is the vessel's first sea voyage after its launch in Singapore heading to the Mediterranean.

>>16400243

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/israeli-settlers-storm-al-aqsa-mosque

Settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque, on Sunday morning, under protection from the Israeli occupation forces, Al Mayadeen correspondent reported.

Our correspondent reported that the occupation forces had locked the worshipers of the Al-Qibli prayer hall inside it with chains. The IOF targeted then proceeded worshippers in the Al-Qibli prayer hall with rubber bullets leaving several injured. These measurements were taken to secure the settlers' incursions.

Earlier, dozens of Palestinians suffocated from tear gas, as they confronted the Israeli forces that stormed the town of Al-Isawiya, northeast of occupied al-Quds. In the town of Al-Isawiya. The IOF also targeted Palestinian citizens with rubber-coated metal bullets according to the Palestinian News and Information Agency (WAFA).

Moreover, local Palestinian sources confirmed the outbreak of confrontations between Palestinians and the occupation forces at the Shuafat camp checkpoint in occupied al-Quds.

Yesterday, Hamas and the Palestine Scholars Association (PSA) called on young Palestinians to resist occupation forces in Al-Aqsa Mosque and "thwart the Israeli plans aimed at Judaizing it."

Harun Nasir al-Din, head of Hamas' al-Quds affairs office stated that "protecting Al-Aqsa is a national and religious duty."

Last Sunday, settlers organized an Israeli flag march. It took place in the streets from Bab al-Amoud and the alleys of occupied old Al-Quds to the courtyard of the Al-Buraq Wall. During the march, occupiers raised the Israeli flag as well as posters containing racist slogans against Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims. In addition, settlers called for the demolition of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/israeli-media:-ksa-to-heavily-open-airspace-to-israeli-airli

Israeli media: KSA to 'heavily' open airspace to Israeli airlines

Israeli media reported that Saudi Arabia is about to open up its airspace to Israeli airlines.

The move is part of a round-trip deal between Saudi Arabia, “Israel” and the US. It should come to fruition in the near future and create a dramatic change in the map of alliances in the Middle East, according to Israeli media.

Israeli media went on to say that “Saudi airspace is open to Israeli companies only on flights to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, as part of the Abraham agreements”, stressing that all this is expected to change soon when Israeli planes and planes of foreign companies making their way to “Israel” will be able to pass indefinitely in Saudi Arabia.

In exchange for the opening of Saudi airspace, “Tel Aviv will give the green light for the transfer of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir from Egyptian sovereignty to Saudi sovereignty”, Israeli media added.

Reports have also stressed that “contacts between Tel Aviv, Riyadh, and Washington are in the most advanced stages, but final agreements have not yet been reached on the details."

Israeli media also believe that the postponement of Biden's visit to the region, from the original date at the end of June next month, is related to the US desire to reach a comprehensive and far-reaching agreement between the three parties, and only then embark on a diplomatic victory round.

On its account, “Israel Hayom”, a daily newspaper, highlighted that “Israel” and Saudi Arabia have had informal ties and secret cooperation for many years, adding that the alliance between the 2 parties is about to be published.

The alliance is mainly “against the background of the Iranian threat that is feared in both Tel Aviv and Riyadh, and in light of the Saudi desire to thaw the cold relations with the US”, the newspaper added.

“The process of normalization between “Israel” and Saudi Arabia is expected to take another step, it said.

The Israeli newspaper went on to say that the main driver of the move within the kingdom is the country's Crown Prince and de facto ruler, Mohammad bin Salman (MBS).

It is worth mentioning that US President Joe Biden will soon be visiting Riyadh succeeding his visit to "Israel".

“Israel” has continuously been interested in advancing its relations with Saudi Arabia. The major reason for this is the security coordination policy against Iran, aiming to target and weaken the axis of resistance which has given the Palestinians, over the years, more power.

All this is happening as Israeli occupation forces have considerably accelerated the killing and persecution of Palestinians, after getting a green light from Israeli senior authorities.

Al-Aqsa Mosque was not spared the aggression from Israeli forces, and it was stormed numerous times, and worshippers were attacked viciously.

In various incidents in 2022, Euro-Med Monitor reported the killing of 47 Palestinians, including 8 children and 2 women.

The number indicates a 5-time increase of Palestinians martyred in the same period in 2021.

In January, five Palestinians were martyred, in February six, and 18 in March.

Furthermore, only 14 days into April, the Israeli occupation killed 18 Palestinians.

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/moscow-will-draw-its-own-conclusions:-putin

Moscow will draw its own conclusions: Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that “if Washington delivers long-range missiles to Kiev and they strike unaffected military targets, Moscow will draw its own conclusions”.

In an interview with the Russian Channel One broadcaster, Putin said: “Yes, the missiles are necessary in this case. But if they are delivered [to Kiev], we will draw appropriate conclusions and deploy our weapons, having enough of them to strike at those objects, which we have not hit yet."

“We presume that this supply from the United States and some other countries is connected with the compensation of losses of this military equipment, there is nothing new here and it does not change anything in essence. And there are also applications for the supply of artillery… it is also about restoring what was lost or destroyed during the hostilities," the Russian president added.

Putin went on to say that the Ukrainian army had about 515 multiple rocket launchers at the start of Russia's special operation, 380 of which were destroyed, but some were restored or taken from stock, and Kiev now has about 360 units of such equipment.

The Russian President also stated that all Ukrainian reconnaissance drones flying there since the start of the special operation are foreign-made.

Putin’s remarks came shortly after State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that the United States is still considering a range of weapon systems for Ukraine it could use against the Russian forces in light of the war unfolding in the country.

He also claimed that the United States would not provide Kiev with long-range rockets that could be used to launch attacks outside the country.

Since the start of the war, the United States has deployed more than 100,000 of its troops to NATO member states, and the European Union also chipped in, sending $500 million worth of arms and equipment to Kiev. The shipments are still going to Ukraine despite the repeated Russian warning that such influx to the conflict zone in Ukraine was adding fuel to the fire.

Bloomberg had warned in late April that US arms stocks would run out within a few months if the White House continues to send military supplies to Ukraine. The military equipment packages include artillery systems and munitions, in addition to armored personnel carriers.

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/spain-prepares-to-deliver-heavy-weapons-to-ukraine

Spain prepares to deliver heavy weapons to Ukraine

Spain is preparing to deliver heavy weapons to Ukraine, including anti-aircraft missiles and around 40 Leopard 2A4 tanks. Madrid is also planning to train Ukrainian troops to use them, according to the El Pais newspaper.

The first stage of training will be carried out in Latvia, which hosts around 6 Leopard 2E and 500 Spanish soldiers, the report writes. The second phase will be in Spain.

Furthermore, the Spanish Ministry of Defense is finishing up Shorad Aspide short-range anti-aircraft missiles deliveries to Ukraine and looks to restore and supply around 40 heavy tanks along with the missiles.

The newspaper said that the decision amounts to a "quantum leap" for Spain. Madrid was only delivering light weapons (including munitions and personal protective equipment) to Ukraine, which has changed now.

https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/europe-in-a-sleepy-summer-hiatus-just-as-in-1914

Europe in a sleepy summer hiatus – just as in 1914 …

The commonplace narrative is that the West has entered into a Cold War similar to that conducted against the Soviet Union; and that, as with that earlier struggle, its end-outcome must be the primordial reaffirmation of the American economic, political and civilisational model.

A far better analogy however, would be to consider an earlier era that ended not with a Cold War triumph, but rather, with a hot war tsunami that disembogued across the globe. It was a period when policy-makers (and markets) famously failed to appreciate the rising danger that was accreting during the sleepy-summer hiatus that elapsed between the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in late June 1914, and the outbreak of war, five weeks later.

True, there was a sense then that two heavily-armed alliances were on a potential collision course. But, there had been episodes of sabre-rattling before, and it was the failure of these episodes to come to a head that induced a sense that the status quo could - and would - extend indefinitely. Opinion then had been influenced by Norman Angell’s 1909 best-seller, The Great Illusion, arguing that war had become impossible because global trade and capital flows were too closely interlinked.

What was not fully appreciated at that earlier moment was that Britain had been stealthily eyeing with indignant anger the looming threat to its Empire from German’s nascent ambition to acquire its own rival empire. Britain had been preparing to gouge out this German ‘chutzpah’ for some time. The 1899–1902 Boer War principally was about Britain acquiring the financial riches of South Africa in order to finance rearmament.

The circumstances of mid-1914 (the Sarajevo moment) seemed so propitious, both for Germany to aspire to empire and for Britain to believe that this was the opportunity to quash it utterly. Just as Ukraine today is seen by Moscow as the hinge to a different world architecture, Washington sees a Ukraine quagmire as serendipitous to its desire to crush Russian and Chinese aspirations now threatening to dislodge America’s ‘rules-based’ empire.

The Balkan war in the early 20th century locked Germany’s fickle ally Austria-Hungary into Germany’s greater fight against Russia. Just as today, Biden’s Ukraine war has succeeded in locking (fickle) Europe into America’s aim to incapacitate Russia.

The Ukraine conflict, now hanging poised at a pivot towards an increasingly likely Russian victory, is metaphorically speaking today’s ‘Sarajevo moment’. We are captured in the interregnum of illusion as complacent Euro-leaders have gambled that Biden must surely win, and ‘normality’ be restored.

Recall that Britain launched its operation to cut Germany down to size in the early twentieth century by attempting to rip-apart global supply lines – to preserve its own - and to deny Germany access to its external links. As part of this, Britain mounted a naval blockade which had the unintended effect of channeling resurgent German ambitions eastwards – across the plain of Europe, and ultimately, to a drive on Russia.

Part 1

>>16400317

We all know that this concatenation of events ended in two World Wars, and the subsequent economic devastation of Europe, that paved the way for the American Century.

How to explain Europe’s contemporary second bout of political-élite somnolence and insouciance in a hundred years? Well, Britain’s tool for preparing the battlespace against Germany a century past was old-fashioned diplomacy. Britain engineered a diplomatic alliance versus Germany. But the US has brought a new tool to preparing the European battlespace: their inversion of Antonio Gramsci’s thesis that the cultural sphere is the most productive arena of political struggle.

Thus, instead of culture being the site of revolutionary action against an élite (per Gramsci), US and European social-platforms and MSM, cleansed of non-western rivals, have become precisely the site where the ‘system’ – the élite - can reassert itself, neutering the possibility of political resistance by dominating the cultural sphere: Big-platform algorithmic and MSM demonisation of China and Russia.

These can be the means by which a largely war-adverse Europe can be turned against China and Russia, with Euro-élites drowsing-on, in the name of advancing their ‘universal’ liberal values.

What is different today is also the most troubling. The original hypothesis seems to have been that using the US’ financial and trade muscle – whilst America still predominates – to collapse Russia’s economy, to contain China, and arm-twist Europe into tech vassalage - would be in itself, enough to contain the risk of hot war.

But the reverse is happening. The embarrassing failure of the financial war has forced Biden into a blunderbuss blast of distractions to cover for this failure - one that has not just failed to bring down Russia, but now risks collapsing the European economy, thus posing great collateral risk to the US financial system itself.

So, here we have Biden saying the US will intervene in Taiwan, should China attack it, thereby locking tight the China-Russia Axis. In Ukraine, the US and NATO skirt ever closer to a direct clash with Russian military forces. Around Ukraine, the CIA is lighting a series of bushfires dotting the Ukrainian periphery: from Moldavia–all the way round to Kazakhstan (igniting old tensions). Biden is either turning a blind-eye to Poland’s attempt at soft-annexation of its legacy territorial claims in West Ukraine or is conniving at it (which threatens to open a multitude of ancient East European bleeding wounds).

In East Asia, the US has lit fires under Pakistan; is attempting to do so in Afghanistan; and with the Kurds – and more significantly, it is exercising jointly with Israel to practice a joint military attack on Iran.

And the Biden Administration has been facilitating – as Europe watches with growing disquiet – a Germany starting on yet another attempt at transition – one that chimes with the earlier 'Greater Germany' aspirations precisely harking back to the pre-World War I European setting - with its élites once again, targeting Russia. A comprehensive militarisation of German society is, once again, under way. Already, Germany and the US work closely together on Ukraine, and on NATO moves against Russia.

The gravity of this shift can be grasped in what otherwise might seem an esoteric footnote to a diplomatic statement; It is, in fact, anything but. In the September 2020 Russian-Chinese joint statement, a key vector dealt with the ‘historic truth’ about WWII. Simply put, the two States argue that in a seemingly innocuous western campaign, the facts of history are being systematically falsified (in countries such as Poland and the Baltic states), often with the subtle encouragement of the US. The narrative is metamorphosing to cast WWII as one in which the ‘European Family’ came together to fight Russia.

The aim is clear. Its import (a dominant militarised Germany) is explosive for Europe. (Is that Washington’s secondary objective?) What seems so perverse is that all this playing with fire supposedly will help Biden not lose too badly in the November midterms.

Pyromania in support of a lost cause?

Part 2 - End

>>16400435

Date?