North Korea Fires Anti-Aircraft Missile in Latest Test

World

October 1st, 6:52am

Asharq Al-Awsat

This photo provided on Oct. 1, 2021, by the North Korean government shows what North Korea claims to be the test firing of a newly developed anti-aircraft missile in North Korea, Thursday, Sept. 30, 2021. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

North Korea has successfully fired a new anti-aircraft missile, state media said Friday, the latest in a flurry of weapons tests by the nuclear-armed nation. The anti-aircraft missile had a "remarkable combat performance" and included twin rudder controls and other new technologies, the official Korean Central News Agency said. A picture in the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed the missile ascending at an angle into the sky from a launch vehicle on Thursday, said AFP. It is the latest in a series of tension-raising steps by Pyongyang, which had until recently been biding its time since the change in US administrations in January. In September, it launched what it said was a long-range cruise missile, and earlier this week tested what it described as a hypersonic gliding vehicle, which South Korea's military said appeared to be in the early stages of development. And on Wednesday, the North's leader Kim Jong Un decried Washington's repeated offers of talks without preconditions as a "petty trick", accusing the Biden administration of continuing the "hostile policy" of its predecessors. South Korea's defence ministry told AFP it was unable to immediately confirm the latest launch. Anti-aircraft missiles are much smaller than the ballistic missiles the North is banned from developing under United Nations Security Council resolutions, and harder to detect from afar. Pyongyang is under multiple international sanctions over its weapons programs, which have made rapid progress under Kim, including missiles capable of reaching the whole of the US mainland and by far its most powerful nuclear test to date. The latest tests have sparked international condemnation, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying they created "greater prospects for instability and insecurity". The United States, Britain and France have called a UN Security Council meeting on North Korea set to take place Friday. It was originally due on Thursday but was delayed by Russia and China, who asked for more time to study the situation, a diplomatic source said. Beijing is Pyongyang's key ally and in normal times its biggest provider of trade and aid, although the North has since early last year been under a self-imposed blockade after it shut its borders to defend itself against the coronavirus pandemic. The North has a long history of using weapons tests to ramp up tensions, in a carefully calibrated process to try to forward its objectives. With its latest actions, Kim was looking to "test the waters with Washington" and its "threshold for weapons provocations", Soo Kim of the RAND Corporation told AFP. "He may wish to see how much he can get away with until the Biden administration starts to flinch," she added. The South's President Moon Jae-in has recently reiterated his calls for a formal declaration that the Korean War is over -- hostilities ceased in 1953 with an armistice rather than a peace treaty. Moon has only a few months left in office and Soo Kim pointed out he could be looking to secure an "accomplishment" with the North before his term runs out. "Kim may be playing to his strengths -- and the Moon administration's weaknesses -- by taking things up a notch on the provocation ladder." - Communication lines - Talks between Pyongyang and Washington have been effectively at a standstill since the collapse of a 2019 Hanoi summit between Kim and then-president Donald Trump over sanctions relief and what North Korea would be willing to give up in return. Washington and Seoul are security allies, and the United States stations around 28,500 troops in the South to protect it from its neighbor. In August, the two held joint military drills that always infuriate Pyongyang. Under President Joe Biden, the United States has repeatedly declared its willingness to meet North Korean representatives anywhere, at any time, without preconditions, while saying it will seek denuclearization. But in a speech to the Supreme People's Assembly, the North's rubber-stamp parliament, Kim condemned the offers as "no more than a petty trick for deceiving the international community and hiding its hostile acts", according to KCNA. The new administration was pursuing the same "military threats" and "hostile policy" as the past, but in "more cunning ways and methods", he said. Nonetheless, he expressed a willingness to restore North-South communication lines in early October. North Korea has not shown any willingness to give up its arsenal, which it says it needs to defend itself against an invasion by the United States.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3220026/north-korea-fires-anti-aircraft-missile-latest-test

S.Korea Broadband Firm Sues Netflix after Traffic Surge from 'Squid Game'

Entertainment

October 1st, 6:43am

Asharq Al-Awsat

The Netflix series "Squid Game" is played on a mobile phone in this picture illustration taken September 30, 2021. (Reuters)

South Korean Internet service provider SK Broadband has sued Netflix to pay for costs from increased network traffic and maintenance work because of a surge of viewers to the US firm's content, an SK spokesperson said on Friday. The move comes after a Seoul court said Netflix should "reasonably" give something in return to the internet service provider for network usage, and multiple South Korean lawmakers have spoken out against content providers who do not pay for network usage despite generating explosive traffic. A Netflix spokesperson did not have an immediate comment on the lawsuit. The popularity of the hit series "Squid Game" and other offerings have underscored Netflix's status as the country's second-largest data traffic generator after Google's YouTube, but the two are the only ones to not pay network usage fees, which other content providers such as Amazon, Apple and Facebook are paying, SK said. Netflix's data traffic handled by SK jumped 24 times from May 2018 to 1.2 trillion bits of data processed per second as of September, SK said, riding on the success of several Netflix productions from Korea including "Squid Game" and "D.P." SK Broadband said it lodged a lawsuit against Netflix for it to pay for using SK's networks since Netflix began using SK's dedicated line starting 2018 to deliver increasingly larger amounts of data-heavy, high-definition video content to viewers in Korea from servers in Japan and Hong Kong. Last year, Netflix had brought its own lawsuit on whether it had any obligation to pay SK for network usage, arguing Netflix's duty ends with creating content and leaving it accessible. It said SK's expenses were incurred while fulfilling its contractual obligations to Internet users, and delivery in the Internet world is "free of charge as a principle", according to court documents. But the Seoul Central District Court ruled against Netflix in June, saying that SK is seen as providing "a service provided at a cost" and it is "reasonable" for Netflix to be "obligated to provide something in return for the service". SK estimated the network usage fee Netflix needed to pay was about 27.2 billion won ($22.9 million) in 2020 alone, the court document said. Netflix has appealed against the ruling, court records showed, with fresh proceedings to start in late December. Netflix said in a statement on Wednesday that it contributed to the creation of about 16,000 jobs in South Korea stemming from about 770 billion won in investments, as well as an economic effect of about 5.6 trillion won. Ruling party lawmaker Kim Sang-hee said on Wednesday that out of South Korea's top 10 data traffic generators, 78.5% of the traffic came from foreign content providers, up from 73.1% a year earlier, with "Google-YouTube and Netflix that account for the majority turning a blind eye to network usage fees".

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3220016/skorea-broadband-firm-sues-netflix-after-traffic-surge-squid-game

Egypt Speeds Up Vaccination for University Students

Arab World

October 1st, 6:35am

Cairo - Waleed Abdul Rahman

A woman receives a dose of the vaccine against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at one of Youth centers that are open to citizens to get COVID-19 vaccines without prior registration in an effort to boost the country's vaccination drive, in Cairo, Egypt, September 27, 2021. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany

The Egyptian Health Ministry on Thursday appealed to all university students to register on the official vaccination website or visit the nearest youth vaccination centers to receive their jab against the coronavirus. Health Minister Hala Zayed announced that 82,000 university students were vaccinated Wednesday alone, out of a total of 120,000 students who registered on the website. She said the ministry set up 1,100 vaccination centers nationwide, including 270 centers equipped to welcome youth. Egypt continued to register an increase in the number of daily coronavirus infections with 738 new cases recorded in the last 24 hours, raising the total number of confirmed infections in the country to 303,783. Health Ministry Spokesman Khaled Megahed said 31 coronavirus-linked deaths were recorded, taking the nationwide death toll to 17,294 since the start of the pandemic. As many as 809 cases were discharged from isolation hospitals after receiving the necessary medical care, pushing the total number of recovered cases in the country to 256,467, the spokesman added. Megahed also confirmed that all university students can visit the nearest center among the 270 youth centers that have been equipped to vaccinate university students, without pre-registering on the website or waiting for the text message to specify the date of receiving the vaccine. He said registration and vaccination are done immediately in those centers. Meanwhile, Higher Education Ministry Spokesperson Adel Abdel-Ghafar said there is an urgency to speed up the vaccination of university students. “There are more than 300 vaccination points designated to inoculate students at all Egyptian universities,” he said, adding that receiving the vaccine is not optional. In the past two days, Egypt received doses of the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine and is expected to welcome a new batch of the vaccine next Monday.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3220001/egypt-speeds-vaccination-university-students

Lebanon: Hezbollah Says It Shot Down an Israeli Drone over South

Arab World

October 1st, 6:26am

Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat

Israeli drone (AFP Archive)

Lebanon’s Hezbollah said on Friday that its group has shot down an Israeli drone in the south of Lebanon. Hezbollah did not disclose the kind of weapons it used to strike the drone. The party’s Al-Manar television station said the armed group had brought down the drone in the Maryamin valley in Lebanon’s South by targeting it with “suitable weapons”. Israeli army spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, said in an Arabic-language tweet: “A short time ago, during routine operation, an army drone fell within Lebanese territory. The incident is being investigated.” Lebanon and Israel are technically in a state of war. On August 12, the Israeli army said it had shot down the previous night a drone from Hezbollah that had crossed into Israeli airspace. The announcement came nearly a week after Hezbollah fired a volley of rockets at Israeli positions, prompting retaliatory shelling. It also followed a flare-up along the Lebanon-Israel border in early August that saw Israel carry out its first air strikes on Lebanese territory in seven years, and Hezbollah claim direct rocket attack on Israeli territory for the first time since 2019. In the summer of 2006, Israel and Hezbollah fought a 33-day war that killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers. It ended with a UN-backed ceasefire on August 14, 2006 that saw the Lebanese army deploy along border areas.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3219981/lebanon-hezbollah-says-it-shot-down-israeli-drone-over-south

Burhan, Hemedti Stress Commitment to Protecting Sudan’s Democratic Transition

Arab World

October 1st, 6:18am

Khartoum - Ahmed Younis and Mohammed Amin Yassin

Burhan meets with Feltman in Khartoum. (SUNA)

Head of Sudan’s sovereign transitional council, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and his deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, stressed on Thursday the commitment of the military to the country’s democratic transition. Burhan and Hemedti met with US envoy for the Horn of Africa Jeffrey Feltman in the Sudanese capital Khartoum. Burhan hoped that the US would continue to support the transitional government, stressing the importance of allowing political parties that believe in the democratic transition to take part in the transitional political process. The two sides underscored the importance of the cooperation between the civilian and military components of the transitional authority. Burhan stressed that the armed forces were keen on protecting the transition and ensuring the success of the democratic transformation. For his part, Feltman praised the major efforts carried out by the military and civilian authorities in protecting the transition and defeating last week’s coup attempt. The US will continue to support the interim government and Sudanese people so that they can hold free and transparent elections and form a civilian government that meets their aspirations, he added. Meanwhile, thousands of people protested in Khartoum and other cities in support of the civilian-led transition to democracy on Thursday following the failed coup. The attempt, which officials blamed on soldiers loyal to the previous regime of Omar al-Bashir, laid bare divisions between military and civilian groups sharing power during a transition that is meant to run to 2023 and lead to elections. Many protesters came from outside Khartoum by bus and train from the cities of Atbara and Madani, as they did during protests against military rule just after Bashir’s removal. Some of the thousands waiting for the trains chanted “the army is Sudan’s army, not Burhan’s army”. In the days and hours after the coup attempt, civilian officials accused the military of overstepping its bounds, while generals criticized civilian management of the economy and political process, and said their forces were neglected and disrespected. The military removed Bashir in April 2019 after months of popular protests triggered by an ongoing economic crisis. It then signed a power-sharing deal with the civilian Forces of Freedom and Change coalition. The FFC supported Thursday’s demonstrations, which were converging on the central Khartoum headquarters of a task force working to dismantle the Bashir regime. On Sunday, the military rescinded its protection of the task force. Its leaders responded by saying their headquarters would be a war room for any upcoming showdown.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3219961/burhan-hemedti-stress-commitment-protecting-sudan%E2%80%99s-democratic-transition

Iraq’s Sistani Urges Heavy Turnout in Elections to ‘Eliminate Corrupt Figures’

Arab World

October 1st, 5:52am

Baghdad – Asharq Al-Awsat

Iraqi security forces stand guard as officials of the Independent High Electoral Commission conduct a draw to select candidates in the upcoming parliamentary election, in the central city of Najaf on July 7. (AFP)

Iraq’s highest Shiite religious authority, Ali al-Sistani will resume Friday sermons on October 1 after a two-year break and just ten days before the country holds parliamentary elections. Sistani will hold the sermon from the city of al-Najaf. He had stopped holding the weekly sermon for “disclosed and undisclosed” reasons. It was widely understood that he had stopped the sermons due to his disapproval of the practices of the ruling political class, especially the Shiite forces and parties. The coronavirus pandemic was another excuse to stop holding them. Sistani declared that he would resume his sermons in a statement on Wednesday. He also called for a heavy turnout in the elections, which are set for October 10, “to prevent corrupt figures from making it to parliament.” He called on voters to draw lessons from the past, stressing that the heavy turnout will prevent corrupt figures from again making it to power. In spite of their flaws, he noted, the elections remain the safest way to lead the country towards a better future and to avoid falling into chaos and political deadlock. “The voters must understand the value of their vote,” he stressed. They must “seize the opportunity to create real change in managing the country and to keep away corrupt and unqualified figures from taking control.” All political forces and figures were quick to express their support to his statement. Sistani has since 2015 refused to welcome any Iraqi politician. He has however, met with foreign officials who are keen on meeting with him when making trips to Iraq. His most significant meeting was with Pope Francis, who traveled to Iraq in March. No Iraqi official was present at their talks. Sistani also occasionally meets with UN envoy to Iraq Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert and met last year with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. Meanwhile, President Barham Salih said the elections will be a “turning point” in Iraq. In televised remarks, he acknowledged vote-buying was taking place, but stressed that authorities have made the necessary preparations to hold the polls. “Iraq has endured difficult times and everyone realizes the importance of reform and that the current system is incapable of providing the people with a dignified life,” he added. Commenting on Sistani’s statement, he tweeted that his orders are “a keen national stance that was made during a critical time for the sake of protecting the nation and championing the people.” MP and electoral candidate Hussein Arab told Asharq Al-Awsat that Sistani’s call for a heavy turnout will be witnessed during the elections. His call also offers “major hope to and boosts the chances of independent and non-partisan candidates”. “The call will largely change the equation given the influence the religious authority has and the respect the people have for him,” he remarked.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3219916/iraq%E2%80%99s-sistani-urges-heavy-turnout-elections-%E2%80%98eliminate-corrupt-figures%E2%80%99

Prowler Preaching Neighborliness

Opinion

October 1st, 5:44am

Amir Taheri

Amir Taheri - Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987

In his first statements on foreign policy, Islamic Republic’s new President Dr Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi made two claims: First that he would be the ultimate arbiter of Tehran’s foreign relations and, second, that his top priority is to “establish close ties with neighbors and promote peace and stability in Western Asia. (The ruling mullahs now use the term West Asia which was circulated by the Soviet Union, instead of the Middle East which they regard as a term coined by “Infidel powers.”) Just week into his tenure, however, it is hard to find evidence to support Raisi’s claim. True, the new Islamic Foreign Minister Amir Abdullahyan is no Muhammad-Javad Zarif with his flamboyant style, personal ambitions and powerful American friends, and thus in no position to think of upstaging his boss. Nevertheless, Raisi has not managed to impose some discipline on the few hundred mullahs and brigadier-generals who form the core of the ramshackle regime. Thus the mullah from back of the beyond and the brigadier-general who has never seen a battle except on television, continue to make foreign policy comments mostly to threaten the very neighbors that the Dr-Ayatollah hopes to seduce. Worse still, such interventions go beyond mere rhetorical outbursts. Consider some events of the past 10 days or so. Pakistan security arrested three men, identified as “citizens of Iran” and, according to Islamabad sources, members of the Quds Force, on a charge of plotting to kill 25 Chinese engineers by planting a roadside bomb near the Pakistani port of Gwadar on the Gulf of Oman. The alleged plot claimed the lives of several Baluch children. A few days earlier, units of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched a series of artillery attacks on 22 villages in the Kurdish Autonomous Region in Iraq where, Tehran claims, anti-Iran Kurdish “secessionists” have set up a number of bases. Neither Baghdad nor Erbil authorities were forewarned while the IRGC promised to repeat the deadly exercise. Tehran’s disregard for Iraqi sovereignty came in other forms as well. The official media threatened Baghdad and Erbil with “consequences” unless those who had organized a private seminar on normalization with Israel were “dealt with”. The fact that the seminar in question was in conformity with Iraqi Constitution and law, guaranteeing freedom of opinion and expression, was conveniently ignored. The Erbil authorities were forced to be economical with the truth by claiming they didn’t know about the seminar and would not allow similar events in the future. The Baghdad authorities went further by issuing arrest warrants for three people, one of whom was in Germany at the time of the seminar. The new violation of Iraqi sovereignty came a bit later and on a much larger scale. Baghdad had announced the closure of its borders with the Islamic Republic as a means of controlling the spread of Covid-19 which is wreaking havoc in Iran. Iranian pilgrims wishing to go to “holy cities” in Iraq for Arba’in, marking the 40th day of Imam Hussein’s martyrdom, were told that only those travelling by air could do without obtaining a visa. Yet, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, and people trying to make a fast buck during the pilgrimage, gathered at land border crossings and managed to dismantle the barriers and march into Iraqi territory to board buses heading for “holy cities”. Islamic Republic border guards either watched the “invasion” or even helped speed it up. On eastern borders, the Islamic Republic closed its borders with Afghanistan to prevent thousands trying to flee the new situation in Kabul. At the same time, however, hundreds of suspected Al-Qaeda members and their families living in exile in Iran for almost 20 years, mostly in the Dost-Muhammad area in Sistan-and-Baluchistan province were “ advised” to return to Afghanistan. However, the biggest show of “good neighborliness” promised by Raisi came inside the (former Soviet) Republic of Azerbaijan and along its borders with Iran and Armenia. What Tehran media described as “a multi-faceted task force” consisting of helicopter gunships, tanks, armored vehicles and elite Special Units under the personal command of IRGC’s Chief of Land Forces Gen. Pakpur was assembled on full alert within sight of Azerbaijani troops and their Russian “advisers”. This large-scale sabre rattling coincided with the first anniversary of the war between Armenia and Baku over the enclave of High Qarabagh (Artsakh). Tehran put in motion a roadshow in three stages. In the first stage, a few days before the anniversary, a long line of Iranian heavy trucks, passing through the Lachin Corridor theoretically under Russian control, to enter High Qarabagh to deliver supplies to Armenians. The idea was to show that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev’s claim of having won a great victory in last year’s war was an empty boast as Russia, not his government, controls entry points into Azerbaijan and the disputed Artsakh enclave. To save face, Aliev called in Tehran’s ambassador to Baku and demanded that Iran stop sending trucks without proper visas from Baku. In the second stage, Tehran replaced Iranian number-plates with Armenian ones to claim that the lorries in question came from Armenia proper to supply fellow-Armenians in Artsakh. For Aliev this was like turning the knife in the wound, reminding people in Baku and environs that their president’s claim of victory at the cost of thousands of lives followed by the virtual occupation of parts of the country by Russian troops bore little relation to reality. Iran’s claim that matters had been cleared with Levon Jagarian, the Russian Ambassador in Tehran, poured salt on the wound as Moscow’s man in Iran is an ethnic Armenian as is Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. An angry Aliev, already under domestic pressure for mismanagement, corruption and nepotism lashed back by announcing a total ban on truck traffic from Iran and claiming that “Azeris all over the world” back his position. This was seen in Tehran as an act of deliberate provocation by Aliev as Iran sees itself as the true home of all Azeris including the 12 million or so who live in the Baku republic and the Russian federation. Raisi’s claim of “good neighborliness” remains just a claim. The fact is that either Tehran turns the Middle East (or West Asia as the Kremlin prefers) into something like the Khomeinist Islamic Republic or the latter becomes more or less like other regimes in the region. An outsider, a prowler, cannot have normal, let alone good, relations, with others in a neighborhood.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3219901/amir-taheri/prowler-preaching-neighborliness