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JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday he had been invited to China and his office had informed close ally the US about the planned trip to Beijing.
The announcement comes during tense ties between Israel and the US, whose President Joe Biden failed to invite Netanyahu for a visit after the Israeli’s reelection in November.
“The projected visit will be Prime Minister Netanyahu’s fourth visit to China,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement, noting “the American administration was updated one month ago.”
It said the premier had also informed a bipartisan Congressional delegation about the trip, and told the Congress members that the “US will always be Israel’s most vital and irreplaceable ally.”
A spokesman for Netanyahu when contacted by AFP could not provide further details on the planned trip or when it was expected to happen.
Tensions have arisen over the Biden administration’s consistent calling for a two-state solution with the Palestinians, and also criticizing settlement expansion under Netanyahu.
He returned to power in December in a coalition between his Likud party and extreme-right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish allies, including hard-line settlers.
Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations have been stalled since 2014.
Biden has also called on Netanyahu to reach a compromise on his controversial legal reforms, denounced by critics as a threat to democracy, and which the government has vowed to advance after mediation efforts collapsed.
China has been on a diplomatic offensive in the Middle East.
Earlier this month, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas visited China, and in April China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang held telephone talks with top Israeli and Palestinian diplomats, telling them that Beijing was ready to help facilitate peace talks.
Washington’s top diplomat Antony Blinken last week made a rare visit to Beijing, where Chinese leader Xi Jinping said he saw headway in the strained relationship with the US.
BAGHDAD: Many masterpieces of Iraqi painting were looted or destroyed during the years of war, but now the country’s artistic heritage faces another threat: rampant counterfeiting and illicit trafficking.
Adorning a wall of Baghdad’s modern art museum, the painting “Death to Colonialism,” with its somber blues and greys, by pioneering Iraqi artist Shakir Hassan Al-Said is one of the rare pieces from its era still on public display.
Painted in the 1970s, toward the end of the heyday of Iraq’s modern art movement, it survived the chaos that followed the 2003 US-led invasion when the museum’s 8,000-strong collection was decimated by looters.
“The works of Shakir Hassan Al-Said are extremely valuable as far as Iraqi modern art goes as well as art from the Middle East,” said Tamara Chalabi, co-founder and head of the Ruya Foundation for Contemporary Art.
Paintings by Said, who established the influential Baghdad Modern Art Group alongside painter and sculptor Jewad Salim, can fetch up to $100,000 at auction.
The late artist’s family says it has successfully prevented the sale of numerous counterfeits of his works, and is in regular contact with international auction houses and galleries about his oeuvre.
“Recently, we spotted a fake in Baghdad,” said the artist’s 50-year-old son, Mohammed Shakir Hassan Al-Said.
He contacted the gallery through social media to demand the painting be taken down — but said the management refused, claiming it was authentic.
Said’s family, in an effort to safeguard his legacy after his death in 2004, has meticulously documented his comprehensive works, comprising around 3,000 pieces.
Today, they are working on the publication of a catalogue to provide “immunity” against the fakes that have proliferated after 2003, his son told AFP.
The primary targets of forgers and traffickers within and outside Iraq are the works of its modern pioneers from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.
Many of them were among the thousands of pieces looted from the country’s museums and homes during the security vacuum after dictator Saddam Hussein fell.
“Iraqi art is today one of the most important sources of artistic production in the Arab world,” said Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi, the founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation, a museum in Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.
Kadhim Hayder and Dia Azzawi are among some of the most sought-after artists.
“Nowadays some Iraqi artworks are sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars,” the Emirati art collector told AFP. “Forgers are noticing the auction results… It’s enticing them to create better and better forgeries.”
The authentication problem arises across the region — notably in Egypt, Lebanon and Syria — but “with Iraq it is especially acute because of the multiple layers of challenges: the exile of artists, the successive wars,” said Qassemi.
For Chalabi, “forgery is part of the overall problem of corruption in Iraq which has become embedded in the system and is accepted by people.”
One of the largest collections lost was at the National Museum of Modern Art in Baghdad, which housed some of the country’s most treasured artworks from the 21st century.
“Before 2003, we had 8,000 works,” said Ali Al-Doulaimi, the museum’s former director. “Today, there are around 2,000.”
In the years after the invasion, “we acquired new works, and lost pieces were returned,” said Doulaimi.
The museum and Ministry of Culture are fighting to return some of Iraq’s stolen art. They have provided Interpol with information about 100 missing pieces, said Doulaimi, who recently retired.
However, it is difficult to determine the true extent of what is missing — with the unreliable inventory hand-written by the previous administration.
In 2017, British auction house Christie’s announced it was withdrawing a painting by Iraqi artist Faeq Hassan after a “disagreement over ownership.”
An Iraqi official explained at the time that the painting was likely smuggled out of the country after being on display at an officer’s club affiliated with the Ministry of Defense.
The painting was never returned to Iraq.
At the Akkad gallery in Baghdad, owner Hayder Hachem Naji said the increase in counterfeits “damages the reputation of Iraqi art.”
“Sometimes forgers will use an old painting to repaint on — the frame and the canvas will be old,” said the 54-year-old gallery owner.
Recently, he was asked to exhibit a painting attributed to well-known Cubist-influenced painter Hafidh Al-Droubi.
Its owner hoped to sell it for $40,000 — but Naji politely declined.
“Honestly, it was a very high-quality counterfeit,” he said.
NEW YORK CITY: In a milestone decision as part of the international response to the war in Syria, the UN General Assembly on Thursday voted to establish an independent institution to investigate and clarify the fate of more than 150,000 Syrians who have gone missing or been forcibly disappeared at the hands of the Syrian regime, opposition forces, or terrorist groups since the conflict began 12 years ago.
Introducing the draft resolution, Luxembourg’s permanent representative to the UN, Olivier Maes, paid tribute to the “strength and courage” of Syrian families who have “been desperately seeking to find out what happened to their loved ones and where they are every day.”
He added: “Families, especially women, face administrative and legal difficulties, financial uncertainties and deep trauma as they continue to search for their missing loved ones.”
A large number of international, nongovernmental, humanitarian, and family-focused organizations — including the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Commission on Missing Persons, and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic — investigate and follow up on missing-persons cases in Syria.
However, a lack of coordination leaves families in limbo as they seek information about the whereabouts of loved ones, and victims and survivors unsure of where to share any details they might have.
Families have been pushing for the establishment of a dedicated, independent, international agency, commensurate with the scale and complexity of the crisis, to investigate the fate of loved ones.
Guided by their views and advice, the UN secretary-general published a report last year that concluded such an international institution, equipped with a robust mandate to investigate and clarify the fate of the missing and provide support for their families, would be the cornerstone of a comprehensive solution to the crisis.
The resultant resolution was sponsored by more than 50 countries including Albania, Australia, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Liberia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Slovenia and Spain.
Maes said the new institution “will reinforce complementarity and avoid duplication, (serve) as a single point of entry for collecting and comparing data, (and) ensure coordination and communication with all relevant actors and ongoing initiatives.”
He stressed that the resolution “does not point the finger at anyone” and added: “It has only one goal and that is a humanitarian goal: Improve the situation of Syrian families who do not know what has happened to their brother, to their son, father, husband or other relative, alleviate the suffering of these victims by providing them with the support that they need and the responses to which they’re entitled under international humanitarian law.”
A representative of the EU expressed hope that “this new humanitarian institution can help heal some of the wounds of 12 years of conflict. And in so doing, that it will play an important role in contributing to efforts toward reconciliation and sustainable peace.”
US ambassador Jeffrey De Laurentis, reiterated that the resolution is humanitarian in nature and added: “It is focused on all missing Syrians, regardless of ethnicity, religion or political affiliation.
“Many Syrians have asked us to remember who this institution seeks to defend — the humans missing and detained with a full life yet to live. They are not statistics, they are spouses, children, siblings, parents, friends, colleagues.
“As their harrowing testimonies show, we must deliver long-overdue answers to the victims and their families who deserve our support.”
De Laurentis noted that Damascus had refused to engage with efforts to create the institution.
Russia’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Maria Zabolotskaya, said that the General Assembly, “in violation of the UN Charter, is today being invited to create an instrument of pressure on Syria under a cynical humanitarian pretext, which has nothing to do with the true objectives of this enterprise.”
She added that far from being independent or impartial, the mechanism “can only obediently fulfill the orders of its sponsors” and insisted that “in order to truly solve the problem of missing persons, developing substantive cooperation with Damascus is necessary, as is providing it with effective assistance and lifting illegal and unilateral sanctions that negatively affect these efforts, as well as humanitarian recovery on the whole.”
She also called for an end to “foreign occupation of the country” and the repatriation of “foreign citizens present there.”
Bassam Sabbagh, Syria’s permanent representative to the UN, said the resolution is “politicized and targets the Syrian Arab Republic.”
He added: “This draft clearly reflects flagrant interference in our internal affairs and provides new evidence of the hostile approach being pursued by certain Western states against Syria. At the heart of this group is the United States.”
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he has dropped a central element of a bitterly contested plan to roll back Supreme Court powers that has roiled Israel for months, though he was still pursuing changes to the way judges are selected.
In a filmed interview posted on the Wall Street Journal website on Thursday, Netanyahu said he was no longer seeking to grant parliament the authority to overturn Supreme Court rulings.
“I threw that out,” Netanyahu said of the highly disputed “override clause.”
He said that another part of his nationalist-religious government’s plan that would give the ruling coalition decisive sway in appointing judges will be changed but not scrapped.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks upset his far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who accused the Israeli prime minister of caving to protesters.
“The way of choosing judges is not going to be the current structure but it’s not going to be the original structure,” Netanyahu said.
Netanyahu’s remarks upset his far-right police minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who accused the premier of caving to protesters.
“We were elected to bring governance and change, the reform is a cornerstone of this promise,” Ben-Gvir tweeted.
Netanyahu’s government unveiled its plan to overhaul Israel’s justice system in January soon after it came to power, saying the Supreme Court had been increasingly encroaching into political areas where it had no authority.
The plan triggered mass protests, with critics saying it was a threat to democracy.
Washington urged Netanyahu to seek broad agreements over reforms instead of rapidly driving unilateral changes it said would compromise Israel’s democratic health.
After weeks of demonstrations and with financial markets increasingly nervous over the proposed changes and the ensuing political upheaval, Netanyahu paused the plan in late March for compromise talks with the opposition.
But after those talks were suspended this month, Netanyahu said he would press on with judicial changes.
His coalition began work this week on a new bill that would reduce Supreme Court power to rule against the government by limiting “reasonableness” as a standard of judicial review.
Opposition leaders offered no immediate reaction to the latest comments by Netanyahu, who is on trial on corruption charges he denies. His office did not offer additional details.
UNITED NATIONS: The UN humanitarian chief warned Thursday that the 12-year conflict in Syria has pushed 90 percent of its population below the poverty line, and that millions face cuts in food aid next month because of a funding shortfall.
Martin Griffiths said that the $5.4 billion UN humanitarian appeal for Syria – the world’s largest – is only 12 percent funded, meaning that emergency food aid for millions of Syrians could be cut by 40 percent in July.
Griffiths delivered the grim news to the UN Security Council along with an appeal to members to renew the authorization for the delivery of aid to the country’s rebel-held northwest from Turkiye, which expires July 10.
But Russia’s UN ambassador, whose country is Syria’s most important ally, called the cross-border aid deliveries “a zero-sum game” that is undermining Syria’s sovereignty, discriminating against government-controlled territory, and fueling illegal armed groups including “terrorists in Idlib.”
Syria’s uprising-turned conflict, now in its 13th year, has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half of its prewar population of 23 million. A deadly 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked large swaths of Syria in February, further compounding its misery.
Griffiths, the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs who returned Wednesday from Damascus, said the Syrian people are facing “profound humanitarian challenges.” He said they were gathering Thursday on the Muslim holy day Eid Al-Adha “with less food on their plates, little fuel in their stoves, and limited water in their homes” and their hardship comes at a time when the UN and its humanitarian partners have limited means to help.
Russia’s Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the emergency humanitarian appeal for $397 million to help earthquake victims was funded in the first months, but the overall UN appeal for Syria was only 12 percent funded near the end of June. And he accused the US and its allies of spending far more on weapons for Ukraine than the $55 billion the UN is seeking for global humanitarian needs this year, saying “this lays out Western priorities very clearly.”
Britain’s UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward retorted that the UK’s $190 million pledge on June 15 brought their contribution to Syria to over $4.8 billion to date and said: “I look forward to Russia announcing its contribution in due course following the recent announcement that Russia spends $2 billion a year on the Wagner Group.”
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday, after the founder of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, and his forces staged a revolt inside Russia, that Wagner and its founder had received almost $2 billion from the Russian government in the past year.
Woodward, who visited the Turkish-Syria border earlier this month, echoed Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ call for a 12-month extension of the authorization for cross-border aid deliveries to ensure humanitarian access to 4.1 million people in Syria’s northwest.
In January, the council approved a resolution extending humanitarian aid deliveries to Idlib for six months until July 10 as Russia demanded. Many of the people sheltering in the area have been internally displaced by the conflict. The resolution allowed for aid deliveries to continue through the Bab Al-Hawa crossing, but after the earthquake Syria’s President Bashar Assad allowed aid to go through two additional crossings at Bab Al-Salameh and Al-Rai.
US deputy ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis, who said the United States made its largest commitment to Syria of $920 million on June 15, called it “essential” to keep all three crossings open for 12 months. He cited Guterres’ latest report which said anything less would be inadequate to meet humanitarian needs in the northwest which have never been greater. The UN chief called it “a moral and humanitarian imperative.”
Russia and Syria have pressed for aid deliveries to the northwest across conflict lines and UN aid chief Griffiths said a 10-truck convoy from Aleppo recently traveled from Aleppo to Idlib safely, with aid for some 22,000 people. But Russia’s Nebenzia dismissed it as the only cross-line delivery in the last six months “clearly timed to coincide with today’s meeting.”
“Do you seriously expect us to consider the situation with cross-line convoys to be satisfactory after this?,” he asked.
Griffiths said expanding early recovery programs – another key Syrian and Russian demand – “is the humanitarian community’s best chance to support the future of the Syrian people.”
He urged a stronger international consensus on the importance of these programs and a relaxation of rules to allow not only vocational training but mentoring for young people, construction of irrigation systems without qualifying them as “development” projects, and the opening of schools regardless of whether they are described as “rehabilitated” or “reconstructed.”
WASHINGTON: Israeli President Isaac Herzog will address a joint meeting of US Congress on July 19 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Israel’s statehood and to reaffirm his nation’s special relationship with the US, congressional leaders announced on Thursday.
“The world is better off when America and Israel work together,” said the announcement from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. “Eleven minutes after declaring independence in 1948, the US was the first to recognize the state of Israel, and today, we continue to strengthen the unbreakable bond between our two democracies.”
McCarthy addressed Israel’s parliament in May.
It was the first time in 25 years, a sitting speaker of the House had addressed Israel’s Knesset, and it came in a period of fraught relations between Israel’s government and President Joe Biden.
McCarthy noted that the only other president of Israel to address a joint meeting of Congress was Herzog’s father, President Chaim Herzog, more than 35 years ago.
The Israeli presidency is a largely ceremonial office meant to serve as a unifying force and moral compass in a diverse and often divided country.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has addressed Congress three times — most recently in 2015, when Republican leaders invited him to deliver a speech railing against then-President Barack Obama’s emerging nuclear agreement with Iran.
The speech infuriated the White House and fellow Democratic leaders.
Biden, then Obama’s vice president, was traveling abroad and did not attend Netanyahu’s address — when the vice president normally would have sat behind the Israeli leader during those remarks.
Netanyahu, who returned to office last December, has known Biden for decades.
But the two have disagreed over Netanyahu’s proposed overhaul of Israel’s judicial system, which critics see as a move toward authoritarianism, as well as his hard-line government’s expansion of West Bank settlements and punitive measures against the Palestinians.
Netanyahu’s position runs in direct opposition to Biden’s moves to boost US-Palestinian relations.
Biden said in March there were no plans to invite Netanyahu to the White House “in the near term.”
In a challenge to Biden, McCarthy said in May that he would invite Netanyahu to speak to Congress if Biden doesn’t.
House Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi had invited Herzog to address Congress last year, and Schumer met with Herzog in Israel during a visit in February.
Schumer said Herzog “has always been a great leader and is particularly influential at this time.”
“This invitation to speak at a joint meeting of Congress is a testament to the decades of bipartisan and bicameral support for Israel that transcends party politics and I look forward to welcoming him to the Capitol,” Schumer said.