5 & 6 November mark a new level of escalation on the Israeli-Lebanese border. Both sides are now hitting up to 25 kilometers deep into enemy territory. Widening the theater increases the danger of causing casualties that will compel the other side to respond. A thread (1/9) Sunday evening, an Israeli missile hit a car traveling on a road in South Lebanon, killing three young girls and their grandmother. According to the IDF, the car was suspected to be carrying terrorists. (2/9)
aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/5…

Saber-rattling after negotiations over the Israeli-Lebanese border hit a last-minute snag. A 🧵

https://twitter.com/AmichaiStein1/status/1578023808887586817

Hizbollah has vowed to prevent 🇮🇱 from extracting gas in an area that 🇱🇧 considers disputed. In July & August, tensions escalated. The obvious solution is to finalize border demarcation, and as ICG argued 6 weeks ago, the parties a tantalizingly close.
crisisgroup.org/middle-east-no…

Last month, my wife, who is Lebanese and has been a permanent resident in Austria for some 20yrs, was thrown out by her local bank there. A thread about first-hand experience with European "liberalism", "compliance" and "governance". The trouble started with a transfer (not an amount that would fall into the money laundering bracket) from her account in Egypt to her acc in Austria that went missing. For nearly one month, the Austrian bank denied any knowledge of what happened to the money.

It is inaccurate to suggest, as this article does, that exchanging $$ at the "black market rate" is shady, dangerous, or even criminal business. In reality, at most times licensed exchangers buy $$ at this rate.

devex.com/news/inflation… It only gets a little difficult when the gov cracks down to distract from the utter failure to deal with the financial crisis other than by kicking the can down the road. Even then, some of the licensed exchangers keep trading at that rate. U wonder how...

Hariri Resignation: where do we go from here
(thread)

(1) If the Prime Minister resigns, the government is history, whatever the parties involved in it think about it. The president of the republic has no constitutional authority to reject or accept. Hariri's "resignation" in 2017 was different because circumstances suggested that it was a decision under duress, which made it invalid. The Hariri government will now be considered a "caretaker government" with competences limited to facilitate daily work of the bureaucracy.

Hassan Nasrallah speaking now
almanar.com.lb/live/ Nasralllah: Installing a new government or new elections waste of time we don't have. Current parliament & cabinet would only by reproduced. This government has to tackle the situation.