Riyadh // Lebanon’s Hizbollah-backed president Michel Aoun landed in Saudi Arabia on Monday, his first trip to the kingdom since taking office after a tense year in Saudi-Lebanese ties.
The election of Mr Aoun, 81, in November by Lebanese legislators ended a two-year deadlock between Iran and Saudi-backed blocs in parliament.
The Maronite Christian, a former army chief, clinched the post with shock support from Saudi ally Saad Hariri, a leading Sunni figure who in return was named prime minister.
Analysts say Saudi Arabia is hoping for a more stable Lebanon, after Riyadh’s concerns about the role played by Hizbollah in Lebanon’s government.
The Iran-allied Shiite militant group has fighters in Syria supporting forces of president Bashar Al Assad.
Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional rival, backs some rebels opposed to Mr Al Assad.
Riyadh last March declared Hizbollah a terrorist organisation and urged its citizens to leave Lebanon.
In February the kingdom halted a US$3 billion (Dh11bn) programme of military aid to Lebanon in protest against what it said was “the stranglehold of Hizbollah on the state”.
Syria’s five-year war has been a major fault line for Lebanon’s politics.
Anwar Eshki, a retired Saudi general and founder of the independent Middle East Centre for Strategic and Legal Studies, said he expected the stalled military aid to figure in Mr Aoun’s talks with Saudi officials.
The programme, funded by Riyadh, would have provided vehicles, helicopters, drones, cannon and other military equipment from France.
“The only way for peace in Lebanon is to support Aoun,” Mr Eshki said.
“The main goal of Saudi Arabia is to make Lebanon peaceful and independent”, and that includes its army, he said.
Mr Aoun’s arrival in Riyadh follows a late-November visit to Beirut by Prince Khaled Al Faisal, the governor of Mecca who is also an adviser to King Salman.
Prince Khaled's visit showed that "Saudi Arabia did not disengage itself from Lebanon," Tariq Alhomayed, former editor in chief of the pan-Arab Asharq Al Awsat, wrote in a column for the newspaper.
By meeting Mr Aoun, Mr Hariri and other government officials – rather than party leaders – Prince Khaled sent a message of support for the Lebanese state, Alhomayed wrote.
Tens of thousands of foreign workers at Saudi Oger, a construction firm led by Mr Hariri, have gone months without salaries in Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi government says it will pay early this year the arrears it owes to private firms, chiefly in the construction sector, as a result of collapsed oil revenues.
* Agence France-Presse
The specs
Engine: Long-range single or dual motor with 200kW or 400kW battery
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Max touring range: 620km / 590km
Price: From Dh250,000 (estimated)
The%20specs
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Day 5, Abu Dhabi Test: At a glance
Moment of the day When Dilruwan Perera dismissed Yasir Shah to end Pakistan’s limp resistance, the Sri Lankans charged around the field with the fevered delirium of a side not used to winning. Trouble was, they had not. The delivery was deemed a no ball. Sri Lanka had a nervy wait, but it was merely a stay of execution for the beleaguered hosts.
Stat of the day – 5 Pakistan have lost all 10 wickets on the fifth day of a Test five times since the start of 2016. It is an alarming departure for a side who had apparently erased regular collapses from their resume. “The only thing I can say, it’s not a mitigating excuse at all, but that’s a young batting line up, obviously trying to find their way,” said Mickey Arthur, Pakistan’s coach.
The verdict Test matches in the UAE are known for speeding up on the last two days, but this was extreme. The first two innings of this Test took 11 sessions to complete. The remaining two were done in less than four. The nature of Pakistan’s capitulation at the end showed just how difficult the transition is going to be in the post Misbah-ul-Haq era.
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
The biog
Age: 19
Profession: medical student at UAE university
Favourite book: The Ocean at The End of The Lane by Neil Gaiman
Role model: Parents, followed by Fazza (Shiekh Hamdan bin Mohammed)
Favourite poet: Edger Allen Poe
Company%20Profile
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