US envoy Tom Barrack has vented the Trump administration's frustration with Lebanon and its failure to disarm Hezbollah, but said the group had "zero" incentive to lay down their weapons when they are under fire from Israel.
In the months since Israel assassinated long-time Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, the Trump administration has been pushing Lebanon to take advantage of the militia’s weakness.
American diplomats have pressed Lebanon’s armed forces to take the lead on Hezbollah disarmament following the election of President Joseph Aoun, but the US special envoy to Syria said they have so far failed to make any significant moves to do so.
“I would say the Lebanese, and I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, all they do is talk,” Mr Barrack told On the Record with Hadley Gamble.
“Hezbollah is our enemy. Iran is our enemy,” he said.
“We need to cut the heads off those snakes and chop the flow of funds. That's the only way you're going to stop Hezbollah.”
Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly, Mr Barrack warned that the White House’s patience is running thin.
“I know this is a difficult decision. I know they don't want a civil war. There's not going be a civil war,” Mr Barrack claimed.
“Hezbollah is at the lowest point in history that they’ve ever been. We'll help them, but if they don't want to help themselves, this President's not going to waste his time and effort.”
The ambassador’s remarks were made as US intelligence reports suggest the Iranian-backed group is rebuilding, adding a renewed sense of urgency to the administration’s pleas that the Lebanese government take action.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
TICKETS
For tickets for the two-day Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League (MPBL) event, entitled Dubai Invasion 2019, on September 27 and 28 go to www.meraticket.com.
EPL's youngest
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