by AFP – Bulldozers worked atop the roof of the Brasserie du Levant on
Wednesday, knocking down portions of the massive concrete building as
neighbours looked on quietly. Established in the 1930s, the factory brewed the Lebanese beer Laziza for decades before closing in the mid-1990s. In its place will come “Mar Mikhael Village” — dozens of apartments
and townhouses, as well as retail spaces, named after the eastern
district that has become a hybrid of loud bars and sleepy residential
streets. Residents of the neighbourhood have already begun complaining about
the noise pollution and dusty construction site created by the project. In designs posted on the architectural firm’s website, the sleek
development continues to feature the arched sign reading “Levant
Brewery” that hung at the complex’s entrance for decades. But a video posted online by local activist Ghassan Salameh on
Tuesday showed bulldozers knocking the sign back down onto the roof,
producing a cloud of dust. “It got really real when we started seeing the sign come down and the windows being dismantled,” Salameh told AFP.

Speaking in an interview on MTV Lebanon on Friday, Lebanese Tourism Minister and Deputy Chairman of Tashnag, a Lebanese Armenian party, Avadis Kadanian said as an individual he he would prefer Armenia over Lebanon after he was asked to make a choice between the two countries. He also said he prefers Edith Piad over Fairuz. […]

BAR ELIAS, LEBANON: by reuters —  At the entrance of a rural town in Lebanon’s Bekaa
valley, a blue sign says “Welcome to Bar Elias, population 50,000” but
in the past six years, that number has more than doubled with Syrians
seeking shelter from the war across the border. “They are our guests,” said Mayor Mawas Araji. “But we don’t have the capacity to serve them as we should.” The
refugee crisis has drained public services in the historically poor
area in Lebanon’s farming heartland, Araji said. Yet perhaps the most
glaring strain has been the garbage mountain rising among the hills, or
the open water canals overflowing with trash in the winter. With the
influx of people, Bar Elias now handles 40 extra tons of refuse every
day, in a country that already had no national waste disposal plan. Since
the Syrian conflict began in 2011, at least 1.5 million people have
poured into Lebanon — around a quarter of the country’s population —
where most languish in severe poverty.

Makeshift settlements have
popped up all around the country as the Lebanese government has long
rejected setting up refugee camps. To stem the flow of Syrians making
the perilous journey to Europe by boat, the EU has funneled billions
into Syria’s neighboring countries, giving Lebanon €147 million ($157 )
between 2014 and 2016. For government officials, the need for foreign
funding is clear in cases like Bar Elias, where aid groups have warned
of dire environmental hazards. The EU funded a €4.5 million ($4.8
million) waste management facility set to open next month in the town,
around 12 km from the Syrian border. The massive hangar will process
150 tons of waste daily from Bar Elias and two nearby towns, creating
several jobs, Araji said. “For us, this was a dream.” Nestled between
the fields of Bar Elias, Hassan Ibrahim, 62, lives amid hundreds of
cramped tents pitched haphazardly in the mud. “We’ve appointed
someone here to collect the garbage … so when the municipality comes,
everything is ready,” said Ibrahim, who escaped shelling in Aleppo five
years ago. But in another makeshift camp a few streets away, Maamar
Al-Alawi seems less cheerful. Across from her tent, a large cesspit is
brimming with sewage water and rubbish.

During heavy rainfall, the gutters also spill over with floating plastic bags. “It’s
all garbage on top of garbage,” said Al-Alawi, who cleans around her
family’s spot every day in vain. “You go into the tent, and it stinks.” As
well as the dangers of open dump sites and burning waste, trash also
often fills irrigation canals that feed nearby vegetable fields,
according to the EU-funded agency that designed the Bar Elias facility. Lebanon
has been plagued by a waste disposal crisis, regardless of refugees,
with politicians repeatedly failing to agree a solution, sparking
several mass protests in recent years.

BEIRUT (Reuters)  (Reporting by Tom Perry; editing by John Stonestreet) – Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri said Lebanon was close to “breaking point” due to the strains of hosting 1.5 million Syrian refugees, and he feared unrest could spiral from tensions between them and Lebanese communities. Refugees who fled the six-year-long conflict in neighboring Syria make […]

SourceNaharnet Prime Minister Saad Hariri held a meeting on Thursday with Saudi Deputy Crown Prince, Second Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman at the latter’s office in Riyadh, Hariri’s press office said in a statement. The meeting with the Saudi deputy, who is leading a massive campaign to introduce reforms to the […]

by By Tarek Ali Ahmad – Al Arabiya

Lebanon has broken through domestic and external challenges to emerge
as one of the region’s most tech-savvy and lucrative hubs for small
businesses and entrepreneurial start-ups. With
a raging war in the neighborhood that is spilling over its borders, an
election that refuses to kickoff, and sectarian strife that still
plagues citizens to this day – the country has persevered to halt the
“brain drain.” After Banque du Liban (BDL)
launched Circular 331 in 2013, an injection of $400 million into the
country’s start-ups – the digital scene began to flourish.

“Circular
331 has made more money available for start-ups, which has (as of
September 2016) received $46.5 million in investment,” ZRE, a real
estate development group that developed Beirut’s Digital District, General Manager Mouhamad Rabah told Al Arabiya English. Following
this, local banks in Beirut would receive seven-year interest-free
credit line from BDL that can be invested into treasury bonds with a 7
percent interest rate. This will commit the bank to invest in the
knowledge economy. As of today, Lebanon is home to over 200 startups, only second behind the United Arab Emirates, with many more set to emerge.

Brain drain

Last
year, BDL hosted one of the biggest tech conferences in the world –
Accelerate. The conference served as a “platform for the stakeholders of
the entrepreneurship sector to meet on a large scale and increase the
awareness of what is going on, both to the local community as well as
abroad.” Elsa Moughabghab, MBA Graduate with emphasis on
entrepreneurship, told Al Arabiya English. “[Citizens]
will benefit [from C-331] by creating jobs, and create/stimulate the
sector, boosting the economy, putting Lebanon on the world map in terms
of entrepreneurship, become more visible to attract foreign
entrepreneurs and investors,” she added. This
created greater awareness about Lebanon’s capabilities and talent
across the globe. A country with affordable and talented people began
attracting incubators and accelerators in Beirut.

DAMASCUS (Sputnik) — According to the source, the blast occurred near the building of a former police station. All three passengers were killed in the blast and were identified as Syrian nationals according to preliminary data, he added. “An off-road vehicle exploded in the Aarsal town … Three people were killed, it is difficult yet to say how many were injured. It is likely […]

(AP) — Arab leaders held their annual summit Wednesday, poised to endorse key Palestinian positions in the conflict with Israel — a signal to US President Donald Trump that a deal on Palestinian statehood must precede any Israeli-Arab normalization. The Arab summit was to adopt a series of resolutions, several dealing with the Palestinian issue. […]