by The New Arab — A new plan to make Beirut go cycle-friendly has gotten off to a rocky start, after pictures have emerged of drivers traversing into a new car-free cycle lane. The
new bike lane in the Downtown area was only laid less than a week ago,
but some cars have been photographed driving over the line – or even
parking in the bike lane. Supporters of the bike scheme have been quick to point out that the 20 metre-long bike lane
was empty at the time. Others on social media also said that more needs
to be done to raise awareness of bicycles in a city where bike riders
are few and far between. Lebanon launched its first
bike sharing scheme in the town of Byblos project in January, supported
and financed by private entities Bike 4 All and The IBL Bank. In
Beirut, the municipality will reportedly provide the space for 25
similar bike hiring stations, but will not be making any financial
contribution. If successful, the project could be
expanded to cover other major cities, such as Tripoli in the north,
where a limited cycling lane was launched recently but was unsucessful,
and Sidon and Byblos. One of the organisers behind the project, Jawad Sbeity, posted on social media that he wanted Beirut to be a bike friendly city by 2030.
 The
bike scheme has received broad support from the government, but not
much is known on the Prime Minister’s personal opinion of the scheme.

Vietnamese Ambassador to Egypt and Lebanon Do Hoang Long (right) presented his letter of credential to Lebanese President Michel Aoun at a ceremony in Beirut on April 28. by english.vietnamnet.vn — Long presented a letter of credential to the Lebanese President at a ceremony in Beirut on April 28.    The ambassador highlighted the development […]

by AFP: Lebanon launched a bike-sharing programme in its capital Beirut on Sunday, hoping to cut down on the congested city’s notorious traffic and pollution. The scheme aims to eventually allow users to rent and return bicycles at 25 automated stations distributed across the city. For now, a single station is operating in central Beirut, […]

by catholicherald.co.uk/

Military helicopters flew overhead and police fanned out in force
today as Pope Francis celebrated an open-air Mass for Egypt’s tiny
Catholic community, on the final day of a visit aimed at comforting
Christians following a series of attacks by Islamic militants. Despite the security concerns, Francis zoomed around the Cairo sports
stadium in an open-topped golf cart before the start of Mass. The crowd
cheered him wildly, waving Egyptian and Holy See flags and swaying to
hymns sung by church choirs. The defence ministry’s stadium has a
capacity of 25,000, but only about 15,000 people attended — a reflection
that Catholics represent less than 1 percent of Egypt’s 92 million
people. In his homily, Francis urged them to be good and merciful to their
fellow Egyptians, saying “the only fanaticism believers can have is that
of charity!” “Any other fanaticism does not come from God and is not pleasing to him!” he said.

Yesterday, Francis demanded that Muslim leaders renounce religious
fanaticism that leads to violence. Francis made the appeal during a
landmark visit to Cairo’s Al-Azhar, the revered, 1,000-year-old seat of
Sunni Islam learning that trains clerics and scholars from around the
world. Security was exceptionally tight around the stadium and in the
upscale neighborhood where Francis spent the night, with uniformed and
plain-clothed police stationed every meter (yard) or so along his
motorcade route. Police used metal detectors to check vehicles for
explosives and armed guards stood watch, some on rooftops, their faces
covered. But Francis decided to forego the bullet-proof “popemobile” that his
predecessors used on foreign trips and drove through Cairo in a simple
Fiat, his window rolled down.

“He is a messenger of peace, he is really a messenger of peace,” said
Amgad Eskandr before the Mass got under way at the stadium. “All his
words talk about peace, call for peace, push for peace which is great.” His gestures sent a defiant message to the extremist Islamic State
group, whose local affiliate in Egypt has vowed to target Egypt’s
Christians to punish them for their support of President Abdel-Fattah
el-Sissi. As defense minister, El-Sissi had led the military ouster of the
Islamist Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president whose
one-year rule proved divisive.

 Already, attacks against Christians in northern Sinai, the epicenter
of the insurgency, have forced hundreds of families to flee the region,
seeking refuge elsewhere in Egypt. Recent attacks on churches — one in
Cairo in December and twin Palm Sunday attacks in cities north of the
Egyptian capital — have claimed at least 75 lives and injured scores.

By Daily Star Lebanon – BEIRUT: Lebanon will work with U.S. authorities in a bid to minimize
the impact of new sanctions being drafted to target Hezbollah financing
and its suspected affiliates, Prime Minister Saad Hariri said Thursday.“There’s a new bill being prepared by the U.S. Congress and we
should have a team working on explaining our efforts in combating money
laundering and other [illicit activities],” Hariri told reporters after a
meeting with President Michel Aoun at the Baabda Palace. “The
[implementation] of the bill will be harsh on Lebanon,” he said, adding
that Beirut would work with Washington to “change [the bill].” A number of members of the U.S. House of Representatives have
prepared the draft “Hezbollah International Financing Prevention
Amendments Act of 2017” – that aims to cut off all forms of financial
support to the party, which Washington deems a terrorist organization.

The
new draft, which has not yet been introduced in the House, has
reportedly added additional entities, such as the Amal Movement, to the
list of already sanctioned parties. A similar draft is said to be making the rounds in the Senate. A
high-ranking Lebanese political and banking delegation is set to travel
to Washington in May in a bid to negotiate with U.S. authorities
regarding the measures. Sources told The Daily Star Monday that the
delegation may include ministers and MPs as well as representatives of
the Association of Banks in Lebanon. The prime minister also chaired a meeting Thursday at the Grand Serail with a delegation from north Lebanon municipalities. “You
represent different political movements, but what is important is the
citizen who lives in this municipality, knowing that in the end, the
state will benefit from consolidating its presence through the
development projects that will be implemented,” Hariri told the
delegation. “What is required today is to set priorities and
develop a road map to implement all the projects that must be
complementary to each other.” Deputy Prime Minister and Health
Minister Ghassan Hasbani attended Thursday’s meeting, as did
representatives of other ministers, including those of President Aoun.

by gulfnews BEIRUT: The Lebanese High Relief Commission, HRC, has praised the important and pioneering role played by the UAE in the humanitarian relief field, and for providing support to the Lebanese Government and the hosting society, especially in light of the large numbers of Syrian refugees born in Lebanon. The remarks were made when […]

by Natasha Bertrand – Business Insider

The US needs to change how it hires hackers and other tech talent
if it wants to stay competitive in the cyber arena, former
FBI special agent Clint Watts told the Senate Armed Services
Committee during a Thursday hearing
on “cyber-enabled information
operations.” Watts, now a senior fellow at George Washington University’s
Center for Cyber and Homeland Security, argued
that Russia’s ability to hack into US political
organizations last year and launch a sustained disinformation
campaign — which it now appears to be
replicating ahead of the French and German elections —
stemmed not from its “employment of sophisticated
technology, but through the employment of top talent.”

Many experts say Russia has harnessed some of the best tech
talent in the world because of its willingness to hire
hackers who would likely be passed over in the US — either
because they aren’t “technologists” in the traditional sense or
because their records would preclude them from obtaining security
clearance.  “Actual humans, not artificial intelligence, achieved Russia’s
recent success in information warfare,” Watts said, referring to
Moscow’s election-related meddling. “Rather than developing cyber operatives internally, Russia
leverages an asymmetric advantage by which they co-opt,
compromise or coerce components of Russia’s cyber criminal
underground,” he added. “Others in Russia with access to
sophisticated malware, hacking techniques or botnets are
compelled to act on behalf of the Kremlin.”

Brandon Valeriano, a researcher at Cardiff University
specializing in international relations
and 
cyber coercion, said the strategy
allows the Russians both to “maintain their control over the
hackers” and “take advantage of whatever capabilities these
hackers might have.”  Ian Bremmer, president of the political risk firm Eurasia
Group, went one step further. “Cyber crime and state
espionage go hand in hand in Russia’s system,” he told Business
Insider last month. “Russia has employed cyber criminals for state ends for as
long as they have been hacking,” Bremmer said. “Private
hackers are a source of talent, for one thing, as well as a
degree of separation and deniability between state organs and end
users.”

by latimes.com

Pope Francis arrives in Cairo on Friday — the first
visit by a pontiff to the Middle East’s most populous country in 17
years — at a time when Christians across the region find themselves
under threat by political repression and violent attacks. In
Egypt, Coptic Christians have been chased from their homes, their
churches and a monastery attacked. In Iraq, Assyrians have been
displaced from villages, whole neighborhoods and business districts
gutted by Islamic State. In the West Bank, Iran and Lebanon, Christians
have grown accustomed to celebrating under guard.

“Some of the
oldest Christian communities in the world are disappearing in the very
lands where their faith was born and first took root,” concluded a Center for American Progress report on the plight of Christians in the Middle East.The
Middle East-North Africa area has the highest concentration of Muslims
of any region of the world: 93% of its more than 340 million
inhabitants. Christians in the region face not only the threat of
Islamist violence, but subtler challenges. Many wind up leaving because
they can’t find jobs and face social discrimination. Countries such as
Saudi Arabia make it difficult for Christians to practice their faiths
openly. We talked to Christians across the region, from Egypt to Iran, on the eve of the pope’s visit.

by Nazeer Rida

Beirut – The Lebanese Army Command announced on Tuesday that it was
intensifying its “preemptive” attacks against extremist bases and
locations on the outskirts of the northeastern border town of Arsal. The offensive coincided with the arrival of a new batch of American
weapons to the army. The cargo was unloaded at the Riyaq airport. The operations, which have been upped for a week, indicate that the
Lebanese military has taken the decision to decisively end the presence
of extremists on the outskirts of Arsal. The militants from groups, such
as ISIS and al-Nusra Front, have taken up the mountainous border area
as a safe haven.

Lebanese political forces informed on the operations told Asharq
Al-Awsat that the preemptive measures “target the militant
fortifications to prevent their expansion” into other areas and to
“thwart their mobility.” President Michel Aoun had highlighted to Army Commander Joseph Aoun
and members of the Military Council last week the importance of the
preemptive operations in order to prevent terrorist attacks in Lebanon,
revealed the sources.

The army had carried out at dawn on Tuesday a wide military operation
against ISIS positions in Lebanon’s eastern mountain range. The
National News Agency said that 20 ISIS members were killed and wounded
in the operation in the outskirts of Ras Baalbek.