Lebanon’s tobacco addiction comes with a medical bill

Details

by thearabweekly.com -- By Samar Kadi-- Recent studies indicated that most shisha smokers in Lebanon are women and young Lebanese are among the heaviest shisha smokers in the world. - “It is a nice pastime, especially when we sit with friends in cafes, chatting while having a smoke,” said Nada Cherif. Cherif said she was never enticed to smoke cigarettes but she is a regular user of nargile — also known as shisha, hookah or water pipe — which has become an epidemical trend in Lebanon. Cherif insisted that she is not a tobacco addict. “I have friends who smoke the nargile more than once a day and alternate with cigarettes,” she said.

Lebanon has been ranked among the world’s highest tobacco-consuming countries in recent years. In 2015, a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) put Lebanon third for the highest cigarette consumption per capita. “It is no surprise that we have the highest cancer rate in the region,” said Nadine Chatila, director of communications at the American University of Beirut Medical Centre (AUBMC). “The problem is that indoor smoking is allowed in many public places. Shisha is easily accessible and you can even have it delivered to your home at a very cheap price." AUBMC’s cancer department estimates that 8,000 cases of cancer are reported in Lebanon annually. Dr Nagi Saghir, professor of haematology-oncology and director of the breast cancer centre at AUBMC, has stated that cases are divided equally between the sexes and that, among the 4,000 cases of cancer in women, 1,700 are breast cancer. Oncologist Dr Joseph Makdessi noted that cancer prevalence has risen globally, not only in Lebanon, with lung cancer being the most common type of the disease. “Almost 90% of lung cancer cases are related directly to smoking,” Makdessi said. “Among females, cases of breast cancer are the highest, whereas prostate cancer is the most common among men.” While smoking could be one of the main causes for lung cancer, other factors are relevant for the increase in cancer cases, Makdessi said.

Read more ...

Lebanese Nizar Zakka to contest by-poll from Iran jail

Details

by arabnews.com --BEIRUT: A Lebanese citizen imprisoned in Iran, Nizar Zakka, announced in a message he sent from Tehran’s Evin prison that he will run for the by-election to fill the vacant Sunni seat in the district of Tripoli in northern Lebanon. Zakka, an information technology expert, was kidnapped in September 2015 on his way to Tehran airport after having accepted an invitation from Iran to attend a scientific conference. He was a permanent resident of the US, where he served as secretary-general of the Arab ICT Organization in Washington. Iranian authorities have accused him of “spying for the US.” Zakka pledged in a message distributed by his family and lawyer to be Lebanese voters’ “loud voice in Parliament, and the voice of every ordinary citizen who has lost his right in a state that knows no justice.” He wrote that the Lebanese state had conspired against him when he was kidnapped and “detained in one of the most appalling prisons in the world.” He added: “For four years, I have been living in an underground grave between sewers and rats.” Zakka saluted Prime Minister Saad Hariri and the parties, civil society organizations and personalities that have supported him and his cause. “Not a day goes by while I am in prison that I do not remember Mohamad Chatah, and I am sure that had he gotten invited to Iran and responded to the invitation, he would have met the same fate,” Zakka wrote. Chatah, a Lebanese politician and economist, was assassinated in 2013 by a car bomb in Beirut. He was born in Tripoli, served as finance minister in 2008, and was among the most prominent advisers to Hariri’s Future Movement.

Cheat. Bribe. Lie. Here's how the college admissions scam allegedly worked

Details

By Eric Levenson, CNN, 

The college admissions scheme revealed Tuesday is the largest of its kind ever prosecuted, federal prosecutors said, and features 50 defendants across six states, millions of dollars in illegally funneled funds and a handful of the country's most selective universities. But at its core, the alleged scheme is remarkably simple -- and brazen. Cheat on standardized tests. Bribe the people who decide which students get admitted. All the while pretending that money was for charity. "I'll speak more broadly, there were essentially two kinds of fraud that Singer was selling," US Attorney Andrew Lelling said, referring to William Rick Singer, the figure at the center of the scheme. "One was to cheat on the SAT or ACT, and the other was to use his connections with Division I coaches and use bribes to get these parents' kids into school with fake athletic credentials," Lelling said at a press conference in Boston. A total of 50 people were charged in the case. Those arrested include two SAT/ACT administrators, one exam proctor, nine coaches at elite schools, one college administrator and 33 parents, according to Lelling. Here's how the plan worked, according to prosecutors.

Cheating on the ACTs and SATs

Of course, students who score higher on standardized tests such as the ACT and SAT are more likely to get into selective colleges. Given that, Singer facilitated cheating on those exams for students whose wealthy parents paid for his services. Singer pleaded guilty in court on Tuesday to four federal charges and admitted that the case against him was accurate. According to the indictment, he arranged for a third-party -- generally Mark Riddell, who is charged with two conspiracy counts -- to secretly take the test in the students' place or replace their responses with his own. How did Riddell allegedly take the tests without being noticed by the test administrators? Well, prosecutors said, Singer bribed them. Igor Dvorskiy, who administered SAT and ACT tests in Los Angeles, and Lisa "Niki" Williams, who administered the tests at a public high school in Houston, are both accused of accepting bribes to allow Riddell to take the tests. Both are charged with conspiracy to commit racketeering, according to the indictment. Parents who hired Singer as part of the scheme allegedly paid between $15,000 and $75,000 per test, the indictment states. CNN has reached out to Riddell, Williams and Dvorskiy.

Read more ...

Military Tribunal Sentences Journalist for Criticizing Lebanese Security Agency

Details

by hrw.org --Aya Majzoub -- The sentencing of Lebanese TV correspondent Adam Chamseddine to three months in jail for “insulting” a security agency in a Facebook post is the latest escalation in the crackdown on speech criticizing public officials and state institutions. The prison sentence, the second issued to a journalist in absentia by a military court and one in a growing list targeting journalists, reflects all that is wrong with the continued prosecution of journalists for exercising their right to free speech. Chamseddine’s post criticized State Security for leaking details of an investigation of a detainee who had AIDS. Chamseddine claimed that the same State Security interrogators used a similar tactic with Ziad Itani, who was exonerated in 2018 of spying for Israel, knowing that in both cases, public opinion would turn against the suspects. There has been an alarming increase in the use of Lebanon’s criminal defamation laws, which authorize imprisonment for up to three years for insulting state officials and institutions. SKeyes, an organization that monitors free speech in Lebanon, recorded more than 90 prosecutions against journalists, artists, and activists since October 2016, with 62 in 2018 alone. Digital rights group, Social Media Exchange said the number of cases over online posts almost quadrupled between 2017 and 2018.

Military courts have such broad jurisdiction over civilians they can end up in military court for any interaction with security services or their employees. Defendants, lawyers, and Lebanese human rights activists allege that authorities are using this power to silence dissent. Chamseddine is only one of many outspoken journalists, activists, and human rights lawyers who have been tried in military courts. Those who have been tried in military courts have described torture, forced confessions, incommunicado detention, lengthy pretrial detention, decisions issued without an explanation, seemingly arbitrary sentences, and a limited ability to appeal. Such trials violate defendants’ rights to due process and international law. In Chamseddine’s case, local media reported that he was tried in absentia because he failed to receive appropriate legal notice to appear for questioning or in court. The threat of arrest and the possibility of ending up before a military court have a deep chilling effect on critics of Lebanon’s government and state institutions. At a time when the state has failed to deliver even the most basic of services to its citizens and has engaged in serious rights violations, public debate should be encouraged, not persecuted.

Talent agency Endeavor returns Saudi Arabia's $400 million investment

Details

by cnbc.com -- Making good on a pledge to sever ties with Saudi Arabia after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Endeavor talent agency on Friday returned a $400 million investment from the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund. The news, first reported by The New York Times, comes six months after Khashoggi's death. Endeavor, helmed by Ari Emanuel, announced back in October that it would be extricating itself from a deal with the Saudi government following pressure from Hollywood to stand against the kingdom. The multimillion dollar deal would have allowed the Saudi government to back entertainment projects at home and abroad and take a 5 to 10 percent stake in Endeavor, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Last year, Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, toured America meeting with Hollywood executives, celebrities and producers. The crown prince wanted to become less reliant on oil as the driving force of his kingdom's economy and to bolster Saudi Arabia's budding entertainment industry. However, Khashoggi's death led to a chorus of international outcry and caused a number of business leaders in the entertainment, tech and transportation industries to suspend talks or sever ties. Virgin Group's Richard Branson ceased talks about potential investments in his space-travel business, and private-equity firm Blackstone Group, Uber and Goldman Sachs all cancelled plans to attend a major investment conference in the Saudi capital. Read the full story from The New York Times.

Germany will not list Hezbollah as terrorist: minister

Details

by dw.com -- Germany will not declare Lebanon's Hezbollah movement a terrorist organization, a top official said Friday. Minister of State Niels Annen told news magazine Der Spiegel that the Iran-backed Shiite Islamist movement is a relevant factor in Lebanese society and part of the complex political landscape in the country. Read more: Iran's military power: What you need to know The comments come after Britain last month banned Hezbollah's political wing, accusing the movement of destabilizing the Middle East. "The British move is a national decision that has no direct impact on the position of the German government or the EU," said Annen, a top Foreign Ministry official.

The European Union had already added Hezbollah's military wing to a list of banned terrorists groups in 2013. Hezbollah is represented in the Lebanese parliament and holds three of 30 ministries in the government led by Western-backed Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri. The movement's armed wing has expanded its influence in recent years in Lebanon and Syria, where alongside Iran and Russia it backs the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. In Lebanon, it is considered to be more powerful than the Lebanese army. Hezbollah, or Party of God, was conceived by Muslim clerics in the 1980s in response to the Israeli invasion of South Lebanon in 1982. The Shiite group has a political and military wing.

Read more ...