This week President Barack Obama told the UN General Assembly that military action cannot end the Syrian war and advocated the need for a political settlement. But a deal needs two sides. And the Western idea of how peace would play out is unraveling after the largest Islamist brigades in Syria rejected the Western-backed […]

Beneath the stretch of Kenmare Street that runs into Delancey and intersects with the Bowery, there’s an abandoned subway station – the old Bowery J stop. Its southern entrance currently serves as an event space and, this morning, a pop-up collaboration between Blue Bottle and a first-time Lebanese eatery called Manousheh debuts there. Manousheh’s eponymous […]

President Barack Obama praised Lebanon on Tuesday for its generosity in welcoming refugees fleeing the crisis in neighboring Syria and pledged tens of millions of dollars in aid to help offset the costs of the crisis.

Obama met Lebanese President Michel Suleiman on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly just after the U.S. leader announced $339 million in additional humanitarian aid in response to Syria’s crisis, including $74 million for Lebanon. Obama also announced the U.S. was sending $8.7 million to help Lebanon’s military protect its borders against terrorist threats and illicit goods.

Suleiman said Lebanon, with a population of about 4.5 million, has had a difficult time dealing with the influx of refugees. He estimated that at least 1 million Syrian refugees are in Lebanon, with thousands more crossing over each week.

That burden on Lebanon will be the focus of a meeting Wednesday on the sidelines of the General Assembly. The meeting of the International Support Group for Lebanon will draw donors and others to discuss the dimensions of the crisis.

‘Helmets? Who is in favour?’ Sitting with a group of young cyclists in an Achrafieh apartment, this is a moot point. Surely helmets are always a must? Well, as the phrase here very often goes – ‘this is Lebanon’. So, maybe questioning whether or not one should be taking such a safety precaution isn’t that […]

The study, conducted by technology consultants Pfeiffer Consulting, was designed to gather and compare quantitative user experience data from users of Apple’s iOS 6 and newly released iOS 7, Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8, Samsung’s variant of Android, and BlackBerry’s Blackberry 10. According to Pfeiffer, the test methodology attempts to eliminate as many subjective variables — […]

President Michel Suleiman headed on Sunday a meeting of the Lebanese delegation hours after arriving in New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly sessions and a conference of an international support group for Lebanon. The state-run National News Agency said the meeting was aimed at making last minute preparations for Suleiman’s participation at the […]

BEIRUT: Last year’s Beirut Art Fair was plagued by security problems. Kidnappings, Syria spillover and assorted travel warnings prevented gallerists and collectors alike from flying in, while those who did make it faced a chronic Internet failure that left everyone from organizers to visitors pulling their hair out in frustration. As a result, the BAF […]

Lebanese troops are to take over security at checkpoints set up by the Hezbollah movement in their southern Beirut stronghold after two bombings, the interior minister told AFP on Sunday. "A joint force of 800 men composed of soldiers from the army and security services will begin their deployment on Monday afternoon in the southern […]

(Reuters) – Syria’s conflict will cost Lebanon $7.5 billion in cumulative economic losses by the end of next year, the World Bank has said in a report prepared for an aid meeting at the United Nations. A summary of the report, seen by Reuters after the World Bank briefed diplomats in Beirut, provides the most […]