Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai said Wednesday electing a new president on time was a necessary condition for a strong state and warned that power-hungry politicians implicating Lebanon in regional conflicts were leading the country into the abyss.   Reading a National Charter drafted by the Maronite Church as a roadmap for what he described […]

  While it’s never been considered a "cool" company, Microsoft is still a force — worth $300 billion, and Windows operating systems still run on a big chunk of the world’s computers. While the profile of founder and former CEO Bill Gates still looms large, outgoing leader Steve Ballmer took the reins in 2000. And […]

  Merchants have four months to comply with a new ban on the import, manufacturing and marketing of all energy drinks containing alcohol, caretaker Economy Minister Nicholas Nahas and caretaker Health Minister Ali Hasan Khalil announced Monday.   The decision follows two years of research which showed that alcohol and stimulants are “very dangerous when […]

  Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi will not accept the formation of a government from which the two major Christian parties are missing, officials in Bkirki said.   The officials, who were not identified, told al-Joumhouria newspaper published on Monday, that “no one should ever think that the Maronite patriarch would give his consent to a […]

  BEIRUT: A suicide bomber detonated his explosives belt on board a passenger van south of Beirut Monday killing himself and wounding at least two people, security sources said.   The bomber detonated his explosives belt after boarding the van that was on a road near Choueifat, a key town that leads to the pro-Hezbollah […]

  President Michel Suleiman on Sunday stressed that “it is necessary to put the national interest above all else and resort to the dialogue approach,” urging the Lebanese to “draw lessons from what’s happening around them.”   “Political leaders in particular must pay attention to the risks and threats the country is facing and must […]

  Was there a specific incident that led you to cancel the first Beirut Cinema Week festival?    After the several bomb explosions in Beirut, the organization we work with, Fondation Liban Cinéma, has decided to postpone because we could not keep the safety of our 12 guests from abroad. We discussed with our partners […]

The U.S. Saturday renewed its travel warning for Lebanon, voicing concern over the recent spate of car bombings in the country.   “As the warning states, the Department [of State] is concerned about recent security-related incidents in the country and reiterates its long-standing advice that U.S. citizens avoid all travel to Lebanon, and carefully consider […]