Khazen

Beirut southern suburbs require state intervention to curb lawlessness: minister

  BEIRUT: Rampant lawlessness in Beirut’s southern suburbs calls for state intervention, State Minister Nabil de Freij said Saturday. “Beirut’s southern suburbs are waiting for the state to intervene, especially with regards to [widespread] theft and drug dealing,” De Freij said in televised remarks. State authorities are widely believed to have a weak presence in […]

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Report: CIA, Israel Plotted Senior Hizbullah Commander’s Killing

  The CIA and Israel’s spy agency Mossad were behind an elaborate plot to kill Hizbullah commander Jihad Mughniyeh in a 2008 car bomb attack in Syria, the Washington Post reported Friday. Citing former intelligence officials, the newspaper reported that U.S. and Israeli spy agencies worked together to target Mughniyeh on February 12, 2008 as […]

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Military Expert Detonates Bomb in Zgharta’s Majdlaya

  A military expert detonated a bomb that was found on a side road between the district of Zgharta and the northern city of Tripoli, the military said on Saturday. “At 8:30 p.m. on Friday an army unit located four kilograms of explosives on Majdlaya – al-Qobbeh road,” the army said in a communique. The […]

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Casino du Liban Crisis Escalates, Employees Vow Not to Budge an Inch

  Casino du Liban employees vowed on Friday to continue their strike inside the facility’s premises, stressing that they will not block roads or burn tires. “Our escalation is limited to the premises of the casino,” head of the union of Casino du Liban employees Hadi Chehwan said in comments to Voice of Lebanon radio […]

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Lebanon to lodge complaint over Israel’s deadly border shelling

  BEIRUT: Lebanon will file a complaint with the U.N. against Israel over its recent border shelling in which a Spanish peacekeeper was killed, a ministerial source told The Daily Star Friday. The source said Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil has contacted Lebanon’s Ambassador to the U.N. Nawaf Salam, requesting him to lodge a complaint against […]

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Revelers, Employees of Pub and Restaurant Robbed at Gunpoint

  Two masked gunmen robbed at dawn Friday revelers and employees at a pub and a restaurant near Beirut, the state-run National News Agency reported. NNA said the armed men entered Lock Stock pub in the area of Mar Mikhael at around 4:00 am, robbed the customers after threatening them and escaped in a silver […]

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Jesuit laments car bomb attack in Syria, scorns media silence

.- “Most of them were students at the university, young people who had not left the city. So what sort of message does this attack send out now? I believe they were deliberately targeted.” These were the words of Father Hilal Ziad, S.J., commenting on the Jan. 21 midday car bomb explosion that killed 15 and wounded 50 others in the center of Homs. The killing was indiscriminate, and there were Christians among both the dead and the wounded.

The priest told international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need that “the attack was staged very close to our church and our aid center.” “We do not know who was behind it, but it is a tragedy. The pictures of the attack are horrifying. We are visiting the families of the victims and trying to comfort them. But what can anyone say in such a situation? We are all deeply saddened and devastated.” Newly under Syrian government control, Homs, the third-largest city in Syria, was for several years the site of a bloody stand-off between the regime and rebel forces of various stripes, both secular and Islamist.

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Tourists give hope to residents of battered Lebanese city

 

TRIPOLI, Lebanon (AP) — As the tour group made its way through the narrow alleys of the seaside city of Tripoli, marveling at its medieval architecture, residents stared back at a sight that for them was just as exotic — visitors in their poor, restive corner of Lebanon.

"Foreigners!" residents called out to each other as the group of around 30 Lebanese and foreign tourists made their way through the Old City’s labyrinth of cobblestone alleys, snapping pictures of centuries-old archways and graceful minarets. "We put you on our heads!" coffee seller Abu Mohammed, 65, said, using a traditional Arabic greeting for honored guests.

 

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Govt. Calls for Avoiding ‘All-Out Confrontation’ with Israel, Raises ISF Personnel to 35K

  The government on Thursday called for avoiding a full-blown war with Israel, a day after a Hizbullah operation killed two Israeli soldiers in the occupied Shebaa Farms, as it agreed to increase the number of the Internal Security Forces’ personnel after managing to find a “middle-ground solution.” “The cabinet discussed the situations in the […]

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13 meat vendors ordered to close in Beirut suburb

  BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Health Ministry ordered 13 meat vendors shut down production in the Beirut suburb of Sabra Thursday. According to a statement released by the Health Minister’s news office, a delegation of inspectors assessed shops, slaughterhouses and warehouses in the suburb. Results revealed that the facilities that store, sell or pack meat did not […]

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