BEIRUT: Military Prosecutor Saqr Saqr charged with terrorism Monday a Syrian man who the Army said had made "important confessions" related to attacks on military and civilian targets in Lebanon. The defendant, Hasan Jamil Harba, was referred to the judiciary Saturday after allegedly confessing to terror plots and the activities of his fellow jihadis. […]

  BEIRUT: Rats and pigeons will no longer be able to penetrate the grain silos at the Beirut Port, Economy Minister Alain Hakim assured Monday after a visit to the facility. However, a Daily Star photographer witnessed pigeons feeding on wheat that was poured from the silos into the open beds of delivery trucks. “The […]

  The death penalty has been demanded against four people in the 2013 murder of pro-Syrian regime journalist Mohammed Darrar Jammo. Judge Mounif Barakat ordered the death sentence against his wife Siham Younes, her nephew Ali Khalil Younes, her brother Badie Mohammed Younes, and her daughter Fatima. Jammo was killed on July 17, 2013 in […]

  The head of the Beirut Port Authority Hassan Qoraytem is expected to visit Bkirki on Thursday to defend his decision to fill the controversial fourth basin at the port, al-Joumhouria newspaper reported. The daily said Qoraytem will hold talks with Bishop Boulos Sayyah, who is expected to reiterate to the port official that Christian […]

  BEIRUT: Some 1,000 individuals have been arrested in February for involvement in terrorism as well as shootings, smuggling and drug trafficking, the Lebanese Army has announced. "As a result of security measures [adopted] in various areas of Lebanon during the month of February, military units apprehended about 945 individuals of different nationalities,” the military […]

  Beirut: Journalist May Chidiac, Lama Salam, wife of Prime Minister Tammam Salam and Leila Machnouk wife of Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk at the opening on Wednesday of the May Chidiac Foundation’s the third “Women on the Front Lines” convention at the Phoenicia Hotel. Chidiac spoke at the conference on the long history of women’s […]

  The members of the committee tasked with following up on the dialogue between Bkirki and Hizbullah met again in Beirut’s southern suburbs – Dahiyeh to follow up their latest meeting in February. According to al-Joumhouria newspaper published on Wednesday, talks focused on the importance of electing a new head of state and fears of […]

  Some Lebanese officials are reportedly exerting efforts to hand over the data of a Geological Survey for the country’s offshore gas and oil in the North to Norway’s Petroleum Commission. According to As Safir newspaper published on Wednesday, the move could have hidden intentions such as an attempt to draw the attention of new […]

  TRIPOLI, Lebanon: A brief sit-in was held Wednesday in support of a detained nurse from al-Youssef Hospital and a receptionist from Rahhal Hospital in the northern Akkar district. But the protest was called off after the two were released following interrogations over the recent death of a four-month-old boy, Abdel-Raouf Mounir al-Houli, who was […]

by Paul McGeough Washington: We knew before Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at the US Congress, that he would have nothing new to say – after more than 20 years the Israeli prime minister has wheeled out every argument there is against a nuclear Iran.

"The fact is that the US doesn’t need Israel," says one observer 

So, why this visceral sense that the Middle East is careering towards a point of no return? Maybe because that is the kind of wild trajectory the region is on.

The Middle East is catching up with its last century – the 2015 of Obama and Netanyahu is not the 1916 of Sykes and Picot; the 1948 of the founding of Israel, the 1967 of the Six-Day War, the 1973 of the world oil shock or the 1979 of the Islamic Revolution.

Washington’s place in the world – and in the region – is very different. The Cold War is gone and the grind of nuclear tension with Moscow is so yesterday. Obama wants to pivot to Asia.