Bassel F. Salloukh

Protests initiated by “You Stink” activists against Lebanon’s garbage crisis and the government’s infamous corruption and dysfunction continue to grow. What insight can this garbage crisis and mounting public frustration provide us about not only the country’s sectarian political system but also broader regional trends?

Political scientists have long debated how best to engineer durable peace and democracy in post-conflict, plural societies. Lebanon is an example of a consociational political system in which the political elites of the various sectarian groups govern based on a predefined but static power-sharing agreement. Recent scholarship on post-conflict power-sharing agreements has highlighted the institutional variations between corporate consociation, which considers sectarian identities unchanging and constitute the main markers of political identity and, alternatively, liberal consociation, which regards political identity as malleable and shaped by institutional design, namely electoral law and federal structure. Consequently, these different power-sharing systems affect the incentive structures driving political identification and mobilization in post-conflict societies in different ways.

Daily Star lebanon, In a news conference with his Lebanese counterpart Tammam Salam at the Grand Serail, the British prime minister said the humanitarian crisis in neighboring Syria increases the burden on Lebanon, emphasizing that the UK will also offer further support to Lebanese security forces to confront extremists along its northeastern border.

By Jack Moore, Newsweek

British Prime Minister David Cameron has visited a Lebanese refugee camp just a mile from the Syrian border, as Europe continues to face the increasing refugee crisis, largely caused by the four-year Syrian civil war.

Cameron traveled by Chinook helicopter to a camp run by the U.N.’s refugee agency in the Bekaa Valley, according to The Guardian newspaper, which lies close to the Syrian border and an area where the Al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and ISIS are present.

While at the camp, the British leader called for the European Union to focus on helping the refugees in the countries surrounding Syria, such as Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, who have taken in millions of Syrians fleeing the war between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Islamist rebels.

Colin Campbell

The US Department of Justice on Wednesday announced that a young man from Minneapolis, Minnesota, pleaded guilty to charges related to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL

But the man, who prosecutors identified as 19-year-old Hanad Musse, was hardly the only Twin Cities resident to face charges in recent months for allegedly supporting the extremist group.

There have been a string of Islamic State-related arrests over roughly the last year.

Why Minneapolis? Authorities say it’s linked to Minneapolis-St. Paul’s large Somali community.

According to The New York Times, estimates peg the local Somali population, which Minneapolis touts as the largest in the US, at roughly 30,000 people.

Antoine Lahad, the former commander of the now-defunct South Lebanon Army, died in Paris this week. He was 88. Lahad headed the pro-Israel militia from 1984 until the Israeli withdrawal from its security zone in south Lebanon in May 2000. He took over command of the SLA, succeeding its founder, General Saad Hadad. Hadad founded […]

catholicherald.co.uk

The American Catholic Church “stands ready to help” in efforts to assist refugees fleeing war-torn countries in the Middle East, said the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops has said. Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, also that Catholics in the US and “all people of good will should express openness and welcome to refugees fleeing Syria and elsewhere in order to survive”.

Tens of thousands of people from Syria and other countries are “fleeing into Europe in search of protection”, he said, adding that images of those “escaping desperate” circumstances “have captured the world’s attention and sympathy”.

Supriya Sharma,TNN

Lebanese cuisine extends beyond breaking pita and falafel. The savor and smell of halloumi cheese, Ahweh and Sharab Ward is worth discovering if you haven’t yet..Lebanese diet is high on herbs, spices and fresh ingredients (the Lebanese rarely eat leftovers), relying less on heavy sauces. Mint, parsley, oregano, garlic, nutmeg and cinnamon are the most common seasonings.
The Lebanese believe that a mixture of thyme, sumac and sesame seeds (called zaatar), gives strength and clears the mind. For this reason, before leaving home on exam days, all school children eat a slice of bread with a spread of zaatar and olive oil. The traditional recipe of zaatar uses thyme, but savory — which has an aroma similar to a combination of oregano and thyme — works much better.

By Dominic Waghorn, Sky News Correspondent

Europe has been in the grips of the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War, but it could be about to get a lot worse. That is the perspective from Lebanon, which has taken the brunt of Syria’s exodus and is now at breaking point. Coming to the small Mediterranean nation also helps explain why the crisis has suddenly erupted now.

Lebanon is a truly remarkable country. For the last four years, it has absorbed at least a quarter of its population in refugees. While Europeans agonise over a refugee crisis, but a real one has been under way here. Imagine the UK being invaded by the population of London twice over. Refugees are everywhere, camped in fields, lay-bys, beaches and building sites.

Then imagine that in a Britain that hasn’t had a functional government for months, where garbage collects in festering piles because authorities can’t even agree on the most pressing challenge: clearing the nation’s rubbish.

The migration crisis enveloping Europe and much of the Middle East today is one of the worst humanitarian disasters since the 1940s. Millions of desperate people are on the march: Sunni refugees driven out by the barbarity of the Assad regime in Syria, Christians and Yazidis fleeing the pornographic violence of Islamic State, millions more of all faiths and no faith fleeing poverty and oppression without end. Parents are entrusting their lives and the lives of their young children to rickety boats and unscrupulous criminal syndicates along the Mediterranean coast, professionals and business people are giving up their livelihoods and investments, farmers are abandoning their land, and from North Africa to Syria, the sick and the old are on the road, carrying a few treasured belongings on a new trail of tears.

By Andreane Williams,