middleeastmonitor.com

Dozens of Lebanese women and their children have joined protests in central Beirut yesterday demanding the Lebanese law be amended to allow women married to foreigners to pass their nationality to their children.

The protest is part of a campaign titled “My nationality, a right for me and my family”.

The participants held banners that read “nationality is not identification papers” and “the mother is the origin”.

“We demand the Lebanese nationality law, which enshrines discrimination between women and men, be amended. We demand the law be amended so as to ensure full and complete equality between women and men and to give Lebanese women the right to grant citizenship to their families and children when the husband is a foreigner,” campaign coordinator Karima Shabbo told the Anadolu Agency.

ATHENS (Reuters) – Twenty-six people thought to be Lebanese and Syrian were winched to safety by helicopters off Cyprus in an overnight operation when their sailboat began to sink in rough seas, authorities said.

Radars picked up a distress signal from the boat sailing off the island’s south-eastern tip, which is prone to very strong sea currents. Police said a number of passengers required medical treatment for hypothermia. "The occupants of the sailboat said they had set off from Lebanon," a police spokesman said. Media reports suggested they were attempting to reach Greece, the primary gateway to the European Union for close to 600,000 migrants and refugees fleeing war this year.

mirror.co.uk

The famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon were among the seven wonders of the ancient world.

And now a Middle Eastern businessman has recreated this marvel for the modern age by recreating it inside a petrol station.

The stunning picture of luxury cars being fuelled up under canopies of leaves and flowers has gone viral on imgur, having been viewed more than a million times.

It was snapped in the trendy bar nightlife spot of Mar Mikael in Beirut.

One commenter said it was the "most aesthetically pleasing one in all of Lebanon", adding the way they hold the foliage is through metal fencing, and it basically just loops around the metal wires."Another commented: "I love when everyday things are made beautiful."

Lebanon’s parliament speaker on Wednesday called parliament to convene next week in the first attempt for months to bring deeply divided politicians together to pass laws vital to keeping the paralyzed state afloat.

Lebanese politicians, bitterly divided by their own rivalries and wider conflict in the region, have been unable to take even basic decisions, including where to dump the country’s rubbish. The paralysis of government was laid bare again in recent days when the government failed to pay the army on time.

“The resumption of legislative work has become more than a necessity for the country,” parliament speaker Nabih Berri said in a statement, calling the session for next Thursday and Friday. It was not immediately clear whether enough MPs would attend the session to secure a quorum.

Nasser Karimi and Jon Gambrell, Associated Press

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian state television on Tuesday claimed that a Washington-based Lebanese citizen missing in Tehran since September is actually an American spy now in the custody of authorities.However, those who know Nizar Zakka — who holds permanent-resident status in the United States — said an image of him in army-style fatigues shown on Iranian state TV came from him recently taking part in a homecoming parade as an alumnus of his military high school in Georgia.

Through a lawyer, the Zakka family said they were "shocked by these false accusations," and stressed that he has no "relation with any military, security institution or secret services whatsoever." The state TV report is the first official word in Iran about Zakka since his disappearance. It comes as four Americans are known to be held by Iranian authorities after the Islamic Republic struck a nuclear deal with world powers and amid increasingly hostile rhetoric against the U.S. in the agreement’s wake. Jim Benson, the president of Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, said state TV even identified the wrong man in the image as Zakka.

Nasser Karimi and Jon Gambrell, associated press

Iranian state television on Tuesday claimed that a Washington-based Lebanese citizen missing in Tehran since September is actually an American spy now in the custody of authorities.

However, those who know Nizar Zakka — who holds permanent-resident status in the United States — said an image of him in army-style fatigues shown on Iranian state TV came from him recently taking part in a homecoming parade as an alumnus of his military high school in Georgia.

The state TV report is the first official word in Iran about Zakka since his disappearance. It comes as four Americans are known to be held by Iranian authorities after the Islamic Republic struck a nuclear deal with world powers.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanese judicial authorities charged a Saudi prince and nine other people with drug smuggling via Beirut airport, and referred the case to an investigating judge, judicial sources and the National News Agency reported on Monday.

The prince has been widely identified in Lebanese media and by security officials speaking anonymously as Abdulmohsen bin Walid bin Abdulmohsen bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.

Lebanese authorities detained five Saudi citizens at the airport last week after finding two tonnes of Captagon amphetamine pills bound for Saudi Arabia on a private jet, security sources and the NNA said, the biggest smuggling operation ever discovered at the airport.

By Laila Bassam

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanese authorities scrambled on Monday to pay overdue salaries to the army, a crisis that has laid bare the extent of paralysis in government and added to criticism of the politicians whose rivalries are to blame.

The salaries were due last week but were delayed because neither the cabinet nor parliament convened to pass a decree needed to transfer the funds. Both bodies have been riven by political tensions linked to wider conflict in the region.

The finance minister said on Monday the problem had been resolved for this month with an exceptional measure that bypasses normal legislative channels. That leaves open the possibility that the problem could recur if the government does not convene to approve longer-term arrangements.

BEIRUT – A shootout erupted early Monday as Lebanese forces raided a nightclub north of Beirut, leaving eight people dead, including two officers and at least one member of a notorious crime family, the state-run news agency and the Lebanese army said.

The purpose of the raid at the White Night Club in the city of Jounieh was to apprehend fugitives, the reports said, without providing details. Four officers were also wounded in the firefight.

Beirut (AFP) – Lebanon’s political stalemate has not only left uncollected garbage piling up in the streets, but now risks losing millions in international loans for key development projects because of a paralysed parliament.

To secure the funds, Lebanon’s parliament is required to approve loan deals or pass legislation on which the money is conditioned.

But the legislature, deeply divided over issues ranging from minor domestic disagreements to the conflict in neighbouring Syria, has not met since May 2014.

The World Bank warns that Lebanon could lose half a portfolio worth $1.1 billion (1 billion euros) if parliament fails to ratify loan agreements before December 31.

Around half that money is for the Bisri Dam project in southern Lebanon, which is intended to provide 1.6 million people with water for drinking and irrigation.

Legislative inaction has already led France to cancel 46.5 million euros for building schools and 70 million euros for the electricity sector, in a country where chronic power outages continue 25 years after the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.