By: cyprus-mail.com/

It is estimated that the number of tourists from Lebanon will exceed 35,000 this year, with most arrivals having involved short breaks throughout the year, according to the Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO).

“Wedding tourism from this country has increased by 30 per cent and we are optimistic about further growth,” the CTO said in a news release on Monday.

With Lebanon a priority market among the Arab countries, CTO organised a workshop with a focus on wedding tourism and short breaks in Beirut in early December.

The workshop involved 18 Cypriot companies (hotels and tour operators), more than 55 Lebanese travel agents and over 100 tourism professionals and other agents from Lebanon.

CTO aimed to contact and get to know new companies and further develop existing partnerships, as well as creating new ones, with the aim of increasing the flow of tourists from that market, according to the statement.

Lianna Brinded

German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced something pretty surprising this week — she is going to "drastically decrease" the number of refugees entering Germany.

And it turns out the real reason for this is pretty simple.

The change of heart is a big deal because originally Merkel pledged to not put quotas on the number of refugees entering Germany since the EU is currently experiencing the worst refugee crisis since World War II.

Her willingness to accept refugees had helped earn her a nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize and the distinction of being Time’s Person of the Year.

But this chart, which was embedded in Goldman Sachs’ massive Fornightly Thoughts report this week, holds to key as why Merkel has had to signal a compromise over her open-door policy with her critics from within her own conservative party.

By IBT UK Reporter | International Business Times

Outside of the Middle East, Lebanon is more closely associated with conflict than beauty pageants, so it is no surprise that 23-year-old Valerie Abou Chacra missing out on the top spot at the 2015 Miss World competition was greeted with such outrage on social media.

Lebanon has had a difficult year in 2015, with war raging in Syria, a dire refugee crisis and widespread political malaise, so when Chacra gave a stirring speech at the December 19 event calling for "love and serenity" it was shared and received far more widely than the usual scope of the global beauty pageant.

By ZEINA KARAM

BEIRUT (AP) — Samir Kantar, a Lebanese who was convicted of carrying out one of the most notorious attacks in Israeli history and spent nearly three decades in an Israeli prison, has been killed by an Israeli airstrike near the Syrian capital, the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah group said Sunday.

Hezbollah said Kantar, known in Lebanon as "The Dean of Lebanese Prisoners" for being the longest-held prisoner in Israel, was killed along with eight others in the strike in the Damascus suburb of Jaramana Saturday night.

Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV said two Israeli warplanes that violated Syrian airspace fired four long-range missiles at the residential building in Jaramana. It aired footage of what it said was the building, which appeared to be destroyed. Kantar’s brother, Bassam, confirmed his "martyrdom" in a Facebook post on Sunday.

Syrian state news agency SANA said Kantar was killed in a "terrorist and hostile missile attack on a residential building." SANA did not mention Israel in its report on the strike, which it said killed several people.

Turkey has hosted the largest number of immigrants so far this century. Lebanon and Jordan have also risen up the rankings, as the chart below shows, as the current human rights crisis unfolds in Syria.

To check Horoscopes for 2017-2018 please click here

Horoscopes 2016- 2017

khazen.org has compiled a list of horoscopes from different sources for the year of 2016 – 2017, please click read more and scroll down your horoscope will be listed multiple time  in this article from different sources

Summary Horoscopes 2016- 2017

Aries Horoscope 2016

Best – Job prospects
Worst – Car trouble, in-law issues
Theme – Understanding the mechanics of relationships

Taurus 2016 Horoscope 
Best – New love affairs, children, fun and lucky times ahead!
Worst – Financial debt
Theme – Letting go of what you don’t need any longer

Gemini Horoscope 2016 
Best – Home and family
Worst – Worn old relationships
Theme – Commitment in relationships

Cancer Horoscope 2016 
Best – Travel, school, communication
Worst – Lots of hard work
Theme – Learning to work with others

Leo Horoscope 2016 
Best – Money!
Worst – Gambling and risky investments
Theme – Remembering to put fun in your life!

Virgo Horoscope 2016 
Best – Lots of opportunities in many areas of life
Worst – Family issues
Theme – Expanding your world!

Libra Horoscope 2016 
Best – Oportunities and luck
Worst – Car trouble, communication issues
Theme – Letting the past go. Healing old wounds

Scorpio Horoscope 2016 
Best – Good friends
Worst – Money issues
Theme – Knowing your own self worth

Sagittarius Horoscope 2016 
Best – Oportunities and luck in Career
Worst – Negativity within himself
Theme – Breaking down and rebuilding to make a better life for yourself

Capricorn Horoscope 2016
Best – Travel, communication
Worst – Karmic payback
Theme – Get ready for your public debut in the world!

Aquarius Horoscope 2016 
Best – Good Luck With Money
Worst – Nasty friends
Theme – Getting in touch with your high self

Pisces Horoscope 2016 
Best – Luck through Marriage
Worst – Career stress
Theme – Expect the Unexpected

The horoscope for 2016 , based on the astrological situation of the period under examination, brings hope that, in general, 2016 will be a lively bright and fascinating time, filled with large-scale and amazing events. Each of us will be able to gain something in the unrelenting cycle of the universe; something that we will reflect upon within ourselves with profound and zealous light.

Pamela Engel

Sen Ted Cruz

Republican presidential hopeful and US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has advocated "carpet bombing" ISIS "into oblivion" to destroy the terrorist group. GOP rival Donald Trump has made similar comments, though a bit more colorfully.

But experts have cast doubt on this approach, saying it likely wouldn’t prove effective.

"You have to be deliberately ignorant of the nature of ISIS … [and] of the limits of air power to advocate carpet bombing," Christopher Harmer, a former US Navy officer and currently a senior naval analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, told Business Insider.

He added: "People who use that terminology don’t understand ISIS and they don’t understand warfare."

ISIS (also known as the Islamic State, ISIL, and Daesh) has adapted to survive while the US and other countries conduct airstrikes over the territory it holds in Iraq and Syria.

But so-called carpet bombing "really doesn’t do anything except hit a bunch of civilians and maybe a few ISIS fighters," Harmer said. "Carpet bombing only applies when you’re trying to level entire cities or destroy civilian populations."

CatholicHerald.com

Prince Charles has warned that Christianity in the Middle East is “under threat like never before”. In a visit to Archbishop’s House, Westminster, yesterday, to meet with Syrian and Iraqi Christians and representatives of those suffering persecution in the Middle East, the Prince of Wales said that “Christian communities in the Middle East are being targeted like never before by fanatical Islamist militants intent on dividing communities that had lived together for centuries.

“The impact of all this unmentionable violence and cruelty has had on individual lives is heart breaking,” he said: “Earlier this year I spent time with three remarkable people who had been subject to unimaginable levels of barbaric horror, including a Jesuit priest who had been working in Homs in Syria and a Chaldean Catholic priest from northern Iraq who had been kidnapped by Daesh, threatened daily with beheading but never renounced with faith, but had not renounced his faith nor lost his power of forgiveness. Their heart-rending testimonies are a powerful reminder, if indeed such a reminder is needed, of the terrifying depths to which people will sink, in the name of so-called faith.”

AFP 

Intelligence services brought in former MP Hassan Yaacoub for questioning around 11:00 am local time (0900 GMT) on Thursday as part of their investigation into the brief kidnapping of Kadhafi, the security source said.

Kadhafi, who resided in Syria, was kidnapped on December 11 in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley near the Syrian border, but was freed by police hours later.

Earlier this week, Lebanese authorities charged Kadhafi with withholding information about the disappearance of revered Shiite cleric Mussa Sadr, who vanished in Libya in 1978.

According to the security source, investigators discovered that Yaacoub had orchestrated an elaborate scheme to seize Kadhafi from Syria and bring him to Lebanon.

by Joseph A. Kechichian, Senior Writer Gulf news

Beirut: As anticipated by Al Nahar newspaper a few days ago, the leader of the Marada Movement, deputy Sulaiman Franjieh, formally announced his candidacy for the position of president of the republic on Thursday evening during a scheduled interview on “Kalam Al NAS with Marcel Ganem” on the LBCI channel.

The  interview, drew praise from the Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt.

Jumblatt praised the interviewee, opining that Franjieh was “realistic” and wrote on his Twitter account: “His interview was frank and steered away from the empty political slogans of some officials.”