by hoteliermiddleeast.com

Hotels in Beirut were incapable of achieving full occupancy for New Year, despite experiencing a relatively stable security situation.

“Occupancy in Beirut hotels stands at around 70% for the New Year while it reaches 70% to 80% in areas outside the capital,” Federation of Touristic Syndicates head Jean Beyrouthy said to local media. “However, mountain hotels saw a drop in business due to the absence of snow,” he added.

Beyrouthy claimed that Lebanon could have attracted a greater number of tourists this year because of the relatively stable security situation it has experienced compared to others in the region. He added that only a few hotels managed to reach full occupancy this year, attributing success to their own exisiting clients or because of their special locations within the city.

Josh Wood

While the world has focused most of its attention on the Syrian refugee crisis’ effect on Europe, the biggest crisis is actually in the country’s neighbors, Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. Lebanese documentary filmmaker Zakaria Jaber has released a new, reproduced version of “Zaalan: The Rose of Hamra Street,” which was originally made in 2014

Pamela Engel

ISIS has been tightening security along the borders of its "caliphate" to prevent people from fleeing, according to locals familiar with the terrorist group’s territory.

And ISIS — aka the Islamic State — seems to be keeping a closer watch over its populace.

People who live in Raqqa, Syria, the de-facto capital of the group’s territory, which it calls its "caliphate," are now reportedly forced to register with the militant government.

There are restrictions on what people can take in and out of ISIS-held cities. And women aren’t allowed to go anywhere without a male relative escort.

"Leaving the city is now really hard," Abu Ibrahim al-Raqqawi, an activist with the group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, told Business Insider recently. "The problem is not going to Raqqa, it’s how to get out." Raqqa is the center of ISIS’s operations in the Middle East. Raqqawi — who uses a pseudonym — still travels back and forth from the city with the help of smugglers, he said. His family remains there.

Lebanon is just over half the size of Leinster, but by virtue of its proximity to neighbouring Syria, it has borne the brunt of the number of refugees fleeing across the border to escape civil war, writes RTÉ’s Aengus Cox.

At the beginning of December 2015 there were an estimated 1.2m displaced Syrians spread across Lebanon, comprising more than a quarter of the country’s population.

With the high number of refugees, traditional camps have not proven sufficient to cope with the escalating crisis.

In Lebanon there is now an established profile of both rural and urban refugees.

The capital Beirut, for example, is now home to at least 50,000 Syrians who have fled their homeland.

Reuters Lebanon’s Supreme Islamic Shi’ite Council condemned the execution of a prominent Shi’ite cleric in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, saying it was a "grave mistake". "The execution of Sheikh Nimr was an execution of reason, moderation and dialogue," the council’s Vice President Sheikh Abdel Amir Qabalan said in a statement. Saudi Arabia executed Sheikh Nimr […]

Kathryn Chou

This year has been a roller coaster of food trends. 

It seems like everything from fried octopus balls to Spam made an appearance on the table and on Instagram feeds across the country.

These are the 11 foods people went crazy for in 2015.

Pamela Engel

A recent report has shown the extent to which ISIS’ influence has extended into the US, with hundreds of Americans following pro-ISIS accounts on social-media platforms.

The terrorist group, also known as the Islamic State or ISIL, recruits people from all over the world, including the US. Thousands of people from Western countries are thought to have joined the group’s ranks in Iraq and Syria, where ISIS has forcefully established a self-declared Islamic caliphate.

But for many Westerners, the radicalization process starts online, where it’s not difficult to find ISIS supporters who pull people in to extremist ideology.

In its report, the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University said the US was "home to a small but active cadre of individuals infatuated with ISIS’s ideology," some of whom had left their homes to travel to ISIS territory or mount attacks on the home front.

A snowplow opens a road in the north Lebanon village of Turza, in the district of Bsharri

BEIRUT (AP) — A snowstorm engulfed Lebanon on the first day of the new year, cutting off mountain roads, isolating villages and worsening living conditions for tens of thousands of Syrian refugees.

Elsewhere, Syrian children were seen tossing snowballs at one another and playing in the snow. A child ran around in flip-flops, unfazed by the cold.

In the eastern town of Al-Marj near the Syrian border, the refugees said their biggest worry was the water, from rain or snow, leaking into the tents.

"We don’t know when the tent will collapse on us," said a Syrian woman, who identified herself as Um Abdou. "When it’s windy, we cannot sleep because we are scared that the tent will be blown away."

توقعات مايك فغالي  2016

توقعات ميشال حايك 2016

توقعات ماغي فرح 

By Lebanon24.com