February 2016 – Page 6

Lebanon Chokes on Bad Air, Dysfunctional Government

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VOA – Reuters

Reuters

February 02, 2016 3:52 PM

BEIRUT—

Beirut stinks. And now it’s getting dangerous.

Six months ago, Lebanon’s dysfunctional government shut the main landfill site for garbage from the capital, without providing an alternative.

Since then, rubbish collection has halted and festering trash has piled up in the city streets, causing what researchers and campaigners now say is a public health emergency.

Officials say they will resolve the crisis by paying a foreign company to ship rubbish abroad, although even the minister in charge calls the plan "crazy."

Activists say it is proof that a governing system, set up 25 years ago to share power among feuding sectarian groups and end a multisided civil war, has become so inefficient and corrupt that it is no longer capable of providing even basic services.

Can Hariri Co-exist with a Strong Christian President in Lebanon?

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Halim Shebaya

Huffington Post

In potentially the most abrupt U-turn in Lebanese politics since the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding in February 2006 between Hizbullah’s Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and the Free Patriotic Movement’s former-PM General Michel Aoun, Lebanese Forces leader Dr. Samir Geagea stunned his March 14 allies by endorsing (see video below) Aoun’s nomination for the Lebanese Presidency on the 20th of January 2016.

Lebanon has been without a President since May 2014. As per Lebanese custom, the President should be Maronite (Eastern Catholic) and is elected by the convening of Parliament with a minimum of a two-thirds quorum. This quorum has been unavailable since Aoun (backed by March 8 coalition) has refused to send his parliamentary bloc without the assurance that he – or someone he nominates – is elected as President.

Middle East fashion designers steal the show in Paris

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by Francesca Fearon

These days fewer than half of the houses unveiling their new spring collections on the Parisian haute couture catwalks are French. Italian couturiers Valentino, Armani and Versace are correspondent members with an established couture clientele.

The new kids on the block at last week’s Paris Haute Couture Week were the Chinese, while Middle East designers, led by Lebanon’s Elie Saab, are now an integral part of the schedule.

Saab and fellow Lebanese designer Zuhair Murad, who are guest members of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, would have to relocate their main ateliers to Paris to qualify for full membership, but their sparklingly dressed clientele illustrates the huge international demand for their work.

Five missing Czechs found in Lebanon

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reuters

Five Czech citizens who went missing in Lebanon in July are now with the Lebanese security services, a security source told Reuters on Monday.

The Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the five, who went missing in eastern Lebanon last year, were found late on Monday.

"We will send a plane for them as soon as possible," the Czech foreign minister, Lubomir Zaoralek, on a visit to Oman, said on his Twitter account.

The disappearance, which Czech authorities treated as a possible kidnapping, may have been related to organized crime and the drugs and arms trade, Lebanon’s interior minister said in July.