Joseph A. Kechichian, Senior Writer

Beirut: A regularly scheduled League of Arab States (LAS) meeting in Cairo this coming Thursday may further exacerbate Lebanon’s ties with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states in general and with Saudi Arabia in particular, as rumours fly that the LAS could issue an expulsion warning if Beirut fails to dissuade Hezbollah from its active participation in several regional wars at Iran’s behest.

According to the Al Nahar daily, Egyptian officials are trying to set up a meeting between Lebanese Foreign Minister Jibran Bassil and his Saudi counterpart, Adel Al Jubeir, to see whether growing tensions between the two countries could be rolled back from the current high levels of antipathy.

Tripoli, the capital of North Lebanon, is a city with a rich narrative of discovery and recovery. Its landmarks, souks, ports, boundaries and thresholds speak a language of past and ongoing social and political events, achievements and struggles. 

Tripoli in 2016 continues to be a city living on the edge. The risk of battles for political power turning into violent clashes is real. The city’s recent densification with refugees and the continuous presence of opposing clans, not least due to the war in neighboring Syria, has pushed forward the deterioration of social cohesion.

Middle East Online

Vatican City, Mar 6, 2016 / 05:36 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Sunday Pope Francis lamented the world’s indifference to the recent killing of four Missionaries of Charity, calling them the ‘martyrs of today’ and asking that Bl. Mother Teresa intercede in bringing peace.

 “I express my closeness to the Missionaries of Charity for the great loss that affected them two days ago with the killing of four religious in Aden, Yemen, where they assisted the elderly,” the Pope said March 6.

The sisters who were killed “are the martyrs of today…they gave their blood for the Church, (yet) they are not in the papers, they are not news,” he said.

Francis lamented that the sisters are not only the victims of their killers, but “also of the indifference of this globalization of indifference, which doesn’t care.”

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Washington D.C., Mar 5, 2016 / 06:55 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pressure is mounting for the U.S. State Department to declare Christians as genocide victims at the hands of the Islamic State (ISIS).

On Wednesday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a genocide resolution, becoming the latest body to call for a formal recognition of ISIS’ actions as genocide. 

“ISIS commits mass murder, beheadings, crucifixions, rape, torture, enslavement, and the kidnaping of children, among other atrocities,” stated Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.). 

“So as ISIS destroys churches and other holy sites, they move closer towards eliminating certain communities,” he added. “ISIS is guilty of genocide and it is time we speak the truth about their atrocities. I hope the administration and the world will do the same, before it’s too late.”

An amended version of H. Con. Res. 75 – a bipartisan resolution labeling ISIS’ atrocities committed against “Christians, Yezidis, and other ethnic and religious minorities” as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide – passed unanimously through the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and will be put to a vote in Congress. 

Under the omnibus bill passed in December, the State Department has until March 17 to speak on a declaration of genocide. 

The debate over whether Christians should be included as genocide victims stems back to reports last fall that a genocide declaration by the State Department was imminent – but only Yazidis would be included as victims. 

Tunis — The Declaration issued by the Council of Arab Interior Ministers has not classified Lebanese party "Hezbollah" as terrorist organisation and is not a binding decision, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement Friday.

Tunisia’s position as host country of the Arab institution "stems from its attachment to Arab joint action and is in harmony with the joint position adopted by the council. »

"Tunisia’s endorsement of this joint move does not hide the important role of Hezbollah in the liberation of Lebanese occupied territories," the ministry, however, noted.

Elaisha Stokes, VICE News

Syria’s civil war has left 250,000 people dead, according to the latest UN count, and millions more are either displaced within the country’s borders or have sought refuge abroad.

And, while the proximate causes were largely political — primarily grievances with President Bashar al Assad, new scientific research adds support to the argument that climate change helped to trigger Syria’s descent into violence.

Researchers from NASA and the University of Arizona studied tree rings — a reliable proxy for measuring precipitation — going back several centuries and found that the recent Syrian drought was likely the worst in at least the past 900 years and almost definitely the worst in 500 years.

theguardian.com

Lebanon’s rubbish collection crisis, which caused thousands to protest on the streets last summer, is now in its eighth month with no resolution in sight. Though it has prompted political debates and occasional heated discussions, Lebanese medical professionals are increasingly alarmed by its effect on health.

At the emergency room at the Sacré-Coeur hospital outside Beirut, doctors say they are seeing a spike in severe respiratory diseases and believe it is tied to the ongoing trash disaster.

The crisis erupted last July after authorities closed the primary landfill for Beirut and the surrounding coastal governorate without providing an alternative.

Thousands took to the streets in demonstrations directed at the political class, which has walled itself off from popular opinion and failed to provide other basic services such as water, electricity and drainage.

Beirut (AFP) – A string of major drug busts in Syria and Lebanon has drawn new attention to the trade in captagon, an illegal substance that has flourished in the chaos of Syria’s war.

Security forces in both countries have clamped down in recent months on exports of the psychostimulant, produced in swathes of Syrian and Lebanese territory where government oversight is lax or non-existent.

"When the Syrian crisis started, Lebanon and Syria were transformed into a gateway to smuggle captagon," a Lebanese security source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"The substance wasn’t invented in the past five years — but that’s when smuggling operations flourished, so Lebanon became an exporting country," he said.

france24.com

DUBAI (Reuters) – The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) named Hezbollah a terrorist organisation on Wednesday, opening up the possibility of further sanctions against the Iran-allied group that wields influence in Lebanon and fights in Syria.

The Sunni Muslim dominated council – representing Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar – already imposed sanctions on the Shi’ite Muslim group in 2013 after it entered Syria’s war in support of President Bashar al-Assad.

In Wednesday’s announcement, GCC Secretary-General Abdullatif al-Zayani said the council would now "take the necessary measures to implement its decision … based on anti-terrorism laws applied in the GCC and similar international laws".