• Elena Holodny
  

Saudi Arabia threatened to sell up to $750 billion worth of US assets
held by the Kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the
Saudi government to be sued over 9/11, reports The New York Times’ Mark Mazzetti.

Saudi Foreign Minister, Adel al-Jubeir, personally passed on the message last month during a trip to Washington, according to The Times. The foreign minister was referring to the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, (JASTA) which would let victims of 9/11 and other terrorist acts sue foreign sponsors of terrorism.

As Vice News noted when it was reintroduced in September, the Senate bill would pave the way for a lawsuit to proceed over Saudi Arabia’s alleged role in the 9/11 terror attacks.

In an ironic twist of fate, the alleged terrorist arrested last week for taking part in a pair of bombing attacks was once featured in a documentary lauding his successful integration into European society.The Swedish tabloid Afteenbladet reports that when he was eleven years old, Osama Krayem starred in a documentary called Without Borders: A Film About Sport And […]

Rob Price

Here’s a neat feature hiding in Google you might not know about: You can use the search engine to help you eat healthily.Ask Google how many calories, or fat, or salt, is in a given foodstuff, and it’ll automatically calculate it for you.

Queries can be asked in natural English, and you can ask about pretty
much any nutrient: “How much protein is there in 89g of chicken?” for
example will yield you the answer — 24g — as well drop downs to further
specify what you mean. Are you talking about chicken breast or stewed
chicken drumsticks? McDonald’s Bacon Ranch Salad with Grilled Chicken,
Popeyes Bonafine Chicken, or plain old chicken gizard?

French President Francois Hollande has arrived in Beirut at the start of a regional tour that will take him to Egypt and Jordan.During his two-day visit to Lebanon, the French president is scheduled to meet senior officials and visit a group of Syrian refugees in the country’s eastern Bekaa Valley. Lebanon is home to more […]

AP – France’s prime minister says he’d favor a ban on Muslim headscarves
in universities, prompting criticism from within his own government. In an interview with the daily Liberation, Prime Minister Manuel
Valls said France should “protect” French Muslims from extremist
ideology.

He said the headscarf, when worn for political reasons, oppresses
women and is not “an object of fashion or consumption like any other.” Citing secular traditions, France banned the face-covering Muslim
veil and forbids headscarves and other religious symbols in schools and
public buildings. Asked whether to outlaw headscarves in universities,
Valls is quoted as saying “it should be done, but there are
constitutional rules that make this ban difficult.”

On Wednesday, the Lebanese people
marked the anniversary of the start of the civil war that plunged their
country into violence and chaos for 15 years. More than 25 years since the conflict ended, however, the Lebanese people have yet to enjoy domestic tranquility.

The older generations who remember the war hope to never see such dark
days again, urging the nation’s youth to put their sectarian and
ideological differences aside. In Beirut, many buildings still bear the scars of the gunfire and
shelling that once ravaged the city known as the “Paris of the Middle
East”. Saeed Shams al-Din, a 58-year-old engineer who remembers the war, described the conflict as “one of the worst in history”.

The Lebanese people had borne the brunt of the civil war, Shams al-Din
told Anadolu Agency, going on to urge the nation’s youth to remain in
the country and strive to maintain peace.

by Michael Karam

I was having dinner in Beirut with a young Lebanese couple.
He had Canadian citizenship from his father, who had studied in Montreal
in the ‘70s. She was able to claim the Portuguese nationality from her
maternal grandmother. Their kids would be Portuguese, being ineligible
for Canadian citizenship, as successive generations cannot be born
outside Canada to a foreign mother.

The Lebanese know their way
around nationality rules and any loopholes. Just ask those West African
expats with British Protected Persons status and their dependents who
pounced on full UK citizenship after the Nationality, Immigration and
Asylum Act was passed in 2002, without having set foot in Great Britain
or in many cases were unable to speak a word of English.

The
Lebanese love, or should I say, need, a foreign passport. The Lebanese
one has been ranked by Henley & Partners Visa Restrictions Index “a
global ranking of countries based on the freedom of travel for their
citizens,” among the top 10 worst passports to own because of visa
restriction issues.

By Ahmed Abbas, Egypt is
committed to enforcing economic cooperation with Lebanon, President
Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi said during his meeting with Lebanese parliamentary
speaker Nabih Berri. Al-Sisi praised the activities of the Lebanese workers abroad, especially in West Africa.

Berri said the next few years should see more investments between
Egypt and Lebanon, pointing out that Lebanese investors are eager to
benefit from investment opportunities in Egypt, especially as Lebanese
investors are active in Africa. Regarding Lebanon’s internal position, Berri emphasised the
importance of ending the conflict between opposing Lebanese parties and
electing a president as soon as possible.

Police have shut down 3 night clubs in Lebanon’s red-light district,
allegedly used as brothels, at the request of Mount Lebanon’s general
prosecutor, a security source told The Daily Star Tuesday. The
venues are among the 13 nightclubs and cabarets under inspection in
Maameltein in the city of Jounieh. Authorities will later decide whether
to shut down the remaining 10 after inspections are over.

The
decision to close the venues came after inspections showed an alarming
spread of different sexually transmitted diseases – such as HIV/AIDS –
due to the lack of check-ups for the women working there, the security
source said. LBCI reported Monday that authorities have recently
discovered that 50 girls were being used as sex slaves at the 13
nightlife venues. The report said the cabarets will be forced to close,
and girls transferred to different NGO’s.