The Lebanese Olympic Committee have confirmed that eight of their athletes will compete at the Rio 2016 Olympic games. Four athletes achieved the qualifying standards in their respective sports automatically qualifying them for the Olympics. They are runner Chirine Njeim, table tennis player Mariana Sahakyan, Judo player Naif Elias and finally fencer Mona Shaito. The four […]

The Lebanese Olympic Committee have confirmed that eight of their athletes will compete at the Rio 2016 Olympic games. Four athletes achieved the qualifying standards in their respective sports automatically qualifying them for the Olympics. They are runner Chirine Njeim, table tennis player Mariana Sahakyan, Judo player Naif Elias and finally fencer Mona Shaito. The four […]

By Reuters

The move against Ayatollah Isa Qassim comes less than a week after a court ordered Bahrain’s main opposition al-Wefaq
group closed, accusing it of fomenting sectarian unrest and of having
links to a foreign power, in an apparent reference to regional Shi’ite
power Iran. Qassim could potentially face expulsion from the country.

A crowd of up to 4,000 people gathered outside Qassim’s house in the
Shi’ite village of Diraz, west of the capital Manama, to show their
support for him, witnesses said. In a bluntly worded reaction, the top commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Qassem Soleimani, warned the Bahraini government that it would pay a price for its decision and suggested Bahrainis may respond with armed action.

“The Al Khalifa (rulers of Bahrain) surely know their aggression
against Sheikh Isa Qassim is a red line and that crossing it would set
Bahrain and the whole region on fire, and it would leave no choice for
people but to resort to armed resistance,” Soleimani said in a statement
published by Fars news agency.

Soleimani heads the Qods Force, the elite special forces arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, also
called on the people of Bahrain to express anger, warning that the move
against Qassim “pushes the Bahraini people to difficult choices which
will have severe consequences for this corrupt dictatorial regime”.

MOSCOW, June 20. /TASS/. Lebanon expects additional support of Russia in the fight against terrorism, Lebanon’s Finance Minister Ali Khalil said at the meeting with Russian Federation Council lawmaker Konstantin Kosachev. “You backed our security forces and our army a long time ago, and now we would like this effort to be increased and to […]

oseph A. Kechichian, Senior Writer Beirut: Although Nouhad Al Mashnouq, the Minister of Interior, tried to quell security concerns in the aftermath of the BLOM Bank headquarters bombing on June 12, the cabinet once again postponed a discussion of the sorely contentious fate of the State Security agency that became an orphan institution after senior […]

BY yalibnan.com

The Lebanese presidency will be discussed during separate
visits by  Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif and Deputy
Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Mohammed Bin Salman to France late in June,
An Nahar daily reported on Saturday.

Paris,which began preparations for the visit
of its Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault to Beirut on the tenth of
July, is seeking to further consultations with the regional and
international powers to push towards helping Lebanon out of the
political impasse linked to disruption of the election of a president
for more than two years now, according to the daily.

In a somewhat related development Wiam Wahhab, a close ally of Syria and Hezbollah told Free
Patriotic Movement founder MP Michel Aoun that he has an
“authorization” from Hezbollah to negotiate with former Lebanese PM
and Future movement leader  Saad Hariri over the latter’s possible
return to the premiership under the country’s next president.

by Joseph A. Kechichian, Senior Writer Gulf News

Beirut: Phalange Party leader Sami Gemayel pulled two ministers out
of Prime Minister Tammam Salam’s cabinet, as Sejaan Qazzi (Labour) and
Alain Hakim (Economy) joined Ashraf Rifi (Justice), who quit on February
21 to protest cabinet procrastination in referring the case of former
Minister of Information Michel Samaha to the Judicial Council.

“The
Phalange Party has decided to resign from the government because
Lebanon needs a ‘positive shock’,” Gemayel affirmed at a carefully
staged press conference, and rejected what he termed “cabinet
mechanisms” that stifled objections, which apparently prevented classic
deal-makings.

Flanked by Qazzi and Hakim, Gemayel attacked
ministers who, he claimed, were not concerned with the protection of the
banking sector against regular verbal attacks — presumably by Hezbollah
officials against Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh — and showed
little interest in the plan submitted by the Minister of Economy to
revitalise the sector. Gemayel did not mince his words when he declared
that ministers “are only concerned with passing suspicious deals,” which
may have been in reference to the waste disposal solution that was
agreed to after an eight-month-long ordeal that left Beirut and Mount
Lebanon reeking in garbage.

by Alexandra Talty, When the Hells Angels arrived in Beirut this spring, they showed up at
the Four Seasons, located in the upscale neighborhood of Zaytouna Bay,
whose clean and empty streets are sprinkled with high-end hotels and
swim clubs. The unlikely setting was the site of the Harley-Davidson
Owner’s Group (HOGs) annual general assembly. Given Harley-Davidson’s
appeal to the upper middle class, the Four Seasons was not an unusual
location for a HOGs event, but few expected the presence of the world’s
most notorious motorcycle club.

Marwan Tarraf, the 47-year-old founder of Lebanon’s first Harley
dealership, recognized the outlaws instantly because of their signifying
tattoos and heavy chains. Approaching three “full-time” Angels, whom he
assumed were Germans of Lebanese descent, he asked why they were there.
When Angels expressed interest in opening a chapter in Beirut, he
explained a few things about the country to them.

“It would be like going to Somalia and trying to start an outlaw
group,” Tarraf tells me. “There are militias with 10,000 armed men in
them. The rulers of those militias are basically ruling the country.”

From a spate of trendy repair shops to the plethora of biker bars,
motorcycles are having their moment in Beirut. What began as a few men
in the 1970s and 80s drawn to the abandon of the road and the freedom of
a world outside of politics has now become a subculture in its own
right.