TheGuardian, by John Brunton – Despite being in a conflict zone, Beirut is somehow rising like a
phoenix from the ashes. The past 12 months have seen the reopening of
the Sursock Museum,
a contemporary art gallery supervised by renowned French architect
Jean-Michel Wilmotte, and the inauguration of Aishti, a cutting-edge art
foundation that rivals the Punta della Dogana in Venice. In September,
the doors will open to Beit Beirut (beitbeirut.org), a museum and arts centre dedicated to the memory of decades of conflict.

It’s housed in an imposing neo-Ottoman villa on the former “green
line” between Muslim and Christian Beirut and served as a sniper bunker
during the civil war. Its crumbling, half-destroyed state has been
deliberately preserved, complete with bullet holes and shell pockmarks.
Youssef Haidar, the architect of the project, says: “The new museum will
hopefully be a step towards replacing the mass amnesia here for what
has happened in the past, so that we can come to terms with our
uncertain, but promising and wishful future.”

These new museums are just a small part of what is happening in the
Lebanese capital. While the guidebooks talk up luxury hotels and haute
couture in the restored downtown area, a host of bars and restaurants,
local designer boutiques and art galleries are popping up in the more
bohemian neighbourhoods of Mar Mikhael, Badaro and Gemmayzeh.

By NAZANIN LANKARANI

PARIS — The designer Karen Chekerdjian
is known in her native Lebanon for modernist objects made with
traditional materials and techniques. Now, two exhibitions in Paris — at
the Institut du Monde Arabe and at the private Dutko Gallery
— offer a close look at an artist who addresses the divide between art
and function, and the wider gap between Western and Arab cultures.

The
show at the Institut du Monde Arabe, “Respiration,” opened on May 30
and runs until Aug. 28. The exhibition at the Dutko with the same title
closed on Sunday, with pieces offered for sale through August.

“The
idea was to show the positive elements of the Arab world,” said
Philippe Castro, the chief adviser to Jack Lang, the president of the
institute and a former French culture minister. “Today, that can only be
shown through Arab art. There is real creativity coming out of the Arab
world, especially Lebanon. Given the geopolitical context, we felt it
was important to give a voice to this narrative.”

Lebanese authorities said Monday that a bomb blast the previous day that
damaged the headquarters of Lebanon’s second biggest bank specifically
targeted that financial institution. However, Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk warned against casting blame before an investigation is finished.

Reuters, A powerful bomb has exploded outside the headquarters
of the Lebanese Blom Bank in central Beirut, causing damage and injuries
but no fatalities, the Interior Minister said.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility.

The
Lebanese banking sector has been at the centre of an escalating crisis
since the United States passed a law targeting the finances of
Hezbollah The powerful Shiite Muslim group has launched verbal attacks on the central bank over the implementation of the act in Lebanon. Blom Bank is one of the banks that has closed accounts belonging to people suspected of links to Hezbollah.

by Pamela Engel, Business Insider

The terrorist group ISIS has claimed responsibility for another
massacre – an
attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando that killed at least 50
people. The shooting was
the deadliest in US history. The suspected gunman,
29-year-old Omar Saddiqui Mateen, reportedly
pledged allegiance to ISIS (also known as the Islamic State,
ISIL, or Daesh) in a 911 call.

After news outlets reported this, the ISIS-affiliated Amaq agency
released a statement on its online propaganda channels claiming
the attack. But the statement differed from those released after other
ISIS-claimed attacks in Paris and Brussels. In the Amaq statement
released Sunday, the ISIS link to the Orlando attack was
attributed to a “source.” The brief statement also did not
describe or provide any details about the attack.

While the Paris and Brussels attackers had direct ties to ISIS
leaders, it’s unclear how closely Mateen is connected to the
group. Michael Horowitz, a geopolitical and security analyst at the
Levantine Group, a Middle-East based risk consultancy, told
Business Insider that so far, there’s nothing “that even remotely
proves the attacker was in contact with ISIS.”

By Zainab Calcuttawala

Last month, the Israeli company that was authorized to drill in the $320 million Hatrurium oil reservoir in the Dead Sea confirmed that the find sat completely within the Israeli maritime zone. Some estimates say that when drilling starts, the crude oil and gas recovered from the well could make the net energy-importer Israel completely energy independent, especially since the country authorized Houston-based Noble Energy and Israeli partner Delek to develop the massive Leviathan gas field—an offshore play located in the increasingly prolific Levant basin of the Mediterranean Sea. Israel shares access to the basin—estimated by the 2010 United States Geological Survey to hold 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil—with Lebanon, Syria and Cyprus.

Earlier this year, Cyprus offered licensing tenders for 12 blocks of maritime space in the basin.The Syrian Civil War and the infiltration of the Islamic State and
other terrorist groups have kept Syria too occupied to think about
pricey new offshore drilling ventures. But what has been keeping Lebanon from reaping the benefits of the “underexplored” oil in the sea right in its backyard?

Stephanie d’Arc Taylor

Nabatieh, Lebanon – Nabatieh, the sleepy city in southern Lebanon with a small-town feel, is going through a cinema renaissance.

Once a local cultural capital, Nabatieh has been
without a theatre since Stars Cinema closed in 1990 amid the Israeli
occupation of southern Lebanon. By the end of this year, however, the
city will boast two cinemas. One will be new: Empire Cinema, part of a
multinational chain, is set to showcase big-budget Hollywood films. The
other will be old: Stars Cinema, now derelict, is being renovated by a team of volunteers led by actor and theatre manager Kassem Istanbouli.

The theatre will hold its grand reopening in August, and
plans to feature classic Arabic films alongside free theatre and
photography training workshops. Istanbouli and his team of volunteers say they hope the
reopening of Stars Cinema will revitalise the cultural life of the city,
which has stagnated in recent years.

MOSCOW,
June 10. /TASS/. Lebanon wants to export its wines to Russia and is
interested in expanding fruit exports, the press service of the Russian
ministry of agriculture said on Friday after talks between Russian
Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev and his Lebanese counterpart
Akram Shuhayib.

We
plan to look at a possibility of exporting Lebanese wines to the Russian
market. We are also interested in expanding exports of fruits, in
particular apples and grapes,” the press service quoted the Lebanese
minister as saying.

Tkachev, in turn, said that Russia is interested in expanding its
exports of plant products to Lebanon and plans to begin supplies of beef
and poultry. The Russian minister noted that the potential of
Russia-Lebanon trade is not used to the full. “We should maintain the
tendency of qualitative and quantitative growth in trade volumes,”
Tkachev said.

by Joseph A. Kechichian, Senior Writer Gulf News

Beirut: Lebanese speaker of parliament Nabih Berri stressed that he
will not accept a third extension of parliament’s term, that elections
will be held at all costs, and warned of “public outrage” if current
efforts by the joint parliamentary committees failed to agree on a new
electoral law to replace the 1960 voting system.

Berri told his weekly
meeting with selected lawmakers that gather every Wednesday at his Ain
Al Tineh residence that citizens will be outraged if no agreement is
reached on a new law, and renewed his “absolute rejection” of yet
another extension under any pretext, although he issued similar notices
in the past.

By

Nicholas Blanford,

Beirut, Lebanon — The death last month of a top Hezbollah
commander in Syria prompted proud eulogies from the party’s leadership,
satisfaction from his enemies – and, in a quiet suburb of The Hague, a
legal quandary. For Mustafa Badreddine was not only a veteran
Hezbollah commander who oversaw the party’s military intervention in
Syria. He is also being tried in absentia by an international tribunal
for helping to organize the 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri, a former
billionaire prime minister who was killed, along with 22 other people,
in a massive truck bombing in central Beirut.

Although Badreddine
was given a full public funeral and his body lies buried in Hezbollah’s
“martyrs” cemetery in southern Beirut, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon
(STL) has concluded that his trial would continue. The Judges do not believe that sufficient evidence has yet been
presented to convince them that the death of Mr. Badreddine has been
proved,” the STL said in a statement last week.

The STL’s decision has hardened the perception among many in Lebanon
that the tribunal, which is tasked with uncovering and prosecuting Mr.
Hariri’s killers, has failed in its core mission. After 11 years and
hundreds of millions of dollars, those that ordered Hariri’s murder and
the motive behind the assassination are still unknown and the subject of
intense and conflicting speculation. The only men currently on trial
are Badreddine and four other Hezbollah men, who are alleged to have
been foot soldiers rather than architects of the assassination plot.

“[The
STL] has been beneath all expectations … it’s a case of justice
delayed, justice denied … and this idiotic rejection of the death of
Badreddine is another expression of their surreal impotence,” says
Chibli Mallat, presidential professor at the University of Utah and
author of “Philosophy of Nonviolence: Revolution, Constitutionalism, and
Justice beyond the Middle East.”

AP, Daily Star Lebanon’s Agricultural Ministry is banning the import of Syrian produce in an effort to protect Lebanese farm revenues.

Agriculture Minister Akram Chehayeb says he is trying to protect
“production and farmers” in the country. He says authorities will crack
down on cross-border smuggling. Lebanon’s agricultural sector has suffered under the strain of the war in neighboring Syria,
now in its sixth year. The Jordanian-Syrian border has been closed
since 2015, freezing overland exports from Lebanon to the rich Gulf
market, and causing a glut of agricultural produce in Lebanon.

Vegetables and fruits have overwhelmed the local markets, having a
huge negative effect on the farms, which can no longer handle the
situation,” he said, adding that there has been an “unprecedented” flow
of Syrian produce over the past few days.