by Michael Karam Twenty years ago, I was the editor-in-chief of Visitor, a
quarterly magazine published on behalf of the Lebanese ministry of
tourism. I can’t remember how I got the job, but I recall the previous
editor was leaving and he suggested my name to a rather desperate owner
(affectionately known as “the chief”), who had won the government
contract after decades of doing business in West Africa. The idea was he
would create the content and print the magazine and make money from
advertising sales.

It
seemed like a good idea. The chief presumed the ministry’s backing
would convince advertisers to place full-page ads, espe­cially given
that it had been hinted the magazine would be placed on Middle East
Airlines, whose in-flight magazine – the perennially poor Cedarwings –
charged top dollar for a full-page advertisement. Hotels, car hire
companies, shops and the like were also in his cross hairs.

The
first reality check was when Cedarwings pulled some serious strings to
ensure Visitor never saw the inside of an Airbus. We didn’t really take
it too seriously and the feeling was this was just a misunderstanding
that would eventually be resolved. To soften the blow, the chief was
awarded another contract, for a business magazine that promoted Lebanon
as a financial hub with mouthwatering investment opportunities, and the
chief was assured all the top banks would advertise.

by Mimi Kirk

It’s been a little over a year since the beginning of Beirut’s garbage crisis, which saw piles and piles of trash—indeed, an entire river
of the stuff—flooding the Lebanese capital and its suburbs. When the
government closed the city’s main landfill in July 2015, it had 15
million tons of garbage in it—13 million more than it was meant to. Because the government had not secured a new landfill, trash collection stopped. Mounds of rubbish accumulated in the streets.

The stench and sight of the trash spurred a protest movement, aptly
dubbed You Stink. Hassan Chamoun, the movement’s photographer and
videographer, tells CityLab that he and his fellow activists would
collect garbage around the city—from, say, the teeming Beirut River—and
pass it to NGOs to dispose of. “We were saying to the government that we
don’t need you, we can take care of things ourselves,” he says.

The crisis, while not resolved, has calmed since the spring of 2016,
when the government started using temporary landfills. At the same time,
there’s been a shift among Beirut’s residents in their approach to
garbage. Some who didn’t give their trash a second thought before the
crisis are now recycling and even spearheading sorting and disposal
initiatives. “Even I began to separate my garbage for recycling after
the crisis started,” says Chamoun.

The shipment provided to
the Lebanese army by the US includes 50 armored vehicles, 40 artillery
pieces, and 50 grenade launchers. This new $50 million package brings US
military aid to Lebanon to $220 million this year, Reuters reports,
citing the US ambassador to Lebanon, Elizabeth Richard

The US handed three military helicopters over to the Lebanese army in
March, while the UK promised to provide training for Lebanon’s Land
Border Regiments. The UK is to spend $30 million to train Lebanese
troops in special “urban counterterrorism” techniques over three years. In
the meantime, Saudi Arabia, a traditional financial supporter of
Lebanon, has announced that it is suspending a $3 billion aid package
for Lebanese security forces because of what it called Beirut’s failure
to condemn attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran in January.

By Daily Star,

Labor Minister Sejaan Azzi Monday threatened to expel Swedes working in Lebanon if Stockholm follows through with its reported plan to deport dozens of Lebanese families. In
a message to Swedish Ambassador to Lebanon Peter Semneby, Azzi demanded
an explanation over the Lebanese Foreign Ministry’s claim that Sweden
was preparing to deport around 70 Lebanese families.

“If the
deportation was legally unjustified then Lebanon’s Labor Ministry will
take similar measures against Swedish workers in Lebanon, whatever their
occupation and status are,” Azzi said in a statement issued by his
press office. Reports circulated earlier this year that Sweden and Finland had decided to deport up to 100,000 immigrant workers who had been living in their countries for many years to make room for Syrian refugees. Semneby flatly denied those allegations in June, however Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil has continued to bring the issue up.

By Al Monitor – Members of the Lebanese delegation to the 2016 Olympic Games refused
to travel on the same bus as their Israeli counterparts in Rio on
Friday, according to a report from Israel , with some attempting to
block athletes from entering the vehicle, according to a report by an
Israeli trainer who claimed to have witnessed the scene.

“I kept on insisting that we board the bus and said that if the
Lebanese did not want to board as well they are welcome to leave,” Udi
Gal, the Israeli sailing team trainer, wrote in a Facebook post Friday.

“The bus driver opened the door, but this time the head of the
Lebanese delegation blocked the aisle and entrance. The organizers
wanted to avoid an international and physical incident and sent us away
to a different bus.” So far, no official response
on behalf of the delegations was given regarding the incident. The
Olympic organizing committee has not yet offered any statement about the
incident either, the report added.

By Amanda Bailly, for CNN

By David Choi

It’s becoming clear that ISIS is losing the battle on the home
front. In fact, it’s not only losing out on a huge source of
revenue from
oil smuggling, but major campaigns by coalition forces are
underway to root out its remaining bastions in Iraq and Syria.

Although this may be cause for celebration, US officials are
more concerned with what comes afterward. “At some point there is going to be a terrorist diaspora,”

said FBI Director James B. Comey at a cybersecurity
conference. “Not all of the Islamic State killers are going to
die on the battlefield.”

This supposed migration of militants lends itself to some
credence in light of a recent
report by Harry Sarfo, a detained Islamic State recruit. An ISIS official claimed “that they have loads of people living
in European countries and waiting for commands to attack the
European people,” Sarfo
said from a maximum-security prison in northern Germany. “And
that was before the Brussels attacks, before the Paris attacks.”