by  Bryan Logan and Alex Lockie

The United States launched a salvo of more than missiles on
Shayrat airfield and nearby military infrastructure controlled by
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in response to a chemical
attack that killed at least 80 people in the northwestern part of
the country on Monday. The Tomahawk missiles, launched from the USS Ross and the USS
Porter at dawn local time, represent the first US strikes on the
Assad regime, according to a statement from the Pentagon. US President Donald Trump, initially resistant to the idea
of becoming involved in Syria, said it was in the vital
national security interest of the US to prevent the use of
chemical weapons. “No child of god should suffer such horror,” Trump said in a
televised address after the cruise missile strikes. “It is in
this vital national security interest of the United States to
prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.”

Autopsies have confirmed that the attack
involved chemical weapons, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
said there can be “no doubt” that Assad’s forces carried out the
attack. Both Syrian and Russian forces have denied responsibility
for the attack, with Russian forces claiming a conventional
airstrike hit a cache of chemical weapons owned by rebels in
Syria. International experts have dismissed this as an “infantile argument.” Though the US strike targeted infrastructure and
runways, a large volley of cruise missiles carries the risk of
collateral damage to troops stationed nearby. Initial reports
from Syrian military sources say the strikes “led to losses,” as Reuters notes.

by ansamed.info – BRUSSELS – Lebanon is a ”ticking time bomb”, Prime Minister
Saad Hariri said Wednesday, due to consequences of the Syrian war and
huge refugee community resulting. ”Lebanon cannot and won’t
continue to sustain the consequences of hosting 1.5 million displaced on
its territory unless a new plan is put in place,” Hariri said,
addressing the Brussels Conference on Supporting the Future of Syria and
the Region. He noted that there are 4 million Lebanese in the
country, alongside 1.5 million Syrians and over half a million
Palestinians, comparing the situation to if 500 million EU citizens had
to deal with 250 million people ”arriving in a single night” and
having to deal with them even if the EU was already experiencing
difficulties. Hariri called on countries at the conference to ”invest
in hope”, warning that otherwise desperation and radicalization would
grow. Given worsening economic conditions of the country, he said that
this would lead many Lebanese and Syrians to ”seek another home”. © Copyright ANSA – All rights reserved

The daily Star Lebanon – A leading international tourism agency
said the sector in Lebanon is expected to generate a revenue of $3.4
billion in 2017. “The World Travel & Tourism Council estimated that
the travel & tourism industry would directly contribute $3.4 billion
to the Lebanese economy in 2017, equivalent to about 7.1 percent of
GDP, down from more than 10 percent of GDP in 2010,” the report said. The
WTTC said the direct contribution of Travel & Tourism to GDP in
2015 was LL5.436 trillion (8.1 percent of GDP) and forecast that the
sector would rise by 4.8 percent in 2016. There
are no official figures on the revenues generated from tourism sector
in 2016 but all experts agree that the hospitality industry did not
perform well due to the decline in the number of tourists.

Tourism was once viewed as one of the main sources of revenue for the Lebanese economy. However,
officials hope that Arab tourists and especially Arab Gulf nationals
will return to Lebanon in great number this summer after the thaw in
relations with Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Qatar. WTTC also
anticipated that direct industry employment will reach 123,800 persons
in 2017, representing 6.9 percent of total employment. It expected that the tourism sector’s contribution to the Lebanese economy to expand by 2.9 percent in real terms in 2017. “The
decline in the sector’s contribution to economic activity since 2010
cannot be attributed only to domestic and regional political and
security developments. It is part of the decline in the Lebanese
economy’s overall competitiveness, especially the weakening state of the
infrastructure and the deterioration in public service delivery,”
Nassib Ghobril, chief economist at Byblos Bank, said.

Slaughtered migratory birds in Lebanon © Georges Hareb

By Luca Bonaccorsi – Lebanon’s President, Michel Aoun, has made a heartfelt pledge to prevent the annual slaughter of the thousands of migratory birds who fly over the small Middle Eastern state twice a year. Dozens of storks lie dead on the ground, neatly lined up. Behind them, the men smile at the camera, holding up by their long, silent beaks yet more dead birds. It’s been a good hunt, one worthy of sharing with friends on Twitter or Facebook.

Welcome to Lebanon, where hundreds of such macabre photos offer testimony to what conservationists have been denouncing for years. The little Mediterranean state is a black hole where some 2.6 million birds disappear every year, shot or trapped illegally (http://www.birdlife.org/sites/default/files/attachments/01-28_low.pdf ). The wealth and diversity of birds packed into this relatively small country (at least 399 species of birds have been recorded here), is the pride and joy of local people, and a massive concern for local conservationists, such as those who work at the Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon (BirdLife Partner). The country lies on the west side of the African Eurasian Flyway (Red Sea – Rift Valley Flyway) which is considered one of the most important flyways in the world for bird migration. The long perilous journey from Europe and Asia to Africa, via the Sinai and the Red Sea, ends here, in this small stretch of land, for million of birds. In terms of “intensity”- birds killed per square kilometre – Lebanon ranks third, trailing only Malta and Cyprus.

But Lebanon’s days as a high-flyer in the chart no-one wants to top could be numbered, because a new, bird-friendly era has been announced. The announcement came straight from the Lebanese President, Michel Aoun, last Saturday with a heartfelt appeal to put the country’s nature first: “It is a shame to turn Lebanon into a wasteland without plants, trees, birds and sea animals, and cutting off trees to erect buildings is a major crime” he said. “ There should be a peace treaty between Man and the tree as well as Man and birds, because we continue to transgress upon them”. A “peace treaty”, in a country that has paid an immense price for numerous conflicts: words do not get stronger than that in Lebanon. The issue of course is illegal hunting, rife in many areas. According to the President, “There should be a hunting season assigned from September to December, with the State exercising strictness in its execution”.

Staggered floor plates and set-back glazing create large planted terraces around this 119-metre tower by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, which overlooks Beirut‘s marina.

Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron designed Beirut Terraces as part of a new masterplan
developing around the St Georges Hotel. This area of the Lebanese
capital is gradually being regenerated following a devastating car bomb
attack that killed prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.

The residential tower is made up of irregularly sized floor slabs
that give it an indefinite outline, not dissimilar to the firm’s Jenga-like 56 Leonard skyscraper in New York.

Five modular floors are repeated in different combinations to create
the staggered arrangement. The white slabs overhang the double-glazed
walls by at least 60 centimetres to provide shade and to create
terraces.

by Joseph A. Kechichian – gulf news –  Tokyo: Lebanon’s Speaker Nabih Berri scheduled for Thursday and
Friday new plenary sessions to “pave the way for extending parliament’s
term” after promises to introduce and agree on a new electoral law fell
by the wayside. The last parliamentary elections in Lebanon, held
under the universally rejected 1960 electoral law, were organised in
2009. Ever since, the legislature circumvented the process by extending
its own mandate on two separate occasions, first on May 15, 2013 for 17
months, followed on November 5, 2014 by another duly approved extension
for an additional 31 months (that is until June 20, 2017), ostensibly
because deputies were deadlocked over the sorely needed new law.

According
to an unnamed member of parliament quoted in the pan-Arab daily Al
Hayat, “The session will pave the way for extension”, which is opposed
by President Michel Aoun and his parliamentary bloc [the Free Patriotic
Movement (FPM)], as well as the Kataeb Party. “This means that Speaker
Berri is once again taking the initiative after he had left the mission
of finding an electoral law to the political forces, especially to the
new cooperation channels between Aoun and Prime Minister Sa‘ad Hariri”,
both of whom have failed to reach a consensus on what to do next. The
speaker has said that it is necessary to issue a law extending
parliament’s term before an April 15 deadline, “or else the legislative
authority would slide into vacuum”, which he is unwilling to accept
because failure to doing so would result in a complete collapse of one
of the last remaining institutions still standing.

Though he
expected an electoral miracle before April 15, Nabih Berri is aware that
such an accord is nearly impossible at this late hour, given existing
gaps among stakeholders. Hezbollah,
one of the country’s leading parties, has repeatedly called for an
electoral law that is fully based on proportional representation that
will consider Lebanon to be a single district. It favoured
proportionality and was willing to tolerate several large electorate
districts but this was not particularly serious since just about all of
the remaining parties rejected the model.

by Al Jazeera Rima Majed Rima Majed is a researcher and a PhD Candidate in Political Sociology at the University of Oxford – This article represents opinion of the author

Beirut, Lebanon – Lebanese parliamentary
elections are expected to take place in May 2017. The last elections
were held eight years ago, in 2009. Although the parliament term in Lebanon
is  four years, elections have been postponed twice since 2013 under
the pretext of deadlock over electoral law, fear of instability and
security unrest. In November 2014, in an unconstitutional move, the Lebanese
parliament renewed its mandate for a second time, granting itself an
additional 31 months, ending in June 2017.

The country had already entered a political deadlock in May
2014, when the presidential seat became unoccupied after the end of
former President Michel Suleiman’s term. This situation continued for
two years and half until the election of President Michel Aoun in October 2016. This recent election of a president of the republic gave
hope that institutional life was gradually coming back to Lebanese
politics. However, despite the high hopes, most indicators today suggest
that the parliamentary elections will be postponed again, given that
the main leaders of the country have not yet been able to agree on an
electoral law that satisfies everyone’s wishes. However, regardless of the date the elections will take
place or the law that will be adopted; the majority of Lebanese voters
will probably chose the same traditional sectarian leaders and their
proposed candidates once again.This will happen at a time when corruption
has reached unprecedented levels, leaders have proved – yet again –
their unwillingness to solve any of the most basic and pressing problems
such as electricity supply, housing, water or unemployment.

The re-election of the same leaders will happen while the
majority of the Lebanese are unable to find a job in the country, have
no access to good public education or hospitalisation and are struggling
to make ends meet. This is a time when neoliberal policies have become
clearly entrenched; privatisation is discussed as the only solution for the electricity crisis,
bank loans are being promoted as the answer to the housing crisis and
wealth is more and more concentrated in the hands of a few. In fact, the
upcoming elections will be the first parliamentary elections after the rubbish crisis of 2015 when the #You_Stink movement
managed to mobilise tens of thousands of angry Lebanese on to the
streets, who accused the political elites of drowning the country in
rubbish and corruption. Despite all these conditions, the majority of the people will vote again for these same politicians.

by Eliza Relman – business insider – Article represent opinion of author

It took nearly 20 years for Roger Stone to realize his dream. Since the 1980s, the self-described “dirty
trickster” who’s been in and around Republican politics for
half a century, had made it something of a mission to make Donald
Trump president. Despite parting ways with the Trump campaign in August 2015 —
Trump
says he fired Stone for hogging the media spotlight;
Stone says he quit because Trump attacked Megyn Kelly — Stone
has remained one of Trump’s most loyal true believers. And it’s
Stone’s communications with a Russian hacker and his alleged
communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that have
put him in the crosshairs of the FBI as investigators look for
connections between Trump’s campaign and Russian meddling in the
2016 election. Stone says he has nothing to do with Russia, but messages he has
sent to the hacker accused of a cyberattack on the Democratic
National Committee, as well as Stone’s own provocative
statements, continue to
raise questions. “It’s rare that I’m accused of something that I’m not guilty of,”
Stone told the New Yorker in 2008. Now it’s up to investigators
to test that.

Stone and the Russians

On August 12, nearly a year after he left Trump’s campaign and a
few weeks after WikiLeaks published the first set of stolen
emails from the DNC, Stone reached out through a private message
to a Twitter user named “Guccifer 2.0.” Earlier that August, Stone had written on the alt-right website

Breitbart, then controlled by Steve Bannon, that it was “a
hacker who goes by the name of Guccifer 2.0” — and not the
Russians — who hacked the DNC and fed the documents to WikiLeaks. But experts quickly linked Guccifer 2.0 back to Russia and
concluded that the so-called hacker was
the product of a Russian disinformation campaign. In his messages with Guccifer 2.0, Stone asked if the hacker
could retweet his Breitbart column about the 2016 presidential
election possibly being “rigged.” Guccifer 2.0 responded: “i’m pleased to say that u r great man.
please tell me if i can help u anyhow. it would be a great
pleasure to me.” Stone
later told Business Insider that the interaction he had with
the hacker was so “brief and banal” that he “had forgotten it. “Not exactly 007 stuff even if Gruccifer [sic] 2.0 was working
for the Russkies,” Stone said. “Meaningless.” Stone’s tweets in the days after his communications with Guccifer
2.0 have raised questions about whether he knew in advance that
Podesta’s emails would be imminently published by WikiLeaks.

By Benjamin Zheng- Business Insider

The Department of Homeland Security’s ban on large electronics
has been in effect for a week. The ban, which covers nine airlines, forbids passengers from
bringing any electronic devices larger than a cell phone into the
cabin of non-stop flights to the US from 10 airports
in the Middle East and North Africa. The ban has been an unmitigated headache for the airlines and
their customers. 

Business travelers and their laptops are
generally inseparable. Many passengers use time in transit
to work. The laptops might also contain sensitive or confidential
information companies don’t want getting out.  The ban and resulting headaches have become a major concern for
the affected airlines because repeat corporate business travelers
and their immense spending power are their single most
important block of customers.

As a result, several of airlines including industry heavyweights,
Emirates, Qatar Airways, Etihad, and Turkish Airlines have come
up with a series of work arounds to counter the ban. Based on the
latest rankings from the respected consumer-aviation website Skytrax, these four airlines also
represent the first-, second-, sixth-, and seventh-ranked
carriers in the world. Emirates, was the first of the major airlines to offer a response
to the conundrum. On March 23, Emirates announced a service that will allow
passengers to use their laptops and tablets until it’s time to
board their US-bound flights instead of checking them with their
luggage. Prior to boarding, passengers hand over their laptops and other
electronic devices to staff members to who pack them in secure
boxes before storing them in the cargo hold.

Operations at Emirates, one of the major
carriers affected, has gone relatively well apart from some
slow arriving bags at US airports, airline president Sir Tim
Clark told Business Insider. “Our aim is to ensure compliance with the new rules, while
minimizing disruption to passenger flow and impact on customer
experience,” Clark said in a statement. “Our new complimentary
service enables passengers, particularly those flying for
business, to have the flexibility to use their devices until the
last possible moment.” Even though Emirates’ work around doesn’t quite offer a perfect
solution for the problem, it does mitigate a good portion of the
hardship created for passengers by the ban.