BEIRUT, (Xinhua) — Lebanon’s Interior Minister Raya El Hassan said Tuesday that Beirut’s new airport will be opened in June 2019, the National News Agency reported. “We will try to launch the new airport within a few months from now in a bid to facilitate the lives of people traveling through the airport,” Hassan said […]

by businessinsider.com —A handful of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates publicly released their tax returns on Monday, attempting to contrast themselves with President Donald Trump, who has withheld his private financial information for his entire presidency, even in the wake of congressional investigations. But many of those Democratic candidates’ tax returns revealed how little they give to charity each year compared with average American households with similar income levels. This is despite the significant wealth of those presidential candidates. Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke released 10 years of tax returns filed jointly with his wife, Amy. In 2017, the O’Rourkes earned $366,455 but only gave $1,166 to charity. That is just over 0.3% of their income in charitable contributions. Similarly, the O’Rourkes gave just 0.2% of their income to charity in 2016.

By comparison, the average American household in the same income bracket that itemizes its deductions gave $21,364 to charity in 2016, according to IRS data. The O’Rourkes’ charitable contributions do not get much larger in other years either. The last time they gave more than $10,000 was in 2013, when they donated just over 4% of their income to charity. Like O’Rourke, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders gave relatively little to charity compared with other Americans, despite writing a book that made him a millionaire in 2016.

Sanders, who for years resisted releasing several years of his tax returns, earned $1,073,333 but gave $10,600 to charity — or just less than 1% of his income. Based on 2014 IRS data, people who made more than $1 million that year took an average charitable deduction of $382,953, or 5.6% of their income. Sanders’ campaign said that proceeds from his 2012 book, “The Speech,” are donated to charity and not reflected in his returns. Sanders boosted his charitable giving in the years since 2016, giving 3.4% of his adjusted gross income in 2018 and 3% in 2017.

Other candidates also donated relatively small amounts to charity, including Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who along with her husband donated less than 2% of their $215,000 income to charity last year. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and her husband gave $6,600 of their $338,500 to charity, a percentage similar to Gillibrand’s. California Sen. Kamala Harris gave 1.4% of her and her husband’s $1.9 million income to charity in 2017. And during several years of her time as California’s attorney general, Harris reported no charitable donations.

  by cnn.com–The cathedral has been a symbol of Catholicism and French identity for over 850 years. Its foundation stone was laid in 1163 by Pope Alexander III, and the cathedral was completed in the 13th century. Today, with its towers, spire, flying buttresses and stained glass, Notre Dame is considered a feat of architecture, […]

By Cagan Koc bloomberg.com — Lebanon is planning to issue eurobonds that could be in the range of $2 billion, said Talal F. Salman, economic adviser to the Lebanese Ministry of Finance. The debt’s maturity is expected to be 10 years or more and the “timing will probably be the end of May or June,” Salman said in […]

by dailytimes.com.pk —They are a common sight around Beirut, but their presence barely registers with Lebanese citizens anymore. Nearly 30 years after civil war guns fell silent, dozens of bullet-scarred, shell-pocked buildings are still standing — testimony to a brutal conflict that raged for 15 years and took the lives of 150,000 people. Some are […]

As a brother, I ask you to remain in peace. I ask you from my heart, let’s go forward’ At the end of a highly unusual spiritual retreat for the political leaders of warring factions, Pope Francis knelt at the feet of the leaders of South Sudan, begging them to give peace a chance and to be worthy “fathers of the nation.” “As a brother, I ask you to remain in peace. I ask you from my heart, let’s go forward. There will be many problems, but do not be afraid,” he told the leaders, speaking without a text at the end of the meeting. “You have begun a process, may it end well,” he said. “There will be disagreements among you, but may they take place ‘in the office’ while, in front of your people, you hold hands; in this way, you will be transformed from simple citizens to fathers of the nation.” “The purpose of this retreat is for us to stand together before God and to discern his will,” he said in his formal remarks on April 11, closing the two-day retreat in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the Vatican guesthouse where he lives. The retreat participants included South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and four of the nation’s five designated vice presidents: Riek Machar, James Wani Igga, Taban Deng Gai and Rebecca Nyandeng De Mabior. Under the terms of a peace agreement signed in September, the vice presidents were to take office together May 12, sharing power and ending the armed conflict between clans and among communities. The retreat was the idea of Anglican Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury, spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, who attended the final part of the gathering. He and Pope Francis have been supporting the peace efforts of the South Sudan Council of Churches and, the Pope said again on April 11, they hope to visit South Sudan together when there is peace.

BEIRUT,(Xinhua) — EU Ambassador to Lebanon Christina Lassen said on Friday that the EU will actively cooperate with Lebanon in the fight against cyberterrorism, the National News Agency (NNA) reported. “We are currently working with all security agencies in Lebanon to boost their capabilities in fighting against cybercrimes,” Lassen said during a conference on cybersecurity. […]

by thenationalherald.com —Europe has not assumed the obligations it should have assumed in the Middle East war, President Prokopios Pavlopoulos stressed on Thursday during his meeting with the president of Lebanon, General Michel Aoun. “Our great European family has not assumed the part of its responsibilities, based on its history and culture, as far as it regards the war in the Middle East with significant consequences on the people and their fundamental rights,” President Pavlopoulos said.

The Greek president, in Lebanon following an invitation by his counterpart, invited Aoun to visit Greece and referred to bilateral relations between the two countries as “a resounding answer to those who claim that there is a conflict of civilizations.” He added that during these troubled times, there is a lack of communication and mutual understanding between cultures, which is dangerous for their peaceful coexistence. “Our countries and our peoples resist this lack of communication and mutual understanding bravely and decisively.” Regarding outstanding issues in the region including those concerning Lebanon, he said they need to be resolved in a constructive spirit on the basis of the International Law and the decisions of the United Nations. “Such a solution can only be found after the territorial integrity of Lebanon is safeguarded across the breadth and the length of its maritime and land borders, and after respecting the right of all countries in the region, without exceptions, to live in security within their recognised borders, according to international law,” he noted.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Mzannar family’s 300-year-old textile business survived Lebanon’s civil war by making uniforms for militiamen. But its business savvy was no match for years of economic malaise that followed and it has now shut its factory. The head of Lebanon’s chamber of commerce chief said last year nearly 2,200 businesses had closed, warning that more would collapse. And while there is dispute over those numbers, Lebanese mostly agree the economy is in dire shape. For Naji Mzannar, who started working at the fabric factory in the 70s before running it, an array of challenges drove the decline of his business and its inability to compete with cheaper goods from abroad. “It was a build-up. Everything became losses, losses,” he said. “How long are you supposed to keep suffering?”

Built in 1946 and spread over three storeys, the factory made textiles for clothing and household use such as curtains or towels. Mzannar fought to keep it afloat until production came to a halt in 2018. In interviews with Reuters, business owners such as Mzannar, employees, and experts blamed the slowdown on problems including regional turmoil, lousy infrastructure, government waste or corruption, and high interest rates. Whether the new government tries to improve conditions, as it vows urgently to do, the effects of years of political sclerosis and stalled reforms are already inescapable: more companies going out of business and workers losing jobs.

The government publishes few reliable economic statistics, and gives no regular unemployment numbers, but last year Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri said it stood at about 30 percent. With pillars such as tourism and real estate in the doldrums, economic growth has averaged 1-2 percent since the conflict erupted in neighboring Syria in 2011, after averaging 8-9 percent growth in the years before that. “There is a deterioration. There is a rise in companies closing down and in unemployment. For sure, they come together,” said former economy minister Raed Khoury.

by reuters — Tokyo — The wife of former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn has left Japan and flown to Paris to appeal to the French government to do more to help him, the Financial Times reported on Sunday. Japanese prosecutors arrested Ghosn for a fourth time on Thursday on suspicion he had tried to enrich himself at the carmaker’s expense, in another dramatic twist his lawyers said was an attempt to muzzle him. “I think the French government should do more for him. I don’t think he’s had enough support and he’s calling for assistance. As a French citizen, it should be a right”, Carole Ghosn told the Financial Times in an interview before boarding a flight out of Japan late on Friday.

She said her husband’s previous 108-day imprisonment had left him “a different person” and that normal life under bail conditions had been impossible. “You could see the fear in his eyes,” as rumours of his rearrest spread last week, she was quoted as saying. Ghosn, who holds French, Lebanese and Brazilian citizenship, has denied charges against him and called on the French government for help. Tokyo prosecutors, Ghosn’s lawyer and his spokesperson were not immediately available for comment.

Public broadcaster NHK said on Sunday that prosecutors suspect Ghosn siphoned off part of the payments through a company where his wife is an executive to buy a yacht and a boat. The prosecutors asked Carole Ghosn to meet them for voluntary questioning as an unsworn witness, but the request was turned down, which prompted them to ask judges to question her on their behalf, the broadcaster said. Such a request gives judges the power to question, on a mandatory basis, witnesses who refuse to testify, according to NHK. Ghosn’s lead lawyer, Junichiro Hironaka, said on Thursday prosecutors confiscated Ghosn’s mobile phone, documents, notebooks and diaries, along with his wife’s passport and mobile phone.

Dawn raid

The Financial Times said prosecutors had confiscated his wife’s Lebanese passport in a dawn raid on their apartment in central Tokyo on Thursday morning, but did not discover her US passport. “I’m all alone here. It’s traumatising what happened,” she was quoted as saying while awaiting her flight. “If my husband is in detention and I’m here, I won’t be useful. I’m going to France … and be more useful where I can be.” Under Japanese law, prosecutors will be able to hold Ghosn for up to 22 days without charging him.