By GEORGI AZAR — arabnews.com — DUBAI: Lebanon’s oldest and most prestigious university, the American University of Beirut, has started rationing electricity on campus as the country’s fuel crisis exacerbates. The campus, made up of 64 buildings including the American University of Beirut Medical Center, will switch off its central air conditioning due to the shortage of fuel. The move came into effect Monday in order to “prioritize critical functions especially at the medical center,” a letter sent to faculty and staff, seen by Arab News, said. Human Resources Director Samar Diab Rouhana said the decision was due to “disruptions in fuel supplies in the country” and the fact that AUB’s fuel reserves have reached a critical threshold. Rationing will stay in place until Aug. 22, she said, with “exceptions made for buildings that house critical laboratories and heat-sensitive materials and equipment.”

The university, which was founded in 1866, also requested all faculty and non-essential staff to work remotely from Aug. 13 until Aug. 20. “In the meantime, the physical plant department will continue its efforts to secure fuel and rebuild the university’s fuel reserves,” the letter added. The university could not be reached for comment. Lebanon has faced months of severe fuel shortages that have caused hour-long lines at gas pumps and plunged the small Mediterranean country, dependent on private generators for power, into hours of darkness. Meanwhile, the state-owned Électricité du Liban provider is barely providing two to three hours of electricity in most regions. The shortages are blamed on smuggling to neighboring Syria, hoarding and the cash-strapped caretaker government’s inability to secure hard currency for fuel deliveries.

by reuters — CAIRO: Saudi Arabia reiterated on Tuesday its solidarity with the Lebanese people, but said any assistance to current or future government depends on serious reforms, state news agency SPA reported, citing a statement by the Saudi Cabinet. “Any assistance provided to the current or future government depends on it carrying out serious and tangible reforms, while ensuring that aid reaches its beneficiaries, and avoiding mechanisms that enable corrupt people from controlling the fate of Lebanon,” the Cabinet said.

by saudigazette.com.sa — NEOM — The Saudi Cabinet on Tuesday reiterated the Kingdom’s solidarity with the Lebanese people during times of crises and challenges, the Saudi Press Agency reported. In a virtual session chaired by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman, the Cabinet lauded the Kingdom’s assertion during its delegation’s participation in the recently held global donor conference that the Saudi aid is conditional on the implementation of serious and tangible reforms by the Lebanese government while ensuring that the aid reaches those who deserve it, and evading the mechanisms that enable the corrupt to control the fate of Lebanon. At the outset of the meeting, the Cabinet was briefed on the contents of the talks and meetings that took place in the past few days between Saudi Arabia and a number of countries to enhance bilateral relations, develop aspects of joint cooperation in various fields, support international efforts aiming to achieve sustainable economic and social development and consolidate the values of harmony, world peace and humanitarian action.

khazen.org Stands firm with our Beloved His Beatitude Patriarch Mar Bechara el Rai – Hezbollah actions have led to the collapse of many of our Lebanese institutions in addition to not respecting the will of the majority of the Lebanese people.  Their priorities are not the same as the Lebanese who are suffering from an economic collapse, lack of food, gaz, medicine supply,  power outages and many other primary need.

by arabnews.com — Najia Houssari — BEIRUT: Hezbollah drew fresh criticism on Monday from the streets and the political class over the crisis in Lebanon. Angry residents blocked several roads in protest against the economic crisis. As the Lebanese pound’s value plummets, the country is also experiencing a major medicines shortage. The process of forming a government headed by Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati is slowly coming to a stalemate. Meanwhile, Hezbollah launched a broadside against the Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai, accusing him of taking stances that are no different than Israel’s. In his Sunday sermon, Al-Rai stressed that “the decision of war or peace should be in the hands of the state exclusively,” calling for “a return to the 1949 Armistice Agreements and Lebanon’s neutrality.”

Hezbollah’s campaign against Al-Rai elicited counter-reactions from various political figures and numerous Christian religious and political entities. Druze leader Walid Jumblatt tweeted on Monday: “What crime did Al-Rai commit when he mentioned the armistice agreement? It seems that it is forbidden to discuss anything outside of the opposition group’s discourse,” sarcastically adding: “A democratic atmosphere par excellence.” Resigned MP Marwan Hamade accused Hezbollah of igniting tension on the southern border with Israel and slammed the group for its attack on the judicial investigator in the Beirut port explosion crime Judge Tarek Bitar. Hamade addressed Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah: “Your graciousness has set us back 50 years. “The balance of deterrence advocated by Hezbollah is a pretext for controlling Lebanon.” Saydet Al-Jabal Gathering warned that “if this campaign (against Al-Rai) does not stop immediately, we will take action in several cities.”

Former MP Ahmed Fatfat told Arab News: “The Lebanese state is collapsing because there is a parallel state — the state of Hezbollah. It seems that we are now experiencing the Iraqi scenario, and even more. “Hezbollah suggests that it has the ability to replace the state, but in fact, it has so far failed to do so. Its entourage suffers like all the Lebanese, due to Hezbollah’s practices that destroyed the state.” He added: “Iran will not allow the formation of the government in Lebanon as long as the Iranian-US negotiations are ongoing. “Nasrallah has, for the first time, admitted that there is no consensus over the resistance in Lebanon. “This means that Hezbollah has lost supporters and stature, and its intimidation policy no longer works on people. “The biggest evidence is that the families of the Beirut port victims carried a banner that read Iran Out on Aug. 4. People have other priorities now.” Fatfat said that Hezbollah’s stances regarding medicine and fuel imports from Iran are mere propaganda. “The Iranians did it once in Venezuela, but they took gold in exchange. Do they want to get their hands on the gold that is in the Lebanese Central Bank?”

أدلى الوزير السابق سجعان قزي بالتصريح التالي ردًّا على التهجم على غبطة البطريرك بشارة الراعي: لو أدرك الّذين يتطاولون على غُبطةِ البطريرك الراعي أنَّ مواقفَه تَصُبُّ في مصلحتِهم قبلَ أيِّ مصلحةٍ أخرى، لتوقّفوا عن التهجّمِ واعتذروا. ولو أدركوا أيضًا أن البطريرك يَقلَقُ على أمنِ الجنوب وأهاليه قبلَ قلقِه على أيِّ مِنطقةٍ أخرى لخَجِلوا. لكنَّ من […]

دعا الاتحاد الأوروبي للتهدئة وضبط النفس بعد إطلاق صواريخ من جنوب لبنان باتجاه إسرائيل ورد إسرائيل بقصف مناطق لبنانية، مدينا إطلاق الصواريخ على إسرائيل، الذي تبناه “حزب الله” اللبناني.  وطالب الاتحاد جميع الأطراف ممارسة أقصى درجات ضبط النفس والعمل من أجل حل سريع للتوترات الحالية. وذكّر بضرورة احترام قرارات مجلس الأمن الدولي ذات الصلة 1559 […]

khazen.org stands by the our Maronite Patriarch  by nna-leb.gov.lb – National News Agency — Maronite Patriarch, Bechara Boutros Rahi, indicated in his homily during Sunday mass in Dimane that “today, while we are in the ordeal of faith, we demand a divine grace that strengthens our faith and the faith of our people, so that […]

الاساءة الى البطريرك الراعي ترتد على اصحابها ولن تؤدي الا الى المزيد من التأييد له خارجياً وداخلياً من المواطنين الشرفاء الذين يؤمنون بلبنان فقط وقبل كل شيء

by thearabweekly.com — BEIRUT – The artist meticulously cuts small pieces of yellow and red glass, then lays them in a pattern to recreate the stained-glass windows that were the trademark of Beirut’s Sursock Museum, shattered in last year’s port explosion. Conservators, hunched over with magnifying glasses, fill lines of paint loss caused by the explosion with their brushes and weave together tears thread by thread under microscope. Other workers delicately piece back together broken shards of ceramics. “It has been very hard to see my work of 30 years on the ground, back to being sand … But it is important to rebuild the museum,” said Maya Hussaini, the artist who worked on the stained-glass windows during a major renovation at the museum that finished in 2015 and is back rebuilding them now, “I had to go back to my archive to dig out my designs to bring it back to how it was,” she said.

Perched on the hills of the Achrafieh neighbourhood hundreds of metres from the Beirut Port, the 60-year-old Sursock was the beating heart of Beirut’s creative scene. The country’s only modern art museum, it boasts a collection of Lebanese art dating back to the late 1800s. It has long provided a rare public and free space for art, not even closing throughout Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war. Restorers and artists have been working to revive that role after the museum was decimated by the Aug. 4, 2020 port explosion.

The explosion ripped through the three-story building, unhinging the doors, wrecking everything down to the fourth underground level. Windows shattered, including the stained-glass windows of its façade. The art collection was badly hit. At least 57 of the 130 pieces on display were either broken or torn, including Dutch artist Kees Von Dongen’s portrait of Nicolas Sursock, after whom the museum is named. The nearby 19th-century landmark Sursock Palace, one of the most storied buildings in the Lebanese capital, was also wrecked in the blast.

by asumetech.com — Supporters of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia launched an incitement campaign against young Yahya Timani on Friday, who filmed the prevention of rocket firing at the population of Shwaya village in Hasbaya district in southern Lebanon, members of the Lebanese party. The sites of social network they released a photo of the young […]

ولو  انني اكرر نفسي اتمنى على فخامة الرئيس ان يدعو المجلس الاعلى للدفاع للاجتماع الان لبحث موضوع الاعتداء الاسرائيلي على لبنان في اليومين الماضيين وليقول كلمته قبل اي كلمة اخرى ويتخذ الاجراءات المناسبة كما يرى ذلك مفيداً وضرورياً