Story by Ryan Phillips — thebiglead.com — Iran’s run at the 2022 World Cup came to an end Tuesday, as it fell to the United States 1-0 and failed to advance from group play. The Iranians played well in Qatar and just missed advancing. You would think the team’s countrymen would be devastated by their […]

By NAJIA HOUSSARI — arabnews.com — BEIRUT: Rival drug-dealing families using machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades brought mayhem to the streets of a southern Beirut neighborhood during a series of violent clashes on Tuesday. Lebanese troops were forced to step in to end the fighting in an area adjoining the Burj Al-Barajneh camp for Palestinian refugees after members of the two families became embroiled in a dispute over drug trafficking. Clashes initially broke out late on Monday when Hassan Jaafar, an alleged Syrian drug dealer with a Lebanese mother, began arguing with members of a rival family living in the same area, known as the Baalbekien neighborhood. Samir Abu Afash, an official of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Fatah movement in Beirut, told Arab News that Jaafar started “shooting randomly in the direction of the camp” due to a dispute with other gunmen. “We feared that something was planned against the camp,” he said.

Abu Afash said that the PLO has pledged not to interfere in Lebanese affairs, or involve refugee camps in any disputes between the Palestinians and the Lebanese. “So we contacted the Lebanese army and Hezbollah to stop the clashes. But the fights continued throughout the night and intermittently until the army intervened in the morning and entered the haven Jaafar had formed years ago for his gang and arrested two people. Jaafar remains at large.” He added: “Hezbollah and the Amal Movement have repeatedly stressed that they do not provide cover for Jaafar, and when they do intervene, he usually lays low for a while. Jaafar was able to make a name for himself in the area and managed to bring in prohibited materials into the camp, including building materials for example, along with drugs.” The army is believed to have seized stolen items, including motorcycles, during the raid. Burj Al-Barajneh camp is home to over 35,000 Palestinian refugees, as well as some Syrians and Palestinians who fled from Syria.

By Ruiqi Chen, Editor at LinkedIn News — Netflix’s most recent bet on movie theaters has paid off. The streaming giant’s theatrical release of “Knives Out” sequel “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” earned US$9.2 million from Friday to Sunday, outperforming releases from Disney and Steven Spielberg, and making it the highest performing movie per-screen […]

By Razmig Bedirian — thenationalnews.com — Nancy Ajram will perform at Global Village next month. The Lebanese singer, known for her hits including Akhasmak Ah and Aah w Noss, will be taking to the Global Village Main Stage at 9pm on December 12. Ajram is an influential force in the Arab music industry and has previously been named as one of the top female Arab artists by Forbes. In 2009, she was selected by Unicef as the first female regional ambassador for the Mena region. Between 2013 and 2017, she served as a judge on MBC’s reality talent show Arab Idol. She also began serving as a coach on The Voice Kids: Ahla Sawt in 2016. This year, she collaborated with Marshmello on the single Sah Sah, proving her music has global reach. Ajram is the second Arab superstar to be billed for this year’s event. Myriam Fares, the Arab “Queen of the Stage”, performed at the venue this month.

Global Village opened for its 27th season on October 25 and will be running until April. Last season, the family-friendly attraction in Dubai welcomed a record 7.8 million visitors during the six months it was operational. The venue is famous for its pavilions, each themed according to a different nation or culture. This year, 27 pavilions representing more than 80 cultures are featured. More than 400 performers from around the world will be part of the event’s entertainment line-up. This includes more than 200 performances each night, such as Puttin’ on the Glitz, which brings jazz music to the theme park.

By Charles Boehm @cboehm — mlssoccer.com — AL-RAYYAN, Qatar – The US men’s national team already had to deal with intense pressure and massive stakes around Tuesday’s World Cup match with Iran Decades of bitter political history between the two nations always makes this matchup an emotional one, and now a place in the tournament’s knockout rounds is on the line, with the US needing a victory to advance out of Group B and Iran able to claim that spot with a draw or a win. Now events of the past few days have added an even sharper edge to this enormous fixture.

Klinsmann vs. Queiroz

Former USMNT coach Jurgen Klinsmann upset Iranians with his comments in an appearance on BBC in the wake of Team Melli’s dramatic win over Wales on Friday, in which he affirmed British presenters’ accusations of gamesmanship and dirty play by Iran as “just part of their culture.” This also drew the ire of Iran manager Carlos Queiroz, whose managerial track record Klinsmann critiqued unflatteringly in his comments. Queiroz, who coached the New York/New Jersey MetroStars (today the New York Red Bulls) in the early days of MLS, responded on Twitter with a lengthy, full-blooded denunciation of Klinsmann’s comments – concluding with a demand that the German-American resign from his current post on FIFA’s Technical Study Group. Chaired by Arsene Wenger, the TSG is a prominent body which analyzes and evaluates every World Cup match, compiling detailed statistics and gleaning insights about the present and future of the sport. Queiroz specifically noted Klinsmann’s “American/German” status in his Twitter thread. Klinsmann addressed Queiroz’s comments on BBC on Sunday, saying “there was stuff really taken out of context. I will try to give him a call and calm things down. “I have never criticized Carlos or the Iranian bench,” he added.

Flag fracas

BEIRUT — Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai warned on Sunday from Rome that Parliament “cannot continue to deliberately delay and manipulate the election of a head of state.” Rai’s remarks come as the country is experiencing its first dual executive power vacuum, with no president and without a fully empowered cabinet. Rai spoke on Sunday during a festive Mass in the Church of Saint Maron in the Pontifical Maronite Institute in Rome. He described the country’s independence day, which falls on Nov. 22, as a “sad day,” adding that “in the absence of a president, the state disintegrates, the internal unity is shaken up, the separation of powers is disrupted, chaos spreads, and the political, economic, social and living crises worsen, as is happening.”

Parliamentary quorum

The head of the Maronite church criticized in his Sunday homily the decision by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to conclude parliamentary sessions dedicated to electing a new president after the first round of vote when some parties’ MPs leave, slashing the quorum — two-thirds of MPs — Berri argues is required to continue the session. MPs failed for the seventh time on Thursday to elect a successor to Michel Aoun, whose term as president ended on Oct. 31. Each time, MPs from Hezbollah, the Amal Movement, the Free Patriotic Movement and their allies have left Parliament either ahead of or following a first round vote, torpedoing quorum, and disabling the session from continuing. “Regardless of the custom that states that a quorum of two-thirds of the members of the House of Representatives is required in the session to elect the President of the Republic, we must not forget the legal principle that says: ‘There is no custom contrary to the constitution,” Rai said. Rai claimed that “Article 49 of the constitution stipulates the election of the president by two-thirds of the votes in the first session, and in the next and subsequent sessions by absolute majority (half plus one),” questioning the reason behind “clos[ing] the first session after each poll and disabl[ing] the quorum in the next session, contrary to Article 55 of the internal rules of the Parliament.”

By Story by Daniel Stewart — msn.com — Dozens of women rallied in front of the Lebanese parliament building at Place de l’Etoile in Beirut to demand harsher penalties against sex offenders in the country. The women protesters were dressed in black with banners that read, among other slogans, “For a punishment commensurate with the […]

by Tim Stickings — thenationalnews.com — Lebanon’s former president Michel Aoun had to be persuaded to put on a raincoat when French special forces spirited him out of the country in 1991, a French officer has revealed. Mr Aoun — who left office a second time last month after reclaiming power in 2016 — was whisked away in a secretive mission after taking refuge in the French embassy. He headed into exile after losing a violent power struggle at the end of Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war. Lebanon’s parliament fails to elect president in fifth electoral session But he appeared to have second thoughts after French special forces arrived on a beach to take him to safety. “One of the biggest difficulties we had at the time was getting General Aoun to put on a rain jacket,” said rear admiral Bertrand de Gaullier des Bordes, who led a French commando unit. “I think it was probably a pretext for him to not leave Lebanon, but he didn’t want to put on the sea clothing. “Eventually he did, and it was very useful for him because the sea was a bit tricky when we left and it was very wet.”

The rear admiral’s recollections came as part of a new exhibition on the history of the French special forces. He said the 1991 operation involved “everything you see in special forces films”, with an armoured car waiting as French troops with lights and radios pulled up to the beach. The rescue mission was arranged with the French embassy where Mr Aoun had taken sanctuary in 1990, following his defeat by Syrian and Lebanese forces. Mr Aoun, now 89, feared for his safety after surviving at least one assassination attempt and was granted asylum by France, the former colonial power in Lebanon. Reports at the time described decoy cars being used to lead potential witnesses astray while Mr Aoun was driven to the beach at dawn. Smuggled away to France, he lived in exile until 2005 — before returning to Lebanon and eventually winning the presidency.

By Eric Santos — msn.com — One of the big upsets of this World Cup came on November 22nd with the victory of Saudi Arabia against Argentina. Lionel Scaloni’s men went into the match on an unbeaten streak of 36 games and went ahead thanks to a penalty from Messi, but after the break, and after a much-noted half-time talk by coach Hervé Renard, the Saudis managed to turn the game around and record a famous victory that delighted Mohamed bin Salman, the country’s crown prince and one of the richest people in the world.

The footballers of the Saudi Arabian national team are now dreaming of qualifying for the round of 16 at the World Cup in Qatar, but while they are savoring this much-heralded victory they are going to receive a spectacular gift from the delighted Crown Prince. The 37-year-old from Jeddah is closely following Saudi Arabia’s participation in the World Cup in Qatar and personally congratulated the team members for winning their debut against all the odds, but he is so delighted that he has gone one step further and presented his beloved footballers with a gift valued at almost 500,000 dollars. The Crown Prince, according to CNN, has decided to give a Rolls-Royce Phantom, the basic model of which costs around $460,000, to each of the players who beat Argentina as a thank you for their performance and as a motivational tool for the next match, which they will play against to Poland. A decent result in that game and Saudi Arabia could achieve a historic qualification for the round of 16.

by AP — AL-RAYYAN, Qatar: Tensions ran high at Iran’s second match at the World Cup on Friday as fans supporting the Iranian government harassed those protesting against it and stadium security seized flags, T-shirts and other items expressing support for the protest movement that has gripped the Islamic Republic. Some fans were stopped by security guards from bringing in Persian pre-revolutionary flags to the match against Wales at the Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium. Others carrying such flags had them ripped from their hands by pro-government Iran fans, who also shouted insults at fans wearing T-shirts with the slogan of the protest movement gripping the country, “Woman, Life, Freedom.” Unlike in their first match against England, the Iran players sang along to their national anthem before the match as some fans in the stadium wept, whistled and booed. The national team has come under close scrutiny for any statements or gestures about the nationwide protests that have wracked Iran for weeks. Shouting matches erupted in lines outside the stadium between fans screaming “Women, Life, Freedom” and others shouting back “The Islamic Republic!”

Mobs of men surrounded three different women giving interviews about the protests to foreign media outside the stadium, disrupting broadcasts as they angrily chanted, “The Islamic Republic of Iran!” Many female fans appeared shaken as Iranian government supporters shouted at them in Farsi and filmed them up close on their phones. After Iran’s 2-0 triumph, crowds of Iranian fans wildly waving national flags streamed out of the stadium. They thronged a group of protesters who held up photos of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old whose Sept. 16 death in the custody of the morality police first unleashed the protests, yelling “Victory!” to drown out chants of Amini’s name. One 35-year-old woman named Maryam, who like other Iran fans declined to give her last name for fear of government reprisals, started to cry as shouting men blowing horns encircled her and filmed her face. She had the words “Woman Life Freedom” painted on her face. “I’m not here to fight with anyone, but people have been attacking me and calling me a terrorist,” said Maryam, who lives in London but is originally from Tehran. “All I’m here to say is that football doesn’t matter if people are getting killed in the streets.” Maryam and her friends had worn hats emblazoned with the name of an outspoken Iranian former soccer player Voria Ghafouri, who had criticized Iranian authorities and was arrested in Iran on Thursday on accusations of spreading propaganda against the government. She said Iranian government supporters had taken the hats from their heads.