BY EDWARD GABRIEL, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — TheHIll — In a last-ditch effort to wake up Lebanon’s political leadership, Undersecretary of State David Hale recently visited Lebanon to underscore the urgent need for a reform-minded government before the country becomes a fully failed state. Upon his departure, he said, “(The Lebanese are) suffering because (their) leaders have failed to meet their responsibility to put the country’s interests first and to address the mounting socio-economic problems … but it’s not too late.” Unfortunately, Hale’s plea appears to have fallen on deaf ears. Joblessness, lack of access to basic health care, and inability to feed their families are factors that continue to erode the lives of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese citizens. Lebanon’s leaders apparently cannot be convinced to quit their sectarian and self-serving bickering over an economic rescue plan or a new government. Although Hale said it’s not too late to form a government capable of addressing the citizenry’s needs, it is becoming increasingly evident that the country could face financial collapse within weeks. Now is the time for the Biden administration to switch gears to protect U.S. interests in Lebanon. Three immediate actions would be wise:

First, it is imperative that the U.S., along with the French and others, outline a plan that assures the Lebanese people that the world has not forgotten them and is prepared to assist them, the International Monetary Fund, and other partners with a recovery program — once an effective government is put in place.

by thenationalnews.com — Gareth Browne — Lebanon’s farmers are rushing to find new buyers for their produce 48 hours after a Saudi ban on fruit and vegetable imports from the country sent prices dropping. At the fruit and vegetable market in Beirut’s Madina Al Riyadiye, the wholesale price of lemons has dropped by 40 per cent in two days, while the price of bananas is down more than 50 per cent. A ban on all fruit and vegetables transiting or originating from Lebanon was introduced by Riyadh on Sunday morning, after millions of amphetamine pills were discovered hidden in a shipment of pomegranates. Saudi Arabia says it has seized more than 600 million pills coming from the country over the past six years and claims Lebanon is being to flood the region with narcotics. Lebanon’s Syndicate of Fruit and Vegetable producers criticised the suggestion that a Lebanese farmer was responsible for the pomegranate shipment that put the industry at risk. Lebanon orders crackdown on smuggling after Saudi Arabia bans produce The ban has left crises-hit Lebanon with yet another problem to deal with: a vast excess of fruit and vegetables.

Exports to the Gulf account for 55 per cent of trade in this sector, the Lebanese farmers’ association says. As the surplus of produce causes domestic prices to collapse, traders are desperately trying to find other buyers for their fruit with sell-by dates approaching. “It’s not only Saudi Arabia. It’s about all the Gulf markets,” says Mahmoud Al Sanousi, floor manager at Al Fadl trading company’s banana-processing plant in Adloun. “We have refrigerated products that transit through Saudi Arabia to Kuwait and Qatar. “We have trucks currently on the road to Dubai and Kuwait. Now they have to go back or dispose of the products. “If this is not solved soon, we are going to be throwing a lot of fruit out.”

by arabnews.com — NAJIA HOUSSARI — BEIRUT: A pomegranate shipment hiding millions of Captagon pills entered Lebanon in stages through the Masnaa border crossing with Syria, a Lebanese customs official has claimed in an interview with Arab News where he tried to lessen his country’s responsibility for the drug-stuffed fruit shipment which has recently caused Saudi Arabia to ban all fruit and vegetables imports from Lebanon. The narcotic-stuffed shipment was seized in Dammam last Friday. On Monday President Michel Aoun said Lebanon was keen not to endanger the safety of any country, while caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab said neither Lebanon nor its people would accept any harm caused to the Saudis. “We are with the Kingdom in combating smuggling networks and pursuing those involved,” Diab said.

Preventing smuggling from Lebanon’s borders was the focus of a meeting chaired by Aoun, with ministers and officials from security and customs services taking part. Saudi Arabia was urged to “reconsider” its ban, which came into effect on Sunday, and Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi was assigned to communicate and coordinate with the Kingdom’s authorities to “follow up the procedures to discover the perpetrators and prevent the recurrence of such odious practices.”​ But a customs source revealed the scale of the challenge, as well sharing insights into the smuggling process. “It is a constant war with smugglers and it needs advanced equipment while we work manually,” the customs source told Arab News. “The quantity of pomegranates that contained Captagon tablets entered Lebanon in stages on more than one truck at the end of January through the Masnaa border crossing with Syria. Documents of the consignments indicated that the pomegranates were imported for internal Lebanese consumption and bear a certificate that they are of Syrian origin and not intended for transit.”

NNA – Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Beshara Boutros Rahi, called on Lebanese officials to keep the judicial body away from the vicious circle of polarizations and political polemic. “We insist on restoring rights, especially bank deposits. But what happened recently was contrary to judicial principles and legal rules, as it affected the prestige and respect of […]

هذه الاخبار وردت في تاريخ الازمنة للدويهي وفي المعجم المفصل لتاريخ الموارنة المؤصل للمطران يوسف الدبس وفي كتاب حروب المقدمين

معركة جبيل عام 1293 – معركة مثلث الفيدار-جبيل-المدفون , بين موارنة لبنان و جيش المماليك، حين جمع السلطان المملوكي حوالى 100 ألف جندي عربي وقرر مهاجمة بلاد جبيل لقمع أي وجود حرّ في جبل لبنان (الذي لم تتمكن جيوش العرب من دخوله طوال سبعة قرون بالرغم من سقوط كل الشرق بيدهم) وهاجم من محورين: محور من بيروت باتجاه جبيل ( 60 ألف جندي) ومحور طرابلس باتجاه المدفون (40 ألف جندي). اما المقاومة المسيحية يقودها 30 مقدما من المردة فقسمت جيشها (30 الفا) الى قوتين: قوة تتمركز في منطقة المدفون والقوة الثانية تتمركز في منطقة برج الفيدار وعلى التلال التي تشرف على مدينة جبيل (بلاط، حبوب…).

هاجم المماليك من المحور الجنوبي ( بيروت – جبيل بحوالى 60 ألف جندي) فرصدتهم القوة المتمركزة على تلال جبيل، ولم تعترضهم، تركتهم يدخلون المدينة، بعد ان طلب قادة المقاومة المسيحية من السكان مغادرة المدينة بالمراكب ويبحروا قليلاً بمحاذاة الشاطئ الجبيلي. وبعد ان دخل الجيش المملوكي الى مدينة جبيل رأى السكان في مراكبهم في البحر فظنّ أن السكان هربوا، فبدأوا ينهبون ويأكلون ويشربون احتفالاً بالنصر، فتضعضع وضعهم التنظيمي. وعند المساء هاجمتهم القوات المسيحية المتمركزة على تلال جبيل وتمكنّت من قتل قسم كبير منهم وقتلت قائد الجيش المملوكي، وعندما حاول من تبقى من الجيش المملوكي الهروب جنوباً، كانت قوة من المردة الجراجمة بانتظارهم في منطقة الفيدار وقضت عليهم.

by AP — President Biden on Saturday became the first U.S. president to formally recognize the systematic deportation and massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as a genocide — something the successive White Houses have avoided out of concern for damaging relations with Turkey. “Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring,” Biden said in a statement marking Armenian Remembrance Day. An estimated 2 million Armenians were deported and 1.5 million killed between 1915 and 1925 in what has become known as Meds Yeghern. “Beginning on April 24, 1915, with the arrest of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople by Ottoman authorities, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination,” Biden said. “We honor the victims of the Meds Yeghern so that the horrors of what happened are never lost to history. And we remember so that we remain ever-vigilant against the corrosive influence of hate in all its forms.”

by thenationalnews.com — Gareth Browne — A shipment of more than 5.3 million amphetamine pills hidden inside pomegranates seized by Saudi Arabia originated in Syria, not Lebanon, representatives of the Lebanese agriculture industry said. The claim came after the drug seizure at Jeddah Islamic Port prompted Riyadh to ban imports of fruit and vegetables originating […]

By AFP — A Lebanon-made electric car has made its debut, the first time the Mediterranean country has manufactured an automobile, despite struggling amid a dire economic crisis with frequent power cuts. The red sports car – named “Quds Rise”, using the Arabic name of Jerusalem – is the project of Lebanese-born Palestinian businessman Jihad Mohammad. It’s the “first automobile to be made locally,” Mohammad told reporters on Saturday, at the unveiling in a parking lot south of Beirut. It was built in Lebanon “from start to finish”, he said of the prototype, emblazoned at the front with a golden logo of the Dome of the Rock, the shrine in Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, Islam’s third holiest site.

The car is to cost $30,000. Production of up to 10,000 vehicles is hoped to start later this year in Lebanon, with cars to hit the market in a year’s time, said Mohammad, the director of Lebanon-based firm EV Electra. He says his long-term goal is to compete on the international market for hybrid and electric cars, as well as to make sales in Lebanon. But the unveiling comes as Lebanon struggles amid its worst economic crisis in decades, and imported car sales are at a record low, in part due to capital controls and drastic devaluation on the black market.

اليوم وبعد ١٠٦ سنوات تعترف الولايات المتحدة بالابادة الارمنية. هل نعتبر ونطالب جميعنا باستعادة سيادة الدولة حتى لا ننتظر عشرات السنين؟ باسم الانسانية وباسم الشعب الارمني بخاصة اللبنانيين منهم نتوجه بالشكر للشعب الاميركي

by reuters — BEIRUT (Reuters) -Saudi Arabia announced on Friday a ban on imports of fruits and vegetables from Lebanon, blaming an increase in drug smuggling, in a measure that will add to Lebanon’s economic woes. Lebanon is already in the throes of a deep financial crisis that is posing the biggest threat to its stability since the 1975-1990 civil war. Its agriculture minister said the move was a “great loss” and that the trade was worth $24 million a year. The Lebanese foreign ministry said it had been informed of the ban through the Saudi embassy and the foreign minister had relayed it to top officials. “Lebanese authorities must exert utmost efforts to control all smuggling operations … to prevent harm to innocent citizens, farmers, industrialists and the Lebanese economy,” the Lebanese foreign ministry statement said.

The ban will take effect from 9:00 a.m. local time on Sunday. Saudi customs authorities at Jeddah had foiled an attempt to smuggle in more than 5.3 million Captagon pills, a type of amphetamine, hidden in pomegranate shipments from Lebanon, said Mohammed bin Ali al-Naim, undersecretary for security affairs at Saudi Customs, according to Saudi Arabia’s SPA news agency. Lebanon’s caretaker interior minister Mohamed Fahmy told Reuters Lebanon was ready to cooperate with all states to stop drug smuggling and that it had already been exerting “tremendous efforts” but that sometimes smugglers might succeed. One Lebanese official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the ban appeared to be political. “The export of Lebanese vegetables and fruits to the Gulf countries and especially the kingdom was one of the few doors that were still open to bring dollars into the country. Closing this import line increases pressure on Lebanon,” he said.