BEIRUT: Two firefighters have died after battling a huge blaze overnight in Beirut’s Mar Elias, a security source said Tuesday. The source identified the fallen firefighters as Mohammad al-Mawla and Adel Saadeh. They died while fighting a fire that broke out around 8:30 p.m. Monday at a printing press in the basement of Al-Turk […]

Mexican and American Salma Hayek sits in front of a statue of Lebanese-American poet Khalil Gibran during her visit to his museum in the northeast mountain town of Bcharre, Lebanon, Sunday, April 26, 2015. Hayek visited her ancestral homeland Lebanon to launch her latest film "The Prophet," a screen adaptation of the book by the same name written nearly a century ago by the famed Lebanese-American poet and philosopher Gibran. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Mexican and American actress Salma Hayek, center, Lebanese legislator Setrida Geagea, left, and film director Roger Allers, right, stand for the Lebanese and Mexican national anthems during her visit at the museum of the famed Lebanese-born poet and philosopher Khalil Gibran in the northeast mountain town of Bcharre, Lebanon, Sunday, April 26, 2015. Hayek visited her ancestral homeland Lebanon to launch her latest film "The Prophet," a screen adaptation of the book by the same name written nearly a century ago by Gibran. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein

Mexican-American actress Salma Hayek poses for photographers next to a poster for her film, "The Prophet," an animated feature film she co-produced, on her arrival to a cinema where she gave a press conference, in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, April 27, 2015. In her first visit to her ancestral homeland, Hayek visited the picturesque mountain village of Bcharre in northern Lebanon on Sunday to pay homage to Khalil Gibran, the Lebanese-born poet who wrote "The Prophet," the book on which the film is based. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Mexican and American actress Salma Hayek speaks with media as she arrives to her international premiere film "The Prophet," an animated feature film she co-produced, in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, April 27, 2015. Hayek is in Lebanon for the film, written and directed by Roger Allers, the maker of the Disney production The Lion King. The film tells the story of a young girl who finds the voice she lost through her friendship with a poet imprisoned for his ideas. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Mexican and American actress Salma Hayek and her father pose for photographers during her visit to Khalil Gibran’s museum in the northeast mountain town of Bcharre, Lebanon, Sunday, April 26, 2015. Hayek visited her ancestral homeland Lebanon to launch her latest film "The Prophet," a screen adaptation of the book by the same name written nearly a century ago by the famed Lebanese-born poet and philosopher Gibran. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

By Sylvia Westall

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Movie star Salma Hayek said on Monday her new film The Prophet was a labour of love that helped her explore her relationship with her late Lebanese grandfather who adored the book that inspired it.

The animated film, which draws on the 1923 book by Lebanese-born writer Kahlil Gibran, tells the story of Almitra, a headstrong girl who forms a friendship with the imprisoned poet Mustafa, voiced by actor Liam Neeson.

Mexican-American actress Hayek co-produced the film and does the voice-over for Almitra’s mother, Kamila. The story unfolds in an imaginary coastal city and explores Gibran’s themes of love and spirituality.

  Head of the Mustaqbal Movement MP Saad Hariri’s ongoing visit to the United States is focusing on safeguarding Lebanon from regional unrest and raising support for its army and security forces, reported the Kuwaiti daily al-Anba on Sunday. It added that efforts are underway to schedule a meeting between the former premier and U.S. […]

  OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the soldiers involved in the airstrike on the border with Syria after the military said it spotted militants carrying a bomb in the Israeli-held Golan Heights. The Israeli military said it carried out the strike after troops saw "a group of armed terrorists" approach the border […]

• Marcus Baram

The plot was hatched by leaders of the diaspora gathered in a ballroom in Boston on the evening of July 8, 1920.

Operation Nemesis was funded by donations from hundreds of wealthy businessmen and professionals across the country.

The assassins included a hodgepodge of young men from around the world — a shoe factory worker in Watertown, Massachusetts; an accountant in Syracuse, New York; a former reconnaissance scout with the Russian army; a gunrunner from Constantinople, and a soldier who once served in Persia.

And their mission was to avenge the 1.5 million victims of the Armenian genocide, the brutal extermination of an entire people by agents of the Ottoman Empire during and after the World War I. 

We demand for the world to recognize the Armenian  Genocide! And pray for all of the victims!! (khazen.org)     Thousands of Lebanese of Armenian descent, holding banners and a giant Armenian flag, march to mark the 100th anniversary of the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, […]

  Lebanon’s Armenians held a protest on Friday to mark the 100th anniversary of when some 250 Armenian intellectuals were rounded up by Ottoman Turks as the first step of the genocide against them. The protesters marched from the Armenian Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia to the town of Bourj Hammoud to demand […]

  BEIRUT: The Lebanese Army has detained four people after raiding a Bekaa Valley warehouse that was used to manufacture explosives, the military said in a statement Saturday. The statement said a Friday night raid on a warehouse in the West Bekaa village of al-Marj led to the arrest of four Syrian nationals. They are […]

  Controversial reports surfaced on Saturday over an alleged Israeli airstrike on Hizbullah and Syrian military posts in the strategic Qalamoun region. Al-Arabiya’s Al-Hadath TV channel reported on Saturday that Israel targeted overnight a missile depot in the region. According to the channel, the airstrike was preceded by an Israeli raid on Wednesday that targeted […]

  Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi has urged the international community to recognize the Armenian genocide, expressing fears of further such atrocities against Christians in the world. Al-Rahi, who is in Armenia to attend the ceremony to mark the centenary of the World War I killings by Ottoman Turks, was quoted by the National News Agency […]