By  Harrison Jacobs and Reuters

A new version of a Trump administration travel ban will be
“streamlined,” U.S. Secretary for Homeland Security John
Kelly said on Saturday. Kelly told the Munich Security Conference that the new order
would not stop green card residency holders or travelers already
on planes from entering the United States.  “I would say the president is contemplating releasing a tighter,
more streamlined version,” he said.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s initial attempt to clamp down for
security reasons on immigration from seven Muslim-majority
countries and on refugees snarled to a halt amid a judicial
backlash and chaos at airports. Trump’s original order, which he said was meant to head off
attacks by Islamist militants, barred people from Iran, Iraq,
Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering for 90 days
and excluded all refugees for 120 days, except those from Syria,
who were banned indefinitely.

By Abby Jackson

Gaining acceptance into selective colleges seems harder today
than ever before. Acceptance rates at top schools decline almost every year, and
former
admissions officers at Ivy League schools say the competition
is at an all-time high. Anthony-James
Green, a New York City-based SAT and ACT tutor, agrees. “It’s become a little bit of an arms race,” Green told Business
Insider. Green experiences firsthand the lengths to which families will go
to improve their students’ scores. His $1,500-an-hour price tag
may seem hefty, but to the families who want to see significant
improvement in test scores, it’s worth the cost.

“My average ACT students usually goes up by around 7 points, and
on the old SAT they were going up around 420, 430 points,” he
said. On the new SAT, Green said, his students average 310- to
320-point increases. The Columbia University grad works exclusively over Skype, and he
attracts families from all over the US. Students on average spend
about 20 to 30 hours with him. He acknowledged that the inching up of test scores related to
test prep may have a potentially damaging impact on students who
don’t pay for additional SAT support.

by Paul Szoldra – Business Insider – China’s military is fast approaching “near parity” with western
nations, according to a new report from the International
Institute for Strategic Studies. In its 2017 Military Balance report, which focuses on global
military capabilities and defense spending, IISS experts say that
China has made significant progress in research and development
and improved its military capabilities, putting it close to on
par with the US and other allies.

“Western military technological superiority, once taken for
granted, is increasingly challenged,” Dr. John Chipman,
Director-General and Chief Executive of IISS, said in a
statement. “We now judge that in some capability areas,
particularly in the air domain, China appears to be reaching
near-parity with the West.” Instead of its usual practice of working on systems that imitate
Soviet and Russian technology, China has shifted its efforts (and
budget) to domestic research and development. Its Navy is
currently working on three new advanced cruisers, 13 destroyers,
and outfitting other ships with better radar.

Compiled news by Ya Libnan, the tower.org and middle-east monitor

Speeches by Hezbollah’s leader this week were aimed at making clear to the new administration of U.S. President Donald Trump that the Lebanese group could strike U.S. interests by hitting Israel, a source familiar with its thinking said on Friday. Trump and administration officials have used strong rhetoric against
Hezbollah’s political patron Iran and to support its main enemy Israel,
including putting Tehran “on notice” over charges it violated a nuclear
deal by test-firing a ballistic missile.

Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun,
an ally of Hezbollah, defended the group this week, saying: “As long as
the Lebanese army lacks sufficient power to face Israel, we feel the
need for (Hezbollah’s) arsenal because it complements the army’s role”.
In his speech on Sunday, Nasrallah said: “We are not worried (about
Trump), but rather we are very optimistic because when there is an idiot
living in the White House, who boasts of his idiocy, it is the
beginning of relief for the weak of the world”. On Thursday he
said that his group, which played a major role in ending Israel’s
occupation of Lebanon, could strike its nuclear reactor at Dimona. The harsh words for Israel and Trump were aimed at drawing “red
lines” for the new U.S. administration, the source familiar with the
thinking of the Lebanese Shi’ite group said. “Until now, Hezbollah is
not worried about the arrival of Trump into the U.S. administration, but
rather, it called him an idiot this week and drew red lines in front of
any action that threatens Lebanon or Hezbollah’s presence in Syria,” the source said. Israel and the United States both regard Hezbollah, which dominates Lebanese
politics and maintains an armed militia that has had a significant part
in fighting for President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, as a terrorist
organisation. “We can turn the threat (of their nuclear capability) into an
opportunity,” he said, signalling that Hezbollah could strike the Dimona
reactor and other Israeli atomic sites according to the source familiar
with Hezbollah thinking.

Lebanon’s Change Movement leader Elie Mahfoud warned against
Hezbollah becoming like Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)
or like the Iran-backed Iraqi Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF)
paramilitary organisation. Mahfoud said that “the issue of Hezbollah’s armament has always been a
contentious issue amongst the Lebanese people,” in comments that
reflect statements made by Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri
earlier this week, who declared that the Shia jihadist movement
possessed weapons “illegally”. Mahfoud and Al-Hariri’s comments were in response to Hezbollah ally
and Lebanese President Michel Aoun’s remarks supporting the Iranian
proxy’s possession of arms.

Ibrahim al-Amin, chairman of the pro-Hezbollah newspaper Al-Akhbar,
wrote in an editorial on January 24 that “a vast supply of advanced,
state-of-the art weapons of various kinds, including weapons provided by
Iran” have flown into Hezbollah’s depots since the beginning of the
Syrian civil war. He also asserted that while Israel targeted
convoys transporting sophisticated weapons to Hezbollah, “dozens if not
hundreds of convoys managed to [get through and] bring the necessary
[weapons] to the resistance bases in Lebanon.” “Israel reads the map and realizes that Hizbullah’s weapons arsenal
has steadily grown, and is now several times larger than it was in 2006,
and that the kind of weapons that the enemy tried and is still trying
to prevent the resistance from acquiring – namely, what Israel calls
‘game-changing’ weapons – is available to it in great amounts,” al-Amin
claimed.

BEIRUT (AFP): A Lebanese parliamentary committee has forced a vote on
scrapping a controversial law that allows rapists to escape punishment
by marrying their victims, an NGO said Thursday. Parliament would
need to ratify the decision to change the law, but NGO Abaad said the
committee’s decision on Wednesday was a key first step. “We hope that
Parliament will move quickly to cancel this article and make the other
amendments” proposed by the committee, said Alia Awada, advocacy manager
for Abaad’s campaign to drop Article 522 of the penal code. The controversial article deals with rape — including against minors — assault, kidnapping and forced marriage. “If
a valid marriage contract exists between the perpetrator of one of
these crimes… and the abused, the prosecution is suspended,” the
article reads. “If a verdict has been issued, the implementation is
suspended.” A proposal to scrap the article was introduced last year
but the committee only approved it Wednesday, along with changes to
other sections of the penal code. The panel proposed raising the penalty for assaults against girls aged under 15 to a maximum of seven years.

By Pamela Engel – Business Insider The Defense Department is considering recommending the US send ground troops into Syria to fight the terrorist group ISIS, according to a source who spoke to CNN. “It’s possible that you may see conventional forces hit the ground in Syria for some period of time,” a defense official told CNN. […]

by Naharnet- Lebanon marks on Tuesday the twelfth anniversary of slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated in a massive and shocking suicide bombing in 2005 that destabilized the country. In downtown Beirut, political leaders and ordinary citizens gathered to lay flowers at Hariri’s grave. Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader and Prime Minister Saad Hariri […]

By  Henry Jeffreys

If you ever need a new nose for your 1983 Mercedes 230E, Chtaura in
the Bekaa Valley is the place to go. It’s full of workshops keeping
Lebanon’s extraordinary range of 1970s and ‘80s European and American
cars on the road. Yet, while this area looks like the last
place you’d expect to find a world-class winery, at the edge of town,
set back from the road, is a fine collection of 19th-century buildings
that make up Domaine des Tourelles.

At one point, this winery would have been somewhat isolated, but
gradually the suburbs of Chtaura have engulfed it. The surrounding
air is heavy with pollution and the roadside strewn with rubbish.
Noticing my attention on these unsightly piles, Michael Karam,
our Anglo-Lebanese guide — and probably the world expert on Lebanese
wine — mutters that “Lebanese people always talk about their country
being the most beautiful in the world, but they’ve ruined it.”

A Study in Contrast

From Domaine des Tourelles, we take the road south towards Kefraya,
where suddenly we’re among vineyards dominated by snow-capped mountains.
Chateau Kefraya, a fortress-like building dating back to the 1940s
that’s surrounded by pine and cedar trees, could easily pass for
Switzerland. It’s hard to believe the war in Syria is only 12 miles
away

Local Pride

The Lebanese – long time consumers of whisky, arak and French wine – are
“slowly waking up to pride in Lebanese wine,” says Ixsir’s Hady Kahale.
Internal tourism is growing too. Kefraya gets 50,000 visitors per year.
There’s clearly a lot of money around, as evidenced by state-of-the-art
winemaking equipment at Kefraya and Ixsir.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Demonstrators attacked the headquarters of a Lebanese television channel in Beirut on Tuesday night, protesting against a broadcast they said was insulting to Lebanese Shi’ite cleric Imam Musa al-Sadr. Around 300 people, some carrying flags of Lebanon’s Shi’ite Amal Movement, tried to storm the headquarters of Lebanese channel al-Jadeed, throwing fireworks, stones […]