By philip issa, associated press

At the eastern edge of the rural Bekaa Valley, where the rocky hillsides
are stippled with cherry trees, a generations-old kinship with Brazil
has imbued two Lebanese villages with a Latino spirit. Lusi and Sultan Yaacoub are home to more than one thousand Brazilian
nationals, many of whom speak Portuguese as fluently as they do Arabic.

The villages are deeply influenced by Brazilian culture, but this is not
apparent at first glance. The Islamic call to prayer reverberates
through the zigzag alleys five times a day and the pale stone houses
resemble any others in the Bekaa Valley.

But residents mix Portuguese and Arabic in nearly every conversation and
the local cuisine is unmistakably Brazilian. Though there are no
official statistics, one municipal council representative said “99
percent” of the community are Brazilian nationals. Almost everyone said
they had lived in South America at some point.

Don’t believe everything you hear.

But,
compounding my lack of awareness, the U.S. Department of State had put
up a roadblock in the form of a Lebanon travel warning. And yet, it
has warnings out for Mexico, Colombia, the Philippines, Turkey, Israel…
the list goes on. I’ve been to Mexico three times this year. Why should
Lebanon be any different? Furthermore, my sister said she was conscious
of where was safe to venture and where was not. Attacks such as the
one in November 2015 have specifically targeted Shiites in the Beirut
suburbs, not tourist areas in the city. I admit that knowledge made me
feel safer.

Paula Astih and Youssef Diab

Beirut-Future Movement is still confounded by the severe loss it
suffered in the municipal elections in Tripoli, the capital of the North
and Lebanon’s second largest city.

Resigned Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi, who fought the elections alone
against a coalition of political parties and Tripoli personalities,
achieved an unexpected victory last month. The shock that Future suffered from compelled its leaders to launch a
campaign of self-criticism to review the mistakes which it had
committed and which had led to a drop in popular support for the
movement – not just in northern Lebanon but also in the capital Beirut
where the results of the municipal polls were disappointing.

Unlike many other political parties, Future, which is led by former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, has admitted to making mistakes. Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq, who is a party member, has
called on the movement to learn from those blunders ahead of next year’s
parliamentary elections. The changes in people’s temperament have not only affected the Future
Movement but also the rest of the political parties from the March 8
and 14 rival camps.

While Hariri hasn’t directly commented on the results of the
municipal elections, the ongoing activity at this residence in Beirut
suggests that he has launched a mission to rectify the miscalculations.

By

Sarah Townsend

Lebanon is in a state of economic paralysis. Crippled by political
stalemate (the country has been without a president for two years), an
inundation of refugees combined with a region-wide economic slowdown and
a subsequent drop in remittances from its sizeable diaspora has hit a
nation powerless to implement the reforms needed to change course.

The World Bank’s Spring 2016 Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
Economic Monitor puts Lebanon’s real gross domestic product (GDP) growth
last year at a “sluggish” 1.5 percent, downgraded from earlier
estimates following an unexpected decline in economic activity in the
third quarter, when thousands of people held prolonged protests over a
rubbish crisis in Beirut that epitomised the country’s gridlock.

Lebanon’s central bank, Banque du Liban, renewed a $1bn stimulus
package to shore up parts of the economy, in particular boosting tourism
and private lending, said the World Bank.

AP:  Ricky Martin, the world-renowned singer and UNICEF goodwill ambassador,
said that the word “refugee” had lost its value but that the
international community should “open its heart.”

The 44-year-old Puerto Rican spoke during a visit to Lebanon with UNICEF to meet Syrian refugee children.”At this point what we want is to make sure children get their rights.
Some children unfortunately are not going to school,” he said Thursday
in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press in Minnieh, north
Lebanon. News of the visit was released by UNICEF on Friday because of
an embargo.

The singer met with Syrian children in Zahleh, in the Bekaa Valley on
Wednesday, and in the Minnieh informal settlement, near the northern
city of Tripoli, the following day.

Daily Star.com.lb — Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese-American businessman detained in Iran last
September, is due to appear in court Monday, his organization said
Friday. Zakka, founder and Secretary General of the Union of Arab
ICT Associations (IJMA3), has been accused by Iranian media of being an
American spy.
 Zakka disappeared in Tehran in September after
attending a government-sponsored conference at the invitation of
Shahendokht Molafrdi, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s vice president
for women’s affairs, in order to attend the Second International
Conference and Exhibition on Women in Sustainable Development, named
“Entrepreneurship and Employment”.

The IJMA3 statement said that Zakka “is undergoing further physical
and psychological pressure by his captors in an attempt to extract
confessions out of him before his trial kicks off on June 6, 2016.” IJMA3
criticized the Lebanese state for not supporting Zakka, saying “he is
alone in facing an illegal trial… due to his arbitrary arrest and the
conditions and harsh questioning he went through.”

al-monitor.com: The web series format is growing in popularity in the Arab world,
providing youths and others with an uncensored forum for self-expression
and an outlet for social commentary.

“Zyara,”
a Lebanese documentary web series, has been attracting international
attention since December 2015, winning awards at competitions in Bilbao,
Buenos Aires, Dublin, Rome and other European festivals. The first
installment of “Zyara,” which means “Visit,” consists of 12 short
videos, around five minutes each, in which a person talks about his or
her life.

Cinematographer Muriel Aboulrouss, speaking for herself and producer
Denise Jabbour, described Zyara as “depicting intimate portraits of
various Lebanese individuals sharing their hopes and dreams, stories
about love, fears and most memorable experiences.”

middleeasteye.net – Lebanese
police arrested a prominent human-rights lawyer this week after he
accused government officials of complicity in a sex trafficking ring
involving Syrian refugees that was broken up earlier this year, Human Rights Watch said. Police detained Nabil al-Halabi, executive director of the Lebanese Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, in
a dawn raid on his home on Sunday after Interior Minister Nuhad Mashnuq
and a senior adviser filed separate lawsuits for libel and slander of a
public official, both criminal rather than civil offences in Lebanon.

HRW
called for Halabi’s immediate release, criticising both the manner of
his arrest and the jail sentence of up to one year if found guilty.