By Naharnet

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea announced Monday that a “middle-ground” solution will be reached regarding the stalled electoral law. “We will end up with a hybrid electoral law, half of which is based on the winner-takes-all system and the other half on proportional representation, and this is what we are working on together with the other parties because it's a solution that satisfies most parties,” Geagea said in an interview with Al-Arabiya Al-Hadath television.

“We and our allies have a lot of cards and we will never accept an extension of the current parliament's term or parliamentary elections under the 1960 law,” Geagea added. Speaker Nabih Berri and Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq have recently warned that the country seems to be heading to parliamentary elections under the controversial 1960 electoral law due to the parties' failure to agree on a new law.

By Nabih Bulos

The bird hunters stepped nonchalantly over plastic bottles, wrappers and other detritus, unconcerned by the noise they made as they patrolled this shabby-looking section of Lebanon's coastline. But, save for the occasional passenger jet lumbering out of Beirut’s international airport a mere 500 feet away, the sky above the Costa Brava landfill was empty. “Not a bird … not a single one,” boasted one hunter. His words marked the end of the third workday for Lebanon’s state-appointed “bird repellers” -- the government’s answer to a months-long trash crisis in this capital by the sea. 

The problem came to a head this month when local media outlet LBC reported a passenger plane from Lebanon’s national carrier, Middle East Airlines, had almost slammed into a flock of seagulls seconds after it landed on  Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport’s west runway.   “Today we face an emergency, there is a danger posed to civil aviation movement by the birds,” Lebanon Transport Minister Yousef Fenianos said in a press briefing. “Thank God, up until now, the flights have not encountered any real danger.”

The birds have been gathering in steadily increasing numbers since March,  when authorities opened a controversial landfill in the Costa Brava, despite warnings by civil society groups, environmentalists and the local pilots’ union of the dangers of establishing such a site so close to the airport. A number of international civil aviation organizations stipulate dumps should be placed more than five miles away from runways.

By Staff Writer, Al Arabiya Lebanese security forces stopped the suicide bomber from detonating his device in one of Beirut’s busiest streets …

By Monty Munford - BBC

One of the most familiar sights in the Middle East is of local citizens gathering in cafes smoking hookah pipes as they drink coffee strong enough to knock out an Arabian horse.

But in Beirut, Lebanon's capital, such traditional pastimes are being given a hi-tech twist.

Not only is the city as hip and cool as any city in the West, Lebanese technology is even changing the nature of the hookah pipe. Finding the ideal tobacco flavour in the bowl at the right temperature is the Holy Grail of hookahs, but a start-up called Nara - Arabic for flame - is solving this with the first "internet of things" hookah pipe. Compact fast-lighting spheres of charcoal are supplemented by a dense battery and internet-connected sensors that measure air flow, moisture and temperature - all vital elements for a perfect smoke.

Nara does its best to keep everything in the bowl perfectly balanced. And the collected data can be used by cafe owners to prepare a personal mix for returning customers. With more than 500 million people across the region enjoying a daily hookah pipe, this is one of several innovations that the Beirut start-up ecosystem is beginning to create.