NNA – Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi, affirmed, on Sunday, that the President of the Republic is the Master of the …

By TOM BROWN FOR MAILONLINE -- A former mayor of El Kharayeb has gone on trial in Valencia for organ trafficking. The five defendants allegedly tried to buy a liver from illegal immigrants in Spain. But a volunteer working with undocumented immigrants reported them to police. An Algerian woman was ruled out as a candidate because she was pregnant.

A millionaire Lebanese politician has gone on trial in Spain for organ trafficking after he allegedly tried to buy a liver from poor illegal immigrants. Hatem Akouche and four other defendants appeared in court in Valencia for trying to buy part of a liver for a transplant. The 69-year-old — who has an incurable liver disease — is believed to have solicited vulnerable people for part of their liver in exchange for cash and work.

Akouche — former mayor of the Lebanese city El Kharayeb — allegedly did this via two of his nephews, who managed a marble company in Novelda, Alicante Province, Valencia Region. But the men were caught when a volunteer for an NGO working with undocumented immigrants learnt of an Algerian woman who had been contacted by them.

by Najia Houssari - arabnews.com -- BEIRUT: Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister and the Saudi ambassador in Beirut underlined the importance of the Taif Agreement at a conference on Saturday. Ambassador Walid bin Abdullah Bukhari organized a forum at the UNESCO Palace in Beirut that brought together over 1,000 political, economic, diplomatic, and academic figures. It included those who participated in drafting the Taif Agreement, veteran diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, who played an important role in reaching the pact, Walid Jumblatt, the head of the Progressive Socialist Party, MPs from the Free Patriotic Movement and presidential candidate Suleiman Franjieh. Thirty-three years since the signing of the agreement, which ended 15 years of civil war in Lebanon, under Arab and international sponsorship, Saudi Arabia, the main player in reaching the agreement, reaffirmed its keenness on national reconciliation in Lebanon.

The forum was held against the backdrop of a campaign launched against the Taif Agreement by Hezbollah and its ally, the FPM. Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the forum is proof that Saudi Arabia still stands by Lebanon, and the large attendance shows that everyone agrees that the agreement is still the best one to implement. Bukhari reiterated the keenness of Saudi Arabia and its leadership on Lebanon’s security, stability, and unity. “We urgently need to embody the formula of coexistence addressed by the Taif Agreement, i.e. preserving the irrevocable Lebanese entity and conserving Lebanon’s identity and Arab belonging.” Speaking about the French initiative to hold a national dialogue between the Lebanese parties, Bukhari noted that France, headed by President Emmanuel Macron, stressed that there is no French intention to review the Taif Agreement or amend the constitution.

by middleeasteye.net -- Washington's top Middle East diplomat has said Lebanon will likely have to bear more pain before the impoverished Mediterranean country forms a new government, with the potential for a complete "unravelling" of the state. "Things will have to get worse before the public pressure mounts in such a way," that parliament selects a new president, Barbara Leaf, assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, said at an event hosted by the Wilson Center in Washington DC on Friday. Former President Michel Aoun's term ended on Sunday without a replacement, leaving the country with a power vacuum with no president and a caretaker government as it grapples with what the World Bank says is one of the world's worst economic crises in the past 150 years. "I can see scenarios where there is disintegration…where there is just an unravelling," Leaf said. "I somehow imagine a lot of these parliamentarians packing their bags and going off to places in Europe where they have property."

It took more than two years for Aoun, former commander of Lebanon's army during the 1975-1990 civil war, to be selected president in 2016. Lebanon's sectarian system reserves the presidency for a Maronite Christian, the prime minister's office for a Sunni Muslim and the Speaker of Parliament role for a Shia. Aoun and his party, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), allied themselves with Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah, providing the group with Christian backing in parliament. Aoun’s tenure saw Lebanon slide into an economic crisis that has pushed 80 percent of the country into poverty, while a massive explosion at Beirut's port in August 2020, widely blamed on corruption, killed more than 200 people and left swaths of the capital destroyed.