reuters

Five Czech citizens who went missing in Lebanon in July are now with the Lebanese security services, a security source told Reuters on Monday.

The Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the five, who went missing in eastern Lebanon last year, were found late on Monday.

"We will send a plane for them as soon as possible," the Czech foreign minister, Lubomir Zaoralek, on a visit to Oman, said on his Twitter account.

The disappearance, which Czech authorities treated as a possible kidnapping, may have been related to organized crime and the drugs and arms trade, Lebanon's interior minister said in July.

Asharq Al-Awsat

London- Iran has taken advantage of the freedom powered by the Lebanese media and the absence of effective supervision over the content of Radio-TV broadcasting to establish a wide-ranging network of media space and ground stations, in addition to the printed and electronic media.

The campaign that was launched last week against Saudi Arabia, from two local newspapers, at the same time and with the same content, indicates the size of Iranian infiltration in the Lebanese media.

Moreover, Iran is exploiting the weakness of the Lebanese media opposing it and the deterioration of its financial conditions in order to bring top journalists to its side. It also reinforces its pro-media, which is the only media that does not suffer from the financial crisis that hit the Lebanese media in general, and especially the media opposing Tehran.

Wild Banana

Tanya Lewis

Next time you bite into a slice of watermelon or a cob of corn, consider this: These familiar fruits and veggies didn't always look and taste this way.

Genetically modified foods, or GMOs, inspire strong reactions nowadays, but humans have been tweaking the genetics of our favorite produce for millennia.

While GMOs may involve splicing genes from other organisms (such as bacteria) to give plants desired traits — like resistance to pests, selective breeding is a slower process whereby farmers select and grow crops with those traits over time.

From bananas to eggplant, here are some of the foods that looked totally different before humans first started growing them for food.

reuters

BEIRUT - The leader of al Qaeda's Syrian wing tried unsuccessfully at a recent meeting to convince rival Islamist factions to merge into one unit, several insurgency sources have told Reuters.

Abu Mohamad al-Golani, head of the Nusra Front, even suggested he was willing to change the name of his group if the others, including the powerful Ahrar al-Sham organization, agreed to the deal, the sources said.

But he made clear that Nusra would not cut its ties with al Qaeda, and its allegiance would remain to Ayman al-Zawahri, who took over as leader after U.S. Navy SEALS killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.Much was riding on the outcome of the meeting, which the sources said took place about 10 days ago.