by Jamie Nimmo

The company behind pioneering heart-monitoring technology praised by President Obama has landed in London as part of a scheme to nurture start-ups from troubled Lebanon. 

CardioDiagnostics, founded in the US in 2012 by Lebanese entrepreneur Ziad Sankari, is behind LifeSense, the world’s first cloud-based cardiac monitor — a wearable device that evaluates heart activity and can alert the hospital in case of emergency.

At a White House event in May, Obama told Sankari: “You are the face of change. You have the power to drive creative solutions to our pressing challenges.”

CardioDiagnostics is one of 15 start-ups on a six-month programme in London called the UK-Lebanon Tech Hub, a joint scheme by the Government and Lebanon’s central bank. 

The aim is to break into European markets before the entrepreneurs return to conflict-strewn Lebanon to grow their businesses.

FILE - In this undated file photo made available Sept. 25, 2011, Hannibal Gadhafi, son of the recently ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi

By HWAIDA SAAD and RICK GLADSTONE

BEIRUT, Lebanon — When the youngest son of the former Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, was arrested in Lebanon last week in connection with the unsolved disappearance of Moussa al-Sadr, an exalted Lebanese Shiite cleric who vanished while visiting Libya in 1978, speculation sprouted about new information concerning one of the biggest whodunits in the treacherous politics of the Middle East.

On Monday, the mystery deepened with news that the son, Hannibal Qaddafi, may have been forcibly — and illegally — brought to Lebanon against his will in a plot involving the son of a colleague of Mr. Sadr’s, Sheikh Mohammad Yacoub, who disappeared along with Mr. Sadr and a third companion in Libya nearly four decades ago.

Israeli artillery has fired on areas of south Lebanon after two rockets were shot into Israel, the Israeli army has said. "The Israel Defence Forces have responded with targeted artillery fire following the rockets that hit Israel earlier today from southern Lebanon," the army said in a statement on Sunday. Two Katyusha-type rockets were fired from south Lebanon into Israel, a Lebanese security source said.

"Two Katyusha rockets were fired from a Lebanese village 5km from the border with Israel," the Lebanese source told the AFP news agency. Israeli military sources told AFP that one rocket crashed into the Galilee region and the impact of another was heard. No casualties were reported. The Lebanese national news agency NNA said Israel fired nine rounds of artillery at the south. The rocket fire from the Hezbollah heartland of south Lebanon followed the killing of Samir Kantar, a militant in the Shia group notorious for the 1979 murder of three Israelis, including a four-year-old girl.

By philip issa, associated press

Lebanon's trash collection crisis which set off huge protests this summer is entering its sixth month, but you would hardly know it in Beirut.

Not only are the capital's streets kept relatively garbage-free, but the country's politicians appear in no hurry to resolve the catastrophe.

Instead, trash is pushed to the periphery, piled in hills near the mouth of the city's river, attracting a fly infestation that has plagued Beirut's easternmost residents since early November.

On the other side of the river, trash mounds along the bank reach the height of roadway overpasses.

"The situation is disastrous," said Rachid Rahme, a physician at Lebanon's Sacre Coeur Hospital. "I don't like to get involved in politics, but I'm sure they could find a way to deal with it rather than dealing with it in this way."