By: cyprus-mail.com/

It is estimated that the number of tourists from Lebanon will exceed 35,000 this year, with most arrivals having involved short breaks throughout the year, according to the Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO).

“Wedding tourism from this country has increased by 30 per cent and we are optimistic about further growth,” the CTO said in a news release on Monday.

With Lebanon a priority market among the Arab countries, CTO organised a workshop with a focus on wedding tourism and short breaks in Beirut in early December.

The workshop involved 18 Cypriot companies (hotels and tour operators), more than 55 Lebanese travel agents and over 100 tourism professionals and other agents from Lebanon.

CTO aimed to contact and get to know new companies and further develop existing partnerships, as well as creating new ones, with the aim of increasing the flow of tourists from that market, according to the statement.

Lianna Brinded

German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced something pretty surprising this week — she is going to "drastically decrease" the number of refugees entering Germany.

And it turns out the real reason for this is pretty simple.

The change of heart is a big deal because originally Merkel pledged to not put quotas on the number of refugees entering Germany since the EU is currently experiencing the worst refugee crisis since World War II.

Her willingness to accept refugees had helped earn her a nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize and the distinction of being Time's Person of the Year.

But this chart, which was embedded in Goldman Sachs' massive Fornightly Thoughts report this week, holds to key as why Merkel has had to signal a compromise over her open-door policy with her critics from within her own conservative party.

By IBT UK Reporter | International Business Times

Outside of the Middle East, Lebanon is more closely associated with conflict than beauty pageants, so it is no surprise that 23-year-old Valerie Abou Chacra missing out on the top spot at the 2015 Miss World competition was greeted with such outrage on social media.

Lebanon has had a difficult year in 2015, with war raging in Syria, a dire refugee crisis and widespread political malaise, so when Chacra gave a stirring speech at the December 19 event calling for "love and serenity" it was shared and received far more widely than the usual scope of the global beauty pageant.

By ZEINA KARAM

BEIRUT (AP) — Samir Kantar, a Lebanese who was convicted of carrying out one of the most notorious attacks in Israeli history and spent nearly three decades in an Israeli prison, has been killed by an Israeli airstrike near the Syrian capital, the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah group said Sunday.

Hezbollah said Kantar, known in Lebanon as "The Dean of Lebanese Prisoners" for being the longest-held prisoner in Israel, was killed along with eight others in the strike in the Damascus suburb of Jaramana Saturday night.

Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV said two Israeli warplanes that violated Syrian airspace fired four long-range missiles at the residential building in Jaramana. It aired footage of what it said was the building, which appeared to be destroyed. Kantar's brother, Bassam, confirmed his "martyrdom" in a Facebook post on Sunday.

Syrian state news agency SANA said Kantar was killed in a "terrorist and hostile missile attack on a residential building." SANA did not mention Israel in its report on the strike, which it said killed several people.