By Sam Dagher

BEIRUT—Monthlong street demonstrations in Beirut over uncollected trash are fast turning into a broad grass-roots movement aimed at what was unthinkable here just weeks before: fixing a political system long viewed as corrupt by most Lebanese.

“I can no longer stand them,” Ghada Merhi said of the country’s current political leaders. The 48-year-old homemaker traveled from the southern city of Sidon to Beirut last weekend to join the protests.

Nearby, George Batruni, a 24-year-old graffiti artist, was busy spraying “freedom” in Arabic on temporary walls encircling a construction site. “We need to free ourselves from sectarianism, parties and this old way of thinking,” he said.

CBS news

A glass Phoenician pendant dating from 600 BC has been returned to Lebanon after being seized by Canadian border officers in Montreal a decade ago. (Canadian Heritage)

By Dean Beeby, CBC News

Canada has returned an ancient glass pendant to its home in the Middle East, a decade after it was seized from an antiquities dealer in Montreal.

The tiny Phoenician pendant, dating from circa 600 BC, was seized by Canadian border officers in 2006, and the artifact has spent 10 years in limbo while art experts, politicians, diplomats and the courts sorted out its rightful home.A Federal Court judge finally ruled in May this year that the pendant should be returned to the government of Lebanon, its country of origin, under a 1970 UNESCO convention that requires cultural property to be repatriated if it was exported illegally.

The newly elected head of the Free Patriotic Movement and Lebanese Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil

AFP and Naharnet: Thousands of supporters of a Lebanese Christian leader staged a protest in downtown Beirut on Friday, demanding a new electoral law and parliament and presidential elections.

Michel Aoun, leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, has urged a heavy turnout at the demonstration, which is separate from recent anti-government protests over the country's ongoing trash crisis.

Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil announced Friday during a mass rally in Beirut's Martyrs Square that the Free Patriotic Movement wants “a free president elected by his people” and “a parliament elected through a proportional representation law.” “We want a free president elected by his people with decisions emanating from his popular and constitutional strength. We want a parliament that does not extend its own term or violate its powers, a parliament elected through a proportional representation law, which can give youths a chance,” said Bassil.

Lucien Bourjeily, a founder of the "You Stink" movement, which has been the driver of anti-government protests the past two weeks, said it was "absurd" that Aoun was protesting against the government which he is part of.

Date of publication: 4 September,