by arabnews.com — LONDON: New Lebanese Information Minister George Kordahi reiterated on Monday his desire to restrict press freedoms, saying the media …

Beirut (AsiaNews) -- Fady Noun -- Lara Noun, 38, can't believe it. Wife of a lawyer from Michmich (Jbeil) and mother of four, the young woman heads the communication department at the Ministry of Finance. She is still astonished by the extraordinary success of a procession that brought a group of people humiliated by politics, crushed by the high cost of living, to travel in prayer for some six hours and 16 kilometres between Jbeil and the Annaya monastery. She admits that the event began modestly last July with a Facebook post that went viral. As she put it, she candidly spoke her mind about Lebanon’s days of misfortune, noting that “the road between Jbeil and Annaya can be done without petrol, that the check-in at the monastery is free, and that the blessings that one could take home were also free.” Still, she would never have believed that what she imagined would become reality. In August, the wife of a Tripoli man touched by the grace of the intercession of Saint Charbel asked her by the phone when the "procession" she had announced would take place.

For Lara Noun, something got lost in the communication. She had used the term "massira", which means "procession” in Arabic, as a figure of speech for a “journey of prayer” for Lebanon’s recovery. However, over a few days, a call for an exclusively “national, religious and unifying” procession between Jbeil and Annaya was launched on Facebook. “I didn't sleep the night the appeal was posted,” Lara Noun says. “The phone rang non-stop. Support was pouring in. In the days that followed, with the agreement of Father Tannous Nehmé, the superior of the monastery of Annaya, and the municipality of Jbeil, a committee was set up to organise the procession: meeting points, transport, banners, candles, Lebanese flags, pictures of Saint Charbel, road logistics, media coverage, water stops. The date of 25 September was picked for the sake of convenience. “Everything fell into place as if by magic; no one owes me anything, I'm a very ordinary woman," Lara Noun explains. She got support from all over Lebanon, as well as the diaspora: the United States, Australia, South Africa, Bahrain, Jordan, Spain, Sweden, etc.

By Gareth Browne -- Mena.com -- A man injured in the Beirut port explosion has succumbed to injuries 13 months after the explosion. Ibrahim Harb, 35, suffered serious head injuries after 2,500 tonnes of ammonium nitrate exploded at the port in August last year, leaving him in a coma for three months. He then spent almost a year at a rehabilitation centre, drifting in and out of consciousness until his family moved him home last week. He was there for three days before dying on Monday night. Mr Harb was laid to rest in Beirut on Tuesday, in an emotional funeral. His death raised the number of people killed in the port explosion to at least 215.

“May God punish whoever was behind it. What else can we say?” his brother Mazen told AP. Mr Harb, an accountant, had been working at his office in downtown Beirut when the blast happened. He leaves behind a fiance. Ahmad Mroue, who runs the Lebanese NGO Maan, which works with victims of the blast, said that the death coming on the same day as the suspension of the port blast investigation only underlined the unwillingness of Lebanon's political class to see justice served. “It’s really sad that we lost another person. Unfortunately, the politicians in this country count them only as numbers, they don’t look at them as human beings. They deserve justice,” he said. “What happened yesterday, just before Ibrahim died was really sad because again we see how politicians are treating the investigation and the judge – the main thing they are doing now is blocking justice.”

by arabnews.com — LONDON: Sawt Beirut International on Tuesday won the live streaming rights to broadcast the Lebanese Basketball Championship for the …