By NAJIA HOUSSARI -- arabnews.com --  BEIRUT: Jean Obeid, the veteran Lebanese MP and former journalist who twice ran for the presidency, died on Monday from complications related to COVID-19. He was 81. Obeid, born in the village of Alma in northern Lebanon, was minister of education, youth, sports, and foreign affairs in the governments of Rafik Hariri. In 1987, during the civil war, he was abducted by gunmen in West Beirut and released unharmed after four days. A member of a prominent Maronite family, Obeid had a successful career as a journalist before entering politics. He was an MP from 1991 until 2005, and returned to parliament in 2018 when he won a seat representing Tripoli. Lebanon began gradually relaxing its three-week virus lockdown on Monday despite a high number of COVID-19 cases.

The Ministry of Health recorded 54 deaths and 2,081 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, bringing the cumulative death toll to 3,616 and the total number of cases to 319,917 since Feb. 21, 2020. Arab News obtained a report by the Crisis Observatory at the American University of Beirut (AUB) referring to three alarming indicators that suggest a new wave of COVID-19 is underway. According to the report, positive polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests reached 22 percent during the past two weeks, the highest rate in the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) advises against the return to normality or semi-normality before this percentage drops to 5 percent or below.

By BY BILL MURPHY JR. -- inc.com -- Imagine if you only ever had one job since you were a teenager, and it went on to make you extraordinarily wealthy and powerful--far beyond most people's wildest dreams. In other words, imagine being Mark Zuckerberg. Now, imagine that you might be flat-out wrong about something that could ultimately mean the end of Facebook. Here's why this matters now. There are only a few forces on the planet powerful enough to take on Facebook. National governments might be among them, maybe. But otherwise, we're looking at the other tech behemoths. As it happens, one of those behemoths, Apple, has all-but declared war on Facebook, while another, Google, looks as if it's gearing up to join the fight. My colleague Jason Aten has done a great job recently chronicling the battle:

Apple is set to change its privacy rules so that app developers will have to request permission before tracking most users. That runs squarely into Facebook, where the entire business model basically involves tracking users in order to sell "personalized ads." Who tells you 'no?' Apple's move could be an existential threat; at least Facebook seems to think it is. I can't predict how it will all turn out. But, a lot of people could have predicted something like this would eventually happen. The reason? It's simple, and it's a byproduct of Zuckerberg's meteoric success. In short, like every highly successful leader, Zuckerberg has always run the risk of surrounding himself with people who owe their success to him, and who therefore can't effectively tell him, "no." Because of his background -- again, having only really done one thing: built Facebook -- he's probably even more at risk of this phenomenon than many others. In retrospect, it was obvious from the beginning, 17 years ago this month.

by naharnet.com — Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday called for organizing a U.N.-sponsored international conference on Lebanon. “The collapsed situation of …

By Yardena Schwartz -- nbcnews.com -- — As Israel outpaces Western nations in its Covid-19 vaccination effort, it has become a role model for a world aching to return to life as it once was. The country has inoculated a third of its population of 9 million in little more than a month, and over 80 percent of those 60 and older. But if you ask most Israelis, the country's handling of the coronavirus has been anything but a success story. A recent poll by the nonpartisan Israel Democracy Institute found that just 24 percent of Israelis approve of the government's management of the crisis. While Israel boasts the world's highest vaccination rate, it is also battling the world’s third-worst infection rate. Despite the vaccination campaign, January was Israel's deadliest month, with 1,433 people dying from the virus — a third of the 5,000 fatalities since the pandemic began. Israelis have also experienced some of the world’s strictest and longest national lockdowns, with residents mostly confined to their homes for a cumulative four months.