by gulfnews.com -- Bassam Za za --Tripoli: A Lebanese coordinator gave his girlfriend a ‘memorable birthday present’ when he dressed up in a corona-isolation suit and forklifted himself to her balcony where he knelt down and proposed. Alike most countries imposing lockdown procedures fighting the pandemic outbreak, Lebanese citizens had just started their third house-quarantine week when 32-year-old Jinane Merhabi had an unparalleled birthday gift when she was proposed to in a ‘dreamlike way’. On April 4 [Jinane’s birthday] her sweetheart, Mohammad Samad, put on a corona-isolation suit and coordinated with a special crane to drive him to Tripoli’s famous Azmi Street to forklift him to the second-floor balcony where he knelt down before his captivated girlfriend and proposed. “Oh my God … I still cannot believe this. I have known him for three and a half years … he is bold and crazy. He has done wild things that nobody ever thought of doing but I didn’t see such a proposal coming. I knew he was up to something for my birthday but zero expectations for a proposal,” Jinane told Gulf News. An office coordinator, who lives and works in Tripoli, Samad has his name saved as ‘majnoon’ [crazy in Arabic] on Jinane’s mobile list of contacts.

by apnews.com -- By FRANCES D'EMILIO -- VATICAN CITY (AP) — Easter offers a message of hope in people’s “darkest hour,” Pope Francis said, as he celebrated a late-night vigil Mass Saturday in St. Peter’s Basilica, with the public barred because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pontiff in his homily likened the fears of current times to those experienced by Jesus’ followers the day after his crucifixion. “They, like us, had before their eyes the drama of suffering, of an unexpected tragedy that happened all too suddenly,″ Francis said. ”They had seen death and it weighed on their hearts. Pain was mixed with fear” about their own lives. “Then, too, there was fear about the future and all that would need to be rebuilt.” Francis added: “For them, as for us, it was the darkest hour.” Easter vigil Mass in the basilica is among the Vatican’s more evocative ceremonies. Celebrants enter in darkness, except for candlelight. The pontiff holds a tall Easter candle, which is lit for him. Then the basilica’s lights are turned on, in a sign of joy. But this night, when the basilica was illuminated, all its emptiness was painfully visible, and the footsteps of the pope and his small entourage on the marble floor could clearly be heard as they walked in slow procession toward the altar.

by thearabweekly.com -- BEIRUT - The assassination of Hezbollah commander Ali Mohammed Younes on April 4 in southern Lebanon could be related to internal feuds with the militant pro-Iran party especially in dealing with certain thorny issues such as ​​financial corruption, Lebanese political sources said. According to the sources, Younes was a known second-rank figure in the party in charge of counter intelligence. He worked on the ground in south Lebanon and his main task was to hunt spies and infiltrators. Younes was assassinated somewhere between the villages of Qaqaiyat al-Jisr and Zutar al-Gharbiyeh in southern Lebanon, an area entirely under Hezbollah’s control. Hezbollah was quick to circulate information saying that Younes was ambushed by assassins who came aboard three cars but observers in southern Lebanon ruled out the possibility that anybody from outside the area, including Israel, would ambush a leading figure of Hezbollah in that Lebanese location simply because Hezbollah knows exactly who is travelling in and out of the region.

While Hezbollah sought to steer suspicion for the killing of Younes towards Israeli intelligence (the Mossad), a resident of the area said that Hezbollah’s account of the assassination did not seem accurate. He noted that a person was accompanying Younes when he was shot and that this person was injured and is now being treated in a hospital in the region out of the sight of the official Lebanese authorities. Lebanese political sources suggested that Younes could have been the victim of internal personal or financial feuds within the party that led to his liquidation in that manner. The fact that the Hezbollah commander was shot and stabbed with a knife made the attack look more like an act of revenge.

by arabnews.com — NAJIA HOUSSARI —BEIRUT: Lebanon on Saturday reported 10 new cases of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), pushing the total number …