by thearabweekly.com -- By Samar Kadi-- Recent studies indicated that most shisha smokers in Lebanon are women and young Lebanese are among the heaviest shisha smokers in the world. - “It is a nice pastime, especially when we sit with friends in cafes, chatting while having a smoke,” said Nada Cherif. Cherif said she was never enticed to smoke cigarettes but she is a regular user of nargile — also known as shisha, hookah or water pipe — which has become an epidemical trend in Lebanon. Cherif insisted that she is not a tobacco addict. “I have friends who smoke the nargile more than once a day and alternate with cigarettes,” she said.

Lebanon has been ranked among the world’s highest tobacco-consuming countries in recent years. In 2015, a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) put Lebanon third for the highest cigarette consumption per capita. “It is no surprise that we have the highest cancer rate in the region,” said Nadine Chatila, director of communications at the American University of Beirut Medical Centre (AUBMC). “The problem is that indoor smoking is allowed in many public places. Shisha is easily accessible and you can even have it delivered to your home at a very cheap price." AUBMC’s cancer department estimates that 8,000 cases of cancer are reported in Lebanon annually. Dr Nagi Saghir, professor of haematology-oncology and director of the breast cancer centre at AUBMC, has stated that cases are divided equally between the sexes and that, among the 4,000 cases of cancer in women, 1,700 are breast cancer. Oncologist Dr Joseph Makdessi noted that cancer prevalence has risen globally, not only in Lebanon, with lung cancer being the most common type of the disease. “Almost 90% of lung cancer cases are related directly to smoking,” Makdessi said. “Among females, cases of breast cancer are the highest, whereas prostate cancer is the most common among men.” While smoking could be one of the main causes for lung cancer, other factors are relevant for the increase in cancer cases, Makdessi said.

by arabnews.com —BEIRUT: A Lebanese citizen imprisoned in Iran, Nizar Zakka, announced in a message he sent from Tehran’s Evin prison that …

By Eric Levenson, CNN, 

The college admissions scheme revealed Tuesday is the largest of its kind ever prosecuted, federal prosecutors said, and features 50 defendants across six states, millions of dollars in illegally funneled funds and a handful of the country's most selective universities. But at its core, the alleged scheme is remarkably simple -- and brazen. Cheat on standardized tests. Bribe the people who decide which students get admitted. All the while pretending that money was for charity. "I'll speak more broadly, there were essentially two kinds of fraud that Singer was selling," US Attorney Andrew Lelling said, referring to William Rick Singer, the figure at the center of the scheme. "One was to cheat on the SAT or ACT, and the other was to use his connections with Division I coaches and use bribes to get these parents' kids into school with fake athletic credentials," Lelling said at a press conference in Boston. A total of 50 people were charged in the case. Those arrested include two SAT/ACT administrators, one exam proctor, nine coaches at elite schools, one college administrator and 33 parents, according to Lelling. Here's how the plan worked, according to prosecutors.

Cheating on the ACTs and SATs

Of course, students who score higher on standardized tests such as the ACT and SAT are more likely to get into selective colleges. Given that, Singer facilitated cheating on those exams for students whose wealthy parents paid for his services. Singer pleaded guilty in court on Tuesday to four federal charges and admitted that the case against him was accurate. According to the indictment, he arranged for a third-party -- generally Mark Riddell, who is charged with two conspiracy counts -- to secretly take the test in the students' place or replace their responses with his own. How did Riddell allegedly take the tests without being noticed by the test administrators? Well, prosecutors said, Singer bribed them. Igor Dvorskiy, who administered SAT and ACT tests in Los Angeles, and Lisa "Niki" Williams, who administered the tests at a public high school in Houston, are both accused of accepting bribes to allow Riddell to take the tests. Both are charged with conspiracy to commit racketeering, according to the indictment. Parents who hired Singer as part of the scheme allegedly paid between $15,000 and $75,000 per test, the indictment states. CNN has reached out to Riddell, Williams and Dvorskiy.

by hrw.org —Aya Majzoub — The sentencing of Lebanese TV correspondent Adam Chamseddine to three months in jail for “insulting” a security agency …