MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Lebanon is hoping to boost its trade with Russia threefold to some $1.5 billion within two to three years by increasing exports, Lebanese Minister of Economy and Trade Raed Khoury told Sputnik on Wednesday. "Now, the trade is around $500 million on Russia's side and Lebanon $10 or $20 million. It makes me happy if we go to eventually in 2-3 years to around $1.5 billion and Lebanon [exports] go to around $700 million for our products," Khoury said on the sidelines of a business summit hosted by the Russian-Lebanese Business Committee in Moscow. He explained that Beirut would like to boost its exports of agricultural products, such as olive oil and juices. "If we reach this figure and we will try to work to have this figure in front of us — we'll be very happy," the economy minister added.
Russia's embargo on EU imports imposed in 2014 briefly increased trade relations between the two countries. However, the bilateral trade volumes have since been dropping, amounting to some $540 million last year, compared to $800 million in 2014, according to the Russian Federal Customs Service data. The minister explained the drop by the recent dip in energy prices, with oil and gas making up much of bilateral trade, as well as the political turmoil in Lebanon which left the country in paralysis with no president for two years. The impasse ended in late 2016 with Michel Aoun becoming the new president."The reason for [the drop in value of the total trade turnover] is two things. First, 70 percent of this amount comes from importation of fuel, gas and oil. The prices went down, as you know, so the value went down, although the amount has not gone down. So this is the first reason- because the price of oil went down. The second reason is because Lebanon's GDP has not been increasing lately because of the socio-political events," Khoury explained.
Lebanese designer Amal Azhari opened the Lebanese Fashion Week in the presence of the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. (Supplied)
by Joseph A. Kechichian, Senior Writer - gulf news
Beirut: A few days after Lebanon President Michel Aoun suspended all parliamentary activities for a month, the publicly lauded but privately condemned decision garnered fresh controversies, as Speaker Nabih Berri hailed the Maronite Patriarch Mar Bisharal Al Rai’s latest position on the electoral law. The powerful patriarch considered the controversial 1960 electoral law as the best available alternative to resolve the country’s ongoing political crisis, and prevent granting another extension to the present parliament.
Berri criticised the latest hybrid electoral law format proposed by Free Patriotic Movement chief Gibran Bassil, who has asked his ally Lebanese Forces (LF) leader Samir Geagea to give it a “chance”, after the LF and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt voiced reservations about it. Jumblatt lashed out at the proposal, which involves sectarian voting in the first round, as “divisive” and the product of a “sick mentality”. A similar idea was initially proposed by Nabih Berri several months ago, but it was no longer deemed useful.
The latest proposal regarding the electoral law would see voting taking place in the current 26 districts with voters only allowed to vote for candidates from their own sects. Two candidates for each sectarian seat would thus qualify for the second round during which voting would take place in 10 newly-defined electoral districts and according to a non-sectarian proportional representation polling system.
Few noticed that this latest series of battles was set off shortly after an official visit to Lebanon by Mahmoud Abbas, the doddering old Palestinian president who long ago lost his legal electoral mandate in the occupied West Bank but who remarked before he left Beirut that Palestinians were dedicated to crushing “terrorism”. Yet again, nobody took him very seriously. In fact, he was in earnest. What he really came to Lebanon to arrange was an all-out struggle by Fatah — the same Fatah which Abbas himself represents — and other groups against a small but alarmingly active bunch of Islamist Palestinians and Lebanese who had taken over the al-Tiri suburb of Ein el-Helweh.
They are — or were — led by a man called Bilal Badr, who in the past few hours appears to have settled in a different area of the camp under the protection of Fatah el-Islam, whose leader is another gang leader called Osama el-Shehabi. His Sunni Muslim Fatah el-Islam (“Conquest of Islam”) was responsible for a series of militant Islamic State (IS) group-like assaults on the Lebanese army in the north of the country in 2007 — a number of soldiers had their throats cut with knives — and its black and white flag has a hauntingly similar design to that of the real IS. The fact that IS’s own flags do actually hang in several of Ein el-Helwe’s streets — as they have briefly in the northern Sunni Muslim city of Tripoli — only makes the situation more disturbing. Many Palestinian suicide bombers have in the past set off from Ein-el-Helweh for Iraq and have actually died attacking the Americans there.
Population Movements to Keserwan - The Khazens and The Maans
ما جاء عن الثورة في المقاطعة الكسروانية
ثورة أهالي كسروان على المشايخ الخوازنة وأسبابها
Origins of the "Prince of Maronite" Title
Growing diversity: the Khazin sheiks and the clergy in the first decades of the 18th century
Historical Members:
Barbar Beik El Khazen [English]
Patriach Toubia Kaiss El Khazen(Biography & Life Part1 Part2) (Arabic)
Patriach Youssef Dargham El Khazen (Cont'd)
Cheikh Bishara Jafal El Khazen
Patriarch Youssef Raji El Khazen
The Martyrs Cheikh Philippe & Cheikh Farid El Khazen
Cheikh Nawfal El Khazen (Consul De France)
Cheikh Hossun El Khazen (Consul De France)
Cheikh Abou-Nawfal El Khazen (Consul De France)
Cheikh Francis Abee Nader & his son Yousef
Cheikh Abou-Kanso El Khazen (Consul De France)
Cheikh Abou Nader El Khazen
Cheikh Chafic El Khazen
Cheikh Keserwan El Khazen
Cheikh Serhal El Khazen [English]
Cheikh Rafiq El Khazen [English]
Cheikh Hanna El Khazen
Cheikha Arzi El Khazen
Marie El Khazen