by Joseph A. Kechichian - gulf news -  Tokyo: Lebanon’s Speaker Nabih Berri scheduled for Thursday and Friday new plenary sessions to “pave the way for extending parliament’s term” after promises to introduce and agree on a new electoral law fell by the wayside. The last parliamentary elections in Lebanon, held under the universally rejected 1960 electoral law, were organised in 2009. Ever since, the legislature circumvented the process by extending its own mandate on two separate occasions, first on May 15, 2013 for 17 months, followed on November 5, 2014 by another duly approved extension for an additional 31 months (that is until June 20, 2017), ostensibly because deputies were deadlocked over the sorely needed new law.

According to an unnamed member of parliament quoted in the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat, “The session will pave the way for extension”, which is opposed by President Michel Aoun and his parliamentary bloc [the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM)], as well as the Kataeb Party. “This means that Speaker Berri is once again taking the initiative after he had left the mission of finding an electoral law to the political forces, especially to the new cooperation channels between Aoun and Prime Minister Sa‘ad Hariri”, both of whom have failed to reach a consensus on what to do next. The speaker has said that it is necessary to issue a law extending parliament’s term before an April 15 deadline, “or else the legislative authority would slide into vacuum”, which he is unwilling to accept because failure to doing so would result in a complete collapse of one of the last remaining institutions still standing.

Though he expected an electoral miracle before April 15, Nabih Berri is aware that such an accord is nearly impossible at this late hour, given existing gaps among stakeholders. Hezbollah, one of the country’s leading parties, has repeatedly called for an electoral law that is fully based on proportional representation that will consider Lebanon to be a single district. It favoured proportionality and was willing to tolerate several large electorate districts but this was not particularly serious since just about all of the remaining parties rejected the model.

by Al Jazeera Rima Majed Rima Majed is a researcher and a PhD Candidate in Political Sociology at the University of Oxford - This article represents opinion of the author

Beirut, Lebanon - Lebanese parliamentary elections are expected to take place in May 2017. The last elections were held eight years ago, in 2009. Although the parliament term in Lebanon is  four years, elections have been postponed twice since 2013 under the pretext of deadlock over electoral law, fear of instability and security unrest. In November 2014, in an unconstitutional move, the Lebanese parliament renewed its mandate for a second time, granting itself an additional 31 months, ending in June 2017.

The country had already entered a political deadlock in May 2014, when the presidential seat became unoccupied after the end of former President Michel Suleiman's term. This situation continued for two years and half until the election of President Michel Aoun in October 2016. This recent election of a president of the republic gave hope that institutional life was gradually coming back to Lebanese politics. However, despite the high hopes, most indicators today suggest that the parliamentary elections will be postponed again, given that the main leaders of the country have not yet been able to agree on an electoral law that satisfies everyone's wishes. However, regardless of the date the elections will take place or the law that will be adopted; the majority of Lebanese voters will probably chose the same traditional sectarian leaders and their proposed candidates once again.This will happen at a time when corruption has reached unprecedented levels, leaders have proved - yet again - their unwillingness to solve any of the most basic and pressing problems such as electricity supply, housing, water or unemployment.

The re-election of the same leaders will happen while the majority of the Lebanese are unable to find a job in the country, have no access to good public education or hospitalisation and are struggling to make ends meet. This is a time when neoliberal policies have become clearly entrenched; privatisation is discussed as the only solution for the electricity crisis, bank loans are being promoted as the answer to the housing crisis and wealth is more and more concentrated in the hands of a few. In fact, the upcoming elections will be the first parliamentary elections after the rubbish crisis of 2015 when the #You_Stink movement managed to mobilise tens of thousands of angry Lebanese on to the streets, who accused the political elites of drowning the country in rubbish and corruption. Despite all these conditions, the majority of the people will vote again for these same politicians.

by Eliza Relman - business insider - Article represent opinion of author

It took nearly 20 years for Roger Stone to realize his dream. Since the 1980s, the self-described "dirty trickster" who's been in and around Republican politics for half a century, had made it something of a mission to make Donald Trump president. Despite parting ways with the Trump campaign in August 2015 — Trump says he fired Stone for hogging the media spotlight; Stone says he quit because Trump attacked Megyn Kelly — Stone has remained one of Trump's most loyal true believers. And it's Stone's communications with a Russian hacker and his alleged communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that have put him in the crosshairs of the FBI as investigators look for connections between Trump's campaign and Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Stone says he has nothing to do with Russia, but messages he has sent to the hacker accused of a cyberattack on the Democratic National Committee, as well as Stone's own provocative statements, continue to raise questions. "It's rare that I’m accused of something that I’m not guilty of," Stone told the New Yorker in 2008. Now it's up to investigators to test that.

Stone and the Russians

On August 12, nearly a year after he left Trump's campaign and a few weeks after WikiLeaks published the first set of stolen emails from the DNC, Stone reached out through a private message to a Twitter user named "Guccifer 2.0." Earlier that August, Stone had written on the alt-right website Breitbart, then controlled by Steve Bannon, that it was "a hacker who goes by the name of Guccifer 2.0" — and not the Russians — who hacked the DNC and fed the documents to WikiLeaks. But experts quickly linked Guccifer 2.0 back to Russia and concluded that the so-called hacker was the product of a Russian disinformation campaign. In his messages with Guccifer 2.0, Stone asked if the hacker could retweet his Breitbart column about the 2016 presidential election possibly being "rigged." Guccifer 2.0 responded: "i'm pleased to say that u r great man. please tell me if i can help u anyhow. it would be a great pleasure to me." Stone later told Business Insider that the interaction he had with the hacker was so "brief and banal" that he "had forgotten it. "Not exactly 007 stuff even if Gruccifer [sic] 2.0 was working for the Russkies," Stone said. "Meaningless." Stone's tweets in the days after his communications with Guccifer 2.0 have raised questions about whether he knew in advance that Podesta's emails would be imminently published by WikiLeaks.

By Benjamin Zheng- Business Insider

The Department of Homeland Security's ban on large electronics has been in effect for a week. The ban, which covers nine airlines, forbids passengers from bringing any electronic devices larger than a cell phone into the cabin of non-stop flights to the US from 10 airports in the Middle East and North Africa. The ban has been an unmitigated headache for the airlines and their customers. 

Business travelers and their laptops are generally inseparable. Many passengers use time in transit to work. The laptops might also contain sensitive or confidential information companies don't want getting out.  The ban and resulting headaches have become a major concern for the affected airlines because repeat corporate business travelers and their immense spending power are their single most important block of customers.

As a result, several of airlines including industry heavyweights, Emirates, Qatar Airways, Etihad, and Turkish Airlines have come up with a series of work arounds to counter the ban. Based on the latest rankings from the respected consumer-aviation website Skytrax, these four airlines also represent the first-, second-, sixth-, and seventh-ranked carriers in the world. Emirates, was the first of the major airlines to offer a response to the conundrum. On March 23, Emirates announced a service that will allow passengers to use their laptops and tablets until it's time to board their US-bound flights instead of checking them with their luggage. Prior to boarding, passengers hand over their laptops and other electronic devices to staff members to who pack them in secure boxes before storing them in the cargo hold.

Operations at Emirates, one of the major carriers affected, has gone relatively well apart from some slow arriving bags at US airports, airline president Sir Tim Clark told Business Insider. "Our aim is to ensure compliance with the new rules, while minimizing disruption to passenger flow and impact on customer experience," Clark said in a statement. "Our new complimentary service enables passengers, particularly those flying for business, to have the flexibility to use their devices until the last possible moment." Even though Emirates' work around doesn't quite offer a perfect solution for the problem, it does mitigate a good portion of the hardship created for passengers by the ban.