Lebanese gravitate toward Beirut in rural-to-urban shift

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by dailystar.com.lb -- BEIRUT: When Hamza Shamas first moved to Beirut, he was overwhelmed. The constant bustle of the city’s busy Downtown was a far cry from the quiet village of Boudai, where he grew up. In his village, Shamas’ identity revolved around his tribe, but in Beirut he felt adrift.He settled in Hay al-Sellom, a low-income neighborhood in the southern suburbs made up almost entirely of residents from rural Lebanon, and soon discovered that despite the noise and crowding, his community in Beirut was really a microcosm of village life. More and more people originally from Lebanon’s rural population are finding themselves in cities. The United Nations Human Settlements Program (U.N.-Habitat) estimates that by 2020, 88.6 percent of Lebanon’s population will live in urban areas, the fourth-highest in the Arab world after Gulf states Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain.

The vast majority of this urban shift is focused on Beirut. A 1996 survey by the Social Affairs Ministry and the United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA, found that 20 percent of Lebanese living in the Beirut governorate were born elsewhere, along with 31 percent in the Mount Lebanon governorate, which encompasses Beirut’s dense suburbs. This greatly exceeds the proportion in other governorates, at 8 percent in the north and 2 percent in the south. In the intervening two decades, the proportion of Lebanese migrants to the Beirut area has only increased, said Suzanne Menhem, a sociology professor at the Lebanese University. She is in the midst of a yearlong study of Lebanon’s internal migration, a woefully understudied phenomenon, she told The Daily Star. “We have no statistics,” she said. “We base it on the study and by estimation.” Lebanon’s last official census was in 1932. Since then there have only been scattered studies of the country’s demography. Menhem is still in the initial stages of her project, but she already knows that the trend of rural-to-urban migration is a strong one. “I’m sure that this phenomenon is increasing with time,” she said.

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Saudi Aramco has struck a $15 billion deal with Asia's richest man for a stake in the world's biggest refinery

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by businessinsider.com --Saudi Aramco on Monday said it agreed to acquire a 20% stake in Reliance Industries' refining and petrochemicals business, valued at $75 billion. The $15 billion deal between the world's largest oil producer and Mukesh Ambani, Asia's richest man as well as Reliance's chairman and largest shareholder, gives it a stake in the Jamnagar Refinery in India, which can process an unmatched 1.2 million barrels of crude oil per day. The Saudi oil titan has been investing heavily in refineries as it looks to double its daily processing capacity to as much as 10 million barrels of crude oil by 2030, according to Bloomberg. Meanwhile, Reliance has been seeking to sell assets including cellphone towers and oil and gas fields to lower its debt, estimated at $32 billion by Bloomberg.

Saudi Aramco's profits slumped by 12%, to just under $47 billion, in the first half of this year, it said in its earnings release. "I am truly delighted to welcome Saudi Aramco, one of the largest business enterprises in the world, as a potential investor in our Oil to Chemicals division," Ambani said in a statement. "We have a long-standing crude oil relationship with Saudi Aramco and we would be happy to see this further strengthened with this investment." Reliance agreed to purchase 500,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Saudi Aramco as part of the deal, Ambani said. "Saudi Aramco's interest is a strong endorsement of the quality of our assets and operations as well as of the potential of India," he added.

Al-Rahi Says Lebanese Politicians ‘Experts in Creating Obstacles

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by naharnet -- Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday said Lebanese politicians are “experts in creating and resolving obstacles,” referring to the latest deadlock over the deadly Qabrshmoun incident. “Lebanese politicians have proved anew that they are experts in creating obstacles and paralysis and in resolving the obstacles and resuming activity, after they subject the state and the people to hefty financial and economic losses,” al-Rahi said in his Sunday Mass sermon. Lamenting that “the Lebanese state is living a lethal political rift,” the patriarch said “divisions within the state started with the failure to abide by the 1990 Taef Accord.” The political parties reached a reconciliation Friday in Baabda after weeks of political deadlock in the wake of the Qabrshmoun incident. Cabinet sessions resumed following the reconciliation.

Lebanese cabinet meets after political crisis ends

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BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon’s cabinet met on Saturday for the first time since late June, a day after steps were taken to resolve a political dispute that had paralysed a government seeking to reduce massive public debt. Information Minister Jamil al-Jarrah, speaking on television after the meeting, said an investigation into a shooting incident which sparked the crisis would continue and findings would be reported to the cabinet to decide how to proceed. Two aides to a government minister were killed during June’s shooting, and the minister’s allies accused a rival political party of attempting to assassinate him.

T That party said its supporters had been fired on first and that two of them were injured in the clash. The dispute, pitting Lebanon’s two main Druze leaders against each other and embroiling other parties in the coalition government, focused on which court should hear the case. Lebanon’s dollar bonds rose on Friday as it became clear that the Druze leaders would hold a reconciliation meeting and that a cabinet session might become possible. With one of the world’s heaviest public debt burdens, equivalent to 150% of GDP, the government has made reducing the fiscal deficit and attracting foreign investment a priority since it was appointed in January.

A 2019 budget was approved, months late, in July, with big planned cuts to spending. Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri has said the government is committed to quickly agreeing a 2020 budget that includes further fiscal reforms. Political disputes have derailed economic policy-making for long stretches of the past decade, a period also affected by the war in neighbouring Syria. Lebanon’s growth has slowed and its public debt has grown. Reporting by Angus McDowall; editing by John Stonestreet and Stephen Powell Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Canadian citizen freed from Syria after Lebanese mediation

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BySARAH EL DEEB, ASSOCIATED PRESS -- Details of Baxter's detention were not immediately available but Canadian media reported last December he was detained while in war-torn Syria, where he was traveling seeking an adventure. Canadian officials declined to provide further information, citing privacy provisions. Lebanon's General Security Chief Abbas Ibrahim said Baxter was detained for what Syrian authorities considered a "major violation" of local laws, adding that authorities there may have considered the incident security related. He didn't elaborate. Baxter appeared briefly on a podium, shared with Ibrahim and the Canadian ambassador to Lebanon, Emmanuelle Lamoureux. He was emotional and choked on his words as he tried to hold back tears. "I'd just like to thank the Canadian embassy for helping me," Baxter said, reaching to hold the shoulder of the Canadian ambassador. "I would like to thank the Lebanese for helping me get free. I thought I would be there forever, honestly." He added, wiping his eyes: "I didn't know if anyone knew if I was alive."

Baxter's release marked the second time Lebanon has helped free a foreigner held in Syria. Last month, Ibrahim also mediated the release of an American traveler, Sam Goodwin, held in Syria for two months. The circumstances of Goodwin's detention in northeastern Syria in May were unclear. "I think the work and effort we did shortened the period of (Baxter's) detention and as you see he is on his way to Canada," Ibrahim said Friday before Baxter spoke.

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Lebanese daily publishes blank edition to protest crisis

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by AP -- BEIRUT — Lebanon's only English-language daily protested the country's deteriorating economic and political conditions by publishing a blank edition Thursday, calling it an "alarm bell." Each page of The Daily Star's Thursday edition bore a single phrase referring to one of the country's problems, including government deadlock, rising public debt, increasing sectarian rhetoric and unemployment. The back page had a photo of a cedar tree, a national symbol, with a caption reading: "Wake up before it's too late!" "We are sounding the alarm bell over the many challenges the country is facing," the paper's editor-in-chief Nadim Ladki told The Associated Press. "It's a call on everyone— politicians, activists, ordinary people — to pull together in the same direction to resolve the crises and challenges."

Lebanon has been in the grip of an economic crisis for months, and the government has not met since a June 30 shooting in a mountain village that escalated tensions between the Christian and Druze communities. Rival groups in the Cabinet have been divided on how to proceed with the investigation of the shooting, which left two people dead. The U.S. Embassy issued a statement Wednesday saying it supports a fair and transparent investigation into the shooting in the village of Qabr Shamoun. "Any attempt to use the tragic June 30 event in Qabr Shamoun to advance political objectives should be rejected," the embassy said in an apparent reference to the militant Hezbollah group and its allies, who are seen as pressuring Druze leader Walid Jumblatt.

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