DAMASCUS (Sputnik) — According to the source, the blast occurred near the building of a former police station. All three passengers were killed in the blast and were identified as Syrian nationals according to preliminary data, he added. “An off-road vehicle exploded in the Aarsal town … Three people were killed, it is difficult yet to say how many were injured. It is likely […]

(AP) — Arab leaders held their annual summit Wednesday, poised to endorse key Palestinian positions in the conflict with Israel — a signal to US President Donald Trump that a deal on Palestinian statehood must precede any Israeli-Arab normalization. The Arab summit was to adopt a series of resolutions, several dealing with the Palestinian issue. […]

By MiddleEastMonitor Lebanon must abide by three conditions in order to regain the support of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Al-Hayat newspaper reported a source saying yesterday. Beirut must condemn the Iranian interventions in Arab countries, commit to international resolutions, especially resolutions 1701 and 1559 regarding illegal weapons, and to condemn Hezbollah’s intervention in Arab countries […]

by gulfnews – Joseph A. Kechichian, Senior Writer Beirut: In a major development, Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri secured a
cabinet approval for the 2017 state budget, the country’s first since
2005. According to the Minister of Information, Melhem Riachi, the draft
included a deficit, which was not revealed before the proposal reached
parliament for final discussion and ratification. While Riachi
asserted that “the deficit was greatly decreased,” a previous draft
leaked to media outlets forecast a $5.2 billion (Dh19.1 billion)
shortfall, or a little less that 10 per cent of gross domestic product. Riachi
further revealed that the Minister of Finance, Ali Hassan Khalil, will
hold a press conference to announce all of the details, provide actual
numbers including the projected deficit, along with, expected revenues
after President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Hariri return from the
Arab Summit in Jordan.

The Lebanese economy recorded significant
losses in recent years, largely attributed to the ongoing wars in Syria,
which frightened away Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) investors. GCC
governments banned their nationals from travelling to Lebanon, which
meant that the country lost hundreds of thousands of visitors, most of
whom where generous spenders that lubricated the economy. Notwithstanding
political spin, cabinet members bickered over every item, as
differences between rival groups emerged. On Tuesday, the Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Jibran Bassil affirmed that “new elements to promote
tax justice and abolish protected monopolies were introduced” in the new
budget although few understood what that actually meant.

He told his Free Patriotic Movement bloc that three of his demands,
including tax on real estate profits, bank revenues, and on individual
financial interest gains, were approved. He claimed that no new taxes
will affect the poor although this too was unclear without concrete
numbers. Lebanese officials struggled to produce this draft
budget, which falls short of addressing sorely needed structural reforms
to limit corruption, especially with respect to the ballooning
electricity bill. The latter swallows between $ 1.5 and 2 billion
year-in and year-out, without providing the energy required, which
obligates consumers to subscribe to private suppliers as well. Lebanese
politicians relied on ad hoc spending since 2005 without any oversight
that, in the words of the London-based Economist, “often benefit[ed]
special interests within the government’s various factions rather than
paying for public-infrastructure investment.”

by naharnet – President Michel Aoun on Monday appointed former education minister Elias Bou Saab as international cooperation adviser, the Presidency said in a statement. Bou Saab, who represented Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement in Tammam Salam’s government and has good ties with Gulf officials, will be tasked with “communicating with countries and international bodies, organizations […]

by Michael Karam – National AE 

Leaving Lebanon at the best of times can make you feel like
you’ve been on an assault course. For some reason – maybe a burst of
zeal in the wake of the appointment of a new president – the unsmiling
security at Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport has become more
rigorous and less efficient. Passengers already endure five
passport checks and two luggage scans, and now those travelling to the
United Kingdom out of the Lebanese capital must put all electronic
devices bigger than a mobile phone, such as laptops and tablets, in
checked luggage. I don’t know how much time this will add to the general
airport nightmare and I’m not even sure what difference it makes to
passenger security; for surely a bomb in the hold will do as much damage
as a bomb in the cabin.

My
first reaction was that Lebanon only has itself to blame. Overall
security measures at the relatively new terminal building have been
criticised in recent years, especially as it is widely known that
Hizbollah, the uncompromising Shia pol­itical party, wields huge
influence at the airport. Then again, other countries with less shady
reputations, the UAE being the most striking example, are affected by a
similar US ruling on carry-on devices, so who knows? But
is it really such a big deal? There has always been a hard and fast
rule – often from swivel-eyed friends – that you never check in your
laptop. I’ve done it twice. The first time nothing happened and the
other time British Airways lost, but eventually found, my bag.
Admittedly it was a bore to be without my computer, but I still reasoned
that I was supremely unlucky and still work on the theory that the risk
of damage, loss or theft is greatest only when taking a connecting
flight when there is more opportunity for something to go wrong.

In any case, now that it is a requirement, airlines are going to bend over backwards to see that nothing goes wrong. Emirates is already taking steps to ensure passengers flying to the US can use their devices right up to the departure gate. But
this didn’t stop Facebookers and the Twitterati from exploding with
outrage and indignation at the new rulings. “What are we meant to do on a
14-hour flight without an iPad?” “How are we meant to work without our
laptops?” and “How would the kids sit still without their devices?” Now I
can rant and rage with the best of them, but on the issue of device
addiction, I throb with the Luddites – even through, if I am being
honest, I also spend too much time staring at my own phone. And it is
probably because of this that I can’t help but feel that, while this
enforced down time makes no sense, it is, if you think about it, really
quite harmless. I almost welcome it.

by Áine Cain We measure temperature using Farenheit. We’re not about the metric system. We tip. We tend to do things a bit differently in the States. So, what sets US apart from the rest of the world when i Americans are always on their phones, but rarely make calls “In Europe, people prefer to […]

In private, Mark Cuban has started discussing his role in
national politics with his family. He told Business Insider, for instance, that he spoke with loved
ones about his decision to campaign on the trail for Democratic
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. “We discussed how much of a threat I believe Trump to be,” Cuban
said in an email. “We discussed why it was important to me to get
involved — that if I could have an impact and didn’t try, it
would have left me guessing forever.” And, as Cuban said, his family feels “like we started on the
right path” to “have a platform and voice for the future.” Cuban, 58, is a self-made billionaire businessman and the owner
of the Dallas Mavericks. And he seems more serious than ever
about running for president. Cuban refrained from engaging much in politics before the 2016
campaign cycle. But in the past two years he has openly flirted
with a White House bid,
teasing journalists with
tantalizing words about his aspirations.

It wasn’t long ago that Cuban was shutting down questions about
whether he’d seek the presidency one day, flatly rejecting the
notion, as he did at the September presidential debate. But something changed. It was, as Cuban put it, “obvious”: the
election — unpredictability — of Trump. “What I do depends on how things play out for the country,” Cuban
said referring to a 2020 attempt at unseating Trump. Like Trump, Cuban introduced himself to American households first
as a prominent businessman and later through a reality-TV show.
He had no formal history in politics, only suddenly emerging on
the national political stage last year. His strategy for gaining
political prominence was oddly similar to Trump’s — deliver hot,
unadulterated takes on cable TV, outlets like CNBC, Fox News, and
CNN, and on Twitter.

Yet Cuban does not embrace the comparison. “He talked about running for office for 30 years,” Cuban said. “I
started talking about politics this year, after avoiding them the
last almost 20 years, because I thought it was important to do
so.” In conversations with Business Insider, Cuban’s longtime friends
said they were initially surprised to see Cuban get involved
politically, but they added that they could certainly now
envision him entering the fray in 2020. And while it would be a
climb to the White House for the tech titan, campaign experts
have laid out a path Cuban could take to find himself in the
Oval Office.