From yalibnan.com

A Progressive Socialist party delegation met with President Michel Aoun on Wednesday, where talks focused on the controversial electoral law, amid reports saying that the PSP leader MP Walid Jumblatt who favors the 1960 electoral law  headed to Baabda today ,  to meet with president Michel Aoun Jumblatt was accompanied by a  Progressive Socialist
Party delegation that included  MPs: Wael Abou Faour, Ghazi al-Aridi,
Akram Shehayyeb, Alaa Terro and Henri Helou. Jumblatt reportedly  planned to suggest some amendments to the 1960 electoral law which has been rejected by Aoun and his key ally Hezbollah  who prefer the proportional representation law

Aridi, who spoke to reporters after the meeting, said that  sectarianism and proportional representation law   do not together Insisting on diversity and partnership, Aridi remarked:
“If the standards are to adopt proper representation (for the upcoming
parliamentary polls), we hope that the opinion of the Druze community is
taken into consideration.”

Earlier, reports have said that the PSP delegation
carries ideas of amendments that Jumblatt believes would develop the
1960 law, and help “save everyone’s face.” They added that the MP is expected to put forward a
suggestion to create a new governorate that includes the Chouf and Aley
areas, and to reconsider the distribution of MPs in Beirut, North Lebanon, West and North Bekaa to ensure proper representation at parliament. Lebanon is divided into eight governorates (mohafazah): Akkar, Baalbek-Hermel, Beirut, Bekaa, Mount Lebanon, Nabatieh, North Lebanon and South Lebanon.

thenational.ae

ISTANBUL // When a gunman stormed the Reina nightclub on the
banks of the Bosphorus and opened fire on more than 600 revellers
welcoming the New Year, 21 of the 39 people killed were Arab nationals.
And although the suspect has finally been arrested after more than two
weeks, many business owners are wondering how much damage the enormous
death toll of Arab tourists will do to Istanbul’s tourism industry. “It
has been a really terrible season, and it does feel like there are less
Arabs tourists here,” says Mehmut, the owner of a cafe on one of the
side streets off Istiklal Avenue, an area catering to Arab tourists with
many signs in Arabic.

“I hope it feels this way because of the winter, and not because of what happened at the Reina.” Over
the past year, a string of terror attacks and increasing political
instability in Istanbul has caused the city’s once thriving tourism
industry to slow to a mere trickle. European – particularly German and
Russian – tourists who once enjoyed the rich historical sites of
Istanbul and the pristine beaches of the Aegean and the Mediterranean,
have increasingly opted not to visit Turkey, instead flocking to beaches
in Croatia and the Greek islands.

In
the absence of European tourists, Arab tourists – largely from the Gulf
states, but also from Lebanon, Egypt and North Africa – have been
keeping Istanbul’s tourism industry going. With plenty of natural
beauty, religious tourism, and – most importantly – largely visa-free
entry requirements, Istanbul and other cities in Turkey have remained
popular holiday destinations tourists from the Middle East. Tour
guides say visitors from countries in the region that have faced their
own share of political turmoil in recent years, are less concerned about
the risks of instability than European visitors.

By  Akin Oyedele The White House is worth $397.9 million, according to the real-estate listings firm Zillow. The home of every US president except George Washington gained 15% in value during President Barack Obama’s eight years in office, according to a release published Tuesday. Zillow said it first calculated the White House’s worth in 2009 […]

By independent.co.uk

Video footage of rare Syrian bears foraging for food has emerged from Lebanon, where they are believed to be extinct. A group of young people hiking in the Bekaa Valley in December took
the mobile phone video from a distance, in which a small cub can be seen
running around in the snow with its mother. The cub is estimated to be less than a year old, as after that
offspring fend for themselves. It is thought the bears must be
responding to unusual cold or a threat to be active during the winter.

The video has excited conservationists
as it marks the first sighting of the species in the country since
1958. The nearest other known location for the bear is 300 miles (500
kilometres) away in Turkey.  Assad Serhal, director general of the Society for the Protection of
Nature in Lebanon, called the finding “historic” and a “positive
development”. The Syrian bear was first identified in Lebanon in 1828, but changes
to its habitat and excessive hunting drove the species to extinction
about 100 years after it was first discovered.  There are just one female and one male left in the country at a
reservation in the Chouf mountains. Attempts to get the pair to mate
have been unsuccessful.

The Syrian bear, one of 16 types of brown bear worldwide, lives in
mountain ranges across the Middle East. Its conservation status is
generally classified as vulnerable in Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Azerbaijan,
Armenia, Turkmenistan and Georgia, but the species is officially extinct
in Lebanon, Israel, and as of 2009, in Syria.

by dailyStar.com.lb

Police released a photo of the bloodied detainee

by BBC- Turkish police have arrested the main
suspect in the New Year’s Eve attack on an exclusive nightclub in
Istanbul after a huge manhunt. Abdulkadir Masharipov is believed to have mounted the assault on the Reina club which left 39 people dead. The Uzbek national is said to have been caught in Istanbul’s Esenyurt district.

So-called Islamic State (IS) said it was behind the attack, saying it was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria. The
gunman arrived at the club by taxi early that Sunday, before rushing
through the entrance with a long-barrelled gun he had taken from the
boot of the car. He fired randomly at people celebrating the new year.

It
was the culmination of a huge police manhunt: a raid on the Istanbul
suburb of Esenyurt that finally caught the alleged Reina attacker, named
as Uzbek national Abdulkadir Masharipov. Photographs show him with a heavily bruised face, wearing a grey T-shirt and being held by his throat. There
had been fears that the gunman had managed to escape Turkey, perhaps to
territory held by so-called Islamic State, which said it was behind the
attack.

Compiled news by Naharnet and BBC

Middle East Airlines chairman Mohammed al-Hout had on
Saturday warned that “birds that gather on the tarmacs of Beirut’s
international airport pose a serious threat,” noting that “preserving
passengers’ safety is the priority. “I sent the hunters and we have to choose between MEA’s
birds (planes) and seagulls… Unfortunately, we are obliged to
exterminate these birds,” Hout added, revealing that he was behind a
controversial decision to send hunters to the airport’s vicinity to gun
down seagulls and other types of birds.

Activists from the You Stink
campaign and the civil society staged a protest Sunday inside Beirut’s
airport against the nearby Costa Brava garbage landfill and the manner
in which Lebanese authorities have addressed the presence of seagulls
threatening flight safety around the airport. “We call for eliminating the main reason behind this
crisis, which is the Costa Brava landfill,” You Stink activist Lucien
Bourjeily said, referring to the seagull problem. “For Flight Safety, Remove The Landfill”, read banners carried by the protesters.

Hunters have been spotted shooting
dead birds said to be threatening planes at Beirut’s international
airport, an environmental group has claimed. The men were spotted
on a nearby rubbish dump blamed for attracting birds days after their
increasing presence was called an “emergency”. It is feared a bird
strike could cause a crash, but the Lebanon Eco Movement have said
shooting the seagulls breaches an international conservation agreement. It is unclear who the hunters are. Some
activists called the shooting a “massacre”, while the Lebanon Eco
Movement released a statement condemning the killings “under the eyes of
the security forces” and in light of the government’s vow “to preserve
the environment”

The statement accused them of violating the International Convention for the Protection of Aquatic Birds. Transport Minister Yusef Fenianos promised to deal with the problem
earlier this week, after local media reported a Middle East Airlines
flight encountered a large flock of birds as it landed on the airport’s
west runway. It was suggested an increase in devices emitting bird
of prey calls around the airport to scare off the animals could solve
the issue. But groups said this would not go far enough, and
called for the dump to be closed – which it was on Thursday, less than a
year after it opened.

The decision to shoot down seagulls has angered
environmentalist groups, which described the move on Saturday as an
“extermination campaign.” The step has also sparked a storm of criticism
on social networking websites. The hunting of seagulls violates the Agreement on the
Conservation  of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds, environmentalists
have warned. On Friday, Transport and Public Works Minister Youssef
Fenianos announced after an emergency meeting that foreign experts have
suggested the use of pyrotechnics, flare pistols, percussion bombs,
auditory repellents and chemical repellents to keep birds away from the
airport.

By Joseph A. Kechichian

Beirut: Like hard-working bees everywhere, Lebanese bees pollinate
essential vegetables and fruits such as broccoli, asparagus,
cantaloupes, cucumbers, pumpkins, blueberries, watermelons, almonds,
apples, cranberries, and cherries. They do a whole lot more, of
course, as they also produce honey, which they consume during winter
season as food, though humans are equally fond of the amber. It is
a little known fact that Lebanon is one of the only countries in the
world where bees can find natural sources of nectar all year long. Because
of the diversity of its altitudes (from 0 to 3000 meters), its position
on the Mediterranean, its 4 distinct seasons, and the diversity of its
flora, flowering seasons occur almost all year long. As a result, Lebanon’s honey is one of the best in the world.

As described in the Old Testament, “Your lips drip nectar, my bride;
honey and milk are under your tongue; the fragrance of your garments is
like the fragrance of Lebanon” (Solomon 4:11), which confirms that this
country which is mentioned frequently in Scriptures — has a lot more to
offer than gloom and doom. Remarkably, honey production has grown
in recent years though and, far more important, local beekeepers have
garnered international attention. Not only did they develop unique
techniques to improve yields, they also guarantee year-long production
of pesticide-free honey.

According to the Lebanese Ministry of
Agriculture, the number of beekeepers increased by 14 per cent from the
end of 2011 to mid-2015 (from 5,546 to 6,340 beekeepers), while the
number of hives increased by 41 per cent during the same period (from
194,520 to 274,390 beehives). Honey production increased by 35 per
cent between 2011 and 2015 (from 1,360 tonnes to 1,920 tonnes), for an
estimated value of $38 million (Dh139.58 million) for the last year for
which statistics were available.