by  Rafi Letzter

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are set to face off tonight in
the third and final presidential debate of the 2016 election.

In August, The New York Times
reported that Clinton’s campaign brought in psychology
experts to help her prepare for her first debate with Donald
Trump — which is weird, because that’s not really what
psychologists do.

Here is the relevant part of The Times’ article (emphasis mine):

“Hillary Clinton’s advisers are … seeking insights about Mr.
Trump’s deepest insecurities as they devise strategies to
needle and undermine him … at the first
presidential debate … Her team is also getting advice from
psychology experts to help create a personality
profile of Mr. Trump to gauge how he may respond to
attacks and deal with a woman as his sole adversary on the debate
stage. They are undertaking a forensic-style
analysis of Mr. Trump’s performances in the Republican
primary debates, cataloging strengths and weaknesses as well as
trigger points that caused him to lash out in
less-than-presidential ways.”

There’s not a tremendous amount of information here, but
it’s enough to work from if we want to find research relevant to
the work these psychologists (or “psychology experts”) are
reportedly doing. The strange part is that there isn’t much to
find.

By Gulf news, Joseph A. Kechichian, Senior Writer

Beirut: Nabih Berri, the Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament and the
highest-ranking Shiite leader, accused Free Patriotic Movement (FPM)
founder General Michel Aoun and Future Movement leader and former prime
minister Saad Hariri of seeking to “topple political Shiism” in Lebanon.

His
strong warning — that such an attempt might lead to a new “civil war”
in the country — prompted Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah to distance
himself and his party from ally Aoun in what was little short of a
political tsunami.

The pro-Hezbollah Al Akhbar daily quoted aides
to Berri lamenting Hariri’s choice, which apparently “triumphed [as] he
revived the 1943 pact with Aoun”. “We will be outside of power — among
the ranks of the opposition,” it said, continuing: “What they [Aoun and
Hariri] are doing will lead to a civil war and we will fight to defend
ourselves and Hezbollah!”

by khaleejtimes.com – Dubai offers Lebanese tech start-ups the opportunity to gain global exposure and investment at one of the world’s most influential technology events, Gitex Technology Week. Significant investment is accelerating Lebanon’s $400 million knowledge economy, which could add 25,000 ICT jobs and contribute $7 billion to the country’s GDP by 2025, according to […]

By Huffington Post- Magda Abu-Fadil

Do Middle
East/North Africa (MENA) consumers and producers of media in all their
permutations and across countless platforms fully comprehend what
they’re doing and how they fit in the larger scheme of things?

New York City, N.Y., Oct 14, 2016 / 06:17 am (CNA/EWTN News).-
Christianity is at a crossroads in the Middle East, and only a
dedicated campaign of aid and activism can help Christians survive as a
merciful, forgiving leaven in the region, said the head of the Knights
of Columbus Wednesday.

“Either Christianity will survive and offer a witness of forgiveness,
charity and mercy, or it will disappear, impoverishing the region
religiously, ethnically and culturally,” Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight
and CEO of the Knights of Columbus, said Oct. 12.

His remarks came at the awards banquet for the Path to Peace Award.   Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the apostolic nuncio heading the Holy
See’s permanent observer mission to the U.N., conferred the award in
recognition of the Knights of Columbus’ work in the Middle East and
their humanitarian work throughout the world. The award is granted by
the Path to Peace Foundation, which supports the Holy See’s U.N.
mission.

Anderson outlined three steps to aid the Christians of the Middle East. “The first step on the path to peace in this region has been taken,”
he said. “Christians have forgiven their persecutors. The second step
must be a level of government funding directed to those communities that
have faced genocide, so that they, and their witness, can survive. The
third step must be the creation of real equality regardless of religious
belief.”

Beirut is to get a new modern art museum with a design inspired by Italian campaniles and Arabic minarets.

BeMA, the Beirut Museum of Art,
will feature a slender tower rising 124 metres into the sky, according
to designs by the winner of an architectural competition revealed on
Thursday.

An international jury has selected the Paris-based Lebanese architect
Hala Wardé to oversee the complex on what the project backers describe
as “a symbolically charged site that once marked the dividing lines in
the Lebanese civil war”.

The art will be drawn from 2,300 works from the early 1900s to 2015
including pieces by 470 Lebanese artists collected by Lebanon’s ministry
of culture, and the first exhibition is scheduled to open in 2020. One
thousand works have been chosen to form the basis of the museum’s
permanent collection.

A mother-of-three, Um Omar is in her mid-40s but the wrinkles and sad
look on her face make her seem like a much older, tired woman. She
wants to tell the story of her son but is fearful of retaliation by the
Lebanese military establishment in case she is discovered. Her name
has been changed to protect her identity.

Um Omar’s son was detained and tortured for three years, and then released at the age of 24 with no charges against him. She shares a grievance with many Sunni Muslims in the Middle East these days, not only in Lebanon.

“We
are victims in the war against terror,” Um Omar says, adding that in
her view Lebanese Sunnis have no leader to protect them.

“We are
oppressed – the Sunni leaders are only focused on their interests and
political gains, and they don’t protect us. [Hezbollah leader Sheikh
Hassan] Nasrallah protects the Shia Muslims. Walid Jumblatt protects
his people – the Druze – and our leaders only call for tolerance while
we face a constant crackdown by the government,” she protests, accusing
the military and state security apparatus.

By  Alex Lockie

In the early-morning hours of October 12, the USS Nitze fired a salvo of Tomahawk cruise missiles at
radar sites in Houthi-controlled Yemen and thereby marked the US’s official entry into the conflict
in Yemen that has raged for 18 months. The US fired in retaliation to previous incidents
where missiles fired from Iranian-backed Houthi territory had
threatened US Navy ships: the destroyers USS Mason and USS Nitze,
and the amphibious transport dock USS Ponce.

After more than two decades of peaceful service, this was likely
the first time the US fired these defensive missiles in combat. “These strikes are not connected to the broader conflict in
Yemen,” Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said. “Our actions
overnight were a response to hostile action.”

But instead of responding to the attack with the full force of
two Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, the Navy’s
response was measured, limited, and in self-defense.

Jonathan Schanzer, an expert on Yemen and Iran at the
Foundation for Defending Democracies, said the US’s response fell
“far short of what an appropriate response would be.”

By Julia Tierney

The Syrian conflict has divided and destroyed many of the
country’s most important cities. Should the fighting cease, they will
require massive reconstruction. Yet I spoke with urban development
specialists at the National Agenda for the Future of Syria who fear that
the war-torn cities of Homs and Aleppo will never be rebuilt. Instead,
they will be razed to the ground and another Solidere will be rebuilt in
their place.

Their references to Solidere are intriguing.
Solidere is the name of the private company contracted to rebuild
downtown Beirut after the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990). However,
Beirut’s reconstruction had wide-ranging political and economic
repercussions that offer an object lesson in how not to rebuild a
devastated city.

Beirut- Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces (ISF) announced Tuesday that an operation to smuggle 3.5 million Captagon pills has been foiled. The thwarted drug sneak in was completed under security collaboration among Lebanese and Saudi authorities. Lebanon’s Central Anti-Drug Office of the Judicial Police thwarted the operation, working in cooperation with Saudi authorities, the ISF said […]