Khazen – Page 451

Lebanon indicts Syrian officers for twin 2013 mosque bombings: state media

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Reuters – Lebanon indicted
two Syrian intelligence officers on Friday in connection with twin
bombings at mosques in Tripoli in 2013, state media said, the deadliest
attack in the city since the end of Lebanon’s civil war in 1990.

The
two blasts, at the Sunni Muslim Taqwa and al-Salam mosques in the
northern Lebanese city, happened within minutes of each other in August
2013 and killed more than 40 people and injured hundreds.

A
Lebanese military court accused Syrian intelligence officers Muhammad
Ali Ali, of the “Palestine Branch”, and Nasser Jubaan, of the “Political
Security Directorate,” of planning and overseeing the attacks,
Lebanon’s National News Agency said.

The
court ruling announcing the indictment said investigators were still
trying to uncover the names of the officials responsible for giving the
two officers their orders.

In a Lebanese village, civil war scars fade slowly

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By Tom Perry- Reuters

BRIH, Lebanon – It took more than three decades and an unexpected death to bring the village of Brih back together. Nestled
among fruit trees and olive groves in a rugged valley, Brih was
populated for generations by both Christians and Druze – adherents to a
small but influential offshoot of Islam that emerged in the 11th
century.

But when Lebanon descended into civil war in the 1970s,
the two communities found themselves pitted against each other. In 1983,
when the last Christians fled, Druze villagers moved into abandoned
Christian houses; others were razed.

Then last November, Georges
Chalhoub, a 56-year-old shopkeeper whose forefathers had come from Brih
but who had lived near Beirut for much of his life, was killed in a car
accident. Chalhoub had dreamed of moving back to his ancestral village
and so his family decided to bury him there.

Garbage crisis returns to parts of Lebanon

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by AFP

A garbage crisis has returned to Lebanon
with trash piling up in regions north of Beirut months after the
government headed off a political crisis over uncollected waste. The
local council in the suburb of Bourj Hammoud, where a temporary dump is
located, have for the past week denied access to garbage trucks on the
grounds that the authorities had failed to honour a commitment to open a
waste-treatment plant. In
March, after an eight-month crisis which led to mass street protests,
the government approved a “temporary plan” to open two new landfills,
one in Bourj Hammoud to the north and another south of the capital.

Lebanese artist’s death sparks debate on suicide

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by Rayana Khalaf

One in four Lebanese individuals will suffer from mental illness in his/her lifetime. Every 2.5 days, one person commits suicide. This week, 20-year-old business student, dancer and social activist
Nourhan Hammoud ended her life, shocking her community in Lebanese,
where she had many friends and fans. Her death not only only prompted
grief and condolences, but also gave way to judgement and criticism,
sparking intense debate among the Lebanese.

And it drew some much needed attention to the country’s deficient mental health syste Discussion about mental illness in Lebanese society is often hushed
and ridiculed. They are widely viewed as trivial, temporary or
self-healing, taking a backseat to political and economic turmoil that
is a mainstay of the country. Things are even worse for migrant domestic workers, who receive
minimal protection from Lebanese authorities against widespread
abuse. One domestic worker commits suicide in Lebanon each month,
according to Think Progress.

Lebanese still searching for truth on disappeared of civil war

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By Emmanuel Haddad – Middle East Eye

BEIRUT – Hamza
welcomes the Red Cross team in his living room. He smiles and looks at
them trying to make their way through the small room, passing his three
children to reach washed-out sofas. The Red Cross came to take DNA
samples. Hamza’s brother Abbass went missing during the Lebanese Civil
War.

Abbass never came back home from a trip he took from Beirut
to South Lebanon in 1984, while the country was at war. “He was not
really a religious person but he let himself talked into by the leader
of a local militia,” says Hamza. Hamza
lives in Ghobeiry, on the outskirts of south Beirut. His flat is
surrounded by flags of the Shia parties Amal and Hezbollah, which were
fighting against Israel and Christian parties in south Lebanon during
the civil war in the 1980s.

In this pernicious conflict, with fragile alliances, the Amal party fought also against Palestinians and Hezbollah in Ghobeiry. Today,
more than 25 years after the end of the war, militia ex-leaders became
ministers or members of parliament, protected by a law of amnesty.

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Abu Muhammad al-Adnani

By Pamela Engel

The death of the ISIS leader who oversaw external attacks could
have significant implications for the group as it pivots from
seizing territory in the Middle East to launching attacks on
Western targets.

The terrorist group announced
on Tuesday that its spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, had
been killed near Aleppo, Syria. His apparent loss marks a major
blow to a group that’s already struggling for long-term survival.

“This really sends the message out that ISIS is truly on the
decline because he was such a figurehead,” Clint Watts, a fellow
at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and former US Army
officer and FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force special agent, told
Business Insider. “[A]dnani was such a key person for building
support, propaganda, and online recruitment. He was a key
figure.”

Seven Reasons Why Lebanon Survives – And Three Reasons Why It Might Not

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By Paul Salem

This article represents the opinion of the author

Image result for middle east lebanon resilience

Editor’s Note: What happened in Syria has not stayed in Syria. In
2014, Islamic State forces swept back into Iraq, and terrorism,
sectarian tension, and fear have spread throughout much of the Middle
East. One bit of good news is to be found in an unexpected place:
Lebanon. The Middle East Institute’s Paul Salem explains why, so far at
least, Lebanon has survived the chaos emanating from Syria.

***

The small, divided, and weak state of Lebanon has survived the
political, security, and refugee challenges of the Syrian maelstrom next
door – at least so far. The political system has stalled, the economy
has slowed, security has deteriorated, and sectarian tensions have
increased, but state, society and economy have all persevered, and there
has been no major implosion or explosion. I am frequently asked
what some of the reasons for this surprising resilience are and from
where might the major risks for Lebanon still come in the months and
years ahead.

The first source of Lebanon’s resilience is the Taif Agreement of
1989. Taif established a way of sharing power through the political
system and—although famously inefficient at decision-making—all the
major factions have a share and stake in the political system. No major
faction seeks to violently overthrow it. Lebanon’s civil wars in 1958
and 1975 were in large measure rebellions against the domination of one
community—the Maronites—over the state. The civil wars in Syria, Iraq,
Libya, and Yemen, are all also the result of basic and major denials of
representation and inclusion in the state. To paraphrase and alter a
famous political catchphrase, when it comes to major rebellions or civil
wars, “It’s the politics, stupid.” In addition, the Lebanese state,
while oligarchic, sectarian, and corrupt, presides over a fairly free,
open, and pluralistic society with only limited levels of state
repression. And while elections for parliament and president have been
delayed for two years, all major positions in the state have been—and
will be—ultimately decided by elections. There is a vibrant civil
society movement that has protested to profoundly reform the system, but
is a healthy force that maintains some pressure on the oligarchs and
definitely does not threaten system collapse or civil war. The Lebanese
political system is definitely in need of a raft of political reforms,
but the basic inclusiveness of the system remains a key bulwark at
least against serious civil conflict of the kind we see in several
neighboring Arab countries. Indeed, until Syria and Iraq arrive at some
agreed arrangement for representation and sharing of power in the state,
with some measure of democratic accountability, they are not likely to
see an end to civil conflict.

In a country where outages are the norm, a Lebanese town now has power 24/7

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By Hugh Naylor – Washington Post

ZAHLE, Lebanon — Something remarkable
is happening in this Lebanese farming town. Roads are no longer dark at
night, and water is pumped to homes without interruption. There’s electricity here in Zahle, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

And
if you don’t think that’s a big deal, ask residents of just about any
other town in this tiny country. They endure daily outages that can last
18 hours, so they pay exorbitant fees to opportunistic owners of
private electricity generators to get enough power. In fact,
millions of people across the Middle East are dealing with worsening
power cuts. The issue fed the frustrations behind the Arab Spring
revolts of 2011 and presents a daunting challenge for the region’s growing populations, including in war-torn countries such as Yemen and Iraq.

But
in Zahle, a town of about 150,000 in Lebanon’s scenic Bekaa Valley,
residents overcame energy woes with political will and creativity,
offering the rest of the region possible lessons for a way to obtain
reliable and affordable electricity.

Ghosta Festival 2016 غوسطا” رقصت الدبكة

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نشرت بواسطة:Bitajarodفي أخبار خاصة 8 ساعات مضت 0

Nuns cannot wear their habits on our beaches, says deputy mayor of Nice

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Two nuns enjoy the sun on the beach (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

By catholicherald.co.uk

The deputy mayor of Nice has said that nuns wearing habits are no more welcome on his beaches than women wearing burkinis. Speaking to presenter Edward Stourton on the World at One on BBC
Radio 4 yesterday, the Deputy Mayor, Rudy Salles defended the burkini
ban and said: “What is the burkini? There is bikini and there is burka
and the burka is forbidden. When you go to the beach you wear a bathing
suit. You don’t go to the beach as you want. If I want to go on the
beach naked it’s forbidden-I cannot.

“So if you want to go to the beach in a burkini it’s forbidden
because it is a provocation. Religion and the state are completely
separated. Religion is the affair of each one but each one at home, each
one at church, not each one in the street.”

When Edward Stourton asked him: “What about a Catholic nun. Would she be allowed to appear on the beach wearing her habit?” The deputy mayor replied: “No. The same.”