By Reuters:  Eight suicide bombers
attacked a Lebanese Christian village on Monday, killing five people and
wounding dozens more, in the latest violent spillover of the five-year-old
Syrian war into Lebanon. Security sources said they believed Islamic State was
responsible for the bombings in the village of Qaa on Lebanon’s border with
Syria, but there was no immediate claim of responsibility.

A first wave of attacks involved
four suicide bombers who struck after 4 a.m., killing five people, all
civilians.  The first bomber blew himself
up after being confronted by a resident, with the other three detonating their
bombs one after the other as people arrived at the scene. The Lebanese army
said four soldiers were among the wounded.

A second series of attacks,
involving at least four bombers, took place in the evening as residents were
preparing the funerals of those killed earlier. Two of the four bombers blew
themselves up outside a church, security sources said. Nobody was killed.
Medics put the number of injured at 15. “It is clear from the pace of
explosions that we have entered an episode from hell,” Wael Abu Faour, the
health minister, told Reuters.

by dailystar.com.lb Hanan Khaled| The Daily Star

Lebanese politicians Monday denounced the quadruple suicide attack
that killed at least six people and wounded 19 in a northeastern Lebanon
border town at dawn, expressing solidarity with its residents. Four Lebanese soldiers were among the wounded in the suspected ISIS bombings in the predominately Christian village of Al-Qaa.

“Once
again the hand of evil and disloyalty extends to Lebanon by targeting
innocent civilians,” Defense Minister Samir Moqbel said in a statement. He
emphasized that all security agencies in Lebanon “are ready to stand
united to defend the land of the nation, to confront the terrorists and
to pursue and foil their plans to ignite sedition in the country.”

Foreign
Minister Gebran Bassil told reporters after he inspected the site of
the attacks that the village has been “defending Lebanon for the past
few years… Al-Qaa has been repelling terror attacks targeting the
country.” Bassil warned that the threats posed by the attack
shouldn’t be leniently addressed, citing previous reports that
extremists are seeking to reach Lebanon’s coastal areas to target other
countries.

“Lebanon is defending the world similarly to how Al-Qaa is defending Lebanon,” he added.

ISIS
has been seeking to declare an Islamic emirate in Lebanon to serve as a
geographical extension of the group by setting up cells in the northern
areas of Tripoli, Dinnieh, Akkar and a part of the Bekaa Valley.

“It’s
an open war with terrorists… We shouldn’t forget that they are still
occupying a part of our land [on the outskirts of Arsal],” the FM said.

iloubnan.info

The
QS University Rankings for 2016 included 10 Lebanese universities among
100 ranked universities in the Arab region, Byblos Bank’s Lebanon This
Week reported.

The American University of Beirut (AUB) was the highest ranked
institution in Lebanon and the second highest ranked in the Arab world,
with an overall score of 98.5 points out of a maximum of 100 points. It
was followed by the Lebanese American University (LAU) in 15th place
(71.5 points), Université Saint-Joseph de Beyrouth (USJ) in 17th place
(69.7 points), the University of Balamand in 28th place (55.3 points),
the Lebanese University in 31st place (49.7 points), Notre Dame
University in 38th place (42.8 points) and the Beirut Arab University in
39th place (42.6 points). Also, the survey ranked the Holy Spirit
University of Kaslik within the 61-70 range regionally (30.8 points),
while it ranked the Hariri Canadian University (26.7 points) in the
71-80 range and Université Antonine (23.1 points) in the 91-100 range.

The Lebanese University and USJ’s rankings improved by three spots
year-on-year, the largest increase among the top 10 universities in
Lebanon, while AUB’s rank was unchanged year-on-year. In contrast, the
rank of the Beirut Arab University regressed by seven spots from the
2015 survey, followed by NDU (-5 spots), the University of Balamand (-3
spots) and LAU (-1 spots). Further, the rank of the Holy Spirit
University of Kaslik was in the 51-60 range and the rankings of the
Hariri Canadian University and Université Antonine were in the 81-90
range last year.

By Derek A. Issacs with reporting by Rania Ghanem and Shikrallah Nakhoul posted in businessnews.com.lb

Local business stakeholders expect
little or no change from the UK’s decision today to leave the European
Union (EU). The value of imports from the UK stands at $525 million (up
from $305 million in 2006) with exports last year at around $40 million
(compared to $30 million in 2006).

Mohamed Choucair, Chairman
of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture
said: “We do not expect any change in our bilateral trade relations.” He
expects that the UK will maintain its trade agreements and will not
impose custom duties on the local products entering its market.
Food
industries including wine, preserves, and canned food are the main
products exported to the UK. “We believe that the UK market will remain
open for local products,” he said.

By Robert Fisk

Major General Herzl ‘Herzi’ Halevy was at it again a few days ago.
Another war in Lebanon, the Israeli chief of the country’s ‘Military
Intelligence Directorate’ threatened, would turn it into “a country of
refugees”.  Not very original, when you come to think of it, because
Lebanon already hosts around 350,000 Palestinian refugees from the land
which Herzi calls Israel and a further million refugees from Syria. In
total, that’s about a fifth of the entire population of Lebanon. The
Lebanese might be forgiven for yawning. Haven’t we been here before?

Well, yes, as a matter of fact, we have. But first the usual context.
Herzi was talking to the annual Herzliya conference in Israel where
chiefs of staff and military intelligence bosses warn their countrymen
of the massive firepower which may be unleashed on them by Hezbollah,
al-Qaeda, Isis, Arab states with whom they don’t have a peace
treaty, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all. Herzi was marking the 10th
anniversary of the last Lebanon war – the third Lebanon war, according
to the Israelis, who would have to explain why there have really been
five Lebanon wars (1978, 1982, 1994, 1996 and 2006) if they stuck with
the facts. But there you go. 

By Joseph A. Kechichian

Beirut: Although Speaker Nabih Berri insisted that reaching an
agreement on a new electoral legislation would allow Lebanon to end a
lingering presidential vacuum, his 19th convocation of the National
Dialogue failed to produce a new initiative, though everyone planned to
revisit pending concerns at a later date.

On Tuesday, rival
leaders returned to the Speaker’s mansion at Ain Al Tineh, even if March
8 and March 14 politicians harboured low expectations for reaching an
accord. Berri’s proposal for a new voting system called for holding
early parliamentary polls before the election of a president.


Siniora’s stand Former
Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, who represented the Future Movement at
the National Dialogue sessions, renewed his party’s insistence for the
election of a president first to end the current paralysis. He and
others rejected any tampering with the Constitution.