By

Sarah Townsend

Lebanon is in a state of economic paralysis. Crippled by political
stalemate (the country has been without a president for two years), an
inundation of refugees combined with a region-wide economic slowdown and
a subsequent drop in remittances from its sizeable diaspora has hit a
nation powerless to implement the reforms needed to change course.

The World Bank’s Spring 2016 Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
Economic Monitor puts Lebanon’s real gross domestic product (GDP) growth
last year at a “sluggish” 1.5 percent, downgraded from earlier
estimates following an unexpected decline in economic activity in the
third quarter, when thousands of people held prolonged protests over a
rubbish crisis in Beirut that epitomised the country’s gridlock.

Lebanon’s central bank, Banque du Liban, renewed a $1bn stimulus
package to shore up parts of the economy, in particular boosting tourism
and private lending, said the World Bank.

AP:  Ricky Martin, the world-renowned singer and UNICEF goodwill ambassador,
said that the word “refugee” had lost its value but that the
international community should “open its heart.”

The 44-year-old Puerto Rican spoke during a visit to Lebanon with UNICEF to meet Syrian refugee children.”At this point what we want is to make sure children get their rights.
Some children unfortunately are not going to school,” he said Thursday
in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press in Minnieh, north
Lebanon. News of the visit was released by UNICEF on Friday because of
an embargo.

The singer met with Syrian children in Zahleh, in the Bekaa Valley on
Wednesday, and in the Minnieh informal settlement, near the northern
city of Tripoli, the following day.

Daily Star.com.lb — Nizar Zakka, a Lebanese-American businessman detained in Iran last
September, is due to appear in court Monday, his organization said
Friday. Zakka, founder and Secretary General of the Union of Arab
ICT Associations (IJMA3), has been accused by Iranian media of being an
American spy.
 Zakka disappeared in Tehran in September after
attending a government-sponsored conference at the invitation of
Shahendokht Molafrdi, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s vice president
for women’s affairs, in order to attend the Second International
Conference and Exhibition on Women in Sustainable Development, named
“Entrepreneurship and Employment”.

The IJMA3 statement said that Zakka “is undergoing further physical
and psychological pressure by his captors in an attempt to extract
confessions out of him before his trial kicks off on June 6, 2016.” IJMA3
criticized the Lebanese state for not supporting Zakka, saying “he is
alone in facing an illegal trial… due to his arbitrary arrest and the
conditions and harsh questioning he went through.”

al-monitor.com: The web series format is growing in popularity in the Arab world,
providing youths and others with an uncensored forum for self-expression
and an outlet for social commentary.

“Zyara,”
a Lebanese documentary web series, has been attracting international
attention since December 2015, winning awards at competitions in Bilbao,
Buenos Aires, Dublin, Rome and other European festivals. The first
installment of “Zyara,” which means “Visit,” consists of 12 short
videos, around five minutes each, in which a person talks about his or
her life.

Cinematographer Muriel Aboulrouss, speaking for herself and producer
Denise Jabbour, described Zyara as “depicting intimate portraits of
various Lebanese individuals sharing their hopes and dreams, stories
about love, fears and most memorable experiences.”

middleeasteye.net – Lebanese
police arrested a prominent human-rights lawyer this week after he
accused government officials of complicity in a sex trafficking ring
involving Syrian refugees that was broken up earlier this year, Human Rights Watch said. Police detained Nabil al-Halabi, executive director of the Lebanese Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, in
a dawn raid on his home on Sunday after Interior Minister Nuhad Mashnuq
and a senior adviser filed separate lawsuits for libel and slander of a
public official, both criminal rather than civil offences in Lebanon.

HRW
called for Halabi’s immediate release, criticising both the manner of
his arrest and the jail sentence of up to one year if found guilty.

Dina Hanna, a graduating
senior at the Lebanese American University (LAU), made a simple request
to her University: to provide her grandmother with a ticket to attend
the graduation ceremony. A day later, she received this email instead of
information about her grandmother’s ticket:

Dina was taken aback by the response, and took to Facebook to speak out  against the preferential treatment of relatives of “VIP” Lebanese:

“Dear LAU,

I
have been with you for five years now and will be graduating next week.
Funny thing is, you always were so keen on teaching us values and
principles. Everyday I would walk into your campus, smile, and say hello
to the janitor the same way I do to my teachers. However, this email
shows otherwise.
We have been trying to break stereotypes for so
long. Appearance isn’t everything. You accept students in spite of their
race, appearance and social status. I sent you an email yesterday
asking for an extra ticket for my grandmother to attend my graduation
and I got no reply back. I guess it matters more to send an email that
same week asking students who have ‘important’ parents to inform you so
that you can seat them upfront to ‘retain your image.’

Thank you for all the values you taught us.

MP Robert Fadel during press conference resigns as MP

In Tripoli Lebanon municipal elections preliminary results indicated that none of the 24 seats on the
council were won by members of the Christian or Alawite communities
which were both represented in the outgoing council. One analyst described the result as a sign of growing hardline
sentiment in the mostly Sunni city that is a historic bastion of Sunni
Islamist groups.

daily star.com.lb Tripoli MP Robert Fadel unexpectedly announced his resignation Monday,
hours after unofficial results from the city’s local elections held one
day earlier showed that probably no Christians will be represented in
the new municipal council. Fadel, an independent March 14 figure,
had backed the coalition list that took only six seats against the 18
captured by the ticket supported by resigned Justice Minister Ashraf
Rifi. In a news conference earlier in the day, Rifi had vowed to
preserve Tripoli’s coexistence, despite his list falling short of a
sufficient Christian and Alawite representation.