by Maysaa Ajjan, December 15, 2015

BDL Accelerate’s Early Stage Startup Competition saw a staggering number of 22 startups from around the globe pitching to six international judges.

Competing for a $10,000 prize startups hailing from countries including Spain, Italy, Iran, and the UK were left in the wake of Lebanese startup ReAble, who came in first place.

"I think it’s great that you see Lebanese startups competing with international startups that, inevitably, have more access to funding, markets and opportunities," said judge Tara Nehme, one of four judges for the first round.

ReAble is an e-wallet app that helps people with cognitive difficulties manage their finances. They are already operating in six care centers between Lebanon and Canada with a total of 3,000 patients.

By Yorva Tsiakara Al Arabiya News

1-Everybody knows everybody in Lebanon.
2. If you do not salute your friends in three different languages, you cannot be called Lebanese (“hi”, “kifak”? “ca va”?).
3. You need to eat using your fingers and lots, lots, lots of bread!
4. How to start my mornings listening to Fairouz and eating manoushi.
5. Continue with mujadara and fool for a late lunch and knefe for desert.
6. You are supposed to congratulate someone who just had a shower.
7. How to recognize the mellow Beiruti accent from a harsher mountainous one.
8. That “habibi” and “hayati” can express your love but also your irritation.
9. Beirut gets forgotten when it comes to competing with a fancy European capital, even when they have both been attacked by terrorists.

Despite political and infrastructure challenges, Beirut is investing in local tech entrepreneurs and hoping to become the startup capital of the region, Dana Ballout reports. Photo: Getty Images

President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi met the head of Lebanon’s Maronite Church on Sunday, stressing the importance of continuing efforts to achieve national unity and select a president for Lebanon.

Al-Sisi’s meeting in Cairo with Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rahi was also attended by the Lebanese ambassador to Egypt, Khalid Zaiada, according to a presidency statement.

According to the statement, the two sides affirmed the good bilateral relations between Egypt and Lebanon, while Al-Sisi expressed Egypt’s interest in maintaining the stability and the security of Lebanon. He said there was a need to resolve divisions and unite around a president.

Fabrice Balanche, The Washington Institute For Near East Policy

A population shortfall

Syria currently has around 16 million residents — a far cry from the 2010 UN projection that the population would reach 22.6 million by the end of 2015. The birth deficit and excess mortality (violent and natural) have reduced the natural population growth by half since 2011. Even if refugees are added to the current population figure, the total would be only 21.3 million, or 1.3 million less than the prewar projection.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has registered 4.2 million Syrians thus far, but that figure undervalues the actual number of refugees by at least 20%. Some refugees refuse to register for fear of being arrested and taken back to Syria (as is happening in Lebanon), while many wealthy refugees do not see the point of registering. So a more realistic estimate of total refugees is 5.3 million.

NPR news

In a village in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, Syrians from Raqqa have been coming to harvest cannabis for almost a decade. Now, Raqqa is under Islamic State control and the border crossing is more difficult than ever.

One woman recently risked her life for work in Lebanon. Like the hundreds of harvesters in the village, she’s not simply a migrant from Syria — she’s from the ISIS capital of Raqqa, some 300 miles away.

NPR met her during hashish production time in a dimly lit shed on a winding village street. Inside, the smell of the cannabis derivative was pungent, and clouds of olive-green dust filled the air. Um Muhammad used her nickname, meaning Mother of Mohammed, for fear of what Raqqa’s puritanical rulers might do to her family back home if they knew she was working in drugs.

By Nicholas Blanford

Beirut, Lebanon — A paralyzing impasse has left Lebanon without a president for 18 months.

It has crippled the government’s ability to function, and many analysts believe Lebanon faces economic collapse unless a president can be elected and state institutions once again allowed to operate properly.

Now a power-sharing agreement between bitter political rivals – both sons of murdered fathers – could end the impasse.

That’s the easy part of this story. The rest is Shakespearean, with a touch of “The Godfather” thrown in.

The proposed pact, which would install the scion of one dynasty as president, with another becoming prime minister, has reawakened ghosts of murder, assassination, and revenge from Lebanon’s blood-soaked past. It asks a universal political question, one that is felt acutely here: Can the past be put aside for the sake of the future?

By Armin Rosen

One of Muammar Gaddafi’s five surviving children was kidnapped in Lebanon on Friday.

Hannibal Gaddafi, who was the late Libyan dictator’s fifth son, appeared in a video broadcast on Lebanese television exhorting Libyan officials to release information about the fate of Musa Sadr, the prominent Lebanese Shi’ite cleric and communal leader who vanished when Muammar Gaddafi invited him to Libya in 1978.

Gaddafi was only held briefly, and freed near the eastern Lebanese town of Baalbek before returning to Beirut, according to the AP.