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The Lebanese film “I Want to See” is an experimental work that is an interesting watch. Written and directed by husband and wife, Khalil Joreige and Joana Hadjithomas, they spin a story of a post-war Lebanon. Using part scripted and part documentary style filming and directing, Joreige and Hadjithomas take film to a whole new level.

As we start the film, we see famous French actor Catherine Deneuve, playing herself in the film, talking to her security agent. The first words we hear are, “I want to see,” arguing about her going to Lebanon to film. Then there is a quick transition to meeting Rabih Mroué, the director’s favorite actor who is in all their films.

Then our actors take to the road. But not until we see the actual directors introduce them and tell them to get acquainted. Deneuve and Mroué drive and walk through towns, seeing the destruction and rebuilding taking place. They are on their way to the town that Mroué grew up in. When they get there, rubble fills the streets. Mroué wanted to show Deneuve where he had lived as a child, but he couldn’t find the building; even the road to the house was destroyed. The confusion and anguish on his face makes the scene.

Parisa Hafezi, Sylvia Westall, Reuters

VIENNA/BEIRUT (Reuters) — Iran signaled on Friday it backed a six-month transition period in Syria followed by elections to decide Bashar al-Assad’s fate, a proposal floated at peace talks as a concession but which the president’s foes rejected as a trick to keep him in power.

Sources who described the Iranian proposal said it amounted to Assad’s closest ally dropping its insistence on him remaining in office.

But Assad’s enemies say a new election would keep him in power unless other steps were taken to remove him.

His government held an election as recently as last year, which he easily won. His opponents have always rejected any proposal for a transition unless he is removed.

Iranian officials attended international peace talks on Syria for the first time on Friday in Vienna, a month after the balance of power in the 4-year-old civil war shifted in Assad’s favor with Russia launching air strikes against his foes.

iloubnan.info A Christian spiritual summit convened yesterday as a conclusion to the Syriac Catholic Bishops Synod, which was held at the Patriarchal Notre Dame Monastery in Al Cherfe, in the presence of the Apostolic Nuncio Gabriel Katchea. A large number of patriarchs or representatives of eastern churches attended said summit, amongst them Maronite Patriarch Cardnial […]

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanese customs officials discovered 230 kg of Captagon amphetamine pills hidden inside tables prepared for export to the Gulf state of Qatar from Beirut international airport, the finance ministry said in a statement on Friday.

The ministry, which oversees the customs department, provided photos of the white pills crammed inside table beams and said 1.5 million in total were discovered late on Thursday.

There were no immediate details on who had been trying to transport them, but the statement said an investigation into the smuggling attempt was continuing.

The drugs bust comes days after Lebanese authorities detained five Saudi citizens at the airport after finding two tons of the same drug abroad a private jet bound for the Gulf kingdom.

Joseph A. Kechichian Gulf News Senior Writer

New York: According to the pro-Hezbollah Lebanese daily Al Safir, the country’s political elites agreed during the 20th session of the putative National Dialogue to activate the security plan first proposed in February 2015. Speaker Nabih Berri declared that an accord in principle was reached between Hezbollah, which controls the Bekaa Valley, and the Future Movement, which insists that the Ministry of Interior apply the law throughout the country.

BEIRUT— Following eight years and nearly $14 million in renovations, Lebanon’s iconic Sursock Museum reopened its doors to the public earlier this month in Beirut.
  In doing so, it has given another boost to a resurgent cultural scene that is flourishing despite the instability of the country that spawned it.

Originally the home of aristocrat Nicolas Ibrahim Sursock — bequeathed to the city upon his death —  the museum opened in 1961 and quickly became a place where visiting dignitaries and leading creative artists mingled.

It endured the country’s civil war, which ended in 1990, but major work was needed.

The result is a hugely increased capacity for Middle Eastern art, sculpture and photography stretching back to the mid-19th century.

Most of the expansion was done beneath the mansion, where the addition of a subterranean library and exhibition space are among the reasons it is now effectively five times larger.

The Guardian

On a Friday night in Beirut, tiny figures weave in and out of the traffic between moving cars. They stand on tiptoes to peer through vehicle windows in an attempt to charm drivers out of a dollar or two.

The children are Syrian refugees, often the sole breadwinners for their families, working through the night selling flowers and shining shoes. They come from families stuck in limbo in Lebanon, and whose parents desperately want to go back to Syria.

A group of young boys between 11 and 19 seem to have marked their territory along the stretch of bars and restaurants between the Gemmayzeh and Mar Mikhael neighbourhoods in the north-eastern part of the Beirut.

Mike Bird, Tech Insider

One of China’s totemic social policies is about to be abandoned.

The "one child policy" which, as the name suggests, limits each couple to one child, is going to be dropped. 

According to Xinhua News Agency, the Chinese communist party’s central committee has scrapped the stricture. Couples will now be able to have two children.

The rule was brought in back in 1978, and fully implemented in 1980, to tackle the country’s perceived overpopulation.

There have always been some exemptions to the rule, and it has been relaxed in recent years, but not totally abandoned.

Al Jazeera

Beirut, Lebanon – The "You Stink" protest movement has been raging for the past several months in Lebanon, demanding that the government do something about the country’s massive rubbish problem – and calling for an end to the political dysfunction and corruption many say caused the trash crisis.

The movement has been energised by thousands of Lebanese, many of them young, who are hoping for a radical change in the country’s politics and an end to the constant dysfunction.

Interestingly, a Lebanese satire series called "Electrifying" has for the past three years been exploring this same possibility: What might happen if Lebanon suddenly changed for the better, and how would people react?

Lifelong friends Omar Ghosn and Khalil Bitar, the creators of the series, said they were inspired when they found themselves together during an electricity blackout – a daily occurrence in Lebanon.

When the power outage started and the generator stopped working, they said they strangely felt relieved: "Instead of being aggravated because we could not work, we were glad not to have the noise of the generator in the background. This got us thinking of how tense and conditioned our lives were by this basic utility," Bitar told Al Jazeera.

www.hrw.org – Human Rights Watch

(Beirut) – The government of Lebanon should use the United Nations Human Rights Council review of its record to pledge concrete measures to address its longstanding human rights issues.

Lebanon will appear for the country’s second Universal Periodic Review on November 2, 2015, at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Lebanon accepted many recommendations following its first review in 2010 but has failed to make progress on many of them.

“Lebanon missed many opportunities in the last five years to finally move forward on its human rights record,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East director. “As the country’s challenges add up, it can’t afford to procrastinate or delay essential reforms to end impunity and ensure basic rights for many marginalized residents – nationals and foreigners alike.”