By: Emily Holman

Two days after my arrival in Lebanon in mid-July, and almost one month after the publication of Pope Francis’s most recent papal encyclical, Laudato Si’, collection of the nation’s rubbish reached a standstill. Activists and residents of environs surrounding the Naameh landfill, in mountains south-east of Beirut, refused to accept any more rubbish following a planned closure for the site scheduled for July 17^th, which had already been postponed since January. When the government tried to continue to use the site, residents took matters into their own hands, and blocked the roads to the Naameh landfill. With nowhere to go, the rubbish could not be collected. Garbage piled up. People marched on the streets and threw eggs in protest at government inability both to respond to the situation, and to take the preventive measures that became necessary long ago.

By Joseph Kechichian, Senior Writer

Beirut: A few days after Moscow deployed several warplanes to a Syrian airbase near Latakia, presumably to prop up the regime of Bashar Al Assad which lost significant ground to rebel forces since the beginning of the year, Washington reiterated its ongoing support to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), as it announced the disbursement of fresh funds to acquire defensive weapons.

“I am very pleased to announce today that my government is allotting an additional $59 million for border security equipment for the army,” declared US Ambassador David Hale after meeting Prime Minister Tammam Salam at the Grand Serail [Government House] on Wednesday.

Except for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which offered a $3 billion grant to Beirut in late December 2013 to purchase weapons from France—another $1 billion was added in August 2014 to boost the country’s counter-terrorism forces—the United States was one of the few countries that stood by Lebanon, and for so long.

BEIRUT | iloubnan.info –

The 15th edition of the Beirut International Film Festival (BIFF) will open on October 7 with The Little Prince, an animation movie by Amercian director Mark Osborne, based on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s famous novel. The festival will close on October 15 with He named me Malala, by Amercian director Davis Guggenheim, an intimate portrait of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, to be released in the United States on October 2, and internationally on November 5.

BIFF Director Colette Naufal held a press conference at downtown Beirut’s Le Gray Hotel on Wednesday, saying: “The current situation in Lebanon and the image generated by foreign media coverage have had a negative effect on BIFF. This has had an impact on the presence of guests, many of whom have decided against coming to Beirut.” However, “the jury should be co-presided by French-Argentinan writer and director Santiago Amigorena and Brazilian-American director Jonathan Nossiter", she said. Jury members are: American writer Michael Greenberg, Austrian Film critic and journalist Alexandra Zawia, and Tunisian-Russian director and actress Doria-Svetlana Achour. However, the presence of all these figures now hinges on the developments.”

catholicherald.co.uk

We have all been overwhelmed by the harrowing pictures and tragic stories of the refugee crisis affecting Europe, individuals no less than governments. I heard on the World Service in the early hours of this morning that the EU, which has met again to discuss the problem, is proposing a quota system, more aid for the refugee camps in Turkey and Lebanon and an attempt to formally distinguish between economic migrants and Syrians fleeing civil war. Will this “plan” work? To me it sounds like more words rather than a solution.

Another aspect not addressed in UK newspapers has been raised in the parish bulletin for 20th September, of Fr George Rutler at the Church of St Michael, New York. He comments that “especially prudent is the counsel of bishops in places like Hungary and Slovakia, who know from long experience the consequences of confusing naivety with mercy. Ninety per cent of the current refugees are Muslim and the situation is complicated by the fact that ISIS boasts that there are many of their own people among them.”

Korin Miller

They may have walked five miles — uphill, in the snow — to school, but Baby Boomers had at least one thing easier than Millennials do: shedding pounds. (Gif: Getty/Priscilla De Castro for Yahoo)

Next time you hear your parents complain that you have it easy, mention this: Scientists have discovered that it’s harder for millennials to lose weight than it was for their parents at the same age.

The findings were part of a new study published in the journal Obesity Research & Clinical Practice. For the study, researchers analyzed dietary data from the National Health and Nutrition Survey, which was collected from 1971 to 2008 from more than 36,000 U.S. adults. They also analyzed physical activity data between 1988 and 2006.

What they discovered: People were about 10 percent heavier in 2008 than in 1971 and five percent heavier, despite eating the same amount of food and doing the same exercise.

Corn was the biggest offender — people who ate it regularly gained an average of two pounds over four years. (Photo: Getty Images)

You’ve heard it many times before: To maintain a healthy weight, exercise regularly and eat more fruits and vegetables. But new research has found that when it comes to weight loss, not all fruits and vegetables are created equal.

A Harvard study of more than 133,000 people published in the journal PLOS Medicine found that some starchy fruits and vegetables can actually make people gain weight over time.

For the study, researchers analyzed the changes that men and women in the U.S. made in their fruit and vegetable intake over 24 years, as reported in previously conducted dietary questionnaires and self-reported changes in weight. Scientists specifically analyzed several four-year periods for their findings.

Planes are more tightly packed than ever. Are our human rights being violated? (Illustration: iStock)

It’s the newest civil rights movement — or, more accurately, civil aviation rights movement.

As airlines look to boost passenger capacity, and profits, by reducing the legroom passengers enjoy on flights, some passenger rights groups are getting fed up. They say the increasingly cramped conditions airline passengers (especially those flying in economy class) face are no longer a consumer issue; they’re calling it a human rights issue.

“We have the right to a certain amount of space when we’re traveling,” Christopher Elliott tells Yahoo Travel. Elliott is a travel journalist and co-founder of the airline advocacy group Travelers United. He recently wrote an eyebrow-raising  Washington Post op-ed about the new push for human rights on airplanes.

“After the Washington Post story, I heard from so many people who said, ‘I was on a flight and didn’t have any room,’” Elliott tells Yahoo Travel. “People are saying it’s about time someone said this because we don’t feel we’re being treated like people.”

Ian Bremmer, TIME.com

More than 4 million Syrians have been displaced by civil war — but Syrian President Bashar al-Assad isn’t one of them. These five facts explain why Syria’s embattled president will remain in power.

1. Good Friends

Assad currently controls 25 percent of Syrian territory, and he’ll hold on to it as if his life depends on it — because it probably does. The territory he still commands is confined to large population centers on the coast, but that’s enough as long as he continues to receive support from abroad.

Russia hopes to secure a military foothold and protect its access to a deep-water port in the Mediterranean Sea, the only Russian port outside the former Soviet Union, by sending Assad half a dozen T-90 tanks, 15 howitzers, 35 armored personnel carriers, and 200 marines in recent weeks.

That may be just the beginning of Russia’s growing presence. In addition, Iran is worried that Syria will fall to Syrian rebels backed by Saudi Arabia, Tehran’s enduring rival in the region, and so has extended a $1 billion credit line to Assad’s regime to help it import critical goods and commodities.

Pamela Engel

The Islamic State militant group has recently released a barrage of propaganda videos targeting refugees and telling them to come join the "caliphate" instead of fleeing to "xenophobic" Europe.

The videos seek to reinforce the image of the caliphate — the territory ISIS controls in Iraq and Syria — as an Islamic utopia and capitalize on the dangers refugees face as they flee to European countries.

And these videos aren’t the first propaganda messages ISIS has released about the refugee crisis — earlier this month, in its English-language magazine Dabiq, the extremist group published an article warning against leaving the caliphate for Western countries.

The articles said leaving for Western nations was "a dangerous major sin" that was "a gate towards one’s children and grandchildren abandoning Islam for Christianity, atheism, or liberalism."

This propaganda effort could be a sign of panic in the ranks of ISIS leadership as Iraqis and Syrians flee their home countries in large numbers. "They claim to create this Islamic utopia, and Muslims are fleeing in droves," Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a counterterrorism analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider.

TEHRAN, Sep. 22 (MNA) – Lebanese authorities are reported to have arrested a Takfiri terrorist involved in the bomb attack on the Iranian Embassy in Beirut in 2013.

According to a statement released by Lebanon’s Department of Public Safety on Tuesday, the arrested terrorist with a Syrian citizenship was the head of an armed terrorist group involved in making missiles by using explosives and bombing cars with Lebanese license plates operating in a workshop in the Syrian city of Yabrud.

The statement adds that the Syrian terrorist and his accomplices with the help from another Syrian national transferred to Lebanon a bombed car used in the blast at the site of Iran’s embassy in Beirut and gave financial support to this terrorist attack.