Supriya Sharma,TNN

Lebanese cuisine extends beyond breaking pita and falafel. The savor and smell of halloumi cheese, Ahweh and Sharab Ward is worth discovering if you haven’t yet..Lebanese diet is high on herbs, spices and fresh ingredients (the Lebanese rarely eat leftovers), relying less on heavy sauces. Mint, parsley, oregano, garlic, nutmeg and cinnamon are the most common seasonings.
The Lebanese believe that a mixture of thyme, sumac and sesame seeds (called zaatar), gives strength and clears the mind. For this reason, before leaving home on exam days, all school children eat a slice of bread with a spread of zaatar and olive oil. The traditional recipe of zaatar uses thyme, but savory — which has an aroma similar to a combination of oregano and thyme — works much better.

By Dominic Waghorn, Sky News Correspondent

Europe has been in the grips of the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War, but it could be about to get a lot worse. That is the perspective from Lebanon, which has taken the brunt of Syria’s exodus and is now at breaking point. Coming to the small Mediterranean nation also helps explain why the crisis has suddenly erupted now.

Lebanon is a truly remarkable country. For the last four years, it has absorbed at least a quarter of its population in refugees. While Europeans agonise over a refugee crisis, but a real one has been under way here. Imagine the UK being invaded by the population of London twice over. Refugees are everywhere, camped in fields, lay-bys, beaches and building sites.

Then imagine that in a Britain that hasn’t had a functional government for months, where garbage collects in festering piles because authorities can’t even agree on the most pressing challenge: clearing the nation’s rubbish.

The migration crisis enveloping Europe and much of the Middle East today is one of the worst humanitarian disasters since the 1940s. Millions of desperate people are on the march: Sunni refugees driven out by the barbarity of the Assad regime in Syria, Christians and Yazidis fleeing the pornographic violence of Islamic State, millions more of all faiths and no faith fleeing poverty and oppression without end. Parents are entrusting their lives and the lives of their young children to rickety boats and unscrupulous criminal syndicates along the Mediterranean coast, professionals and business people are giving up their livelihoods and investments, farmers are abandoning their land, and from North Africa to Syria, the sick and the old are on the road, carrying a few treasured belongings on a new trail of tears.

By Andreane Williams,

(MENAFN) The value of Middle East investments in real estate outside the region soared 64 percent to USD11.5 billion in the January-June period, based on a CBRE report, which is a US-American commercial real estate company. Sovereign wealth funds accounted for USD8.3 billion of the spending in the first six months of this year, almost […]

By Dana Balloutt BEIRUT—Anti government activists in Lebanon were reviewing Thursday a plan by authorities to end a long-running trash-collection crisis that has galvanized public anger over the government’s chronic inability to deliver social services.

Under a plan endorsed by an emergency cabinet meeting late Wednesday, responsibility for trash pickup and disposal will be transferred from the central government to local municipalities, closed landfills will temporarily reopened and new landfills will be opened in rural Lebanon.

 By Rouba El Husseini – Beirut (AFP) – Organisers of mass protests in Lebanon over trash festering in the streets said Thursday the government’s long-awaited plan to deal with the crisis is too vague and does not meet their demands. Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Beirut in recent weeks to demand an end to long-standing political divisions that have affected even basic public services.

Vicky Karantzavelou

HONG KONG – Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group has announced that it will manage a new luxury hotel and branded residences currently under development in Beirut. Scheduled to open in 2018, the project provides the Group with a unique opportunity to further extend its reach in the important Middle East market.
The overall development comprises two adjacent buildings located in Beirut’s Central District at the heart of Lebanon’s capital. Mandarin Oriental, Beirut will be situated in the south tower, with 280 well-appointed rooms and suites and 25 serviced apartments. All will be designed in a contemporary style, with exacting attention to detail that is reflective of the Group’s oriental heritage. The north tower will house 103 Residences at Mandarin Oriental, that will provide the most luxurious and desirable living in central Beirut.

Reuters,

Russian forces have begun participating in military operations in Syria in support of government troops, three Lebanese sources familiar with the political and military situation there said on Wednesday.

The sources, speaking to Reuters on condition they not be identified, gave the most forthright account yet from the region of what the United States fears is a deepening Russian military role in Syria’s civil war, though one of the Lebanese sources said the number of Russians involved so far was small.

John Owens