by arabnews.com — Najia Houssari — BEIRUT: Lebanon’s public sector and legal system are under growing strain amid widening strike action over the plunging value of salaries in the crisis-hit country. Hundreds of judges continued their strike on Thursday in protest at having their salaries based on exchange rate of 1,507 Lebanese pounds to the dollar. Civil servants have also decided to go on strike again for the same reason, despite being granted monthly aid. Meanwhile, Lebanese university professors are continuing their open-ended strike, while students wait for work to resume so they can take last year’s final exams. Lebanon took preliminary steps to raise the customs dollar rate from 1,507 Lebanese pounds — the rate adopted before the economic crisis hit three years ago — to 20,000 pounds. The move created confusion in markets, adding to the chaos they were already facing.

The customs dollar is the price for calculating the customs value of imports, and is paid in Lebanese pounds. On Thursday, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati sent a letter to Finance Minister Youssef Khalil demanding the customs dollar rate of 20,000 pounds be adopted. Khalil told an expanded ministerial consultative meeting about the move. The ministerial committee enjoys exceptional powers that allow it to adjust the customs dollar rate without the need for Cabinet approval. Amin Salam, the caretaker economy minister, told a press conference on Thursday that the preliminary decision will be the subject of discussions between the finance minister and the central bank governor. Salam said that the impact of the new customs dollar rate on prices of goods would be “insignificant,” adding that the current rate was no longer fair. “We want to adjust the wages and salaries of civil servants,” he said. Salam also voiced fears that traders might store goods to be sold later under the new rate. “We are waiting for traders to provide us with the lists of goods they purchased previously,” the minister said.

by english.alaraby.co.uk — Lebanese officials have confirmed plans to demolish the northern section of the grain silos at Beirut port, just weeks after the country marked the second anniversary of the deadly blast, local media reported. A meeting between caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and caretaker Environment Minister Nasser Yassin concluded with a decision to […]

YAROUN, Lebanon, (Reuters) by Timour Azhari; – Street-side signs in the southern Lebanese village of Yaroun, the ancestral home of the suspect in the stabbing of Salman Rushdie, bear posters of Iran’s former supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who in 1989 issued a fatwa calling for the author’s death. The logo of Lebanon’s powerful, Iran-armed Hezbollah group adorns small monuments to its fighters killed during decades of wars with Israel, which borders Yaroun to the east and south. The mood in the small Lebanese village is apprehensive. Few want to speak about Friday’s attack on Rushdie or about Hadi Matar, the 24-year-old Shi’ite Muslim American suspect whose family originally hails from Yaroun, where Hezbollah has strong support.

Locals say the attack on the novelist at a public appearance in New York state has little to do with them. “There is no information… He was born abroad in America and remains there,” local official Riad al-Ridha told Reuters. “No one wants to talk about it because no one knows anything.” Matar, from New Jersey, has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault. An initial law enforcement review of his social media account showed he was sympathetic to Shi’ite extremism and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to NBC New York. The IRGC is a powerful faction that Washington accuses of carrying out a global extremist campaign. U.S. authorities have not offered any additional details on the investigation, including a possible motive.

by venturebeat.com — Louis Rosenberg, Ph.D — Many “futurists” insist that technological advances will enable humans to “upload our minds” into computer systems, thereby allowing us to “live forever,” defying our biological limitations. This concept is deeply flawed but has gained popular attention in recent years. So much so, Amazon has a TV series based on the premise called Upload, not to mention countless other pop-culture references. As background, the concept of “mind uploading” is rooted in the very reasonable premise that the human brain, like any system that obeys the laws of physics, can be modeled in software if sufficient computing power is devoted to the problem. To be clear, mind-uploading is not about modeling human brains in the abstract, but modeling specific people, their unique minds represented in such detail that every neuron is accurately simulated, including the massive tangle of connections among them.

Is it even possible?

Of course, this is an extremely challenging task. There are more than 85 billion neurons in your brain, each with thousands of links to other neurons. That’s around 100 trillion connections – a thousand times more than the number of stars in the Milky Way. It’s those trillions of connections that make you who you are – your personality and memories, your fears and skills and ambitions. To reproduce your mind in software (sometimes called an infomorph), a computer system would need to precisely simulate the vast majority of those connections down to their most subtle interactions. That level of modeling will not be done by hand. Futurists who believe in “mind uploading” often envision an automated process using some kind of super-charged MRI machine, that captures the biology down to the molecular level. They further envision the use of artificial intelligence (AI) software to turn that detailed scan into a simulation of each unique neuron and its thousands of connections to other neurons.

NNA – Caretaker Minister of the Displaced, Issam Sharafeddine, visited today the Syrian state, accompanied by a Lebanese Democratic Party delegation, where they met with the Minister of Local Administration and Environment, Hussein Makhlouf, in charge of the displaced Syrians’ dossier, and Interior Minister, Major General Mohammad al-Rahmoun. Talks centered on the plan set by Minister Sharafeddine to ensure a safe, dignified and voluntary return of the displaced Syrians to their homes, and the measures taken by the Syrian side to provide a safe and quick return for them according to specific timetables agreed upon by both sides.

Makhlouf confirmed in a statement after the meeting, that “there is a consensus in the vision between the Syrian and Lebanese sides regarding the return of all refugees, not just 15,000 displaced persons per month, as stated in the plan presented by the Lebanese side,” noting that “the amnesty decrees that were issued included all Syrians, in addition to facilitating and simplifying procedures in the border areas and providing services for returnees, including transportation, relief, humanitarian aid, medical care, education and others, to provide them with a safe and comfortable stay.” “One of the priorities of the Syrian state is to create conditions for the return of all Syrians to their homes and to rehabilitate the infrastructure in the areas liberated by the Syrian Arab Army,” Makhlouf asserted. He added: “What the state has done in this context allowed the return of five million displaced Syrians, including one million displaced from abroad and four million from the inside…They have become stable in their areas with full services being provided.” “Syrians in Lebanon and in any other country are invited to return,” Makhlouf reiterated. He called on the United Nations organizations to be “an active partner in the return of the displaced, especially that the Syrian side is open to cooperation with the Lebanese side and others to facilitate the return of all the displaced and to have an active role in the reconstruction.”

by english.sawtbeirut.com — In his Sunday sermon from Diman, Maronite Patriarch Mar Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi said that Lebanon cannot live in accordance with his message if it does not maintain active neutrality or refrain from being involved in other people’s conflicts. Being neutral is not a presumptive stance, but rather a way to have a […]

NNA – Free Patriotic Movement Chief, MP Gebran Bassil, stressed Saturday on the factor of “representation” as being the foremost characteristic of the future president of the republic. “The position of the president is linked to his powers and characteristics, particularly his representation,” he said, emphasizing that “the first and most important factor is his real and natural representation, i.e. his actual representation of the people,” which is embodied by a parliamentary bloc and a ministerial bloc that supports him and increases the strength of his powers and position. “Without this, the president would lose much of this power,” deemed Bassil. His words came following his visit to Al-Diman this afternoon, where he held a two-hour closed meeting with Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Bechara Boutros al-Rahi, touching on the latest developments prevailing in the country.

Bassil continued to stress that “the president of the republic must be part of his environment and its conscience, and a good representative of it,” while emphasizing that “he is the president of all the Lebanese, so he must enjoy the endorsement of the majority of the Lebanese.” “The decision on this issue must be in the first place with the actual representatives, and this is an occasion for Bkirki to take any possible initiative and we support it in carrying out its endeavors,” the MP went on. “Today, as you know, is the season of specifications, with the bazaar on specifications including the future president’s character, patriotism, humanity, competence, understanding, knowledge…as well as his concept of the state and the state’s monetary and financial economy in this circumstance and his ability to communicate abroad and internally,” Bassil continued. “However, the first and foremost characteristic, I would even say the last and most important, is representation; otherwise, why democracy or the elections?” he reiterated.

by english.alaraby.co.uk — Lebanon saw an outpouring of sympathy on Thursday for an unlikely recipient: a bank robber and hostage-taker. Bassam Al-Sheikh Hussein entered a Federal Bank of Lebanon branch in Beirut and pulled out a shotgun when he was told he could not access the money in his bank account he needed to fund life-saving medical care for his family. He resorted to holding six bank employees hostage to gain access to his life savings. Though his methods were shocking, people gathered outside the bank and online expressed compassion for the 42-year-old, who they said was pushed to violence by Lebanon’s endemic corruption.

What happened?

Hussein entered a Federal Bank of Lebanon branch in the Hamra neighbourhood of west Beirut just before noon on Thursday. He demanded $200,000, from his own bank account. When employees refused the request, Hussein began screaming that his relatives were in hospital and pulled out a gun, according to videos circulating on social media. The 42-year-old threatened to set himself on fire unless he was allowed to take his money. Six hostages were stuck in the building, including one customer and five employees, Reuters reported. The stand-off ended after six hours with the hostage-taker in police custody after he was promised $300,000 of his savings. No one was hurt. Dozens of protesters gathered to support Hussein amid the hostage-taking situation, exclaiming that corrupt politicians and bankers had pushed individuals to the brink. “For the Lebanese people and for the depositors, this man is a hero,” Hassan Moghnieh from the Lebanese Depositors Association told Al Jazeera. “His father is in the hospital. The bank is giving him 8 million (Lebanese pounds) per month, which means less than 300 dollars while he is paying for electricity 10 million a month. How can he survive? How can he survive?”, he asked.

According to the Lebanese Depositors’ Union, the father of the gunman requires $50,000 for medical treatment. Hussein was only able to withdraw $1,000 from his account over the last three years due to strict withdrawal limits in Lebanon, despite having around $209,000 in deposits. “Riad Salameh, any drop of blood that falls inside is on you,” said the crowd of protesters, referring to the widely-condemned central bank governor who Lebanese accused of enriching himself and his friends while normal citizens suffer.

Beirut – Mohamed Choucair — aawsat.com — The head of the Progressive Socialist Party, Walid Jumblatt, and political advisor to Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hussein Khalil have discussed several problems facing Lebanon, mainly the upcoming presidential elections. The meeting was attended by PSP officials MP Wael Abu Faour and former Minister Ghazi al-Aridi, and top Hezbollah official Wafiq Safa. Sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that discussions focused on their differences over Hezbollah’s weapons and Lebanon’s defense strategy. According to the sources, the meeting also reviewed the presidential elections, but no candidates were discussed. They instead addressed Jumblatt’s rejection to support a candidate backed by Hezbollah. They pointed out that Jumblatt called for electing a president who is not provocative and is accepted by all political parties.

The sources quoted Khalil as saying that Hezbollah seeks to form a new government and elect the president on time after Jumblatt warned that the country cannot afford a presidential vacuum. The term of President Michel Aoun will end in October 2022. During Thursday’s meeting, the PSP chief addressed the issue of Hezbollah sending drones over the Karish field and asked whether it was an Iranian message to improve the terms of its negotiations on its nuclear program. Hezbollah said in July it had sent three unarmed drones towards the Israeli Mediterranean gas rig, which the Israeli military said it had intercepted. Khalil stressed that Iran does not need drones to improve its position and that the unmanned aircraft aimed to improve Lebanon’s position in the US-mediated negotiations with Israel on the maritime border demarcation.

by aa.com.tr — BEIRUT, Lebanon The Lebanese army announced on Friday that it has received the first batch of a $60 million grant provided by Qatar. The army said it has begun distributing financial aid to military personnel, which was granted to support the salaries of the army members Lebanese Armed Forces Commander Gen. Joseph […]