Last week, the City of Detroit filed for bankruptcy, making it the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history. It’s a remarkable story, especially for natives of the state, like me, who have watched Detroit slowly decline for decades. But it’s even more remarkable when you consider the fact that the Michigan state legislature is on […]

BRUSSELS — European Union foreign ministers Monday added the military wing of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group and political party, to a list of terrorist organizations.  “It is good that the E.U. has decided to call Hezbollah what it is: a terrorist organization,” Frans Timmermans, the foreign minister of the Netherlands, said in a […]

SIN AL-FIL, Lebanon: A first-ever mobile blood bank launched last month in Lebanon has come just in time, since Ramadan means that more blood drives are needed to pick up the slack during the month of fasting. Outside the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Sin al-Fil sits a van bearing the red logo of Donner Sang Compter […]

  BEIRUT: The number of Syrian refugees in the country now exceeds 625,000, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees reported in its weekly update Friday.   However, for the second week running the report noted a slight decrease in the number of new arrivals in the Bekaa Valley as compared with the period during […]

  Last week, the Central News Agency reported that fundamentalist groups were likely responsible for the bombing of Bir al-Abed in Beirut’s Dahiyeh. This week, another attack targeted Hezbollah in the Beqaa, causing many experts to wonder if Lebanon is becoming a breeding ground for Salafists.   “The Dahiyeh suburbs and Hezbollah do not seem […]

  BEIRUT — A country with 18 religious sects and a history of sectarian conflict, Lebanon often seems on the brink of violence. Since the uprising in Syria began more than two years ago, that tension has escalated, especially between Sunni and Shia.   Lebanese playwright and director Yehia Jaber is trying to defuse the […]

  BEIRUT: A senior U.S. diplomat has renewed his government’s offer to help mediate a dispute between Lebanon and Israel over an 850 kilometer offshore border area, Grand Serail sources said.   President Michel Sleiman and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati met Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Diplomacy Amos J Hochstein Wednesday. “Hochstein conveyed his country’s […]