by Nada Homsi — thenationalnews.com – Many of Lebanon’s 13 newly elected ‘Change’ MPs arrived at parliament either on foot or in inexpensive cars on Tuesday, in contrast to those from established parties who traveled in blacked-out luxury SUVs. The parliament was holding its second session after the May 15 elections. “It looks like MP Michel Douaihy’s wife dropped him off,” a local anchor on the sidelines commented on live television. “This modesty is what makes these MPs so appealing to people, in contrast with the establishment parties.” They were elected on the premise of change, justice and opposition to Lebanon’s entrenched sectarian political parties. But in a country facing problems caused by economic collapse, a regional battle for power and a corrupt, entrenched elite in place since Lebanon’s civil war, 13 activists-turned-legislators must now participate in the very system they were elected to change.

In Tuesday’s parliamentary session, the 128-member legislature was expected to nominate and elect members of its parliamentary committees — which play an important role in forming Lebanon’s laws by negotiating and approving bills before they go to parliament. It is a vital opportunity for the 13 politicians — popularly referred to as the ‘Change’ MPs — who hope to exert influence from within the committees. Still, in the new parliament, they have found themselves in a tenuous position, given Lebanon’s ideologically divided political landscape: they neither support the Iran-backed Hezbollah nor its opposition, the Saudi-aligned Lebanese Forces, who represent the two largest opposing parliamentary blocs.

By al-monitor — Elizabeth Hagedorn — The Biden administration hasn’t made a final decision on whether a regional plan to transport Egyptian natural gas and Jordanian electricity to Lebanon would run afoul of sanctions on Syria, the top State Department official for the Middle East said Wednesday. The US-endorsed plan would see Egypt and Jordan supply energy resources to crisis-hit Lebanon using a transnational pipeline that runs through Syria. Damascus would receive in-kind compensation for its participation. Egypt has sought assurances that its involvement wouldn’t trigger the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act and other US sanctions on the Syrian government. The State Department had previously downplayed concerns, with senior State official Victoria Nuland saying in October 2021 that because the deal “falls under the humanitarian category, no sanctions waiver would be required.”

But during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Wednesday, State Department Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf declined to say whether the four-country energy plan would be exempt from US sanctions or if waivers would be necessary. “We have not seen the final details of these contracts, so I reserve judgment. We’ve made no decision,” Leaf said in response to a question from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. “We have given what are termed ‘pre-assurances’ that governments may engage in discussions — discussions — about these arrangements,” Leaf said. Why it matters: Some see Syria’s inclusion in the regional energy deals in the context of steps by a number of Arab states to normalize ties with the long-shunned government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

by maritime-executive.com — The FPSO for Energean’s Karish gas project has arrived in position near the boundary between Israeli and Lebanese waters, prompting angry warnings from Lebanon’s political leaders about the impending development of the gas field. Karish is located in a boundary area that has been the subject of convoluted negotiations in recent years. Israel insists that it is not disputed: Lebanon has never formally filed a maritime claim to the area surrounding Karish with the United Nations, and Israel does not recognize an ongoing boundary dispute at the site. However, in U.S.-mediated boundary negotiations, Lebanon has vaccilated over whether the area containing the Karish field is its own.

Lebanon and Israel have a longstanding disagreement over a wedge of EEZ measuring about 860 square kilometers on their maritime boundary line. During talks in late 2020, Lebanon sought to expand its EEZ claim to the south by another 1,430 square kilometers (its so-called Line 29 boundary claim), including half of the Karish field. During the period of deep political turmoil in Beirut, the Lebanese government never formally issued a decree to file the Line 29 claim with the United Nations.

In talks in February 2022, Lebanon retracted the Line 29 claim, retreating to its longtime boundary claim (Line 23). Now that Israel is poised to develop Karish, the Lebanese government has reversed course again and revived its Line 29 claim to the waters containing the field.

by Abby Sewell — restofworld.org — Mohamad, a former chef turned freelance currency exchanger, begins each day by scrolling through some of the 100 or so groups that have popped up on WhatsApp and other platforms that are dedicated to buying and selling U.S. dollars in Lebanon. Mohamad, who asked not to be identified by his full name because his business is technically illegal, scans the groups to see what the going rate is, while his regular customers ping him looking to buy or sell. Business is brisk. “I have six customers waiting for me now,” he said as he sat for an interview at a café in Beirut’s trendy Badaro neighborhood in April. On that day, someone in Jbeil, a city on the northern coast, posted in one of the online groups wanting to sell $1,200 at a rate of 26,250 Lebanese lira to the dollar. In the Beirut suburb of Bourj Hammoud, someone else wanted to buy $1,500 at a rate of 26,200 lira. Money changers like Mohamad make their profits via commissions and by arbitraging exchange rates — buying low and selling high.

The rates on the “black market,” which is, in fact, the operative market for nearly all transactions in Lebanon, fluctuate hour by hour, while officially the lira remains pegged to the dollar at a rate of 1,507.5 lira to the dollar, as it has been since 1997. Since the collapse of their financial system began in 2019, Lebanese citizens have faced an ever-changing and often dizzying series of hoops they must jump through to get the currency they need. Before the crisis, the dollar and lira were used interchangeably. With the lira rate now fluctuating wildly, many items, particularly imported goods, are now priced in dollars. After the crash, those who had savings in dollars found that they could no longer withdraw them from the bank, while those getting paid in lira found their salaries and savings shrink to a fraction of their former worth.

By arabnews.com — DUBAI: Lebanese director Mounia Akl’s “Costa Brava, Lebanon” is set to make its North American debut in July. According to The Hollywood Reporter, international film and video distributor Kino Lorber has picked up the North American rights to the dark tale set amid a raging climate crisis in near-future Lebanon. Akl’s directorial debut premiered in the Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti Extra sidebar last year and stars Lebanese actress and director Nadine Labaki alongside “The Band’s Visit” star Saleh Bakri. Kino Lorber is planning a theatrical release for the film on July 15.

The 32-year-old filmmaker’s haunting and upsetting feature was originally meant to depict a dystopian Lebanon in 2030 at its worst. “I tried to imagine this dystopian future where none of our problems had been solved and the country was an extreme version of itself,” Akl previously told Arab News. “It was somehow a way for me to imagine the worst for myself in the same way you sometimes want to explore your trauma in a cathartic way. It was a way for me to imagine the worst in my mind as a way of avoiding the worst happening in my mind and in life.”

by arabnews — RIYADH: Lebanese-based super app Toters raised $15 million in a series B funding round from International Finance Corporation, March Holding, and B&Y Ventures. The company began as a food delivery platform before transforming into a super app that offers several services including payment and financial transactions. Toters will use its newly acquired funds to strengthen its presence in current markets as well as expand its operations in Iraq, according to Wamda.

by restofworld — Amim Khalfa co-founded Toters in 2017. The Beirut-based delivery startup delivers groceries, food, and convenience products for more than 2,000 partner stores, including restaurants, pharmacies, and electronic stores in Lebanon and Iraq. The Syrian-born, Saudi-raised Canadian entrepreneur and former Nortel and Ericsson systems engineer shifted to management consulting in 2011, where he met his co-founder Nael Halwani. This week, Toters raised more than $15 million in series B funding from International Finance Corp. (IFC), March Holding, and BY Venture Partners. It had previously raised over $5 million in two previous rounds.

What made Lebanon the right environment to launch Toters? Why expand to Iraq? We started with Lebanon because it is the leading food and beverage center in the Middle East. Eventually, in Iraq, we also had to cater for and solve for things like cash on delivery, a lack of road infrastructure in some places, also intermittent connectivity, and hyperinflation, in the case of Lebanon. Investors in the past have had risk aversion towards countries that have a challenging macroeconomic and political profile. Eventually, every VC that would look at Toters would be like, “You know what? You guys have world-class economics.”

By alaraby — The parliamentary election on 15 May in Tripoli was very open. In that huge port city with its 80% Sunni Muslim population and its Greek Orthodox, Maronite and Alawite minorities, three major figures who have dominated the political horizon since the end of the nineties were no longer in the running. Saad Hariri, former Prime Minister whose party had taken most seats in the last election (2018), decided to withdraw from politics. Najib Mikati, the current Prime Minister chose not to seek re-election and backed a party which managed to elect only one candidate.

Another local heavyweight, Mohammad Safadi, also threw in the towel. While parliament had appointed him Prime Minister in the wake of the protest movement which had rocked the country at the end of 2019, angry crowds had forced him to turn the office down. “In that huge port city with its 80% Sunni Muslim population and its Greek Orthodox, Maronite and Alawite minorities, three major figures who have dominated the political horizon since the end of the nineties were no longer in the running”

The defeat of the Karami “heir apparent”

As for Faisal Karami, sole survivor of one of Tripoli’s oldest political families, he lost his seat in this election. Yet one of his campaign arguments was his family’s rich history on the Lebanese political scene since the nineteen-twenties. His grandfather, Abdel Hamid Karami, was an early leader of the local resistance to the French mandate. Allied with the Syrian nationalists, he was an architect of the country’s independence and became Prime Minister in 1945. His uncle Rachid was elected to that office ten times before his assassination in 1987. Faisal’s father, Omar, who took up the torch, was long considered “a puppet of the Syrians” as was Faisal himself, elected to parliament in 2018.

Rome Newsroom – By Courtney Mares — / (CNA). Two Catholic priests martyred under the Ottoman Empire were beatified in Lebanon over the weekend. Father Leonard Melki and Father Thomas Saleh were Capuchin friars and missionaries in what is now Turkey who were arrested, tortured, and martyred by the forces of the Ottoman Empire in 1915 and 1917 respectively. Melki was given a choice: convert to Islam and be freed, or die as a Christian. Refusing to apostatize, the Lebanese priest was forced to march with more than 400 Christian prisoners into the desert, where he was killed “in hatred of the faith” on June 11, 1915. Saleh was arrested and sentenced to death after giving shelter to an Armenian priest during the Armenian genocide. Before his death, he said, “I have full trust in God, I am not afraid of death,” according to the Capuchin Order in Lebanon.

Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, presided over the outdoor beatification Mass on the evening of June 4 at the Convent of the Cross in Jal el Dib, outside of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut. “Humanly, they are victims,” Semeraro said. “They are victims of a wave of hatred that on several occasions swept through the late Ottoman Empire and was intertwined with the tragic events of the persecution against the entire Armenian people and the Christian faith.” “If humanly, I said, they were victims, in the perspective of the Christian faith they were victors,” he added.

By Bassam Mroue — BEIRUT (AP) — The Lebanese government invited on Monday a U.S. envoy mediating between Lebanon and Israel over their disputed maritime border to return to Beirut as soon as possible to work out an agreement amid rising tensions along the border. The invitation for Amos Hochstein, a senior adviser for energy security at the U.S. State Department, came a day after Israel set up a gas rig at its designated location at the Karish field, which Israel says is part of its U.N.-recognized exclusive economic zone. Lebanon insists it is in a disputed area. The U.S.-mediated indirect talks between Lebanon and Israel have been stalled for months amid disagreement within Lebanon over how big the disputed area is.

Lebanon is home to the heavily armed militant Hezbollah group, which is backed by Iran and has fought several wars with Israel. Hezbollah has also warned it would use its weapons to protect Lebanon’s economic rights. On Sunday, Lebanon warned Israel not to start drilling in the Karish field and President Michel Aoun said maritime border negotiations have not ended, adding that any move by Israel will be considered “a provocation and hostile act.” Aoun’s office said Lebanon formally notified the United Nations in February that Karish is part of the disputed area and that the U.N. Security Council should prevent Israel from drilling there in order “to avoid steps that could form a threat to international peace and security.”

by aljazeera.com — Lebanon has warned Israel against any “aggressive action” in disputed waters where both states hope to develop offshore energy, after a ship arrived off the coast to produce gas for Israel. President Michel Aoun said any activity in the disputed area would amount to an act of aggression and a provocation, after the arrival of the natural gas storage and production ship operated by London-based Energean.

Israel says the field in question is within its exclusive economic zone, not in disputed waters. But in a statement on Sunday, the Lebanese presidency said Aoun discussed with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati the vessel’s entry “into the disputed maritime area with Israel, and asked the Army Command to provide him with accurate and official data to build upon the matter”. Aoun said negotiations to delineate the southern maritime border continued and “any action or activity in the disputed area represents a provocation and an aggressive action”.