•  

  

• Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, left, reviews an honor guard during a ceremony held on his first day at the Government House in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009. The formation of the 30-member Cabinet,  (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

•  

  

• An employee hands a bouquet to Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri at a ceremony held on his first day at the Government House in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009, two days after the formation of the new Cabinet. . (AP Photo/Hussein Malla) 

•  Please click READ MORE for more pictures of the Lebanese government

After months of negotiations, Lebanon has a new unity government comprising several factions but, as Natalya Antelava reports, many people there now view any government as largely irrelevant.

The noise was becoming unbearable. From all sides, dozens of drivers blared their horns, waved their fists and shouted at the person in front of them.

"It’s all his fault," my taxi driver spat out, pointing straight ahead. I ducked out to look.

There, in the middle of the sea of honking cars, stood a thin young man in an oversized policeman’s uniform.

Helplessly he waved his skinny arms trying to steer angry drivers. The problem was that he was steering them in all directions at the same time.

"He is the one who created the jam, he should just mind his own business," my taxi driver said. The fact that traffic was the policeman’s business did not seem to cross his mind.

Ask anyone in Beirut and they will tell you that, if there is a really bad traffic jam, chances are there is a policeman behind it. It is not always true, of course, but it is certainly indicative of how Lebanese people approach authority.

"The best thing that the government can do is stay out of my life," a friend recently told me.

Political paralysis

The attitude is not surprising. For decades, Lebanon’s politicians have done nothing but drive the country into deadlock.

The new government’s first meeting was on 10 November 2009

The country’s current crisis is just the latest episode of its chronic political paralysis.

Lebanon finally forms government  

Mr Hariri’s bloc won the election but had to form a unity government Lebanese President Michel Suleiman has announced the formation of the 30-member national-unity cabinet – five months after a general election. Five ministers were chosen by President Suleiman, and 15 are from PM-designate Saad Hariri’s Western-backed coalition.

The remaining 10 are from the opposition, including two members of Hezbollah, which struck a deal with the governing coalition last week.  The deadlock over the new government had threatened Lebanon’s stability.  Mr Hariri’s coalition won a narrow majority in June’s election, but needed to negotiate with the opposition to form a unity government.  "Finally, a government of national unity is born," Mr Hariri said.  "I want to be honest from the start: this government can be a chance to renew faith in the state and its institutions… or it can turn into a replay of our failures."  ‘Real partnership’Hezbollah representative Mohammed Fneish told the Associated Press news agency: "This formula achieves the principle of real partnership in political decision-making on key decisions."

One of the major reasons behind the delay was a series of extensive deliberations by Hariri with Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) leader Michel Aoun, who insisted that his Reform and Change bloc be granted a basket of key portfolios.

 By Ben Gilbert   BEIRUT — “The bombs are dropping on Beirut with Snoop Doggy Dogg!” said rap music fan Nick Haddad as he walked out of the Snoop Dogg show in the Lebanese capital this past weekend.

The 18-year-old Lebanese Canadian was of course referring to the “bombs” in the lyrics of Snoop Dogg’s raps, not the other bombs that some people may associate with Beirut.

At 1 a.m., Haddad and his 16-year-old British friend of Lebanese descent were looking to find the Snoop Dogg after-party, by no means the first A-List gathering seen in Beirut this summer. The American rapper has followed in the footsteps of Paris Hilton and Charles Aznavour as the latest international "name" on everyone’s lips in this newly calm city. He entertained several thousand people at a convention center near downtown Beirut on Thursday night.

The visits, coming after three years of war and security problems, is just one sign of Lebanon quickly regaining its title as the party and cultural headquarters of the Middle East.

From visits by glitzy heiress (and perennial photo-opportunist) Paris Hilton in early July to film festivals, gallery openings and rock bands old and new — Keane and Deep Purple recently performed here — Lebanon’s summer season is being called the most successful since the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in February 2005.

Snoop Dogg’s show reminded many in Lebanon of the last visit by a major American rap artist in June 2006. That’s when 50 Cent performed to a similarly enthusiastic audience of teenagers and rap aficionados. 

By Ben Gilbert – GlobalPost –

KFARDEBIAN, Lebanon — The music thumped and the tall, slim models wore barely anything, despite the snow covering the hill above them. The wind blew, the sun shone and 2,000 people in ski boots and designer sunglasses gawked and snapped pictures as girls in skimpy nightgowns paraded on the catwalk.

This was the scene at Lebanon’s Mzaar ski resort during the annual weekend lingerie show in early March.

A table full of British, South African and Australian expats on a weekend skiing vacation from Dubai looked on. They drank Lebanese beer from green bottles and enjoyed the view of the mountains. And the models.

“We came to ski but this seems like a better option today,” said Matthew Trehy, a designer originally from London. “This is an added bonus.”

“It kind of doesn’t fit with the moral and cultural values that you always get told about in the Middle East,” said Dubai-based architect Katherine Chambers, with an iced bottle of white wine sitting on her table. “But hey, everyone seems to be enjoying it. But the models must be so cold.”

By Ben Gilbert – GlobalPost,

YAMOUNI, Lebanon — Lebanese hashish farmers and dealers have had an easy go of it the past three years, growing the crop freely and in large quantity due to the Lebanese Army’s preoccupation with a war, sectarian violence and assassinations.

However, Lebanon’s security situation has calmed in the past year. As a result, the army has been available to help the lightly armed national police wipe out about six square miles, or an estimated 95 percent, of the Bekaa’s hashish crop. The bust and clear-out operation began in September, according to Gen. Michel Shakkour, the Lebanese Internal Security Forces (ISF) officer in charge of the eradication.

In the fields between two hills on the backside of Yamouni, a town that sits at an altitude of 5,000 feet on the edge of what was once one of the breadbaskets of the Roman Empire, Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, only the barren fields remain, with a few scrawny hashish plants poking through the dry soil. It seems almost an affront to the history of this place, steeped as it is in hedonistic mythology. Yamouni is, after all, only a few miles from where the Romans chose to erect their temple to Bacchus, the god of wine, on the dry and arid flat land perfectly suited to growing grapes.

President urges judges to ensure institution’s independence
By Elias Sakr
Daily Star staff