Lebanon army says Israel ‘abducted’ citizen on border

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 by middleeastmonitor.com --Lebanon’s army said late on Saturday that an Israel border patrol had seized a Lebanese woman in the Shebaa area and taken her across the frontier. “On April 28 at 8.30pm an Israeli enemy patrol carried out the abduction of Nohad Dali from the town of Shebaa and took her into occupied Palestinian territory,” said a Lebanese army command statement carried on Lebanon’s state news agency NNA. Israel’s army confirmed on Sunday that it had ‘briefly’ held a Lebanese woman who crossed the border and then repatriated her, a detention Beirut denounced as an abduction. Shebaa is a small disputed area that Israel regards as part of the Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria in 1967, but which Beirut says is Lebanese territory. The Israeli military said two shepherds had crossed the UN-demarcated border with Lebanon and that one of them was taken into custody by its troops. “She was returned today,” a military spokesman said. There was no immediate Lebanese confirmation of Dali’s repatriation. A UN peacekeeping force is based on the Lebanon-Israel border. The last outright conflict there was a short war in 2006 between Israel and Lebanon’s heavily armed, Iranian-backed Hezbollah group. Tensions between Israel and Hezbollah have heightened over the group’s role in the Syrian civil war, where it has gained more experience and an increased arsenal fighting alongside President Bashar al-Assad as part of an Iran-backed alliance. Lebanon raised Dali’s case with the UN peacekeepers, the Lebanese army statement said.

6 subtle hints on a wedding invitation that can tell you how formal the event will be

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Political ads on a Lebanese talk show can cost up to $240,000!

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by lebaneseexaminer.com -- As Lebanon gears up for its first parliamentary elections in 9 years, candidates are spending big money on their last-minute push to garner recognition and get people out to vote. According to the AFP news agency, advertising on a single Lebanese talk show episode can cost up to $240,000. This includes a full episode where a candidate can present their plans and ideas. An on-air interview can cost about $6,000 per minute, the AFP added. Laury Haytayan, a parliamentary candidate in the Beirut I district, believes the high-cost of advertising gives political power-players an unfair advantage. “The people who can pay $200,000 for advertising are those who are already in power,” Haytayan said. “The traditional parties remain control.” According to the Lebanese National News Agency, the parliamentary elections are already showing historic numbers. This will be the first time Lebanese citizens abroad will be eligible to vote. The state-run agency said the number of registered voters is 82,970, with 12,609 living in the Middle East.

Beirut, by the way

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by thehindubusinessline.com -DEEPA BHASTHI-The Lebanese capital isn’t a place that one ‘gets’ in a few days. The only way to live the city is by taking home its abundant stories Bey — Beyrouth — Beirut. A city with three familiar names and a hundred uncomfortable identities, demarcations and allegiances. Which side do I begin with then? Some places, even people, are like this: words about them tumble one over the other, like in a congeries, and you operate in angst when you have to even think about them. Thus, in angst, I think of Beirut. I left a piece of my soul there. Perhaps it is because it is not Europe, or the Americas, or any other place that you know endless people that have left, lived and come back from. It still feels like the present tense, the city and the overly elusiveness of it all. Being in Beirut is to be abundant in stories. In one of the oldest regions in the world to be continuously inhabited — the Levant — it is one of the oldest cities in the world, founded, they say, in 3000 BCE. It ought hardly be a surprise then, this abundance. There is a measure of overwhelm that sets in even before the plane fully lands. My first sight are of its edges. It is awash with orange-yellow lights from tall buildings — brighter at first, near the coast, then tapering away as the land stretches into the surrounding hills, whereupon the number and the brightness reduce. There it is, the first note on how demarcations work, just like elsewhere, in this oldest of cities where the wealthier breathe the sea in more than those that make do with the mountain air and the militia. Beirut overwhelms because you realise the moment you step outside the airport into the balmy late-evening air that this city will have so many things that you will want to write home about. At its heels comes an understanding that you are inadequate, too, to do so in the space you are allowed on the postcard, that the language you have borrowed does not have all the words. I do not go to too many places or do many things. I am trying to cram in as much as possible instead, in the few days there, enough to construct a surficial larger picture. Something that would mean that I went there, that I saw the city and that I got back.

‘Paris of the Middle East’ is what it was apparently called. Progressive, modern and cosmopolitan. It is an age that the ones who lived then speak and write of with indulgent yearning; those too young to remember see it predictably to have been a version of utopia. The Lebanese Civil War changed everything. Fought between 1975 and 1990, it is still a speck in the rear-view mirror, too recent to be distant enough to try and move on from. The war is everywhere. I don’t get out of the city to sightsee — time is too short, and it doesn’t seem wholly safe yet to be a non-local and be sauntering about. I am repeatedly told that Lebanon is so very beautiful outside of the city, that the mountain air is purity itself and that I must come back when things are quieter at the various fronts. I promise to. The war defines everything. It is still in the souls of people. I read that children are not taught about the Civil War because it was so recent. The relative peace that holds is still fragile and complicated to be included safely in textbooks. The Downtown is sharp and shiny, the result of a post-war frenzy of building. But the by-lanes and older parts of town still flaunt the sniper marks on the walls. As do the old cars operating as taxis — called ‘service’ — and the dents on men who drive them. It was only a year ago that Beit Beirut, the first publicly funded museum and memorial for the war, was opened. The building, still sporting the scars, was called Yellow House or Barakat Building. It sits bang on the Green Line that separated the Muslim sections on the west and the Christian sections of the city during the war. Owing to this strategic location, it was used as a forward control post and sniper base. The opening of this museum and research centre is a much-required step forward in acknowledging the amnesia around the war, of beginning to think of ways to heal. The not-healing parts of people masquerade as road rage and wild partying, someone tells me. The former, I see among taxi drivers, their driving veering too suddenly from a crawl into recklessness. It doesn’t help that most speak only Arabic, so communication is at best through single words, wild gestures and guesswork. The wild partying is what a lot of people from Europe and neighbouring countries come for. Typically, a party would start after midnight and spill into the morning. Signs of obvious denial in the all-out joie de vivre is both laudable, and a bit sad. ****

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Hariri to condemn Iran for “kidnapping” Nizar Zakka: Family

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 The Daily Star BEIRUT: Prime Minister Saad Hariri will issue a statement before May 6 condemning Iran for “kidnapping” Lebanese Citizen Nizar Zakka, Zakka’s brother said in a statement Saturday. The statement said Hariri had told thousands of supporters of his intent to do so at an election rally during a visit to northern Lebanon Friday. Lebanon’s first parliamentary elections in nine years are set to be held on May 6. Hariri would make the “long-awaited condemnation of Iran for its aggressive actions against Lebanon by taking a Lebanese citizen hostage while he was on an official visit,” the statement said. Zakka was arrested after traveling to Iran to attend a state-sponsored conference in Tehran in 2015. At the time of his arrest, he was the secretary-general of IJMA3, an Arab communications organization, and had received an official invitation to visit. His family has been lobbying the government to raise the subject with Iran and criticized ministers for not doing enough to secure Zakka’s release. The Zakka family, as well as the mayor of his hometown of Qalamoun, met with Hariri Monday in Beirut, where they told the premier of Zakka’s “very bad health” in one of Iran’s most notorious prisons. It was not clear from the family’s letter what health problems Zakka has been suffering from, although his attorney previously told the U.S.-based NGO Center for Human Rights in Iran that he may have colon cancer. Hariri took the opportunity to raise the issue of Zakka’s detention during a brief handshake with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif Wednesday at the Brussels conference on Syria, though details of what was said are unknown.

Lebanese expats cast votes in historic elections outside Lebanon

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Lebanese communication manager Charbel Matta talks to reporters next to a giant screen that shows voting by Lebanese expatriates in six Arab countries, ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled to be held in Lebanon on... (AP Photo/Hussein Malla

by middleeastmonitor.com Lebanese expatriates in six Arab countries today began casting ballots for parliamentary elections, according to the Foreign Ministry. It is the first time for Lebanese nationals who live overseas to vote in the country’s parliamentary elections. Citizens in the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Egypt this morning began casting ballots at their respective embassies. “For the first time in the history of the Lebanese Republic, Lebanese living abroad are able to vote,” Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil told reporters at the ministry’s Beirut headquarters. According to Bassil, 82,970 Lebanese expatriates have already cast ballots. “Expat voter turnout today will be very important,” he said. The second phase of the expatriate vote will be held on Sunday in 30 more countries. The polls will see 917 candidates from a host of political parties compete for 128 seats in Lebanon’s national assembly. Polling will be conducted in Lebanon on 6 May under a new proportional system, which divides the country into 15 separate electoral constituencies.

Fouad Chehab Dandan, Lebanese Ambassador to the UAE, after voting at the Lebanese Embassy. Abdul Rahman/Gulf News

by  Bassam Za'za', Legal and Court Correspondent; Janice Ponce de Leon, elections Dubai: The voter turnout in the UAE for the Lebanese elections — held overseas for the first time on Friday — was the highest in six Arab countries where they were held, a media statement said. Lebanese expatriates flocked to their missions in Abu Dhabi and Dubai on Friday and made history as they cast votes for the first time outside their country, ahead of the May 6 elections. The UAE was one of six Arab countries where overseas voting by Lebanese expats for the parliament was allowed, along with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Egypt. Registered expat voters in Arab countries numbered 12,609.

Lebanese expats in the Americas, Europe, Australia and Africa will cast their votes on Sunday. The last parliamentary elections held on Lebanese soil was in 2009. Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil tweeted that he was “very proud” to witness the first expat voting in the history of the Lebanese republic. Philippe Samaha and his sister Cynthia after voting in Dubai. Antonin Kélian Kallouche/Gulf News “It marks the beginning of a track that will not stop until the return of all Lebanese to their country,” he posted as people followed the voting on a large screen at the foreign ministry. The elections next month in Lebanon are the first in nine years after parliament postponed them several times over security reasons. The house’s term was supposed to expire in 2013 but lawmakers approved several extensions since then, the last one in June for another 11 months. 5,166 registered voters In the UAE, 13 polling centres were open to cater to 5,166 registered voters. Voting centres opened doors at 7am and will remain open until 10pm on Friday.

From left: Naji Kazak, Zeina El Sheikh, with their children Fadi and Lara, after voting in the Lebanese Consulate in Dubai. Antonin Kélian Kallouche/Gulf News

As of 3pm on Friday, Some 1,606 voters had cast their votes at both missions representing 31 per cent of the total roll call, according to the Lebanese Foreign Ministry. Some voters were seen beaming with kids in tow. 13 polling centres in UAE Among them were Naji Kazak and wife Zeina Al Shaikh who wanted to be an example to their son Fadi and daughter Lara. “We brought our kids today because we wanted the whole family to be part of this. We’re making history today,” Zeina, a communications manager, told Gulf News. “It was a bit crowded which really makes my heart happy to see how enthusiastic and happy the Lebanese expats are to come and vote. Honestly, it’s crowded but it’s worth it,” she added. Zeina is hopeful that the elections will bring about change and a better future for her country. “Voting, at least for us, is a national duty. We care because this is our country and we really hope for the best,” she said.

Naji encouraged those who have been advocating for change but have lost faith in the elections to begin the process with themselves by exercising the right to vote. “Even if they have lost faith, there is always an opportunity, a chance. Today is that chance. We have to make that change starting with ourselves. You cannot complain all your life while sitting and doing nothing. At least, if I want to complain, at least I exercised my right. This is our right and we must take advantage of that right,” Naji said. Hassan Ahmad, a resident of Dubai since 1996, could not agree more. “I am an advocate of change and have full trust and confidence in the citizens’ power and right for a change and to change. Hence, I went with my wife to vote in hope for the best of democracy and in hope of seeing newer and fresher faces in the parliament whom I hope would be able and succeed in reshaping the whole political cycle in Lebanon,” he said.

Philippe Samaha and his sister Cynthia after voting in Dubai. Antonin Kélian Kallouche/Gulf News

Also hoping for the best for Lebanon were siblings Cynthia and Philippe Samaha. “It’s amazing because we felt that we are contributing to our country’s future. The change we want is peace, security, financial stability, and everything else so all Lebanese expats can go back to Lebanon,” Cynthia said. Philippe said with a grin: “Our district had a lot of voters. I think our list will be the winning one. We hope for the best.” The voting process was easy and convenient and only took less than five minutes per voter. The waiting time took longer, however, as the queues for some districts were long.

I waited three hours in the sun but I’m here. I used to travel to Beirut to vote before but now I can vote here, which is a good thing.” - Eid Al Riachi | 43-year-old voter

For Rana, a banker and resident of Dubai since 2003, her parents brought her up in a house that respects and believes in democracy and democratic systems. That is why she came early to cast her vote before the rush. “It’s true that this new electoral law isn’t good enough to satisfy and meet our needs as Lebanese citizens but it has come as a change after decades of voting via the same old laws. We are fed up of seeing the same parliamentarians since the 1970s. I’m hopeful that this new law would make a breakthrough, though, not groundbreaking one,” she said. Roland G., a businessman, believes his vote will “help in introducing some kind of change in the Lebanese politics”. After the voting, the ballots will be sealed and sent to the Lebanese Central Bank. They will only be opened and counted at the end of the official voting day on May 6. — With inputs from AP

Election violations reports

by naharnet -- Several electoral violations were reported as the voting of Lebanese expats got underway in six Arab countries on Friday. A monitor from the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE) said that in the Saudi city of Jeddah, officials thwarted attempts by some voters to use cellphones behind voting booths to take footage of their ballots during the voting process. “The aforementioned voters decided not to cast their ballots after their attempts were foiled,” the monitor said, noting that cellphones were later taken away from all voters participating in the electoral process. In Oman's Muscat, “a security camera was present behind the voting booth,” the LADE monitor said. “The ministry was informed and the issue was resolved,” she added. LBCI television meanwhile reported that in Dubai, some voters objected after their ballot envelopes were not sealed. The TV network said the official in charge of the polling station told the objecting voters that the new electoral law does not stipulate the sealing of envelopes and that a box containing all envelopes would be sealed with red wax ahead of being sent to Lebanon

Turnout

by Naharnet --  The overall voter turnout was at 48.11% at 5:25 pm Beirut time according to the National News Agency. Voters elsewhere in the world will vote on Sunday, a week before the May 6 polling in Lebanon, which has not renewed its parliament since 2009. But of the estimated one million-plus Lebanese nationals scattered across the globe, of which around two thirds qualify to vote, a total of only 82,900 people have registered. Akram Khater, director of a center for Lebanese diaspora studies at North Carolina State University, says promotion for the new initiative has been limited. "This is a new experiment that has been poorly publicized, and many are not sure of the mechanism, the implications of their vote," he said. Others may be disillusioned after a series of political crises that notably saw the last parliament extend its own mandate three times. "Many are reluctant to participate in what is widely regarded as rigged elections which will only bring back the same crop of politicians from the same parties," Khater said. The numbers of voters registered outside Lebanon is a fraction of the 3.7 million eligible voters at home. - Massive diaspora - But for a first try, "it's a satisfactory" number, a diplomat told AFP.

Voters will head to 116 polling stations in Lebanese embassies and consulates in 39 countries, and their votes will be shipped to Beirut in the diplomatic pouch. They will then be stored at the Central Bank after being sorted into electoral districts, and dispatched to each of these for counting on May 6. The government has said polling stations abroad will be monitored by security cameras. With registration relatively low, the political weight of Lebanon's diaspora vote this year will be "symbolic", elections consultant Said Sanadiki said.