Examiner Staff

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More than 1 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon: UN

BEIRUT: The number of Syrians registered as refugees in Lebanon after fleeing war in their country has surpassed one million, the UN refugee agency said on Thursday.

Refugees from Syria, half of them children, now equal a quarter of Lebanon’s resident population, the UNHCR said in a statement, warning that most of them live in poverty and depend on aid for survival.

The UN agency said the figure is “a devastating milestone worsened by rapidly depleting resources and a host community stretched to breaking point”.

Tiny Lebanon has now become the country with “the highest per capita concentration of refugees worldwide,” and is “struggling to keep pace”, the statement said.

“The influx of a million refugees would be massive in any country. For Lebanon, a small nation beset by internal difficulties, the impact is staggering,” UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres said in the statement.

Syria’s three-year war has killed more than 150,000 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights while half of the population is estimated to have fled their homes.

Of those who have fled Syria, nearly 600,000 have registered as refugees in Jordan and around 670,000 in Turkey.

According to the Guterres, ” Lebanon has experienced serious economic shocks due to the conflict in Syria”, while security has deteriorated as a result of rising regional instability.

The influx has put severe strains on Lebanon’s health and education sectors as well as on electricity, water and sanitation services.

“The Lebanese people have shown striking generosity, but are struggling to cope. Lebanon hosts the highest concentration of refugees in recent history,” Guterres said.

The UNHCR chief urged the global community to boost its support for Lebanon.

“International support to government institutions and local communities is at a level that, although slowly increasing, is totally out of proportion with what is needed,” Guterres said.

The humanitarian appeal for Lebanon “is only 13 percent funded,” even as the needs of a rapidly growing refugee population become ever more pressing.

Half the refugees are children, the UNHCR report said.

“The number of school-aged children is now over 400,000, eclipsing the number of Lebanese children in public schools. These schools have opened their doors to over 100,000 refugees, yet the ability to accept more is severely limited,” it added.

The vast majority of Syrian refugee children, however, are out of school.

Because of the dire economic situation their families endure, many children are now working, “girls can be married young and the prospect of a better future recedes the longer they remain out of school,” it said.

AFP

Out-of-sorts Riyadi rally to beat Hoops

BEIRUT: Riyadi survived a scare to beat bottom-side Hoops 78-72 and reclaim top spot from archrivals Sagesse during round 16 of the Lebanese Basketball League at Murr Stadium Wednesday.

Surprisingly, Hoops led for large parts of the game as they made the most of the absence of Ismail Ahmad. The veteran Egyptian was rested for the day with new addition American Rodney Carney set to make his debut Wednesday. However, Carney, a former NBA player, suffered a muscle strain and could not feature.

Though a win would have been enough for Riyadi to regain first place, the yellow side seemed powerless against a team who hadn’t won since mid-February, and were only 1-14.

Hoops impressed with their fast-paced game, earning a 34-28 lead with two minutes left in the second, before Slobodan Subotic’s side rallied to a 35-34 halftime advantage.

Riyadi remained rudderless without talisman Ahmad, as Hoops continued to attack with impressive fighting spirit and teamwork as they led 47-38 with an upset on the cards.

However, Riyadi regrouped, with Roy Samaha doing fine work under the basket, while Ali Haidar and Amir Saoud were active from beyond the arc.

After tying the score at 52 before the fourth, Riyadi waited until the last two minutes to ensure their hard-fought victory 78-72.

With their win, Riyadi are now first at 12-4 ahead of Sagesse in second on head-to-head advantage. Meanwhile, Hoops are still rooted to the bottom at 1-15.

Haidar led the scoring for Riyadi with 17 points and five rebounds, while Saoud sunk 15 points coming off the bench. Jean Abdelnour had 13 points and 10 rebounds while Loren Woods and Samaha added 10 points each.

American point guard Brandon Johnson top scored for Hoops with 16 points, eight rebounds and seven assists, while Hussein Tawbe added 14 points and seven rebounds. Palestinian center Sani Sakakini added 13 points and 11 rebounds.

Elsewhere, Homenetmen will look to extend their impressive winning streak to seven when they visit Amchit at Jbeil Thursday.

The Armenian side have been unstoppable in the second leg, having recorded six consecutive victories, to see them move from eighth place to sixth at 8-7.

Meanwhile, Amchit, who hold the longest winning streak in the league this season at eight, have been in a slump recently, after two losses on the bounce against Mouttahed and Riyadi to surrender first place. They are still in the race for first place as a win would move them into a three-way tie with Riyadi and Sagesse.

The Daily Star

Safa into AFC second round after fourth successive win

BEIRUT: Ali Kirki’s 73rd-minute strike sent Safa through to the AFC Cup knockout stages after the Beirut club overcame Al-Suwaiq 1-0 at Cite Sportive in Beirut Wednesday.

The two-time defending Lebanese league champions improved to 12 points at the top of Group A and maintained their perfect record with four wins from as many matches.

Jordanian side That Ras made it a two-horse race for top spot in the group Wednesday, trouncing Tajikistan’s Ravshan 5-1 to remain in second place on nine points, six points above Al-Suwaiq and a further three ahead of Wednesday’s opponents.

Safa made light of their threadbare squad, including the suspended pair of Constantin Toba and Rony Azar, who joined the injured Ali Saade and Ali Nassereddine on the sidelines.

They managed to keep their opponents at bay for most of an uneventful first half, with only Saad al-Mazrouki testing Safa’s goalkeeper Ziad al-Samad, who saved well from the attacker’s 39th-minute strike.

Safa responded shortly afterward through Hamzah Salameh, whose attempt brushed against the roof of the net to signal the end of the opening period.

The guests were more adventurous after the restart, venturing forward in search of the opening goal, but Safa maintained their shape and occasionally threatened on the break.

Samad was called into action once again early in the second half, thwarting Mohammad al-Ghassani after his strike looked destined for the bottom corner.

The warning only strengthened Safa’s resolve, as the hosts regained their dominance in midfield.

And they finally broke the deadlock 17 minutes from time, Kirki meeting Joseph Habbouch’s fizzed-in free kick with a thumping header that arrowed into the top corner.

Safa face second-placed That Ras next Tuesday with a draw or better guaranteeing them first place in Group A.

Meanwhile, Nejmeh kept their qualification hopes alive with a valuable 0-0 draw at Fanja Tuesday.

Theo Bucker’s side are in second place in Group B on five points, level with Fanja but ahead courtesy of the head-to-head rule.

They next face group leaders (9) Al-Kuwait next Wednesday.

The Daily Star

Occupation of AUB turns ‘symbolic’

BEIRUT: Students at AUB erected some 20 tents on campus Wednesday for a symbolic occupation of College Hall in protest against a proposed tuition hike. It was unclear, however, how many of the roughly 100 students would actually stay the night.

Some faculty voiced support for the occupation, a marked escalation by students in their monthslong campaign against the fee increase. The university insists that a raise in tuition is required to maintain the institution’s high quality operations but has not committed itself to a figure yet.

Passing through the protest camp Wednesday afternoon, however, professor Vijay Prashad said the university’s rhetoric was hollow.

“You hear this language, ‘excellence,’ ‘high quality,’ but what that means in terms of the classroom nobody knows,” he told The Daily Star. “Another way to do education is to develop education with compassion. I haven’t heard the word compassion among administrators as a goal of education in a very long time. They only want to talk about excellence, which nobody can define.”

Watching the camp being set up, Dean of Student Affairs Talal Nizameddin said he thought it was sending the wrong message.

“I don’t like the idea of tents. They have a negative history in Lebanon,” he told The Daily Star, but added that he respected the students’ views.

He questioned the level of support for the occupation and voiced doubt about whether many students would actually spend the night.

“I think a lot of students sympathize, but are they active? Are they really that involved?” he asked. “You can’t have a small minority manipulating [the whole community].”

However, Nizameddin said the students had been “really good, really cooperative” in their dealings with the administration: “They’ve been very civilized, firm and vocal. I think we can respect that and give them the space to do that.”

While initially reticent, President Peter Dorman allowed the occupation to take place after students agreed to certain stipulations, according to Amir Richani, a student leader.

“We had a meeting with Peter Dorman, and actually we had to negotiate some of the terms [of the occupation],” he told The Daily Star.

As per the conditions, male and female protesters are required to sleep in separate tents, alcohol is prohibited and the noise must be kept to a minimum at night.

Richani acknowledged that the camp was largely intended to draw attention to the broader issues rather than actually seize control of any campus buildings.

“It’s really more symbolic than anything else,” he said. “For now, we have to wait for the Board of Trustees, who are working on the budget, but I think that this will just show that we haven’t forgotten about the situation and we’re willing to fight for it until the end.”

Showing that the students can sustain a peaceful and productive protest is also an important aspect of the occupation, engineering student Weam Dallal said.

“We can function, we can study, we can do our daily activities here even if we are striking,” he explained. “The civilized and peaceful camp will send a message.”

At the protest camp, some played cards while others finished homework assignments or talked with faculty and staff who walked through.

Still, many students passed the protest camp with relative apathy, and even some involved in the protest said they would not spend the night.

“I have too much work,” one said. “I live really close by,” another added with a shrug.

The Daily Star

Three killed, 16 wounded at Fort Hood Army base

FORT HOOD, Texas: A soldier opened fire on fellow service members at the Fort Hood military base, killing three people and wounding 16 before committing suicide at the same post where more than a dozen people were slain in a 2009 attack, authorities said.

The shooter, who served in Iraq in 2011, had been undergoing an assessment to determine whether he had post-traumatic stress disorder, according to Lt. Gen. Mark A. Milley, the senior officer on the base.

There was no indication the Wednesday attack was related to terrorism, Milley said.

A Texas congressman said the shooting happened at a medical center. Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, also identified the suspect as Ivan Lopez. But additional details about the gunman were not immediately available.

The injured were taken to Darnall Army Community Hospital at Fort Hood and other local hospitals. Dr. Glen Couchman, chief medical officer at Scott and White Hospital in Temple, said the first four people admitted there had gunshots to chest, abdomen, neck and extremities and that their conditions range from stable to “quite critical.”

The 2009 assault on Fort Hood was the deadliest attack on a domestic military installation in U.S. history. Thirteen people were killed and more than 30 wounded.

After the shooting began, the Army’s official Twitter feed said the post had been locked down. Hours later, all-clear sirens sounded.

On Wednesday evening, a fatigue-clad soldier and a military police officer stood about a quarter-mile from the main gate waving away traffic. Other lanes were blocked by a police car and van.

Meanwhile, relatives of soldiers waited for news about their loved ones.

Tayra DeHart, 33, said she had last heard from her husband, a soldier at the post, that he was safe, but that was hours earlier.

“The last two hours have been the most nerve-racking I’ve ever felt. I know God is here protecting me and all the soldiers, but I have my phone in my hand just hoping it will ring and it will be my husband,” DeHart said.

Brooke Conover, whose husband was on base at the time of the shooting, said she found out about it while checking Facebook. She said she called her husband, Staff Sgt. Sean Conover, immediately to make sure he was OK, but he could not even tell her exactly what was going on, only that the base was locked down.

“I’m still hearing conflicting stories about what happened and where the shooting was exactly,” Conover said in a telephone interview, explaining that she still did not know how close the incident was to her husband.

President Barack Obama vowed that investigators would get to the bottom of the shooting.

In a hastily arranged statement in Chicago, Obama said he was following the situation closely. He said the shooting brought back painful memories of the 2009 attack.

Obama reflected on the sacrifices that troops stationed at Fort Hood have made – including enduring multiple tours to Iraq and Afghanistan.

“They serve with valor. They serve with distinction, and when they’re at their home base, they need to feel safe,” Obama said. “We don’t yet know what happened tonight, but obviously that sense of safety has been broken once again.”

The president spoke without notes or prepared remarks in the same room of a steakhouse where he had just met with about 25 donors at a previously scheduled fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee. White House officials quickly pushed tables to the side of the room to make room for Obama to speak to the nation.

The November 2009 attack happened inside a crowded building where soldiers were waiting to get vaccines and routine paperwork after recently returning from deployments or preparing to go to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan was convicted and sentenced to death last year in that mass shooting. He said he acted to protect Islamic insurgents abroad from American aggression.

According to testimony during Hasan’s trial last August, Hasan walked inside carrying two weapons and several loaded magazines, shouted “Allahu Akbar!” – Arabic for “God is great!” – and opened fire with a handgun.

Witnesses said he targeted soldiers as he walked through the building, leaving pools of blood, spent casings and dying soldiers on the floor. Photos of the scene were shown to the 13 officers on the military jury.

The rampage ended when Hasan was shot in the back by Fort Hood police officers outside the building. He was paralyzed from the waist down and is now on death row at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.

After that shooting, the military tightened security at bases nationwide. Those measures included issuing security personnel long-barreled weapons, adding an insider-attack scenario to their training and strengthening ties to local law enforcement, according to Peter Daly, a vice admiral who retired from the Navy in 2011. The military also joined an FBI intelligence-sharing program aimed at identifying terror threats.

In September, a former Navy man opened fire at the Washington Navy Yard, leaving 13 people dead, including the gunman. After that shooting, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered the Pentagon to review security at all U.S. defense installations worldwide and examine the granting of security clearances that allow access to them.

Asked Wednesday about security improvements in the wake of other shootings at U.S. military bases, Hagel said, “Obviously when we have these kinds of tragedies on our bases, something’s not working.”

Associated Press

Lebanon poised to delay gas auction date

BEIRUT: International oil companies want the April 10 offshore gas and oil auction to be pushed back at least three months to allow them more time prepare bids, a source said Wednesday.

“The oil companies that showed interest in Lebanon’s gas and oil wealth are not planning to make any investments in oil blocks for the time being,” a Lebanese source familiar with the auction told The Daily Star. “They need to know the number of blocks that will be auctioned off and the conditions for exploration.”

He added that some of the firms had reallocated investments to other countries that had already passed laws and named blocks for auction.

“At present, we are not on the map for investments. These investments will only take place once the decrees have passed and blocks are named,” the source said. “They also need more time to put their resources together.”

Former Energy and Water Minister Gebran Bassil delayed the auction multiple times, after the caretaker Cabinet failed to pass two decrees to establish the number of blocks that would be auctioned and set the revenue mechanism.

The source stressed that even if the decrees were passed by the Cabinet this week, the energy minister had no choice but to set a new date for the auction.

A CEO of an international company involved in the process warned, however, that Lebanon would face stiff competition, considering that several other countries had recently opened up all of their shoreline for drilling and exploration.

“Greece, Croatia and Montenegro have invited the international oil companies to bid for all of the available blocks,” the CEO told The Daily Star. “These countries did not restrict the companies to bid for three or four blocks only as in Lebanon’s case.”

He added that it would be advisable for Lebanon to open all 10 blocks for bidding.

“This way the companies can choose two or three blocks out of the 10 blocks Lebanon has. At the moment, Lebanon is facing competition with countries that have opened up all of their offshore for bidding,” the CEO said.

However, many experts in the oil and gas field have said that Lebanon should only include a limited number of blocks in the first auction.

Commenting on the U.S. efforts to mediate between Lebanon and Israel over the disputed maritime waters, the Lebanese source said that as far as Lebanon was concerned, the entire zone was part of its own territorial waters.

“ Lebanon has identified the zone as area 23 or triangle 23. The area is located in the far south, which is close to the Israeli territorial waters. The Americans have offered to draw a line in the border to help both sides explore gas,” the source said.

But he insisted that all 10 blocks, including the disputed area, were up for grabs.

“It is up to the oil companies to apply or not for area 23 which stretches over 860 kilometers off the Lebanese coast,” the source said.

However, the source admitted that international oil companies are hesitantto drill in disputed areas.

“It took Russia and Norway 40 years to reach an agreement over a disputed zone,” he said. “These things happen even between friendly countries.”

Amos J Hochstein, U.S. deputy assistant secretary for energy diplomacy, told The Daily Star earlier that Washington advised Lebanon not drill in the disputed zone until a solution was found.

He also said that Washington had offered to mediate indirectly between Lebanon and Israel to settle the dispute.

The Daily Star

App developer wows at just 12 years old

BATHA, Lebanon: The Mir family never expected that the Mac laptop their 12-year-old son Jake bought with his savings would transform him into one of the youngest iOS app developers in the country.

“All I keep telling him now is to focus on his studies as a steppingstone for better universities later on, but his focus now is on creating new games,” says Jake’s mother, Sayde, who welcomed The Daily Star into her home in Batha, Mount Lebanon.

She adds, however, that she intends to support her son any way she can.

“I was inspired by Steve Jobs,” Jake says.

To date, Jake has released two games: Emoji Escape, which was launched in December of last year and earned an Apple rating of 4+, and Emoji Go, released March 9, 2014. Both apps are targeted mainly toward young people and include several challenging levels where emoticons come alive.

“It took me five months to finish the first game, because I was in the process of learning the programming material, but only two months for the second,” Jakes says.

Jake is looking to branch out from games into other types of mobile applications. He is currently working on one that lists the daily and weekly specials featured at restaurants in Lebanon.

“It is still an idea, but I want to work on it,” Jake says with determination, glancing at his mom.

Ever since he was a young boy, Jake says, he had a passion for programming, so he and a friend decided to try to teach themselves. His friend soon gave up, finding the challenge too daunting, but Jake continued to push forward.

His parents, who were in disbelief at first, started to take their son’s hobby more seriously after they received a call from an Apple staff member in response to a letter Jake had sent.

Following the release of his games, Jake became somewhat of a celebrity with several local and international news outlets running stories on the young developer. He even received a letter of recognition from former Culture Minister Gaby Layoun.

Far from being content with his success so far, Jake hopes to travel this summer to Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California in order to get hands-on experience with the company.

He has already spoken with Apple developers over Skype and successfully met the requirements to be certified as a developer.

His dream is to major in computer science and programming in order to enhance his skills and eventually land a job with Apple. Jake looks forward to working with operating systems such as iOS for iPhone.

While Jake says he received recognition and congratulations from the company, they have refused to credit his name to the games since he is still a minor. Instead, his father’s name, Aziz El Mir, is listed.

His father, who works in the field of informatics, insists he did not help Jake, and that his son taught himself by spending hours on his laptop.

“Everyone can learn the material, even at a young age,” Jake says.

Though he is just 12, Jake fully acknowledges the limitations he faces in Lebanon in terms of finding support for technological innovation.

“I hope to travel and seek opportunities abroad,” he says.

The Daily Star

Sleiman launches long-awaited bill to decentralize government

BAABDA, Lebanon: President Michel Sleiman officially launched a draft bill for administrative decentralization Wednesday, arguing that the new legislation would promote national unity in Lebanon as well as transparency and accountability.

Called for in the 1989 Taif Accord that ended the Civil War, the legal reforms aim to redistribute the authority, responsibility and financial resources needed to provide public services among a wider variety of levels of government.

“Administrative decentralization provides balanced development and strengthens national unity and diversity in Lebanon without obstructing federalism or any kind of partition,” Sleiman said to a large gathering of ministers and ambassadors at Baabda Palace.

He also said the bill provided “transparency, accountability and monitoring, bringing the citizen closer to holding accountable those he has elected,” describing it as of equal importance to the electoral law and the budget law, since it affects both.

He expressed hope that the law would be passed by the Cabinet before the end of its term.

When Sleiman was elected in 2008, he vowed to bring in the decentralization law during his tenure, making it a key part of his election platform.

The bill, prepared by a committee headed by former Interior Minister Ziad Baroud, contains 147 items and prioritizes the powers and rights of the municipalities, particularly with respect to financial autonomy.

The aim is to create an elected council in each of the country’s 25 qadas with wide-ranging financial and administrative powers. This would comprise a popularly elected general committee, whose number of members would be based on the qada’s population up to a maximum of six, and a 12-person board of directors chosen by the general committee. A specialized independent body would organize the councils as well as oversee the elections.

As long as they fulfill certain criteria, any individual aged 21 or over would be able to run for council, a significantly lower minimum age than for national elections, which require potential candidates to be at least 25.

The board of director’s main role would be to take care of the yearly budget and development plans for the qada. The general committee’s purpose would be to oversee the board of directors, but the latter would retain executive power concerning all public matters.

Citizens would be able to oversee the work of the council and would have the power to file objections to its plans and projects.

The plan would also involve removing the current qaimaqam position, transferring his powers to the council, and would replace the independent municipality fund with a decentralized fund.

In the capital, a special Beirut council would be formed with a general committee of 72 members and a 12-person board of directors.

The bill also calls for the voting age to be lowered from 21 to 18, which would require altering Article 21 of the Constitution.

The legislation is intended to make sure all state departments are represented within the country’s qadas in order to ease citizens’ administrative paperwork and better address their needs.

The decentralization bill will not, however, abolish the central government and its commitments toward qadas regarding infrastructure, education, health and transportation.

According to Sleiman, the bill would improve citizens’ participation in democracy, which he said was not currently being practiced properly. It would also allow youths to participate at a deeper level than just the general elections and would allow for the greater involvement of women in the decision-making process, something he said was lacking within both Parliament and the Cabinet.

“Partnership between the private and public sectors is important, and it [the bill] promotes employment opportunities for the youth, which curbs migration and brain drain and reinforces the economy,” Sleiman said. “Villages will regain their sons scattered abroad.”

He also noted the importance of security, which he said would be bolstered by the decentralization law by the creation of a qada police force with its own training center.

“This is a serious project and this police [force] will have the capacity of law enforcement officers, and this will greatly help in maintaining security,” the president said.

Sleiman also voiced hope that future oil revenues would play a role in promoting the decentralization fund, the goal of which is to fund and develop qadas and municipalities.

“Let us make the electoral occasions ones of joy for the Lebanese and continue the application of the Taif Accord through the creation of a senate and develop a parliamentary law, and abolish political sectarianism with the will of all Lebanese,” he said.

At the palace, Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk lauded the bill, which he said “ensured commitment to the Constitution and the Taif Accord” and was “a standard of criteria for evaluating the modern state and society.”

The Daily Star

Cabinet fills key vacancies, appoints oil committee

BEIRUT: The Cabinet made 10 key appointments Wednesday, including the police chief and the state prosecutor, and formed a ministerial committee to study the designation of Lebanon’s offshore blocks for oil exploration.

The government appointed Maj. Gen. Ibrahim Basbous as director general of the Internal Security Forces after he served as acting director general.

Acting State Prosecutor Judge Samir Hammoud also became a full-fledged state prosecutor.

The breakthrough in appointments came two days after a stormy session over the issue and is expected to pave the way for filling the scores of vacant senior posts in the public sector.

The government, which convened under President Michel Sleiman at Baabda Palace, also appointed Mansour Daw as governor of the south, Faten Youness as director general of political and refugee affairs in the Interior Ministry and Judge Ahmad Hamdan as head of the Court of Accounts.

The Cabinet renewed the term of Kamal Hayek as a director general of Electricite du Liban and appointed Habib Merhi a general inspector at the Health, Agricultural and Social Inspection Department at the Agriculture Ministry.

Hanna al-Amil became the director general of the Sugar Beet and Cereals Department and Lana Dargham the director general of the Lebanese Standards Institution.

It also appointed Johny Abu Fadel as the director general of the National Employment Organization.

Wednesday’s appointments were divided equally between Muslims and Christians.

The ministers then listened to a presentation by members of the Petroleum Administration on dividing Lebanon’s territorial waters into blocks and on the specification book that companies should satisfy to be awarded tenders for offshore oil and gas exploration.

The government formed a ministerial committee to study the issue and present the Cabinet with a report at a later session.

Chaired by Prime Minister Tammam Salam, the committee is comprised of Deputy Prime Minister Samir Moqbel, Energy Minister Arthur Nazarian, Environment Minister Mohammad Machnouk, Public Works Minister Ghazi Zeaiter, Health Minister Wael Abu Faour, Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil.

The designation of offshore blocks for oil exploration has been a source of contention between Speaker Nabih Berri and Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement.

The speaker has called for auctioning off all of Lebanon’s 10 blocks to bidding companies in one round in order to prevent Israel from exploiting any of Lebanon’s blocks near its borders.

But the Petroleum Administration has named only five blocks, a move supported by Bassil, who argues that approving all the blocks for drilling in one batch is not a transparent act.

The Cabinet was briefed by Moqbel and Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk on the security plan the Lebanese Army began implementing in Tripoli Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters after the session, Information Minister Ramzi Joreige said the Cabinet stressed that the plan was permanent and that its implementation had proven that the Army and the ISF operate with high levels of coordination and were able to relieve residents of Tripoli. Tripoli has witnessed rounds of deadly fighting between supporters of Syrian President Bashar Assad in the predominantly Alawite neighborhood of Jabal Mohsen and rivals in the mainly Sunni district of Bab al-Tabbaneh since the start of Syria’s war in March 2011.

On his way to the Cabinet session, Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi told reporters that the security plan in his home city of Tripoli was very satisfying.

“Bringing peace back to Tripoli is a challenge. It is important to see our children happy carrying their school bags again,” he said. “God willing, the atmosphere will continue as such and Tripoli will only be a city of coexistence and peace.”

Rifi did not rule out the possibility that he would visit Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen, saying residents of both neighborhoods “are my people.”

Rifi said he planned to actively resume contacts with Hezbollah to protect the country, which he said was exhausted from Sunni-Shiite tension.

The Cabinet will meet again Tuesday.

The Daily Star

Tourism is Lebanon’s biggest missed opportunity

A few days ago, the World Travel & Tourism Council published a report titled “Travel & Tourism, Economic Impact 2014, Lebanon.” The report’s contents were not surprising. It shows numbers indicating the importance of the tourism sector in Lebanon because tourism contributes to the national income, creates jobs, and accounts for a significant portion of the labor market. 

The report reveals the size of the economic potential of the tourism sector, which until now has not been fully invested. In other words, the report showed the cost of missed opportunity arising from the lack of stability and from the delay in implementing structural reforms that are necessary for all productive sectors and for the public administration.

According to the report, the direct contribution of the travel and tourism sector to the Lebanese economy for 2014 is expected to reach $3.23 billion, which is 6.9% of total GDP. Moreover, the direct contribution of this sector to the economy is expected to grow by 2.2%, which is modest and puts Lebanon 159th in the world in this category.

This is not surprising, especially since the growth rate expected for Lebanon, according to the most optimistic estimates, is no more than 2%. The growth engines are almost idle because of the worsening Syrian crisis and its effect on all the security, political and economic agreements. It should be noted that the total contribution (both direct and indirect) for the travel and tourism sector, which affects all economic sectors, is expected to be $9 billion dollars, or 19.3% of economic activity in 2014.

As for the impact of this sector on the labor market, the report indicated that its total contribution to the national labor force could reach 18.6%, the equivalent of 261,300 jobs. The sector’s direct contribution to employment is expected to grow by 2.7% this year, putting Lebanon 99th in the world.

This report confirms what everybody already knows about the tourism sector in the Lebanese economy. The sector contributes a large share to GDP, making it a key economic pillar and a primary growth driver, which must be activated to restart the growth cycle and take the country out of its current stalemate. The low growth rates of economic activity and the labor market, and the relatively low global scores, are only evidence of the cost of the political and security crises and the tensions afflicting Lebanon.

This is the cost of missed opportunities. What’s interesting is the report’s positive projections until the year 2024. During that period, the expected growth in the long term puts Lebanon in 14th place globally, out of 183 countries covered by the study. These projections show the large potential of this sector, where investments are being hindered by the political conditions and the inability of the ruling class to overcome them.

In fact, the tourism sector in Lebanon has a productive capacity that may exceed even those projections if one takes into account the many possibilities for development, as is the case in economically developed countries. The tourism sector grew significantly and became more versatile. There is now medical tourism, business tourism, and even religious tourism. All of those have a fertile ground in Lebanon if the proper environment is made for business, good governance, and an appropriate legislative framework.

In the area of ​​travel, the return of calm and stability, and making Beirut’s skies open to all, would be enough to transform this distinctive city — given its geographic location and its level of services — into an international hub for transport and communications, which would boost growth.

There is a raging debate inside Lebanon on controversial topics, which have been outstanding for years, around a dialogue table, an extra-constitutional institution. The dialogue is intended to move the conflict from the street into a locked room. While political parties exchange charges about the economy, the growth of public debt, high unemployment, emigration, and the disruption to the production cycle, this report comes to shed light on one sector and shows, by the numbers, the underlying productive capacity of the Lebanese economy and how it is being crippled by politics. And developing of this sector is only the tip of the iceberg.

However, the political class is totally absent from the economic worries, and published reports by international institutions are neither read nor discussed. Ironically, the presidential bazaar kicked off two days ago, with the start of the constitutional period to elect a new president. There is no official candidate for the job yet, and the lack of candidates means a lack of electoral programs, including reform and economic programs. Presidents normally come “from the outside,” i.e., through a regional settlement. As we await what the outside will do, Lebanon is stuck dreaming about reforms, which may come one day, but every day until then is a missed opportunity.

Al-Monitor

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