Hezbollah

The Syrian ceasefire, brokered by the U.S., Russia and Jordan, reveals the shifting positions of the countries involved in the conflict

What students are talking about today (January 17th)

The Tory crime bill will allow lawsuits to be brought against countries that engage in and support terrorism, like Hezbollah in Lebanon

The Assad regime is down but not out. What happens next will have serious implications for Iran.

Beirut’s luxury hotels had only just stolen the spotlight back from bombed-out ones when Arab Spring uprisings and trouble on Lebanon’s domestic front dealt a debilitating blow to the city’s tourism industry this year. After the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, the city’s reclamation of its hedonistic reputation and “Paris of the East” moniker was made official in 2009 when the New York Times named Beirut the top place to visit in the world. And the numbers followed: in 2010, Lebanon set a new tourism record with more than two million visitors, exceeding pre-civil-war numbers. But tourism dropped 15.5 per cent in the first four months of this year, while Beirut’s hotel business has dropped 40 per cent. Dozens of restaurants have shuttered, while many that remain open have laid off employees or cut their salaries. Business owners also blame Lebanon’s precarious political situation: after more than five months without a government, the country finally got one on June 13, albeit an administration dominated by militant group Hezbollah. The fast-deterioriating situation in neighbouring Syria is no help, either, as the country is an important land route for tourists travelling from Jordan and Turkey.

Excellent and enormously consequential reporting by the CBC… Also infuriating, depressing, and, sadly, not all that surprising.

From Question Period this afternoon, the definitive moment of this particular moment in our collective history.

The Australian reports on allegations that the Iranian embassy in Canberra spies on Iranian pro-democracy activists in Australia.

Canada’s speedy response to the Haiti crisis was no accident

If the issue is who has been the stauncher supporter of Israel, there’s no question that it’s the Tories, not the Grits

Local press have dubbed Salah Ezzedine the ‘Lebanese Madoff’

The Gaza war has been a return to the bedrock policy of hitting enemies hard