Border rebels resist Hezbollah, regime 

Border rebels resist Hezbollah, regime

   
 Lebanon: Hezbollah and the Syrian Army have hit a wall in their fight to root out opposition forces from the mountainous Qalamoun area just over the Syrian border from Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

“We need more fighters to launch an extensive attack against the rebels,” a Hezbollah official told The Daily Star. “Their [the opposition’s] numbers ranges between 5,000 and 10,000 fighters.”

As rebels continue to cling to their foothold in Qalamoun, they continue to travel easily in and out of Lebanon, raising concerns of more attacks here from Islamist militants galvanized by the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria’s (ISIS) recent gains in northern Syria and Iraq.......Read more

   

Etiquette gets reboot for digital age 

Fraud, sex, post-it art: Google cuts search links

Fraud, sex, post-it art: Google cuts search links


 

BRUSSELS: Google's removal of search results in Europe is drawing accusations of press censorship, as stories from some of the continent's most prominent news outlets begin vanishing. The U.S. internet giant said Thursday it is getting 1,000 requests a day to scrub results.

The U.S. firm must comply with a May ruling from the European Union's top court that enables citizens to ask for the removal of embarrassing personal information that pops up on a search of their names. Among links to vanish were stories on a soccer referee who resigned after a scandal in 2010, French office workers making post-it art, a couple having sex on a train and a lawyer facing a fraud trial.

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Brazilians look to Pele and 1962 for Cup-winning omen

Brazilians look to Pele and 1962 for Cup-winning omen

SAO PAULO: Brazil have won a World Cup after losing their best player and they will be looking to the memory of 1962, when Pele was injured against Czechoslovakia, as an omen to get them over the loss of injured talisman Neymar.

Pele tore a thigh muscle midway through the first half of the Brazil’s second game in Chile, a 0-0 draw with the Czechs..................Read more

Egypt faces food imports as population increases, water grows scarce

Egypt faces food imports as population increases, water grows scarce

CAIRO/LONDON: In the northwest corner of the Nile Delta, Ibrahim Sharaf Al-Dein fires up his diesel-powered pump next to a murky canal only to watch it spew out a yellowish froth.

For the past 15 years, antiquated irrigation systems and a government conservation drive have kept many farmers from nutrient-rich Nile waters, forcing them to tap sewage-filled canals despite their proximity to the world’s longest river.

“This water ruins our pumps, it breaks our machines, it’s bad for our production,” Sharaf Al-Dein, 50, said of the canal..............Read more