Syria has postponed a visit by Lebanon's Defence Minister Michel Menassa to Damascus scheduled for Wednesday, when officials were due to discuss the contested and volatile border between the countries. The delay was not believed to be related to recent Syrian-Lebanese tension.
“Lebanon has been asked by Syrian authorities to postpone the visit of its delegation, as new security appointments in Syria are expected to be announced soon,” a Lebanese security source told The National.
Mr Menassa was set to be the most senior Lebanese official to visit Syria since the cabinet was approved last month. He was scheduled to meet his Syrian counterpart Murhaf Abu Qasra, appointed Defence Minister after former president Bashar Al Assad was ousted in December by a coalition of rebels led by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS), which took over the government.
Tensions along the undemarcated Syria-Lebanon border escalated this month, with two days of clashes between the respective national forces and Lebanese armed groups, in which eight Syrian soldiers and a 15-year-old Lebanese male were killed. The boy died in Syrian bombing in the frontier village of Qasr. The neighbouring countries then agreed a ceasefire which brought an end to the violence.
The new Syrian authorities accused Hezbollah, which has traditionally had a strong presence in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, of kidnapping and killing three soldiers. Those claims were rejected by the powerful Lebanese political party and armed group that was key in propping up Mr Al Assad's regime during the Syrian war.
But despite the ceasefire, the "underlying issues remain unresolved, leaving the door open for renewed conflict at the Lebanon-Syria border", a western diplomatic source told The National at the time.
The two countries have had a rocky relationship over the years and the recent escalation marred efforts by the two governments to improve relations since the fall of Al Assad. Troops under HTS have clashed with Hezbollah several times at the border, with the authorities in Damascus saying some smuggling rings Hezbollah used to supply weapons from Iran still operate in the area. It vowed to crack down on Hezbollah-linked smugglers in a bid to secure the border.
Vaccine Progress in the Middle East
Company profile
Name: GiftBag.ae
Based: Dubai
Founded: 2011
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Sector: E-commerce
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Ads on social media can 'normalise' drugs
A UK report on youth social media habits commissioned by advocacy group Volteface found a quarter of young people were exposed to illegal drug dealers on social media.
The poll of 2,006 people aged 16-24 assessed their exposure to drug dealers online in a nationally representative survey.
Of those admitting to seeing drugs for sale online, 56 per cent saw them advertised on Snapchat, 55 per cent on Instagram and 47 per cent on Facebook.
Cannabis was the drug most pushed by online dealers, with 63 per cent of survey respondents claiming to have seen adverts on social media for the drug, followed by cocaine (26 per cent) and MDMA/ecstasy, with 24 per cent of people.
THE APPRENTICE
Director: Ali Abbasi
Starring: Sebastian Stan, Maria Bakalova, Jeremy Strong
Rating: 3/5
A State of Passion
Directors: Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi
Stars: Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah
Rating: 4/5
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
Day 5, Dubai Test: At a glance
Moment of the day Given the problems Sri Lanka have had in recent times, it was apt the winning catch was taken by Dinesh Chandimal. He is one of seven different captains Sri Lanka have had in just the past two years. He leads in understated fashion, but by example. His century in the first innings of this series set the shock win in motion.
Stat of the day This was the ninth Test Pakistan have lost in their past 11 matches, a run that started when they lost the final match of their three-Test series against West Indies in Sharjah last year. They have not drawn a match in almost two years and 19 matches, since they were held by England at the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi in 2015.
The verdict Mickey Arthur basically acknowledged he had erred by basing Pakistan’s gameplan around three seam bowlers and asking for pitches with plenty of grass in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. Why would Pakistan want to change the method that has treated them so well on these grounds in the past 10 years? It is unlikely Misbah-ul-Haq would have made the same mistake.
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Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
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The biog
Name: Abeer Al Bah
Born: 1972
Husband: Emirati lawyer Salem Bin Sahoo, since 1992
Children: Soud, born 1993, lawyer; Obaid, born 1994, deceased; four other boys and one girl, three months old
Education: BA in Elementary Education, worked for five years in a Dubai school
Heather, the Totality
Matthew Weiner,
Canongate
The Bio
Favourite vegetable: “I really like the taste of the beetroot, the potatoes and the eggplant we are producing.”
Holiday destination: “I like Paris very much, it’s a city very close to my heart.”
Book: “Das Kapital, by Karl Marx. I am not a communist, but there are a lot of lessons for the capitalist system, if you let it get out of control, and humanity.”
Musician: “I like very much Fairuz, the Lebanese singer, and the other is Umm Kulthum. Fairuz is for listening to in the morning, Umm Kulthum for the night.”
War
Director: Siddharth Anand
Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Tiger Shroff, Ashutosh Rana, Vaani Kapoor
Rating: Two out of five stars
Match info:
Portugal 1
Ronaldo (4')
Morocco 0
