Lebanon

More than two-thirds of Syrian refugees in Lebanon live in extreme poverty, according to a United Nations study published on Dec. 23, up nearly 50 percent from last year.  

Based on an assessment of more than 4,000 refugee households, the report found that an estimated 70 percent of them are living below the Lebanese extreme poverty line of $3.84 (3.52 euros) per day.  

Lebanon's cabinet on Dec. 21 agreed to export the country's waste in a move that could end a crisis that led to a wave of protests and threatened the downfall of the government. 

Lebanese Hezbollah militant leader Samir Qantar was killed in an Israeli air strike in Damascus early on Dec. 20, the Lebanese group and Syrian government sources said.

Israel welcomed his death, saying he had been preparing attacks on it from Syrian soil, but stopped short of confirming responsibility for the strike that killed him. 

Anonymous, the loose collective of online hacktivists, leaked out information on Saturday regarding the next Islamic State terror attacks in Paris and other locations around the world, including the United States, Indonesia, Italy and Lebanon – not Greece – all at the same time.

The Islamic State (IS) militant group has claimed responsibility for the attacks in Burj al-Barajneh, a mainly Shia southern suburb and Hezbollah stronghold where Hezbollah forces are fighting IS in neighbouring Syria. The attack left 41 dead, in the deadliest bombing in Beirut, the Lebanese capital, cince the end of Lebanon’s civil war in 1990.

Lebanon observed a national day of mourning on Nov. 13 after two suicide bombs the day before killed 43 people in southern Beirut, in an act the United Nations condemned overnight as "despicable."

For two years, Syrian teenager Ibrahim scraped together a paltry living selling lottery tickets and tissues on the crowded streets of Beirut, but that seems like a lifetime ago now.

Scuffles broke out in the centre of the Lebanese capital on Sept.20 as thousands of demonstrators protested near parliament to demand that MPs be replaced in a general election.

A senior EU official on Sept. 19 spelt out plans to encourage people fleeing war in Syria to stay in bordering countries rather than join the flow of migrants to Europe.
 
In a visit to a migrant reception centre on the Macedonian border, European Commissioner Johannes Hahn said the European Union faced several tasks.
 

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban has proposed that the European Union give EUR 3B to Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan to help halt the flow of Syrian migrants from camps in those countries, newswires reported.