Reading Time: 2 minutes People who not long ago were comfortably middle-class urban dwellers, find themselves thrown into poverty this year, to the point of relying on NGO-provided food aid. From the old to the very young, the faces of poverty may be depressed or smiling, but the underlying realities are the same. Urban poverty has been expressing itself…
In pictures: Protests and clashes in Downtown Beirut
Reading Time: 2 minutes On June 6, thousands of protesters gathered in Downtown Beirut starting at 3 p.m. in the largest protest since the COVID-19 lockdown went into force. Demonstrators were protesting the impacts of the ongoing economic and coronavirus crises that have seen the value of the local currency plummet. Initial peaceful protests soon became heated as supporters…
In pictures: Protests against the new government
Reading Time: < 1 minute On Tuesday, February 11, Downtown Beirut saw clashes between security forces and hundreds of protesters who had gathered to block access to Parliament ahead of a vote of confidence on the new government. Several rounds of clashes between protesters and police resulted in the injuries of 373 people, 45 of whom were taken to hospital…
In pictures: Day 101 of the uprising
Reading Time: < 1 minute On Saturday January 25, protesters came back out in the hundreds to mark over 100 days of the Lebanese uprising, with marches held throughout the city congregating in Downtown Beirut. As the day wore on, as had been the case in previous weekends in January, the evening was characterized by clashes between riot police and…
Uprising
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Lost in Trainslation
Reading Time: 3 minutes Kan ya ma kan (once upon a time), Lebanon had a well-developed railway network established by the different foreign authorities that governed the country before its independence. The first major rail line was developed during the Ottoman period in 1895 and ran from Beirut to Damascus. It was constructed by the French upon a concession…
C’est la mer(de)
Reading Time: < 1 minute For those who cannot afford beach club or resort entry fees, public beaches are the only option to enjoy the sun and sand in Lebanon. Unfortunately, the majority of these spaces are unmanaged and unsupervised. As a result, you can see people swimming and fishing amongst floating trash. While it is certainly a horrid sight—which…
Confined to misery
Reading Time: < 1 minute Executive visited ZaZoo City in Hazmieh disguised as tourists in order to collect photographic evidence of the conditions of the animals held captive there. What we found was appaling: ducks lying in a waterless pool, a tiger trapped in a shade-less cage and a fox asleep next to litter and a pile of its own…
The intricacies of sushi
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Wine harvesting in Lebanon
Reading Time: < 1 minute Executive followed workers at Château Kefraya on August 22 busy harvesting grapes for the winery’s yearly white wine production. While Kefraya has so far been spared, bad weather has affected harvests at other wineries in Lebanon. One of the worst hit was Domaine de Baal, which experienced heavy hailstorms on September 15 that ruined more than 50…