2006

Like many Lebanese at the time, my grandfather, Esper Karam, left Lebanon at the end of the 19th century and headed for Brazil to make his fortune. He established Esperadio …

During the 1960s and 1970s, Beirut was globally acknowledged as the banking center of the Middle East. Lebanese banks flourished and built up strong franchises by picking up petro-dollar deposits …

While some of the indications of summer tourist activity in Lebanon are encouraging, we must never forget that our economy is structurally weak. The tourist season this summer could well …

As tensions between Iran and the US have subsided somewhat, it may be time to revisit the crude oil market that monopolized so many headlines in recent weeks. While we …

There I was, at Orchid beach in Jiyyeh, when I saw our finance minister eating a salad (perhaps to demonstrate that our ministers stay in shape while putting our country …

Sometimes the simplest ideas work the best. When former winemaker Mario Polegato came up with the concept of a breathable sole whilst walking in the Nevada desert, he hardly imagined …

Lebanon has been going through ups and downs, cycles of joys and woes, repeated phases of history. It waddles along both victorious and defeated. How do its people feel about …

According to Etienne Debbane, chairman and CEO of Exotica, the horticultural and contracting company, the key to success has been to exploit the synergy of opposites: war and peace, indoors …

Many Arab countries are realizing that the call for political, economic and social reform is getting louder, especially since the spontaneous democratic groundswell that shook the region in 2005. Participants …

Since its independence, Lebanon has always been gold rich. In fact, during the prosperity years of the 1960s and early 1970s, the country was a net buyer of gold, increasing …