BEIRUT — Iconic US motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson is set to open its first showroom in Beirut next month with a budget of 2.5 million dollars (1.9 million euros), the company’s Lebanon dealer said Monday.
“The first and only showroom in the Levant is scheduled to open in Beirut on September 24, ahead of Lebanon’s second annual HOG tour” from October 1 to 3, said Marwan Tarraf, general manager of Bikers Inc., the current Harley Davidson dealership in Lebanon.
The 1,000-square-metre (10,764-square-foot) showroom will also include a six-station service facility with staff trained by Harley Davidson to cater to Lebanon’s estimated 800-1000 Harley owners, Tarraf told AFP.
The bikes, which loyal riders affectionately nickname HOGs, an acronym for Harley Owners Group, are expected to sell at between 9,000 and 50,000 dollars in Lebanon after customs and tax.
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Contrary to what Boy George may think, homosexuality is deep-seated in Lebanese culture – but it’s not like it is in the west
Boy George, seen here at Glastonbury this year, called for camp in Lebanon - but there is plenty of it already. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA
In 1997, when Boy George shouted at his concert in Beirut: “Lebanon needs a dose of camp!” did he know what he’d bargained for? The gay scene in Lebanon has certainly changed during the last 13 years, but the real challenges are still ahead.
Not that the camp wasn’t there already. In a small, unsophisticated Beirut bar, a group of cross-dressing men had organised a party in Boy George’s honour. However, the Lebanese concert promoter prevented him from going there, after he deemed the place not “classy” enough. At the time, it was a brave move of these cross-dressing men, as such parties were still very much underground.
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- A young member of Hizbollah’s Mahdi Scouts sits on the edge of “the abyss,” an exhibit of captured Israeli tanks and armored vehicles, part of Hizbollah’s Mleeta “resistance tourism” Museum in Mleeta, Lebanon. Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2012387,00.html#ixzz0yCBDNak6
The rocky red hills and dense oak forests of southern Lebanon near the Israeli border make perfect terrain for guerrilla warfare, as the Israeli army has repeatedly discovered to its chagrin. Whether or not the once and future war zone is an ideal location for a multi-million dollar tourist attraction is another matter. But that hasn’t stopped Hizballah, the anti-Israeli militant group and Shi’ite Muslim political party, from opening a war memorial this summer here in the southern hill town of Mleeta. With a reported cost of about $20 million and a cryptic slogan (“Earth Speaks to Heaven”), Mleeta is the first stage of what Hizballah hopes will be a kind of family theme park of the Islamic Resistance that will eventually include spa hotels, a paint-ball gun battlefield, and a cable-car ride with a scenic view of northern Israel, or as the tour guides call it, “Occupied Palestine.”
Mleeta is a full-frontal display of the Party of God’s legendary attention to detail, its willingness to sacrifice, and its glorification of combat. Visitors walk down “The Path” — a winding trail interspersed with mannequin-filled dioramas of combat scenes, including a field hospital and a camouflaged rocket launch site meant to convey the experience of being a mujaheddin. They duck their heads and enter “The Cave” — a once-secret bunker used as barracks for as many as 7,000 militants that engineers carved out of the hillside over a period of several years, scattering its debris for miles to avoid drawing the attention of Israeli reconnaissance planes. And they can gawk at “The Abyss,” a pit filled with captured Israeli machine guns, rockets and tanks. “These arms were used to destroy your homes, look at them now under your feet,” said a tour guide recently to a busload of men in Hizballah canary yellow baseball caps and women in black chadors visiting from the Martyr’s Association, a charity for the families of militants killed in action. “Every helmet you are seeing is from a dead Israeli soldier,” he said. (See pictures of the Mahdi scouts of Hizballah.)
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By Diana Preston
Though it was nearly midnight, Beirut’s Corniche was brilliant with lights as we flew in across the dark Mediterranean for a three-night break. The ten-minute drive from the airport into the heart of the city confirmed it was a lively place still a long way from sleep.
Stepping on to our hotel balcony overlooking the Corniche next morning, I wondered what I’d see. The answer was joggers. old and young, men and women - some of the latter well covered and wearing headscarves, some in Lycra shorts and cropped tops. Their differing garb was a reminder that Beirut is a truly diverse city where Sunni and Shia Muslims, members of the Druze sect and Maronite Christians and others co-exist.
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In November 2007, the Nahr al Bared camp near Tripoli showed damage from fighting that year between the Lebanese Army and Islamic extremists.
By Nada Bakri
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Lebanon passed a law on Tuesday granting Palestinian refugees here the same rights to work as other foreigners, a step in ending years of discrimination that had restricted them to the most menial of jobs.
A bill was approved after months of debate in Parliament that cut across decades of history in Lebanon and the rest of the Middle East, where the refugees’ fate remains a pressing question. While about 4.7 million refugees from the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948 and 1967 are spread across the region, many of them in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan and Syria, the estimated 400,000 in Lebanon have endured some of the most wretched conditions.
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By Magda Abu-Fadil
The rich gold threads, the draw of silk’s soft touch, and the history that brought remarkable Caucasian and Ottoman embroideries to an eastern Mediterranean hill are a must-see for visitors to Lebanon.
Nestled in the Lebanese village of Bsous, the Silk Museum traces the history of the trade and its production and currently features 97 exquisite embroidered pieces of different styles.
Rich Ottoman embroidery at Silk Museum (Abu-Fadil)
The intricately designed items belong to Serge Nalbandian, whose family has collected, bought and sold fine antiques, carpets and textiles since 1792.
The covers, prayer rugs, brides’ trousseaus, priests’ garments, bed canopies, and curtains on the second floor of the one-time silk mill are a feast for the eyes.
Part of priest’s garment (Abu-Fadil)
While tales of silk weavers and dynastic attire conjure images of China, Westerners may not realize Lebanon was once a center of silk production.
Poets, adventurers and merchants traversed the famed “Silk Road” that wound its way from the farthest corners of Asia to the West, bringing this soft and beautiful product to eager buyers.
Interestingly, the mountains above Beirut were also once home to a thriving silk industry.
In 2001, George and Alexandra Asseily turned a property they acquired into a delightful museum tracing silk’s history and exhibiting splendid examples from around the world.
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By Amir Ahmed
An Iranian-made television series about the life of Jesus Christ stopped broadcasting Friday on Hezbollah-linked Lebanese stations after Christians complained that the series “misrepresented” Jesus, the state-run Lebanese News Agency reported.
The biopic portrayed the Muslim view of Jesus as a prophet, while Christians generally regard him as the son of God. Some Sunni Muslims also objected to the Iranian series because it showed someone playing the role of Jesus; Most Sunnis prohibit representation of prophets.
Christian groups held a sit-in at Beirut’s Catholic Center on Friday and denounced the broadcast of the TV series “The Messiah” on al-Manar and NBN channels, NNA reported.
In response to the “objecting voices of popular delegations,” both stations announced in a statement their decision to stop broadcasting the show on Friday, saying they wanted to prevent “any attempt at employing the show to serve some negative aims.”
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by Nadim Houry and Sirine Shebaya
Last month, Lebanon’s Military Tribunal sentenced two Lebanese men to death for providing Israel’s intelligence services with information about Hizbullah. We may see more death sentences in the coming months, given that an estimated 100 suspects await trial in military court on charges of spying for Israel.
President Michel Suleiman said that he will sign off on any death penalties the Military Tribunal issues (the president and prime minister must sign all execution orders). Hizbullah’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, called for the speedy implementation of death sentences against anyone convicted of collaborating with Israel. Other Lebanese political figures support this. Dozens of members of Fatah al-Islam, an armed Salafist group that fought the Lebanese Army in 2007, still await trial before the military court or the Justice Council on terrorism-related charges that also carry the death penalty.
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By Suzanne Labarre
The Paris of the Middle East is back–and has the design chops to prove it.
Two decades after the Lebanese Civil War reduced Beirut, that storied Paris of the Middle East, to dust and rubble, the city is reemerging a hotbed of design. But whereas many of the earlier rebuilding efforts were either faithful reconstructions of the past or cheap proxies for the future, the latest batch of designers is forging a bold new path. They’re both riffing on the city’s history and gently defying it. From a gorgeous bar in an old booze factory to modernized Roman baths, the aesthetic is unexpected, occasionally dark, and always terribly cool.
Architecture and design are often excellent barometers of regional aspirations, and by all appearances, Beirut not only wants to reclaim its title as the Paris of the Middle East but hopes that one day people will think of Paris as the Beirut of Europe. Below, we’ve got a sampler of some of the city’s best new design.
.PSLAB Beirut is a Lebanese design firm specializing in lighting. Here, they turned the classic chandelier into a neat little cluster of black cones for the wine bar and restaurant Burgundy:
by Alexandra Sandels
The backlash rages on over a recent Arabic pop song by a Lebanese singer that beckons women back to domesticity and is regarded by women’s rights activists as sexist and advocating backwardness.
In the latest development, a Lebanese composer and a singer have picked up the gauntlet and released a track that parodies popular Arabic songs considered by some to be patriarchal and demeaning to women.
The song is called “Metlak Mesh Ayzin”, or “We’re not in need of people like you” and is composed by Toni Abi Karam and performed by May Matar.
“We don’t want young men from the era of ignorance. He comes and controls us and says this is manhood,” Matar sings in Arabic.
It continues with, “We have young men who take pride in their education….. they are the young men who like girls for their intelligence and compassion. We’re not in need of men like you who are only concerned about themselves and their lust.”
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by Vincent in Travel & Leisure
At one time Lebanon and Beirut were places to avoid. But in 2010, Beirut has been declared as the biggest hotspot for travellers and holidaymakers. The Republic of Lebanon sits on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, bordered by Syria and Israel. Exploring the Middle East offers a cheaper and more adventurous option for travellers than the usual American/ Australia option. And for people looking for holidays with a difference, Syria and Lebanon are increasingly popular. Lebanon is the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and Arabian hinterland. As such, it is an area rich in history, culture and ethnic diversity. In an increasingly homogenised world, it’s not surprising that holidaymakers looking for a truly authentic experience are choosing Lebanon and Syria.
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By Rana Moussaoui
BEIRUT — This week’s arrest of a well-respected retired general and politician allied with Hezbollah on suspicion of spying for Israel has sent shock waves through Lebanon and left many wondering how deep the Jewish state has infiltrated the country.
Fayez Karam, a member of the Christian Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), is the first political figure to be arrested in Lebanon as part of a wide-ranging probe launched in 2009 into Israeli spy networks.
Fayez Karam
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By PATRICK COCKBURN
Why has Lebanon ended up as the graveyard of so many invaders? Israelis used to say in the 1960s that one of their military bands would be enough to conquer the country. Sometimes, prior to Israel and Egypt agreeing a peace in 1979, they would add archly that “I don’t know which will be the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, but I do know the name of the second.” The idea was that Lebanon, only the size of Wales and its population divided by communal, sectarian and party hatreds, would inevitably be a pushover for the greatest military power in the Middle East. Lebanon’s Maronite Christian minority was an obvious ally for Israel against the forces of Arab nationalism. The well-earned reputation of the Lebanese for commercial ingenuity and capacity to survive in all circumstances suggested that they would be the last people to die in the last ditch fighting an overwhelmingly powerful enemy.
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By Andrew O’Hehir
A still from "Lebanon"
Samuel Maoz was a tank gunner in the Israeli army during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, a conflict with murky goals and outcomes that resulted in a large civilian death toll and remains highly controversial even today. None of that political or historical context is visible in Maoz’s extraordinary war film, “Lebanon,” but that’s precisely the source of its power.
Told entirely from the claustrophobic perspective of a tank crew — unsure of where they are, who their allies are and whether they are firing on belligerents or innocent civilians — “Lebanon” is a terrifying, absorbing 93 minutes spent in hell. It captures the intensity of warfare in a visceral fashion that recalls Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket” and Oliver Stone’s “Platoon.” Indeed, the resemblance to Vietnam movies is not pure coincidence, since Maoz describes the Lebanon war as a social trauma that affected Israel much the way Vietnam affected the United States. Except that Lebanon is just north of Israel, not thousands of miles away. It’s as if Vietnam were where Ontario is, and the Viet Cong had been sporadically shelling Detroit.
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By RAMI G. KHOURI
BEIRUT — Much of the speculation about whether Lebanon might be plunged into renewed strife revolves around the impact of the anticipated indictments by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which was established by the United Nations to hold accountable the murderers of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 22 other people who were killed in February 2005.
The investigation has generated enough evidence for the tribunal to say that it will hand down indictments in the coming months. Beyond that, most of what is said about the investigation and the indictments — and their consequences — is speculation.
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