Lebanon is due to start a two-week lockdown on Friday amid a sharp rise in coronavirus infections, though there are doubts about how widely it will be observed or enforced.
The Lebanese outbreak is still relatively small, with 10,347 cases confirmed since it began in...
Blog archive: Lebanon
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20th August 2020
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13th May 2020Considering Lebanon's political and economic chaos its efforts to control the spread of Covid-19 infections have been surprisingly effective. Eleven weeks after the virus first arrived in the country there have been only 870 confirmed cases among a population of almost seven million. Lebanon...
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9th January 2017On a recent trip to Beirut I came across a stack of magazines that – judging by their cover photos – looked suspiciously like Arabic porn. Unambiguously titled "al-Jins" (Arabic for "sex") they were displayed on a newspaper stall in Hamra Street, for sale secondhand. Their less-than-pristine...
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19th December 2016After a delay of more than two years Lebanon finally has a new government and, for the first time, it includes a minister for women's affairs. He – yes, he – is Jean Oghassabian, a 62-year-old Armenian who has held posts in several previous governments. Reuters notes that the new...
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8th August 2016Saudi Arabia's second-largest construction firm is likely to declare itself bankrupt, the Saudi Gazette reported today. For several months now, Saudi Oger, the debt-ridden company headed by Lebanese politician Saad Hariri, has failed to pay tens of thousands of its workers – many of them expatriate...
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2nd August 2016Thousands of Indian workers are trapped in Saudi Arabia, unable to leave the country and with no means to support themselves after their employer stopped paying them. At the weekend Indian embassy officials began organising emergency food aid following reports that several hundred workers had...
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10th January 2016A survey in Lebanon has shed new light on attitudes to sexual freedom but also uncovered some apparent contradictions. Researchers from the Beirut-based Gender and Sexuality Resource Center (GSRC) found broad support among the Lebanese for sexual freedom in general. Most of those...
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29th November 2015Carole Samaha returns to GNRD Lebanese singer backs mysterious rights organisation Following the birth of her baby daughter in August, Lebanese singer/actress Carole Samaha has announced that she will be resuming "professional activities" in December and returning to the...
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24th August 2015There were echoes of the 2011 Arab uprisings at the weekend when thousands of Lebanese protesters swarmed into downtown Beirut. They were protesting – ostensibly – against piles of uncollected rubbish causing a stench in the streets, though chants of "Thawra! Thawra!" (Revolution...
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29th October 2014I have been puzzling over the latest Global Gender Gap report from the World Economic Forum (the organisation behind the annual Davos gathering). As might be expected, Arab states are all in the bottom third of the 142 countries surveyed, with Yemen at the very bottom:...
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11th August 2014A British-Israeli Watchkeeper drone pictured during flight trials at Parc Aberporth in West Wales. Photograph: Ministry of Defence In the wake of the Israeli onslaught in Gaza, a dispute has broken out at the top of Britain's coalition government. Nick Clegg, the Liberal...
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17th July 2014A gay rights demonstration in Beirut, 2010 There are calls for disciplinary action against a doctor in Lebanon who carried out bogus "homosexuality tests" on five men who had been arrested on suspicion of having "unnatural"...
