Mid-morning on a Friday afternoon is around the time that merchants in Tripoli’s shopping district would usually think about closing their shops before prayer. But in the past months, around half of the stores have already closed, their steel shutters plastered with “For Rent” signs. They’re the latest victims of the financial crisis suffocating Lebanon’s economy.
Read MoreIn Beirut’s calls for revolution stand a distinct army that are protecting the mass protests from falling into violence: the women's frontline.
Read MoreMost of the women Boushra Bakeer is responsible for are older than her, but she feels her responsibility toward them keenly. Sitting on benches around the edge of the production room in the needlework workshop Shatila Studio, the women stitch patterns into fabric that will be used in bespoke textile products.
Read MoreOn Christmas Eve last year, Sara crossed the threshold of the prison that had been her home for nearly 12 years. She stopped, found that she couldn’t move any further, and started to cry. The social worker who was there to pick her up asked Sara what was wrong. “I never saw outside like this. Everything I know is inside,” she responded.
Read MoreFor over two decades Abu Ali was a familiar sight in Beirut’s Hamra neighborhood, where every morning he would sell kaak, the traditional purse-shaped bread, from his cart on the side of the street. When his cart was impounded and destroyed by the authorities last week, the 63-year-old didn’t know what else to do but return to the same spot.
Read MoreNearly 3,000 meters above the Mediterranean, around the corner from one of Lebanon’s most popular ski resorts, a group of skiers and snowboarders waits atop a mountain for their number to be called.
Read MoreThe light reaches only a short way down the six-story ventilation shaft, at the bottom of which Ahmad al-Zoubi was found dead three days after he went missing.
Read MoreThe violence with which storm Norma hit Lebanon and devastated refugee communities has helped some smaller NGOs drive successful fundraising campaigns, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for relief operations. However, those NGOs caution that the success of these recent campaigns belie the fact that every year providing emergency relief in Lebanon gets ever harder.
Read MoreThe phrase “during the war” means different things to different people.
For most of Lebanon, it refers to the Civil War that devastated the country from 1975 to 1990.
But when Ahmad Khanati, a motorcycle mechanic in Jabal Mohsen, says the economic situation in the Tripoli suburb was “better during the war,” he’s referring to the armed clashes that have erupted sporadically between his neighborhood and adjacent Bab al-Tabbaneh, most recently in 2014.
Read MoreIt’s after 9 o’clock in the evening, and Mira is considering sharing a secret she’s kept hidden for years. The young student wants to speak up, but the stakes couldn’t be higher: She’s worried she’ll be judged by people at her university, her friends, even – or especially – her family. She picks up her phone.
Read MoreThe boats had left Lebanon two days earlier, bound for Greece, but their passengers now faced a dilemma: push for the European mainland or cut their losses and make for nearby Cyprus and safety.
Read MoreLamis stands next to the fifth-floor window of her hospital room, looking out over the playground of a school in Beirut’s Al-Tariq al-Jadideh neighborhood.
Read MoreMany of Lebanon’s lawmakers and media experts have identified that the country’s outdated media laws urgently need updating.
Read MoreThe winding streets of the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp are reproduced in precise detail on the walls of the small office that John Whyte occupies there.
Read MoreThe long-mooted revival of the railway between Tripoli and the Lebanese-Syrian border may have finally found an investor, with profound implications not only for the economy of north Lebanon but for the balance of power in the wider Middle East.
Read MoreFor several decades at the beginning of the 20th century, the railway station at Tripoli was the terminus of the famed Orient Express line. Now, the station sits derelict and abandoned. Several rusting locomotives from the late 19th century recall a bygone era. The station was built in 1911, during the death throes of the Ottoman Empire.
Read MoreIn the poorly lit stairwell of Haifa Hospital in the Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp, a large poster depicting the ancient city of Jerusalem, dominated by the gold crown of the Dome of the Rock, declares: “Visit Al-Quds.” It’s an aspiration that seems a long way off, as the Palestinian residents of the southern Beirut camp – facing poverty and heavy restrictions on rights to work – are struggling to access even basic health care services in a system under severe pressure.
Read MoreIt’s 38 years since Pvts. Derek Smallhorne and Thomas Barrett were kidnapped, tortured and murdered in south Lebanon while on active duty with UNIFIL. For their families, the psychological impact of that day continues with the search for justice, as the man accused of the murders is yet to be sentenced by Lebanon’s Military Court. The trial has undergone numerous delays since the accused, Mahmoud Bazzi, was first brought before the court in June 2015.
Read MoreThe term “fake news” was named the Collins Dictionary Word of the Year in 2017, with a 365 percent rise in usage compared to the year before. But despite increasing attention to the phenomenon, many working in Lebanese media consider fake news a symptom of deep-rooted problems that have existed in the region for decades.
Read MoreIn 2005, after 10 days of searching some of Beirut’s poorest neighborhoods, Maher Attar had almost given up hope of finding Samar Baltaji
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