Most aspects of Blatt Chaya are influenced by a heavy dose of nostalgia, from the design of the cement floor tiles the company has been making since the late 19th century, to the techniques used to make them. But Blatt Chaya, for the first time in its history, is expanding beyond its tiled staples – offering a new range of homeware products, which launched last week at Caritas Liban Secteur Ashrafieh’s two-day fundraising event held Thursday and Friday.
Read MoreAyad Nasser has grand ambitions. “I want to be like Jesus, like the Prophet, like a good human,” he told The Daily Star. Nasser is a philanthropist and mastermind behind last year’s Ouzville project, which saw parts of the Ouzai district in Beirut’s southern suburbs painted bright colors.
Read MoreIman Moussa is a quiet child, but has a bright smile that masks the fact that the 3-year-old with rich black hair and olive skin has spent the last year undergoing chemotherapy for cancer that once rendered her immobile. However, neither her mother nor her doctor are smiling, as the money for Moussa’s treatment is running out and with it her options.
Read MoreLast Saturday morning at Aaliya’s Books cafe in Gemmayzeh a small group of people gathered around a variety of technical-looking instruments. Jan Schuitemaker tinkered with a glass bowl with a flame below and a cone-shaped device with a hole in the bottom.
Read MoreLebanon’s name purportedly derives from the Phoenician root l-b-n, meaning white, after the snow-capped peaks that crown the country’s famous range. One Lebanese mountaineer has grand plans for what he believes is an unprecedented solo ski across Mount Lebanon. But he’s hoping that the mountains live up to their reported moniker: the unseasonably warm weather has so far failed to deliver enough snow for him to make his attempt.
Read MoreThree-year-old Sarah’s face was covered with black, necrotic skin from the frostbite. Appearing to sleep under a clean white blanket in a hospital in the Lebanese border town of Suweiri, the doctor said she had in fact been in a semi-comatose state since being brought in late last week.
Read More“I prefer to not stay here – you can see how the situation is,” Abd al-Mohsen from Syria’s Homs said as he sat on an orange plastic chair in his family’s wood-framed tent sealed with patchwork nylon in the Bekaa Valley.
Read MoreFor Donna Maria Feghali, founder and creative director of Retrieving Beirut, Lebanese identity and culture are nebulous concepts.
Read MoreA decade working in photojournalism around the world taught Jekaterina Saveljeva two things: Not enough photojournalism is done by locals, nor are there enough women working in the industry.
Read MoreIn the early hours of the day he was due to leave Beirut, mortar shells hit Steve Hindy’s hotel. Hindy, a veteran war reporter and Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press, picked up a still warm piece of shrapnel from the blast site...
Read MoreIn a dark factory tucked beneath the highway in Burj Hammoud, a handful of craftsmen work with ancient tools in a cloud of sawdust...
Read MoreFor decades, Lebanon has had an image problem. Perceptions of the country were shaped by pictures of war taken by local and international photojournalists, who were in good business in the latter decades of the 20th century...
Read MoreFeature for The Daily Star on the Lebanese rugby league players playing in their first ever World Cup
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