by middleeastmonitor.com/ Saudi Arabia poses a threat to stability in Lebanon, former UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on Saturday, warning calmer heads must prevail in the kingdom to prevent a broader crisis. Policies by the young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman risk destabilising the region, Straw said at a conference on Saudi Arabia hosted […]

by By Glen Carey , Archana Narayanan , and Alaa Shahin – Bloomberg – Wealthy Saudis are seeking to restructure their businesses to ring fence assets in case authorities widen their declared crackdown on corruption, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. Several family groups and businessmen who aren’t implicated in the purge […]

by Kaveh Waddell – city lab –  A sign across from a quiet Beirut park advertises a taxi service: “For everyone, everywhere,” the sign reads in French. “Day and night,” it says in Arabic on the other side of the sign. Two sheets of printer paper are taped up on a wall nearby. One advertises an apartment for rent, delivering different pieces of information in English, French, and a transliteration of Arabic into Latin letters. On the wrinkled page pasted next to it, a hookah delivery service lists its flavors in Arabic—alternating between Arabic and Latin script—and entices customers with an offer of “free delivery” in English. Beirut, Lebanon’s cosmopolitan capital, is famous for the chaotic jumble of languages it contains. Arabic, French, and English mix and mingle in writing and in conversation. For visitors and locals alike, it can be hard to pin down just how they interact, and the unwritten rules for how they’re used. To try and sort out Beirut’s complex linguistic landscape, a team of more than 40 undergraduates from the American University of Beirut wandered through the city with their smartphone cameras trained on writing in public spaces. Over the course of two years, they snapped photos of everything from street signs and shop awnings to billboards and graffiti. Their photos were tagged with various characteristics: their location, the languages and scripts used, the meaning of the words, whether anything was misspelled. For Mario Hawat, one of the researchers, the exercise changed the way he looked at the city. “It ruined walking in the street for me,” said Hawat. “It used to be such a peaceful exercise.”

The result is a collection of maps that reveals the contours of the polyglot city’s famed linguistic diversity. In most cities, one or two languages dominate the landscape, except for in small patches, like immigrant neighborhoods. But in Beirut, blends of Arabic, French, and English turn up everywhere in the city—sometimes alongside other languages, like Armenian and Amharic—and they’re rarely alone. “There’s a messy vernacularity to the streets of Beirut that parallels the beautiful code-switching that takes place in Lebanese conversations,” said David Wrisley, who leads the mapping project. His students began collecting data with smartphones in 2015, back when he taught English at the American University of Beirut. Now, he’s a professor of digital humanities at New York University in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, but he still oversees the project. Shops that sell clothing and shoes often use a nonsensical amalgam of Romance languages, like “Bella Rêve”—Spanish or Italian plus French, with bonus points for an Arabic transcription: بيلّا ريڤ.

Code-switching is built into spoken Lebanese Arabic, which is studded with French and English—a product of the country’s colonial history and its close ties with the West. It’s more than just the occasional word, thrown in the way an American English speaker might unthinkingly toss off a Spanish word here and there. Instead, whole phrases and sentences in English or French crop up in the middle of Arabic conversations. Often, English and French words become so ingrained in Lebanese Arabic that they take on Arabic characteristics. Hawat offered an example: “If I wanted to be very jock-like and greet my friends, I would say, ‘Hi, broite.’” Yes, that’s “Hi, bro” with a Lebanese Arabic possessive ending. The blurred lines of Lebanese vernacular show up in writing, too. Although Arabic is written in a different script than English and French, the two writing systems often mix freely here. Many establishments write out their names in Latin letters, even if the names are made up of Arabic words. Signs for corner stores and bakeries, by contrast, might include “سناك” or “ميني ماركت”—words which, if read aloud, sound like the English words “snack” and “mini-market,” respectively.

In addition to playing with scripts, the majority of the signs the researchers analyzed included more than one language. One might expect a sign in Arabic, French, and English to contain roughly the same information in each. Instead the researchers found that the ideas communicated in each languages are often complementary, but different: To understand the entirety of a sign, the reader must be able to read and understand two or even three languages. Signage with different information in different languages is unusual, said Lorna Carson, a linguistics professor at Trinity College Dublin. But the pattern is a reflection of the reality here in Beirut: Bilingualism and trilingualism are normal, and not just among the highly educated. “There is an assumed multilingual literacy among the people of Beirut,” said Wrisley.

What Iran is doing against some Arab countries calls for taking more than one measure to stop these violations, interferences and threats, which are carried out through many various means,” Hossam Zaki, Arab League Assistant Secretary, told Asharq al Awsat newspaper in an interview. “Stopping them requires a joint Arab policy.” He said the meeting […]

by Bloomberg and New York times – RIYADH (Saudi Arabia) • With the tacit backing of his father, Saudi Arabia’s 32-year-old crown prince has established himself as the most powerful figure in the Arab world, rushing into confrontations on all sides at once. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the arrest of 11 princes in […]

Lebanon’s embattled prime minister, Saad Hariri, met with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Saturday and insisted he would return to Beirut on Wednesday, marking a new chapter in the odd political drama that has thrust Lebanon into the regional rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The visit, equal parts diplomacy and political theater, […]

BEIRUT (Reuters) By Laila Bassam, Lisa Barrington – Saad al-Hariri, who sparked a crisis by resigning as Lebanese prime minister on Nov. 4 during a visit to Saudi Arabia, is on his way to the airport, he said early on Saturday, before his flight from Riyadh to France. Hariri’s abrupt resignation while he was in […]

Fie Photo (archive) MOSCOW – Russia has spoken out against foreign interference in Lebanese affairs following the surprise resignation of the Lebanon’s prime minister. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday at a meeting with his Lebanese counterpart, Gibran Bassil, that “Russia invariably stands for supporting the sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of Lebanon.” He […]

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, left, meets with recently resigned Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri at the latter’s residence in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.  (RANIA SANJAR / AFP/GETTY IMAGES) by reuters – BEIRUT — Lebanon’s Saad al-Hariri is expected to leave Saudi Arabia for France within 48 hours, before flying home to Beirut to […]

By Zeina Karam | AP November 15 at 2:44 PM BEIRUT — Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s older brother broke his silence Wednesday over the premier’s mysterious resignation, saying he supports his brother’s decision to step down over the “growing demands and actions of Hezbollah.” In his first public statement, sent to The Associated Press, Bahaa Hariri blasted […]