by Alison Millington - "Moonlight" took home the award for best picture at the 89th Academy Awards on Sunday evening — but not before the award was mistakenly given to the cast and crew of "La La Land." The producers of "La La Land," which entered the night with 14 nominations, were already delivering their acceptance speeches when those onstage began to realize an error had been made. The accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, which is in charge of tallying the votes, is investigating how the error occurred. Only two people at the firm knew the results before they were announced.
So how did a mistake of this magnitude happen?
- Instead of the best-picture card, presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were mistakenly given the card for "actress in a leading role," which named "La La Land" actress Emma Stone as the winner.
- Two cards are created for each winner. PricewaterhouseCoopers, the firm that counts the votes and safeguards the winners, gives one set each to its partners, Martha Ruiz and Brian Cullinan.
- One of the two sets that should have been discarded after Emma Stone received her best-actress award was instead given to Beatty by mistake.
- Beatty hesitated after opening the envelope, which the audience took to be part of a joke.
- Dunaway took the paper from him and announced the winner as "La La Land." Beatty later said the card actually read "Emma Stone, 'La La Land.'"
- The cast and crew celebrated and made their way to the stage. Producer Jordan Horowitz kicked off the acceptance speeches with emotional thank-yous.
- As the speeches were handed over to other crew members, Horowitz looked confused.
- A man wearing a headset approached the crew holding another envelope, which was shown to Horowitz and the cast and crew.
- The speeches were interrupted by Horowitz, who said, "There's been a mistake. Moonlight, you won best picture."
- He showed the real best-picture card, which listed "Moonlight" as the winner for the camera to see.
- Beatty, who had also reappeared, confirmed this was the case.
- The shocked "Moonlight" cast began to celebrate, as the stunned cast and crew of "La La Land" started to leave the stage.
- Jimmy Kimmel approached the microphone, saying, "This is very unfortunate what happened."
- Before leaving the stage, Horowitz said: "I'm going to be really proud to hand this to my friends from 'Moonlight.'"
- Beatty approached again, to which Kimmel joked, "Warren, what did you do?"
- "I want to tell you what happened," Beatty said. "I opened the envelope and it said, 'Emma Stone, La La Land.' That's why I took such a long look at Faye and at you. I wasn't trying to be funny.”
- He told Deadline that he was given the best-picture envelope by a stagehand.
- The audience cheered as the "Moonlight" cast and crew took the stage and began their speeches.
- Afterwards, Kimmel said, "Let's remember: It's just an award show."
- While speaking to the press backstage, Stone said: "I also was holding my best actress in a leading role card that entire time. So whatever the story ... I don't mean to start stuff, but whatever story that was, I had that card. So I'm not sure what happened."
- PricewaterhouseCoopers released a statement saying: "We sincerely apologize to Moonlight, La La Land, Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, and Oscar viewers for the error that was made during the award announcement for Best Picture."
- PwC went on: "The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and when discovered, was immediately corrected. We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred. We appreciate the grace with which the nominees, the Academy, ABC, and Jimmy Kimmel handled the situation."
- PwC partners Martha Ruiz and Brian Cullinan are the only two people in the world who knew the result before it was announced, according to Forbes.
- According to the BBC, two sets of envelopes are created, one for each of the partners. It appears one of the duplicates made its way into the hands of Beatty and Dunaway.
By AP
Hundreds of Christians have fled the city of el-Arish in Egypt after a spate of attacks by suspected Islamic militants. A priest told the Associated Press that he and some 1,000 other Christians had fled for fear of being targeted next. He blamed lax security, saying: “You feel like this is all meant to force us to leave our homes. We became like refugees.” It was earlier reported that militants had shot dead a Coptic Christian man, Kamel Youssef, in front of his wife and daughter. The account had been given by two officials speaking on condition of anonymity.
A priest in the city said militants then kidnapped and stabbed his daughter before dumping her body near a police station. It wasn’t immediately possible to confirm his account. No militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack but earlier this week Egypt’s Islamic State group affiliate, which is based in the Sinai Peninsula, vowed in a video to step up attacks against the embattled Christian minority. A spate of killings by suspected militants have spread fears among the Coptic community in el-Arish as families left their homes after reportedly receiving threats on their mobile phones.
A day before Youssef’s killings, militants killed a Coptic Christian man and burned his son alive, then dumped their bodies on a roadside in el-Arish. Three others Christians in Sinai were killed earlier, either in drive-by shooting or with militants storming their homes and shops. The Coptic Church has made no official comment on the spate of murders.
Someone must have been smiling down at Lebanon this past December. For the first time in at least five years, it snowed early enough in the year that the Cedars Ski Resort – home to Lebanon’s highest accessible peak at an altitude of 2,870m – began welcoming skiers on December 4 with the country’s remaining ski resorts following suit a few days after (all ski resorts were open by December 19). The slopes were in full swing over the winter break and therefore able to benefit from the increased activity brought on by locals, expats, Lebanese on holiday and some tourists, launching the 2016-2017 ski season on the right foot.
The snow economy
If the weather continues to bring in snow, this could be one of Lebanon’s best ski seasons in a while. This means that not only will resort operators reap in the profits of a full season, but so will the various businesses surrounding the resorts that range from the small grocery store owner to the five star hotel operator. During the winter season, the economy of the resort towns is snow-centric. As a spokesperson for Kfardebian’s renowned French restaurant Le Montagnou puts it: “It’s very simple: when there is snow, we all – the village and all the restaurants – work extremely well and are busy. When there’s no snow, we suffer.” But with the ski season lasting two months at best in recent years, resort owners have realized that for them to remain in business, they have to promote themselves as a summer destination as well. With these dynamics in mind, Executive took a closer look at some of Lebanon’s leading ski resorts to discuss their achievements to date and their expectations for the rest of the season and the summer.
Skiing among the Cedars
The Cedars Ski Resort is Lebanon’s oldest ski destination. As the owner of Cedars’ Alpine hotel Joseph Rahme recalls, wealthy Palestinians used to visit Lebanon in the 1920s and enjoy winter activities such as snowshoeing in the Cedars even before a proper ski resort was set up. The first téléskis – or T-bar ski lift – was installed in 1959 by Les Teleskis Des Cedres (Cedars Ski Resort), a company formed by four friends (from the families Fakhry, Keyrouz, Rahme and Sukkar) who rented the land where the resort currently stands from the municipality under a long-term contract. Today, their children have taken over management of the company. In 2004, the company invested $20 million into a complete modernization of the ski resort, including installing three new chairlifts and other modern equipment. A five star hotel, a few restaurants and a baby ski area were part of the second phase of renovation plans, but this all came to a halt with the onset of the 2006 July War.
Ever since the war, the low level of activity in the resort along with the internal instabilities and regional insecurities that surround Lebanon have discouraged the company from further investment or completing their plans. “As partners, we work in the resort and somehow make ends meet, but we have not returned our 2004 initial investment and are now investing only in the basic operational needs,” explains Elie Fakhry, one of the current owners, adding that it is all the more difficult to consider spending more on such a project when it is only seasonal.
Yet, Fakhry sees hope for the resort and the area for several reasons. To begin with, he believes there is renewed interest in the Cedars and speaks of the increased activity in the area during the summer due to the Cedar Music Festival, which was brought back by Strida Geagea in July 2016 after a long absence. Indeed, Alpine’s Rahme says his hotel was fully booked during the nights of the festival. Also, a 150,000 square meter chalet resort project – rumored to be a joint venture between Saradar Group and Carlos Ghosn – already broke ground and has Fakhry hoping it will help attract other investors to the area once complete, thereby increasing the land value. Finally, the election of a president and the stability that Lebanon seems to have been enjoying since could encourage tourists to return, many of whom frequented the Cedars given its nearby attractions such as the Cedars of God forest or the Gibran Khalil Gibran museum.
However, should these tourists flock to the resort to ski it would require a major upgrade in infrastructure. The roads leading to the resort are narrow, so the company has already worked with the municipality on rerouting them to allow for better traffic flow. While the resort can accommodate 8,000 skiers, the parking lot can only fit a few hundred cars and would need expanding.
by Victor Argo - yourmiddleeast.com
It's not only creative talent that makes a successful designer. (Of that, Lara Khoury has plenty to offer.) It is also about meeting deadlines and applying a determined work ethic. Lara Khoury has understood this lesson well at this point of her career, as she acknowledged when recently talking to the Lebanese website "Secrets of Beirut". So I was hardly surprised when Khoury showed up right on time for our Skype interview. Here she was, an immaculate olive-skinned beauty with eyes as big as an ocean, radiant and somewhat mysterious, sporting her trademark super short hair – we will come to that later.
The class of Lebanese fashion design came to the attention of a wider international audience when Halle Berry wore an Elie Saab dress for the Oscar ceremony in 2002. Today, Jennifer Lopez walks the red carpets wearing Zuhair Murad or Reem Acra designs, while actress Kerry Washington has joined the ranks of Elie Saab's followers. In Beirut Lara Khoury is the undeclared star of a very diverse scene of young Lebanese fashion designers. Many of them are women. Lara Khoury caters to a local, a regional and a growing worldwide customer base. Unlike Elie Saab and other ‘Hollywood designers’ who have a penchant for Haute Couture, Lara Khoury specializes in ready-to-wear fashion.
Ready-to-wear but not mainstream. In her collections Lara is constantly experimenting with volumes and forms and seeks to distort the feminine silhouette by constructing new curves and shapes, while at the same time keeping a hint of femininity. “Who do you have in mind when you design?” was my first question to Lara Khoury. “Do you create for Lebanese or international customers?” “I don’t design for a particular customer,” Lara said. “With today’s globalization, a designer can craft a collection and create for whoever they want. I rather think of the message that I want to give in the collection. And then clients from Lebanon can find my work in my studio in Beirut and other clients can find it online.” “My decisions are based on creativity – and not on targeting a specific market,” Lara continued. “It’s not the best thing to do business-wise, I know, but I do what I do because I love it, so I don’t want to compromise on anything because of a certain client.”
Population Movements to Keserwan - The Khazens and The Maans
ما جاء عن الثورة في المقاطعة الكسروانية
ثورة أهالي كسروان على المشايخ الخوازنة وأسبابها
Origins of the "Prince of Maronite" Title
Growing diversity: the Khazin sheiks and the clergy in the first decades of the 18th century
Historical Members:
Barbar Beik El Khazen [English]
Patriach Toubia Kaiss El Khazen(Biography & Life Part1 Part2) (Arabic)
Patriach Youssef Dargham El Khazen (Cont'd)
Cheikh Bishara Jafal El Khazen
Patriarch Youssef Raji El Khazen
The Martyrs Cheikh Philippe & Cheikh Farid El Khazen
Cheikh Nawfal El Khazen (Consul De France)
Cheikh Hossun El Khazen (Consul De France)
Cheikh Abou-Nawfal El Khazen (Consul De France)
Cheikh Francis Abee Nader & his son Yousef
Cheikh Abou-Kanso El Khazen (Consul De France)
Cheikh Abou Nader El Khazen
Cheikh Chafic El Khazen
Cheikh Keserwan El Khazen
Cheikh Serhal El Khazen [English]
Cheikh Rafiq El Khazen [English]
Cheikh Hanna El Khazen
Cheikha Arzi El Khazen
Marie El Khazen