Natasha Bertrand

Asked why the US hadn't seen the attempted Turkey coup coming, US Secretary of State John Kerry responded that the uprising that left over 200 dead by Saturday morning did "not appear to be a brilliantly planned or executed event." Two days later, a much more detailed picture of the plotters' effort has come into focus and suggests a strikingly different view.

Cemalettin Haşimi, a senior adviser to Turkey's prime minister, Binali Yıldırım, told The Guardian on Monday that the coup "was incredibly well organized actually" and "could have succeeded." "Sudden moves by the leadership and sudden movement by the people changed the whole plan," Haşimi said, referring to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's appeal to his supporters on FaceTime that they take to the streets to protest the coup — and the fact that they listened.

The pink of jacaranda trees blooming on the pathway, the powdery grey of ancient stones, the deep blue sky framing Beirut’s turquoise mosque domes and the white, whipped water down south at Tyre… Wherever I looked in Elie Saab’s studios, I could see the colours of his country. 

The designer’s poetic vision recalled stories of the “Cedars of Lebanon” and the “Paris of the Orient” of Beirut’s Sixties heyday, when the international beau monde would frolic in the bay, before the city was reduced to rubble and stone - first by war and then by urban re-development.

Yet I knew that for Elie Saab, Beirut is where his heart is - and where his seamstresses are - which is why I had come to the Lebanon for a richer vision of his work.

Image credit: InDigital (left) and @SuzyMenkesVogue

by Vogue - Suzy Menkes “Beirut is the source of my inspiration and I am proud that I myself am an image of success and progress for my country - that is what motivates me,” said Elie Saab, 52, as I watched him work on his Paris Autumn/Winter 2016 Haute Couture collection and on dresses for private clients. He has indeed become a symbol of hope, with a large and successful fashion business that has sprung from his native Middle East and journeyed to the wider world.

The first thing I noticed was a single bird, flitting across a dress, with the designer re-positioning the application on the lace bodice. By the time the show took place in Paris, there were flocks of birds created in sequins that glittered on the chiffon and silken dresses, and even on the “kiddie couture” – children’s dress-up clothes, shown for the first time in mother-and-daughter displays on the Paris runway.

Birds in flight? Elie Saab, deliberately or unconsciously, had hit on the subject that is defining this new millennium: migration. Not least in the current influx to the Lebanon from war-torn Syria.

  There are more than 500 dogs and 150 cats at the rescue centre in Beirut

While Israeli jets pounded Lebanon in the summer of 2006 in its brief war against Hezbollah, John Barrett was breaking into abandoned pet shops to rescue starving animals in cages. "It was an emotional time," he says. "Often we would ask Lebanese people in the bombed south to also take their dogs off their hands… and they would agree only on the condition that we took a child as well".

Then, as a warden of the British embassy in Beirut, he appeared to have found his vocation - finding new homes for over 300 dogs and cats left behind by fleeing British expats. Remarkably, he managed to find the funding to charter a 747 airliner to get them to America, where they were taken in by new owners. That act was the start of what would eventually become a voluntary organisation called Beta (Beirut for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).

But now, 10 years later, the organisation he founded is facing its own abyss - struggling to house 500 dogs and over 150 cats.

Natasha Bertrand

An attempted military coup by a faction within the Turkish armed forces calling itself the "Peace at Home Council" was stifled in less than 24 hours after Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on his supporters to take to the streets and repel the uprising.

Earlier Friday night, the soldiers  stormed Turkey's state-run broadcaster and said they had seized power, taken over the government, and declared martial law. They deployed forces onto the streets of Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey’s largest city and capital, respectively, and closed two major bridges leading into Istanbul.

At least 256  people were killed in the clashes, according to Turkey's prime minister. But the  uprising itself was repelled rather quickly. Many soldiers were either arrested, had been brutally beaten by protesters, or surrendered by early Saturday morning, allowing the Turkish government to regain almost complete control within 24 hours.