The Boustani house encompasses both the tragedy and faith of Lebanon

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by Robert Fisk - independent.co.uk - During the great famine in Lebanon and Syria – whose lamentable 100th anniversary we mark these current months, though few bother to commemorate (or even remember) it – the hungry and poor of Beirut would gather at Mar Mikhael railway station in the east of the city, in the desperate hope that the once-a-week steam locos coming down from the mountains would have vegetables, even meat, in their grimy freight wagons. Some of these people had lived on stinging nettles, like the Irish of the 19th-century Great Famine, and many of their children and elderly had died of starvation. The bodies of children lay in the streets. So the trains were a symbol of both hope and despair. But just up the road lived a Lebanese banker, Salim Habib al-Boustani, who would regularly walk down to the station to hand out food and cooking oil, and money to the dying proletariat of Beirut. They indeed deserved a revolution.

Since 1914, the Allies had blockaded the Ottoman coastline, preventing all supplies reaching the ports of Lebanon and Syria – which were then part of the same Ottoman province. As the Great War strangled the Ottoman armies, their Turkish officers commandeered massive shipments of food, farm animals and carts from the hundreds of thousands of destitute Lebanese and Syrians living in countryside, mountains and cities. Amid this misery, some of the Beirut rich (for this was, after all, Lebanon) held parties – and invited their Turkish rulers – but there were others like Boustani who retained their morality and cared for their gaunt-faced neighbours. Boustani owned a magnificent house only 400m from the station, and his residence and his kindness and the memory of those trains is being commemorated this month, with paintings by the British artist Tom Young and even film footage of the first steam railway to be built by the Allies in the Second World War. It’s all inside the old Boustani house, now under restoration: a glorious Ottoman pile with arched windows whose owners, Nabil and Zoe Debs, are also turning it into the second Beirut Arts Club.

In 1917, Beirutis had only just recovered from the earlier “year of the locust”, when billions of the insects swept across Egypt and the Levant consuming everything in their flight path. The locust cloud over the Lebanon was so thick that diaries of the time describe it eclipsing the sun. In the Beqaa valley east of Beirut, a historian described how they settled on the ground “to the depth of an arm’s length”. Perhaps two million died of hunger in the Great War, especially in Beirut, and this was in addition to the one and a half million Armenian Christians “genocided” by the Turks in 1915, whose survivors were now turning up in Beirut to add to the city’s starving population. Thus the lands of the Levant today lie on the unknown graves of as many as three and half million dead: well over three times the total fatalities of the British and its Empire during the First World War. Young has a fascination with trains, and so do I; writer’s admission, two of his railway paintings hang in my Beirut home, one of the upended track high above Beirut where the civil war ended its purpose, and another of a 19th-century Swiss rack-and-pinion loco rotting in the old Beirut marshalling yard, smothered in flowers and creepers. His paintings in the Boustani house, however, evoke a living railway. A steam loco thunders over the Mar Mikhael railway bridge in 1972 – still there today, but overgrown – while in another, an old Ottoman train waits in a station further up the mountain.

Young takes his inspiration from original photographs, and I know well the picture of the steamer on the bridge. But in Young’s hands the train is bursting over the bridge: a grey speed emanating from it, smoke billowing upwards, as if you could pop out the door, run down the street and see the real thing thundering past. As always, Young’s interest curls round the decay and the might-have-been. He’s climbed up onto the track and found Mar Mikhael station in ruins – it has simply fallen down – and the remains of an old carriage. In paint, he has transformed it into a kind old graveyard. “La wayn”, it is captioned in Arabic. “To where?” He has, of course, photos of the real wreckage which he took from the railway line. During the Second World War, British officers were billeted on the top two floors of the Boustani house after the victory they and the Free French had gained over the Vichy forces loyal to Petain in 1941. It was the British and Australians who extended Lebanon’s railway network to the northern city of Tripoli, principally to carry ammunition, and there’s a weird moment when, looking at Young’s pictures, film footage appears on the ceiling above.

And there are the Australian soldiers with British General Spears – who loved De Gaulle and then hated him so much when he refused to grant Lebanon its promised independence that Churchill fired him – and Lebanese President Naccache, France’s pliant Lebanese “leader”. But the camera also sits above the footplate of a big steam loco, and we travel with it on the movie as it thunders up the Lebanese coast – you can still recognise the surviving railway bridges today – to the cheers of crowds of Lebanese civilians. The film is freely available from the Australian government. In one shot, it’s clear the railway-builders half-demolished a beautiful Ottoman house to allow the track to take a curve above the Mediterranean. So a shake of the head from Young each time he sees this sequence. He spends much of his time trying to preserve the cultural past of Beirut – not without ruffling masses of sectarian feathers – and declined to involve himself with the Boustani house when its previous owners announced their decision to bash it down and build a road through the site to two new tower blocks. But the moment the Debs bought the house, Young was back to support their restoration. The ground floor window casing appears almost identical to that of the original Mar Mikhael railway station, built a few years later; the same Italian architect may well have constructed both. More than a hundred years ago, Salim and Adele Boustani had six children, one of them a daughter called Georgette. After arriving with the Allied forces in 1941, a Scottish officer, the gloriously named Frank Armour, fell in love with Georgette and married her. He was looking after his songbirds in the back garden of the house during the Lebanese civil war when a shell burst next to them. Most of them died. Frank was in the house and survived. Somehow, the Boustani house, like the old railway station down the road, appears to encompass both the tragedy and faith of Lebanon. So surely it has now been saved.

Lebanon Family reunions for the Lebanese mean home for holidays

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By An-Nahar - Ghadir Hamadi -- Beirut: By the time December is around the corner, Lebanese abroad are dreaming of visiting the homeland for the holidays and arriving by the planeload. In recent days many of the flights are overbooked and Beirut’s streets, bars, malls, and restaurants are all packed with revelers. Why? The reasonable answer is that the Lebanese diaspora reverses itself on holidays, as Lebanon’s far-flung family come back from work and lives abroad to spend quality time with their families and loved ones. Nothing will discourage them —not long flights, not bad weather, and definitely not the bad mood of Lebanon’s ongoing political quarrels. The Lebanese have long had wanderlust. Ancient Phoenician merchants roamed the Mediterranean, setting up cities such as Carthage and Cadiz. In the past century and a half, waves of Lebanese have left for the Americas and West Africa. With millions of Lebanese and their descendants now living in Brazil, millions more in the United States and an estimated quarter million in West Africa. They do everything from managing restaurants to diamond trade and have proved to be the talented business persons and skilled executives the country is known for producing. “My plane was packed with Lebanese flying home for the holidays, and when it landed we all shouted ‘Beirut’ and clapped hysterically,” Jad Hussein, a 25-year-old high school Biology teacher working in Qatar, told Annahar. Hussein was sitting with his friends-mostly Lebanese who work abroad- smoking hookah at one of Hamra’s bustling cafes. Across Beirut, malls were packed with fashionably dressed shoppers, and large families walking together talking loudly and laughing simultaneously, and food shops were doing brisk business for large holiday reunion meals. 65-year-old retired nurse, Om Shareef told Annahar, “My husband and I each worked two shifts almost all our lives to support our children’s education.” Her four children are now spread across the Gulf. “I’m proud of the good jobs they secured for themselves, but I miss them terribly every day,” she added. Her three married daughters all came home for the holidays, but her eldest son Shareef was unable to take a break from the engineering firm he works for in Saudi Arabia.

For some families, Lebanon has become a place for reunions but not an employment market. “We’re all here for the holidays but none of us live here anymore,” said Rita Ghulmiyyah, 25, an architect based in Dubai who was born in Beirut. There are seven people in her family, “four of us are now scattered across the globe.” Dareen Jamaleddine’s father surprised them by coming home from Canada, a day before Christmas. “I couldn’t believe my eyes when he walked in, I just sat on the floor and started bawling my eyes like a baby,” said Jamaleddine with a grin. “I haven’t seen my dad who works in Canada for over a year, seeing him walking through the front door knocked the air out of my lungs.” “We all know how expensive planning a trip to Lebanon can be,” her father, Mohamed Itani, said. “The cheapest flight from Toronto to Beirut right now is going for at least $3000 (CAD),” he added. Aliyah Hammoud concurs. “My fiancé works abroad as an accountant, but the skyrocketing price of airplane tickets stopped him from coming home for the holidays,” she said.

For Lebanese arriving home, however, the thought of long afternoons spent in the kitchen nibbling mom’s home-made dishes and laid-back evenings curled up on the sofa, catching up with family under the colored holiday lights, is priceless. In the globalized economy, this is still a place to call home, and for families to meet for gatherings that keep the Lebanese spirit alive as one of the country’s greatest exports is the talents of those born or descendant from the Levant.

Mideast Catholic patriarchs express hope amid uncertainty at Christmas

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by cruxnow.com BEIRUT, Lebanon - Catholic patriarchs of the Middle East - with hope, despite uncertainty in the region - called for peace, security, prayer and solidarity at Christmastime. From Baghdad, Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Sako expressed hope for a “new phase” for his country, that the recent triumph over the Islamic State and the termination of terrorist control of Mosul and other Iraqi cities is a step toward security and stability. But the liberation of those areas, he said, requires the Iraqi government to work to facilitate “the return of Christians to their homes and properties, preserving their rights as indigenous citizens, recognizing their culture, civilization and heritage as an essential part of Iraq’s history and preventing demographic changes in their historical geographic areas.” Sako reiterated that before the American-led invasion of 2003, there were more than 1.5 million Christians in Iraq. More than half of that Christian population has migrated due to discrimination, threats, abductions and the expulsion from their homes in Ninevah Plain by the Islamic State in 2014, he said. “This is our homeland and we insist (we) remain here,” he said. He called for unity among Iraqi Christians as well as for them to work “hand in hand with their fellow Muslims.” The future, Patriarch Sako said, “cannot be built without tolerance and coexistence.” “So, let us move to the path of hope together,” Patriarch Sako said. “In regard to Muslims, an honest dialogue is a must, to understand the truth of each side and accept it,” he said. Alluding to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the Chaldean patriarch urged Christians “to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, who have been suffering from injustice and displacement for 70 years.” He also called on them “to pray for Jerusalem to remain a holy city for Christians, Muslims and Jews.”

In his Christmas message, Lebanese Cardinal Bechara Rai, Maronite patriarch, also touched upon Trump’s declaration regarding Jerusalem. “We categorically reject it because it is an unjust and hostile decision toward Christianity and Islam, and of the Palestinian people in particular,” Rai said. He said the decision demolished peace negotiations and could “ignite a new uprising and even war, God forbid.” Citing World Bank studies, Rai noted that one-third of the Lebanese people remain below the poverty level. Furthermore, the presence of 1 million displaced Syrians and hundreds of Iraqis as well as half a million Palestinian refugees is “compounding the needs of the Lebanese.” Rai called upon the Prince of Peace to protect Lebanon and “this growing (Middle East) region where Christianity originated, and to spread the culture of love, brotherhood and peace.”

Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan noted that Lebanon, “the only country where all citizens enjoy the best possible liberty and equality,” had faced numerous trials in 2017. In his Christmas message from the patriarchate in Beirut, he thanked God that the Lebanese army dispelled terrorist groups that were threatening Lebanon’s “very existence.” “During this joyful season, our thoughts and prayers will particularly go to our brothers and sisters in Syria and Iraq, who have been suffering for long, because of their steadfast faithfulness to the Gospel,” Younan said. “Their presence as a Christian minority that endured every kind of hardship is essential to the rebirth of their respective countries.” He added that “there is still a lot to do that would inspire confidence to our eradicated and exhausted community in order to return to their ancestral land” in Syria and Iraq. “Economic sanctions on Syria must be lifted,” the Syriac Catholic patriarch said. The sanctions, he said, “are like crimes against humanity, because they target the most vulnerable segments of a nation.”

Melkite Catholic Patriarch Joseph Absi, in a message from the patriarchate in Damascus, Syria, noted that “as the various currents of the world invade the spirit of the people” and “as the land of the East is trampled by war and displacement,” the faithful sometimes wonder about the presence of God “and his role in our lives.” But Absi offered hope and reassurance in his message that “Christmas comes, the Divine Incarnation, to reveal to us that God’s hand appears and accompanies us, especially in the difficult stages of our lives.”

Lebanese foreign minister denounced over Israel comments

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BEIRUT- Lebanese politicians on Thursday criticized Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil over a television interview in which he was shown saying that Lebanon did not have an ideological problem with Israel and was not against it having security. The comments, made to al-Mayadin television channel during a long interview on Tuesday, had just started attracting attention. Bassil stated during his interview“There is no ideological problem with Israel, and we do not reject its existence. Israel has the right to safety. All we care about is for people to recognize one another. We are people who accept the other but the problem is when the other rejects you,” Bassil, said when asked about normalizing relations with Israel. A former government minister called on Bassil to resign and a member of parliament also criticized him with Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouq leading the charge tweeting "The Cabinet should dismiss Bassil if he doesn't recognize an ideological difference with Israel"; while MP Boutros Harb called on the Justice Minister to open a probe regarding the matter.  Bassil’s office later said al-Mayadin had distorted his comments through its editing of the interview, without explaining how. “The aim of taking his statements out of context is to distort his stance – the well-known stance that Israel is an aggressive entity that practices terrorism of the state. It is well-known who stands behind this campaign that aims to harm the stance which Bassil expressed at the Arab League,” the statement said. 

World's Wealthiest Became $1 Trillion Richer in 2017

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by Tom Metcalf, Jack Witzig - Bloomberg - The richest people on earth became $1 trillion richer in 2017, more than four times last year’s gain, as stock markets shrugged off economic, social and political divisions to reach record highs. The 23 percent increase on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world’s 500 richest people, compares with an almost 20 percent increase for both the MSCI World Index and Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos added the most in 2017, a $34,2 billion gain that knocked Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates out of his spot as the world’s richest person in October. Gates, 62, had held the spot since May 2013 , and has been donating much of his fortune to charity, including a $4.6 billion pledge he made to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in August. Bezos, whose net worth topped $100 billion at the end of November, currently has a net worth of $99.6 billion compared with $91.3 billion for Gates. George Soros also gave away a substantial part of his fortune, revealing in October that his family office had given $18 billion to his Open Society Foundations over the past several years, dropping the billionaire investor to No. 195 on the Bloomberg ranking, with a net worth of $8 billion. By the end of trading Tuesday, Dec. 26, the 500 billionaires controlled $5.3 trillion, up from $4.4 trillion on Dec. 27, 2016. “It’s part of the second-most robust and second-longest bull market in history,” said Mike Ryan, chief investment officer for the Americas at UBS Wealth Management, on Dec. 18. “Of all the guidance we gave people over the course of this year, the most important advice was staying invested.”

Winners

The 38 Chinese billionaires on the Bloomberg index added $177 billion in 2017, a 65 percent gain that was the biggest of the 49 countries represented. Hui Ka Yan, founder of developer China Evergrande Group, added $25.9 billion, a 350 percent jump from last year, and the second-biggest U.S. dollar gain on the index, after Bezos. Technology billionaire Ma Huateng, co-founder of messaging service Tencent Holdings, became Asia’s second-richest person when his fortune nearly doubled to $41 billion. The number of Asian billionaires surpassed the U.S. for the first time, according to a UBS Group AG and PricewaterhouseCoopers report.

The U.S. has the largest presence on the index, with 159 billionaires who added $315 billion, an 18 percent gain that gives them a collective net worth of $2 trillion.

Russia’s 27 richest people put behind them the economic pain that followed President Vladimir Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, adding $29 billion to $275 billion, surpassing the collective net worth they had before western economic sanctions began.

It was also a banner year for tech moguls, with the 57 technology billionaires on the index adding $262 billion, a 35 percent increase that was the most of any sector on the ranking. Facebook Inc. co-founder Mark Zuckerberg had the fourth-largest U.S. dollar increase on the index, adding $22.6 billion, or 45 percent, and filed plans to sell 18 percent of his stake in the social media giant as part of his plan to give away the majority of his $72.6 billion fortune.

In all, the 440 billionaires on the index who added to their fortunes in 2017, gained a combined $1.05 trillion.

Losers

The fortune of French telecommunications billionaire Patrick Drahi fell $4.1 billion to $6.3 billion, a 39 percent drop. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, the richest person in Saudi Arabia, dropped $1.9 billion to $17.8 billion after he was detained in a crackdown against corruption led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that targeted royals, government officials and business leaders. There were 60 billionaires who fell from the ranking, including South African retailer Christo Wiese, whose fortune dropped to $1.8 billion from a peak of $7.7 billion, in August 2016, after news of an accounting scandal at his Steinhoff International Holdings NV broke on Dec. 5. Sumner Redstone, 94, also fell off the list as CBS owner Viacom Inc. continued to grapple with a bitter battle for control between his daughter and other executives, while Rupert Murdoch, 86, sidestepped succession concerns with a December deal to sell much of 21st Century Fox Inc.’s entertainment assets to Walt Disney Co. Redstone shed $90 million. Murdoch added $2.7 billion. In all, the 58 of the 500 billionaires who saw their fortunes shrink in 2017, lost a combined $46 billion

Contacts Between FPM, Lebanese Forces to Protect ‘Maarab Understanding’

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aawsat.com -  Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat Contacts and meetings resumed between the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) and the Lebanese Forces (LF) party in an attempt to revive already tense relations between the two largest Christian forces in Lebanon. Ties became strained after the resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri in November, a position backed by the LF. Information Minister Melhem Riachi, of the LF, and MP Ibrahim Kanaan, of the FPM, are tasked with the mission of repairing relations between the two sides. The two officials were the sponsors of the Maarab understanding reached in 2016 to end nearly 30 years of disputes between the two Christian parties. The agreement led the LF to announce its backing of Michel Aoun for the country’s presidency. He was elected later that year. An FPM official and former minister Mario Aoun told Asharq Al-Awsat on Tuesday that relations between both parties is not measured by the presence of some simple disputes, but by their agreement on essential issues. “The FPM and LF relationship is bound by essential understandings that could not be overlooked,” he said. The FMP position is shared by the LF. “There are differences over some positions, but we already agreed to accept each other’s differences,” LF MP Joseph Maalouf told Asharq Al-Awsat. The disputed files between both sides are countless, and include disagreements over issues related to the oil and electricity sectors, in addition to the issue of appointments in public institutions. Despite revitalized relations, it does not appear that they would be sufficient for both parties to strike alliances for the upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for May. “The current agreements between the FPM and LF do not mean their translation into electoral alliances,” Aoun said. He said that the new electoral law is capable of testing the electoral capacities of each party