#ShameOnWho campaign uses art to change Lebanese attitudes to rape

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By Heba Kanso BEIRUT (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The hashtag #ShameOnWho? is being deployed as part of a new street art campaign in Lebanon to try to change attitudes to rape in a country where victim shaming remains common. The group behind the campaign, which launched this week, said it wanted to "shake" Lebanese society out of misconceptions about sexual violence, using street art depicting the faces of alleged rapists as described by their victims. "There is so much blame and shaming of the victim. Our society needs to start recognising that rape, no matter what, is not justified," said Ghida Anani, director of the campaign group Abaad. "We need to demand more rights around sexual assault. If you don't shake society and this reality - nothing is going to change," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone from Beirut. The images went up on walls of buildings around Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday alongside the hashtag and the words "Prosecute the rapist. Do not blame the victim". Some also featured voiceboxes with oral testimony from the victims, their voices distorted to disguise their identity. About 13 sexual assaults on women are reported every month in Lebanon, official data show, but campaigners say many more go unreported. The country only abolished a law that let rapists escape punishment if they marry their victims last year, and women's rights campaigners say a culture of victim-shaming persists. In 2016 a member of the Lebanese parliament sparked an outcry when he said people needed to ask themselves "if women play an active role in pushing men to rape them".

A spokeswoman for the Lebanese Women Democratic Gathering, a local women's rights group, said shock tactics were needed if attitudes were to change. "This captures people's attention and creates an important debate - we need to start talking about these issues," said Hayat Mirshad. "Campaigns on violence against women need to start being aggressive and shocking." As part of the campaign, Abaad also released a video on social media of an actress who claimed to have been raped. Many people blamed her for what she was wearing or asked if she was on drugs. Hundreds of rape survivors and activists will participate in the Beirut Marathon on Sunday to mark the campaign, which ends on November 25, International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women. (Reporting by Heba Kanso @hebakanso; Editing by Claire Cozens. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights, and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org) Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Lebanese bishops: A new government against internal wars and regional influences

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Beirut (AsiaNews) -by Fady Noun --  A catastrophic picture has been painted of the internal situation in Lebanon yesterday in some passages of the final communiqué of the Assembly of the Maronite bishops at the end of their monthly meeting. The prelates, led by the Patriarch launched the alarm for an "internal war" that brings to mind the clashes preceding the signing of the agreement of national understanding or Taëf [which put an end to the various wars that followed in Lebanon from 1975 to 1990, ed.]. And they stress with concern that "words can have the same effect as bullets". Faced with a complex and alarming situation, the Assembly appealed for the formation of a government before the independence day celebrations. The prelates also denounce the "foreign interference" that have recently blocked the formation of a new executive. To begin with, the Assembly denounced the “obstacles facing the formation of a new government” saying these must be urgently overcome, “in a spirit of national responsibility and ethics". They note with sadness that "the spirit (of the Lebanese people) has been annihilated by yet another eleventh-hour problem that has interrupted the government formation process" and hopes that its birth will be offered to the Lebanese as "a gift for the Independence Day "of 22 November.

The Assembly criticized the bartering of ministerial portfolios which have been a source of division. They call for the formation of a "homogeneous" government, asking the various ministries "not to act alone, as if they were the absolute masters of their function", and to those who have the task of "making decisions for the community" to not " distort justice, so that the law is not applied in a discretionary manner ". In anticipation of a "future government free from both local and foreign constraints", the bishops have appealed to the government to carry out current affairs in a dynamic way "to regulate, as far as possible, the affairs of the state and citizens, in particular regarding their daily life and problems related to electricity, pollution, the environment, etc ". "The internal war continues through the media", underlines the Assembly, which declares itself "worried about the violent verbal escalation that manifests itself through the media, as well as on social networks". "It is as if the internal struggle - they say – that has not stopped following the 1989 agreement the goal of which was to put an end to it". "The verbal exchanges between barricades in the media - the statement strongly notes - are certainly no less dangerous than bullets, moreover they open the path for them, something that the Lebanese strongly reject". "This is why - concludes the text - the Assembly implores the parties concerned to fear God and respect each other and to engage in dialogue, especially because internal closures are produced in more than one sector, not to mention the negative regional developments that threaten to unfortunate consequences of the free decision and the interests of Lebanon and the Lebanese ".

US job openings outnumber workers

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More than 7 million jobs in the American economy remained vacant in September, comfortably outnumbering the roughly 6 million workers seeking employment. The number of job openings dropped slightly from the previous month’s record of 7.3 million to 7.125 million, according to the Labor Department. The number of unemployed people actively seeking jobs inched up slightly in October to 6.08 million. Health care and social assistance industries witnessed the biggest increase in vacancies. Professional and business services had the largest decline.

Lebanese Minister Apologizes for Insulting Egypt

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by aawsat.com -- Lebanese caretaker Tourism Minister Avedis Guidanian issued on Tuesday an apology to Egypt after criticizing the country’s cleanliness and living conditions. Guidanian, in an interview published on Monday by Lebanon's English-language Daily Star, complained that negative media reports about Lebanon were harming his country's image and hindering tourism. "Look at Egypt - is there a place dirtier than it? People are louder than us, there is more traffic than here - people live in graves, OK? But there is tourism, because they know how to sell the country," Guidanian said. Late on Monday Guidanian apologized for his remarks and visited the Egyptian ambassador to Lebanon on Tuesday, reported the National News Agency. In Egypt, pro-government TV talk show host Ahmed Moussa said he "does not care for his apology", but stressed the good relations between the people of Egypt and Lebanon. Moussa dismissed the minister as a "fool" and said the Lebanese government should "intervene". An official diplomatic source said the minister's statement in the newspaper "does not reflect the position of Lebanon as a country or government, nor the Lebanese people". "The Lebanese people come to Egypt for tourism in large numbers," the source added.

This is the most-demand job that recruiters are looking to fill, according to LinkedIn

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by Rosalie Chan --thisisinsider.com -- - Turns out the hottest job of 2018 could be that of a DevOps engineer. LinkedIn just released its report on the most-recruited jobs of 2018, showing that DevOps engineer was the most recruited job, followed by enterprise account executives and frontend engineers, in second and third place, respectively. This job is in high demand, and the money shows it. According to Indeed, job postings for DevOps engineers shot up 91 percent between 2014 and 2017. And the average base salary cashes in at $125,714, per the same data. According to the LinkedIn report, DevOps engineers are also the most recruited jobs specific to the engineering field, followed by frontend engineers and cloud architects.

So what does a DevOps engineer do, anyway? The term "DevOps" is a portmanteau of "Development" and "Operations," two roles that are vital to the field of software engineering. In short, the term refers to tools and practices that help engineers deliver and fix code on a more regular and faster basis, often multiple times a day — a practice pioneered by Facebook and its cohort. Before, developer teams would build and test the code, while operations teams would deploy and monitor the code. A DevOps engineer does both, and generally carries the end-to-end responsibility of developing, testing, deploying, monitoring and improving the code. That said, the relatively flashy new job title can be somewhat vague, and the responsibilities of the role can differ across companies.

Indeed, Engineers argue that "DevOps" is more of a culture and mindset, rather than a single job. A DevOps engineer's responsibilities can overlap with other types of engineers, such as site reliability engineers. And like other software engineers, DevOps engineers have to collaborate with their team to write and restructure code. At the same time, these engineers have to have the right skills to back up this mindset. DevOps engineers have to ensure that the software will work across different platforms, as well as frequently test and deploy their code. To become a DevOps engineer, one should be able to use open source technologies and automation tools, as well as have strong skills in testing, coding and scripting. People skills are also crucial, as the DevOps philosophy requires more collaboration among, well, developers and operations. Still, the very concept of DevOps has become a hot commodity in Silicon Valley: Investors are putting massive amounts of cash into DevOps startups that help their teams take advantage of this mindset. In that light, it's not surprising that companies are hiring for DevOps talent, too. As for the rest of the top three: Frontend engineers build the user interface of websites and apps, which is a crucial part of any software team. Enterprise account executives manage business relationships with a company's large customers, which speaks to the importance of the sales function.

Beirut's ghost apartments are haunting the economy

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The ghost apartments of Beirut are haunting the economy.

Permanently-drawn curtains on the city’s empty luxury high-rises and dust gathering over shuttered storefronts in the Beirut Souks mall offer a glimpse of the economic gloom gathering over one of the world’s most indebted countries. Prolonged conflict in neighboring Syria and political divisions at home have hit confidence. Economic growth has been stagnant for years, but a sharp downturn in the property sector risks wider spillovers as cash-strapped developers postpone payments to contractors and run late servicing debt to creditors. The recent withdrawal of a central bank-subsidised housing loan scheme has pushed even more potential buyers away. It’s what Houssam Batal, chief executive officer of Premium Projects, calls the “almost catastrophic scenario” confronting Lebanon’s real estate sector. “We’ve witnessed a delay in collection and had a very hard time to sell,” said Batal, whose development and construction company’s main focus is high-end central Beirut. After struggling to sell apartments valued at $1.2 million, Batal says demand is now shaky for units worth half as much.

The health of the real estate industry bears watching because it contributes an estimated 15% to economic output. According to a study by Bank Audi, property sales plunged 17% in the first nine months of this year while the number of construction permits granted fell 23%. A construction boom that began before the Syrian conflict took its toll, means some apartments have been on the market for years. Few expected the war, which began in 2011, to drag on so long, devastating trade, pushing some 1.5 million refugees into their tiny neighbor of 4 million and costing Lebanon’s economy an estimated $18 billion. The collapse in oil prices in 2014 has deterred the country’s moneyed expatriates. Even Gulf Arab spenders, who once plowed their disposable income into pied-a-terres or buy-to-let investments in Lebanon’s famously-hedonistic capital, are holding back. The slump is mainly “due to the overall wait-and-see attitude among investors because of the macro and political uncertainties,” said Marwan Barakat, chief economist at Bank Audi.

Lebanon has been without a government for over six months. While political deadlock is nothing new, this time, about $11 billion in loans and grants pledged by international donors are at stake. The economy is creaking under the strain of public debt, which the World Bank warns is on “an unsustainable path” toward 155% of gross domestic product by end-2018, while economic growth could slip to 1%. A typical apartment in Beirut, wedged between the Mediterranean Sea and verdant mountains, can cost between $2,000 and $7,000 per square meter, depending on the neighborhood. Though listed residential prices have not fallen significantly, developers are offering more flexible payment plans. One development in Dbayyeh, just outside Beirut, allows customers to rent for up to three years with the right to purchase later. In urgent need of cash, some developers are offering steep discounts on new units, though most are holding out despite the collapse in sales. Philippe Tabet, CEO of Har Properties, said the developer had to restructure its financial model after the downturn. “Clients are delaying payments and banks have increased interest rates, making it harder to obtain funds," Tabet said, though he hadn’t heard of many companies defaulting so far.

Opportunity from Crisis

Seeking to rescue the sector from crisis, a group of developers and investors have set up the country’s first real estate investment platform. Legacy One will purchase vacant apartments in about 100 projects in Beirut and its suburbs and resell them to buyers abroad, said Samir Cortas, head of the Real Estate Developers Association of Lebanon and a partner in the project. The plan is to channel as much as $1 billion into real estate in the hope of breathing life into the sector. Beirut-based Lucid Investment Bank is shaping the strategy and has received regulatory approval to raise $325 million in the first stage. It will allow creditors in troubled properties to swap their exposure to developers’ debt for bonds issued by the investment platform. Loans linked to real estate comprise over a third of private-sector banking debt, according to Cortas, making the scheme attractive to some, though it does little to address the economy’s underlying ills. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri is edging toward forming a government, potentially providing relief for investors and builders alike. That government must then overcome political divisions to implement the fiscal reforms required to unlock financing promised earlier this year for critical infrastructure projects. “There’s no doubt that Lebanon faces great challenges,” Hariri said at an investment conference in Riyadh on October 24. “We cannot rule in Lebanon the way we used to rule in the past. The whole world has changed.”