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For Lebanese Women, a Beach of One’s Own

By Vivian Yee and Hwaida Saad --nytimes.com -- JIYEH, Lebanon — They call it the ladies’ beach. The name is demure; the scene, not so much — at least not once they pass the parking lot, the man checking tickets at the front gate and the dim corridor at whose far end blazes a rectangle of bronze sand and sea. Hijabs are unwound from heads, veils tugged from faces. Jeans and abayas evaporate, divulging string bikinis, tankinis and swim shorts. Under spindly cabanas by azure waves, two women lie chest down on lounge chairs, their bare backs implying bare fronts. All around them, gallons of tanning oil glisten on acres of copper skin. When a man on a Jet Ski buzzes past, a female lifeguard warns him off with a staccato of whistle blasts. “Men,” said Nada, a school bus supervisor from Beirut who was treading the Mediterranean just offshore, “are suffocating.”

In Lebanon, a sliver of a country on the Mediterranean coast where summer sticks to your skin like moist Saran wrap, the beach is less a luxury than a utility. It is hard to imagine going without. Public and pay-by-the-day beaches line the coast from Tyre in the south to Tripoli in the north, and every other billboard on the highways out of Beirut seems to display a bikini model promoting a tanning aid. (S.P.F., evidently, is not in style.) But many observant Muslim women consider it “haram” — forbidden — to expose their bodies in front of men who are not their husbands or, in some cases, close relatives. Other women may cover themselves in deference to conservative families and communities.

For them, a mixed-gender beach is to be avoided; those who go with their families roast in the sun fully clothed in hijabs and long-sleeved shirts and pants or abayas, the full-length caftans popular among devout Lebanese Muslim women. Hence the emergence of ladies’ beaches like this one, the Bellevue Beach Club in the seaside town of Jiyeh — a salt-tinged hiatus from the male gaze for $18 a day, just 20 minutes down a trash-perfumed highway from Beirut. “When you see me on Facebook, I look completely different,” she said, her hair loose and ropy in the water. “You wouldn’t recognize me.” After next year, when she planned to make the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that every Muslim who can afford it is supposed to undertake at least once, she said she would avoid even the ladies’ beach; she, like many women who have completed the hajj, would adopt more modest attire. And she frowned on the women who had brought their young sons, who are allowed up to age 8 on the beach. She did not want her sons or grandsons to get used to seeing women’s bodies. But still. “I love to swim,” she said, smiling and shrugging, “so I have no other choice.” Nada and Ms. Amhaz agreed on one point: absolutely no beach selfies, not even to share with their husbands. “No, no!” they exclaimed, high-fiving. “My husband doesn’t need pictures,” Ms. Amhaz said. “He sees everything anyway.”

Lebanon sees return of Gulf tourists this summer

BEIRUT (Xinhua) -- Lebanon has witnessed a remarkable growth in the number of Gulf tourists this summer season, said the Lebanese Investment Business Committee (LIBC) on Sunday. "The number of Gulf tourists in Lebanon surpassed 50,000 this summer," said Rabih El-Amine, secretary of LIBC, quoted by the National News Agency. Amine said that Gulf tourists praised the high quality of services offered in Lebanon in addition to the feeling of security and stability. "However, this only constitutes 10 percent of the figures registered in 2013," he added. Saudi Arabia is planning to lift its travel ban on Lebanon following the government formation, as previously stated by Saudi charge d'affaires to Lebanon Walid Al-Bukhari, Amine said. Last November, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait warned their citizens against traveling to Lebanon due to the crisis after Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri's controversial resignation in Riyadh which he rescinded soon after. Pierre Ashkar, president of the Syndicate of Hotel Owners in Lebanon, previously told Xinhua that tourism activity in Lebanon will improve only when tourists from the Gulf return to country. Ashkar noted that Gulf tourists are the ones who spend the most in Lebanon. "They also stay for long periods," he added.

Egypt set to release Lebanese tourist jailed over Facebook post

CAIRO (Reuters) - A Lebanese tourist who was sentenced to eight years in prison for posting a video on Facebook the authorities claimed had insulted the country is set to walk free after a court cut the prison term and suspended it, the state-run MENA news agency said on Sunday. A Cairo court in July found Mona el-Mazboh guilty of deliberately spreading false rumours that would harm society, attacking religion, and public indecency. El-Mazboh was arrested at Cairo airport in June at the end of her stay in Egypt after a 10-minute video in which she was complaining of sexual harassment and conditions in Egypt using explicit language went viral on social media. The court reduced her sentence to one year and suspended it, MENA said.

In the video, 24-year-old Mazboh complained of being sexually harassed by taxi drivers and young men in the street, as well as poor restaurant service during the holy month of Ramadan and an incident in which money was stolen from her during a previous stay. Egyptian rights activists say they face the worst crackdown in their history under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, accusing him of erasing freedoms won in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule. Supporters say such measures are needed to stabilise Egypt after years of turmoil that drove away foreign investors and amid an Islamist insurgency concentrated in the Sinai Peninsula. Reporting by Haitham Ahmed, writing Amina Ismail, editing by Louise Heavens

Lebanon is the Honoured Country at the 5th Athens International Tourism Expo

by greekcitytimes.com -- According to organisers, Lebanon will be this year’s honoured country at the 5th Athens International Tourism Expo ( December 7-9), participating with a large number of Lebanese tourism organisations and companies. This official state participation has been undertaken by the Lebanese Tourism Ministry, with the collaboration of the Embassy of Lebanon in Greece. The Ministry selected a very large space for hosting many Lebanese tourism organisations and companies, which will have a unique opportunity to get in touch with hundreds of Greek Hoteliers, Tourism companies, Travel Agencies and DMC who will participate as exhibitors and also by thousands of visitors.

In recent years there has been a large increase in inbound tourism from Lebanon, especially since the start of direct flights from Aegean Airlines and Middle East Airlines. In addition to the summer season, several charter flights are also being launched. Lebanese tourists who have a high income level, are interested in travelling to Greece for the gastronomy, shopping, city breaks and the sea, as well as for pilgrimage tourism, as 40% of Lebanese are Christians. Due to the exceptional tourist product of Greece, in particular to the provision of high-quality tourist services and proximity, Lebanon is a new but stable emerging market for our country. Lebanon’s state participation, as well as the Hosted Buyers that will participate from Lebanon at the 5th Athens International Tourism Expo, will provide exhibitors with an excellent opportunity for B2B meetings and high-level trade agreements.

Software Error At Beirut's Airport Causes Chaos, Congestion

by Umer Jamshaid -- BEIRUT, (UrduPoint) :A software error at Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport led to flights delays, causing great congestion in the airport's departure halls on Thursday and Friday, local media reported. "Damage to a software belonging to Sita, a baggage management company, took place at around 11 p.m. on Thursday, causing great congestion at the airport," said Elnashra, an independent online newspaper. Sita is a company that works on managing the flow of baggage from airline to airline and airport to airport. The damage was fixed at 4:30 a.m. local time on Friday but it had already caused chaos at the airport with lots of flights being postponed.

The Middle East Airlines announced that it has postponed all of its flights on Friday for reasons beyond its control, according to Lebanon 24, a local news agency. Officials have on many occasions voiced their concerns over the chaos taking place at Beirut's airport due to the old equipment and the increase of the number of passengers. Member of Lebanese Parliament Nazih Najm emphasized last month the need to expand the airport and update its equipment. "We need to expand the airport in a way that would increase its capacity to host 8 million passengers per year in addition to renewing its cooling systems, toilets, power generators and buying new baggage conveyers," he said. Earlier this year, Lebanese Finance Ministry approved 18 million U.S. Dollars in funding for the expansion of the airport. Beirut airport's manager Fadi El Hassan announced Wednesday that renovation work will start in November

Lebanon's economy not deteriorating: officials

BEIRUT, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese officials and experts refused Friday that the country's economy is collapsing. "We cannot say that the Lebanese economy is deteriorating and our duty is to adopt reforms that were endorsed in the 2018 budget," Ibrahim Kanaan, Head of Parliament's Finance and Budget Committee, was quoted by the National News Agency. Lebanon's Caretaker Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil said financial and monetary situation in Lebanon is normal. Kanaan and Khalil's remarks came after their meeting with Lebanese President Michel Aoun on Friday to discuss the economic situation in the country.

Meanwhile, economist Louis Hobeika told local news agency Al Markazia that economic and social situation in Lebanon is not in a deteriorating stage. "Lebanon is surely going through a difficult period due to the delay in government formation while the purchasing power of citizens have dropped remarkably but we cannot say that the economy is deteriorating," he said. The government must be formed in a bid to adopt necessary reforms which will have a positive impact on people's lives, according to Hobeika. Lebanon's Prime Minister-Designate Saad Hariri has been facing various hurdles to form a 30-member national unity government over the representations of the main Christian parties, the Druze sect and the Sunni representations from outside Hariri's Future Movement. Economic bodies in the country voiced their concerns about possible economic deterioration due to the delay in cabinet formation.

Israel Sees No Difference Between Lebanon, Hezbollah - Senior IDF Officer

by sputniknews.com -- A senior commander in the Israel Defense Forces told Haaretz Wednesday that as a consequence of “a stronger Hezbollah in Lebanese politics,” in future conflicts, Israel would make no distinction between Lebanese forces and those of Hezbollah’s militia. "The distinction we made between Hezbollah and Lebanon during the Second Lebanon War was a mistake," said the official, who is the senior officer in the army's Northern Command near the Lebanese border, about the 2006 conflict. "In the next war we will not make this distinction. We will hit Lebanon and any infrastructure that would contribute to the fighting." During the 2006 war in which Israel invaded southern Lebanon until it was halted and forced to withdraw by stubborn resistance by both Lebanese forces and Hezbollah fighters, over 1,200 people were killed, the vast majority of them civilians, due to Israeli bombardments and bombing. Human Rights Watch claimed the IDF used both cluster bombs and white phosphorus munitions on civilian urban areas, both of which are illegal to use in warfare, and most of which were deployed in the last 72 hours of the conflict, after the UN had already mediated a ceasefire. The war severely damaged Lebanese infrastructure and displaced 1 million Lebanese civilians.