by Joseph A. Kechichian, Senior Writer Beirut: Lebanon is a largely paralysed society that is struggling with
basic governance issues, some of which predate the 1975-1990 Civil War,
though the chaos endured by citizens has intensified in the past twenty
years.

Since its creation, Lebanon has had a relatively effective
presidential system through a unique paradigm [a power-sharing system
based along confessional lines].

Then in 1989, the Taif agreement
which ended Lebanon’s bitter civil war shifted that very paradigm into
the hands of the cabinet. The aim of Taif was to return Lebanon to operate under a functioning democracy. The options being toyed with range from federalism to administrative
decentralisation and even the drastic option of dividing Lebanon into
two to three separate countries.

By Reuters

Lebanon’s central bank chief said he will ensure local banks comply
with a US law targeting Hezbollah’s finances, weeks after a bomb attack
at a major Lebanese lender that had begun closing accounts linked to the
militant group.

Riad Salameh told Reuters the US law must be
enforced to keep Lebanon’s banks within the global financial system and
stabilise the hugely indebted economy as neighbouring Syria’s civil war
hits tourism and growth.

“Of course this (law) has created a lot
of tension in the country, and the tension was not good for Lebanon, but
overall we have preserved the objectives that we had in mind,” he said.Passed
in December, the law threatens to bar from the US financial market any
bank that knowingly engages with Hezbollah, designated a terrorist
organisation by the United States. It has led to a standoff between the
central bank and Hezbollah, which views it as a breach of sovereignty.

Salameh
and the US Treasury have repeatedly said the Hezbollah Financing
Prevention Act is not designed to hurt Lebanon’s economy or to unjustly
prevent members of Lebanon’s Shiite community from accessing banking
services.

Lebanese fashion designer Georges Chakra joined prestigious
international fashion houses in showing his fall/winter 2016-17 Couture
collection at Paris Fashion Week. His show was held at the Jardin des
Tuileries in the center of the city last Tuesday. Chakra is one of the
Lebanese fashion designers who for some time now have been producing the
kind of refined haute couture fashion that can compete with the
prestigious international fashion houses on the global stage at Paris
Fashion Week.

Haute couture fashion distinguishes itself as the height of luxury,
with designs being created entirely by hand with obsessive attention to
detail and made from the highest quality if fabrics. They are
custom-made and exclusive.

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.

By TIM ARANGO and CEYLAN YEGINSU

ISTANBUL — Military factions in Turkey
tried to seize control of the country Friday night, setting off a
furious scramble for power and plunging a crucial NATO member and
American ally into chaos in what was already one of the world’s most
unstable regions.

Early on Saturday morning, however, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
whose whereabouts was unclear through a long night of turmoil, flew to
Istanbul Ataturk Airport, a strong signal that the coup was failing.

“A
minority within the armed forces has unfortunately been unable to
stomach Turkey’s unity,” Mr. Erdogan said at the airport, after the
private NTV network showed him greeting supporters. Blaming political
enemies, Mr. Erdogan said “what is being perpetrated is a rebellion and a
treason. They will pay a heavy price for their treason to Turkey.”

There
were indications that coup leaders, at a minimum, did not have a tight
grip on many parts of the country. Supporters of Mr. Erdogan took to the
streets of Istanbul to oppose the coup plotters, and there were
scattered reports some of its leaders had been arrested.

Barbara Tasch

The French police have named Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel as the suspect in the attack in Nice, France, on Thursday night, Le Monde reports. The attacker reportedly shot at a crowd of Bastille Day revelers from
a truck and accelerated the vehicle into them, leaving at least 84
people dead and hundreds more injured. Al Jazeera News on Friday afternoon released a purported photo of the alleged attacker. Police officers shot the attacker dead. Authorities found identity papers in the truck.

The Nice-Matin newspaper reported that people close to Bouhlel were being questioned by the police. Bouhlel’s neighbors described him as a solitary and quiet person in
interviews with AFP. Most people in his apartment building said they
never talked to him. Bouhlel was born in 1985 and was of Tunisian origin, from the town of Msaken, The Telegraph reports, citing Tunisian security sources. The newspaper reported that Bouhlel was a father of three who
had become depressed since a divorce, citing neighbors who said he also
had financial problems.

His ex-wife has been taken into custody according to Nice-Matin.

by Pamela Engel

Another
attack has hit France, and early indications seem to point to
terrorism.

At least 70 people were reportedly killed in the southern French
city of Nice when a truck ran into a crowd celebrating the
Bastille Day national holiday on Thursday night.

If a terrorist group is responsible, then this would be the
second major terrorist attack to his France in a year — and the
third since January 2015.

John Schindler, the national-security columnist for The New York
Observer, tweeted after
the November attacks in Paris that killed 130 people:
“Jihadists with Balkan small arms were shooting up France in 1995
… got no idea why anybody is surprised.” Attackers used guns and bombs at several sites across Paris in
that attack, including the Stade de France and the Bataclan
theater, leading to an examination of why France has become a
prime target for terrorist groups.

ISIS — aka the Islamic State, Daesh, or ISIL — called Paris “the
capital of prostitution and vice” in a statement claiming
responsibility for the Paris attacks last year. The terrorist
group also stated that France and “all nations following in its
path” are “at the top of the target list for the Islamic State.” Under President Francois Hollande, France
launched its first airstrikes against ISIS targets in
Syria last September. The country is also a closer and
more opportunistic target for extremist groups.

Witnesses at the Bataclan said that the gunmen shouted in French,
“This is because of all the harm done by Hollande to Muslims all
over the world,”
according to The New York Times. Another witness confirmed
this to CNN, telling the news network that the attacker who
shouted that statement sounded like a native French speaker.