7 people have been injured in a car bomb in Rue Verdun.

Verdun is the most expensive shopping street in the Arab World, in a Muslim area of the city.

Labels: Beirut, Lebanon

A large explosion has hit Ashrafieh in Beirut.

One person is dead and at least six others are injured.

The victim died when a bomb went off under a car and knocked the wall of her house down. It happened next to a shopping centre.

It follows battles in Tripoli between the Army and an Al Qaeda linked group which killed at least 48 people - the worst civil violence since the Civil War.

Labels: Beirut, Lebanon

Thanks to Arima, Princess Anarchy, Razan, and via Arima, Abu Fares, and via Abu Fares, Dubai Jazz for their wonderful replies to my tag, 'The City I Love'.

It showed me two things.

First, that this tagging thing is another way we're using the Syrian blogosphere to communicate with eachother. We're not just posting on our own blogs, throwing ideas into the air...instead, we're actively bouncing that ball of ideas between eachother. I really think the Syrian blogosphere is developing into our a forum, an arena that we own, and that we have the power to use to discuss the future of the country. No wonder Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak got a bit wobbly.

Ok, the second point's a bit more ethereal. It showed me that our cities mean something fundamental to who we are. And they have different meanings to each of us. But our cities do have a real character, that we can identify independently of eachother. (Portuguese poet Goncalo Tavares has written about the nature of the city, a body created by a set of individuals all pulling in different directions).


Arima's Damascus is someone who brought tears to her eyes as she returned to her, her truest love, a city of innocence, a city that could do no wrong. My Damascus.












The Angry Anarchist has given her characteristically angry anarchical take on her city, Beirut. (Although I sensed a little bit of love...the kind of love that hides between the lines in a lot of her writing...when she talked about the town of Shusha).

The grotesque I Love Life poster campaign by the Haririst reminants crops up a lot in Beirut, the Phonecian city which killed Arabism. And there's a l o t of driving.





Tartoussi Abu Fares names Tripoli as his top choice. It may be the other side of the Syria-Lebanon border, but it's only 60km away and Abu Fares treats it like home: "The Tripolitans speak with my accent and share my inherited values. This is the only place in Lebanon where the line between Syrian and Lebanese is almost nonexistent."


Dubai Jazz picks his birthplace, Aleppo, a city he calls his mother. He's now living with his mistress: Dubai.














Razan imagines Damascus. The city has become part of who she is, a city she dreams of when she is away, and which fulfils her when she is home. The pictures tell a story of smells, sounds and people. A story of dreams. Long dreams after lonely nights speaking English and French in Beirut.








Arima, the Dove of Anarchy, Razan, Abu Fares and Dubai Jazz, you crafted the little bubbles I sent into the Syrian blogosphere into beautiful works of art...thank you.

Update: Karin's written about Jerusalem.

Labels: Beirut, Damascus new city, Lebanon, Old City, Syrian blogosphere, tagged

One of the most important articles I have ever read about Lebanon.

Sect Symbols
Annia Ciezadlo
The Nation

For most Westerners, the words "downtown Beirut" conjure up two distinct images: a farrago of bullet-scarred buildings, car bombs and machine-gun-toting militiamen, and a glitzy, picturesque pedestrian mall. Nobody remembers Wadi Abu Jamil, the old Jewish quarter of downtown Beirut, a warren of winding alleys, antique Ottoman and French Mandate houses, and a lonely crumbling synagogue. By the mid-1990s, it was home to everything the Lebanese government would rather forget. Most of those who lived there were Shiites from the south of Lebanon, routed from their homes by the Israeli occupation and shunted into the neglected neighborhood by a city that didn't want them.

But somebody wanted Wadi Abu Jamil. Solidere, the private company that had the contract to rebuild the city center, was determined to raze the old downtown by any means necessary. So when the Ayad family refused to leave their home in February 1996, Solidere dispatched a crew of Syrian and Egyptian guest workers to begin tearing down the four-story building--with the family still inside. As the laborers began to dismantle the building, not surprisingly it collapsed. Seven workmen and six of the Ayads, including a 2-year-old boy and a 3-month-old baby, were crushed to death by the march of reconstruction.

Rafik Hariri, the billionaire prime minister who founded Solidere, expressed his "sorrow" while attending a banquet at a five-star Beirut hotel.

...

Instead of letting the rebuilding founder amid the factional infighting and corruption that curse the Lebanese state to this day, Hariri proposed an alternative: A private company, not subject to civil-service hiring requirements, would use the authority of the state to seize several hundred acres of privately owned land. Freed from the shackles of bureaucracy, this new company would revitalize the shellshocked old city center. And if the 20,000 or so souls who lived or owned land downtown were upset at being forced to render it up, the company had a plan for them: The value of their claims would be determined by special committees--paid for, indirectly, by Solidere--that would award them compensation in the form of Solidere stock. If Kenneth Lay had been governor of Texas and granted Enron sweeping powers to seize Texans' homes and land, giving the homeowners nothing but Enron stock in return, it would have been something like Solidere.

...

The deal was negotiated between Hariri's company, Hariri's government and one of Hariri's former employees, who was head of Lebanon's reconstruction authority.

Labels: Beirut, Hariri Militia, Social issues, Solidere

Four Shia died (including two students at the Beirut Arab University), killed by Hariri gunmen. 35 injured. The army caught...no-one.

Three Lebanese soldiers injured by gunmen. A gunman belonging to Walid Jumblatt's progressive Socialist Party has been arrested.

SSNP (Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party) offices burned down.

Welcome to civil conflict, brought to you courtesy of $48 billion of Hariri/Saudi/French/US debt.

Labels: Beirut, Hariri Militia, Walid Jumblatt

Beirut has been put under curfew for the first time since the civil war ended in 1990.

It comes a day after brutal sectarian fights led to four deaths and dozens of injuries.

Witnesses reported the Lebanese Forces militia, Hariri militia and Amal militia taking part in most of the violence at Beirut's Arab University.

But on a positive note, Lebanon has another $7 billion of debt to add to its world record $41 billion debt. Lebanon likes world records. Here's another one: Lebanon spends two-thirds of everything it earns paying interest on its debt. TWO-THIRDS.

Labels: Beirut, Hariri Militia, Lebanese Forces