The Least Free Places on Earth - Photo Essay by Foreign Policy Magazine

Foreign Policy Magazine has published an amazing photo essay on the "least free places on Earth". Most of the photos are taken from Reuters, AFP and Getty Images. The text is taken from Freedom House's "Worst of the Worst" in its World Report.

Click here for the link to the photo essay

Below are some of the most poignant photos:

Chad














Cuba













Zimbabwe

Sudan (Darfur)














Uzbekistan

Lebanese Parliamentary Elections - 2009

It has been a strange build up to Lebanon's parliamentary elections these past few months. Strange because most experts predicted wrongly and most polls were way off what actually happened. Massive security measures were put in place yesterday preempting major security mishaps, which in fact never took place. Indeed, the Lebanese people peacefully exercised their civic duty and flocked to the polls, got their thumbs inked and quietly returned home.

Today, Monday, was declared a national public holiday, again in anticipation of possible security concerns, in the event that the defeated parties contest the results, which also still has not happened.

This morning I woke up and read that early results show a lead of 71 seats out of 128 for the ruling coalition, March 14th, Saad Hariri's group. As final results emerge today, let's see how a possible national unity government could be created while avoiding any future political crisis, which brought the country to a political standstill 2 years ago... We are also expecting reactions from the various international allies of both groups, namely the West including the USA for March 14th and Syria and Iran for March 8th.

On election day yesterday Sunday, I walked around Ashrafieh (the Christian area of East Beirut) to capture a few photos of this historical event:

Two young supporters of the Tayyar Party (orange party) of Christian leader Michel Aoun in Ashrafieh, pose for me with their inked thumb, sign they just voted. Michel Aoun has split with other Christian parties (who are part of the majority March 14th group) and formed the March 8th opposition coalition with Hezbollah...















Security measures were put in place. I took this photo, one street down from our flat in Ashrafieh.














Soldiers were also placed at strategic areas such as infront of polling stations.














Posters of parliamentary candidates were hanging from buildings and some walls were painted in the colour of the party, seen here for Michel Aoun's Tayyar Party. In the background, there is the beautiful maronite church.

Below is a poster of the late Gebrane Tueni, son of Ghassan Tueni who is still the Editor of An-Nahar newspaper and former minister as well as former Lebanese Ambassador to the UN in the crucial years in the beginning of the 1980s when Israel invaded Lebanon. I am reading Ghassan's book "Une guerre pour les autres" which he wrote in 1984 and which is dedicated to his son Gebrane, slain during the war. The woman next to Gebrane is Nayla Tueni, running for a Christian seat in Beirut 1 district, where we live. She is the daughter of Ghassan Tueni. She is one of few women running for parliamentary seats, most of whom are daughters, sisters or wives of Lebanon's political dynasties. As the title of a recent documentary on Al Jazeera English says: "Lebanese Elections: A Family Affair"...

In Lebanon, confession and religion plays a central role in public life. Indeed, even civil marriages are not recognised. When a Lebanese citizen registers a new born, he declares the baby's confession. When adult, that person will vote as a Christian Maronite for example, or as a Sunni Muslim, not only has a Lebanese. The Consitution was written in 1932 and was based on granting equal participation to the 18 official sects and no population census has taken place since then. Seats in parliament are divided equally between Muslims and Christians. As a result, relgion and state are intertwined, religious leaders have tremendous political power and lines between confessional beliefs and public policy are blurred.

Today, as the hours advance, official results are confirming that March 14 has a clear majority. The Israeli foreign minister has already made a statement stressing the importance for the new Lebanese government to prevent attacks from its territory towards Israel.

Until now, Hezbollah has been reacting positively to the election results, admitting defeat. Hezbollah MP Fadlallah made some quite mature and peacefull statements today calling for national unity and respect for diversity. Let's hope Lebanon's political leaders can all overcome past grievances and move on with building democratic institutions with full accountability to Lebanon's people.

Beirut commemorates: 4 years since Hariri's assassination

Saturday 14th February marked the fourth year since former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination in 2005. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese filled the streets of Beirut and congregated in the Place des Martyrs in the downtown area. Lebanese politicians took the opportunity to address the crowds. I was among them. Here are the photos I took. The most incredible scenes were the convergence of thousands of people from each part of this divided city. A flow of people from East Beirut on one side and thousands more from West Beirut, all walking towards Martyr's Square. It was breathtaking.

UN Secretary-General in Gaza

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon delivers remarks during a press conference on 20 January in front of a damaged warehouse belonging to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for the Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) Headquarters in Gaza (Credits: UN Photo, Eskinder Debebe)

Gaza Conflict Day 22: Unilateral cease-fire and Crimes against Humanity

On Friday evening, the staff unions of various UN agencies working in Lebanon organised a vigil in front of the UN building in downtown Beirut following the tragic and devastating loss of innocent lives in Gaza. M and I attended.

Last night, at 2am local time, after a long cabinet meeting, the Israeli government finally decided on a unilateral cease-fire. The question is, a cease-fire with who? As Israel does not recognise Hamas, it cannot negotiate any kind of deal with the group. Another question is how a cease-fire can be unilateral? If only one party agrees to halt fighting, how does this ensure that the conflict actually does stop? And in the case of Palestine, what about freedom, the right of return for the refugees, the right to land and to control of their own borders? What about the right to be free of occupation? And finally, what about the right to an independent state?

Well this morning's events proves these questions to be relevent. Indeed, as reported on Israel's English daily The Haaretz online, IDF and Hamas gunmen traded fire after Hamas launched more rockets into Israel, despite the cease-fire. Furthermore, according to Ehud Olmert, Israeli troops will remain in the Strip (occupying once again that land) as long as Hamas continues to fire rockets.

When I read international media, I find it surprising how this conflict is portrayed and even more surprising how Hamas and its actions are described. Why does everyone think that Hamas is firing rockets just because it feels like it and just because its members are blood thirsty terrorists? Even European media does not get to the bottom of the story. That is actually the problem with journalism, short stories portraying some facts (not all) and never reminding us of the root causes and the history. In the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict, history is very important.

Since Israel's onslaught on Gaza, international law professionals and intellectuals, including Richard Falk, the Princeton professor who was appointed UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, have brought up the issue of potential legal action against Israel for war crimes and crimes against humanity. This of course all depends on how the US will veto these attempts.

According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Crimes against humanity, "are particularly odious offences in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings. They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy (although the perpetrators need not identify themselves with this policy) or of a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority. However, murder, extermination, torture, rape, political, racial, or religious persecution and other inhumane acts reach the threshold of crimes against humanity only if they are part of a widespread or systematic practice. Isolated inhumane acts of this nature may constitute grave infringements of human rights, or depending on the circumstances, war crimes, but may fall short of falling into the category of crimes under discussion."

War Crimes are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions which includes among other acts, harming civilians, destroying property, directing attacks at UN and humanitarian facilities and staff, settling on occupied territory and using poisonous weapons. Does this not sound all too familiar lately?

The Gaza Conflict - Day 16

I woke up this morning and turned on the TV to CNN and BBC, to watch yet another day of genocide in the Gaza Strip. How privileged am I to wake up in a comfortable apartment in Beirut, after a long night's peaceful rest with the prospect of a nutritious breakfast. I also swiched on my computer to read more of the many emails I receive from Palestinian friends and colleagues, following the events closely.

Last week, when the UN Security Council finally came to an agreement on a resolution, the US abstained and both warring parties "brushed it off". A stir of emotions flooded me, perhaps due to my naive belief in International Law and binding UN resolutions. I started to think that perhaps, in this region, the UN has no effective role to play. I then began existentially questioning my own function in the UN here. Is the UN relevent anymore?

I read today that last week, the Democratic-led U.S. Senate enacted - via a cowardly voice vote - a completely one-sided, non-binding resolution that expresses unequivocal support for the Israeli war, and heaps all the blame for the conflict on Hamas. Senator Harry Reid proudly proclaimed: "When we pass this resolution, the United States Senate will strengthen our historic bond with the state of Israel." On its website, AIPAC (the pro-Israel lobby in Washington) is already patting the U.S. Senate on its back "for conveying America's unequivocal and steadfast support for Israel's right to self-defense." Here is the resolution referred to as "revolting" by most pro-Palestinian intellectuals: Click here.

Hezbollah also warned Israel once again that it is well prepared to defend Lebanon against any attack on that front.

There is enough reporting and analysis on Gaza for me not to write more on it here. So I thought of suggesting two books which are very relevent today and which I read a few months ago:

1) Zaki Chehab's "Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of Militants, Martyrs and Spies" publised by I.B. Tauris in 2007. Brilliant account of the birth and life of Hamas. Chehab was born in Tyre in South Lebanon as a Palestinian refugee, his family having fled Northern Israel in 1948, living in Rashidieh Refugee Camp. His is now a brilliant international journalist. He gave a passionate interview a few days ago on the BBC when interviewed on the Gaza crisis. This book should be read by all trying to follow and understand current events in Gaza.

2) Augustus Norton's "Hezbollah: A short history", published in 2007 by Princeton University Press. Professor Norton's blog is linked on the right of this blog as recommended reading on this region. Norton was a military observer for the UN's mission in South Lebanon in the 1980's. His knowledge and description of Hezbollah and its history is very impressive. I found this book very well written and full of interesting information and anecdotes. This book also helps one to understand Hezbollah in relation to Israel and therefore very relevent in today's hightened tensions.

The Gaza Conflict - Day 13

On the 13th Day of the crisis in Gaza, Israel continues its assault. Since yesterday, 3 hours have been granted to allow a humanitarian corridor and a temporary cessation of hostilities. Analysts say that this short reprieve is only a way for Israel to buy more time to complete its operations in Gaza as well a public relations stunt to reduce internation pressure on Israel.

There are concerns here in Beirut, that the crisis could spread to Northern Israel on the border with Lebanon.

As reported in the above BBC article, today, Palestinian groups in South Lebanon fired 5 Katyusha rockets into Israel. Israel fired back in response. Hezbollah said it did not plan to start a new war with Israel, but it seems like today's event shows that Palestinian groups are the ones who could start a conflict. There is a heavy UN presence in South Lebanon after the cease-fire in 2006 between Hezbollah and Israel, but it seems as if they would not be able to stop an escalation if there is one. This also means that if it is the Palestinians who are causing trouble, they could be targeted in an Israeli retaliation. There are many Palestinian camps around Beirut and around the country. They are already suffering terrible living conditions as well as social and economic discrimination. Further deterioration of their living conditions will only plunger more into destitution.

Rashid Khalidi, a respected Palestinian scholar in the United States has published a brilliant Op-Ed in the New York Times: Click here. The NYT, with its overly Israeli supportive readership, has published this article in a rare moment of truth about the plight of Palestinians in Gaza.

Jimmy Carter also spoke out in an article in the Washington Post today: Click here. He recently visited the region under the auspices of his Carter Center, in attempt to spread peace in the Middle East. He gave a lecture at the American University of Beirut which M and I attended.

Robert Fisk wrote an opinion piece in The Independent yesterday which I also recommend reading: Click here. In reference to the bombing of the UN school earlier this week he writes: "What happened was not just shameful. It was a disgrace. Would war crime be too strong a description? For that is what we would call this atrocity if it had been committed by Hamas."

The Regional Implications of the Gaza Conflict

Overview of the Crisis

On 19 December 2008, an Egyptian brokered cease-fire between Hamas and Israel came to an end after 6 months of relative calm. Continued unmet demands from both sides, saw an escalation to open conflict, now in its 12th day. With over 550 Palestinian deaths and 1 Israeli soldier killed, the ensuing humanitarian crisis and potential regional implications are significant. The already dwindling public infrastructure has been further damaged and in some cases destroyed by Israeli bombardments and artillery shell, including UNRWA facilities and government buildings. International diplomatic efforts have been underway to bring about an immediate cease-fire. After a number of unsuccessful attempts by the Security Council to reach an agreement, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and French President Nicolas Sarkozy jointly proposed a plan on Tuesday 6 January which would bring together all the main parties and take all measures to end the conflict in Gaza. The plan envisages the resumption of the delivery of aid to Gaza and talks with Israel on border security.

The regional implications of this crisis are mainly political. Indeed, the humanitarian and economic crisis in Gaza, while it affects Gaza and its inhabitants tremendously, does not have much spill-over effects on its neighbours. Furthermore, due to the movement restrictions imposed on the Palestinians in Gaza, they are unable to flee the war and therefore this crisis has not created a large scale refugee problem that neighbouring states would have to cope with. The following describes other regional implications.

Regional Impact

Peace Process

Recent efforts to revive the peace process were made in 2007, when the Arab League renewed its commitment to the Arab Peace Initiative, presented in Beirut in 2002 by the Crown Prince King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. The initiative which includes a return to the 1967 borders and a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital was widely accepted by Arab countries, including the Palestinian Authority as well as support from Israel. The PA recently published the details of this peace plan in Israeli print media, in an effort of rapprochement to inform the Israeli population. Parellel initiatives were pushed by the United States last year, namely the Annapolis process which lead to a Conference in November 2007, aiming to produce a substantive document on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict along the lines of President George W. Bush's Roadmap For Peace, with the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.

The current crisis in Gaza will have dire consequences on the ongoing peace process, as previous confidence building efforts between the Palestinian Authority and Israel on one side, and third party brokered cease-fires between Hamas and Israel on the other side, would have been in vein. This crisis will also create a potential for further radicalization of certain groups within Palestinian society, leading to increased risk of continued violence and conflict. The marginalization of some key Arab countries such as Egypt and Syria, as a result of their response for some and silence for others during this crisis, will also further burden any future efforts for renewed peace talks. On the other hand, the recent joint efforts made by Arab States at the Security Council on pushing for a cease-fire, shows a potential for unified efforts and support for peace.

The crisis will also have negative consequences on internal reconciliation efforts between various factions within Palestinian society. The failure to convene the Palestinian Reconciliation Dialogue in Cairo last November, already demonstrated its fragile grounds. Since Hamas’ election in 2005, the group has been in a power struggle with the Fateh party, led by Mahmoud Abbass. In July 2007, Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip, ousting Fateh, which currently controls the West Bank. Following the take over of power in the Strip, continuing internal fighting between various Palestinian factions had intensified. The current crisis however has resulted in increasing Palestinian support for Hamas.

Neighbouring states

Egypt

In 2005, after the Israeli disengagement of Gaza, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority were responsible for controlling the Rafah Crossing in the presence of EU monitors, following an agreement on Movement and Access with Israel. As a result of the abduction of IDF soldier, Gilat Shalit in 2006 and continued military aggression from both Israel and Hamas, Rafah, as all other crossings into Gaza were restricted and under the control of the Israeli authorities.
Egypt’s position first as an ally of Israel and second as a country with a border with the Gaza Strip, has faced difficult times, especially more recently with the conflict that has erupted in Gaza. Egypt’s initial decision to deny access to its country to fleeing Palestinians has been criticized by most of the Arab world. Egypt’s current responsibility for the movement of Palestinians, its obligation to deal directly with Hamas to solve the border crisis while it continues to maintain ties with the West and with Israel, has created an environment of uncertainty and instability. On the other hand, its direct links to Hamas, does provide a third party mediator between the warring parties.

Lebanon

The conflict between Hezbollah and Israeli forces which took place in the summer of 2006 is a reminder that continued tensions exist between two well-armed foes. Hezbollah’s leader has recently spoken out against Israel’s actions in Gaza, as has most Lebanese political leaders. More recently, Israel’s Prime Minister has confirmed that its forces are ready in the North for any possible retaliation from Hezbollah. Speculation as to ties which exist between Hezbollah and Hamas, especially in terms of arms supply and training, has increased further these tensions. Lebanon, which is recovering from a tense previous 2 years, is not in the position to suffer from further instability, if an escalation were to take place between Israel and Hezbollah.

Humanitarian and Economic

Gaza has been subject to a blockage for already 18 months prior to the beginning of the current crisis, crippling its economy to a state of almost entire dependency on humanitarian and external aid. The effect of the ongoing bombardments and land operations on its infrastructure, water supply systems and basic utilities, will be unprecedented once a damage evaluation is undertaken when a cease-fire is put in place. This region is already burdened by crises of even higher proportions such as the ongoing displacement situation as a result of the Iraq war, the continuous inflow of refugees into Egypt mainly from Sudan, but increasingly from Iraq as well, the Palestinian issue in Lebanon which resulted in the destruction of a refugee camp last year in the North, the recent conflict in Yemen and ongoing tensions between Syria, Iran and Israel. In addition to these crises, the global economic crisis has also affected the countries in this region with high inflation rates and drastic decreases in oil revenues. Therefore, in these difficult times, enhanced regional cooperation cannot be overemphasized. It is the regional nature of this conflict that should be taken into consideration when Arab states decide to take action. Furthermore, the financial crisis will also result in western donor governments’ aid fatigue and therefore will require increased support from Arab states to assist in the recovery of Gaza in the short term and the economic development of the Strip in the longer term. This crisis is an opportunity for the Arab world to demonstrate its capacity to unify and work together on this important issue.

******

Gaza, Gaza, Gaza...

Living in Beirut, we are actually quite directly affected by current events in Gaza. UN security advised staff to work from home last week, due to ongoing protests in Beirut against Israel's bombardment of Gaza. Yesterday evening (3rd January), Israel began its ground operation and moved into Northern Gaza, reaching Gaza city today. While people were celebrating New Year's eve all over the world, Gazan children were huddled in their parents arms, fearing the next Israeli bomb.

I was in Gaza in 2005 when I worked for the UN World Food Programme. Here are some photos I took at the time. I took these pictures just before the Israeli disengagement of July 2005, where 10,000 Israeli settlers were removed from their settlements inside the Gaza Strip.

Gazans depend heavily on fishing. The seas are controlled by Israel as all ground borders and the airspace. Gazan fisherman are limited in how far they can go out at sea to fish. They are also limited in how much fish they can export and are restricted from leaving the Stip to sell their fish in neighbouring Israeli markets, let alone in the West Bank markets where they have no access at all.












The Israeli public was quite divided over the removal of the settlers in 2005 and a colour campaign was launched around the country, with Orange representing those against the disengagement and Blue for those in support of it.











Here is Gaza in 2005 with its shot out buildings showing years of ongoing conflict with the Israeli occupation and siege of that tiny territory of 41 km long and 6 to 12 km wide, with a population of 1.5 million Palestinians, 80% of who are refugees from 1948. Gaza is the 6th most dense place in the world with over 4,100 habitants per km2. Half of the refugees registered with UNRWA live in camps such as Jabalia and Rafah refugee camps which host around 100,000 refugees, for the past 60 years.























After the disengagement, Israel continued its blockade on Gaza, Hamas took over the Strip and continued to launch rockets into Israeli territory, missing its target on most occasions. Cities such as Sderot, Beersheva and Askhelon built bomb shelters and have 50 seconds warning to take cover once a Hamas rocket has been launched. There have been casualties. For the past 6 months a cease-fire was in place, ending in December 2008. The end of this cease-fire saw the beginning of the Israeli offensive in Gaza which we are now following with much attention and sincere thoughts for the Gazan people and their children. This photo was taken by the EPA published in the British Telegraph on 31 December, of a building used by Hamas police which has been destroyed by Israeli bombs.











Now back to Lebanon. Of course, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, took little time to react to the Israeli incursion and blamed Arab states like Egypt for Gaza's current fate. He also praised the resistance (Hamas) and requested that Egypt allow Hamas weapons to enter at the Rafah crossing so its members can fight the Israeli soldiers. Interestingly enough, Israel said it was prepared in the North of the country, near its border with Lebanon, for any possible Hezbollah attack on its territory. We could actually see another war as it took place in 2006.

While watching the international media coverage of the various protests in capitals around the world, the London protest was the most interesting as we could see a large number of Hezbollah flags in the crowd. This definitely shows how Hezbollah's ongoing raison d'etre, i.e. resistance against Israel since its invasion of Lebanon in 1982, is recognised globally. Here is a photo taken of the protests in London with the visible Hezbollah yellow flag (source Flikr, Pete Biggs).













People seem so passionate about the Gaza situation, why can't the world express the same passion and horror at the ongoing massacres for example, taking place in Eastern DR Congo supported by neighbouring countries like Rwanda. Strange how people choose to care for some things, and not for other things.

I just recieved an update from the Office of the Special Coordinator for Palestine. Robert Serry currently heads that office. The report noted: "It's very clear that an immediate cessation of hostilities is absolutely vital, we must create now new conditions on the ground to ensure that the conflict won't happen again," Serry said. "The return to the status quo ante, or the previous situation, will not be enough."He said the ceasefire would be the first step. He said "further arrangements" should be studied to solidify the ceasefire and other elements, like the continuous reopening of the crossings, a commitment by Hamas to end the arms smuggling and rocket attacks, and respect of the ceasefire, should be discussed. Bringing Gaza back under the control of PA and reunifying the Gaza Strip with the West Bank is another element in the overall discussion, Serry said."The international community should step in to enable these (elements) to happen," Serry said.

Christmas in Brussels

I went back to Brussels for 4 days to spend Christmas with my mother. As my gift to her, we went to the Chateau de Limelette just outside the city for a 2 hour thalgotherapy, which included a Maroccan agrume scrub and an essential oils massage followed by an Egyptian milk bath... Highly recommended to those on a trip to Belgium: Click here for the website of the Chateau.












After that, we went to the famous "Cafe Maris" for a Belgian speciality: mussels and home made potatoe fries, commonly known as frites. The mayonnaise is also home made. The mussels come from Zeeland and are absolutely delicious. My brother's school friend is Maris' son. They are a Belgian-Greek family and have been restauranteurs in Brussels for a few generations. This particular cafe was bought from his family a few years ago. Here is the link to Cafe Maris, also highly recommended.














Just to break with tradition, my mother and I decided to make Japanese sushi for the Christmas dinner which our family usually celebrates on the 24th of December. Here we are rolling the sushi in sheets of seaweed called Nori.














Mum also prepared Japonese ommelette which is cooked and then cut in small rectangles. A thin strip of Nori is placed around it.

Et voila!

The house my mother lives in has a wooden monk carved in a tree trunk, which served temporarily as a Christmas tree. I sprayed his beard and eye brows with fake snow. My mother also put blue plastecine for his eyes. The kids love him.

Evaluating a project in Palestinian camps in Lebanon

I spent the month of November undertaking a final evaluation of a project that just ended the month before. The project was a pyschosocial support programme that was funded by ECHO and implemented by a French international NGO in 5 Palestinian refugee camps and one Palestinian gathering in Lebanon.

There are 12 official camps in Lebanon (one of the 12 is Nahr el-Bared which was completely destroyed in the summer of 2007 during the conflict between the militant group Fateh al-Islam and the Lebanese armed forces, see posting 29 June 2008). In addition to the 12 official camps which are served by UNRWA, there are about 52 gatherings of Palestinian refugees scattered around Lebanon. They live on Lebanese land and therefore hardly benefit from free services that are provided by the UN agency mandated of their wellbeing, UNRWA.

Many Palestinian children suffer from psychological distress due to the ongoing internal fighting inside the camps and more recently to the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, which resulted in the bombing of the camps in the South of the country. In the North, the Nahr el-Bared crisis also caused much trauma for the children. In response to this, international organisations, funded by the usual donors, developped psychosocial support programmes to help both the children and the parents. The programmes also provided capacity building to social workers and councillors to be able to refer severe cases of psychological disorder to professional psychologists in specific centers around the country. Interestingly enough, these centers are managed by Lebanese NGOs with Lebanese psychologists and support professionals, only to benefit the Palestinian population who are banned from access to such services in public Lebanese institions.

I have some photos of my interviews with some of these children in Qasmieh gathering in South Lebanon. A Sunni Palestinian area surrounded by a large Shia (Hezbollah) population.

Part of my evaluation was also to interview the parents of the children, here are some mothers after our focus group discussion.

These are two sisters who also take part in the psychosocial support activities in the community center in the camp. Girls who begin menstruation, usually start to wear the veil (Hijab), but some families put the Hijab on pre-pubic girls aswell; a common feature in more conservative Palestinian camps.

Above the center, the refugees have built a sports room where the kids get circus training. This kind of physical activity is highly beneficial to them as they do not have much opportunity for other forms of sports, due to lack of space in the camps and no playing grounds. I took the opportunity to talk with some of the children to evaluate some of the activities and support which was provided during the phase of the project.

The last photo I took was at the office of the international organisation that is implementing the project. They also have a large demining project in the South. As a result of the war in 2006, an enormous amount of cluster bombs and other mines were dropped or planted by Israel in the South. De-mining efforts are still underway to this day. These are some of the UXOs that have been found.

My office at home in Beirut

Having published the recommendation document I was working on at the Prime Minister's Office, I took on a number of consultancy jobs here in Lebanon. As a result, I set up an office at home in our flat in Beirut. The room used to be a storage room, but I got the guys to move out all the boxes so I could transform it into an office for me. I bought a desk corner piece and also installed a treadmill which is great to have when you need to stay awake at 2am while writing up an evaluation report for one of the consultancy jobs I had!

Notice the Palestinian Keffiya on the treadmill. It is the original Al Bassam production from Saudi Arabia which was given to me by my colleagues at UNRWA in Ramllah in the West Bank (see posting of 14 February 2008). Actually, the keffaya has become somewhat of a fashion icon these days in Beirut. If one walks around the trendy university area of Bliss Street in Hamra, keffiya's are worn in all shapes and colours. There was an article recently in the Daily Star of Lebanon mentioning the new trendy "Keffiya craze" which upset some of the Palestinian leadership who see it as a disrespect to the symbol, while younger Palestinians mentioned they were proud that Lebanese teenagers were interested in wearing such a garment, no matter what the colour and not matter how it was worn. This is a photo of a turquoise one which I found on a website selling them! The pink one is popular for dogs collars (I am serious, I have seen a few with it tied around their necks). Just confirms how crazy Beirut can be.

On the walls in my office, I hang up 5 pieces of art that my mother made. Indeed, she is an artist and painted this painting with oil paints on canvas in 2001, the title is "Clarity". She brought the canvas here when she visited us in September (see posting of 31 October 2008) and I took it to a frame maker who framed it.

The other art I have put up in my office are also from my mother. They are a series that she drew in November 1996. She used crayon on paper. I also got them framed here at what we call "the Hezbollah guy". Well just because he has a long beard and does not speak French...

Obama president-elect and news from Palestine

Time flies by so fast.... It has been nearly a month since the last posting yet it seems like yesterday. A few weeks ago, I finished the first phase of the work at the PM's office. We drafted a policy recommendation document for the Government of Lebanon pertaining to Palestinians in Lebanon and more specifically to Nahr el-Bared camp in the North. The second phase is under review for funding and is expected to begin in January 2009. In the mean time, for the past 3 weeks I have been working on a consultancy job as an external evaluator for a 10 month psychosocial project which was funded by ECHO and implemented by an international NGO. The project covered 6 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. So I have been busy driving from one camp to the next!












Quite historically significant events are taking place in Palestine, shadowed somewhat by the global economic crisis and the recent US elections (which are also two historical events!).

Of course M and I followed the US elections closely on the 4th of November (5th in Lebanon) and were very relieved of the outcome (I took the above photo directly of the TV at our flat in Beirut, it was 6am on 5th of November). A few days after the election of Barack Obama as the next US president, I thought back at that day and wondered "What else happened in the World on the 4th of November?" There was so much media coverage on the US elections, that most of us current affairs followers are unaware of what other events took place. My curiosity drew me to the archives online of some news agencies and papers and this is what I discovered.

On the 4th of November 2008:


- The President of Georgia, Mr. Sakashvili dismissed his army chief for "shortcomings" during the recent conflict with Russia;

- A report showed that part of a UK government aid programme for Pakistan is being used to steer students away from radical religious schools into maintream education;

- A supermarket chain in the UK used tonnes of food waiste to power its stores;

- Algeria's government moved to change the consitution, allowing President Bouteflika to run for a third term;

- Gaza once again fell under Israeli siege, blocking fuel supplies and humanitarian aid;

- DR Congo flaired up into what became these past weeks a full fledged war in the East of the country, causing displacement and provoking a humanitarian disaster.

Can one thus conclude from the above analysis that despite important events taking place in the World, no event is quite as significant as that of the election of the US president? Do we not sometimes overestimate the influence and power associated to this position and the man therein?

Anyway, back to Palestine. Last week, the Palestinian Authority posted a large one page advert in 3 major Israeli daily newspapers, something never done before. The advert was a detailed description in Hebrew of the Saudi initiative known as the Arab Peace Plan.




















The Plan offers Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for an end to Israel's occupation of land captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. It also proposes what it calls a just solution for Palestinian refugees. The initiative was adopted by the Arab League in Beirut in 2002 and then revived in 2007. The idea behind this one pager was that the PA believed that most Israelis were ill informed of the Plan and were influenced by biased media. It seems as if this could actually work. The Arab League appointed Jordan and Egypt as representatives of the Plan to Israel (both countries are the only Arab/Muslim countries to have diplomatic ties with Irsael). Here is the text of the Plan . Let us hope for a positive outcome...

Mum's visit to Lebanon and two recommended books

As mentioned in our posting about my Dad's visit, my mother came to Lebanon a few days after him in October. She had already discovered the West Bank in Palestine this year, including a wonderful day in Ramallah at the fresh vegetable market in the center of town. She had also visited me in Lebanon in April. This time we went to Tripoli and experienced Beirut night life.

Here is Mum at the original location of soap producers in the old town of Tripoli in North Lebanon. They sell soap there and every time I go, I stock up, especially on Amber or Arab Jasmine.
















In the market of the Old City of Tripoli, on can find the most delicious dates. These are fresh ones, but they also have dried ones, very healthy and eaten alot during Ramadan. Dates are dried using a natural process unlike European dates which are dried using chemicals. I have met many Arabs in the world who refer to dried dates from the Levant (including Iraqi dates), as being the most delicious and natural ones.
















Tripoli's old town

















Mum at the top of Centrale. A famous bar in Beirut. The bar was built on top of a building in large cylinder with its sliding windows open in the summer with an amazing view of the city.

Now, on a different subject and as the title of this posting suggests, I want to recommend each month one or two books that I discovered or am currently reading. So for November, my recommendations are as follows:

1) Quil Lawrence's "Invisible Nation". This book recounts the history of the Kurds and their efforts in nation building. I have just started the book and find it fascinating. Quil is actually an acquaintance who I met last year on a MEA flight from Beirut to Amman when I was working at UNRWA in Palestine. We stayed in touch and I had remembered that he mentioned he had just finalised a book about the Kurds. The other day, while at the International Bookstore in Beirut, I saw his book. Of course I bought and started reading it immediately. Quil has been a BBC radio reporter for the past few years and reported from Iraq and Afghanistan, among other places.

2) Youssef Chaitani's "Post Colonial Syria and Lebanon". This book was actually just recommended to me today by Youssef himself. I am met him in Beirut at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). He is a political affairs officer in the Unit on Emerging and Conflict Related Issues (ECRI). We both went to SOAS and he just defended his PhD there. I have not bought it yet, but it is on my Amazon Wish List...

Deadly US incursion in Syria, what next?

Last night in our flat in Beirut we watched the news and discovered that 24 hours earlier, the US military had raided a village in Syria and killed dozens of civilians. Like something out of a war movie, we saw pictures of wounded survivors recounting the tragic events, saying that US helicopters landed and 8 soldiers jumped out and started shooting every one around.

Today in the Daily Star of Lebanon I read: "Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem accused the United States on Monday of "terrorist aggression" over a deadly raid on a village in Syria near the border with Iraq. He vowed Syria would defend itself against any further attacks of the sort, and voiced hopes the next US president would learn from the "mistakes" of George W. Bush.
"We consider this criminal and terrorist aggression," Moallem said in his first comments on Sunday's attack in the village of Al-Sukkariya near the Iraqi border.

Al-Sukkariya is on the Euphrates River across the border from the Iraqi town of Al-Qaim, which, according to the US, is a stronghold of Al-Qaeda and other insurgents. US military officers have regularly said that the area in question is a transit point for foreign fighters. They claim that 20 fighters a day enter Iraq from there (a figure which was 4 times higher a year ago).

I wonder where they get such accurate figures? If the US knows that 20 fighters enter, it means they are counting them, which means they know which man is entering as a fighter and which man is entering simply as a trader or innocent citizen going about his daily affairs. I am always sceptical therefore of such figures. Interestingly enough, some military officers serving in Iraq have stated that the vast majority of insurgents seem to come from US-allied countries like Saudi Arabia and Jordan, rather than Syria. So what does this tell us? Perhaps the conspiracy theories which are going around the Middle East called the "October Surprise", 8 days before the US elections, are true. Bush has not been to one McCain rally since the day he endorsed him as Republican presidential nominee. Analysts in the region say that the Syria raid is an attemp to bring the ball back into the court of the Republicans and is just what McCain needs to boost support form undecided voters. However in my opinion, most of us who are not Americans and who follow these elections from outside the country, do not understand what US citizens actually vote for. Most of them are not concerned with international affairs or foreign policy and therefore take decisions based on internal US issues. From the outside, we seem to tend to forget that.

Al Jazeera reports today that the Syrians will retaliate if another such raid takes place. So what are the implications for the region and for Lebanon?

Well, this comes at a time when Syria, US and Israel were in a period of rapprochement. Moallem was in London at the time of the raid, another sign of further outreach and opening up to the West. The Iranian Foreign Ministery was also quick to publicly condemn the attack.

Worryingly, both the US government and President Assad have been silent until now. Al Jazeera just got a quote from an unnamed US official saying the target was a foreign fighter smuggling ring (to fuel Sunni insurgency against Iraqi government), whose leader (al Qaeda) had been killed and therefore the mission had been successful. This of course contradicts previous US statements about Syria having improved its border security.

Marc Sirois from the Daily Star in Lebanon has correctly mentioned that: "Unlike Iran's, Syria's options for responding to military action are few. It cannot risk a full-scale confrontation, since even a wounded and distracted America could probably knock off its leadership within weeks - if not days. Its economy is too fragile to sustain even a low-intensity conflict that drags on for any length of time, and while Damascus has also helped Hizbullah and Hamas, its leverage as a facilitator is nothing like Tehran's as a procurer".

For Lebanon, an unstable Syria is only trouble. Just recently, Syria had amassed its troops along its border with Northern Lebanon in an attempt to prevent terrorist infiltration and smuggling.

Following the US attack in Al-Sukkariya on Sunday, Syria could be pushed to beef up its military presence on all its borders including those with Lebanon in order to prevent further transborder terrorist movement. Lebanon is definitely not strong enough or mature enough to take such regional instability, especially with the upcoming elections which could witness pockets of violence between anti-Syrian March 14 (Hariri, Gemayel, Jumblatt) and pro-Syrian March 8 (Nasrallah, Aoun) supporters.

So some unstable times ahead.....

Update from Beirut: the Summer, Dad's visit and the US elections

Well, it has been quite a while since we have not updated this blog. Since my last posting, I finished my contract with UNRWA and moved on to work at the Prime Minister's Office as a consultant. Having finished the policy recommendation document which our team of researchers were tasked to draft (on creating an enabling environment for the reconstruction of Nahr el-Bared and its surroundings), I am pursuing other consultancy opportunities in Lebanon and the Middle East. I set up my office in our Beirut flat in what was our storage room and printed 100 business cards, navy writing on white background! Photos will be posted soon!

This is the Grand Serail, the Ottoman palace which houses the Government of Lebanon.

The summer in Beirut was hot, weekends were spent at the beach reading, having breakfast at Paul's Bakery downtown and playing Squash at the local sports club in Ashrafieh.

On weekday evenings we cooked our usual delicious meals. During the Summer we had some visits from friends and family including M's daughter. An old Greek friend of M, currently a consultant for the EU, also visited us. Here is a photo of us with a dish of farfalle pasta with Pesto sauce, my homemade speciality!

During the summer and until recently, we had a guest at home who worked with me at the Prime Minister's Office, also a friend of M from Fletcher. He currently just graduated from a mid-career degree at Harvard. I took a photo of them playing tennis at the beach.

My father and my mother both visited me on two separate occasions. My dad came first for a long weekend from London. It was his first time in Lebanon. In 2005, I had invited him to Palestine when I worked for the World Food Programme. I gave him a tour of Jerusalem and the West Bank. On his visit to Lebanon, the day I planned to take him to the old city of Tripoli in the North, a bomb exploded in the South of Tripoli. So instead we drove up on the coastal road until the entrance of the city and back. On the way we passed by Batroun and had an Almaza (local Lebanese beer) at a fish restaurant on the sea called Bonita Bay.

Dad infront of the oldest wall in the Middle East, a Pheonician wall built 5000 years ago in Batroun.

Dad with a Lebanese Almaza beer.

We also went to Shatila Camp, a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut. I buy fruits and vegetables from there.

On the next topic covered by this posting, the US elections. We have been following from Beirut quite closely the campaigning in the US. Living in the Middle East we have a particular interest in the topic as the election of a US president has much implications for the future of this region. M sent me a great website which I recommend all to visit:

http://www.iftheworldcouldvote.com/

The results are not surprising however, the majority of people outside the US support without hesitation, Barak Obama. A World with McCain as president, will be a World worse than the one we currently live in. I am not sure how worse it can actually get. Three major conflicts are ongoing, all with major US involvement: Palestine/Israel, Afghanistan, Iraq. Yes, Palestine/Israel because without US support (financial, militiary and political), Israel would not be able to maintain its occupation of Palestine and its daily humiliation of the Palestinian people. Afghanistan is actually deteriorating and Iraq is just stagnating in sectarian violence. McCain rejects dialogue with nations like Iran and North Korea.

Last Sunday night, Fareed Zakaria (whose GPS show on CNN we watch every week), explained why he will vote for Barak Obama. His brilliant description of both candidates and his balanced, intelligent and composed opinion on why Obama should be the next president of the US, I found highly inspirational and very convincing. His website has all the previous shows: http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/fareed.zakaria.gps and his endorsement of Obama can been seen from this link: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/10/20/gps.zakaria.endorsement.cnn?iref=videosearch

Enjoy.

Nahr el-Bared Palestine refugee camp in North Lebanon

As a consultant currently working in Lebanon at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), I cover a number of issues relating to the recovery of the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp near Tripoli in northern Lebanon.















Last week I accompanied the Austrian Ambassador and the head of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, Ambassador Makkawi to a visit of the destroyed camp. As I mentioned a few postings below, the camp was destroyed in the summer of 2007 by flighting between the Lebanese Army and a radical group, Fatah al-Islam.

We had to get permission from the Lebanese Army and UN security clearance to enter the camp.

This conflict saw the rise of Fatah al-Islam as a notable fighting force. The group was formed in July 2006 after the infighting among groups in Iraq to carry a specific agenda – the liberation of Palestine under the Al-Qaeda umbrella. Just two months before Al-Zarqawi was killed in Iraq in June 2006, Zarqawi released a major statement on Palestine and indicated that Al-Qaida was coming. It is known today that there is a blood link between Zarqawi and the man who became Emir of Fatah al-islam, Shaler al-Absi. Zarqawi was an uncle to Shaker al-Absi. Fatah al-Islam was formed with four distinctive cells in Lebanon, including one that operated inside Nahr al-Bared. They were training inside the camps and funnelling fighters in Palestine via way of Berlin and it is estimated that they managed to get over 500 fighters inside Gaza before an attack was instigated that resulted the siege of Nahr el-Bared. The siege of Nahr Al-Bared was a deliberate effort to stop this migration into Palestine.

Once we arrived in Tripoli, the two Ambassadors recieved a security briefing by UNRWA's security officer for North Lebanon.

Ambassador Makkawi was constantly surrounded by tight security.

The area adjacent to the camp is an area which was also affected by the conflict. Over the years, the camp residents spilled over into this area which legally falls under the jurisdiction of the Lebanese government as it is not included within the bounderies of the refugee camp. Palestine refugees bought and built houses there. At the moment, 2000 of approximately 5,500 families have now returned there, some living in rented accommodation, others in prefabricated houses.












At the time of the incident there were approximately 645 fighters inside Nahr Al-Bared. By its end several weeks later, an estimated 228 were dead and the rest managed to escape. Osbet Al-Ansar and Jundi El-Sham also provided support to Fatah al-Islam during the siege that lasted until September 2, 2007.Contrary to western news report, this was not the end of Fatah al-Islam. It is estimated that there are close to 7800 members that exist now in a loosely formed association underground in Lebanon.

Post-crisis life in Beirut

Back from Brussels after what I think were successful interviews. Still waiting for a response.

Since my last posting, many wonderful events have taken place in Lebanon.

It all started with a deal that was finally struck between government and opposition in Doha one month ago. The same day, Hezbollah supporters began immediately to lift their 16 month siege on the downtown area of Beirut where the Parliament and Prime Minister's office are located. I had the chance to be among them while they dismantled their tents.

When I took these photos, I had just returned from a lecture given by my boss, the Director of UNRWA Affairs in Lebanon, at the American University of Beirut. Maurizio had a friend in town who had just arrived with a group of Harvard graduates on a trip to visit Lebanon. Maurizio's friend decided after some years first working as a diplomat for Hungary then as a UN official in Vienna and Afghanistan, to take a year out and attend the Masters programme at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Two of his classmates were Lebanese from political families, who organised a trip for the class to visit a number of Lebanese and Syrian politicians, including PM Siniora, President Assad of Syria, Walid Jumblatt and other prominent politicians.

They were interviewed while in Lebanon by the Lebanese Broadcasting Channel, here is the show on YouTube:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S80D_7oHkE8&NR=1
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3zhjcrrkKE&feature=related
Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhkZCzaV9o0&feature=related
Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU2Jgj94_u8&feature=related

Five days later, Presidential elections took place in Beirut and General Michel Suleiman was elected as president. Let us hope he can bring peace and stability to Lebanon, even though a cabinet has still not been appointed completely. Michel Suleiman is somewhat of a hero due to his successful battle against Fatah al-Islam radical group inside the Nahr el-Bared camp last summer (yes, that is the camp that my work currently covers at UNRWA. We are trying to build it back after it was completely crushed to the ground by the fighting and 30,000 refugees fled).

The day of the elections, a Sunday, Maurizio and I took some of the Harvard group to the beach. Orchid is the name of this typical posh Beirut beach... Here we are with Maurizio's Hungarian friend.

In the mean time, things have been hectic at work, especially with the upcoming Donor Conference in Vienna. This conference was organised by the Government of Lebanon in order to raise 455 million USD for UNRWA to rebuild Nahr el-Bared camp and for the GoL to assist the neighbouring communities and the so called Adjacent Area of the camp. This is the conference document for which I spent endless meetings with the World Bank and Prime Minister's office including long nights drafting UNRWA's contribution:
http://www.lpdc.gov.lb/Uploads/2008-06/NBC-Donor-Conference-Final.pdf

I just visited the destroyed camp last week while accompanying the Austrian Ambassador as well as Ambassador Makkawi, a prominent Lebanese Ambassador who is now head of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, which was set up in 2005 as a link between the Palestine refugees in Lebanon and the Government of Lebanon.

The photos of Nahr el-Bared camp visit will be posted soon.

Calm in Beirut

This city must be unique in the World in that, one week of near civil war can be followed by a week of total calm with people living their lives as if nothing happened.

After an Arab League delegation toured the various mansions of faction leaders here in Beirut, a deal was brokered to return to the negotiating table, but this time in Doha, Qatar. Two airplanes took off yesterday from Hariri International Airport, one full of the Majority and the other with the Opposition (of course Nasrallah stayed "at home" (Iranian Embassy in Beirut) due to security concerns and sent 3 Hezbollah representatives instead).

In October last year, after postponing the election of a president for a few times (the number is now at 19!), Maurizio had sent the below photo to me of a clothes store in Beirut. I wonder if they kept that sales deal on since then!

In Beirut all is back to normal, roads have been unblocked and the airport is open again. There is still however many soldiers and tanks on street corners, which is something one has to get used to here.

I have been going to work every day this week as operations have resumed at UNRWA. We are currently working with the World Bank and the Government of Lebanon in the preparation of the Donor Conference for the estalishment of a Multi-Donor Trust Fund for the recovery and reconstruction of Nahr el-Bared refugee camp. Therefore lot's of work and late nights.

I will soon be travelling to Brussels for a week to interview for the two UN jobs I mentioned in the previous posting. It will be a nice break from crazy civil wars and World Bank officials!

Unrest in Lebanon: Day 5

Today, Sunday, is day 5 of civil unrest in Lebanon. It has been calm in Beirut however heavy fighting took place in Tripoli in the North and in the mountains in the East of Beirut (a Druze stronghold). At the moment Walid Jumblat's (Druze) supporters are battling on with Hezbollah fighters in the mountains and are ignoring a call for a cease-fire. Even the army is struggling to contain them. The UN is currently deciding if staff can return to work tomorrow.

At least 30 people have died in the past 5 days. Only in Lebanon, can legitimate political parties (i.e. Hezbollah, Al Mustaqbal, Amal, PSP, etc) kill 30 of their own brothers and sisters, and return to Parliament victorious with increased political weight and credibility. Is this really serious?

I am trying to get some work done for UNRWA but it is difficult to concentrate in such circumstances. I was planning to work from our office in Tripoli next week, to finish work on the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp recovery plan. But I am quite sure security clearance will not be granted to move up there in the next coming days.

Unrest in Lebanon: Day 4 in the Evening

This afternoon, ten enormous army tanks rolled up my street probably moving towards Sodeco area which is a mixed Sunni/Shia neighbourhood. I only got a photo of the last two vehicules.












This afternoon Siniora addressed the people of Lebanon and called on a dialogue with opposition. I watched him on local TV.












The Lebanese government and the opposition have agreed on a deal to end hostilities. They decided to allow the Army to move in and take back the control of Beirut. The Army then overturned the two previous government decisions by reinstating the pro-Hezbollah general head of airport security and by keeping Hezbollah's telecommunication network active.

Local TV is reporting that gunmen are pulling out of the streets. However, some clashes are still going on in Tripoli in the North of Lebanon.

I am therefore hopefull that things are actually going to calm down completely now and that the airport will reopen soon. I need to fly to Brussels at the end of May for interviews for two UN jobs, one in Bangkok and another in Rabat, Marocco.

Unrest in Lebanon: Day 4 in the Afternoon

A number of my international colleagues from UNRWA are now in the mountain area just outside Beirut as most of them were living in Hamra (West Beirut), an area which subject to most of the fighting. One of them had bullets fly through his window. So I am following events closely to keep them updated by SMS as things unfold in Beirut.

After the relative calm last night and this morning, things have started to fire up again. More roads have been blocked. Gunmen have entered the building of Hariri's Future TV station and destroyed broadcast equipment. The Armenian Radio station was also burnt down just an hour ago.

Lebanese army soldiers were deployed in some West Beirut neighbourhoods probably to demonstrate that the government still has some control over those areas. Two people just died and 12 were injured for a shooting at a Sunni funeral in Beirut.

In the North of Lebanon, in Akkar, gunmen have besieged Arabya TV journalists and taken heads of municipalities there. Tripoli and other areas in North Lebanon have been subject to violence during the day.

As a result, Lebanese journalists have started a march in favour of freedom of press and have arrived at Hariri's Future TV station.

Roads to the aiport and to the Syrian border remain closed with armed checkpoints.

As expected regional and world powers have started making statements about the situation, as reported in the Washington Post: Read Article and by CNN: Read Article. The US accuses Iran and Syria. Iran accuses the US and Israel and the Europeans are keeping quiet drawing up plans for the evacuation of their nationals as mentioned by Lebanon Now: Read Article

Maurizio is back at the office trying to negotiate safe passage for the ILO car to drive through Lebanon to Amman in Jordan to pick up some of his staff there. He told me that he saw the journalist's march from his window.

Now I am watching the Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora address the people of Lebanon on local TV.

Unrest in Lebanon: Day 4

We woke up this morning and quickly switched on the news as our radios were quiet. The BBC was reporting that Hezbollah fighters were moving off the streets of Beirut having taken control yesterday of West Beirut. We don't hear anymore shooting or RPGs. However according to our UN colleagues, the port road and the road to the airport remain blocked. Apparently Hezbollah will continue to block them until there is a political solution.
















The aim here was for Hezbollah to demonstrate is capabilities and has now also eliminated all pro-government militia, closed down pro-government media and controls the access to and from the airport.

The government is calling it a "bloody coup". This is what happens when militias remain armed after 15 years of civil war. Most other militias were integrated into the army. For that reason, these past few days have seen much lack of action on the part of the Lebanese forces, as it feared that its internal divisions (Sunni vs Shia) could resurface and soldiers take sides.

As usual today in Beirut, the sun is shining and people here in the Christian area are going about their daily business. Now we are waiting to see what political deal can come out of this power game. To be continued....

Unrest in Lebanon: Day 3 in the afternoon

This afternoon continued unrest in the city, fighting around the UN building near the Prime Minister's office.

Maurizio had to go urgently back to the office to try and restore some electricity lines and the network server so that people could have access to their work emails from home. He took these photos on his way.

These are the Hezbollah tents placed near the Prime Minister's Office

This photo was taken from on top of the building where the ILO office is situated in Hamra in West Beirut (now completely controlled by Hezbollah)













Here we can see local journalists with flak jackets on the main Hamra street in West Beirut.














This is the soldier from the Lebanese army who currently guards the ILO office in Hamra.

Unrest in Lebanon: Day 3

Beirut has not seen such intense fighting since the civil war which ended in 1989 with the Taif Agreement.












Just three weeks into my job at UNRWA, a general strike was called by the largest Trade Union in Lebanon to protest against minimum wages and against the current government's inability to improve the economic and political situation in Lebanon. That was three days ago. Opposition supporters used the strike as a general protest against two major government decisions which had been announced regarding the scrapping of Hezbollah's telecommunications network including its surveillance cameras set up at the Beirut International Airport.

On the first day of instability, the Designated Official of the UN (responsible for the security of all UN staff) recommended that people stay at home. UNRWA however, which runs hospitals and schools in camps, cannot shut down completely their operations, so I was asked to go to work. UNRWA's office is located on the road to the airport in a Shia area in the South of Beirut. Leaving the house at 7am, I tried to get past the numerous checkpoints which had been set up by opposition supporters, with burning tyres and heeps of rubble, but just could not get through and therefore had to return home. From there we watched the local Lebanese news.












The second day, I arranged to follow a convoy that UNRWA had organised to pick up some staff in Beirut, to get to the office. The driver knew some internal roads avoiding check-points which I am not familiar with yet. After a few hours at the office, UNRWA announced that we had to go home because Nasrallah was planned to give a press conference in the afternoon. That usually sparks unrest, so best be inside.

We came home to watch him speak. A Lebanese colleague of Maurizio was with us and translated his speech.












After Nasrallah's speech, where he claimed that government's decisions (which I have mentioned above) was a form of waging war on him and his followers, the streets of Beirut burst into violent clashes between Sunni militia's (Saad Hariri's Mustaqbal faction) and Shia Hezbollah and Amal supporters. Hariri spoke publically followed by General Aoun, trying to calm things down, without much success. In the evening and well through the night, we heard heavy shooting and a number of rocket propelled grenades which resonate very loudly, nearly like thunder. We live in a Christian area which is not directly affected by the fighting, however we are surrounded by mixted Sunni/Shia neighbourhoods.

Day 3 of civil unrest, we woke up to more gun fire and RPGs. Our UN security radios tuned on with messages informing all UN staff that the situation remains very tense, with heavy clashes in the streets of West Beirut, staff are advised to remain at home and away from windows.

The airport remains closed today with Hezbollah putting up tents there and blocking the highway to and from it. The road to the eastern border to Syria, remains inaccessible due to fighting between Sunni and Shia in the mid-Bekaa Valley area.

Just a few hours ago, reports confirmed that Hezbollah has taken over West Beirut and politicians such as Walid Jumblatt (leader of the Druze) have been evacuated from their residences by the Lebanese army. Hariri's residence is apparently surrounded by opposition militias, however it is not clear if he is inside.

CNN is also reporting on the situation here, a recent article summarises it well: Read Article

I will update this blog as often as I can with developments here....

P.S. Yesterday I stocked up food supplies and Maurizio took some cash out of the bank just in case they close down!

Back in Lebanon...

It has been a busy past few weeks. Having finished my work at UNRWA in Jerusalem, my mother visited me and I gave her a tour of the region. In three weeks we travelled from Palestine to Jordan up to Lebanon and then Syria.

This photo was taken at Petra in Jordan

Here she is at the Ummayad Mosque in Damascus, covered in respect of Islam (and the only condition to enter the mosque)

















I had returned to Beirut with an expectation to work at the UN mission based in Baghdad as I had been in contact with them regarding possible recruitment. However following a few weeks of increased insecurity in Iraq in general and in the Green Zone in particular, UNAMI (United Nations Mission in Iraq) delayed recruitments. In the mean time and while I wait and hope for an improved security situation in Iraq, I approached UNRWA in Lebanon for any short-term employment and I have been recruited by UNRWA's Front Office's project management unit for the recovery of Nahr el-Bared camp for Palestine refugees in the North of Lebanon. That camp was completely destroyed by internal fighting between a Palestinian group called Fatah Al-Islam and Lebanese armed forces in the summer of 2007. The World Bank is planning to host a donor conference to fund the recovery and reconstruction of Nahr el-Bared. I am therefore assisting UNRWA in the preparation of the Master Plan including the document that the World Bank will present on behalf of the Government of Lebanon. I am also writing a strategy and plan for a possible cash for work programme to be integrated within the reconstruction.

This is an AP photo of the fighting which took place in the camp last summer.

















This is a photo of the destruction which was subsequently caused. 30,000 Palestine refugees fled the camp, most of them towards areas around Nahr el-Bared (now called the Adjacent Area) or to a neighbouring camp: Beddawi. Living in terrible conditions, having to sleep on the floor in classrooms and other UNRWA facilities, an emergency operation was put in place to assist the displaced until physical reconstruction of the camp could take place. While re-entering Nahr el-Bared, UNRWA discovered many mines and booby-traps left behind by the Lebanese armed forces and resulting from the intense fighting with Fatah al-Islam. The de-mining phase has just been completed and now reconstruction can actually begin.

War, tension and houmous....

The Middle East is not one of the calmest and peaceful places at the moment... For the past few weeks things have actually escalated. First in Lebanon with the fiery speech of Nasrallah, indirectly declaring open war with Israel.... As an example of this war actually being a strong probability of occurring, Maurizio's tennis coach in Beirut told him he was setting up a tennis club in the mountains where most Beirutis tend to flee in case of war. Another example is that I am actually currently writing the proposal for the next phase of UNRWA's emergency job creation programme and I have included in the section on "risks and assumptions" the fact that a war between Hezbollah and Israel would have a heavy toll on the implementation of the programme in the Palestinian Territories especially in the North West Bank.

Maurizio has even asked the Jordanian government to provide him with office facilities in Amman so that in case of a war, he can move his staff and work from there.















Then in Gaza, where the incursions and bombings from Israel in response to rocket fire from inside Gaza to neighbouring Israeli towns has devastated Gaza and has caused the death of over 100 Palestinians including children. As a response, Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem have protested and youths have thrown stones as the only weapons at their disposal to let out their anger towards this dreadful occupation. The head of the Palestinian representation to the UN in New York called for an emergency meeting at the Security Council last week denouncing the apathy of the international community in its lack of action in light of Israel's disproportionate use of force.

The situation in the West Bank is even currently affecting the work of aid agencies such as UNRWA. Last week, my monitors who are responsible for monitoring and evaluation of the emergency job creation programme were blocked on numerous occasions as many areas were closed for incursions and checkpoints were put up banning all men under 35 years old to enter. Some of the IDF soldiers interrogated and held one of our monitors for 3 hours, despite him having his UN identity card. This is of course in clear violation of the agreement which UNRWA (and the UN in general) has with local authorities and therefore I sent a report of this incident to the Operations Support Office at UNRWA responsible for such negotiations with IDF and Israeli police.

Nothing really seems to be improving here and scepticism is often the prevailing sentiment especially in light of the broken peace talks between Olmert and Abu Mazen. Today, the visit of Condoleeza Rice has been described by the media as a rescue mission.

So during all this tension, the Palestinians who have been through this their entire lives and their entire parents' lives find ways to enjoy life anyway... One of which is ordering houmous from a guy named Abu Hassan from Salahaddin Street in East Jerusalem and getting it delivered to the office at lunch time!
















The houmous from Abu Hassan is like no other! It is incredible and I can say with confidence that Palestinian houmous is better than its Lebanese equivilant. Breaking a piece of soft warm Palestinian white bread, dipping it generously in the houmous making sure to take a few chickpeas and olive oil and then devouring it, is probably one of the best moments one can have in life!...Highly recommended therefore...

Saturday evening in Jaffa near Tel Aviv

Having spent Saturday morning buying books at the best book store in East Jerusalem on Salahaddin Street called the Educational Bookstore... (These are the ones I got)

My evening was spent with two colleagues from UNRWA in the Old City of Jaffa near Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean coast of Israel. We had planned to eat fish at one of the famous fish restaurants there.

On our way to Jaffa...

Jaffa (or Yafo) is one of the most ancient port cities in the world. Some claim that Jaffa was named after Japheth, one of the three sons of Noah, who built it forty years after the Great Flood. Jaffa's natural harbor has been in use since the Bronze Age. It is mentioned in an Ancient Egyptian letter from 1470 BCE, glorifying its conquest by Pharaoh Thutmose III, who hid armed warriors in large baskets and gave the baskets as a present to the Canaanite city's governor.

This is a picture of an aerial view of Jaffa which was displayed at the port on a board

May 13, 1948—the day before Israel's creation—the all-Arab seaside city of Jaffa surrendered to Jewish forces. It was the largest Arab city in Palestine and, under the U.N. Partition Plan, was to have been part of a Palestinian state. But Menachem Begin's terrorist Irgun group began bombarding civilian sectors of the city on April 25, terrifying the inhabitants into panicky flight.

When future Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion learned that Jaffa had fallen, he wrote in his diary: "Jaffa will be a Jewish city. War is war." To accomplish this, Israel set up a housing committee that was to allocate Palestinian homes and apartments to newly arrived Jewish families on certain dates. But Israelis ignored the dates and occupied the abandoned residences on a first-come, first possess basis.

After walking along the coast and Jaffa port, we drove to the fish restaurant a bit further inside Jaffa town. These are my two colleagues from UNRWA, Esma and Kazem. Esma who is Iraqi/Norwegian is the coordinator of a new project called Social Safety Net which will bring together all current emergency programmes in West Bank, i.e. cash and food distribution as well as Job Creation Programme especially in the selection and identification of beneficiaries. Kazem who is Palestinian from Jerusalem was interim programme manager working with me on the Job Creation programme a few months ago. Now he is working at the Field Procurement and Logistics Department of UNRWA West Bank.

We ordered grilled fish, calamari and shrimps served with a variety of delicious mezze's

After dinner, we took the car again and went back to the old city of Jaffa and walked around.
















Old City by night














We then passed by a shop which sells Dead Sea products and I bought a body cream. The Dead Sea which is located in the West of West Bank near the Jordan Valley, is a salt lake situated at 420 meters below sea level. The Dead Sea area has become a major center for health research and treatment for several reasons. The mineral content of the waters, the very low content of pollens and other allergens in the atmosphere, the reduced ultraviolet component of solar radiation, and the higher atmospheric pressure at this great depth each have specific health effects.

Back in Jerusalem: The Palestinian Keffiya

Today I recieved the most wonderful gift from my colleagues who work at the UNRWA office in Ramallah. As they dont have permits from Israel to enter Jerusalem, they could not deliver it to me themselves, so it came with the messenger in the regular UNRWA shuttle bus that runs between Jerusalem and Ramallah offices.

The gift is a traditional Palestinian black and white Keffiya (in Arabic Kuffiya). This particular one is made by the company Al Bassam in Saudi Arabia with cotton and wool from England, considered the best brand for such items.



















Keffiyas are worn all over the Middle East, red and black ones in Jordan and some parts of Iraq and white ones in the Gulf. This particular one became a symbol of Palestinian nationalism in the 1960s and then later a trademark symbol of Yasser Arafat.

This is the official mark of Al Bassam from Saudi Arabia

Weekend in Beirut

This weekend I spent Friday to Sunday at home in Beirut with Maurizio. It was a nice break from Jerusalem. I get somewhat exhausted if I stay to long periods at a time in Jerusalem. When you live in Jerusalem, you inevitably feel the tension there. Religious, racial, territorial and most importantly, the tension of the ongoing occupation. Segregation there is quite apparent, it reminds me so much of South Africa. Even though I was young then, I felt the divide. This is Beirut coastline. A photo I took on Sunday while we walked along the Corniche.















In Beirut, suprisingly to most people, that tension is not present. There is of course another kind of tension, which is felt more by local Lebanese rather than us internationals. For me, Beirut is very special and every time I step out of the plane on the tarmac of Hariri International Airport, I get a rush of well-being. Despite the years of civil war and the ongoing political stalemate, Beirut beats like a heart.

The weather was so warm on Sunday, we decided to walk around the city. After a breakfast downtown, we continued along the Marina to reach the Corniche.

Downtown Beirut. Hariri's Solidere reconstruction project














Another mosque also downtown Beirut
















We walked further to what is known as "Bank Street". Actually, Riad el Solh Street where most of the big banks are located. During the Lebanese civil war all factions agreed on never fighting in this street.















The street is now completely cealed off because it is just parallel to the Prime Minister's office which has been under siege by Hezbollah protestors now living in tents for nearly a year. Some of the tents are visible at the end of the street.
















Here one can get a glimpse of the Prime Minister's Office, known as Grand Serail, blocked by barbed wire... UNDP has now moved in this street in one of the buildings. They were working from two small apartments in another location of town after having to evacuate UN House due to the security threat from the Hezbollah protestors there.















Another usual scene in Beirut: road blocks
















Still in Bank Street, some directions in Downtown Beirut just next to an old Mosque, showing the multi-relgious nature of Lebanon.
















This is the entrance of the mosque
















We then walked past the Marina to reach the Corniche....

....and saw a cargo boat which had just left Beirut port.

Beirutis enjoying the sun on Sunday...That was a short Winter!

On our way back home, we came across an old house abandoned and bombed out from the years of civil war. Even the vegetation has taken over. This is something one sees quite often in Beirut. This house must have been particularly lovely in its early days...

At home, we have a fire place which we currently managed to unblock. Actually, Mr. Fouad, our versatile handy-man fixed the problem. Maurizio had bought wood from a dealer on one of the mountains around Beirut, so we were keen on experiencing it. During this period, Beirut can be cold once the sun sets and therefore a fireplace is definitely appropriate and useful. It is also still the season of chestnuts in Lebanon so we planned to cook some on the fire.















This would not have been possible without a special pan with holes used to cook chestnuts. We resolved the problem by drilling one of our old pans....Maurizio made use of his cheap Chinese-made drill....

Snow in Jerusalem

This week, Maurizio is in Jerusalem with me on a mission for work. Unfortunately it is the same week that it happened to snow (quite rare in Jerusalem). In this country when it snows, even just a few centimeters, everything just gets paralysed. All shops, schools, government and offices close. People stay at home and the streets are empty. So none of my colleagues came to work yesterday and again today as the snow has still not melted completely.

Yesterday opening my door in the morning, I could see the previous night's snow fall.

Arriving at my office at UNRWA, the offices were all empty, the staff obviously stayed at home.




























We then drove up to the Mount of Olives to get a view of the Al Aqsa mosque in the snow. Here is a photo I took, you can see it in the distance.

Palestine and Lebanon: Prison breaks and car bombs.....

Both Lebanon and Palestine have made the news this week, first in Gaza with the destruction of the Gaza-Egypt border by Hamas militants and now the third day of what is termed the biggest prison break in history; second in Lebanon yesterday with yet another politically motivated assissination.

I am not sure people really imagine how life can be in Gaza... Since last July, no good can enter or leave Gaza, except humanitarian goods and essential items such as fuel. A week ago, the entire strip went into total darkness when the only powerplant which relies on israeli fuel, was stopped.
The chief of UNRWA operations in Gaza, John Ging, made a press conference denouncing Israeli collective punishment in Gaza. This is a photo made by UNRWA during the blackout.















On another occasion, the Commissioner General of UNRWA, Karen Koning Abu Zayd, mentioned in a brilliant speech at the Conference on Forced Migration in Cairo earlier this month:


"What we are witnessing is an entire populace effectively incarcerated at the whim of the occupying power. Human rights instruments provide that everyone has the right to leave any country, including his or her own, and to return to that country. In the normal course of things, one expects an affected community to have a choice - either to weather the adverse situation or to seek temporary refuge in a safer, more conducive location. Many Palestine refugees, particularly those under the yoke of occupation in Gaza and the West Bank, are denied that simple human choice." (Read full speech)


This is a photo I took in 2005 in Gaza just before the disengagement of all the settlements there while I was working for the UN World Food Programme. The coastal line which borders Gaza to the Mediterranean Sea , has enormous potential for fish industry and is even said to contain large reserves of natural gas....Also a rumoured reason for Israel's interest in the Strip...

Meanwhile in Beirut yesterday, a car bomb targeted an official of police intelligence who had been investigating similar previous bombings.... The bomb went off in East Beirut (Christian area), not that far from where we live. This is the report from the Al Jazeera English website:

My father was concerned when he saw the news of the bomb and sent me an email:

















Despite all the disturbances in Lebanon and the occasional car bomb, the city is calm and actually a wonderful place to live in. The perception of Beirut from outside Lebanon is really distorted by the news reports of bombs and war.

Anyway, back in Israel while West Bankers and Gazans are suffering from the ongoing occupation and lack of everything.... Israel has officially entered into circulation the new coin of 2 Israeli Shekels.... Apparently the Israeli coins are not minted in Israel, they are minted in South Korea and then shipped to Israel for circulation.... I wonder if Israel should not be focusing on more urgent and important matters?? I took a photo of the first 2 Shekel coin that I found in my wallet... The Shekel is also used in the occupied Palestinian Territory as there is no official Palestinian currency. Notice the Arabic writing on the coin....

Bush in Palestine

Last Wednesday I woke up to a usual working day in Jerusalem, which actually was not that usual. It was the day that Bush was arriving in Israel and Palestine for the first time in his life!

Here is another great cover from the Economist issued in November during the Annapolis Conference.

Leaving my house at 7am in the morning, there was a rare fog in the air, so thick that I could not see my hand in front of me.... Strange start to such a historic day. I decided to walk to my UNRWA office to get a feel of the athmosphere in Jerusalem. While walking, the fog dissipated and I could see Israeli and American flags aligning Road No.1 (The Green Line). I did not see such flags in the Palestinian part of town. Not surprising though, as East Jerusalem is a Hamas stronghold.

On this photo you can see the construction of the controversial tram line (on the right of the photo) that goes through East Jerusalem which will eventually connect settlements there with West Jerusalem and any hope of Jerusalem being the capital of Palestine will be completely vanished.

Bush was due to arrive on noon that day, so while at work I was monitoring closely news websites who were reporting on his movements. That morning there were many helicopters and the streets were relatively deserted due to all the closures in and around the city.

The Haaretz online was reporting most diligently. I came across an interesting article (read article) which described the logistical and security arrangements of Bush's visit and the cost per hour: 25,000 USD!

The next day, some of my Palestinian colleagues were blocked in Bethlehem during his visit to the West Bank and mentioned that every street corner had either a US marine or a Palestinian policeman. The sewage entrances were sealed and checked for bombs below ground.
















Apparently Bush was driven to Ramallah, rather than flown there by helicopter. There are two checkpoints to enter Ramallah from Jerusalem, one is Kalandia and the other is the DCO checkpoint. The latter was set up on the other side of Ramallah to allow diplomats and UN officials to pass through to avoid the congestion at Kalandia, especially due to the increase of diplomatic representations to the Palestinian Authority who moved from Gaza to Ramallah 10 years ago. The fact that he used the DCO checkpoint, means that he must not have experienced the daily frustrations of the Palestinians having to wait for hours at Kalandia checkpoint, ambulances with women giving birth because they cannot pass through and wounded or ill people dying there because they did not reach the hospital in time.

Blair being the Quartet's Middle East Envoy, met with Bush during his stay here and mentioned that he was positive to have a two-state solution by 2009. The question I ask myself is, who is he really trying to convince of such a ridiculous statement?
What about the issue of land, water, refugees, settlements, borders, trade etc? Such questions will not be resolved by then and Israel will continue to build houses and settlements in East Jerusalem and without Jerusalem, Palestine cannot be a viable state, among other many concerns.

This blog quoted in the Los Angeles Times!

While reading a very interesting article on pro-Israel lobby in Washington published in this Sunday's Los Angeles Times (read article) which was sent to me by my previous boss at the Palestine Unit at UNCTAD in Geneva, I stumbled upon another article published last November on the 1000 days of Hariri's assassination which actually quoted this blog and posted a link to it!

(read article)

















Further down it reads:




The LA Times correspondent was quoting our posting of November 10th 2007, see a few postings below.

Eid Al Adha, Christmas and New Year's eve in Lebanon

I returned to Beirut for the end of year festivities, which happened to include the Eid Al Adha, when Muslims sacrifice lambs and give donations to the poor, Christian Christmas and the New Year's eve celebration.

After spending Eid Al Adha in Beirut, then Christams in Brussels (my family), Geneva (where we arrive from Beirut and where our Mini is parked!) and Milan (Maurizio's family), we decided to go skiing for a day back in Lebanon, on the 31st of December, to end the year well!.

My brother Olivier and I at Christmas in Brussels



































Flying back from Geneva to Beirut on the MEA flight, a view of the Alpes

Another snow view but this time in Lebanon!!!!














Mzaar ski resort is 1 hour drive from Beirut and is absolutely wonderful. The sun was shining, the slopes were great and the skiing just perfect. One would not imagine such a great skiing domain in a war torn country, with a view on the Mediterranean Sea while sliding down a slope at 2000 metres altitude! And another great thing was that there was hardly anyone skiing, sometimes Maurizio and I were the only ones on a slope.

My Springbok influence on Maurizio's jacket!



















View of the Mediterranean Sea while skiing













Modern Islam: A Lebanese woman skiing with her veil














On the road back down to Beirut, we saw a great sunset on the town. It was New Year's Eve.













Once arrived back at home, we relaxed a few hours before starting the preparation of the meal we were going to eat for the Eve.

For Starters we prepared Parma ham, figues from Lebanon and home-made rosmary and olive oil bread. We made the bread by rolling dough with fresh pieces of rosmary, salt and olive oil. All served on a piece of Ardoise, which we had bought in Geneva before leaving in the Summer.
















With that we had boiled artichokes, from which we pick off the leaves and eat the soft parts with mayonnaise or vinaigrette.
















For the main course, we prepared stuffed gnocchi with a tomato and herb sauce. The gnocchi were prepared by Maurizio and then cut in thin circles in which we put a small tea spoon of stuffing then folded over and closed with a fork. For the stuffing we mixed ricotta, herbs and ham.
















We drank red wine from Alba which we had also brought back with us from Italy in our container in the Summer. It is a Barbera d'Alba, absolutely amazing!





















And finally, the dessert, a slice of Pandoro cake and a bowl of strawberries with vanilla ice-cream served in traditional Palestinian plates.

News from Beirut: Another political assassination!

This morning I woke at the usual 6:00am in Jerusalem, had breakfast and arrived at UNRWA at 7:15. An hour later, I received news from Maurizio that there had been, yet another, political assassination in the outskirts of Beirut.















Once again, a car laden with explosives caused a number of casualties today in Beirut. This time, the target was the Deputy of the Lebanese Army, General Hajj, who was expected to succeed as leader of the Army once General Suleiman (see previous postings) would be elected as President..... The election has been delayed for the 8th time since September 2007. The political impasse which seemed to be somewhat resolved with the agreement on General Suleiman's candidacy, has now just gone back to square one...

The Wall, Salahaddin Street and the Old City...M's second visit to Jerusalem

According to our meeting plan (see a few postings below), M and I were supposed to meet in Amman last weekend. However, instead, M came to Jerusalem. Here are some photos that Maurizio took of our weekend.

On Saturday we went to a presentation given by the UN OCHA, an expert on the Wall and on East Jerusalem spoke of its expansion and gradual isolation of East Jerusalem. Even Ben Wiederman from the CNN was there! We also went to the wall itself with the group after the presentation.

When you see people walking next to the Wall, you can have an idea of how large it is, over 8 meters actually.

Ray, an Irish national, is the Wall specialist, now a consultant for OCHA explaining the expansion of the Wall from a view on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem. Ben Wiederman from CNN just infront of him!! Due to the highly politicised and controversial nature of this wall and its expansion, journalists like him need to be kept informed and therefore attend such presentatons. OCHA's role in Palestine is that of advocacy and information collection and mapping of closures, wall and road expansions in the Territories.

The Wall near the locality of Abu Dis in East Jerusalem, electrified.

A basket ball....caught in the wires of the Wall...

The Wall in Abu Dis has cut off the Mosque from the village, putting an obstacle to those living on this side to go and worship freely.

Some graffiti from visitors to the Wall. Some in French...

Some in English....

The Wall up close....

On our way back to the Old City, we walked down Salahadin Street, the main commercial street of East Jerusalem. On Saturdays, the Israeli police are celebrating the Sabath and therefore are not around to check on the Palestinian village women who come and sell their fruits and vegetables illegally.

We climbed onto the ramparts and walked all around the City, from the Muslim quarters through the Jewish and Christian Quarters.

I always try to buy my fruits and vegetables from these women, it is always fresh and comes directly handpicked from their gardens and fields in the West Bank.

Cauliflower is in season now in Palestine. I cut it up in small pieces and fry it in Olive Oil from Nablus (see a few postings below). Once the cauliflower is soft and a little brown, I cut open a brown warm pita bread, layer the inside with houmous and then fill it with the fried cauliflower. Delicious!

View of the Damascus Gate from the walls of the Old City. This is one of the gates which gives access to the Muslim Quarters. Bustling Saturday's market and sellers

A seller making large brown beans known as "foul" and chickpeas, eaten as a snack...

View of the Al Aqsa Mosque from outside the Old City

Dates and oranges in East Jerusalem....













Clothes hanging from one of the houses in the Old City. This photo was taking while we walked on the ramparts.















Red, Yellow and Green peppers. These are also great fried in Olive Oil and then in a pita bread with houmous.























Another view of Damascus Gate from the ramparts....

Monitoring Camps in Jenin and Tulkarem, Northern West Bank

75% of the UNRWA Emergency Job Creation Programme is implemented in the North West Bank and therefore I have 5 monitors in that area. I went up there a few times these past 2 weeks to work with them on the new system I have put in place and to train them while they are actually on the job monitoring the beneficiaries.

This is the Health Centre of Fara Camp in Nablus. A month ago, a new agreement was made between the Palestinian Police and the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), which is to allow the Palestinian Police to work during the day in the Nablus municipality and surrounding camps and during the night, the IDF would take over. This means for the refugees of Fara camp, incursions nearly every night.

This health centre was built with a donation from the Italian Government in 1993. At that post-Oslo period, many governments were making generous donations to rebuild Palestine....We wonder now how much these contributions actually made a difference.

In between, two monitoring destinations, we went to the local coffee shop to get some coffee for a few colleagues in Jerusalem who had asked us, knowing we were going to Nablus. They import coffee from Costa Rica and grind it with cardommon pods, to make the typical Arab coffee.

For lunch, we went to this great meat place which has been there for 40 years. This guy grills the meat directly above the coal. It was absolutely delicious... Vegetarians do not know what they are missing!

On the way out of Nablus, we passed by a Tahina factory (Tahina is a beige sauce made of sesame seed eaten on salads or shwarma all over the Middle East). If Tahina is mixed with sugar, you get Halawa, eaten on bread as a dessert.

The sesame seeds are imported from Eritrea.

The machine that processes the sesame seeds

Following the monitor in his car.....View of the settlements in the West Bank

This is a typical settlement on a hill around Nablus. The caravans in front of the settlement are an example of illegal settlement expansion. Indeed, the Israeli government has made it illegal to build more settlements, so many expand with the use of caravans, which bit by bit, become permanent houses, and without a word, the settlement has doubled its size and population.

Driving to Jenin Camp, we drove through the agricultural area surrounding Jenin in the Northern most part of the West Bank

This is the main check point to enter Jenin Refugee Camp. The soldier does not come down from the tower, he signals to show your ID and then checks it with his goggles. If he is satisfied, he presses a button which opens the large electrified yellow metal fence. It is in Jenin that security is the tightest as many suicide bombers and militants are said to come from Jenin.

Inside Jenin Camp, we went around the UNRWA installations such as schools and health centre to monitor our beneficiaries who work in these installations in exchange of cash, i.e. unskilled cash for work.

Posters with photos of martyrs from the camp. This particular one (left), bombed our offices in Jenin Camp because he was not able to work under the programme and benefit from the cash.... He was martyred a few month later (unrelated to his actions against UNRWA).

Paintaings of Arafat and paradise-like landscapes... A way to forget the terrible every-day life of the refugee camp and IDF incursions.

On the way back to Nablus, we passed by an UNRWA resource centre for children. This is some their art. Below you see the map of what they call "Historic Palestine" which include current Israel and West Bank and Gaza as one full territory as it was before 1948. In the crying eye, positioned where Jerusalem is located, you can see the Al Aqsa mosque.




















Here is another drawing from the resource centre, which shows current Palestine, West Bank and Gaza.






















This last photo was taken while I was on another visit to the North. This time in Tulkarem
near Jenin. I worked with our monitor who is responsible for that area. We visited one of the two camps there, NurShams Camp, which means the Camp of the sun's light. It has a population of 9000. Inside the office of the Camp Service Officer, there was a board above him and something strook me. This board is a sort of information gathering board which I am sure was put up in 1948 when the camp was created. At the time the camps were made of tents and huts as those you see now in Darfur or other parts of the World. This board still has written, tents and huts on the top part. What this episode told me, whas that even today, 50 years later, the refugees continue to believe at the temporary nature of their current habitations and that one day, they will have the "right to return".... None of this of course was discussed at Annapolis..... What will be of the 4 million Palestinian refugees dispersed in the region once we have (if we one day indeed do have) a 2-state solution? Their houses which they once occupied in now Israeli territory are long destroyed and rebuilt....

Photos from Beirut: Failed Elections

Maurizio returned to Beirut after his mission in Dubai as the deadline was approaching for the current Lebanese President, Emile Lahoud, to leave office, as is written in the Constitution. By midnight on 23rd November, it is constitutionally required for a new President, designated by the Maronite party to be elected and to enter office. However, disagreements have been ongoing on the selection of this new president. The Constitution says that if no candidate has been chosen, then the current Prime Minister, anti-Syrian, Fouad Siniora and his cabinet should take office. However, Lahoud, upon leaving office on the 23rd, refused to recognise Siniora's government and ordered the army to take over, led by General Souleiman. It is still unclear if this meant a call for a State of Emergency. Elections are to take place on the 30th November.


On the 23rd, Maurizio walked around the streets of Beirut and took some photos. Here they are:

The main mosque, near the Parliament and Prime Minister's office all cealed off

Apparently, hundreds of Lebanese army soldiers were posted in the streets of Beirut, even near our house, on each street corner.

Soldiers and their vehicules infront of the main mosque near Saifi Village, one of Hariri's Solidere reconstruction projects.













Barbed wire near the Parliament. They did not even allow diplomats through! Many foreign journalists were also present to catch the latest news on the unfolding political crisis













A soldier taking a photos of his colleagues! The tension cannot really be felt here!














Just at the corner of the street leading up to our flat in Ashrafieh, Central-East Beirut.

Beirut, Damascus and Amman in one weekend...

After the Jericho workshop (see previous posting), I crossed the border into Jordan to catch a plane to Beirut. I was a one way ticket because M and I were planning to drive to Damascus the next day, spend two days there (M had a meeting so we took the opportunity to visit the town), and then drive to Amman, from where I cross the border into Israel to get to Jerusalem on Monday morning. He had a flight to catch for Dubai for another meeting there.


I arrived in Beirut on Thursday which was the exact same day that Ban Ki-Moon, the new UN Secretary General was on a visit to Lebanon. One of many trying to resolve the political deadlock gripping the country since September.

















Beirut was quite congested due to road closures during the movements of Ban Ki Moon in the town. On Friday, we took a taxi and drove to Damascus (2h30 from Beirut). I booked a room at Beit Al Mamlouka, a restored Syrian 17th Century residence with 8 beautifully decorated rooms, situated in the Christian quarters of the Old City of Damascus.















This is the main courtyard. Each brown door is an entrance to a room.














On the second level of the house, there were 3 rooms restored, apprently used during the winter months, due to the fact that it caught the sun and warmed up the rooms considerably. These are the typically Syrian lamps above the room entrances.
















This is the terrace at the top of the house. M and I were preparing his speech for the meeting he had the next day on Safety and Health in the Workplace. The meeting was in French and Arabic, so we had to write it in French.















The view of the Old City, Mosque and Church beside eachother.













View of Damascus, Old and New City













Each room has been restored and decorated differently from the next. Here are some photos of the inside of ours.

The light on the wall













These cushions are made with pure cotton made in Syria. We are planning to get some for the same purpose for one of the rooms in our flat in Beirut. It has been restored in a Syrian style, where these cushions would look great.













The mirror




















The cupboard built inside the wall for hanging clothes, made with nacre (also known as Mother of Pearl).














This is a photo of the ceiling with the nice reflections of the light against the walls















Bathroom door























Walking through the Old City, I took some photos. Here is a typical street.














The striking thing when you enter Syria, especially in Damascus, is the sheer number of posters and photographs of President Bashir Al Assad.
His father, Hafiz al-Assad died in 2000, after 30 years in power. Immediately following al-Assad's death, the Parliament amended the constitution, reducing the mandatory minimum age of the President from 40 to 34, which allowed his son, Bashir, to become legally eligible for nomination by the ruling Baath party. On July 10, 2000, Bashir was elected President by referendum in which he ran unopposed, gathering 97% of the vote.














Syrian and Palestinian flags layed out above some metal workers in the Old City














Next to the workers, a sign to the Umayyad Mosque, signals we are near.















The Umayyad Mosque is one of the largest and oldest mosques in the world. Located in one of the holiest sites in the old city, it is of great architectural importance.

The tomb of Salahadin stands in a small garden adjoining the north wall of the mosque.

The mosque holds a shrine which is said to contain the head of John the Baptist, honoured as a prophet by Muslims and Christians alike. The head was supposedly found during the excavations for the building of the mosque. This is the shrine.

This is the esplanade of the mosque before entering the praying area.

We had to remove our shoes and I had to cover myself with a long hooded robe, as did other women who were not veiled or were not wearing the long Hijab.

Behind us

One of the walls of the mosque. In 2001 Pope John Paul II visited the mosque, primarily to visit the relics of John the Baptist. It was the first time a pope paid a visit to a mosque.

A Muslim woman taking a photo inside the praying area.























On the ceiling looking up from the praying area

Marble walls and a golden shrine














One of the gates to the Mosque on our way out.





















While walking back to Al Mamlouka, we stopped at a herbs and spices seller, we bought fresh camomille to make tea.














We left Damascus on Sunday and drove South to Amman, in Jordan (3h30 from Damascus). The next morning I drove to the Israeli border and crossed back to Jerusalem, while Maurizio caught a flight to Dubai. He had to get back to Beirut the next day as the Lebanese elections were approaching and the political situation remained tense.

UNRWA Workshop in Jericho, West Bank

The programme I am working for at UNRWA, the Emergency Job Creation Programme organised a workshop in Jericho, West Bank to review current implementation and plan for 2008 operations. Here are some photos.


This is a group photo taken at our office in Jerusalem before the workshop, this includes only the Jerusalem office staff. The others work in the West Bank offices in Nablus, Ramallah and Hebron.

The drive to Jericho is no longer than 30 minutes through the Jordan Valley. This is what you see when you enter Jericho before the main check point. The area has a wonderful warm climate all year round and is known for its fertile agricultural land. If it was not for the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank, it could be a tourist's paradise. Jericho is just next to Dead Sea and is therefore at 500 m below sea level!

Once in Jericho, we were joined by our colleagues working in the West Bank offices, including the 9 monitors I now supervise and who will be trained in the new monitoring and evaluation system I have put in place.













I presented the new monitoring and evaluation system and new reporting and management structure to the team















During the workshop, I was also busy with regualar work, especially the drafting of the report to the donor of the programme, in this case ECHO, so was consulting with my boss on some final issues.

















Here is a group photo of my colleagues mainly from the West Bank offices. And yes, as you can notice, Palestinian men smoke alot!!



















In the evening of the second day of the Workshop, we went up on the record breaking telepherique. One can wonder how a telepherique can break a record, well this one is the longest telepherique under sea level! (Actually probably the only telepherique under sea level!) The Palestinians are however proud of it, here is the Guinness certificate at the entrance.
























Ayed (my colleague from Jerusalem) and I infront of one of the cabins. The telepherique leads up to the biblical Mount of Temptation, upon which is built an Orthodox monastry, isolated high on the mount with an amazing view of Jericho, the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea. However it was difficult to catch on photo at night.

The third and final day, we round up the discussions and left Jericho (see photo below of the wonderful blue sky of the Jordan Valley). I did not however return to Jerusalem, I crossed the border to Jordan to catch a flight to Beirut for the weekend. On my return to Jerusalem, M and I spent 2 days in Damascus and then drove to Amman so I could return to Jerusalem and he could catch a flight to Dubai for another mission. See next posting for Damascus photos!

Maurizio's mission to Bahrain

Here are some interesting photos of Manama, capital city of Bahrain, taken by Maurizio during a work related mission there this month.

Al-Manamah (in Arabic) is the capital city of Bahrain and is the country's largest city with a population of approximately 155,000, roughly a quarter of the entire population.

63% of Bahrain's workforce is made up of migrant workers, need to fuel the growing economy and construction and oil sectors. Most immigrants are from India, Pakistan, Philippines and Sri Lanka, often working in labour conditions much below international standards.












Here are Bollywood movies sold to the many South Asians living in Manama...over half of Manama's population is non-Bahraini..... It is a Pakistani man from Manama who made the necklace with my name carved in gold in Arabic (see positing below)....

Bahrain, as opposed to Kuwait or Saudi Arabia has limited oil reserves and therefore is not benefiting as much currently from the US$100 barrel price! It has diversified its economy towards financial services and heavy industries.

From Beirut: 1000 days since Rafik Hariri's assassination

On February 14th 2005, Rafik Hariri, former Lebanese Prime Minister and business man was assassinated, one of many victims of political assassinations in Lebanon. Since his death, a counter was put up in Hamra area of West Beirut. Today is the 1000th day. Maurizio sent me some photos he took of the counter yesterday when it was at 999 days. Hariri died when explosives equivalent to around 1000 kg of TNT were detonated as his motorcade drove past the St. George Hotel in the Lebanese capital. The damage made by the bomb can be seen in the photos I posted in a previous posting in July, see below.





















Maurizio took these photos at the road intersection where the counter has been placed. Some security personnel questionned him on what he was doing there and why he was taking photos... The situation is quite tense nowadays in Beirut and there are fears of more political assassinations which will only escalate the already unstable situation. The parliament is continuously postponing elections....





















The investigation into Rafik Hariri's assassination is still ongoing and it is conducted under the supervision of the United Nations and led by the independent investigator (Belgian) Serge Brammertz.

The 1000th day by night

Jerusalem's Old City... and M's Visit

When I began work at UNRWA in October I submitted my request for leave, based on that request, M and I planned our meeting dates for the next three months. So this is what it looks like. The days I have leave from UNRWA, are weekends I go to Beirut.



















This weekend, M came to Jerusalem.... We went to the Old City. This is a view of the Al Aqsa mosque from the roof tops on the Old City.













We tried to enter the mosque compound but with no success, Israeli guards prevented us from entering. I took this photo from the entrance...














Walking behind a resident in the Jewish Quarters of the Old City














At the entrance of a house in the Jewish Quarters.. The name of the owner

A street in the Jewish Quarters

Here the street name in the Jewish Quarters written in Arabic has been erased with graffiti... A reflection of the tensions between both communities... The Hebrew and English versions remain untouched...

This is in the Muslim Quarters of the Old City, where you can see a number of Israeli flags which are placed there as a sign that they have been acquired by Israelis. Over the years, many Old City properties are being sold to rich Israelis (often American Jews) and bit by bit, settlement by settlement they take over.

This is a view inside the Christian Quarters of the Old City

This is also in the Christian Quarters but inside the compound of the Ethiopian Orthodox Coptic Church where the priests reside and live in very simple conditions as part of the devotion to their relgion.

Back at my appartment in Sho'afat in East Jerusalem, I took a photo of the two books I am currently reading. The first is the biography of Lawrence of Arabia by Lawrence James (a brilliant British historian). The book is an account of Lawrence's life from birth to death and through that account retraces British history in this part of the World (Middle East), very relevant to read while I am here and wonderfully written. I highly recommend it.

























The second book I am reading is a Palestinian book which has just been published. Raja Shehadeh's "Palestinian Walks". According to the introduction: "The six walks described by Shehadeh in this through-provoking book span a period of twenty-six years, in the hilld around Ramallah, in the Jerusalem wilderness and through the ravines by the Dead Sea. Each walk takes place at a different stage of Palestinian history. The first is the steeply terraced hills marked only by olive and fruit trees and the last among the dominating Jewish settlements and the Wall".























This last photo is my name in Arabic... made in Bahrain...(Gift from M...)

Meeting in Ramallah, West Bank, Occupied Palestinian Territory

As part of my job at UNRWA, I am putting in place a new system of monitoring and evaluation of the emergency job creation programme currently being implemented in the West Bank. I organised a meeting with the field monitors in Ramallah to discuss issues of monitoring and also train them on understanding what role they had in evaluating the impact of the programme on a regular basis.

It was interesting to also realise that all our monitors are male as they have a role of negotiating with refugee camp committees on the number of labourers we can afford to allocate to that specific camp: tough job! All males are ok in the case of pure monitoring however for the component on evaluation, some questions to women benenficiaries (currently 30% of our cash for work labourers) can be quite sensitive to be asked by a man... So I am going to suggest to recruit a woman monitor who would cover the West Bank, targeting only our women beneficiaries.

On the way back to Jerusalem after the meeting, I was able to take a photo from our UN car of the Wall surrounding Ramallah.

The Wall is really impressive and the photo does not do justice in realising its sheer size and dominating presence














Back in Jerusalem, I went to the Old City to buy some groceries. This is a photo of a seller of Zaatar, a powder made of salt and dried thyme. It is really delicious when mixed with olive oil and spread on some soft white Palestinian bread.

Here is another photo of one of alley ways within the Muslim Quarters of the Old City

Some days later, it was time for me to defend my thesis orally (see a few postings below about the handing in of the hard copy)... The institute accepted to do it through Video Conference. This is me as they saw me from Geneva.

During that time, Maurizio in Beirut.....

During my first two weeks in Jerusalem (see previous posting), Maurizio was busy in Beirut unpacking our boxes which had finally arrived by container from Geneva! He took some photos:

This is the truck which came with our container infront of our flat in Ashrafieh, a Christian area in the Eastern part of Beirut:

























Here are some of the many boxes which the movers brought up into our new apartment














He also visited Byblos, a beautiful historical city North of Beirut on the Lebanese coast


































Byblos, is the Greek name for the Phoenician city of Gebal, currently under the Arabic name Jbeil. It is believed to have been founded around 5000 BC and is the first city ever built and is considered the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the World.














This is a photo of the Lebanese flag in Byblos city, representing the Cedar tree which makes up Lebanon's landscape. Unfortunately, deforestation has destroyed 70% of Lebanon's Cedar trees. However one Cedar tree reserve still exists in the center of the Country... Still to be discovered....

On another related issue to our departure from Geneva and our arrival in Beirut is that we are trying to sell the Mini we had in Geneva. We need to sell it preferably to a diplomat (as it was bought on diplomatic untaxed rates and therefore needs to be sold that same way to avoid having to pay those same taxes) or to a UN official with diplomatic status. So please let us know if you know of anyone in Geneva who wants this great mini (2 years old) :

First 2 weeks in Jerusalem and West Bank

I (Adeline) left Beirut for Jerusalem 2 weeks ago, travelling through Syria and Jordan to begin work at UNRWA on the Emergency Job Creation Programme in the West Bank.


These are olive plantations along the road from Damascus to Amman















Once arrived in Jerusalem, I moved into my new flat in Sho'afat in the Eastern part of the town.

Near the Old City, where I buy my fruits and vegetables. A man was making Palestinian type pancakes specifically for the Ramadan month.

A Palestinian mini-van taxi which I take every day to and from work. It costs 3,5 Shekels, about 75 US cents.
















The road to my house is the same road to Beit Hanina (Arab East Jerusalem) as you see on the sign below. All the other three areas are illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem.













View of the UNRWA bus from my office. The bus leaves and arrives every day to take and drop off staff home to the West Bank. This particular photo was taken on a Friday morning, where the bus also takes staff to the Al Aqsa mosque in the Old City to pray.















A Jewish market in West Jerusalem. All the sellers here are Arab Jews from Iraq, Marocco etc. This place is really great with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables and the greatest olives in town! On the photo you can see boxes of Jaffa oranges. Jaffa, is a mixed Arab/Israeli town near Tel Aviv and is famous for its delicious oranges.















Here are some fresh fish from the same market.














On the first week of work, I made some field visits to the West Bank to visit our area offices in Ramallah, Nablus in the North and Hebron in the South.

This is a photo of the road to Ramallah from within the UNRWA car














From this photo you can see the wall in the distance which is built to separate the West Bank territory and Israel. It is 8 meters high.
















This is our car infront of the UNRWA office in Ramallah















This is a Palestinian village outside Ramallah which we visited as some of our beneficiaries work here as labourers. The Israeli illegal settlement is very visible surrounding and dominating this little village as the photos shows.















Boy's school where some of our beneficiaries work as school attendants or filing clerks.













This is a bus in the same village bringing children back home from school. The painting behind is in the next photo.














The translation of the text is: "Jerusalem is the pride of the Arabs". The drawing behind is the the Al Aqsa mosque and Jerusalem town.
















The next field visit was to Nablus in the North of the West Bank, a place famous for olive oil! Here is a photo of a bread maker in Nablus town.















These are the two bottles of olive oil I got from Nablus. Absolutely amazing! Think of the best olive oil you have ever tasted and times that by 10!






















Palestinian refugee camp in Nablus, blown up by Israeli Defence Force
















A food distribution truck which goes inside the camps to distribute emergency supplies of basic foodstuffs such as oil, pulses or flour















This is a remaining piece of a box which contained refined sunflower oil, donation from the European Community to the Palestinian refugees














View from inside the refugee camp. All basic services such as health and education are provided by UNRWA.















The final visit was to Hebron in the South of the West Bank, unfortunately I did not have my camera with me, however did get some grapes from the garden of the Programme Manager whose family lives in Hebron. Here is the photo:

Thesis finished, binded and sent!

Today is my last day in Beirut, before travelling to Jerusalem tomorrow morning. I have also just finished the thesis, got it binded at a local printer store and then sent it to Geneva by ARAMEX! Here is a picture I took of the title page. I will have to defend it orally at the end of October, however being in Jerusalem, it will be difficult to fly back to Geneva just for an hour presentation. I have suggested to IUED that we do the presentation through video conference...I still don't have a response from them. I argued that we should take advantage of modern technology and that by doing so, on one hand we would be contributing to the conservation of the environment (by avoiding to take a Kerosen ridden flight!) and on the other it would demonstrate that IUED is truely a modern and international institution... We will see if that worked to convince them!













Maurizio had to go to Dubai for a three day mission and will be back in Beirut after I leave. I am planning to travel with an UNRWA courier from Beirut to Amman (I leave at 7.30 am and arrive at 6pm. We go through Damascus). Stay in Amman for a night and then cross the border into Israel the next day. All of this implying that I do get through, because I don't have a working visa yet, UNRWA plans on getting one for me once I arrive... I am not looking forward to the 2 hour interview from Israeli secret service, gun-obsessed 19 year olds doing their 4 year service... explaining why I live in Lebanon and why I am working with Palestinians in the West Bank.... Anyway, that is part of the system one cannot avoid!


Here is a map of Syria which also shows Lebanon and Jordan, so you can see the route I will be taking tomorrow.

Another anti-Syria MP killed in Beirut

Yesterday at around 5.30 pm, I came out of our flat in the Christian area of Beirut (Eastern part) and started driving towards the West to pick up M from work. Not realising that at that exact same time, a bit further East from our house, another anti-Syria, Christian Maronite MP, Antoine Ghanam, just died in a car explosion.

Arriving at M's office, he informed me of this terrible news, so we immediately returned home to follow the coverage on the local news, and to stay inside and keep the VHF radio on, according to security procedures.

Antoine Ghanam is the 8th MP killed in the past 2 years. Even after 15 years of civil war ending in 1992, another 30 day war in July 2006, violence and instability still continues.

This morning, M drove to work and the streets were completely deserted, as people fear of possible repercussions. A day of mourning has been organised and today most shops, schools and offices will remain closed. The funeral will take place on Friday.

Presidential elections are due in November, so let us see and hope for the best....

Cairo, Egypt

On our way out of Geneva (final moving stage before sending the shipment to Beirut which will take 4 weeks to arrive),


















We went through Cairo for a few days work. I used the time to continue writing the thesis. Here are some photos I took of a an afternoon we had free to visit.




View of Cairo town center and the Nile River

















Another photo of Cairo. 15 million people live here. It is incredibly congested and one wonders how worse that congestion can become in a few years, if no better urban planning is put in place!














Riding behind in a local Cairo taxi. Prices are very cheap with inner town trips costing 1 USD! Pollution is incredibly high. Just flying out in the evening, the entire town was engulfed in a layer of smog.

















Giza, just outside Cairo, where the Pyramids are built....















View of the Pyramids















The pyramid up close
















The entire pyramid. Difficult to imagine that this was made simply with the strength of men

















Us infront of the Sphynx



















The Sphynx


























Lunch at the Mena House Oberoi in front of the pyramids