Dar El Darwiche (or El Darwiche palace) in Zefta was unfortunately destroyed by a fire incident last week.
The palace is considered as a historic Ottoman heritage due to its architecture and the old antiques inside it, same as some of the palaces in Beirut like Al Daouk, Salam, Boustros, and Sursock.
Un incendie a ravagé dans la nuit de vendredi à samedi le palais historique Darwiche dans le village de Zefta, à Nabatiyeh (Liban-sud), rapporte l’Agence nationale d’information (ANI, officielle).
Les flammes ont détruit tous les meubles et antiquités historiques que le palais renfermait.
“Après l’avoir entretenu durant 100 ans, tout a été détruit”, a déclaré le propriétaire des lieux, Hussein Darwiche. Il a précisé que le palais avait été construit au début des années 1900 sur une superficie de 1.200 mètres carrés. L’édifice comptait 15 chambres.
Le palais contenait des trésors historiques remontant à l’époque ottomane. Le palais Darwiche était l’une des rares bâtisses historiques bien conservées dans le sud du pays. Source
Below are some of the photos I managed to find on Facebook through Rabih El Darwiche. It definitely sucks to see it all gone now, and I hope El Darwiche family will be able to restore it soon.
If this video is a proof of something, it would be that all politician are equal in being corrupt and believing they’re above the law.
This is actually the same Nadim Gemayel who always complains about the militia-like behavior of Hezbollah, now giving silly excuses and justifying their actions. The people at Nasawiya might have started the whole thing after chanting against all MPs when they knew Nadim Gemayel was in the area, but that definitely doesn’t give the bodyguards the right to abuse their power.
But to be honest, I wasn’t surprised by the whole incident, I mean what do you expect from Lebanese people in power? What surprised me the most were those people on social media and blogs who were actually defending Nadim Gemayel and calling to take the incident more lightly, just because they support him or his political view. What degree of followership are these people exercising?
Make sure to read Habib Battah’s story on how he got physically assaulted yesterday for trying to take photos of the ruins at District S construction site in Beirut downtown.
My chest and wrists still hurt from the arms of the men who tackled me, twisted my hands behind my back, and tried to rip my phone out of my hands this afternoon.
They were enraged because I refused to delete a photo of ancient ruins I shot on their construction site.
“Lock the door,” one of the foreman said earlier today, and moments later the giant doors of the site were sealed. I was surrounded by 5 to 6 men looking at me menacingly–prepared it seemed–to do anything to shut me up.
Unfortunately he was told to just forget about it when he tried to report the incident to the police station, so I hope his post reaches some good people who can take action about it!
As if Lebanon needed more scandals and ugly incidents, this outrageous uncivilized act against a referee in a football match came to add salt to the wound. The referee did not give Al Nahda Club a penalty in the added time of the second half against Al Salam Zgharta, and the players went crazy chasing him all across the pitch. The video here doesn’t show more of the attack but it gives you an enough idea about what happened.
Check out this racism incident that a guy called Abed Shaheen has witnessed at Beirut International Airport yesterday and shared on Facebook.
Racism at Beirut Airport! My personal hands-on experience.
Yesterday on the 6th of October I was at gate 11 with a friend of mine waiting to board the Air Arabia flight at 20:25.
While waiting to board there was a group of foreign workers sitting with the rest of the passengers waiting for their turn. They were behaving normally as any other group of passengers would. Then sadly, the lady (looking at her uniform she apparently works for MEA Ground Services and not Air Arabia) at the gate announced on loud speaker (over the whole system covering the airport) the following: “Filipino people stop talking”; then she started giggling about it with the macho gentleman who was with her at the gate. They continued their racist behavior by announcing again “Filipino Nepal people talking not allowed here” and on and on.
Shocked, I obviously became furious and approached them and explained that this racist and discriminatory behavior is not acceptable, impolite and does not at the least reflect what employees at Beirut Airport should stand for (not to imply it’s acceptance in any other situation of course).
This unfortunately sounded like a joke to them and they went on to say “we do whatever we want and we don’t care about what you are saying”, then “management doesn’t even want this kind of people on the flight” and “even if you complain this will be thrown away and we dare you to do anything about it”. When I asked her “how would you feel if you ever wanted to travel to Europe and while queuing for your visa they told you the same thing?”, she replied “these people are different”; The macho gentleman seeing that his female friend, whom he was trying so hard to impress with his imitating giggles, was cornered with her twisted racist logic even went further to ask me to back off the counter and threatening to make a problem and to void my ticket!!
When I asked for the complaint form they answered (While still laughing of course) “take it from the flight attendants and good luck sitting next to such people on the flight” I did file an official complaint with Air Arabia and their staff was very helpful and promised to reach the message out to their management. However Air Arabia is paying MEAG for such services and they need to use their power to do greater efforts too to ensure that the people behind this are held accountable. I also sent an email today to Mr. Richard Mujais from MEAG, explaining what happened and asked him to further discuss this with me and to show us that these employees were held accountable for such racist behavior.
Until then, and as a friend suggested that they also need to be exposed please help me exposing such intolerable behavior…
What a shame…
Update:
MEA posted the following response on their Facebook page yesterday:
To our loyal customers and fans,
We are aware of the purported incident that took place on the 6th October 2012 at Beirut International Airport, and appreciate your patience while a full investigation by MEA is underway. Please rest assured that MEAs policy is not to tolerate discriminatory or racist behavior in any form from our employees, and that appropriate measures will be taken once the facts of the incident are brought to light.
Yours sincerely,
The MEA Team
And the story made it to BBC Arabic!
Update:
MEA issued a second statement today announcing that severe disciplinary actions have been taken against the involved staff in this incident.
To our loyal fans and customers,
Having investigated the issue that occurred on the 6th October, 2012 at Rafik Hariri Intl. Airport – Beirut, which involved misbehavior by a MEAG (subsidiary of MEA) passenger service agent, we would like to issue the following statement.
This type of behavior represents an isolated case, and is 100% against MEA’s policy.
It does not fit within MEA’s culture, and furthermore goes contrary to our training procedures.
Severe disciplinary action has been taken against the staff concerned.
Kindly rest assured that our goal is to attain the highest levels of customer satisfaction.
Yours sincerely,
The MEA Team
It was mentioned in an article by the Associated Press that the woman was fired and a disciplinary action was being considered against her male colleague.
Make sure to check these cool recent photos Al-Akhbar has published from inside the Picadilly theater in Hamra. This theater is most famous for hosting several performances by Fayrouz and Ziad El-Rahbani, but a fire unfortunately broke out in it back in the 90s and has been inactive ever since.
In an ideal world, someone would take the initiative to renovate the Picadilly and Zaid El-Rahbani would come back to it for a new performance! (One can always dream..)
The below video from LBCI shows part of the carpet factory in Safra collapsing because of the huge fire it caught today morning.
Luckily no one was hurt as all employees were able to escape from the building shortly after the fire erupted. You may also check here for photos taken by Joe of the factory while the fire was raging in it.
I just took these two photos from my workplace for what looks like a huge fire in the area of Dekweneh or Sin El Fil. I’ve checked news sites and so far no one mentioned anything… I hope it’s nothing serious.
Update:
A tweep (@jackoppy81) just mentioned it’s a fire at a plastic factory near Bassoul-Hneine, and the civil defense are working on putting it down.
