The fiance of a 27-year-old firefighter who died in the Beirut port blast last August said he would distribute food parcels to the poor to mark their planned wedding day on Sunday.
In an emotional Facebook post, Gilbert Karaan paid tribute to "heroine" Sahar Fares.
“Our wedding cocktail will be to provide 100 food boxes in the two towns you loved the most, Jdeideh and Qaa – and some medical examinations for the elderly,” he wrote.
Ms Fares, a paramedic, became a symbol of Lebanon’s trauma after the blast. She was the only woman in the team of 10 firefighters dispatched by the Beirut Fire Brigade to extinguish a fire raging at the port early evening on August 4.
All 10 firefighters were killed after rushing to the port to fight the warehouse fire, unaware that the burning building housed a dangerous cocktail of chemicals, including thousands of tonnes of ammonium nitrate.
More than 200 people were killed and 6,000 injured in the explosion.
Senior government officials, including President Michel Aoun, later admitted that they knew that the ammonium nitrate had been stored unsafely there for years.
In media interviews in the aftermath of the explosion, Mr Karaan said he had been on the phone to his fiancee while she ran for cover after the fire intensified and stored items exploded. The line went dead as she ran.
The couple had been planning their wedding at the time. Photographs posted by Mr Karaan alongside his Facebook message showed Ms Fares smiling and wearing a white dress.
In another photo, she is wearing a green swimsuit and a banner across her chest that reads “bride to be”.
Before the blast the country had already been suffering from its worst-ever economic crisis.
An ongoing local investigation into the explosion has been marred with political interference.
Days after the disaster, Fares’ friends and family bade her goodbye in her home town of Qaa in north Lebanon with the wedding party she would never have.
Sobbing, her fiance danced, sitting on the shoulders of relatives, as others held Fares' white coffin high, moving it to the beat of a drum.
Mr Karaan wrote: "Sunday was going to be the dream, the day I wanted to see you in your white dress, the day we had been waiting for after seven years of hard work and fatigue, the day we would be under one roof, me and you, and make the best family.”
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Generation Start-up: Awok company profile
Started: 2013
Founder: Ulugbek Yuldashev
Sector: e-commerce
Size: 600 plus
Stage: still in talks with VCs
Principal Investors: self-financed by founder
INDIA'S%20TOP%20INFLUENCERS
Non-oil%20trade
The specs
Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
Power: 640hp
Torque: 760nm
On sale: 2026
Price: Not announced yet
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It's up to you to go green
Nils El Accad, chief executive and owner of Organic Foods and Café, says going green is about “lifestyle and attitude” rather than a “money change”; people need to plan ahead to fill water bottles in advance and take their own bags to the supermarket, he says.
“People always want someone else to do the work; it doesn’t work like that,” he adds. “The first step: you have to consciously make that decision and change.”
When he gets a takeaway, says Mr El Accad, he takes his own glass jars instead of accepting disposable aluminium containers, paper napkins and plastic tubs, cutlery and bags from restaurants.
He also plants his own crops and herbs at home and at the Sheikh Zayed store, from basil and rosemary to beans, squashes and papayas. “If you’re going to water anything, better it be tomatoes and cucumbers, something edible, than grass,” he says.
“All this throwaway plastic - cups, bottles, forks - has to go first,” says Mr El Accad, who has banned all disposable straws, whether plastic or even paper, from the café chain.
One of the latest changes he has implemented at his stores is to offer refills of liquid laundry detergent, to save plastic. The two brands Organic Foods stocks, Organic Larder and Sonnett, are both “triple-certified - you could eat the product”.
The Organic Larder detergent will soon be delivered in 200-litre metal oil drums before being decanted into 20-litre containers in-store.
Customers can refill their bottles at least 30 times before they start to degrade, he says. Organic Larder costs Dh35.75 for one litre and Dh62 for 2.75 litres and refills will cost 15 to 20 per cent less, Mr El Accad says.
But while there are savings to be had, going green tends to come with upfront costs and extra work and planning. Are we ready to refill bottles rather than throw them away? “You have to change,” says Mr El Accad. “I can only make it available.”
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ENGLAND SQUAD
Goalkeepers: Jack Butland, Jordan Pickford, Nick Pope
Defenders: John Stones, Harry Maguire, Phil Jones, Kyle Walker, Kieran Trippier, Gary Cahill, Ashley Young, Danny Rose, Trent Alexander-Arnold
Midfielders: Eric Dier, Jordan Henderson, Dele Alli, Jesse Lingard, Raheem Sterling, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Fabian Delph
Forwards: Harry Kane, Jamie Vardy, Marcus Rashford, Danny Welbeck
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How much do leading UAE’s UK curriculum schools charge for Year 6?
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- Brighton College Abu Dhabi - Dh68,560
- Jumeirah English Speaking School (Dubai) – Dh59,728
- Gems Wellington International School – Dubai Branch – Dh58,488
- The British School Al Khubairat (Abu Dhabi) - Dh54,170
- Dubai English Speaking School – Dh51,269
*Annual tuition fees covering the 2024/2025 academic year
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Director:Josephine Decker
Stars:Grace Kaufman, Pico Alexander, Jacques Colimon
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Match info:
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Why seagrass matters
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The specs
Engine 60kwh FWD
Battery Rimac 120kwh Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide (LiNiMnCoO2) chemistry
Power 204hp Torque 360Nm
Price, base / as tested Dh174,500
The specs: 2018 Dodge Durango SRT
Price, base / as tested: Dh259,000
Engine: 6.4-litre V8
Power: 475hp @ 6,000rpm
Torque: 640Nm @ 4,300rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Fuel consumption, combined: 7.7L / 100km
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Torque: 685Nm at 2,000rpm
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Closing the loophole on sugary drinks
As The National reported last year, non-fizzy sugared drinks were not covered when the original tax was introduced in 2017. Sports drinks sold in supermarkets were found to contain, on average, 20 grams of sugar per 500ml bottle.
The non-fizzy drink AriZona Iced Tea contains 65 grams of sugar – about 16 teaspoons – per 680ml can. The average can costs about Dh6, which would rise to Dh9.
Drinks such as Starbucks Bottled Mocha Frappuccino contain 31g of sugar in 270ml, while Nescafe Mocha in a can contains 15.6g of sugar in a 240ml can.
Flavoured water, long-life fruit juice concentrates, pre-packaged sweetened coffee drinks fall under the ‘sweetened drink’ category
Not taxed:
Freshly squeezed fruit juices, ground coffee beans, tea leaves and pre-prepared flavoured milkshakes do not come under the ‘sweetened drink’ band.
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Stars: 4
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Gulbuddin Hekmatyar 3.85 per cent
Rahmatullah Nabil 1.8 per cent
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FA Cup fifth round
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