Beirut lies shattered again. In the aftermath of Tuesday’s devastating explosion at its seaport, swathes of one of the world’s most beautiful cities now look like scenes from the apocalypse. “A peninsula that seems to have fallen to earth from the heavens”, as the late Lebanese writer Samir Kassir described the city of his birth, suddenly resembles an urban hell.
It shouldn’t be like this. But Beirut isn’t like most other cities. You don’t have to dig too deep beneath its voluptuous setting below Mount Lebanon, past all the partying and shallow snapshots, to discover the self-destructive DNA that time and again wreaks havoc here. Poisonous neighbours merely deepen the wounds caused by sectarian division and the endemic corruption of Lebanese politicians, whose self-enriching misadventures prior to the pandemic had already brought the city to its knees. This time the blood of Beirutis is on their hands, the port explosion a terrible emblem of their broken system. Beirut may be sun-kissed, sybaritic and welcoming, but it is also dangerous, blood-stained and cruel.
A woman stands inside a damaged restaurant. AP Photo
People and employees attend a mass over the victims who were killed in the blast, at the Al-Roum hospital at Ashrafieh area in Beirut. EPA
Workers are pictured at the devastated site of the explosion at the port of Beirut. EPA
A man sleeps near a damaged car near the site of Tuesday's blast in Beirut's port area. REUTERS
Workers line at the devastated site of the explosion at the port of Beirut. EPA
French President Emmanuel Macron visits the devastated site of the explosion at the port of Beirut. EPA
People and employees attend a mass over the victims who were killed in the blast, at the Al-Roum hospital at Ashrafieh area in Beirut. EPA
A view of the port of Beirut on January 25, 2020, left, and on August 5, 2020, a day after the explosion. AFP
Bride Israa Seblani poses for a picture in the same place where she was taking her wedding photos at the moment of the explosion. Reuters
People stand with their belongings as they leave their damaged homes. Reuters
A Lebanese man shows injuries on his back after the massive explosion in Beirut. EPA
Men are seen sitting inside a damaged home, following Tuesday's blast in Beirut's port area. Reuters
A pedestrian takes photos of a badly damaged building in Beirut. Bloomberg
Lebanese Druze clerics check damaged cars. AP Photo
A statue representing the Lebanese expatriate is seen in front of a building that was damaged by the explosion. AP Photo
People walk with their belongings in the area of Mar Mikhael and Gemayzeh. EPA
The curtains in the rooms of the Le Gray hotel in the Lebanese capital Beirut swaying in the wind. AFP
A view of a damaged Fransa Bank. EPA
People check damaged vehicles. EPA
Volunteers clean the streets amid the wreckage. Reuters
People carry belongings after evacuating their damaged housing units at area of Mar Mikhael and Gemayzeh. EPA
A destroyed Bank Audi SAL branch stands in Beirut. Bloomberg
A worker wearing a protective face mask stands at the entrance to a destroyed Fransabank SAL branch in Beirut. Bloomberg
Volunteers carry brooms as they walk to clean the streets. Reuters
A woman sits in front of a damaged building. EPA
A general view of the Beirut port area after the massive explosion. EPA
An aerial view shows the massive damage done to the Electricity of Lebanon building. AFP
A view of the damaged building of the Lebanese fashion designer Zuhair Murad. EPA
Volunteers gather aid supplies to be distributed for those affected by Tuesday's blast. Reuters
Lebanese men clears rubble, one day after the explosion at the Beirut Port, in the Gemayzeh area. EPA
Lebanese youth salvage a velvet sofa from a destroyed apartment in the Gemayzeh area of Beirut. EPA
Lebanese activists take part in a campaign to clean the damaged neighbourhood of Mar Mikhael. AFP
An injured Lebanese shop owner sits at her desk selling her wares. EPA
In Sentimental Archives of a War in Lebanon, a collection of poems published in 1982, the late Lebanese poet Nadia Tueni unleashed a barrage of barbs against the civil war propagandists who were destroying the city she loved. "Those who live in the sunlight of the word," she wrote, "upon the runaway horse of slogans, those, shatter the windows of the universe." Today Beirut's windows, not to mention its port, shops, restaurants, houses, hospitals and the lives of its long-suffering population, have been smashed to pieces by indolence, incompetence and corruption. Had she lived today, Tueni would have eviscerated this generation of Lebanon's ruling class, political pygmies and kleptocrats par excellence.
Beirut’s recurring tragedies, including this latest entirely avoidable disaster, somehow seem worse in the context of the city’s almost indecent natural beauty. This should really be a paradise on earth, the geography and climate tell you. When they made the town a colony in 14 BC, the Romans named it Colonia Julia Augusta Felix Berytus, in honour of the emperor Augustus’s daughter and in recognition of this “happy shore”. Visitors approaching the port in the nineteenth century, the beginning of Beirut’s heyday, found their eyes drawn inexorably to the cypresses, carobs, sycamores, prickly pears, figs and pomegranates of the tiny town, then to the banana trees, gnarled olives, oranges, lemons and mulberry groves beyond it and up towards the sturdy pines on the lower slopes of Mount Lebanon.
The port that now lies pulverised by the explosion of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate was the lifeblood of Beirut ever since the invention of steamships in the early nineteenth century transformed what was then a dingy medieval hovel into a flourishing westward-looking city, the last word in urban grace and glamour. Beirutis’ longstanding genius for trading saw the city thrive on Mediterranean commerce, exporting silk and raw materials and importing the products of the world, from cotton shirts made in English mills to Brazilian coffee.
Beirut's Martyrs Square in the middle of the 20th century. AFP
Beirut’s meteoric rise happened so quickly that it astonished the city’s own residents. In 1824, just 15 ships entered its harbour. Then, in 1835, Mahmud Nami Bey, president of Beirut’s advisory council, built a new jetty and within three years the number of ships calling in had rocketed to 680. Customs receipts quadrupled between 1830 and 1840. From 50,000 tonnes a year in the 1830s, total shipping entering Beirut soared to 600,000 tonnes in 1886. Between 1889 and 1894, the port, by now the engine room of the city’s prosperity, was comprehensively modernised and enlarged with a new quay, jetty and warehouses. With breakneck speed the city became one of the most cosmopolitan on earth, its polyglot population shooting up from eight thousand in the early 1830s to around 130,000 on the eve of the First World War.
In an era when Beirut’s leaders actually served the city rather than bleeding it to death, infrastructure and sanitation were improved, paved streets were introduced, a lazaretto was established to provide quarantine facilities and port and customs procedures were regularised in a wave of modernising reforms.
Christians and Muslims alike made their fortunes as merchant families. Beirut was buzzing. Under Ottoman rule Yusuf Aftimos, Mardiros Altounian and Bechara Affendi became the founding fathers of Lebanese architecture. Inaugurated as the seat of local government in 1884, the Petit Serail on the northern side of the famous Burj square became an elegant backdrop for promenaders in the Hamidiye public garden named in honour of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. His reign from 1876 to 1909 brought new schools, hospitals, police stations, drinking fountains, a post office, lighthouse, racecourse and train station to the city. Visiting in 1898, Kaiser Wilhelm II and his wife Augusta Viktoria, the last German emperor and empress, were so impressed they pronounced Beirut “the jewel in the crown” of the Ottoman sultan. That was some achievement.
Beirut’s golden era on the world stage did not die with the 19th century. In 1900, Orosdi Back, a department store that drew comparisons to Harrods in London, opened its doors for the first time. What better way to kick off the 20th century than with this triple-domed temple to consumerism, part of a massive gentrification project on a landfill site where the quay met the port’s warehouses and customs offices on Rue de la Douane?
In the 1940s, Beirut was a popular summer destination for the European elite. Getty Images
Beirut's meteoric rise happened so quickly that it astonished the city's own residents
The Paris of the East dazzled, continuing its reckless money-making and revelries as the decades passed. Fleeing imminent war in Europe, my grandmother and grandfather succumbed to the allure of Beirut, where my father was born in 1938. In the 50s and 60s, the Saint George Hotel rocked to parties attended by glitterati from the Aga Khan and Brigitte Bardot to David Rockefeller and the British spy Kim Philby, while the rival Phoenicia Hotel, a two-minute drive down Avenue Fakhreddine, hosted celebrities like Marlon Brando, Umm Kulthum, Fairuz and Catherine Deneuve. It was, Kassir wrote, “as if, when talents were distributed among Arab cities, the fairies decided that Beirut was to be the capital of relaxation and easy living”.
And then the agonies of the civil war of 1975 to 1990 brought the curtain down on the fun and games.
Yet Beirut, like Baghdad, has developed an extraordinary, phoenix-like ability to pick itself up off the floor, dust itself off and rebuild. It did it after 1990, when parts of the city were in complete ruins, and it did it again after the Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006.
Now, as the world watches aghast at its latest ruination, we must recall another Tueni poem, written four years into the civil war. Whether Beirut is a courtesan, scholar or saint, she wrote, “elle est mille fois morte, mille fois revecue”. She has died a thousand times and been reborn a thousand times. With or without her criminally negligent politicians, she will rebound from this latest disaster.
Justin Marozzi is the author of Islamic Empires: Fifteen Cities that Define a Civilization, published in paperback on 6 August.
Stars: Ram Charan, Kiara Advani, Anjali, S J Suryah, Jayaram
Rating: 2/5
Types of bank fraud
1) Phishing
Fraudsters send an unsolicited email that appears to be from a financial institution or online retailer. The hoax email requests that you provide sensitive information, often by clicking on to a link leading to a fake website.
2) Smishing
The SMS equivalent of phishing. Fraudsters falsify the telephone number through “text spoofing,” so that it appears to be a genuine text from the bank.
3) Vishing
The telephone equivalent of phishing and smishing. Fraudsters may pose as bank staff, police or government officials. They may persuade the consumer to transfer money or divulge personal information.
4) SIM swap
Fraudsters duplicate the SIM of your mobile number without your knowledge or authorisation, allowing them to conduct financial transactions with your bank.
5) Identity theft
Someone illegally obtains your confidential information, through various ways, such as theft of your wallet, bank and utility bill statements, computer intrusion and social networks.
6) Prize scams
Fraudsters claiming to be authorised representatives from well-known organisations (such as Etisalat, du, Dubai Shopping Festival, Expo2020, Lulu Hypermarket etc) contact victims to tell them they have won a cash prize and request them to share confidential banking details to transfer the prize money.
Other workplace saving schemes
The UAE government announced a retirement savings plan for private and free zone sector employees in 2023.
National Bonds unveiled a Golden Pension Scheme in 2022 to help private-sector foreign employees with their financial planning.
In April 2021, Hayah Insurance unveiled a workplace savings plan to help UAE employees save for their retirement.
Lunate, an Abu Dhabi-based investment manager, has launched a fund that will allow UAE private companies to offer employees investment returns on end-of-service benefits.
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
GroupA: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, Leon.
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
Tonight's Chat is a series of online conversations on The National. The series features a diverse range of celebrities, politicians and business leaders from around the Arab world.
Tonight’s Chat host Ricardo Karam is a renowned author and broadcaster who has previously interviewed Bill Gates, Carlos Ghosn, Andre Agassi and the late Zaha Hadid, among others.
Intellectually curious and thought-provoking, Tonight’s Chat moves the conversation forward.
Known EU weapons transfers to Ukraine since the war began: Germany 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stinger surface-to-air missiles. Luxembourg 100 NLAW anti-tank weapons, jeeps and 15 military tents as well as air transport capacity. Belgium 2,000 machine guns, 3,800 tons of fuel. Netherlands 200 Stinger missiles. Poland 100 mortars, 8 drones, Javelin anti-tank weapons, Grot assault rifles, munitions. Slovakia 12,000 pieces of artillery ammunition, 10 million litres of fuel, 2.4 million litres of aviation fuel and 2 Bozena de-mining systems. Estonia Javelin anti-tank weapons. Latvia Stinger surface to air missiles. Czech Republic machine guns, assault rifles, other light weapons and ammunition worth $8.57 million.
Starring: Brie Larson, Samuel L Jackson, Jude Law, Ben Mendelsohn
4/5 stars
The Birkin bag is made by Hermès.
It is named after actress and singer Jane Birkin
Noone from Hermès will go on record to say how much a new Birkin costs, how long one would have to wait to get one, and how many bags are actually made each year.
