Lebanon
All countries-
Project: ″Music Spaces in the Arab World″
Between the pots and pans
The Arabic music scene is booming. The Goethe-Institut is therefore creating new spaces and networking opportunities for local artists. Living rooms and kitchens from Tunis to Baghdad are being converted into concert halls. The Musikraum project showcases the sound of Middle Eastern indie-pop between the pots and pans and reveals what it is that Sudanese girl groups sing about. By Friederike van Stephaudt
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Only rust remains at Rayak: Lebanon′s railway heritage
In August 1895, the first steam locomotive departed from the port city of Beirut, crossed the rugged terrain of Lebanon′s Bekaa valley and arrived in Damascus. Back then, Lebanon was the first country in the Arab world to have a railroad and one of the world′s first train factories in Rayak – a Lebanese border town located six kilometres from Syria. Impressions by Changiz M. Varzi
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Arab Puppet Theatre Foundation
One thousand sinking dinghies
The silent puppet performance ″One Thousand and One Titanics″ creatively combines traditional performing techniques such as shadow and glove puppetry with pantomime, music and dance to tell the story of those displaced by war and conflict. By Changiz M. Varzi
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Noam Chomsky in interview
Obama's sangfroid
Former MIT professor and philosopher Noam Chomsky is widely regarded as one of the world's leading intellectuals. Undoubtedly, Chomsky's word has weight. Emran Feroz interviewed him on Barack Obama's political legacy in the Middle East, the deal with Iran and the refugee crisis
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Novelist and critic Elias Khoury
The nightmare of reality
The Lebanese novelist and critic, Elias Khoury, examines the nature of writing in a world rent repeatedly by violence and vicious conflict – and finds hope
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Saudi-Iranian rivalry
And the winner is...
A cold war is waging in one of the world′s hottest regions. A key component of the sectarian competition between Shia and Sunni Islam in the Middle East is geopolitical, with Iran facing off against Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies in a struggle for regional dominance. By Robert Harvey
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Lebanon′s architectural heritage
A race against time
Old Beirut is slowly dying. Remnants of the Lebanese capital′s architectural heritage have survived two world wars, fifteen years of civil war, the 2006 Summer War, as well as hundreds of car bombings, suicide attacks and assassinations. Yet now, writes Changiz Varzi, there′s a new, inexorable threat: real estate development
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Romantic comedy Middle Eastern-style
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Interview with Hamed Sinno, frontman of Mashrou’ Leila
Flouting Arab pop convention
Mashrou' Leila is the most popular indie rock band in the Middle East – and the most controversial. Singing about politics and gay desire, they have faced bans in various countries. Yet at the same time they are becoming increasingly popular in Europe and the U.S. Ceyda Nurtsch talked to them about checkpoints, indie rock music and cliches
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Pew Research Center: Islam and national laws in the Muslim world
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Syrian refugees in Lebanon
The house of 18 women
Domestic violence, sexual abuse and child marriage – when Syrian women in Lebanon don't know where to turn, they can find refuge at the women's shelter "Al Dar". A visit to the Bekaa Valley. By Iris Mostegel
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Interview with the Islamic scholar Ebrahim Moosa
The reinvention of Islam
Concepts like apostasy or blasphemy reveal that Islamic theology is caught in a mode of imperial Islamic political thinking, says US-based scholar Ebrahim Moosa. What is needed is a process of critical appraisal. Moosa asks that Muslims rediscover the great lessons of diversity in their history rather than following the reductionist versions that masquerade as Muslim theology today. Interview by Claudia Mende