Beirut

When it comes to the coexistence of different cultures in one society, Frankfurt could learn a lot from Beirut. A walk through the city centre makes it clear. more ...

What stays with you when you travel to an eastern country for four weeks without a smidgeon of previous knowledge? Or the other way around: what will you notice most when you return home? more ...

The players of Safa Beirut put up a good fight against Muharraq, but only few people want to watch the football game. more ...

What will be? In ten or say 20 years. What will the towns, the big cities look like? Faceless metropolises, barely distinguishable due to the consequences of globalisation as feared by the architect and art historian Javier Maderuelo (Spain)? more ...

Ahmed is a taxi driver. No-one gets rich with this job in Germany – and definitely not in Lebanon. Ahmed has to provide for his family with three children by driving a taxi; two of his sons already go to school. more ...

Beirut smokes. In the car, the restaurant or the office. Blue smoke everywhere, and no-one is annoyed. The city is a true paradise for Europeans who are suffering from the ever more restrictive smoking ban. more ...

Marie and Siad want to get married. They are in the middle of the wedding preparations. They have already booked their flights to Cyprus. Cyprus? Yes, Cyprus, because the couple wants a civilian marriage, and that is not possible in Lebanon. more ...

Where can I find the prices here? Any European coming to the club district of Gemmayzeh inevitably asks this question. None of the perhaps two dozen restaurants has a price list on display at the door. The message seems to say money is no object for the people who come here. more ...

Low emission zone - as if! The people of Beirut could probably write a book about such half-hearted anti-pollution measures. The city does not make do as in Frankfurt with coloured badges and a zone that only covers half of the municipal area. more ...

US presidential candidate John McCain has just proved how it is possible to benefit from opinion polls. “He is playing with the fact that he is behind in the polls”, Professor Jawad Adra, director of the independent research group International Information, said during a discussion on the significance of opinion polls on Monday in the “Sociology Café” of AUB. more ...

If you are looking for a city guide to Beirut in German bookshops, pay attention to your pronunciation. “Bayreuth? Yes, we have it,” you may hear otherwise. It happened to me twice. There are yards of literature on the Wagner festival city, but hardly anything about the capital of Lebanon. more ...