As part of the festive of Batroun International Festival 2010, the hottest Lebanese Diva Haifa Wehbe along with the Lebanese comedy phenomenon Bassem Fghali held a memorable night in Batroun, in Northern Lebanon. The crowds sang along the Lebanese beauty and enjoyed the best of her hits. Bassem was another twist of the nights with some of his best sketches and imitations to Lebanese and Arab characters.

Environment Minister Mohammad Rahhal visited a factory in the Batroun district village of Kubba to inspect its ecological standards as per his ministry’s strategy, NOW Lebanon’s correspondent reported on Tuesday.

Rahhal also called for the cabinet to issue an environmental decree to avoid any upcoming problems in Lebanon’s ecology.

The Batroun International Festival 2010 presented the Gregorian National Ballet ‘Sukhishvili’ as part of this years program. The show was attended by H.E Lebanese Minister of Tourism Fadi Abboud, H.E Lebanese Minister of Electricty & Water Gibran Basil and a number of senior officials.

The Georgian national ballet was the first professional state dance company in Georgia. Founded by Iliko Sukhishvili and Nino Ramishvili in 1945, it was initially named as the Georgian state dance company. Thanks to this company the Georgian national dancing and music has become known in many parts of the world.

Throughout its history the Georgian National Ballet has appeared at the Albert Hall, The Coliseum, The Metropolitan Opera and Madison Square Garden, among others. In 1967, La Scala welcomed them – reportedly the first and the only time a folklore group was given a chance to perform on its stage.

The costumes are designed by Simon (Soliko) Virsaladze (1908-1989). Currently, the founders’ son Tengiz Sukhishvili is the Artistic Director and General manager of The Georgian National Ballet. His spouse Ms. Inga Tevzadze is also a former dancer, now a ballet master. Iliko Sukhishvili Jr. is a chief choreographer of the Georgian National Ballet today. Nino Sukhishvili is a deputy-manager and costume designer.

The Georgian National Ballet has seventy dancers and a small orchestra.

A performance by the Georgian National Ballet’s dancers in which the female dancers, wearing long skirts, appeared to glide across the floor was an inspiration for writer Terry Nation in creating the Daleks for the television series Doctor Who.

Excavations at Tell Fadous-Kfarabida reveal secrets and lifestyles of inhabitants of coastal trading village

KFARABIDA: The site of Tell Fadous-Kfarabida was nearly destroyed by a bulldozer in 2004. Fortunately for posterity, an American University of Beirut (AUB) graduate student spotted pottery shards and the remains of an ancient wall amid the dirt.

This marked the beginning of the Tell Fadous-Kfarabida dig. Here, under the watchful eye of AUB archeology professor Hermann Genz, who has been overseeing the dig since 2004, students have been excavating for four weeks every summer. A treasure trove of artifacts have been unearthed.

Tell Fadous-Kfarabida is located near the village of Kfar Abida, about 2 kilometers south of Batroun, covering around 1.5 hectares of land.

It was occupied from around 3,000 to 1,800 BC by unknown people of the Bronze Age, in what is now known as Lebanon.

“Every time I show people this site, they ask me about the Phoenicians,” Genz joked. “Everybody wants to know about Phoenicians.”

Tell Fadous-Kfarabida was probably one of the many satellite territories of Byblos, providing the city with goods such as wine, olives, and animal products – used for consumption and, perhaps more importantly, for trade.

“If you’ve ever tasted modern Egyptian wine,” remarked Genz, “then you know why the Egyptians wanted to import wine from places like Tell Fadous-Kfarabida.”

Definitive proof of the site’s history of regional trade was found when a piece of clay with a lion stamped on it was discovered – a seal which has also been found in items traded around Byblos.

Though Tell Fadous-Kfarabida was by no means large enough to be an independent political entity, it nevertheless seems to have been much more than a simple coastal village.

“We have found stone bases of columns,” said Genz, “indicating the possibility of multi-storey housing, which is rare for the Bronze Age and might even be a first in this region.”

Ancient foundations show that some structures were up to 15 meters long, which may indicate the presence of temples or other public buildings such as palaces or barracks.

Three tombs have also been discovered. One of the skeletons was sent back to AUB for closer examination, and was found to be a 35-year-old male who probably died of an ear infection.

The newest tomb contains a skeleton buried inside a village home, indicating that it came from the Middle Bronze Age, when the dead were often buried inside the settlement rather than on the outside.

“This could have reflected religious beliefs,” said Genz, “or even issues of property.”

Questions still linger over the sudden abandonment of Tell Fadous-Kfarabida in 1,800 BC. No direct evidence of armed conflict has so far been found at the site.

“The fact the there is a fortification system means that warfare was a constant danger,” Genz suggests. Interestingly, small pots full of food were found lying around, suggesting that residents of the town left unplanned and in a hurry.

“If people leave, they take small stuff with them and usually only leave rubbish,” said Genz. The Levant was a region that many empires  – such as the Egyptians and the Assyrians – tried to control, and it is therefore possible that Tell Fadous-Kfarabida had a violent end.

Genz and his team have posited another theory for Tell Fadous-Kfarabida’s downfall, one that might delight Al Gore: environmental catastrophe. “Deforestation,” said Genz, “which likely started at the same time trade did in around 3,000 BC, may have progressively lowered the water table until the settlement became unlivable.” Extended periods of drought may have left Tell Fadous-Kfarabida’s citizens with no choice but to leave.

Ultimately, Genz believes, Tell Fadous-Kfarabida’s real treasure does not lie in the various tombs or precious items that have been found since excavations began.

“What is so special about Tell Fadous-Kfarabida,” Genz said, “is that it shows many vivid aspects of daily life in the Bronze Age, and with the evidence, we can piece together a good picture of what life in the Bronze Age was really like.”

Read more:http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=4&article_id=117122#ixzz0u3iIGA4n
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

The National News Agency (NNA) reported on Tuesday that 19-year-old Selena George Issa was found near the Chekka tunnel in North Lebanon severely beaten.

She was kidnapped from the town of Hamat, near Chekka, by two men who hit her and then threw her near the tunnel thinking she had died, according to the NNA.

Issa was transported to the Batroun Hospital.

The Batroun International Festival 2010 organizing committee announced the program for this summer. The announcement was made in attendance of H.E Fadi Abboud, Minister of Tourism, H.E Gebran Bassil Minister of Water and Energy, and H.E Ms. Nada Sardoock, Director General of Ministry of Tourism.

Mr. Faris Al Jammal, Head of the Batroun International Festival Committee announced the details of the program for this year:

July 15-16th, 2010: The Georgian National Dance Team

July 17th, 2010: Pamela Korsteen, Pop Mog musician “Digital Dreamer”

July 22nd, 2010: Haifa Wehbe, The Lebanese Diva

July 30, 2010: Electro Acoustic Wave Form

July 31st, 2010: Lebanese Superstar Ragheb Alameh

August 6th, 2010: Open Air Party

August 27-28, 2010: Gebran…. A Painting of a Life time: A Musical Play

Mr. Al Jamal also highlighted the side events that will take place alongside the festival including Portrait de la vie exhibition for the international artist Carlos Frere, Photography competition between the university students titled “Lebanon that I love and that I dont love”. Mr. Al Jamal concluded by calling upon Lebanese and tourists to spend four Sundays in the city and enjoy the best site seeing, and the cultural heritage of the city.

BEIRUT- “Batroun will regain its tourist aspect” said Tourism Minister Fadi Abboud during the launching of “Batroun International Festival” at the ministry of Tourism in Hamra in the presence of Energy Minister Gebran Bassil.
As for Bassil he assured that Lebanon is about to witness a new phase and a new theatrical activity on the theme of literary power of Gebran Khalil Gebran.

In Batroun, preliminary results indicated the victory of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM)-backed electoral list in the city while March 14 Forces were leading in most of the district’s towns.

A heated battle with a 53.5 percent voter turnout pitted FPM-backed incumbent mayor Marcelinio al-Hark against former MP Sayed Aql, who was supported by the LF, amid reciprocal accusations of vote buying and pressure against voters.

While the presence of FPM and Marada Movement partisans was obvious in the streets of Batroun with their supporters touring the city’s neighborhoods, no flags or slogans indicative of LF supporters were spotted by The Daily Star.

“Bassil has the right to file objections while the FPM gets all its money from Iran; we do not pay people because we have no money and we do not buy votes,” Aql said, a reference to the FPM’s alliance with Hizbullah, a close ally to Iran.

For his part, Bassil said that Batroun residents would vote against militias stressing that “it is not a secret who was responsible for provoking problems in Batroun.”

Batroun MP and LF official Antoine Zahra slammed Bassil for attempting to intimidate the city’s residents to win votes.

“Bassil who claimed that people were pressured to vote under the threat of arms should first break his alliance with the only Lebanese militia – that is Hizbullah,” he added.

In the  village of Abrine, the FPM-backed list won against the LF list, exit polls showed.

In a town that will see “the mother of all battles,” the mood is anything but militant.

Just days before Sunday’s municipal elections in Batroun, the atmosphere was as calm and breezy as the sunny, late-spring day. Near the center of town, in fact, hung a left-over, billboard-sized advert from last year’s parliamentary elections.

Bleached white by the sun, the portrait of Gebran Bassil still smiles on passersby from the side of a building. Bassil failed in his bid for parliament then, and, although he’s not even running for the municipal council, he is nonetheless an important figure in the coming election.

Bassil is a Batroun native, and the son-in-law of Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun. He currently works as the Minister of Energy and Water, and his party is this year backing the list of one of his former rivals.

In 2004 Bassil made his second unsuccessful run for Batroun’s municipal council facing a list headed by the town’s current mayor, Marcelino al-Hark, who, at the time, was backed by Batroun’s then-most prominent politician, Said Akl. That political reality, however, is gone.

A few months after Hark and his list won the municipality, his ally Akl took a serious political hit on the national level. Akl, 83, was first elected to parliament in 1968. When the civil war ended, he was close to the Syrians, an ally of Marada Movement leader Sleiman Franjieh and at odds with the Lebanese Forces. He returned to parliament in 1992, 1996 and 2000.

In 2005, however, Franjieh chose Bassil instead of Akl for his list of northern MPs, which lost to a list supported by the then-nascent March 14 coalition. Akl has voted with March 14 since.

This year Akl is the chosen mayor of a list allied with March 14 running against a list headed by the incumbent Hark, itself backed by the FPM. Jurji Rustom, Batroun’s campaign coordinator for the FPM, told NOW Lebanon that the party has been impressed with Hark’s leadership and the good he has done for the town, so they are supporting the man they ran against six years ago.

Georgina Assal, a candidate on Akl’s list, told NOW Lebanon the opposite about Hark’s leadership, and both sides blamed the other for the breakdown of consensus talks. The resulting dynamic is an interesting one, making the outcome difficult to predict.

In last June’s parliamentary elections, the FPM list lost the district but won the town of Batroun by a wide margin – figures from the Ministry of Interior show Bassil and Fayek Younes received 4,229 votes against 1,954 for March 14 candidates Boutros Harb and Antoine Zahra.

That said, municipal elections are often very different than national elections with prominent families holding more sway than political parties. The Akl and Daou families, both locally prominent and historically involved in national politics, are running together against Hark. However, with Bassiland Harb recently trading barbs about who is and who is not interfering in the race, it seems that national tensions and rivalries are creeping in to this local contest.

Both sides predicted a win and rejected the analysis of a local restaurateur, who told NOW Lebanon the city is divided and most voters will pick and choose candidates from both lists instead of voting strictly with one side or the other.

Labor Minister Boutros Harb told the Voice of Lebanon radio station on Monday that “Batroun is not real estate that is possible to buy and sell.”

Energy Minister Gebran Bassil told An-Nahar newspaper two weeks ago that Batroun would probably witness an electoral showdown, adding that opponents of the Free Patriotic Movement had been holding night-time meetings in Batroun that aimed to interfere in the elections and obstruct consensus, a reference to Harb.

Harb also told the radio station that “[we] welcome Gebran Bassil to the world of politics on the basis that [he was] a minister who was appointed. However, he has yet to be elected as an MP.”

The labor minister said that his attempts to reach consensus in his hometown of Tannourine in the Batroun district failed, adding that it would now be up to voters to choose members for the municipal council during the elections set for May 30.