News

Nearly five years ago, 40 percent of barred Lebanese food and beverage exports were denied entry into North America, Europe and the Gulf region under the pretext of irregularities in packaging and labeling, according to a study by the Economy Ministry.
However, by 2012, this percentage has fallen considerably as many Lebanese producers have become more focused on the importance of packaging and labeling, which are seen as crucial requirements to enter markets abroad according to Soha Atallah.
The Lebanese Packaging Center, LibanPack is a nonprofit private-sector association founded in November 2007 with the support of United Nation Industrial Development Organization-Market Access and Compliance for Lebanese Export and funded by Switzerland.
Atallah said the major objective of LibanPack is to raise awareness among Lebanese industrialists on the importance of complying with international standards for packaging and labeling in a bid to increase the competitiveness of Lebanese products in export markets. (The Daily Star)

Geryes and his wife Aida have been making traditional baladi goat cheese, yogurt (laban) and labneh for some two decades, selling the dairy products – along with produce and honey – at the Abu Khalil market in Tripoli and Souk el-Tayeb in Beirut.

They own a farm as a family business where they produce organic cheese, yogurt, labneh and milk. (The Daily Star)

The National Committee for Women Affairs launched a national strategy for women in Lebanon at the Law Faculty of the Lebanese University in Hadath. The event was attended by the committee’s President Wafaa Sleiman, Vice President Randa Birri, MP Gilberte Zouein, and MP Shant Janajian in addition to former ministers, Mona Ofeich and Wafa al-Dika Hamzeh and former MP Maha Khoury al-Assad and the head of the press syndicate, Mohammad Baalbaki and others. (The Daily Star)

 

New women cadets, numbering 600, began training in March, and still have another four months to go until they can graduate as sergeants.
The new recruits will carry out the same duties as their male counterparts and have received identical training.
The program falls under the U.S. Civilian Police mission, which aims at supporting “the development of the ISF into a modern professional police force that is capable of protecting Lebanon’s borders, defending its sovereignty, and serving and protecting all of Lebanon’s citizens.” (The Daily Star)


 

Since the founding of the Al-Manar channel in the early 1990s, non-veiled women have rarely been featured there. The channel was lenient at the beginning but it recently issued an administrative decision indicating that  non-veiled women cannot be featured except for some specific cases.

The Ministry of Tourism has opened the summer beach season by banning resorts from discriminating on the basis of race, nationality or disability, but reports of bias in entry policies persist and some owners appear unwilling to conform to the new regulations knowing that the issue of racism at Lebanon’s popular beach clubs is not new. (The Daily Star)
 

Me, her, and the others is the title of a recently published novel by Jana al-Hassan. The novel was published by the Arab House for Sciences – Publishers. It sketches an image of the failed social relations that controls its people. The author discusses her own vision of the society that pushed her to write this novel. She believes that society always dumps the responsibility of upbringing the children on the mother while the father is not held accountable. Women are portrayed as the prototype of tenderness at times; and as the provider of education and upbringing at other times. Meanwhile, the father’s role is rarely discussed outside the framework of the “supporter” although our societies do need a larger emotional part to be played by the father in general in order to a better and more effective communication between the fathers and their children.

 

The supporters of the proportionate electoral law marched side by side. They roamed in Beirut’s downtown district all the way to Riadh al-Solh Square. The proportionate law is all that the protestors were calling for. They declared their rejection of the 1960 law and the “campaign” stressed on allowing the youths between 18 and 21 years old to vote; and allowing the Lebanese living abroad to vote in the country of their residence and enhancing women’s representation through a women’s quota; in addition to other basic reform actions.

Original text in Arabic: Assafir
 

A field research study conducted by the UNESCO on the job opportunities for women and women’s participation in the market after graduation showed that university graduates still prefer to major in social studies and humanities. The families of female students still have influence in determining their choices in the selection of their major. The study noted that female graduates need professional guidance and training. The study further stressed on the importance of dealing with the socio-cultural restraints that hinder the work of the female graduates, and on the cooperation of the authorities in order to develop a system that helps creating job opportunities for the female graduates.