Other news

The Lebanon Business and Professional Women's Club in Lebanon organised the day before yesterday a first workshop on the ecosystem for entrepreneurship and management.  The workshop was facilitated by Dr. Sahar Al Sallab, a consultant and expert on finance and banking.  Some 48 businesswomen from different sector took part in the workshop and positively engaged with the presentation given by Al Sallab on how to develop their businesses. Al Sallab presented also five commercial, industrial and cultural projects which she assessed their feasibility before being submitted for adoption by the Arab Business Women Council as models of successful enterprises. Al Sallab concluded the workshop by distributing certificates to the attendees.
 
(Al-Mustaqbal & Al-Nahar 14 January, 2015)
 

 

Lebanese barrister, Nayla Komair Obaid, was elected to preside the Legal Arbitration Institute which includes more than 13000 members in some 127 countries.  The Institute was founded in England in 1915 and now enjoys 37 branches with headquarters in London.  The Institute is the first international scientific outfit in the areas of arbitration and conflict resolution. Obaid competed with 6 other contestants all specialised in international arbitration.  She is now the first Arab woman in that position and will be sworn in by 2017.
 (Source: L’Orient le Jour 31 December, 2014)

 

Safadi Foundation concluded yesterday a workshop to build the life, professional and entrepreneurship skills of workers and trainers in CSOs in North Lebanon.  The activity was implemented in collaboration with UNESCO.  For this occasion, a celebration was held at the Safadi Cultural Centre in Tripoli during which certificates were handed to the 42 participants in the training and who were chosen amongst organisations working on poverty and displacement.  The workshop was held over three days and aimed at developing ways of working with Syrian and Lebanese beneficiaries, and raising the awareness of practitioners about entrepreneurship so that they are more able to mitigate the negative social and economic impacts of displacement.
(Source: Al-Diyar and As-Safir 30 December 2014)

 

 The Cultural Bureau and the Southern Beqaa branch of Women Progressive Union (WPU) organised a seminar on Food Safety at Home.  The event was held at the Kamal Joumblat Cultural and Social Center in Rashayya under the auspices of the Minister of Public Health, Wael Abou Faour.  Nutrition expert, Hitaf Jamil Zuwayn, introduced food safety and food pollution and spoke about the most common biological, physical and chemical pollutants and the standards set by the WHO regarding food safety and how to prepare and store food.  In conclusion, Zuwayn advised participants to use honey, cinnamon and certain herbs and other products like mint, ginger, cumin, and garlic for food poisoning patients.
(Source: Al-Mustaqbal 29 December 2014)

 

The Legal Agenda organized its last seminar for 2014 and which was devoted to monitoring the performance of the judiciary in dealing with the most marginalized groups in Lebanon namely women, refugees, migrant workers, LGBT and people with substance abuse problems.
Speakers amongst the Legal Agenda team referred to a number of progressive court verdicts issued by judges in the courts of urgent matters, criminal and administrative justices and which resorted to out-of-the-box interpretations which are likely to bring justice to vulnerable groups.  This exercise showed how important it is for the judiciary to liberate itself from age old mindsets and engage in progressive interpretations as well as abide by international human rights treaties signed and ratified by Lebanon.
Lawyer Ghida Frangieh spoke during the session on the problematic of clause 534 of the penal code which speaks about “unnatural intercourse” which is punishable by 1 year in prison.  She noted a progressive verdict by Judge Naji Dahdah in which he exonerated a transsexual by saying that the penal code should be based on independent interpretations and that sexual intercourse is not only for the purpose of procreation. Lawyer Yumna Makhluf spoke about a verdict related to domestic violence and which was rendered in 2014 and which the extent to which the judiciary could overcome reservations simply by using its prerogatives.  Makhluf spoke about a number of pioneer verdicts which were taken prior to the endorsement of the domestic violence bill notably that of Judge Antoine Tohme who forbade a man from returning home where his wife and daughter lives despite the fact that he owns it as the judge gave primacy to the safety and security of the wife and daughter.
Researcher Sara Wansa spoke for her part on the ways in which judges dealt in a progressive ways with cases involving refugees and migrant workers as Judge Jad Maaluf ruled, based on the primacy of protecting migrant workers, for compelling an employer to return the passport to her domestic worker whose right to change her job was endorsed by the same judge despite the sponsorship system currently in force.
(Source: As-Safir 20 December 2014)