Women's Nationality Campaign

The movement to grant women in Lebanon equal rights compared with their men compatriots especially when it comes to nationality issues has just gained some ground.

The council of ministers has just approved a law that allows men married to Lebanese women and their children the right to get permanent residency status in Lebanon. (Relevant law can be found here. Link is in Arabic, bullet point #12. You can also find a video explaining all this here.)

While the new law is a step forward for women and their rights in Lebanon, it still falls short of the full implementation of the law that should grant full rights to all citizens of Lebanon, including the right to transfer citizenship to spouses and children. We here at BetLZ have touched on this subject before, here, here, here, and here.

Albeit a small step towards full rights for women under the law, we congratulate the government for its courageous step in the right direction.

BG

BetLZ News 3.4.10

oooooo! Some REALLY REALLY cool/exciting news for today!:

48 hours in Beirut / Business 24-7
Follow Colin Simpson in his 48 hours in Beirut, and pick up some ideas of your own for when you visit!

Women wed to foreigners want rights for their children and husbands / LA Times
An excellent cause!! Plus, see the Campaign video below:



High Heels, Hot Clubs, War Ruins Mark Trip to Sea-Washed Beirut / Bloomberg
Bloomberg reporter Michael Luongo heads to Beirut and tells you what we already know: its the coolest city in the world.

Billionaire Wins Retrial in Killing of Lebanese Pop Star Suzanne Tamim / ABC News
Are you kidding me?? Are you kidding me???? Retrial of the case that found the Egyptian billionaire that killed Suzanne Tamim guilty??? Billionaires are not above the law!! The good news is that he stays in jail at least until the end of the retrial

A domestic tragedy / The National
Plight of the Ethiopians in Lebanon after the plane crash

The Beirut Shahnameh / Iranian.com
About an 12th-13th century AD manuscript discovered five years ago in Beirut

~LZ

Score one for the ladies! #2

It is indeed a good week for women in the Middle East!
Now, mind you lot's of work still needs to be done but there has been a few stories that are encouraging.

The first one comes out of Syria where Bashar Al Assad has decreed that men convicted of honor killings should get harsher sentences. Get this though, he increased their sentence from a 1 year to a whopping 2 year imprisonment! Still a ludicrous sentence for murder, but better than nothing I guess!
LINK

The second one comes out of Egypt where the government has finally done something about the rampant sexual harassment woman experience on a daily basis. This apparently had been a recurring problem in Egypt where woman just don't feel safe on the streets. A sexual perpetrator had been charged with 45 years in prison. A tough and very much needed sentence.
LINK

Both these stories are welcome developments coming out of the Middle East where women still lag considerably behind men when it comes to their rights and social equalities.

BG

Photoshop, Middle Eastern style! 2

I am loving this whole photoshoping Middle Eastern thing!

Now the Jews are doing it! Maybe it is genetic after all, like a ME trait or something.

Apparently a bunch of ultra-orthodox yahudis have a problem with women's photos, or maybe just women in general. Two newspapers in Israel cropped out the photos of the two female ministers in Bibi's new government and replaced them with two men.

I wonder who these guys are?

Here's the link

BG

PMS-ing

This is a very interesting article.

Back to basic bio!

It would have been nice if that BBC article had a corresponding curve with women's shopping habits. I know i'd like to see one. There must a parallel study for male behavior too.

BG