On an expanse of rocky ground, dotted with small patches of scrub, fragments of train track, long since stained brown with rust, run horizontally along the earth before curving suddenly up towards the blue sky. Amid a peaceful landscape, the remains of an old railway line, twisted and torn off at both ends, resemble relics from a forgotten era, as ancient and incongruous as dinosaur bones. A second section of rail stands on its side like a skeletal picket fence, mirroring the framing curves of the mountains on the horizon.
This striking photograph, taken in the Bekaa Valley in 1998, in many ways distils the blend of insight and artistry to be found in Passing Time, a new book featuring 160 photographs by Lebanese photographer Fouad Elkoury. Taken in Lebanon between 1967 and 2017, they create a multi-faceted portrait of a country changing and evolving over 50 years.
It took eight months to select the images in Passing Time from an archive of more than 50,000 negatives. Elkoury collaborated with Lebanese art historian and photographer Gregory Buchakjian and writer, editor and actor Manal Khader, both of whom provide accompanying essays reflecting on the significance and nature of Elkoury's work.
The result is a comprehensive yet necessarily subjective reflection on Lebanon. In particular, it provides insight into the shifting urban fabric of Beirut and the ways in which it was forever altered by the 1975-90 civil war and subsequent reconstruction – a process that, for the photographer, was synonymous with destruction.
Born in Paris in 1952, Elkoury is a self-taught photographer who grew up in Lebanon before moving to live in France in the mid-1980s, during the civil war. The photographs selected for this book – the most comprehensive collection of his work to date – mark his time in Lebanon before and during the early years of the war, followed by his return to the country in 1991.
Elkoury's most famous series, Beirut City Centre, dates from this period, when he was commissioned to photograph the ruins of downtown Beirut along with five prominent international photographers, including Robert Frank.
Passing Time reveals the continuity of style and subject matter that extends throughout Elkoury's career, revealing his fascination with the changing architecture of the city and the traces left by war – a subject that interests him far more deeply than the mechanics of conflict itself.
“Fouad Elkoury is not a war photographer, as he is sometimes categorised,” writes Khader in her introduction. “Elkoury is a photographer of intimacy.” From photographs of his siblings in the mountains of Lebanon in the 1960s, to a stunning black-and-white shot capturing the pulverised remains of the Kitkat nightclub in 1991, its chequered floor covered with rubble and rainwater that reflects the open sky, his images are haunting because of the timeless emotion they convey.
The opening images, which include a shot of his brother diving into clear water, show that, even as a child, Elkoury had an eye for composition and a grasp of the significance of a singular moment. Having qualified as an architect, his later images betray a fascination with buildings. Unlike the images of a photojournalist, who sets out to capture moments of high drama, Elkoury’s is concerned with the traces humans leave on the landscape and the quiet moments that convey a more lasting truth.
“Elkoury is a seeker of emotions, sensations, of one angle or viewpoint countered by another,” write Buchakjian. “Many of his strongest images have one thing in common: they are inhabited by people telling stories.”
One such photograph, taken in 1982, captures a woman in a white dress carrying bags of shopping across the Green Line dividing East and West Beirut. The desolation of the landscape around her – littered with fragments of rubble, lampposts pockmarked with bullet holes and trees whose branches have been blown off – is accentuated by the delicacy of her shoes, white stilettos with a fragile ankle strap more suitable for a party than a war zone.
It is moments of vulnerability or individuality such as this that characterise Elkoury’s photographs of the war years. Between 1977 and 1985 he travelled all over the country, capturing women on a peaceful picnic in Baalbek, the war seemingly a million miles away on a sunny summer’s day, or the pristine snowy slopes of mountains surrounding the Bekaa Valley, or the derelict remains of buildings in Downtown, their empty windows gaping in facades disfigured by war.
His images of Downtown mark the beginning of a three-part story. Those taken during the war and in its immediate aftermath reveal the eerie beauty of the buildings as they were after more than a decade of conflict.
In the mid-1990s, the development company Solidere began its reconstruction of Downtown. A massive programme of demolition paved the way for the project, essentially the total destruction and reinvention of the historic heart of the city. A short text by Elkoury – who is known to be shy and for the most part declines to discuss his work – reveals the obsessive passion that drove him to document this destruction in an attempt to save what he could of the past while holding to account “the people who stole Beirut from me”.
Between 1994 and 1997 (when he was prevented from continuing by Solidere’s security guards), Elkoury visited Downtown every day. The speed of the demolition left him racing to keep up. “Whereas I had refused to cover the front during the war years, preferring day-to-day life, paradoxically here, when there was no war on – quite the contrary, these were heady years when each week a new nightclub opened – I had to work at top speed,” he recalls.
The result is a series of photographs that show land flattened by bulldozers, the past almost totally erased. One of the most striking images from this period, entitled Solidere State, captures a block of concrete inscribed with the Arabic word "Beirut", placed in the foreground. Behind it, a wild dog runs across an empty expanse of land. In the distance, a few buildings remain standing amid a sea of flattened earth.
A final series taken in Downtown, shot with Solidere's permission in 2009 and 2010, completes the trilogy. These photographs capture reflections in the endless expanses of glass that replaced Beirut's old stone buildings. Confusing the viewer with two images merged into one, they capture soulless lobbies and empty shops overlaid with reflections of road, sky and a few lonely trees. With Downtown's original streets and landmarks destroyed, Elkoury mimics Solidere's approach, replacing names with numbers. The photographs in this series lack his usual evocative titles, instead carrying names such as Taken from Lot 967 or View of Lot 961.
Not all of Elkoury’s photographs are immediately striking as masterpieces of subject matter or composition. But, as Buchakjian notes in his essay, even those that might appear mundane at first glance have a story to tell, many of them documenting landmarks in Lebanon that no longer exist, from cinemas and nightclubs to restaurants and art galleries.
Like Elkoury’s photograph of the old train tracks, which conveys so much about Lebanon’s history and the war that left its infrastructure in tatters and its railway line in fragments, never to be repaired, these photographs combine a sense of loss and nostalgia with an ability to spot beauty in unlikely places.
A powerful collection that reflects on memory, history and transition, Passing Time is a moving, thought-provoking and visually stunning exploration of Lebanon over half a century of swift and irreversible change.
___________________
Read more:
New Beirut river exhibition, Under-Writing Beirut is flooded with insight
Art brings 'peace' to battle-scarred Lebanon districts
Zena El Khalil on how her exhibition at Lebanon’s first museum will lead to forgiveness, compassion and love
___________________
Anti-semitic attacks
The annual report by the Community Security Trust, which advises the Jewish community on security , warned on Thursday that anti-Semitic incidents in Britain had reached a record high.
It found there had been 2,255 anti-Semitic incidents reported in 2021, a rise of 34 per cent from the previous year.
The report detailed the convictions of a number of people for anti-Semitic crimes, including one man who was jailed for setting up a neo-Nazi group which had encouraged “the eradication of Jewish people” and another who had posted anti-Semitic homemade videos on social media.
In numbers
1,000 tonnes of waste collected daily:
- 800 tonnes converted into alternative fuel
- 150 tonnes to landfill
- 50 tonnes sold as scrap metal
800 tonnes of RDF replaces 500 tonnes of coal
Two conveyor lines treat more than 350,000 tonnes of waste per year
25 staff on site
WWE TLC results
Asuka won the SmackDown Women's title in a TLC triple threat with Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair
Dean Ambrose won the Intercontinental title against Seth Rollins
Daniel Bryan retained the WWE World Heavyweight Championship against AJ Styles
Ronda Rousey retained the Raw Women's Championship against Nia Jax
Rey Mysterio beat Randy Orton in a chairs match
Finn Balor defeated Drew McIntyre
Natalya beat Ruby Riott in a tables match
Braun Strowman beat Baron Corbin in a TLC match
Sheamus and Cesaro retained the SmackDown Tag Titles against The Usos and New Day
R-Truth and Carmella won the Mixed Match Challenge by beating Jinder Mahal and Alicia Fox
UK-EU trade at a glance
EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years
Co-operation on security initiatives and procurement of defence products
Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries
Smoother border management with use of e-gates
Cutting red tape on import and export of food
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UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
The biog
Hometown: Cairo
Age: 37
Favourite TV series: The Handmaid’s Tale, Black Mirror
Favourite anime series: Death Note, One Piece and Hellsing
Favourite book: Designing Brand Identity, Fifth Edition
India squads
T20: Rohit Sharma (c), Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Sanju Samson, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Rishabh Pant, Washington Sundar, Krunal Pandya, Yuzvendra Chahal, Rahul Chahar, Deepak Chahar, Khaleel Ahmed, Shivam Dube, Shardul Thakur
Test: Virat Kohli (c), Rohit Sharma, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Hanuma Vihari, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant
Mina Cup winners
Under 12 – Minerva Academy
Under 14 – Unam Pumas
Under 16 – Fursan Hispania
Under 18 – Madenat
Company profile
Company name: Suraasa
Started: 2018
Founders: Rishabh Khanna, Ankit Khanna and Sahil Makker
Based: India, UAE and the UK
Industry: EdTech
Initial investment: More than $200,000 in seed funding
Volvo ES90 Specs
Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp
Torque: 480Nm, 670Nm, 870Nm
On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region
Price: Exact regional pricing TBA
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
ENGLAND SQUAD
Goalkeepers Henderson, Johnstone, Pickford, Ramsdale
Defenders Alexander-Arnold, Chilwell, Coady, Godfrey, James, Maguire, Mings, Shaw, Stones, Trippier, Walker, White
Midfielders Bellingham, Henderson, Lingard, Mount, Phillips, Rice, Ward-Prowse
Forwards Calvert-Lewin, Foden, Grealish, Greenwood, Kane, Rashford, Saka, Sancho, Sterling, Watkins
EA Sports FC 25
Developer: EA Vancouver, EA Romania
Publisher: EA Sports
Consoles: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4&5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S
Rating: 3.5/5
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
What is graphene?
Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged like honeycomb.
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were "playing about" with sticky tape and graphite - the material used as "lead" in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But as they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment had led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
At the time, many believed it was impossible for such thin crystalline materials to be stable. But examined under a microscope, the material remained stable, and when tested was found to have incredible properties.
It is many times times stronger than steel, yet incredibly lightweight and flexible. It is electrically and thermally conductive but also transparent. The world's first 2D material, it is one million times thinner than the diameter of a single human hair.
But the 'sticky tape' method would not work on an industrial scale. Since then, scientists have been working on manufacturing graphene, to make use of its incredible properties.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Their discovery meant physicists could study a new class of two-dimensional materials with unique properties.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Learn more about Qasr Al Hosn
In 2013, The National's History Project went beyond the walls to see what life was like living in Abu Dhabi's fabled fort:
West Asia rugby, season 2017/18 - Roll of Honour
Western Clubs Champions League - Winners: Abu Dhabi Harlequins; Runners up: Bahrain
Dubai Rugby Sevens - Winners: Dubai Exiles; Runners up: Jebel Ali Dragons
West Asia Premiership - Winners: Jebel Ali Dragons; Runners up: Abu Dhabi Harlequins
UAE Premiership Cup - Winners: Abu Dhabi Harlequins; Runners up: Dubai Exiles
UAE Premiership - Winners: Dubai Exiles; Runners up: Abu Dhabi Harlequins
'Moonshot'
Director: Chris Winterbauer
Stars: Lana Condor and Cole Sprouse
Rating: 3/5
more from Janine di Giovanni
First Person
Richard Flanagan
Chatto & Windus
Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh158,000 (Cooper), Dh168,000 (Aceman), Dh190,000 (Countryman)
MORE ON INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE
The five pillars of Islam
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'The worst thing you can eat'
Trans fat is typically found in fried and baked goods, but you may be consuming more than you think.
Powdered coffee creamer, microwave popcorn and virtually anything processed with a crust is likely to contain it, as this guide from Mayo Clinic outlines:
Baked goods - Most cakes, cookies, pie crusts and crackers contain shortening, which is usually made from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Ready-made frosting is another source of trans fat.
Snacks - Potato, corn and tortilla chips often contain trans fat. And while popcorn can be a healthy snack, many types of packaged or microwave popcorn use trans fat to help cook or flavour the popcorn.
Fried food - Foods that require deep frying — french fries, doughnuts and fried chicken — can contain trans fat from the oil used in the cooking process.
Refrigerator dough - Products such as canned biscuits and cinnamon rolls often contain trans fat, as do frozen pizza crusts.
Creamer and margarine - Nondairy coffee creamer and stick margarines also may contain partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.
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