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Lebanon's Social Issues

Lebanon is a very beautiful country and an important destination for tourism. Lebanon or as the bible called it once “The land of milk and honey”. Beirut is the capital of the country and it’s also nicknamed “Paris of the East”. Famous people are originally half Lebanese such as the well known Columbian artist “Shakira”. There are five countries which surround Lebanon which are: Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Cyprus & Palestine (Israel).

Several problems started to appear in Lebanon. In 1943-1948 after France got out from Lebanon the Christians took the balance of power in the country while Muslims haven’t much of a power back then, this caused some tensions between those two. The tension reached its limit in 1975 when a radical Christian group attacked a bus full of Palestinians and killed them. After this incident, some vengeful attacks were made as a respond for the Christians actions which led to more hate and no trust at all between Muslims and the other group.

After seven years, exactly in 1985 The Israeli army invaded Beirut to remove the Palestinians Liberation Organization as they said. All those wars and conflicts and wars in the city and in the country in general led to very serious and sad results. Between 150-200 thousand people were killed while 300 thousand were wounded, that goes for the human cost but as for the economic cost was very heavy and it actually was paralyzed for many years which stroke hard to the whole country. The peace has finally come in 1989 which put off the furious flames of war.

In the recent days, Lebanon began to recover from that savagery conflict which led to nothing but destruction and sadness. People came back to their homes after they left it because of the war. The buildings which were affected by the conflict are restored by the help of some other countries. The most important thing that tourism is finally revived and people now can enjoy everything in Beirut after the horror the city lived in the past several years. Tourists can relax and enjoy Skiing on the mountains, taking sunbath on the beach and also swim in the blue sea.

The problem that the country is handling now is there are some people who were born in Lebanon but they are not Lebanese, so they don’t have any citizen’s rights in the country which is a serious issue to them at least.

Conflict Diamond

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My Profile

Name: Khalid Ali Al Ameri ID: H00049471 Section: CYM

In the beginning, I’m 19 years old and going to turn 20 on the 28^th of May. I’m an Emirati who was born and live in Abu Dhabi which is one of the most beautiful cities of the world for me. My whole family was born in Abu Dhabi except for my father who was born in Al Ain.

I’m the eldest child beside the 3 sisters so that makes me kind of responsible for all the three of them and their action, I should advise them if I saw something wrong from any one of them. First I found this not fair to be blamed for something my sisters have done but with time passing I learnt to be patient and show some respect with my attitude.

When I was young, I lived in an apartment in Abu Dhabi, Al Salam St. to be specific. I can’t remember exactly how many years my family stayed there but what I do remember is that I had so much fun there especially when my cousin were around. We used to go out to play in gardens and also enjoy playing football. That was all my childhood was about.

I used to have good time spending time with my family. My father used to take us to the garden to play there and have a nice picnic; however, I don’t have the same fun as I used to have when I was a kid. Now, I enjoy going out with my friends because they are at the same age as me so we have a lot of things in common. Every weekend we go out to watch a movie at the cinema and just enjoy our time.

I remember once we went to Ski Dubai in Emirates mall, by that time I had just got my driving license so I was quite exciting. I and my friends left Abu Dhabi in the morning to Dubai. The best thing about going on a long trip with friends is that u don’t feel the time passes because of the nice talking and the laughter, so we just spent the 2 hours way like 10min. We had lunch and went to try Ski Dubai in the afternoon. We had a lot of fun there and spent a lot of time in there, we didn’t get out until 11pm. We returned home tired but happy with all the excitement we had.

The most thing I enjoy now a days is the family gathering. When I was young my father used to take me to that kind of gathering and his excuse was that I have to know my family, for me the only reason I went there is just to play with the other children. Now I got my father’s point about knowing my family because all my relatives know me very well while most of my cousins don’t know our extended family members. I’m glad that my father took me to those gatherings because my uncles always tell their sons about me and how all the family members know me well.

The World Diamond Trade

As some people say “Diamond girl’s best friend”, that’s kind of true but I can’t really say the same about men. Africa is the biggest continent producer for this rare material. This stone is so unique because it needs a very special conditions and also very long time to turn into the diamonds we know.

There are a lot of diamond mines in Africa so it’s normally a good place to set a diamond mining company. The biggest company in Africa is De Beers Consolidated Ltd. They got most of their diamonds from South Africa’s mines and they control about two thirds of the world’s rough diamonds trade. In the early 20th century this company kept the diamond’s price high because they controlled most the of the world’s supply.

Antwerp which is a city in Belgium was considered a diamond center for 600 years. The Jewish are the main dealers there beside also Indians. Recently, most of the polishers had left Antwerp to work in India because it’s much cheaper and they get 40cent per gem so now there are only 1500 left. In this city 80% of the world’s rough diamonds pass through this city. Rough diamonds come from several places such as Antwerp and Tel viv.

Now Dubai has a growing Reputation as a diamond hub. It gives the world diamond dealers a great chance to have zero tax for the next 50 years so that should attract a lot of people. The business in Dubai now is worth nearly 1 billion Euros so it’s really a growing force.

Pop stars in USA buy a lot of diamonds especially the African American ones, to show off in front of the people or just to create their own style as they say.