Janoubia is an independent website that keeps pace with all developments on the local, regional and international levels, offering a modern and vibrant media experience.
Ever since its establishment, the website tried to preserve its own identity and to bring to light restricted topics that were scarcely tackled. Topics in Janoubia are usually highlighted in an objective criticism tonality.
On weekly basis, the website offers a variety of topics and articles for its readers, including political, social, economic themes and entertainment. This week, the website offered its audience highlights on the most controversial topics domestically, mainly the spoiled meet scandal, the closure of beauty institutions in Lebanon, as well as a regional highlight on the debate circulating around the knife attack in Jerusalem, presenting different points of view regarding the topic.
As for the spoiled meat scandal, Hassan Hammoud, a writer in Janoubia , asked the specialized physician Dr. Yaakoub Khodor about the presence of any link between the spoiled food and the cases of poisoning in Lebanon or other diseases. The physician said that there hasn’t been any reports about shocking poisonings. He also denied that the spoiled meat was behind the spread of cancer in Lebanon, saying: “That is not true, the phosphorus uranium- enriched bombs, which the Israeli enemy threw during the July 2006 war on the country are one of the reasons for the spread of this insidious disease, it has nothing to do with spoiled food. Spoiled food can cause diarrhea and vomiting, and this appears clearly and immediately after eating anything poisonous.”
Also last week, Lebanon’s General Security banned an Iranian film that focuses on the 2009 “Green Movement” from theaters in Lebanon. The film, by Bani Khoshnoudi, concentrated on the 2009 presidential elections in Iran when thousands of people took to the streets to protest Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election. Imad Komayha, a writer for Janoubia, wrote an article under the title ʺThe first letter of her name… Iran.ʺ In his article, Komayha blamed Hezbollah indirectly for the ban, saying that the party has no benefit in displaying the movie in Beirut. “The ban came under the alibi that the censorship authority deemed the film an insult to a foreign country, and as an influential party that can affect the General Security, there is no doubt that the ban was in fulfillment of the commands of Hezbollah, a party that is keen on representing Iran in Lebanon as a democratic state.”
Meanwhile, Janoubia also closely monitored the student government elections at the American University of Beirut that took place recently. Fayza Diab wrote an article prior to the elections, noting that this year’s polls were notable as AUB utilized electronic voting machines, meaning results were announced hours earlier than in years past, when paper ballots were used.
The AUB elections, as per Diab’s article, were also marked by the emergence of a third force of secularists, which could forecast a change in the Lebanese new generation. The March 14 students emerged as winners in the elections, with a narrow margin between them and their rivals.
Also in Janoubia, Mrs. Mona Nayef Shamas wrote an article about a private experience, in which she detailed a crime in which one of Hezbollah cadres are involved and said she wanted to turn the case into a public one.
The website also addressed the persistent presidential void in Lebanon in an article by Salwa Fadel and asked whether Saudi Arabia was hinting for the acceptance of Marada Leader Sleiman Frangieh as a possible candidate for next president.
In a special report, the website also revealed info about fugitive Rifaat Eid, the senior official in the Arab Democratic Party , and highlighted a recent photo of him, quoting sources as saying he has been seen in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Most recently, Janoubia reported the most important stations of Lebanese Diva Sabah, who died at the age 87, at 3 a.m. at Beirut’s Comfort Hotel, where she had been living on Wednesday, November 26, 2014.
Sabah, born Jeanette Feghali, was the first Arab singer to perform at Olympia in Paris, Carnegie Hall in New York, Piccadilly Theatre in London and the Sydney Opera House in Australia.
She has a reported 3,500 songs in her repertoire. She began singing and acting in the 1940s in Egyptian movies when Egyptian filmmaker Henry Barakat recognized her talent. Her first featured film was “El Alb Laho Wahed” produced by Asia Dagher. Although a Lebanese national, the majority of her films were co-produced with or focused on Egypt. She starred with many famous actors, such as Abdel Halim Hafez, Kamal El Chenawi, Ahmad Mazhar, Rushdy Abaza and Hussein Fahmy.
