It was like perfume on the Champs Elysees, only the scent was of chocolate. The boy carried on his shoulder a tray of patisserie, rolled wafers of black chocolate under a sheet of greased paper. Twisting on a heel he entered a gorgeous, gilded...

My friend Paula and I sat up drinking vodka with lemon juice and smoking her cigarettes into the night, after another day of insanity. We talked about a story her mother had told me: A woman was cooking six stones on a traditional...

The Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah has launched a massive project to rebuild south Beirut, devastated in last year's war with Israel — and it's paying for much of the construction with international donor funds that were meant to strengthen its top rival, the Lebanese...

BEIRUT, Lebanon—The Middle East's first openly lesbian bar, Coup d'Etat, was launched in Beirut late last summer, shortly after an internationally-brokered ceasefire ended the month-long war between Israel and the Lebanese militia, Hezbollah. There was little fanfare. Beirut's streets were no longer reverberating to the...

Describes situations involving the civil war in Beirut.