Sunscreen and civil war

byHabib Battah
Aug 21, 2012

At the end of tonight’s exhausting newscast featuring rival militias tearing up the streets of Tripoli, army tanks haphazardly trying to intervene and fresh news about the kidnapping war between Lebanese tribes and the Free Syrian Army–we got a stern warning from one of Lebanon’s leading beach-tanned weather girls. “Don’t forget to wear sunscreen tomorrow,” she warned, shaking her French tip manicured index finger. “It could be very dangerous for your skin.”

Habib Battah

Habib Battah is an investigative journalist and founder of the news site beirutreport.com. Battah has covered Lebanon and the Middle East for over 15 years and teaches journalism and media studies at the American University of Beirut. He is a contributor to Monocle, The Guardian, BBC World, Al Jazeera and others, a former fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University and two-time recipient of the Samir Kassir Press Freedom Award. Battah's investigative work was recently recognized for outstanding local reporting by the Columbia University Oakes Award for Environmental Reporting. Battah earned a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. in Near East Studies and Journalism from New York University.