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Nestled among shops in a bustling market in north Lebanon’s Tripoli, Mohammed al-Shaar is at his workshop making traditional tarboosh hats, keeping up a family craft despite dwindling demand.With a thimble on one finger, Shaar, 38, cuts, sews and carefully assembles the pieces of the conical, flat-topped felt hat also known as a fez, attaching a tassel to the top.Reputedly the last tarboosh craftsman in Lebanon, the Tripoli native has been making the hats for 25 years in know-how passed on by his grandfather.”Our family has been carrying on this craft for 125 years,” said Shaar, who also studied tarboosh making in Egypt.The brimless hats made with maroon, black or green felt, some bearing floral motifs or embroidered with Lebanon’s national emblem, the cedar, sit on display in the small workshop.While the tarboosh has been around in Lebanon for several centuries, it became particularly common during the late Ottoman period.”The tarboosh used to have great value — it was part of day-to-day dress, and the Lebanese were proud of it,” Shaar said, noting the hat now is largely seen as a traditional item or appealing to tourists.”Nowadays, people barely wear the tarboosh, except for traditional events,” he said.As well as a onetime symbol of prestige or social status, the hat was used for non-verbal communication, Shaar said.”When a man wanted to woo a beautiful young woman, he used to slightly tip his tarboosh to the left or right,” he said, while knocking someone’s tarboosh off was offensive. As successive crises have hit Lebanon, including a catastrophic 2020 port explosion in Beirut and a recent war between Israel and Hezbollah, tourism has diminished.Shaar said his “work has slowed, and demand for the tarboosh has dropped” as a result.Sales have plummeted to just four or five of his handmade hats a month compared to around 50 before the crisis, he said.Recent customers have mainly been music and dance troops, or religious figures who wear the tarboosh covered with a turban.Shaar said he used to employ three others but now works alone, selling his handmade hats for around $30.But he said he wasn’t about to close up shop or abandon his passion for tarboosh making.”I feel like my soul is linked to this craft. I don’t want to shut or to stop working,” he said.

Embattled property giant China Evergrande Group said Tuesday it will delist from Hong Kong Stock Exchange as a heavier-than-expected debt burden weighed on its liquidation process.The Hong Kong bourse’s listing committee decided to cancel Evergrande’s listing as it had failed to meet a July deadline to resume trading, according to an exchange filing.Once China’s biggest …

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Labourer Shuai Hang went a week without work earlier this year when sky-high US tariffs on Chinese goods overwhelmed the warehouse he works at and slowed the company’s US-bound parcels to a trickle.But on Tuesday, after US President Donald Trump announced a truce on those duties would be extended, the depot in southern China’s manufacturing …

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The Council of Europe urged its member states on Tuesday to halt deliveries of weapons to Israel if they could be used for human rights violations.Michael O’Flaherty, the Council’s commissioner for human rights, said member states should do “their utmost to prevent and address violations of international human rights” in the conflict.”This includes applying existing legal standards to ensure that arms transfers are not authorised where there is a risk that they may be used to commit human rights violations,” he said, in a statement.It was also “essential to intensify efforts to provide relief to those affected by the conflict, by supporting efforts to ensure unhindered access for humanitarian assistance and by pressing for the immediate release of hostages”, O’Flaherty said.The call by the Council —  a human rights organisation representing 46 states — comes shortly after Germany said it would halt delivery to Israel of some weapons that could be used in Gaza as part of Israeli plans to take control of Gaza City.O’Flaherty said the Council had taken note of this and other government initiatives, and also of contributions by some national human rights structures in raising awareness.”However, more needs to be done, and quickly,” he said.Several world leaders have condemned Israel’s decision to widen the Gaza war.But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the plan to target the remaining Hamas strongholds in Gaza was “the best way to end the war”.

The Elders group of  international stateswomen and statesmen for the first time on Tuesday called the situation in Gaza an “unfolding genocide”, saying that Israel’s  obstruction of aid was causing a “famine”.”Today we express our shock and outrage at Israel’s deliberate obstruction of the entry of life-saving humanitarian aid into Gaza,” the non-governmental group of public figures, founded by former South Africa president Nelson Mandela in 2007, said in a statement after delegates visited border crossings in Egypt.”What we saw and heard underlines our personal conviction that there is not only an unfolding, human-caused famine in Gaza. There is an unfolding genocide,” it added.Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand, called on Israel to open the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza so aid could be delivered, after visiting the site.”Many new mothers are unable to feed themselves or their newborn babies adequately, and the health system is collapsing,” she said.”All of this threatens the very survival of an entire generation.”Clark was joined by Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, on the visit.She said that international leaders “have the power and the legal obligation to apply measures to pressure this Israeli government to end its atrocity crimes”.- Call for ceasefire, hostage release -The delegation “saw evidence of food and medical aid denied entry, and heard witness accounts of the killing of Palestinian civilians, including children, while trying to access aid inside Gaza,” said the statement.They urged Israel and Hamas to agree a ceasefire and for the immediate release of remaining Israeli hostages being held in Gaza.The London-based group also called for the “recognition of the State of Palestine”, but added “this will not halt the unfolding genocide and famine in Gaza”. “Transfers of arms and weapons components to Israel must be suspended immediately,” it added, saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be sanctioned.Israel has faced mounting criticism over the 22-month-long war with Hamas, with United Nations-backed experts warning of widespread famine unfolding in besieged Gaza. Netanyahu is under mounting pressure to secure the release of the remaining hostages, as well as over his plans to expand the war, which he has vowed to do with or without the backing of Israel’s allies.Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel, which triggered the war, resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Israel’s offensive has killed at least 61,499 Palestinians, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, whose toll the UN considers reliable.

Stock markets rose Tuesday, with Tokyo hitting a record, as investors welcomed the extension of a China-US tariff truce and awaited key US inflation data.US President Donald Trump’s widely expected trade announcement avoids the reimposition of sky-high levies and allows officials from Washington and Beijing to continue talking into November to settle their standoff.Stock markets …

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