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Growing up in Lebanon

by Riad Al Khouri

AMMAN — Recent events show Lebanon as dangerously unstable, but it was — and is still — also much more than that, including a lot of the cool stuff mentioned in “Hanna’s Diaries”. Subtitled “Coming of Age in the Land of the Cedars”, this book, in both the English language and Arabic, is by an American lifelong student of the latter whose career focused on the Middle East. Author John McCarthy grew up in New York City and Paris, reading in English and French. In 1964, as a young man he expanded his linguistic breadth by starting to study Arabic in summer school at the American University of Beirut (AUB). Afterwards, as a college student at Princeton University in the United States, McCarthy concentrated on the Modern Standard version of the language (also used in the bilingual “Hanna’s Diaries / Yawmiyat Hanna”), which he continued studying when he came back to Lebanon in the late 60s, thereafter living in Beirut till the mid-70s.

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A feature story in the Winter 2020 issue of the International College “IC Newsletter” describes how American Trustee John McCarthy’s destiny brought him to Lebanon, Arabic studies and the authorship of the “Yawmiat Hanna” (“Hanna’s Diaries”) stories. (Read more)

Swiss announced today that copies of the Arabic edition of SWISS MADE have been placed in their First Class and Senator lounges at Geneva and Zurich airports to "enhance the travel experience of our Arab passengers," according to Marketing Director - Suisse Romande Christian Schwab.

The Swiss National Library in Bern paid John McCarthy Publishing the honor of requesting a copy of the SWISS MADE Arabic edition. The SNL collects publications featuring Switzerland and lists them in their online catalogue Helveticat accessible via the internet.

Image Source: www.nb.admin.ch

Below is the French translation of Hosam El Sokkari's column in Egypt's "Al Shorouk" newspaper on April 21, 2018. Sokkari is the former longtime head of the BBC Arabic Service.

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The above article appeared in the March 29, 2018 issue of "Entreprise Romande", the journal of the Federation des Entreprises Romandes Genève. The FER is an employers' organization founded in 1929 which covers Geneva and the other French-speaking cantons of Switzerland. It groups 27,000 enterprise members including multinational corporations, 9,000 independent businessmen, and 80 trade associations. "Entreprise Romande" has about 25,000 readers.

Switzerland, a tiny country with limited natural resources, brightly succeeded in turning from poverty to prosperity and has reached a high status among international economies. Swiss Made: The Untold Story Behind Switzerland’s Success discusses how such a small country could achieve such progress. In the book, by American-Swiss writer R James Breiding, the author tries to reveal Switzerland’s recipe for success in producing remarkable innovations, ideas, and products in various industries, not just the well-known ones like banking, watchmaking, and chocolates, but also pharmaceuticals, machinery, and even textiles, explaining how Switzerland has become an entrepreneurship “paradise” for investors from across the world.

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