Lebanon Army Offers Tourists Helicopter Joyrides

Lebanese Army Commander Gen. Joseph Aoun at a handover ceremony of four A-29 Super Tucano aircraft given by the US, June 12, 2018. (AFP)
Lebanese Army Commander Gen. Joseph Aoun at a handover ceremony of four A-29 Super Tucano aircraft given by the US, June 12, 2018. (AFP)
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Lebanon Army Offers Tourists Helicopter Joyrides

Lebanese Army Commander Gen. Joseph Aoun at a handover ceremony of four A-29 Super Tucano aircraft given by the US, June 12, 2018. (AFP)
Lebanese Army Commander Gen. Joseph Aoun at a handover ceremony of four A-29 Super Tucano aircraft given by the US, June 12, 2018. (AFP)

The Lebanese army will start offering tourists helicopter joyrides this week in a bid to boost the coffers of one of the crisis-hit country’s key institutions.

An economic crisis that the World Bank describes as likely one of the world’s worst since the 1850s has hit the Lebanese military hard, leaving it struggling to pay troops enough to live on.

In an announcement on its website, the army said it would be offering civilians the chance to see “Lebanon... from above” with 15-minute flights.

The joyrides on board the army’s Robinson R44 Raven helicopters would start on Thursday and would be open to passengers aged three and above, AFP reported.

Up to three people would be allowed aboard per flight, which costs about $150 and is to be paid in cash.

The aim is “to encourage Lebanese tourism in a new way, in addition to supporting the air force,” a military source told AFP.

The economic crisis has eaten away at the value of soldiers’ salaries and slashed the military’s budget for maintenance and equipment.

Toward the middle of last year, the army said it had scrapped meat from the meals offered to on-duty soldiers, due to rising food prices.

Lebanon has been without a functioning government since a massive blast in Beirut in August last year killed more than 200 people and ravaged swathes of the Mediterranean port city.

Politicians have failed to agree on a new cabinet line-up even as foreign currency cash reserves plummet, causing fuel, electricity and medicine shortages.

Earlier this month, France hosted a donor conference at which 20 nations agreed to provide emergency aid to Lebanon’s military.



Beloved Zurich Zoo Gorilla Euthanized after Years of Declining Health

FILE - N'Gola, the silverback male of the gorilla group at Zurich Zoo celebrates his 40th birthday on Wednesday, June 21, 2017, in Zurich. (Siggi Bucher/Keystone via AP, file)
FILE - N'Gola, the silverback male of the gorilla group at Zurich Zoo celebrates his 40th birthday on Wednesday, June 21, 2017, in Zurich. (Siggi Bucher/Keystone via AP, file)
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Beloved Zurich Zoo Gorilla Euthanized after Years of Declining Health

FILE - N'Gola, the silverback male of the gorilla group at Zurich Zoo celebrates his 40th birthday on Wednesday, June 21, 2017, in Zurich. (Siggi Bucher/Keystone via AP, file)
FILE - N'Gola, the silverback male of the gorilla group at Zurich Zoo celebrates his 40th birthday on Wednesday, June 21, 2017, in Zurich. (Siggi Bucher/Keystone via AP, file)

The Zurich Zoo’s beloved gorilla of more than 40 years has been put down after a long struggle with declining health, a zoo official in the Swiss city said this week.
N’Gola was 47 and one of the oldest male gorillas in European zoos, said Zurich Zoo director Severin Dressen.
He was a Western lowland gorilla — a subspecies of the great apes found in Africa and listed as critically endangered — and because of his mature age he was a silverback, after the gray hair on his back, The Associated Press reported.
N'Gola had suffered a host of health ailments, including arthritis, a heart condition and a tapeworm infection. He had been on painkillers for several years, eating less, and losing weight and muscle mass.
“It’s a hard decision to euthanize a silverback,” Dressen said.
"We’ve seen a crash in the wild over the span of three generations of 80% of the population," Dressen said about the decline of gorillas in the wild. Zoos can be helpful for research and public education about species protection, he added.
N'Gola was born in captivity and fathered 34 children. He was known for his sensitive side, taking “care of his harem, his group of females,” Dressen said.
In 2012, the female Nache in his harem suffered a burst appendix during advanced pregnancy, and both she and the unborn baby gorilla died, according to the Swiss newspaper Neue Zuricher Zeitung.
N’Gola spent weeks whimpering through the zoo enclosure looking for her, the report said.
Dressen also recalled a time when N'Gola looked after a baby gorilla in the group. "The mother wasn’t there, and he kind of — which is not a typical silverback behavior — took care of that baby.”
As for humans, N'Gola mostly ignored "other bipedal species on the other side of the glass” of his enclosure, Dressen said.