Power Crisis, Rising Prices Deprive Lebanese of Suhoor Ambiance

Men fill a private generator, which provides electricity with diesel oil in Beirut, Lebanon January 21, 2022. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
Men fill a private generator, which provides electricity with diesel oil in Beirut, Lebanon January 21, 2022. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
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Power Crisis, Rising Prices Deprive Lebanese of Suhoor Ambiance

Men fill a private generator, which provides electricity with diesel oil in Beirut, Lebanon January 21, 2022. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
Men fill a private generator, which provides electricity with diesel oil in Beirut, Lebanon January 21, 2022. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

Ramadan is known for its special Suhoor time, during which friends and family gather for fun. It’s also an unmissable time for prayer and rest after a long day for many fasters. But today, with the absence of electricity in Lebanon, Suhoor ambiance and preparations are not the same, as private generators owners cut the power off before midnight, forcing many Lebanese to return home early.

Abu Nabil, a man we met in a supermarket in the Lebanese capital, says he uses candles during Suhoor. “I buy a 500-gram pack of candles for 40,000 LBP (1$=25,000 LBP). Our days and traditions have significantly changed. It’s sad and nobody hears us or tries to understand our struggle,” he adds.

The prices of most ingredients including cheese, grains, and flour have skyrocketed, so the families that can enjoy a decent Suhoor are now far fewer.

These products are Suhoor table essentials, as they are healthy and can be used in making pastries and plates fasters need.

In a quick tour of restaurants and cafes in Lebanon, you would notice they’re fully booked at Iftar time, but empty during Suhoor due to the electricity crisis controlled by private generator owners in the capital’s neighborhoods.

“Streets of Beirut are empty as of 10:30 pm. People return home before the generators go off, and the state-run power grid rarely provides us with one or two hours of power during Suhoor time. We have decided to close early, because visitors who come after 10:00 are few,” Ismail, who works in a restaurant in the Sodeko region, told Asharq Al-Awsat.

The power crisis in Lebanon has heavily affected the holy month, causing people to skip many traditions and compromise much of their daily lifestyle.

Jana, a mother of three who lives in the Beirut Mazraa area, states that the power crisis prevented her from freezing food like she used to do. “In the past, we used to find whatever we wanted to cook for Iftar and Suhoor in our freezers. Today, however, our freezers have turned into empty cupboards that we rarely open. The lack of power and the increase of meat and vegetable prices have turned our refrigerators into an obsolete accessory,” she explains.

“The generators’ owners are manipulating our life. I struggle to deliver many orders everyday because the power hours differ from one region to another,” Mohammed, a delivery driver, told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“When I finish my work, I take a hookah break and a light Suhoor with my friends, then I prepare myself to climb the stairs to my house on the sixth floor because the generator owner in Mar Elias, where I live, turns it off at 10:00 pm,” he adds.

Suhoor plates include cooked beans, chickpeas, pastries like cheese rolls and vegetable pies.

Samira Hammoud, who works as a salesperson, says she’s unable to prepare beans with some chickpeas for Suhoor like she used to do because she cannot afford to buy vegetables, grains, and cheese anymore. “It’s a main course on the Suhoor table. To enjoy it, it should be served with veggies like parsley, radish, spring onion, and tomatoes,” she told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“But today, I eat it without veggies. I can barely eat a cucumber; one kilogram of cucumber costs 40,000 LBP. I totally forgot the cheese rolls, the frozen packs of those are unattainable,” she added.

In some Beirut neighborhoods, some coffeeshop owners insist on opening their doors for Suhoor, serving thyme, cheese, and Kishik manakish, and meat pies alongside some juices and Ramadan desserts like Kallaj and cheese kunefe.

Samer, who works in a coffee shop, says most of their customers come after Iftar and right before Suhoor to enjoy a cup of tea with a ‘kaake’ or a thyme mankoushe because that’s what they can afford.

“The Lebanese used to celebrate Suhoor, enjoying a hookah and chit chatting around a table full of local popular plates including meat, cheese, and veggies. However, today, we miss this scene due to the power crisis and the skyrocketing prices,” he added.



EU Monitor: 2024 'Virtually Certain' to Be Hottest Year on Record

Weather extremes in October included deadly flooding in Spain. JOSE JORDAN / AFP
Weather extremes in October included deadly flooding in Spain. JOSE JORDAN / AFP
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EU Monitor: 2024 'Virtually Certain' to Be Hottest Year on Record

Weather extremes in October included deadly flooding in Spain. JOSE JORDAN / AFP
Weather extremes in October included deadly flooding in Spain. JOSE JORDAN / AFP

This year is "virtually certain" to be the hottest in recorded history with warming above 1.5C, EU climate monitor Copernicus said Thursday, days before nations are due to gather for crunch UN climate talks.
The European agency said the world was passing a "new milestone" of temperature records that should serve to accelerate action to cut planet-heating emissions at the UN negotiations in Azerbaijan next week, AFP said.
Last month, marked by deadly flooding in Spain and Hurricane Milton in the United States, was the second hottest October on record, with average global temperatures second only to the same period in 2023.
Copernicus said 2024 would likely be more than 1.55 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 average -- the period before the industrial-scale burning of fossil fuels.
This does not amount to a breach of the Paris deal, which strives to limit global warming to below 2C and preferably 1.5C, because that is measured over decades and not individual years.
"It is now virtually certain that 2024 will be the warmest year on record and the first year of more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels," said Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Deputy Director Samantha Burgess.
"This marks a new milestone in global temperature records and should serve as a catalyst to raise ambition for the upcoming Climate Change Conference, COP29."
Wild weather
The UN climate negotiations in Azerbaijan, which will set the stage for a new round of crucial carbon-cutting targets, will take place in the wake of the United States election victory by Donald Trump.
Trump, a climate change denier, pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement during his first presidency -- and while his successor Joe Biden took the United States back in, he has threatened to do so again.
Meanwhile, average global temperatures have reached new peaks, as have concentrations of planet-heating gases in the atmosphere.
Scientists say the safer 1.5C limit is rapidly slipping out of reach, while stressing that every tenth of a degree of temperature rise heralds progressively more damaging impacts.
Last month the UN said the current pace of climate action would result in a catastrophic 3.1C of warming this century, while all current climate pledges taken in full would still amount to a devastating 2.6C temperature rise.
Global warming is not just about rising temperatures, but the knock-on effect of all the extra heat in the atmosphere and seas.
Warmer air can hold more water vapor, and warmer oceans mean greater evaporation, resulting in more intense downpours and storms.
In a month of weather extremes, October saw above-average rainfall across swathes of Europe, as well as parts of China, the US, Brazil and Australia, Copernicus said.
The US is also experiencing ongoing drought, which affected record numbers of people, the EU monitor added.
Copernicus said average sea surface temperatures in the area it monitors were the second highest on record for the month of October.
C3S uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations to aid its calculations.
Copernicus records go back to 1940 but other sources of climate data such as ice cores, tree rings and coral skeletons allow scientists to expand their conclusions using evidence from much deeper in the past.
Climate scientists say the period being lived through right now is likely the warmest the earth has been for the last 100,000 years, back at the start of the last Ice Ages.