{"id":1525,"date":"2010-03-03T14:04:08","date_gmt":"2010-03-03T14:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wlcu.biz\/?p=1525"},"modified":"2017-03-12T21:03:14","modified_gmt":"2017-03-12T19:03:14","slug":"ministers-fadi-abboud-salim-wardeh-held-a-joint-meeting-after-their-return-from-australia-4-march-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wlcu.world\/ng\/1525\/","title":{"rendered":"Ministers Fadi Abboud &amp; Salim Wardeh held a joint meeting after their return from Australia &#8211; 34 March 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Tourism Minister Fadi Abboud and Culture Minister Salim Wardeh held a joint meeting \u200eon Wednesday after their return <\/strong><strong>from Australia to discuss the situation of the Lebanese \u200eDiaspora. \u200e <\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"\/ng\/blog\/2010\/03\/03\/ministers-fadi-abboudsalim-wardeh-held-a-joint-meeting-after-their-return-from-australia-3-mar-2010\/\">Read in Arabic<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/min-abboud-and-wardeh.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1526\" alt=\"min abboud and wardeh\" src=\"\/ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/min-abboud-and-wardeh-300x179.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"179\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The visit was a result of an invitation the ministers received from the World Lebanese \u200eCultural Union (WLCU) asking them to join in unveiling the statue of the Lebanese \u200eMigrant in Brisbane. \u200e<\/p>\n<p>The statue is the third of its kind after one that was erected in Mexico and another near \u200ethe Beirut Port. \u200e<\/p>\n<p>The ministers participated in the ceremony but also met with several Australian political \u200efigures, some of Lebanese origins.\u200e<\/p>\n<p>\u200e\u201cWe exchanged opinions and discussed ways to reinforce ties between Lebanon and \u200eAustralia,\u201d said Wardeh. \u200e<br \/>\nHe mentioned a project to hold a Lebanese cultural week in Australia next year and a \u200estudy to examine the possibility of building a railway in Lebanon, with the help of \u200eAustralia, in a bid to solve road traffic problems. \u200e<\/p>\n<p>For his part, Abboud stressed the importance of the visit, saying it put aside political \u200edifferences and focused on bringing the Diaspora together. \u200e<br \/>\nHe explained that about 400,000 Lebanese were living in Australia and half of them \u200eemigrated during the past few years.\u200e<br \/>\n\u200e\u201cThere is a little Lebanon in Australia \u2026 it\u2019s there in all its colors and groups and sects,\u201d \u200ethe tourism minister said. \u200e<br \/>\nAbboud added that he discussed with his Australian counterpart the possibility of \u200eproviding Middle East Airlines flights to and from Australia because over 25,000 \u200eAustralians visited Lebanon, according to Australian statistics. \u200e<br \/>\nHe also expressed optimism for the summer tourist season, saying he expected an \u200eincrease of 20 percent for the sector. \u200e<\/p>\n<p>When asked about talks of demolishing some of Beirut\u2019s traditional houses, Abboud \u200ereplied that a law protected traditional buildings and that the Cabinet held a list of more \u200ethan 260 buildings that were not allowed to be destroyed. \u200e<\/p>\n<p>The buildings included the house of famous Lebanese singer Feiruz and that of \u200eLebanon\u2019s first post-independence President Bechara al-Khoury.\u200e<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tourism Minister Fadi Abboud and Culture Minister Salim Wardeh held a joint meeting \u200eon Wednesday after their return from Australia to discuss the situation of the Lebanese \u200eDiaspora. \u200e Read in Arabic The visit was a result of an invitation the ministers received from the World Lebanese \u200eCultural Union (WLCU) asking them to join in &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,992,1020,1023],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-an","category-wlcu-regions","category-beautiful-lebanon","category-lebanon-today"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wlcu.world\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wlcu.world\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wlcu.world\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wlcu.world\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wlcu.world\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1525"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wlcu.world\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20246,"href":"https:\/\/wlcu.world\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525\/revisions\/20246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wlcu.world\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wlcu.world\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wlcu.world\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}