Lebanon bids farewell to renowned publisher Mrowa

BEIT MERY, Lebanon (Reuters) -- Lebanon's political and business leaders paid their respects on Sunday to the family of Salma Bissar Mrowa, a key figure in Arab publishing who was laid to rest this weekend.

Mrowa, who died last Thursday aged 76 after being treated for cancer for 15 years, took over the Beirut-based al-Hayat newspaper after her husband, Kamel, was assassinated in 1966.

She expanded it into what became the Arab world's best-known newspaper internationally. Publication stopped after the Lebanese civil war broke out in 1975 but her son Jamil relaunched it from London in 1988 with help from Saudi investors.

Ghassan Tueni, who was a main rival to Mrowa and her husband as owner of An-Nahar newspaper, wrote in a tribute on its front page:

"She was changed by tragedy. She became a lioness guarding the memory and embodying calm beauty which even long years of ugly sickness could not distort."

Born in 1923 to a German mother and a Lebanese doctor who was instrumental in resisting the French mandate over Lebanon, Mrowa's background embodied the cosmopolitan culture that made Lebanon a Middle East centre before the civil war, when most correspondents covering the region were based in Beirut.

Her Sunday lunches were among the most prized invitations sought by the diplomats and politicians who descended on Beirut before the war.

She travelled widely after her husband's death and was received warmly by Middle Eastern leaders.

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