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At 46 years old, Alia Ibrahim already has a quarter of a century of journalism behind her, and a CV as long as her arm: editor-in-chief of the Daily Star, a leading Lebanese daily newpaper in English; a top reporter for the Arabic-speaking news channel Al-Arabiya; a regular contributor to the Washington Post; a professor at the American University of Lebanon. 

Her latest venture is called Daraj, an independent Arabic-language news site, which she co-founded in 2017 with her colleagues Hazem Al-Amin and Diana Moukalled. 

Journalist, entrepreneur, activist, teacher, mother of two teenage girls: Alia Ibrahim is a woman of inexhaustible energy. When Camille Diao spoke with her, only a few weeks had passed since the explosion of 4 August 2020 that devastated Beirut, the city where she lives. The coup de grâce in a year that had already seen the country's economy collapse and the Covid-19 pandemic slow down popular protest against the regime.

It's not easy to stay on course in the midst of such upheavals. But when you're Lebanese, like Alia, you've had other eventful years before 2020...