Archive | Lebanon

Beirut – The best party city

By Rami on July 30, 2009 in Lebanon

Check out this report by Cal Perry from CNN about the summer season this year in Beirut. So far this is the best summer after more than 4 years of continuous political instability that has started with PM Rafic Hariri assassination and ended with the 2009 elections 2 months ago, and Beirut is literally on fire with the countless events this summer, not to forget the booming nightlife everywhere in the country.

I loved how Cal Perry ended the report “This summer, the world is partying on the shores of the mediteranean”.

What if president Sleiman was wrong?

By Rami on July 14, 2009 in Lebanon

Back in 1994, Youssef Shaaban was convicted for shooting a Jordanian diplomat in Beirut and got life sentence in prison.

In 2002, a court in Jordan found that others were responsible for the murder and convicted them! So logically speaking, Youssef Shaaban turned out to be innocent, however it was impossible to release him since the issued rulings could be overturned unless by a presidential pardon.

Three days ago, president Michael Sleiman pardoned Youssef Shaaban and he was granted freedom yesterday in Beirut.

That was in brief the story of Youssef Shaaban.

I have seen in the media how everyone was giving credits to the president for pardoning him, but I was thinking what if Youssef Shaabad was really the one behind killing the diplomat?

In a special episode of Kalam El-Nas with Marcel Ghanem last night, Shaaban himself admitted that he played a “role” in the Lebanese civil war in addition to being a member in Hamas. Remember that the reason behind the assassination of the Jordanian diplomat was because Jordan and Israel were in negtiations to sign a peace treaty, that’s a good motive for Hamas to commit the crime no?

In addition, those who are supposed to be the real murderers were executed in Jordan, and god knows how did the Jordanian police (maybe) made them admit they were responsible for the assassination. Now how can you assure that Youssef Shaaban is innocent? The Lebanese judicial council made a mistake by convicting Shaaban, so how can you assume the Jordanian rulings were flawless?

To me the crime is still a mistery. Think of it, the guy might really be the one behind the assassination.

Lebanon is not a happy place!

By Rami on July 9, 2009 in Lebanon

Lebanon is not a happy place, that’s at least according to the new economics foundation (aka NEF).

Using the “Happy Planet Index” (HPI), NEF measured how happy are 143 researched countries, and Lebanon came in the 110th place!

Per their findings, we in Lebanon have a life expectency of 71.5 years, of which we live 33.7 years happily. Ya3neh we spend 37.8 years in misery (slow internet, no electricity, wars, explosions, Naser Qandil, etc…).

In addition, we scored 4.7/10 for Life satisfaction (though fi 3anna Skybar!!!), and we have an ecological footprint of 3.1.

You may download the full report containing the classification of all the researched countries in PDF from here, or in Excel from here.

Reasons why I got addicted to Twitter

By Rami on July 3, 2009 in Lebanon

I never imagined I would use Twitter someday! The whole idea behind it was silly to me, and I was always like what’s the big deal about broadcasting to the world what did I have on lunch?! Facebook alone was enough, and it was becoming annoying with all the apps that my friends add and start spamming me with!

Early in May, I was thinking about a way to increase the traffic on this blog, so I thought of re-activating my account on Twitter and combine with Twitter Feed to automatically generate a tweet containing a link to any post I publish. So I was thinking of it as a marketing tool!

Few days later I was surprised to find much more active Lebanese users than I expected, and they were all tweeting about interesting stuff, though it was mostly about the parliamentary elections at that time, but still I found it interesting and entertaining. So I started engaging myself in the game and suddenly got addicted to it. For many reasons!

It is NOT silly. Twitter is really different than Facebook’s status update, it’s on Facebook where you share silly stuff and the more you update your status the more you entertain your friends! Do the same on Twitter and your followers count will drop, no one wants his/her front page on twitter to be full of trash messages.
It’s informative! Thanks to the URL shortening services, people can tweet about interesting links. They might not always contain valuable information, but I prefer to receive them instead of Facebook’s poker chips and silly quizzes
You get to meet some seriously nice people there. In terms of privacy, Twitter is totally opposite to Facebook. In Facebook you are, most of the times, concerned about protecting your personal information and keeping strangers from having access to your profile. Where as on Twitter, strange people follow you and vice versa, and you will eventually make friends with those you reply to their messages frequently.
Twitter users are the “elite” users of Facebook 😉
The great tweetups you attend every now and then. Twitleb is doing a great job gathering the Lebanese users, thanks to her we met at KUV Capital‘s office today!

So what are you waiting for? Go get a Twitter account and don’t forget to follow me!!

Re-electing Nabih Berri

By Rami on June 25, 2009 in Lebanon

One month ago, every single party was calling for change, however the election did not bring anything new to Lebanon. The majority defended its position, while the opposition maintained it’s parliamentary block almost as it is.

Best of all, Nabih Berri was re-elected today as the speaker of the Lebanese parliament! (Did you hear the gunfire in Beirut??)

If the majority was really serious about its program, it should have proceeded with electing Okab Sakr or one of the pro March 14 Shi’a to replace Berri and go further with forming a government that is all made up of pro March 14 ministers. Let them rule with an iron fist and show the Lebanese people how good they can do!

But seems like everyone is happy with maintaining his position, and the joke was on the people. What change were they all (be it March 8 or 14) promising with people like Berri in authority? (w 3a shiklo shakshiklo!)

Anyway, I leave you now with some pictures of people celebrating Nabih Berri’s “victory” today, they speak for themselves.

Mideast Lebanon Politics

captphoto_1245931613766-2-0

Mideast Lebanon Politics

APTOPIX Mideast Lebanon Politics

Mideast Lebanon Politics

Recall, he was competing with no one! Why were they crazily celebrating?

F*** gas price

By Rami on June 24, 2009 in Lebanon

high-gas

The crude oil price has been falling below $70 in the last few days, but for some reason some genius here in Lebanon decided to increase it by 600 L.L today, and he has been doing so for the last month!!

Seriously man, whoever you are, prices reached more than 30,000L.L / 20 liters last year when crude oil price was skyrocketing with over $130 / barrel!! How come it is selling for half the price now, and you still insist on charging us 31,000 L.L for 20 liters of gas? From which university did you graduate?

If WE the Lebanese people believe that WE kicked Syria’s ass out of our borders by sitting in the Martyr’s square (denying that USA, KSA, and Egypt had something to do with it), then we of course can do some another sit-in to call for decreasing the gas price.

But NO! We don’t hit the streets unless some political monkey leader orders us to do it!

Dabke record for the Guinness Book!

By Rami on June 11, 2009 in Lebanon

Wanna contribute in making history? If you live in Montreal, then here’s your chance!

Tollab, a federation that unites all the Lebanese student associations of Montreal, are planning to set a world records on the 20th of June by forming the biggest Dabke chain that will place Montreal in the Guinness Book of records. Their aim is to gather at least 3,500 people at the Marcelin-Wilson Park on the 20th of June to dance the dabke, hand-in-hand, for at least 5 consecutive minutes.

This event will be part of the “Festival Libanais de Montreal” from 19 to 21 of June 2009 at the park located in “11301 Bd de l’Acadie”.

Keep in mind that this event is not exclusively for the Lebanese living in Montreal, so regardless of your nationality you can participate in setting the world record, as the main purpose of the event is to unite all Lebanese and Montrealers of all colors, religions, names or cultures, who are willing to participate.

Forming the chain will start at 7:30PM on June 20th, so make sure to show up beforehand if you’re willing to participate in otder to organize things well.

For more information, you can refer to the even’t page on Facebook, or Tollab’s website.

Lebanon – A smoker’s paradise

By Rami on May 31, 2009 in Lebanon

beirut-downtown-arguileh

I came across this article by AFP describing Lebanon as a smoker’s paradise, where you can work, dine and have your hair styled in a cloud of smoke. Too bad for us, the non-smokers.

Even teenagers can afford the average one dollar per pack, compared to an average seven dollars (five euros) in France or nearly nine dollars in Britain.

“The minute you land in this country you start huffing and puffing,” said Ghazi Zaatari, a physician and chairman of the department of pathology at the American University of Beirut as well as head of a WHO study group on tobacco regulation.

“As far as tobacco is concerned, Lebanon is a health disaster.”

You can read the full article here.

Hezbollah assassinated Rafic Hariri?

By Rami on May 24, 2009 in Lebanon

Tonight I came across an article published in Der Spiegel, a german weekly magazine, revealing new evidence pointing fingers to Hezbollah in the assassination of the late PM Rafic Hariri.

As per the Spiegel, Wissam Eid (assassinated early in 2008) reached that evidence by analyzing the phone calls that were made on the few days leading to the assassination. You can read the full article here.

I expect this news to hit the Lebanese press tomorrow morning, let’s see how will they react towards it, and what will Hezbollah have to say on that accusation.

Update (05/25/2009):

The international tribunal denied all what has been mentioned in Der Spiegel. More info here, article is in Arabic.

Blogs I liked

By Rami on May 21, 2009 in Lebanon

I usually spend a good time everyday following the updates on the Lebanese blogsphere, and I lately came across two nice blogs.

The first is “Hummus nation“, a very funny blog acting as a national news agency from the Hummus nation and reporting daily news (and breaking news sometimes!) about various matter. The latest news reported the phoenix bird being accidentally shot by hunters using RPG’s at Dawra. T3isho.
I’d love to know more about the anonymous author of Hummus Nation, it would be nice if he/she posts an “About me” page. From the writing style I think he’s a man who has gone through the Lebanese Civil war, probably in his mid or late thirties. And the first letter of his name is … oh well khalas.

The second is “Maya’s Amalgam“, authored by Maya Zankoul (not Zakkour!!). It’s just like any other peronal blog, except that Maya is using illustrations to deliver her opinions, messages and daily observations, a bit similar to what Mireille does at Life Geeked.
I have gone over several posts on her blog, and so far all her stories are short, amusing, and interesting. Matches my reading requirements at work!

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