Tag Archives | Lebanon

4G soon in Lebanon

By Rami on November 1, 2012 in Lebanon

According to this article in Annahar today, telecom minister Nicolas Sehnaoui announced that live 4G tests will start on Novemeber 16 at Beirut Digital District, and the service will be commercially launched on April 23rd 2013 in selected areas.

It’s definitely about time we get 4G, but I admit I wasn’t expecting we will be getting the service anytime soon given how slow such projects go in Lebanon! I also hope its commercial launch is not going to witness the same mess that happened when we first got 3G.

Anyway, you can read about Sehnaoui’s announcement here and watch him tonight talking about it in Talk of The Town on MTV.

365 Jours pour rester positif au Liban

By Rami on October 31, 2012 in Lebanon

I was informed about this new agenda called “365 Jours pour rester positif au Liban” (365 Days to remain positive in Lebanon) when the dear people at Tamyras contacted me a while ago to inform me that +961 blog has been mentioned in it, but I never knew what this agenda was really all about until I read Hay Khabriyeh’s post about it last night.

Can you stay positive for 365 days in Lebanon? Tamyras publishers took on the challenge to offer you exactly what you need to do it – an agenda filled with daily upbeat notes. “365 jours pour rester positif au Liban” includes all the constructive social initiatives happening in Lebanon, from cupcake box charity to save Lebanon heritage to Nasawyia, and also fun initiatives like Tchenchol, Pure nostalgia and Lebanese memes.

The idea of the agenda came to Tamyras publishing director, Tania Hadjithomas Mehanna, to counteract all the negativity that was building up around her, be it on social networks, in the news or in her personal circle of acquaintances: she decided to uncover the positive side of Lebanon. There are countless people, groups, NGO’s who haven’t given up, who still wear rose-colored glasses and still dream of a better Lebanon, doing their part to make it happen. So Tamyras staff did an intensive research, gathered the names of positive initiatives, from the humorous to the serious ones, came up with a funky design, and the new agenda was born! Source

Unfortunately I haven’t got the opportunity to get hold of a copy for myself ~~and have no idea yet which day features +961, but I would appreciate it if anyone can send me a shot showing it!~~ turned out I’m featured on March 18th in the agenda. Thanks to Patricia!

Anyway, The idea sounds fun, and I agree with Sietske that it makes a nice gift idea this Christmas! It will be available for sale at major Lebanese bookstores in addition to the “Salon du Livre Francophone” at BIEL which lasts till November 4th 2012.

Will Julian Khazzouh play in the Lebanese basketball league?

By Rami on October 30, 2012 in Lebanon

There are some things in this country that are meant to never be understood. Things like whether sports players who have earlier played in the Israeli leagues are allowed to play in Lebanon or not.

The basketball player you see in the photo above is Julian Khazzouh, a Lebanese who was born in Australia where he played for the Sydney Kings in addition to some other Europan teams and Israel’s Ironi Ramat Gan. He also recently joined the Sagesse squad and is supposed to start playing for them starting the upcoming season.

Now you all know it was made clear last year that foreign players who previously received a work permit in Israel are not allowed to play for the Lebanese sports club.

However, Julian Khazzouh used his Australian passport to play for the Israel team, but started using the Lebanese ID he already has when he came here, and practically the law doesn’t apply to him anymore since it just mentions foreign players!

Moreover, it’s very clear for the Lebanese that traveling to Israel or dealing with Israelis is against the law, yet the Lebanese Basketball Federation is still to this moment going in discussions to decide whether Khazzouh will be given a permit to play or not! How on earth is this a hard case to solve?!

What’s even more shameful than Sagesse signing this guy is reading people like Elie Mechantaf defending him!

“We solved the issue with the Lebanese judiciary, as he [Khazzouh] played in Israel with his Australian passport,” Sagesse’s former captain and current president Elie Mchantaf said.

“[Khazzouh] has now regained Lebanese nationality and the law does not prevent him from playing here.

“We are working lawfully regarding this issue, and I assure everyone that he will be present in Sagesse’s first game of the season,” he added. Source

Is the economic situation really that bad in Lebanon?

By Rami on October 30, 2012 in Lebanon

Looks like news about businesses closing or facing troubles are on the rise now. People were surprised to read about the closure of Buddha Bar in Downtown Beirut last week due to the economic and security situation in the country, and today, I just came across this article in Al-Akhbar about Khoury Home facing some difficulties even though it controls a major share of the household products market in Lebanon.

Apparently, due to the decrease in sales and increase in payable to large suppliers, the Khoury family has entered in negotiations with one of their partners to sell their share in Khoury Home. You can read more about it here.

The first arabic Durex ad ever?

By Rami on October 29, 2012 in What the fuck!

So lame!

via @AnisTabet23

Insane fireworks

By Rami on October 28, 2012 in Lebanon

Check out how bad fireworks can be in some areas in Lebanon on holidays. The video below was taken in Bchamoun on the first day of Eid El-Adha.

Unfortunately, the ministry of interior issues a reminder every few years that fireworks are strictly banned but never puts an effort to actually apply that ban!

Al-Qaeda in Lebanon

By Rami on October 25, 2012 in Funny

Would you mind it if all those rumors claiming that Al-Qaeda does exist in Lebanon turned out to be true?

The photo was taken during the funeral of the late general Wissam Al-Hassan.

Photos + Video from Wissam El Hassan’s funeral

By Rami on October 21, 2012 in Lebanon

Wissam El Hassan’s funeral started at the ISF headquarter in Achrafieh at around 2PM today and unfortunately ended violently as the protesters in downtown attempted to storm the Grand Serail to demand the resignation of PM Najib Mikati.

Below are some photos and a video from the funeral and the clash between the protesters and the policemen. (I found photo #9 quite funny by the way!)

via BBC News & RT

Raw footage of the second explosion at Achrafieh

By Rami on October 20, 2012 in Lebanon

Here’s a raw footage from OTV showing how the second explosion happened yesterday in Achrafieh following the first big one that killed Wissam Al-Hassan. I don’t it’s due to another bomb but rather to some kind car gas tank maybe…

Thank god the people who show in the video were not much closer to the fire.

Photos from the explosion in Achrafieh

By Rami on October 19, 2012 in Lebanon

Here are some photos of the aftermath of the explosion that erupted a while ago near Sassine square in Achrafieh. I’ll try adding more photos as I get them from my twitter timeline.

Update:

As you probably all know by now, the ISF intelligence chief Wissam Al-Hassan was killed in this explosion.