Tag Archives | ministry

Drugs Price List in Lebanon Now Available Online

By Rami on June 11, 2016 in Government, Health

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The Ministry of Public Health released their new website and mobile app a few days ago, and among the new services they now offer is a listing of the available drugs in Lebanon along with their official prices so you can compare them with the prices set by your local pharmacy and know if you’re being overcharged, in addition to the ability to compare a certain drug to its available alternatives having the same formula.

This is definitely a good step forward by the ministry to identify the pharmacies that do not abide by the set prices, and ensure that consumers are getting their medicine at a fair price.

The drugs price list is available both on the ministry’s website and the mobile app for iOS and Android.

Crocodiles spotted in Beirut river

By Rami on July 24, 2013 in Lebanon

According to this article in Al-Joumhouria, at least three crocodiles were spotted in Beirut river near Karantina after someone dumped them there. After checking with a veterinarian, it turned out these are actually Nile crocodiles, a specie that is quite dangerous (do there exist safe ones?).

Both ministries of environment and agriculture were unfortunately unaware of this story, and I guess the crocodiles will most probably die on their own before these ministries decide to take any action. So for the time being, Animals Lebanon will be working on catching them and returning them back to Africa.

You can read the full article here.

Update:

Below is a video showing one of the crocodiles in Beirut river.

Minister Hassan Diab: A clear case of megalomania

By Rami on July 3, 2013 in Lebanon

Looks like minister Hassan Diab felt a bit jealous from Gebran Bassil and decided to create his own book to enlist his “achievements” at the ministry over the past two years. But this time, it isn’t a comic book, it actually a giant one with over 1000 pages! That’s like two pages for every day he spent at the ministry.

Now I feel like releasing a book too, because I didn’t make any notable achievement over the past two years as well!

Lebanon is soon getting proper addressing

By Rami on May 6, 2013 in Lebanon

beirut streets

According to tweets by minister Nicolas Sehnaoui, a bid will soon be launched for addressing of Lebanon in order for homes and workplaces to get proper addresses.

So hopefully in a few months from now, you will no longer have to tell people where you live or work based on directions like “teilit mafra2 3al shmeil” or “bi wijj mini market abou afif”!

Gibran Bassil’s new comic book – A nation’s dream

By Rami on May 4, 2013 in Lebanon

This is hilarious! I’ve been searching for some PDF version of this book ever since Bassam Abou Zaid tweeted about it a few days ago, and just last night, he made a news report about it. The Lebanese ministry of energy and water published a comic book called “A nation’s dream” starring minister Gibran Bassil and his son, telling a story that takes place in 2020 after we became an oil-producing country.

The story starts with Gibran Bassil and his son boarding a metro from Batroun towards Beirut passing by all the projects that Bassil has started, from dams to gas pipes and Beirut’s solar snake, then shows how Zouk became much less polluted and how the public dump in Dora turned into some touristic destination. The story then ends with Gibran Bassil telling how proud he feels to be among the few people who actually contributed into realizing the dreams of this country!

I’m not sure who advises minister Gibran Bassil on such things, but is he/she effing serious?! Morever, I wish the story has started by telling how exactly did Bassil accepted handing over the ministry of energy to someone else.

I totally loved the sarcastic comment by Bassam Abou Zaid at the end of the report by the way.

Nicolas Sehnaoui’s promises for 2013

By Rami on January 6, 2013 in Lebanon

Nicolas Sehnaoui

Telecom Minister Nicolas Sehnaoui posted on new year’s eve a list of goals he’s looking to accomplish in 2013 in the form of predictions (à la Michael Hayek).

Prediction 2013 #1- Improve the 3G quality with the Deep Indoor Expansion

Prediction 2013 #2- Deploy 4G in the main cities

Prediction 2013 #3- Start the Fiber To The Homes (FTTH) tender process and start connecting users to the Fiber Optic network

Prediction 2013 #4- Equip the remaining 130 co’s with DSL capability

Prediction 2013 #5- Allow and tariff VDSL technology to allow higher speeds for the 75% living under 2km from the CO

Prediction 2013 #6- Launch an International Tender on the management of the 2 mobile operators

Prediction 2013 #7- Finalize with Cyprus the purchase of 700Gb on the Alexandros cable

Prediction 2013 #8- Double the caps on 3G for the same price

Prediction 2013 #9- Start connecting the Heavy Users to Fiber Optic network

Prediction 2013 #10- Deploy the active cabinets that will allow 25% of people living further than 2km from the CO to get normal DSL

Let’s hope they all come true!

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.

Today’s weird news

By Rami on July 22, 2009 in What the fuck!

I was reading today’s issue of Annahar newspaper when I came across this weird news:

بعلبك: معاملات نفوس مع النفايات!

بعلبك – “النهار”:
عثر احد افراد قوى الامن الداخلي صباح الاثنين في بعلبك قرب مقام السيدة خولة، داخل احد مستوعبات النفايات على اكياس تحوي اوراقاً ثبوتية من هويات وطلبات تصحيحها ومعاملات ومستندات تابعة لدائرة نفوس بعلبك.
وحضرت القوى الامنية على الفور، وارسلت الاوراق الى وزارة الداخلية وفتح تحقيق لتحديد المسؤوليات.

If you ever lost track of a file at one of the ministries, now you know where it might have ended up!