Tag Archives | report

Expect more touristic reports about Lebanon on CNN

According to this article in Al-Akhbar today, the Lebanese ministry of tourism is planning to pay one million dollars to CNN for promotional reports and programs about Lebanon over a period of 2 months in order to boost the tourism sector after the number of tourists visiting Lebanon declined by 300,000 in 2011 due the instability in Syria.

The deal will include reports about Lebanon to be featured in “Quest Means Business” by Richard Quest, “World Business Today”, and a dedicated program called “Eye on Lebanon” for a whole week.

I hope this improves Lebanon’s image abroad for a change, and maybe stops people from comparing ever messed up place to Beirut!

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Beirut ranked last in city competitiveness

This is probably going to burst the bubble of so money people who talk big about Lebanon and Beirut being the best places in the world.

In a recent study published yesterday by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Beirut was ranked 117th most competitive global city in the world, barely managing to come ahead of the bottom 3 cities, Dhaka (Bangladesh), Lagos (Nigeria), and Tehran (Iran), taking into consideration 8 key factors that are Economic strength, Physical capital, Financial maturity, Institutional effectiveness, Social and cultural character, Human Capital, Environment and natural hazards, and Global appeal.

New York ranked 1st worldwide followed by London and Singapore, while with regards to the Middle East, Dubai unsurprisingly ranked 1st followed by Abu Dhabi, Doha, Tel Aviv, Kuwait City, Muscat, Riyadh, Beirut and Tehran.

You may read more about the study here, and download the full report here.

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The Lebanese parliament “love” stories

You really have to check this article published yesterday in Al-Akhbar about the way some of our MPs sexually harass female reporters at the parliament and even chase them to their apartments at midnight!

هناك في المجلس النيابي نواب يؤدّون دور كازانوفا. واحد من كتلة المستقبل العكارية. ثانٍ من الكتلة نفسها. ثالث مستقبليّ كوراني. مازح الأخير إحدى الزميلات مرة حين علم أن موعد زواجها قريب قائلاً إن لديه «مكتباً خاصاً للاستشارة والتدريب»، وضرب على صدره مردداً: «أنا بعجبك بها القصص». رابع جبيليّ عونيّ؛ يحرص عند استقباله امرأة «على تزليطها» بعينيه كما كان يقول مرة في مجلس خاص. خامس زغرتاوي، هو زميل الرابع في الكتلة نفسها، أدلى بدلوه في الموضوع نفسه خلال الجلسة الحميمية نفسها، فرأى أن «الرجل الذي تمر أمامه امرأة ولا يطارد مؤخرتها بعينيه، ليس رجلاً». وتروي إحدى الصحافيات أن هذا النائب كان قبل سنوات ضمن وفد سياسي يزور إحدى الدول القريبة، وكانت المرأة الوحيدة على متن الطائرة، فتهامس مع زملائه خمس دقائق ثم اقترب منها بقميص غالبية أزراره مفتوحة، ليسألها عما تنوي فعله برفقتهم، ملامساً ركبتها بركبته. السادس في الفرقة بيروتي قح، قال لأحد الصحافيين المشكوك في هويتهم الجنسية مرة: «إن كنت لا تريدني، فاترك لي المصور أو مسؤول الإضاءة». السابع في الفريق بيروتي أرمني أسدل ستائر مكتبه قبيل وصول الصحافية وخفف الضوء، قائلاً «جهزت الغرفة لتكون أكثر رومانسية». فنصحته بالذهاب عند زوجته وغادرت. ثامن الكازانوفات، من إقليم الخروب. التاسع من صور. والعاشر من بنت جبيل. أما البقاع الغربي، فينافس البقاع الأوسط، لكل منهما «جَغَلان» على الأقل. «القانون صورتكم» تقول حملة «كفى عنف واستغلال». وكان يجب أن تضيف: «ما بتِشبعوا!؟».

What is really remarkable though, is that some of the mentioned MPs are actually members of the parliamentary committee responsible for drafting new laws addressing domestic violence!

The article mentions at the end that sometimes it’s not all the MP’s fault, as some reporters also work hard to seduce some MPs, and one of them succeeded to seduce two members of the same parliamentary bloc at a time! Which of course called for the head of the bloc to intervene.

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Beirut – The best party city

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”.

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Lebanon is not a happy place!

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.

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