[High Res]

I took this picture yesterday on my way back. Weather was just perfect in Mzaar and you could see from up there a fog over the village of Faraya.

Two days ago, the body of a middle-aged man was found in the garbage in the Maameltein area. The body was burned and ISF were unable to identify it.

Yesterday, two middle-aged men were found shot dead under the Antelias bridge and in Jisr al-Wati Sin el Fil.

Early investigations did not show any link between the two murders but I must say I don’t recall hearing about such crimes in Lebanon in the past years. It’s like there are criminals on the loose stealing and killing in cold blood. Thank God we don’t have serial killers yet.

I know the ISF cannot possibly secure every single area in Lebanon, which is why I think municipalities should be better financed and empowered to secure their own towns and cities. Patrols should become more frequent and residents of every town should be encouraged to volunteer and help the municipality. I think there are few municipalities, such as Bourj Hammoud, applying this method and it’s working out quite well.

It is true that Lebanon has always been unstable politically, but we never had to worry about walking in the streets at night and it should stay that way.

For those interested, you can buy a bronze buttock from the statue of late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein collected by a British former soldier. It is expected to sell for around 10,000$.

I think the Iraqi government would claim back that ass and make out of it a monument for tourists and locals to kick. Read more about it [Here]

Anyone knows why Raul di Blasio’s concert has been postponed twice already? I was planning on watching it the first time but I was flying to Italy on the same weekend, but I just found out it got delayed few days back then and after that a whole month.

I think they might be having problems selling the tickets because there are still plenty available for October 15th and 16th shows.

That is quite surprising if you ask me. I thought people in Lebanon liked di Blasio. I wonder now if Tom Jones’ concert is gonna sell out. Can’t believe this guy is still singing!

One must have some guts to go after a hyena and kill it. They are very dangerous and deadly animals. You can check out the hyene’s picture [Here].

News about HSBC closing down branches came some 3 weeks ago, and today it was announced officially that 3 HSBC branches in Beirut were closed.

You can read more about it [Here].

Ever since the decision to increase minimum wages by 200,000 LL was announced yesterday, I haven’t read any positive feedback on it. Many think it’s a bad idea and the economic bodies urged the private sector not to abide by the government’s decision.

Economically speaking, it is always bad when the government increases minimum wages without taking into consideration the resulting inflation and increase in unemployment. However, looking at the inflation that has been ongoing for years now in Lebanon, it is hard to believe that adding 200,000 LL to the minimum wage will have that many repercussions.

Nevertheless, I had a long talk with a good friend of mine who works in the industrial sector and he told me that while intentions behind raising the wages are good, such measures will force businesses to fire people and cut down on the benefits given to employees. Added to that, the government is planning on compensating this increase by adding an extra 2% to the VAT, which along with the inflation, will result in flamboyant prices.

There were better alternatives to increasing the minimum wage, ones that do not include regulating prices such as:

- Follow the army example and grant Lebanese earning only the minimum wage discounts on food and other basic goods.

- Higher Taxes on the maritime resorts and quarries, knowing that a big portion of them is illegal.

I saw few minutes of Tony Baroud’s new show on LBCI called “A7la Jalsse” and Nadine Njeim, Miss Lebanon 2004, was among his guests.

During one part of the show, they asked all guests to state their bad habits. When it was Nadine’s turn, she proudly stated that she texts on her BB, does her makeup, and eats while driving!!

Fortunately though, she does keep the seat belt on and was never caught cheating on her exams.

I wish someone could share with us the standards upon which the MOT is choosing candidates for Miss Lebanon(aside from having a twitter account because social media is so cool now!)

PS: While listening to Nadine, I was imagining SLCHI making fun of her with Roula playing Nadine and Naim playing Tony. We want SLCHI back!

On Tuesday, the cabinet increased the minimum wage to LL700,000 from LL500,000. It also raised by LL200,000 the wages of workers earning less than LL1 million. As for those who earn between LL1 million and LL1.8 million, they would get a LL300,000 raise. [Naharnet]

While this is great news, there seems to be something wrong with the decision taken as it excluded everyone earning between 1,000,000 and 1,800,000 LL. In fact, I just read on the Kataeb portal that the government might reconsider the draft to include everyone.

Why is it wrong?
Because it doesn’t make sense to add 300,000 LL for someone earning 1,750,000 and exempting another one earning 1,810,000 LL. What should be done is sorting the salaries into ranges and giving a percentage for each range:

For example:
- 200,000 LL for people below 1,000,000
- 300,000 LL for people between 1,000,000 and 1,800,000 LL.
- 10% or 400,000 LL (depending which is higher) for people between 1,800,000 and 5,000,000

I’ve been hearing this song at all weddings I went to this summer. It’s apparently the latest and best Dabke song but I don’t understand a single word he’s saying even though it’s Lebanese.

The only phrase I got was “Lebssit A7la Bantalon”. Where can we find Lebanese who talk this way?

BlogBaladi took part in the report BBC did on the internet in Lebanon as I was interviewed by Howard Johnson on that matter few weeks back. Surprisingly though, they did not include anything I said but simply showed me browsing the net at the start of the report. Di3an kel hal 7ake!

For those interested, I talked about most of the issues the other interviewees mentioned but also noted that the cap given to internet users is very low, that our infrastructure might not be able to handle increasing numbers of internet users specially after the drop in prices and the speed upgrades, and that both issues could prove very problematic in the near future.

[YouTube]

Straw Hat Legacy is an iPhone/iPad game designed by a Lebanese indie developer called EvilEggPlant Studios. I guess the Arabic for that would be الباذنجان الشريرة?

Anyway, EvilEggPlant was started up by two guys, Wael Ouaijan and Avak Avakian and Straw Hat Legacy is their first game release. You can watch the video of the game above or download it from the Apple Store [Here]

My brother also has an interview with them which you can check out on his blog [Here]

I like seeing our President out and about. Kinda reminds me of Obama picking up burgers from Five Guys. [Link]

Lebanon has banned a screening of Iranian documentary “Red, White and the Green,” which deals with violence in the weeks before the 2009 presidential election, an organizer announced Sunday.

“Lebanese censorship authorities on Friday informed us we would have to pull Iranian director Nader Davoodi’s film ‘Red, White and the Green’ from our program and today we were informed that Davoodi would not be allowed to travel to Lebanon,” said Colette Naufal, director of the Beirut International Film Festival which runs from October 5 to 13. [Link]

I am curious to know what was the reason for banning this Iranian movie.

You can check out more about the movie [Here].

I finally went to see Nadine Labaki’s movie yesterday and I absolutely loved it!

It is by far the best movie I’ve seen this year and the best Lebanese movie ever produced. The characters, the plot, the music, the locations chosen, everything was just perfect!

There are a lot of funny scenes despite the drama involved, and I felt the movie was short despite being 110 minutes long.

Nevertheless, there are two things I did not appreciate in the movie:

- All men are portrayed as being irrational and impulsive and sometimes dumb while all women are wise and intelligent and can easily manipulate and trick their men.

- Lebanese Muslim & Christian women, living in distant villages, will NEVER go down to the city to bring back Ukrainian strippers/hookers to keep their husbands and the villages’ men entertained.

Still, those are minor details when we look at the whole movie which is simply brilliant!

I highly recommend it to all and I will definitely be watching it a second time soon.

PS: The movie scored a well deserved 7.4 on imdb and there are some nice reviews which you can read [Here].