[Source]

It’s always good to know that our ex-Prime Minister Saad Hariri understands why the Internet should not be censored or controlled and will work on stopping LIRA or any similar law.

It’s already the 21st and I still haven’t bought any gift for my mum. For those of you who are still undecided, I recommend you check SPA Reviews in Lebanon by RAGMAG magazine [Here] or read Lana’s top 13 gifts for Mother’s day.

Happy Mother’s day to all!

[YouTube]

He signaled that he was going left (in the opposite direction) on the Jounieh highway . I wish I had time to see what he was up to.

It took only a tweet and an email to fix my friend’s problem. I hope they will fix this bug in their system, but thumbs up for the great customer service.

In details, I tweeted MTC Touch about the problem linking them to the blog post and I emailed the person who helped me set up the 3G pilot testing a few months back. They replied to me within 15 minutes and told me that the problem can be fixed and activated the 1Gb plan on my friend’s number an hour later.

A friend of mine went on the MTC website yesterday to see how he can upgrade his 3G plan from 500Mb to 1Gb as he has been exceeding his consumption by some 300-400Mb every month.

Noting that he had not received his invoice statement yet nor an SMS from MTC, he followed the instructions on the website and de-activated his 500Mb plan and then moved on to activate the 1Gb plan.

It wasn’t working so he called MTC hotline who informed him that he will have to wait until the next cycle (his cycle was on the 15th) to activate the new plan and that he will have to stay a whole month without internet. Best practice is to de-activate the plan one day before the cycle ends and then re-activate it the next day.

What sort of non-sense is that? Why can’t MTC simply upgrade the plan and that’s it?

Added to that, MTC can easily make money from such customers who wish to upgrade their plans even if it meant paying extra and they say no?

I had posted few days ago clarifications regarding Dr Zackaria Ahmed Hankir’s arrest and how he collects weapons as a hobby. While Dr.Hankir stated that he was mistreated and humiliated, the Lebanese Army issued a press release today denying what happened and insisting that Dr.Hankir does not have the right to possess such weapons and that most his weapons are operational.

I am not sure if it’s legal to own such guns, but I must say that’s one heck of a collection this man has!

There’s an Arab proverb that says “مصائب قوم عند قوم فوائد”, which basically means that while some people might be harmed by a certain event or incident, others might actually benefit from it. As it appears, the incident that sparked the issue of food safety was the poisoning of Randa Berri, wife of Speaker Nabih Berri during the Independence Day ceremony.

This led Speaker Nabih Berri to interrupt his dinner and leave Baabda palace.

If that’s how things get done in Lebanon, we can only hope that Gebran Bassil has a claustrophobic relative and that he/she will get stuck in a tiny elevator for an hour or two because there’s no electricity. We can also pray that Sehnaoui’s friends or relatives get lost some time soon for a few hours in the mountains with no 3G or network coverage and finally that our Minister of Public Works’ wife breaks her Ferrari’s suspension in one of Lebanon’s potholes.

Randa Berri may have found the solution to all our problems in Lebanon! Thank you again!

[YouTube]

If you missed the first part you can watch it [Here]

After Beirut River turned red few weeks back, Litani River turned white yesterday due to the flow of calcified water in the river or the dumping of waste from a nearby rock factory.

We still need green and we’ll have the Lebanese flag!

[Source]

I found this cool picture of an American Navy Seal taken in Beirut in 1983. I don’t think I ever saw this Pepsi can he’s holding in Lebanon. The oldest one I remember back from when I was a child is the glass one on the left of the picture [Pic].

The oldest Pepsi can I recall is this [one].

[Source]

Regarding the hippodrome, the leaked correspondence shows that the culture ministry agreed to “the reintegration of the whole southern section of the ruins into the structure intended to be built by keeping it in situ, and the dismantling and re-installation of the central course and northern sections.”

Layoun vociferously defended his decision when he spoke to Al-Akhbar.

“What we did is an important achievement. It corrects the mistake by Solidere, which deceived property owners by not informing them that there were archaeological finds before buying the property,” he said. [Link]

I am not surprised to read this one single bit. In fact, I am a bit happy that they will actually preserve the site by “integrating” it into an upmarket commercial development, because I don’t expect better from this government or any other one. When you hear about filling up an archaeological site with sewers in Beirut in order to build a monument on top, you should not be shocked to hear this.

I posted back in Jan 24 that famous Krikita ad that was invading (and still is) Local TVs and wanted to make an experiment to see if it’s possible for the girl to snatch a cricri from the guy’s hand while jogging?

Well my brother and his friends finally did the experiment and it failed on all times. You can’t snatch a cricri while jogging from someone’s cricri bag. Myth busted!

I told him to upload it to that Crest & Oral-B Arabia Spread the Smile competition. It’s funnier than all the videos and photo I’ve seen there.

Update: It’s official. He uploaded it. It’s still under moderation but you can still view it here and vote [here] until it’s cleared.

I was discussing the whole rotten meat issue with few friends in the food business and I was surprised to hear the prime suspects, known as the Natour brothers, are among Lebanon’s biggest meat distributors and have few dealerships on Brazilian meat for example that no one else has.

This being said, there were two types of products being distributed:
- Expired meat that still “looked okay” had its expiry date changed.
- Rotten meat was sold as processed or hamburger meat etc…

Therefore, anyone from a 5-star hotel to a small snack could have received bad meat and used it in a way or another, and that’s probably why we’ve been hearing on a daily basis about tons of bad meat found in the dumpster all over Lebanon.

Of course no minister or concerned party resigned yet and it will only take few days or weeks before this whole issue is thrown in the garbage for all to forget.

I thought it would be appropriate to mention the comments I received on an earlier post regarding Zackaria Ahmed Hankir’s arrest for having a Doshka in his car.

The man in question is a highly esteemed doctor who treats a majority of his patients for free and has a hobby of collecting antiques. It is quite shameful that relatively reliable news portals and radios would spread such inaccurate information. Here’s a link to MTV’s report on that matter. [YouTube]

Here are comments from Dr Mohammed Zackaria Hankir and Zahra Hankir, Dr. Zakaria’s children. Thank you for your comments and apologies for any inconvenience caused noting that I did not accuse your father of arms smuggling but commented on the arrest as mentioned in the news.

I am the proud son of Dr Zackaria Ahmed Hankir and would like to take the opportunity to say a few words on this peculiar matter. Whilst my dad might have been quoted for saying that he used the Doshka as a “decoration item” what he meant was that he is in the habit of collecting all sorts of items which he uses to furnish his private home and clinic. That particular item is something he simply acquired over decades of collecting various bits and bobs (believe me, I used to go to the Sunday Markets in the UK with him as far back as 20 years ago when I was 10 years of age). The army confiscated this item among many others which as Sergio rightfully said don’t even shoot. Further, they subjected my further to the ignominy of being detained in jail. Now I may have a relatively liberal sense of what constitutes human rights having lived in the UK for a vast majority of my life, but a man is fully entitled to collect whatever his heart desires so long as it is not to the harm of others. My father is an exceptional physician who as Sam (bless your soul sir) rightly said, doesn’t charge a majority of his patients for his services. I can attest to this because despite the fact my father is a Dr, I (and the rest of my family) have had to work for everything we have just so that the people of Saida and other cities in Lebanon could benefit from his altruistic services. I can’t give you a figure (likely in the hundreds if not the thousands), but it is a matter of fact that there are a plethora of people out there in this world (the UK and Ireland included) who are alive and well thanks to my father’s ingenuity and compassion as a physician. He is an asset to Lebanon in the truest sense of the term and nothing less than a devoted patriot. The man has a British passport and me and my 3 brothers are all based in the UK. He can easily return here if he had the desire but he simply does n’t. Finally my father has dealt with this matter with dignity and transparency and so I hope other more pressing matters can be addressed by the authorities of Lebanon; a nation that I will always be inextricably connected to and also deeply proud of.
Dr Mohammed Zackaria Hankir, Oxford UK.

I am this individual’s daughter and yes that item was part of an antique collection and not used for some sinister purpose, as was originally reported in the press (or as you seem to suggest.) Please get your facts right before contributing to such ridiculous, unfounded and absurd claims, which essentially are defamation. My father is a well-respected doctor with a hobby, not a smuggler. At the very least, his name should not be mentioned in the context of these ridiculous charges, and the army should be focusing its efforts on arresting and raiding the many homes of those who truly harbour and smuggle weapons, not an innocent, law-abiding citizen who owns antiques.