Picture from DailyMail.co.uk : Lake Brienz in the Canton of Berne in Switzerland. The country is the best place for a child to be born in 2013

Switzerland is the best place to be born in the world in 2013, and the U.A.E is 18th, right after the U.S and Germany, according to a study by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a sister company of The Economist. The where-to-be-born index takes into account 11 indicators and links “the results of subjective life-satisfaction surveys – how happy people say they are – to objective determinants of quality of life across countries.” [Source]

Being rich is important of course but there are other factors that come into play. As far as other Arab countries are concerned, Kuwait ranked 2nd in the region (22nd world wide), followed by Saudi Arabia (38th world wide). I could not find Lebanon as it wasn’t included in the 80 countries chosen for the study, but I say we would have ranked in the bottom 30 spots.

It looks like the few days spent in prison didn’t affect Pierre Hachach much. I hope though that he never goes through this experience again.

For those of you who don’t know Pierre yet, he’s the one behind J.F.K’s assassination and he’s not ashamed to say it.

[High-Res]

This is hilarious!

Spotted in Hamra by Kanzi Kamel from Beirut.com

[YouTube]

Edward Maalouf won the 2012 edition of the Beirut Marathon and is still planning to compete internationally in 2013 without any financial or official support from the Lebanese authorities.

I got this message from Spinneys today and wanted to clarify that it’s not Halloween that we are celebrating few days from now but Saint Barbara. Both may be a bit similar in terms of traditions and costumes but they are two different holidays and we celebrate each of them separately.

[YouTube]

Apparently this is the scene that led the order of nurses in Lebanon to file a lawsuit against “Last Valentine in Beirut” director and producer Salim el Turk.

Thank you Assaad

The Christmas tree is very nice but I think they overdid it with all those Christmas red balls on the front glass facade. The hanging LeMall Express train looks cool though.

Picture from the movie’s FB Page

The movie is a romantic comedy of a prostitute in 3D. It’s supposed to be funny and from what I read offers a satirical approach to certain topics in Lebanon.

Having said that, I don’t know on what basis the order of nurses filed a lawsuit against the movie for disrespecting their profession. If they don’t know much about prostitution and how it works in Lebanon, I am sure many super nightclub owners would be more than delighted to give them a brief intro on the topic.

Actually, and in order to make it easier, I invite them to attend one of Excalibur’s unmissable nights where “they can live the never aging fantasy of hot nurses”. Excalibur, as well as regular night clubs and pubs, organize quite often theme nights with sexy cops, teachers, doctors, school girls etc…

Put aside prostitution and super nightclubs, Barbara (Lebanese version of Halloween) is on the way and there will be plenty of naughty nurses costumes all over the shops, not to mention Halloween movies on TV with girls dressed as naughty nurses.

The point from all this post is that no one’s disrespecting nurses or cops or teachers, and that the lawsuit is silly and should be ignored by the censorship bureau. In fact, I don’t see the ISF censoring movies that show a girl dressed as a naughty cop or asking Excalibur to take out such costumes.

Last but not least, I urge Lebanese to stop taking hits at Lebanese directors and give their movies a chance instead of asking for their ban or censoring them. If some can’t handle 18+ movies, they can stick to Turkish-Syrian-Mexican TV series.

Picture shared by MP Nadim Gemayel

Jennifer Chedid is a 10-year old girl who was severely wounded during Achrafieh’s bombing a month ago. She was rushed to the hospital and her condition was critical but the brave young girl refused to die, fought back and recovered. Today Jenny is doing well and back to school with her friends.

[Lebanese Blogs]

Here’s a useful website [LebaneseBlogs] and a great domain name to check out the latest posts from 181 carefully selected Lebanese blogs. The list was compiled by Mustapha from The BeirutSpring.

The page is still in its very early phases, so if you believe more blogs should be added or have any suggestions on the layout or any other feature, you can contact Mustapha or share your opinion here.

The order of nurses in Lebanon has apparently filed a complaint against Salim el Turk’s movie “My Last Valentine in Beirut” as they felt disrespected by few scenes of the movie, which has been showing for only 2 weeks now. Salim el Turk stated that he didn’t receive any official letter yet and that he’s against any type of censorship.

What’s next? Ask the authorities to confiscate all the naughty nurse costumes for Halloween and Barbara?

We have officially reached a new level of stupidity in Lebanon.

Spotted by Rachel

If you don’t know what “Galops Lachoups” is, watch this Christmas special episode from Ma fi Metlo:

[YouTube]

If you ever passed by Marina Dbayyeh and wondered what this unfinished building was, it’s 18 million dollars of our tax money gone to waste.

This is the new international version of LBC after Pierre el Daher lost LBC SAT to Walid Ben Talal.

The “Lebanese Diaspora Channel (LDC) was launched 25 November 2012. LDC will allow viewers to follow their favorite LBC programs that got the highest view rates such as the political talk show “Kalam Ennas”, the diversified and humanitarian program “Celebrity Duets”, and other social shows such as “Ahmar BelKhat AlAreed”. [Wiki]

After getting arrested and beaten with rifles by army intelligence officers in broad daylight outside Dunkin Donuts in Batroun, and spending almost a week in Qobbeh prison in Tripoli, Pierre Hashash will be released tomorrow without any charges as reported by Naharnet.

Hashash will have to witness in a civil case though as his file was transferred to Baabda’s civil court. As for the army intelligence officers who brutally assaulted Pierre and made his head bleed, well there’s no mention of that in the report.

I am still puzzled as to why they beat up the poor man only to release him without any charges. I hope Kahwaji will take measures to prevent such incidents in the future.

Picture from NowLebanon showing the blood of beaten Lebanese political activist Pierre Hashash on the floor of Batroun’s Serail.