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!

IDM have updated their website with the new internet speeds and prices. Sure the slowest speed is now 1 Mbps but what’s the use when your total allotted bandwidth is just 5GB a month. Oh and that measly 5GB bandwidth which is already ridiculously small is actually the combined bandwidth of both your download and upload! Talk about useless internet. [Link]

Thanks Omar

Can’t believe this is actually a pasta ad!

I bet MissFarah won’t be too happy about this.

WTH is wrong with them? Do they even realize how dangerous is that?

Via @mohammadjouni

In the past two weeks, over 3 thefts were reported in Elissar, Mount Lebanon. A polyclinic, a storage room for servers and IT equipments, and a cellular place were all cleaned out.

One of my friends told me he saw a footage from a security camera showing the four thieves all wearing masks and holding M16 machine guns.

The funny part is that they are targeting commercial centers which should be guarded by a security personnel, yet they are carrying loads of machines and equipments and still getting away with it.

Nevertheless, the security situation in Lebanon is still impeccable and excellent, as confirmed by our minister of interior few weeks back.

After visiting Ksara over a year ago, I planned a trip to Chateau Kefraya on Sunday to see if it is really as good as I heard.

I called a day before to see if I need to book or anything and I was told there’s no need to book in advance for the tour or the wine tasting, but I have to reserve a table if I want to have lunch there. Turns out they have an open buffet (Oriental food) with open wine and Arak for 45$.

The road to Chateau Kefraya is the same one you take to get to Ksara but once you reach Chtaura, you need to go deep into the Bekaa valley to reach the Chateau, which takes around 20 minutes. There are informative maps on Chateau Kefraya’s website showing you how to get there.

The road from Chtaura to the Chateau is in good shape and there are some nice landscapes to look at, specially while passing by the Ammeek village.

Once we reached Chateau Kefraya, we were given directions on where to park by security guards. We stepped down waiting for some guide to show us the way but we ended up asking the security guy. The place was much bigger than Ksara from the inside and was like a tiny village with many streets and small gardens (all with different names).

We headed to the spot indicated by the security officer and had to wait for a few minutes before some guy showed up and told us to follow him to see the caves. We had to go through the wine industry in order to reach the caves and the smells were horrible. Before going into the caves, we were shown a documentary for like 5 minutes, but it was more of an interview with the Chateau Kefraya CEO/Founder Michel De Bustros than an informative video on wine making and the Chateau’s history.

Before reaching the caves, I was expecting something similar to Ksara’s 1000+ years old caves but instead I got a boring modern room with lined up wine barrels. The guide was not saying a word and roaming around waiting for us to finish.

Disappointment continued when we went on the train ride, or what they call train and was really a tractor pulling us. No one explained to us the difference between the three rides offered and we ended up going on a lame 40 minutes trip, half of it wasted while driving to get to small vineyards. Of course there were no guides to explain anything, but instead a group of visitors laughing out loud and singing behind us.

Once we go back, there was also no one to show us where the wine tasting happens. After asking, we headed into the showroom but there was no one at the bar to serve us!

We waited a few minutes before the cashier lady served us some wine from various bottles and briefly explained the difference between them.

After that, I checked out the buffet to see if it’s worth paying 45$ and it wasn’t that bad, considering that wine and Arak are open.

All in all, I was surprised of the level of unprofessionalism at Chateau Kefraya and I would not recommend it to anyone wanting to learn more about wine making and tasting. Ksara is far better in that aspect as they have professionally trained employees guiding you throughout the whole tour.

Nevertheless, it’s a great place to have lunch on a Sunday with family or friends from abroad, specially that there’s open wine and Arak.

PS: I have no clue why it’s called a Chateau as it looks more like a small villa.

I stopped by an IBL ATM last week and noticed something weird… I’m not sure what percentage of the Lebanese population speaks Chinese, but having it as one of the 3 choices in an ATM seems weird. I’m sure it’s Chinese coz I Google Translated it and got the exact same writing. I wonder if the ATM company uses Google Translate as well

From Google Translate

I just read that LMFAO are no longer coming to Lebanon due to threats they received from some fanatical extremist Christians who think their Extremism is the voice of Jesus. These extremists think that the guy featured in the LMFAO music videos is dressed like Jesus.

That is by far the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. If they have their reasons not to come, let them give us some eligible ones, not some nonsense Christian Extremist death threats. The FB group that is behind calls for boycotting the event barely has 250 likes and 1 page of comments and stated they did not threaten anyone.

When I heard about demands for raising the minimum wage to 1,250,000, I thought it was around 750,000LL or a bit more, turns out it is still 500,000 LL, which is almost 330$.

This is really ridiculous. What can you do with 330$ a month? Probably use the bus to go back and forth to work, eat a Ghalayini man2ouche every morning and Falafel for lunch and dinner, and maybe go out twice a month.

Ever since they fixed Zouk Mosbeh’s industrial road, I’ve been spotting banners asking to stop installing a concrete mixer in the area as it will cause more pollution and is a threat on people’s lives.

There are also banners stating that it is a threat on the NDU students as well.

Does anyone know where is that concrete mixer going to be placed? And why are they making a big fuss out of it?

For all I know, Zouk Mosbeh is a hopeless case as it has large industrial areas and initiatives should have been taken long time ago by the municipality and local MPs to stop polluting the area.

According to Marwan Charbel, the new Minister of Interior, the security situation in Lebanon is excellent and the best in the Middle East and that the minor incidents happening are common and there’s no reason for Lebanese not to feel safe. [Source]

Aside from the purely “personal” conflict few weeks back in Antelias that involved C4 explosives and killed two people, here’s a list of what happened this week (Noting that Sunday incidents were not yet reported).

1- A fight erupted in Tyr between Naji Tohme and Hamadeh Al Kott and his brothers and gun shots were heard. Maryam AL Jamal and her mother in law were injured as a result.

2- An old dispute between the Abou Assman and Ghazi families in the Bekaa turned into a gunfight leaving 17 injured. Light machine guns were used.

3- A dispute over a generator in Sad el Bouchrieh led to a gunfight using light machine guns, leaving 7 people injured. 6 people were at least involved in the shooting.

4- In Baalbeck, a family dispute over a piece of land turned into a bloody gunfight, killing 6 members of the same family and injuring two.

5- In the town of Ali Al Nahri, a fight between two brothers led to a gunfight leaving one of the brothers and a citizen passing by injured. A pump-action gun was among the weapons used.

6- In Hermel, a dispute between an army man and three other people led to one person injured.

7- Last but not least, members of the Khanssa family decided to block the main road on Saturday night by lighting up tires because a man accused of shooting one of their family members was not yet arrested.

All in all, 6 disputes involving the use of machine guns and light machine guns, leaving 6 people killed and tens of them injured. I don’t know about you people, but I don’t see how we can call the security situation as being excellent in Lebanon. Seems to me everyone is armed to the teeth and impatient to try out his new weapons.

Spotted the sign above before the bridge in the middle of the highway near City Mall. Traffic Local? The correct English is “Local Traffic” but that still doesn’t mean inside road which is what the Arabic translates to.

Residents in the neighborhoods of Ain al-Remmaneh and Furn al-Chebbek have forced a bargain retail store in Beirut to close its doors after they protested against “controversial” merchandise sold there. Ali Fakih, a Shia Muslim, was forced to shut down his Big Sale store because he was selling sandals (pictured above) adorned with the Christian cross. [NowLebanon]

I am not sure why would the owner of a bargain store gets sandals with crosses on them on purpose and ruin his business. He probably did not pay much attention to his merchandise. I hope that people will calm down and realize they are taking things way out of proportion.

I’m watching MTV right now and they are interviewing 2 guys from the Jounieh Pubs committee discussing the world record they’re trying break for the longest bar in the world. Anyway they were talking about the benefits of having a committee for the pubs in Jounieh and one of the things they’re proud of is that they’ve all agreed to unify prices… price fixing. In most parts of the world that would be considered illegal and yet here the guy was proudly admitting to it on TV. Here is the definition of price fixing on Wikipedia:

Price fixing is an agreement between participants on the same side in a market to buy or sell a product, service, or commodity only at a fixed price, or maintain the market conditions such that the price is maintained at a given level by controlling supply and demand. The group of market makers involved in price fixing is sometimes referred to as a cartel.

The intent of price fixing may be to push the price of a product as high as possible, leading to profits for all sellers but may also have the goal to fix, peg, discount, or stabilize prices. The defining characteristic of price fixing is any agreement regarding price, whether expressed or implied.

Price fixing requires a conspiracy between sellers or buyers. The purpose is to coordinate pricing for mutual benefit of the traders.

That’s not cool.