According to Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai, Qatar has threatened to expel 30,000 Lebanese as a response to the arrest of Qatari national Abdul Aziz Al Atiyya by the Lebanese authorities. Al Atiyya reportedly left Lebanon few days ago and his charges were dropped. He was accused of forming a terrorist cell. [Link]

Yay more good news for Lebanon and the Lebanese!

George Michael’s boyfriend, Fady Fawaz, will appear on Malek Maktabi’s show on LBC “A7mar bil Khat el 3areed’ soon. According to Elie Bassil, The naughty prince of all media (WTF?), aside from being Michael’s lover, Fadi is a a very famous gay pornstar whose nickname is “Isaac Mazar”.

Warning: There’s a very explicit picture in Elie Bassil’s website.

Lebanese tried convincing Arab tourists last week in Tripoli that the security situation is good through Kamikaze Arguile-Delivery displays but that didn’t stop Qatar & UAE from asking their citizens to leave Lebanon.

It appears that the Arabs knew something we didn’t know and the result was a bloody day that started in Halba, then extended to Akkar and Tripoli and later on to Beirut and Saida. I don’t even want to know who’s wrong or right because I’ve lost hope in all parties in Lebanon but what pisses me off every time is the burning of tires as a sign of protest.

If you wish to protest for any reason, why the hell do you wanna pollute your country and asphyxiate everyone? Form human chains to block roads, park your cars or put garbage cans or cement blocks for all I care but stop burning tires!

I asked around what’s the alternative to burning tires and the best answers I got were calories and fat, or maybe even “politicians” lol! Speaking of calories, it would have been much better if Akkar and Tripoli residents participated in yesterday’s planned Mini-Marathon in Tripoli and eased the tensions a bit instead of organizing rallies, blocking roads, shooting at each other and of course burning tires.

Picture from LiBeirut

Arab Tourists in Beirut: Picture from ArabianBusiness

The United Arab Emirates and Qatar on Saturday urged their citizens to avoid travel to Lebanon, where clashes linked to the conflict in neighbouring Syria have left 10 people dead. “The UAE foreign ministry has urged citizens not to travel to Lebanon until the tense security situation there is cleared,” it said in an English-language statement carried on state news agency WAM.

Kalbani also called on “citizens currently in Lebanon to leave the country, and in case they have to stay back for any unavoidable reasons, to contact the UAE embassy in Beirut” to give their whereabouts and contact details. [Link]

You can’t really blame them for warning their citizens, specially with everything that’s been happening in the past week or so. Added to that, it comes at the worst possible time whereas the summer season is about to kick in. Our Prime Minister Najib Mikati urged them to reconsider their warnings arguing that the security situation is good. On the other hand, Tourism Minister Fadi Abboud stated “Qatar and the United Arab Emirates didn’t officially issue a travel restriction advisory for their nationals.”

Indeed, the situation in Tripoli is great and all websites are lying.

It doesn’t say when it will open but at the rate at which new shops are popping in the Beirut Souks, I am guessing pretty soon. I absolutely love LEGO so I will definitely pay the shop a visit.

[YouTube]

I am glad I decided to watch Arabs Got Talent for the first time tonight as I had no clue we had such a young talent in Lebanon. I am sure he’s not the best opera singer out there but compared to the other competitors, he’s on a league of his own. He qualified easily for the finals and is on his way to winning this competition for sure. He reminds me of Britain’s Got Talent Paul Potts back in 2007. [YouTube]

This pothole is located on the maritime road on your way to the Forum de Beyrouth. I know already two people who had to buy a new tyre and alloy wheels after falling into it.

Republic restaurant is opening soon in Kaslik facing Saydit el Najet Church. If it’s going to be as big and busy as the original one in Amaret Chalhoub, then it’s gonna cause some serious traffic there.

Picture from Al-Akhbar

Now that’s an original idea!

The classic 80′s arcade game Pac-Man found its way to the streets of Hamra. The project was the latest installment of The Workshop as they took an innovative approach to better understanding urban navigation and enhancing the cognitive mapping and urban knowledge of individual travelers. [Link]

[YouTube]

Legendary Algerian singer Warda al-Jazairia passed away on Thursday at the age of 73 after suffering a heart attack at her residence in the Egyptian capital Cairo. [Naharnet]

She was one of the very few Arab singers I listen to. What a great loss.

Not gonna happen anytime soon.

Al Saniour Sea view has opened few weeks back in Maameltein right before Al Balad and Schtrumpf restaurants and facing Platea. The place is huge and has a terrace that overlooks the entire Jounieh bay and the Harissa Mountain.

The good thing about Al Saniour Sea View is that you don’t feel like you’re walking into a smoke cloud like other Saniour branches, especially if you choose to sit out on the terrace. Added to that, Saniour partnered with O&C Fresh Market to serve Fresh Sea Food and Sushi to its customers. I’ve tasted O&C’s fish and Sushi and both are good. Aside from seafood, Saniour has a large menu offering everything from Manakish, Salads, burgers (not so great), Lebanese Mezza and various platters. There’s also arguile of course.

A word of advice though: Avoid going there on weekends if you don’t like crowded places like myself. The best time for me is on weekdays late in the afternoon where I can have an Almaza and chill with some friends.

PS: For some reason, Saniour does not serve Almaza in bottles but only as draught. They only have Heineken bottles.

Photo edited by myself in a previous post

I remember arguing with someone over that picture asking him how did he identify the gunmen as being Sunnite? The answer was the photo is from Associated Press and it says so.

AP Photo by Hussein Malla

That ought to be a valid reason but it turns out the pictures are taken by a Lebanese called Hussein Malla and are fake. In fact, “The gunmen are purportedly taking cover (behind a useless pile of tires) and firing at an unseen enemy, but right next to them are several unconcerned bystanders who are themselves completely exposed to any return fire, and yet making no effort to hide or seek protection. Instead, many of them are standing around calmly and even laughing and smiling (as are the gunmen in some of the pictures), probably at the ridiculousness of the obviously staged battle.” [Link]

You can check out more of Hussein Malla’s fake pictures [Here].

Via BeirutSpring

Picture from Click-Sports

Here’s an excerpt from an interview with Army Chief Jean Kahwaji’s son and Champville’s president Jad Kahwaji after Champville clinched their first Lebanese Basketball title:

وعن التسييس الذي أصبح لاعباً أساسيّاً في رياضة كرة السلة، قال قهوجي: “للأسف التسييس جزء أساس من حياتنا اليوميّة، وشاءت الظروف أن يكون هناك وضع خاص، إنّما نحن من جانبنا نعمل على إبعاد السياسة عن هذه اللعبة التي نحب، وهذا يتطلّب من الفرق كلّها العمل مع جمهورها للفصل بين السياسة واللعبة”. [Link]

English translation: Kahwaji said in regards to mixing sports with politics that despite politics being an essential part of our everyday life, they tried hard as a Champville administration to keep politics away from the game and that it requires a lot of efforts specially when dealing with the fans.

It doesn’t look like they tried so hard in the picture above. In fact, I believe it is relatively easy for any Lebanese Basketball team to ask its fans to stay away from political slogans and enjoy the game, but it seems to me they are exploiting politics to attract fans instead of keeping politics away from basketball. Shame.

The comment below was just left under the post “On the Safra fire and Crisis Management in Lebanon“:

Hello! im just gona reply on some of the critics you published about our fire department and helicopter pilots.
Well about the fire truck that had no water? that is wrong, i am sure its a rumor! but i can tell you this, the equipment that they had wasnt enough to enter the building! – fire fighting equipment is very very expencive and delicate(the helmet, the breathing gear the cover clothes the boots the personnal fire hose: have one thing missing, u cant do anything)! in our department in my town we take greaaat care of them, but usualy when an internal fire happens (building fire) and when we’re second to arrive, its always us who provide the equipment because usualy others are regardles. But NO truck is parked in his station without water!!
So at safra, they waited for another fire station to provide the needed equipment.
Note that our truck’s tires are 7 years old. The government cant even provide us with our vital needs.
Im a new volunteer, this was my 6th mission, and all my training is what my friend (volunteer for 3 years now) tells me to do. They dont give us training, we learn in missions.

So please, im beggin every single critic, when you’re talking about the Civil Defence, notice that they are very brave hard core men, who are willingly and couragiously fighting for our safety, but everything comes at a price, and honestly, its not us (members of the civil defence) who should pay the needs of this department, its the government.

About the Helicopter pilots, the whole idea was messed up, it was wrong. It wasnt suggested by our colonel, but by a millitairy person. how can you EVER extinguish a fire under a cover ? ( the fire was covered by the roof!!!) its impossible! the materials inside are flamable fibers, and colorants, it needs specialy picked Foam (the white material we put in our trucks’ water reservoirs, specialy designed for particular fires) not just sea water! it helped in one thing, it delayed the section collaption. it cooled it.
Yeah and your friend who got showered? aahaha, this bucket is designed for forest fires, where u need to spread about 200L of water on the biggest area u can cover! if you want to put them in on place, the pilot needs to hover(yejmad ma7allo) above the building by as little as 15 meters and throw them, but listen up, its a helicopter, the tempreture beneath them got to 1200 degreess, that makes the air above it SUPER unstable because of the heat! so it was impossible…

One more thing i have to say, look at the photo above,picture from TheDailyStar, a fire reaching this point and in this situation, is impossible to extinguish. No fire brigade in the world can do it.
No equipment can handle 1200 degrees, to alow a man to get inside of the building with a fire hose.. The only possible thing to do is to Blockade (men 7asser) the fire from all sides and wait untill it burns out.
The cause of the building collapting is simple: the iron rods inside the concrete walls melted, and the heavy duty structure failed. So blockading the fire was a bit useless, because there was so much flamable material inside that the collaption was eminent! there should have been like 7 or 8 fire hoses shooting water at the building from all sides at the same time.. but think a bit, (they dont give us new tires) were they good enough to provide about 6 tones of diesle and about 100 tones of water every 6 hours? that’s about 20 000$..
hahahaha That’s the big joke! but that joke made a all the workers inside cry.
There was a rumor that there was no small fire extinguishers inside the factory.. if it was true, that would be the cause of this catastrophy, cz every fire starts with a little match.. But i dont know.
Because of that fire the image of the civil defence is decreasing, but im trying everything to show that those men are one of the bravest men i have ever met! Other men shoot bullets to kill and save our country, We shoot water, to stop fire and Save our people!
Sorry about the long post.

-Charbel