The trailer for my current timelapse project about Dubai and its futuristic architecture. Release of the final video is planned for early 2014. [Vimeo]

Beautiful. Looking forward to watching the final video once it gets released.

You can zoom in to any spot on the planet and watch the same three-decade timelapse unroll. Try it [Here].

Since the 1970s, NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey have been amassing satellite images of every inch of our planet as part of the Landsat program. Over time, the images reveal a record of change: of cities expanding, lakes and forests disappearing, new islands emerging from the sea off the coast of rising Middle East metropolises like Dubai.

Landsat images taken between 1984 and 2012 have been converted into a seamless, navigable animation built from millions of satellite photos. As Google wrote this morning on its blog: “We believe this is the most comprehensive picture of our changing planet ever made available to the public.” [Link]

I took some screenshots of Lebanon and Beirut throughout the years.

Lebanon in 1984

Lebanon in 1994

Lebanon in 2000

Lebanon in 2012

The only major changes you can spot is in Beirut (Solidere) as you can see below. Otherwise, the green areas are shrinking.

Beirut 1984

Beirut 2000

Beirut 2012

Picture from the PanArabia Enquirer

Before any of you starts commenting, this article was written by The Pan-Arabia Enquirer, the finest SATIRE from the Middle East, so it’s a totally made up story but I thought I mention it because the comments are hilarious and even funnier than the article itself!

DUBAI: Emirates has announced that it plans to trial new shisha lounges aboard its A380 fleet. In a statement released this morning, the Dubai-based airline revealed that the lounges would be available to business and first class passengers on several of its long-haul routes flown using Airbus’ superjumbo, starting from next month.
“Alongside unique offerings such as our Signature Spa and Onboard Lounges, with our new Signature Shisha Rooms premium customers will be now be able to relax amid luxurious surroundings with a traditional waterpipe,” the airline said in a press release.

“This new service will provide our Middle Eastern passengers with the sort of home comforts they’ve come to expect on our award-winning airline, while presenting those flying to the Middle East for the first time with the opportunity to sample one of the true tastes of Arabia before they’ve even landed.”

According to the statement, passengers will be able to pre-order a shisha from the onboard menu while at their seat and retire to the lounge after the main meal. [Link]

Here are some funny comments:

This one is epic!

The Pan-Arabia Enquirer website also went down yesterday for a couple of hours due to this article.

Jokes aside, I am sure Lebanese would have loved to have a Shisha service onboard.

Speaking of funny articles, here’s another story that I am still finding hard to believe: A Saudi student living in Michigan was arrested yesterday by the FBI after neighbors saw him with a pressure cooker. As it turns out, he was cooking a traditional Saudi dish, the Kabsah. [Huff]

Update: Lebanese Elias Bou Saab, VP of the American University of Dubai, is apparently the reason why the ceremony is always broadcasted on Lebanese TVs. He is a major shareholder in OTV and business deals with major Lebanese TVs and institutions. I was told he’s also he was the mayor of Dhour el Choueir, whose municipality is becoming a model for others to follow. He’s also the husband of singer Julia Boutros. Thanks @ArzLeb

I was told that this is not the first year that they broadcast it live but I still find it weird. They have pretty cool commencement speakers though, Arianna Huffington the Chair, President, and Editor-In-Chief Of The Huffington Post Media Group and Los Angeles’ mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa.

I remember Journalist Ghassan Tueni (May he R.I.P) was the speaker during my AUB graduation. We didn’t get any TV coverage though, unless my memory has failed me.

[YouTube]

The Red Bull Breakdance Championship is taking place on the 18th of May at B018 in Quarantina. You can read more about it [Here].

I am hopefully going to attend so I will update you with photos and videos.

Picture from The DailyStar

The Israeli man who crossed the technical fence and the Blue line between Israel and Lebanon turned out to be mentally ill and was handed over on Saturday to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Hopefully, the Israeli warplanes which have been flying for days over our skies will also go home and leave us alone.

Abdo Feghali drifting around Georges on the track. You can’t get closer than that!

My friend and Lebanese Photographer Georges Daya sent me these two exclusive pictures this morning from the Red Bull Car Park Drift qualifiers taking place in Riyadh. The Lebanon qualifiers will start on June 15th [More Info].

I’ve never missed a Red Bull Car Park Drift so far in Lebanon. It’s always a great event and a lot of fun. What I am hoping for one day is to live the experience from inside Feghali’s car.

Georges and Abdo

Even though Syria is in a state of war, and almost every airplane company has prohibited flights of its civilian airlines over Syrian territory (even Russia!), MEA planes are still using the Syrian airspace and endangering the lives of their staff and passengers.

The reason why Russia stopped its planes from flying over Syria is after “ground-to-air missiles were fired at a Russian passenger jet flying over the strife-torn Arab nation”, so the threat is real and there were previous rumors that two of MEA’s planes were targeted by surface-to-air missiles in Syrian airspace but they were denied.

However, a MEA pilot few days ago was asked to delay his landing and spend some time above Syrian airspace, during which he apparently took pictures of the clashes taking place underneath him and emailed them to other pilots to warn them. After the administration became aware of this email, they suspended the pilot according to this report and denied any threats on the MEA airplanes.

I don’t quite understand why any civilian plane would want to fly above Syrian airspace with everything that’s happening, and I hope that the MEA Administration will stop these flights before a disastrous scenario occurs. What is surprising is that many people are still going on these flights, as if a cheaper ticket is more important than their safety.

Picture from The DailyStar

I am glad no one shot him down or decided to take him as a hostage as it would have escalated things. Reports are saying that his name is Simon Saadati (A Lebanese-Israeli maybe?) and that he is mentally unstable but I find it quite weird that he was able to make it all the way across to the fence without being noticed from both sides.

An Israeli man was arrested by the Lebanese army on Wednesday after he crossed the border fence between Israel and Lebanon in Ras al-Naqoura, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.

“Lebanese army intelligence agents are interrogating the Israeli man who was arrested after crossing the border fence,” the Beirut-based, pan-Arab television al-Mayadeen reported. [Link]

Picture taken from Tech-Ticker.com via FrootApps

There are 22 million smartphones in the MENA region, 12 million in the Gulf alone. Android has the biggest market share with 40%, followed by iOS with 35%, then Blackberry and Windows way behind.

Check out more information [Here].

Dubai Marina – Picture taken from Chennibus.com

More and more people prefer going to Dubai rather than coming to Beirut. We’ve lost our competitive advantage and we are falling behind as a top destination for tourists, even the Arab ones.

Before I left for my trip to Lebanon this December, my 84-year-old neighbor told me about the fantastic nightlife in Beirut. She had visited the city after World War II, while her husband was stationed in Europe. She told me about Beirut’s unique blend of European sophistication and liberal leanings in an Arab milieu. Just about 150 miles from Cyprus on the Mediterranean, Beirut served as a gateway to the Middle East.

Flash forward to today. A generation of Lebanese disenfranchised by 15 years of civil war, a technical state of war with Israel, the presence of the Hezbollah in Lebanon and the war in Syria have contributed to the decline of Beirut as a safe, reliable point of entry into the Middle East. As a result, the soul of Beirut’s Western-leaning temperament was mimicked in Disney-esque style by the city of Dubai. And it’s a crying shame.

It’s sad because Dubai is now viewed as the preeminent, culturally westernized city in the region. Dubai, as an urban personification of the West, is the spoiled little boy who has to have the biggest piece of candy. It’s a place with Texas-inspired adoration for the new, big and sparkly; a town with a New Yorker’s greed to have more. Cops drive in Lamborghinis. Visitors party at nightclubs imported from Las Vegas, Amsterdam and… Beirut. [Link]

Picture taken from BBC

I had no clue coffee traced back to the Arab World. Read the rest of the article [Here].

Although a beverage made from the wild coffee plant seems to have been first drunk by a legendary shepherd on the Ethiopian plateau, the earliest cultivation of coffee was in Yemen and Yemenis gave it the Arabic name qahwa, from which our words coffee and cafe both derive.

Qahwa originally meant wine, and Sufi mystics in Yemen used coffee as an aid to concentration and even spiritual intoxication when they chanted the name of God.

Thanks Mohammad!

Yas Island Abu Dhabi – Source

Let’s wait and see if the Lebanese Government will file a complaint and ask for clarifications.

Oil-rich Gulf emirate Abu Dhabi expelled around twenty Lebanese nationals without any clear reasons, media reports said on Wednesday. According to al-Akhbar newspaper, Abu Dhabi authorities deported the Lebanese citizens last week, noting that they have been living in the emirate for a long period of time.

The newspaper said that the decision came immediately into effect without allowing the Lebanese to settle their work in the UAE. The reasons behind the deportation are still unclear, the daily said. [Naharnet]

A graphic was posted recently on the DailyMail showing the average body mass index values for adults around the globe.

Kuwait is officially now the fattest country in the world, followed by the United States of America, Trinidad and Tobago, Argentina and Mexico.

I sorted out the top 10 Arab countries from the lists to see where Lebanon stands and we turned out in 8th spot, which isn’t that bad.

Fattest Arab Countries sorted by Average BMI
1- Kuwait 29.5
2- Egypt 28.4
3- UAE 28.0
4- Bahrain 27.4
5- Saudi Arabia 27.3
6- Jordan 27.2
7- Qatar 26.8
8- Lebanon 26.0
9- Syria 25.8
10- Iraq 25.0

PS: Adults who have an average body weight of between 18.5 and 24.9 are generally considered to have the ideal body weight for their height.

via 248am.com

Source

We’ve been having this problem for years and the solution is pretty simple even though it might prove a bit more costly. Use the sea as a mode of transportation and keep the Lebanese exporters away from the Syrian crisis and the problems between the two countries.

Syria has prevented the export of Lebanese agricultural products via its territories in retaliation for the burning of several Syrian fuel tankers over the past weeks, farmers and owners of packaging plants in south Lebanon said.

“The decision by the Syrian side to forbid Lebanese trucks to pass through Syria … amounts to an immense crisis affecting the owners of banana and citrus packaging plants and farmers across Lebanon,” said a statement read during a demonstration in Qassmieh, 10 km north of Tyre.

Lebanese agricultural products according to analysts are in big demand in the Middle East Gulf region due to their quality, unique flavor and excellent taste, but Syria has always been the obstacle in trying to bring these products to the markets on timely basis. [Link]