Picture from NowLebanon

Things are not looking very good at the moment for LBCI’s Chairperson and CEO Pierre El Daher as Prince Walid Bin Talal seems determined to sideline him and isolate LBCI. PAC ltd (the company that employs most of the LBC staff), LBC SAT, LBC America and LBC Europe are all under Bin Talal’s control now. In fact, Bin Talal owns 85% of LMH (Lebanese Media Holding), the company that owns all the companies listed above and that was founded in 1997 by Sheikh Pierre El Daher and Saudi Businessmen.

397 PAC employees were sacked earlier this month, LBC SAT was shutdown in Lebanon by the Ministry of Telecommunication few days ago and LBC Europe was shutdown temporarily in Europe.

Added to that, The Lebanese Forces party is suing Daher over LBCI’s ownership, which would leave him with practically nothing if he were to lose this lawsuit. All in all, I think everyone’s at fault here and I can only hope that Daher will reach some sort of agreement with Bin Talal and the LF because no one will emerge as a winner from this dispute.

Sheikh Pierre El Daher in the middle. Picture by L-F.com

If you wish to read more on the matter, you can read this nice article by NowLebanon [Here].

If you wish to read more about this f*cked up law, check [Here].

[YouTube]

How did he fit in that suitcase? How was he breathing? That’s just crazy!

A Lebanese man turned the joke of climbing into somebody’s suitcase a reality when he hid in the luggage of a German to cross the Turkish border into Greece. Turkish customs officers at the Pazarkule Customs Gate ordered the German man to open his suitcase when they became suspicious over its enormous size. When they unzipped the luggage, the officers found the 20-year-old Lebanese identified by his initials as A.J curled up inside in a fetal position. [Naharnet]

[YouTube]

[YouTube]

Kazakhstan’s shooting team demanded an apology after a spoof national anthem from the comedy film Borat was played instead of the real one at a medal ceremony in Kuwait, the BBC reported on Friday. [Link]

Now that is freakin’ hilarious! I am surprised the athlete kept her composure and did not make a scene.

Here are few lyrics from Borat’s O’Kazakhstan anthem:

Kazakhstan greatest country in the world.
All other countries are run by little girls.
Kazakhstan number one exporter of potassium.
Other countries have inferior potassium.

Kazakhstan industry best in the world.
We invented toffee and trouser belt.
Kazakhstan’s prostitutes cleanest in the region.
Except of course Turkmenistan’s

Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan you very nice place.
From Plains of Tarashek to Norther fence of Jewtown.
Come grasp the might phenis of our leader.
From junction with the testes to tip of its face!

Mabrouk to the Lebanese female competitor who got third place. I am trying to see what her name is but can’t find it anywhere. My guess is she’s Ray Bassil.

Hackers release sexy picture of brunette in her underwear sent to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. It was discovered after ­Assad’s emails were hacked into by opposition activists. Check the full story and picture [Here]

One thing is for sure, he has a much better taste than Ghaddafi.

Forbes released its World’s Billionaires 2012 list with Carlos Slim Helú hanging on to the top spot with $69bn, followed by Bill Gates. [Link]

As far as Arab billionaires are concerned, HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud (Forbes rank: 29) topped the list with $21.3bn, followed by Mohammed Al Amoudi, and Mohammed Bin Issa Al Jaber, all from Saudi Arabia.

The first Lebanese on the list is Prime Minister Najib Mikati in 7th position with an estimated net worth of $3bn followed by his brother Taha Mikati with also $3bn. ex-Prime Minister Saad Hariri only came in 18th position with $1.7bn.

Bahaa, Ayman and Fahad el Hariri also made it to the top 30 Arab billionaires list.

You can check the full list [Here].

I posted earlier this morning about Fairuz and Nadine Labaki being among the top 15 of the 100 most powerful Arab women of 2012. After checking the full 100 names, I found more Lebanese women worthy mentioning in this list.

15-Christine Sfeir

17-Leila El Solh

41-Elissa

55-Maria Maalouf

63-Nayla Hayek

65-Nancy Ajram

69-Haifa Wehbe

72-Octavia Nasr

77-Hala Jaber

80-Nadine Khanso

81-Mona Bawarshi

96-Mona Abou Hamza

99-Mayada Baydas

PS: Not sure if I can take this list seriously after seeing Haifa Wehbe in Position 69.

Lebanese singer Fairuz and actress/director Nadine Labaki featured in the top 15 of the 100 most powerful Arab women of 2012. Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi, the UAE’s Minister of Foreign, has topped the list, with Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tawakkul Karman in second place. [Full List]

Check out Fairuz and Nadine Labaki’s pages [Here] and [Here].

I see the Crest & Oral-B Arabia competition has improved from submitting the best smile to spreading a smile. It’s definitely better than last year as there were many people not even smiling submitting their photos, including our famous BlogBaladi Candidate, the girl with the red hat, who lost to Mira Zeidan.

If anyone spots her picture among the candidates, please let us know.

I checked few videos and photos, the top-rated ones are not that funny and some are worth reporting to the police (Check Robert Tannoury’s video in the latest entries) but there’s still time and I am sure Lebanese can get more creative than that!

You can check Crest & Oral-B Arabia Facebook Page [Here] and Spread the Smile competition [Here].

I never thought I would feel that lucky to be Lebanese, specially with everything that’s been going on in this country for the past 10 years or so, but seeing what’s happening in the Arab countries around us, we should consider ourselves as being very fortunate.

We’ve always criticized fights erupting after Basketball games, or Football games where the army started shooting in the air to disperse the crowds, but we’ve never had one single casualty as a result of such events.

This being said, Over 70 were killed when Fans of Al-Masri football cub, which beat Al-Ahly 3-1, invaded the pitch and began to throw rocks, bottles and fireworks at the al-Ahly fans. Some of the deaths were the result of stab wounds, the doctors said. [Naharnet]

This is just crazy.

I always thought Lebanon would be ahead of other Arab countries in terms of freedoms, but according to this report, Kuwait is ahead of us in terms of freedom of press.

Here’s a list of the top 20 countries, as compiled by Mark from 248am.com:

1- Kuwait (78)
2- ****** (92)
3- Lebanon (93)
4- UAE (112)
5- Qatar (114)
6- Oman (117)
7- Algeria (112)
8- Jordan (128)
9- Tunis (134)
10- Morocco (138)
11- Iraq (152)
12- Palestine (153)
13- Libya (154)
14- Saudi Arabia (158)
15- Egypt (166)
16- Sudan (170)
17- Yemen (171)
18- Bahrain (173)
19- Iran (175)
20- Syria (176)

PS: In order to stay safe and not be labeled as a Zionist, or accused of attending their meetings, I censored Country #2.

I was reading an article on Israel’s plans to build a 1-kilometer security wall along the border of its northernmost village with Lebanon to prevent potential clashes in the area, and I thought to myself:

What’s so wrong about building a wall or fences all across our borders while keeping the exiting border gates? It’s not like we want to prevent our neighbors from coming in, but it wouldn’t harm if we were in control of our borders and prevented illegal entries, specially with everything that’s going on now.

Alongside the security risks, the prime goal of such a step would be to limit the economic damages this open-borders policy has been causing due to illegal traffic of products. Of course, no changes will be made to the transit rules with our Arab neighboring countries.

I don’t believe it would harm anyone if we knew who’s coming in and out of the country. We have 375 kilometers of borders with Syria and 79 kilometers with Israel.

I was surprised to read about “phenomenal growth” and “Beirut Port among the the world’s biggest 100 international ports” in the DailyStar, especially when I’ve been hearing the complete opposite from business owners and economic reports.

Here are few excerpts from the DailyStar article:

Zakhour expressed high optimism about the growth prospects in the port’s operations saying that its business is being propelled by massive growth in transshipment that exceeded 27 percent in the first 10 months of 2011 alone, contributing some 405,000 containers.

The turmoil in neighboring Syria would not negatively affect the port, he added, but in fact may well contribute to increasing its activities.

I don’t know who Elie Zakhour, head of the Beirut International Chamber of Navigation, is trying to fool by these numbers as they are inaccurate. It’s good to be optimistic but it’s better if he gives the whole image to the Lebanese.

Here’s an excerpt of Lebanon’s Economic Report for Q3 2011 prepared by Bank Audi, in regards to Beirut Port activity:

The number of containers at the Beirut Port, another important indicator of trade activity, decreased by a yearly 4.1% to attain 439,220 containers in the first nine months of this year. The mentioned number of containers encompasses all incoming and outgoing containers at the Port, but not transshipments. As a matter of fact, the latter totaled 329,162 containers, up by 22%. However, the number of ships that used the Port of Beirut during the first nine months of 2011 declined by 5.8% and amounted to 1,648. As for revenues generated by the Port, they reached US$ 119.2 million during the first nine months of 2011, depicting a yearly 5.2% decline relative to the same period of 2010.

Fransabank, another prominent Lebanese bank, published very similar stats to Bank Audi’s report. You can check it [Here].

As you can see, Beirut Port’s activity has slowed down and revenues are down, despite a surge in transshipments mainly due to the situation in Syria. All in all, Beirut Port is not doing that bad in spite of the recent events in the Arab world and the economic recession in Europe, but its growth has slowed down when compared to last year.

I read on JadAoun’s blog yesterday that Kuwait has officially banned all work permits for Lebanese and that other GCC countries will follow suit.

I don’t know what’s the reason behind such a decision, but I assume it has to do with Lebanese engaging in politics, especially after what happened in Bahrain. This decision, if followed by other GCC countries, will have serious economic repercussions on Lebanon as unemployment is already on the rise.