Tag Archives: Beirut

An Economic Boom Coming Batroun’s Way?

I was sent this report, saying that the Maronite League is bringing an economic zone to Batroun, which will help in creating over 3000 jobs for the region.

The Maronite League will announce next week a plan to establish a new special economic district in Batroun. A primary feasibility study has been performed for the project.

The location of the new district will be defined through a draft law already sent to Parliament, said a senior member of the Maronite League. The project will include businesses involved in soft industries, including ICT firms.

Businesses located within the zone will benefit from special services, facilities, and incentives, such as tax exemptions and discounts on NSSF subscriptions for employees.

“We aim at creating incentives for local and foreign companies to come and invest here, instead of taking their investments to other countries, such as Dubai or Qatar,” the Maronite League member said.

The district is expected to generate some 3,000 job opportunities. According to the source, businessmen involved in the Maronite League have expressed their willingness to move their offices into Batroun. “Over 100 companies are expected to have offices in the Batroun special economic district.”

A similar special economic zone has been announced earlier this year for Tripoli.

If this news turns out true, it would drive one of Lebanon’s more needy areas lightyears forward and would help its citizens stay home instead of moving to other Lebanese areas or even abroad in order to find jobs. This might signal a hidden demographic motive for the Maronite League in one of Lebanon’s biggest Maronite regions. Personally, I don’t really care seeing as this is such a positive sign for the region and they should be commended for doing something that very few, including the Lebanese state, have even considered before.

I’m pleased that this project won’t have a political stamp on it. We won’t get MPs or MP wannabes telling us how we should be eternally grateful for them bringing 3000 jobs to the district when they ask for our votes next year.

Another positive attribute is the fact that this is the first time such a massive project has been undertaken outside Beirut and its suburbs, which might help shift the way things are done in this country away from the deep conviction of: “Beirut & neighbors first and foremost. Almost everywhere else in Lebanon doesn’t matter.”  And with relatively short commute times for the regions around Batroun, the project’s reach will extend beyond Batroun.

I’m interested in knowing where the project will be built and I hope it’ll take environmental factors into consideration in keeping the pristine aspect of the region relatively intact or at least let it not turn into another disaster like Chekka. But pristine doesn’t bring food to the table.

Some other non-Maronite League projects involving the area include turning the Tobacco control headquarters into a branch for the Lebanese University as well as building a centralized Official High School for the entire caza in Ebrine, which seems to have been buried in a bureaucratic mess, the Batroun-Tannourine highway which seems to have stalled in its final stretch, not to mention the sewage and water networks project which has basically made our driving a living a hell with the serious lack of efficiency in the contractor the Lebanese government hired.

Add to all of this studies indicating that some of the highest amounts of oil and petrol may be found off of Batroun’s shores, the area will witness a lot of development in a short period of time. Well, it’s about time.

My Last Valentine in Beirut – Movie Review

“This movie is for serious and smart people only” said the marketing tagline. Then by all accounts, I’m a stupid person who knows nothing of seriousness.

My Last Valentine in Beirut is not a movie. I have no idea what to make of it actually. It’s a horrid mess. It’s a nauseating spectacle. It’s a disgustingly bad atrocity. It’s a jumble of scenes with no apparent link between them except a quest to build up into a running time of approximately 80 minutes. Meet Juliette, a whore in Beirut. Meet a movie director and his assistant wanting to make a movie about Juliette. That’s basically the entirety of My Last Valentine in Beirut for you.

There’s no depth in the movie. Not one bit. The characters are as flat as a board. The storyline – or lack thereof – is so void that you shouldn’t even attempt searching for anything in it. The jabs at Lebanese society are delivered by the characters turning to face the camera – there’s not even one hint of subtlety anywhere. The movie takes cheap shots at other Lebanese movies such as Caramel, Bosta and W Halla2 la Wein which by all accounts are much, much better than this mess. Juliette’s attitude, obviously hyperbolic, becomes more than grating at points. The point of this being a critique of Lebanon today becomes entirely detached from what’s happening on screen that any message the movie tries to pass feels forced especially as the last scene rolls around and you start wondering how the movie got to the conclusion it tries to bring forth with its obvious lack of build up towards anything mentally stimulating.

The absolutely useless 3D is only here for the extra revenue and it’s so distracting at times that it visually hurts. Some camera angles, which are supposedly “artistic,” don’t make sense – even to someone like yours truly whose expertise when it comes to movies is restricted to being an enthusiastic viewer.  Even the only sex scene in the movie is of such catastrophic execution that it becomes one of the movie’s funniest moments. Those are not many.

You’d think that struggling Lebanese cinema would actually bother to come up with good enough movies especially with production being so scarce. But no, you get movies like My Last Valentine in Beirut which keep throwing one crappy scene after another at you in order to break the worst movie in history record, which is a shame really because the premise of a movie discussing prostitution in Lebanon is so dense that this movie, if actually done like a proper movie with a decent script, could have turned out well. Maybe. Who am I kidding. At some point during My Last Valentine in Beirut‘s rather short running time, I wished I was watching Breaking Dawn again. This was one of the worst movie experiences of my life. And that’s not an easy feat at all. My Last Valentine in Beirut has shattered my faith in Lebanese cinema into so many little pieces that next time a non-Nadine Labaki Lebanese movie is released, I’ll rely on other people going on a martyrdom viewing mission before I venture out.

Do not watch this. Even if your life depended on it. Even if your mother’s life depended on it. You could use the $10 admission price in so many better ways, not to mention the time of your life you wouldn’t have wasted trying to watch this cinematic massacre.

1/10 – and I’m being generous. 

Lebanese Restaurants Violating The Smoking Ban: 3enab, Gemmayze

I went to 3enab yesterday for the first time and I thought it was a very cool restaurant. I really liked the old-fashioned Lebanese architectural aspect of it. The food was good as well – after all, you can’t go terribly wrong with Lebanese food, which is the absolute best, and that is a fact.

As my friends and I settled down, a waiter came to us and asked if we wanted an arguile. I promptly asked him: isn’t smoking banned? He then replied: we’ll open this window:

Never mind that the window was tiny but apparently that’s enough to consider the room an “open space” – whatever that means. Soon enough, a couple coming for dinner ordered an arguile. The man was also smoking cigar.

As we finished having dinner and turned around to leave, we were surprised to find the entire restaurant filled with arguiles, even in sections of the restaurant without windows to open. A friend noted as we exited the door: it felt like shisha cafe for a moment there.

 

Ironically, this is the sign they had at their main door:

As soon as I left, I called 1735 and reported the place. They took my contact info and said they’ll look into it. But as I was made to realize: infringing the law this obviously in an area where tourism police is constantly on the prowl, seeing it was a Friday night, means 3enab probably has some under the table dealings with those making sure the law is carried out. Anything for that extra arguile revenue.

I’m pretty sure those against the smoking ban are elated right now.

El Awedem Ma3ak

It started with a few sporadic ones spread along the highway to the North. My drive to class everyday is now littered with posters of our prime minister looking at me from in front of the Tripoli Citadelle to let me know that I am beneath his people.

“El Awedem Ma3ak.”

Check the rest of this entry here. It is my first article for NowLebanon.

Movenpick Lebanon… For Sale

The avalanche keeps on rolling. The new casualty in the Lebanese economic scene is Movenpick Hotel as its owner, Saudi businessman Walid Ben Talal, has put it up for sale. (Source)

Movenpick joins Buddha Bar and Fuddruckers as the latest in a series of high profile businesses that declare it quit.
This snowballing effect cannot but be taken back to how things are today. It’s not due to the assassination which took place a couple of weeks ago. It is not due to recent events.
This is a culmination of all the policies that this current government has pioneered – and it seems they haven’t taken the hint yet.

If a businessman as wealthy as Walid Ben Talal can’t handle the Lebanese situation anymore, then what can you say about those who don’t have his billions?
Meanwhile, our minister of tourism believes things are alright. It seems the Nile has taken route across the Lebanese capital.