Tag Archives: Lebanon

The Syrian Army Attacking North Lebanon Tonight?

A news report just published is saying that more than 15,000 Syrian army men are heading towards the Northern Lebanese borders for a military attack to secure the border. The report also says that the Syrian army might venture deep into Lebanese land and reach Tripoli to completely annihilate the support of the Syrian Free Army in North Lebanon.

I’m taking this with a grain of salt because it sounds too far-fetched, not to mention that the source of the news is Al Diyar. Why would Bashar el Assad risk 15,000 men away from battlegrounds where they’re probably much more needed?

But I’m not a military strategist nor do I want to be. So assuming that there’s some truth to this and that the Syrian Army might be planning something eventually along the Lebanese border, let me ask our government a few questions:

  1. Have you made sure that the Syrian Army is not moving in droves towards our Northern border?
  2. If the Syrian army is moving in droves towards our border, have you called your favorite person in Damascus to ask them why?
  3. Have you called up upon our army to move towards Akkar in order to retaliate to every single missile and shot fired by people who want to violate our land? Or is it only violation and a cause of panic and mayhem when our Southern neighbors do it?
  4. In case the Syrian Army decides to go as far as Tripoli, do we have a plan of action or will we just stand by the sidelines and watch as they burn our country again?
  5. PM Mikati, how was your pilgrimage to Mecca? Rewarding, I hope.

Alas, the answers to all of those questions are already known. Long live a country whose borders are as open as the legs of a prostitute.

Dancing With The Stars Coming To Lebanon

The United States’ most watched competition TV Show is coming to Lebanon thanks to MTV. A source has told me that the show’s presenter will be Carla Haddad, former weather anchor at LBC, who went to MTV solely in order to quick start the show.

MTV has already started promo for the show on its airways by teasing viewers about the most watched TV show in the world coming to its airways, along with scenes of people dancing. This is the promo in question:

Don’t expect a lot of current famous people to make their way to the TV show but expect “stars” that we are at least familiar with. I will update this post if I get definite names of anyone who’s participating in it.

DWTS pairs famous people with a dancing partner and they dance to a judging panel which grades them. Their grade is then combined with audience vote to determine who gets kicked off. The American version is now in an all-star season which has brought back winners and finalists from all previous seasons.

I personally think MTV has the chops to pull off such a production, similarly to how MBC and LBC are pulling off The Voice. I guess we’ll wait and see. DWTS should start airing on MTV soon.

Buddha Bar Lebanon Shuts Down

Here’s yet another nail in Lebanon’s economic coffin. Buddha Bar, one of Lebanon’s trendiest go-to places, is shutting down permanently, according to the Daily Star. This will get approximately 200 employees laid off from their jobs.

The cause for Buddha Bar shutting down is non-other than the great situation the country is going through. If you haven’t been in the loop, which I doubt, here’s what it breaks down into, grosso modo.

  • A very poor touristic season over the summer.
  • Civil unrest that ignites at any moment.
  • A seemingly camping-site friendly Downtown Beirut, which is where Buddha Bar is located. It has been turned into such a place twice in the past four years alone. They also offer discounts if you want to join them in rainy weather.
  • Political leadership with absolutely no idea whatsoever on how to run things.

And things don’t seem that they’ll drastically improve anytime soon with rhetoric that keeps sinking, politicians who believe acting feisty over Twitter will bring forth change and supporters who are more than convinced that their corresponding side of the political spectrum has done absolutely nothing wrong over the past few years – or has done things that are entirely justifiable.

Meanwhile, 200 families have just lost means of support. And if Buddha Bar is closing down, what does that say about the countless other smaller businesses that are suffering in this country? How many other families will have their jobs taken away from them just because our country is always the playground of others?

We cannot really work on fixing our economy until we fix everything that’s ruining it and herein lies the problem: where do we start fixing?

 

LBC and the LF: Don’t Celebrate Just Yet

There was a news item which overtook Friday’s Achrafieh bombing today and that’s the judge ruling in the lawsuit between the Lebanese Forces and Pierre Daher, the head of the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, who was accused by the LF of abusing the trust they put in him when they handed him the TV station which was founded by their founder more than two decades ago.

A similar ruling had been given last year but Pierre Daher chose to take it to higher courts. LF supporters seem to think that today’s ruling is the final one in the case. Simply put, it is not. According to Agnes Sema’an, a good friend of mine who recently graduated from law school, there are more details about the ruling which seem to have escaped most people.

This is apparently an indictment which came out from the criminal division of the court of cassation (temyiz). It declares the previous case, whose ruling turned out to be in favor of the LF, valid. The argument presented by Daher  at this court was that time had passed on the events that were being argued which makes the initial case invalid; LF argued that Daher should be arrested for fraud and embezzlement.

This opens the way to the ownership trial which means that the case will now be forwarded to the single criminal judge of Beirut and he will look into it. That judge will listen to witnesses and he’ll be given documents by both sides to prove their points and he will give a ruling which might go either way – however, his ruling can go to the appeals court.
The appeals court, also, has way too many ways with which it could advance. So the LF have won a fight in a battle that has not ended yet and will keep going for months to come. Headlines that say “LBC is owned by the LF” are erroneous. LF supporters should not pop champagne bottles all over Facebook just yet. There’s still a long way to go.

But the real question is: what will this mean to LBC as a TV station if it returned to the Lebanese Forces?

If we go by other Lebanese TV stations which are handled by political parties (Future, NBN, Al Manar, OTV), this means that the quality of LBC as a TV station will degrade rapidly. Most of these TV stations are unwatchable due to their extreme bias and ridiculous one-sidedness so even if the TV shows that are offered remain at a certain relatively high standard, the news won’t be. I expect the viewership of the TV station to decrease the more biased its news service becomes.

I also expect a lot of political hiring and firing to happen. Many LF-supporters searching for jobs will suddenly find a spot for them in the midst of LBC. It has already started with my Facebook timeline filled with excited mass communication majors who also happen to be LF supporters and for their supporters to be hired, others have got to go. How disappointed will those people be when they find out that it won’t be that imminent.

All in all, while it is perhaps the Lebanese Forces’ right to own LBC, I have to wonder if it’s the best thing for Lebanon’s leading TV station to become deeply and politically involved? One thing is for sure though: even if the LF end up winning the whole thing, it will not be an easy walk in the park for them to run a station.

Al Manar & The Lebanese Forces Israeli Agent

He’s a “known” Israeli agent. He’s roaming the streets of Beirut. He has pictures with Israeli soldiers in the background. His name is Pierre Nammour. And he’s “threatening” with murder in Downtown Beirut.

They focus on his neck. He’s wearing a Lebanese Forces Cross. Because it’s common knowledge that the LF are known for being Israel-loving, non-Lebanese Lebanese. Showing that Cross, with its split base and the delta, will definitely add credibility to the report, they thought.

Throw in an interview there and you’ve got a scoop. Al Manar just unveiled an “Israeli agent” who wants to start war in Lebanon. There’s even a video.

A few comments though.

1) Assuming the pictures are real and not photoshopped which they may clearly be (Al Manar are sure pros at forgery), I’m sure I can find many, many pictures of Lebanese with Israeli soldiers in the background. It’s a byproduct of them occupying part of the country for approximately 20 years. If you go and take pictures at the Lebanese border now, odds are you will have an Israeli soldier in your picture’s background. It’s not enough for me to call them traitors but apparently it is for Al Manar. A Hezbollah militant decides to smile for the camera with an Israeli soldier in the background… Automatic traitor. Or not.

2) If Pierre Nammour is such a known traitor and those pictures are real and he has served in the Israeli army and he has killed Lebanese, etc., then why isn’t he in jail? I’m certain his political affiliation cannot pull enough strings to keep him out as Al Manar’s party did with “others.” Because even when it comes to treason, Lebanon has various degrees. There are some which don’t serve you politically and there are some which do.

3) How this shows that Israel is behind the assassination of Al Hassan is beyond me. And that was Al Manar’s conclusion apparently.

4) Al Manar has certainly made a splash out of the man saying that he’s willing to kill those who threaten him if the need arises. I wonder though, how many of the militants that Al Manar loves and cherishes would say the exact same thing and have probably done it more than once before and not only against Israelis?

5) What’s probably the best testament to the bullshit in Al Manar’s report is the fact that it’s one minute long. I would assume exposing an Israeli spy who’s threatening civil war would warrant more airtime.

Pierre Nammour is definitely an instinct-driven man, like many other Lebanese, who thinks with his beretta first and foremost. That’s definitely not acceptable but he’s not the only one in the country who thinks that way. Should he be turned into a news item? How about we turn the million or so Lebanese who think like him into news pieces too?

No one should expect anything remotely acceptable from a TV station like Al Manar, known for the absolute and utter crap they air day in day out. But it is a sad day when treason becomes a passe-par-tout accusation.

Till when should the Lebanese airwaves be littered with “n’importe quoi” news just because their target audience likes them?