Tag Archives: Lebanon

Is All of Lebanon’s Internet Resting on the IMEWE Cable?

Two whole-country blackouts in one week. Both lasted for a few hours during which the entirety of Lebanon was disconnected from the grid, adding to its disconnections in electricity and water – because we are not allowed to have a 24/7 sector that runs smoothly in the country.

It could be that we decided to feel compassion to the people of Virginia in the US, bracing themselves through massive storms. We can’t let them be the only people on the globe who are suffering through internet disconnections?

Let’s hope the Americans can be appreciative.

But sarcasm aside, how come all of Lebanon’s internet rests on the state of one cable: IMEWE, the one we got connected to not long ago?

Don’t we have other cables, such as Cadmus, that also connect Lebanon to the grid? Where are those cables when something happens to IMEWE?

Don’t we have a backup plan in case anything happens to IMEWE? Can’t we revert to the old bandwidth that was enough to sustain connectivity although not speed (dismal as the current one may be) in case something happens to this cable?

And regarding IMEWE, how come a cable that cost millions upon millions of dollars is having this many problems? Two blackouts this week alone with the total number of blackouts increasing the further you go back in your observation. And why are the problems only centered in Lebanon? Alexandria, for instance, another location that gets bandwidth from the cable is not suffering from the blackouts we are having.

They want to let you think Lebanese internet has gotten better. But what good is an extra Mbps in speed when you can’t even use it for hours and hours? What good is the internet that comes from a cable that’s looking to be more fragile than an osteoporotic woman’s bones?

With this many recurrent problems with the IMEWE cable, perhaps the ministry of telecommunications should look into the main problem leading to the blackouts and not patch it up in a few hours so it happens again a few days later.

In all my years as an internet user, all of which have been in Lebanon, there has never been as many internet blackouts as we’ve had since our internet got “better.”

 

The July 2012 Kourah By-Elections: When the Concept of Democracy Escapes the SSNP

Fadi Karam posters are everywhere on the North Lebanon highway

12 days from now, the northern caza “Al Kourah” is going to have a round of elections to elect an MP to replace Farid Habib, who passed away from cancer back in May.
The build up to the elections was interesting to watch. The first question that came up on the political scene soon after the parliementary seat became vacant: would elections take place?

The LF, who had previously won the seat, decided that their party will proceed with the elections. Therefore, based on their new internal laws, consultations took place with high ranking officials of their base in Kourah and they chose Fadi Karam, a dentist and former head of the Order of dentists in North Lebanon.

Soon after Karam was chosen, the SSNP decided that this is a direct confrontation for them. Why’s that? Because Karam is from their base town Amyoun. They considered it as a direct challenge from the LF for them to nominate someone from Amioun. They, therefore, decided to have a candidate run for the Kourah elections. Not because they wanted to. But because they were “forced” to by a blatant act of defiance.

What the SSNP seems to have totally evaded is the concept of democracy. The notion that in an election people who meet certain legal criteria can run regardless of where they are from is not in the SSNP directory. I guess Antoun Saadeh missed that part in whatever party principles they are obviously not following.

I wonder, had the LF nominated someone from Dhour el Shweir, wouldn’t they have considered it an act of defiance as well? Better yet, had the LF nominated someone from Bterram, another town in Kourah where the SSNP have great influence, wouldn’t they have considered it an act of defiance too?

Why hide behind lame excuses when you want to test the ground for the 2013 elections as much as your opponent?

The SSNP also declared that they would have had no problem letting the elections go for a win by default for a lone candidate  had the LF kept their candidate in MP Farid Habib’s family by either nominating his wife or son. Apparently they believe the seat “belongs” to that family since it was only taken from them by death.

Now I have to ask the SSNP, where was this “we respect the dead” attitude when Amin Gemayel was running against an unknown FPM candidate for the seat vacated by the assassination of his son in Metn? Or does it only apply in places where the chance of the SSNP winning are next to none?

Yes, their candidate has no chance of winning in Kourah.

Moreover, why should the concept of a seat belonging to a “family” be even a part of the discussion to begin with? The seat belongs to the citizens of Kourah. It would be a grave insult to their rights not to have the correct path of electoral democracy take place and have one candidate thrown on them forcibly just because some parties are too afraid to lose inexistant momentum a year before the 2013 parliemntary elections.

As part of their campaign, the SSNP are also busy reminding the voters of el Kourah about the LF’s militia past – about how the LF (and the LF alone) killed their sons and children way back when. Let alone the fact that this is nowhere near true (the SSNP had its fair share of atrocities done all across Lebanon and them pretending otherwise would be an a insult to voters’ intelligence), but what good does it do to bring forth into the conversation a civil war people shouldn’t even take into consideration with their votes anymore?

Does the SSNP even know that Fadi Karam was not a militant with the LF during the civil war? Do they know he rose among the ranks of the party after Samir Geagea was released from prison in 2005? Do they know he represents a rising class of LF politicians and enthusiasts who absolutely have nothing to do with the war?

Yet the SSNP is throwing a war Karam had nothing to do with on his shoulders. If you can’t beat them at the polls, beat their reputation with lies, obviously.

In a democratic country like Lebanon – regardless of what you think about this type of democracy – making a big deal out of the village a candidate was born in is unacceptable. Making a big deal of having been “forced” into elections is unacceptable. Making a big deal out of everything but the issues at hand is unacceptable.

You don’t want to run for elections? Then don’t. Don’t whine endlessly about irrelevant reasons for you deciding to run.

Come July 15th, the citizens of Kourah have such a clear choice in front of them it’s even silly to point it out. But regardless, what July 15th should and will be is a triumph for democracy and freedom over the concept of hate and cowardice.

Support Wickerpark 2012!

Wickerpark is an annual festival that takes place in Batroun and which I, as a Batrouni, feel especially proud about. This year will be the second time it’s held after a successful first run last year where over 1500 people attended the two-day festival.

The funds collected were donated in their entirety to the Ministry of the Environment for the replanting of trees in areas ravaged by recent fires, after a campaign centered around “Give Nature a Chance.”

Lebanese mainstream media, however, didn’t care much about Wickerpark. Why’s that? It could be due to the environment ranking so low on our concern radar.

This year’s Wickerpark is about a different issue entirely. Being the coastal city that it is, Batroun has many active fishermen that collect sea urchins in order to sell them. Many people also have a hobby of hunting these sea urchins. As a result of extensive exploitation, their level has declined on a yearly basis until our sea has very few urchins left.

Wickerpark wants to help change that by fundraising efforts to repopulate the sea. In order to do so, they’ve enlisted the help of students at the Marine Biology Center in Batroun. (You can see a picture of one of its unfinished buildings here). So in a way, supporting Wickerpark will not only be helping the Lebanese environment but you’d also be helping fellow Lebanese students in their research and that is always very needed.

The two-day event will take place at an open air venue in Batroun, right by the sea.

The tickets are sold at Librairie Antoine for $30. One ticket will allow you access for the festival’s two days on June 29th and 30th.

On the first day, you’ll be able to attend short-film screenings, ecological fairs, artist exhibitions as well as a series of small acoustic sets.

The second day will be the music festival, featuring different Lebanese bands (No, Meen is not one of them unfortunately):

  • Karl Mattar
  • Sae Lis
  • Who Killed Bruce Lee
  • The Flying Circus
  • Zeid & The Wings
  • The Beirut Groove Collective

Last year’s music festival

The ads for Wickerpark 2012 are quite fun as well. The campaign this year is called “When Nature Pokes Back.” You can watch the ads here:

Come on people. Think about it this way: Batroun is a beautiful city (proof). A weekend in Batroun will definitely be an awesome time. And you’d also be supporting a great cause while also having fun. All of you are also on summer breaks as well. You simply have no excuse not to attend.

Beirut’s Phoenician Port Destroyed with Ministry of Culture Approval

Back in March, I told you about two ancient landmarks in Lebanon that were facing an impeding threat by the fangs of real estate contractors, vying to destroy them in order to build fancy high-rises in their location.

Back in March as well, we marched in support for these landmarks. Many blogs spoke against their destruction. Many media outlets highlighted the government’s attempts at destroying these valuable parts of our heritage. We thought we had gotten somewhere.

Today has proven that we did not. Nowhere near that in fact.

This picture shows bulldozers working their way around a 4000 year old Phoenician port earlier yesterday, tearing it down stone per stone.

An agreement was supposedly reached with minister of culture Gabriel Layoun so the destruction of the port came as a shock for many – a bulldozer hitting them in the fact, out of the blue. The government had been talking about a mitigation approach, which I had previously explained to be a way to preserve ancient sites while making way for new development.

Even that did not happen with the Phoenician port. It was simply destroyed in its entirety.

Minister Layoun said that the site had been removed from the list of protected sites in Lebanon and as such this act is in no way backing the law. Previous ministers of cultures, such as Salim Wardeh, Tamam Salam and Tarek Metri, had worked relentlessly on protecting these sites.

It all came crumbling down with Layoun.

What Layoun doesn’t understand is that for someone who supposedly calls for “change and reform,” this reeks of corruption beyond anything we’ve been exposed to before. How can a minister of culture rationalize a real estate company destroying an ancient site and pass it as another thing that happens? Is it every day that countries discover 4000 year old ancient landmarks on their soil?

How can Mr. Layoun expect us to be so gullible as to believe that this happened in a very innocent manner, not because the real estate company in question, in a country as corrupt as Lebanon in that regards, had substantial political backing, the type of which doesn’t care about identity but cares more about its bottom line?

I’d call for Layoun’s resignation and possibly that of the whole government with the incredibly atrocious job it’s doing at every single level possible. But where would that lead? Nowhere. A minister of culture who can’t see the importance of, well, culture is doing his job how exactly?

Out of all of the things we have problems with in Lebanon, this is perhaps the most troubling.

Electricity? It can be fixed.

Water? It can be provided.

Internet? It can be upgraded.

An ancient site demolished? It can never be replaced.

The land of the Phoenicians has one less Phoenician site to boast about.

Let’s hope we can save the Roman Hippodrome next to the Maghen Abraham Synagogue in Wadi Bou Jmil.

The Man Who Burned Down New TV (Al-Jadeed)

Because accepting a differing opinion with a free spirit is not the norm, we’ve reached a level where we attack TV stations that broadcast anything we disagree with – despite that TV station breathing “our” air, for the most time.

NewTV, which is pro-March 8 in Lebanon, was attacked yesterday by one of March 8’s supporters. His name is Wissam Alaeddine. He is one of an armed gang that committed the act.

Why did Wissam attack New TV?

Because a day earlier they had the audacity to host extremist Sunni cleric Ahmad el Assir who trashed Hezbollah and Amal, the former of which Mr. Alaeddine supports.

How did I know this? Well, everyone has Facebook. Even Wissam. And he supports the cause of “Sayyed Hassan” whatever that may be. (link).

Soon after hosting Al Assir yesterday, and after the uproar that followed, New TV basically disowned Al Assir and anything he had said using their platform. They had gotten their ratings. Their political scoop was made.

But someone saw it differently. How dare New TV stray from the path it always followed? How dare they not continue their 24/7 brainwashing – like other Lebanese TV stations – that is needed for the ignorant masses? How dare they broadcast anything that uses “Sayyed Hassan’s” name in vain?

Shame on them, shame on them. Let’s burn them down. Burn them all down.

And that’s what they tried to do.

Here’s how it is Lebanese media, now that the sarcastic bit is over: you are not allowed to diversify your scope. Some people won’t be happy with that and if they have the resources they will act upon it. Wissam Alaeddine was caught. But he’s part of a dangerous and growing ideology that those who speak differently from what “we” think need to be terminated and silenced.

Good luck Al-Jadeed with the Ahmad el Assir aftermath.