Tag Archives: Lebanon

Plane Crashes in Lagos: Two Lebanese On Board

Is it just me or are we just everywhere? Lebanese people never seem to escape a tragedy.

A plane carrying 153 people plunged into a residential area in Lagos, Nigeria yesterday. All 153 were presumed dead.

Minister of External affairs Adnan Mansour just confirmed that the plane carried two Lebanese, an engineer named Nadine Chidiac and a man named Roger Awad.

The cause of the crash of the Dana Air Boeing MD83 plane was unclear but emergency officials said the cockpit recorder had been located and handed over to police.

May the victims rest in peace.

Lebanon Loses 1 – 0 To Qatar in Football World Cup Qualifier

I am not here to provide sports commentary. Sadly enough (or perhaps luckily enough for my nerves), I didn’t watch the game. Blame medical school exams scheduling and my very non-existent studying-time managing skills.

Over 50,000 Lebanese gathered at the Camille Chamoun stadium in Beirut to cheer for our team. These are a few pictures of the people gathered there, with all the enthusiasm they mustered, which is actually a whole lot:

We’re used to seeing faces painted with the flags of Italy, Germany, Brazil. But never Lebanon.

Because it wouldn’t be a Lebanese game without some serious trolling

(Picture by Bachir Itani.)

For the technical rundown of the game, here’s a source you can check.

What’s sad about the whole affair is that both teams were nowhere near an equal field when it comes to, well, everything. First, the Lebanese team was full of Lebanese who are underpaid, underfunded and do this more so for “leisure” than for credible prospects in a country where football had taken a backseat to basketball for a long, long time.

In fact, many Lebanese were upset how none of our local TV stations was broadcasting the game. I have to ask those: where was this enthusiasm when Lebanon went through the World Cup qualifiers year after year and didn’t get anywhere? Don’t blame our “poor” TV station. Blame the monopolizing giant Al-Jazeera which doesn’t let anyone else get the rights for a football game. God forbid that happens!

But I digress.

On the other hand, here’s how the Qatari teams breaks down:

“Hi. My name is Sebastian. And I am Qatari.”

Doesn’t make sense to you? It’s not meant to. But here’s another one.

“Hi. My name is Lawrence. And I am Qatari too.”

When more than half of the team on the field is nationalized, what can one expect? It looks like Qatar have so much money on their hands that they simply decided to purchase a national team. Many people on Twitter, most of whom weren’t Lebanese, had this to say: “Qatar team, why you no have Qataris?”

So very true.

Towards the later half of the second half, based on the bits and pieces I watched, the Lebanese team looked totally run out of stamina, which has been the case in their previous games as well. Based on this, what worries me the most is not losing to Qatar, it’s Lebanon having a second game on June 8th against Uzbekistan and then another one on July 12th against South Korea, all the way in Seoul. Will our players be able to handle the severe effort those games will require, let alone the time zone difference and the traveling?

I really hope so. But sometimes realism needs to tone down the sense of nationalism. And I’ll leave it at that for now.

Watch the Lebanon vs Qatar Football Game Online

For the many of you who want to watch the Lebanon vs Qatar World Cup qualifier football game and need an online link for that, I’ve found two for you.

Just click here and you’re set.

If you’re a Twitter user watching the game, make sure you add the hashtag #GoLebanon to your tweets.

Apart from that, good luck and go Lebanon!

An Update on the Pedophilia Incidence at a Lebanese Catholic School

Following the news that I told you about two days ago concerning finding a pedophile in his early 20s who sexually abused 11 girls, aged between 6 and 8, new details are surfacing regarding the incident.

1) The Catholic school in question is in Antoura.

2) The man is 22 year old. You can find his Facebook profile here.

3) The perpetrator got into a car accident yesterday. Some are saying it was an attempted suicide. His hospital room is guarded by policemen. (Source).

What surprised me the most is that some people are actually defending him. “Where’s the proof?” is some of the things I’ve heard. “How can you trust the word of 6 year old girls?” is another. “Parents should look into their own homes first,” was also said.

Based on the information provided, it seems like the perpetrator did not rape the girls in which case the examining physicians won’t find any physical evidence on the girls that would prove he did anything. But that is no excuse to call this a desperate cry of a 6 year old for attention. Asking little children to take revealing pictures of themselves or touching them is pedophilia. 11 girls coming forward with similar accusations is not random.

Regardless of whether this man is your friend or not, just ponder on this for a second: what if the little girl was your own daughter? What if she was your own sister? Would you still defend anyone your daughter or sister is saying is doing inappropriate things to her?

When you send your children to a reputable school, you expect them to be educated not get “educated.”

What I hope out of all of this is for the little girls not to remember any of what they went through and I sure hope their parents don’t remind them about it.

 

A Pedophile at a Lebanese Catholic School

LBC has reported that 11 girls, aged between 6 and 8, fell as victims to a 20 year old arts teacher at a very renowned Lebanese Catholic school in Mount Lebanon.

The teacher in question, whose whereabouts are currently unknown and who has deleted all his social network accounts, asked the girls to give him nude pictures of themselves and it wasn’t except by coincidence that his actions were discovered.

One of the 6 year old girls he assaulted told her parents about how he used to ask her to lift her skirt and he’d press his body on hers.

The school asked the teacher to resign, pending investigations. Some of the parents have already filed charges. Others are still waiting on the necessary psychological assessments.

Does anyone know if Lebanese law is protective towards children? Or does it deal with them when it comes to these things the same way it does to women?

The issue of the sexual abuse of children is rarely spoken of in the country. More “pressing” issues are of concern but do our children even have the basic legislature to protect them?

I don’t blame the Catholic school for hiring this man. They surely had no idea of knowing he was a pervert but hopefully this becomes a cautionary tale for other schools in the country to properly vet any candidate that seeks a teaching position in their institution.