Lebanese Facts, Statistics, Traditions, & Humor

[melkart]

It is sad to see the poor state of these trees. The one from the south is surrounded by buildings and trash! think of all the oil residue from vehicles near by. the ones in bechealeh if proven could be the oldest in the world. yet according to the pictures above it seems as if a road is within 4 feet of the roots of the trees. and my favorite the cinderblock stairs. Way to go tourism ministry!

[Rabih]

A Lebanese soldier chases a man who has stolen his rifle in the northern city of Tripoli. (The Daily Star/Mohammad Azakir)

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/PhotoGal...#ixzz1v0itxpcq
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

[lebz06]

The full scene 2akela atle

[Mesch]

[Hassoun]

[Zoola]

i wanna get the new iPhone 5 but i just got number 4S

[annie23]

Hi I don't know where to post this but I'd like to see a dream come true of building a splendid aquarium in Leb but of course that's far from the truth given that our sea is polluted ,let alone we don't have fish in our sea :p

[MARTYR]

[MARTYR]

source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=1&theater

[annie23]

Lebanon ,A BRAINDEAD COUNTRY

Posted on June 27,2012


The Lebanese “superiority syndrome” may push them to believe that they are the smartest people on the face on this planet. It may even push them to fall victims to the anecdote that God has been so generous with them to make them the perfect country on the face of this earth, but since nothing is perfect, God gave them the worst neighbours, which is why they ended up in this worthless situation.

This is all we have remaining, our “superior mentality” a.k.a. chauvinism, and our grandiloquence in the old days when “Beirut was Paris of the Middle East”.

It is the same exact situation of an old man sitting on his wooden chair at the doorsteps of his porch, reminiscing his golden days back when he had the muscles, the dough and the charisma, for that is all he got left to brag about.

As much as I love Lebanon, simply because I was born there and the way I put it ” I have been molded from that clay”, I have come to pity the level of mediocrity and degradation we have reached.

We may have been the cultural and educational capital of the Middle East at one point, but all we are now is a big orgy center, where tourists ( mainly from the Gulf) come to feed their hunger for boobs, alcohol and drugs. Why else would you see the minister of tourism and the president making weekly trips and press conferences begging the Gulf countries to lift the travel warning and encourage their citizens to pay a visit this summer.

Let’s face it. This is all that we currently have. Our youth are uneducated, so they end up under the mercy of the Warlords and Religious Mafias, having to burn tires as a way of living.

I quote from Rana Abouzaki’s article, published in Al-Akhbar English on June 26,2012:

The feebleness of Lebanese scientific research could be one of the reasons for Lebanese society’s ignorance of its own characteristics and inability to evaluate its reaction and realities, locally and internationally.

In practice, Lebanon does not create scientific minds in both the physical and social sciences. Its academic curricula shun all creative elements. And if a Lebanese manages to distinguish themselves in any way, he or she is picked up by any country in the world, except their own.

Once distinguished Lebanese scientists and thinkers are outside the country, you hear officials boast about “Lebanese talent in the Diaspora” followed by “the increase in remittances from expatriates which breathes life into the Lebanese economy…”Then, a round of applause.

Can anyone deny this fact? How many times have you heard Lebanese, across all levels, from politicians to media to the taxi driver, bragging about Shakira, Carlos Slim, Michael Dabaghi, Rima Fakih etc… These successful ( regardless of whether winning a beauty pageant is success or not) individuals , or their parents, had to leave Lebanon in the first place to become that successful. There is a big chance that if they grew up in Lebanon, they would have never made it. I do not intend to say that there are no chances of success and innovation in Lebanon, on the contrary, I plan on going back every day and believe there is ample opportunity and I have read about a lot of people who are doing magnificent work, but it is like swimming in a mud pool, where regular efforts are no longer sufficient and it requires the highest levels of perseverance and determination to make it through, in addition to all the frustration and lack of support one might face.

Who has heard of Rania Bou Kheir? I bet none of the readers of this blog have. I had not heard of her until yesterday, when I realized that she won the Francophone award for scientific research for the year 2010-2011. I tried Googling her with no results except for the article where I found out about her. This lady apparently shed the light on the reality of scientific research in Lebanon. Bou Kheir discovered that the amount of research produced by all governmental and non-governmental institutions combined, since their inception up until 2011, could be considered miniscule.

If this lady had discovered a new Martini or unleashed a new muffler into the auto industry, she would have been featured on every media outlet in Lebanon, but because her research is centered around education and deals with facts and figures, her discoveries remain a hidden treasure.

Again, quoting from the same article, Abou Kheir says that :

Compared to the rest of the world, Lebanon does not even reach three digits in any ranking. According to several studies in journals around the world between 1996 and 2008, AUB ranks 1,159th (out of 2,124 worldwide). Meanwhile, Cairo University, for example, ranks at 592.

Lebanon only publishes eight internationally recognized and indexed scientific journals, out of almost 56,000 journals published worldwide. The most recent report of the World Economic Forum (WEF) on the ranking of research centers in 127 countries, the only Arab country was Tunisia at 36. Lebanon was not even considered for the list.

Israel published 16,826 pieces of research in 2011 alone, compared to 1,557 in Lebanon. Between 2007 and 2011, Lebanon published around 6,038 studies, while Israel published 81,800.

Palestinian researcher Khaled Saeed Rabaia indicates that Israel spends 4.7 percent of its GDP on scientific research, the highest rate worldwide.

In all their modern history, Arab countries patented a mere 836 inventions, only 5 percent of the patents registered in Israel.

You want real resistance, you fight with brainpower. You fight with educating your youth and empowering them, for this is what topples the enemy in the end.

A country that knows nothing about itself is a country out of its mind. This is what we have become my friends. A country out of its mind, a braindead country.

Cheers to those who stay and fight till the end!!!!!

[annie23]

Originally Posted by MARTYR

source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=1&theater

Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooool ,Martyyyyyrrrr ,looooooool

[annie23]

The Lebanese diaspora
A tale of two tradersBusiness people from Lebanon fare better abroad than at home
Mar 16th 2013 | BEIRUT AND ISTANBUL |From the print edition

ON A recent flight from Beirut to Addis Ababa, Lebanese businessmen were swapping stories. “Business is excellent in Angola,” declared one. “I hear it’s good in Ghana?” inquired another. Flights out of Lebanon buzz with optimism. For Lebanese businessfolk, the juiciest opportunities are abroad.

More people of Lebanese origin live outside Lebanon than in it (perhaps 15m-20m, compared with 4.3m). Many have done well. Carlos Slim, a Lebanese-Mexican telecoms tycoon, is the richest man in the world. Carlos Ghosn, a French-Lebanese-Brazilian, is the boss of both Renault (a French carmaker) and Nissan (a Japanese one). Nick Hayek, a Swiss-Lebanese, runs Swatch, the biggest maker of Swiss watches.

In this section
The screen revolutionTop floor, pleaseSpectrum for spacemenCan you keep a secret?Silicon Spring breakA tale of two traders
The transience of powerInternshipCorrection: FoursquareReprintsRelated topics
United StatesBeirutMiddle EastLebanonLebanese people have long had wanderlust. Ancient Phoenician merchants roamed the Mediterranean, setting up cities such as Carthage and Cadiz. In the past century and a half, waves of Lebanese have left for the Americas and west Africa. Lebanon’s long civil war prompted many more to pack. Some 7m Lebanese and their descendants now live in Brazil, 3m in the United States and at least 250,000 in west Africa. They do everything from running restaurants to dealing in diamonds. By and large, they find business easier elsewhere than back in their fragile motherland.

Fadi Nahas, for example, has lived in Turkey since the late 1980s, when Lebanon’s war was still smouldering. He runs 15 companies that store and transport fruit and other perishables. Like many Lebanese, he is multilingual, speaking Arabic, Turkish, English, Italian, Spanish and French. “We’re like the Swiss with the number of languages we speak,” says Mr Nahas. “But tell me the last time they had to deal with a bomb or a power cut?”

Mr Nahas began by moving bananas from Ecuador (a Latin American country with a hefty Lebanese population) to Turkey when the Turks opened their economy, later expanding across the Levant and the Caucasus. He reckons the head of Chiquita, an American fruit producer, gave him the deal to transport its bananas in the 1980s, when he was in his 20s, partly because he is good at schmoozing. “You have a great time with the Lebanese: you eat well with them and have fun doing business,” he says. “That is helping the country’s products find a market too.”

Coming from a nation that can go from peace to war in a couple of hours, Lebanese entrepreneurs have learned to be flexible and resilient. Once, when Mr Nahas was doing business in Azerbaijan, a dozen “taxmen” armed with Kalashnikovs came to audit his books. Mr Nahas calmly carried on with his work as they rifled through his papers. After a couple of weeks they went. Mr Nahas calls this “a Lebanese reaction”.

Wherever they are, Lebanese traders typically remain in touch with their kin. Belonging to a global diaspora allows them to swap information and learn about new opportunities. Zeinab Fawaz, the author of a book on Lebanese business owners in America, argues that “good education, adaptability and networks” are the keys to their success. The median Lebanese household in America makes $67,000, comfortably above the norm.

Back in Lebanon, however, making money is harder. Take Christine Sfeir, a businesswoman who runs 35 restaurants: the American Dunkin’ Donuts franchise and two of her own local restaurant chains. She cites two advantages of working in Lebanon—well-educated employees and a central location—before reeling off a list of difficulties.

Small, costly and overregulated

First, the market is tiny. Lebanon’s GDP is about $42 billion, less than Rhode Island’s. Second, it is unstable. Conflict with Israel in 2006 temporarily shut down many of Ms Sfeir’s restaurants; the takeover of parts of Beirut by Hizbullah militants in 2008 disrupted them once more. Today, the civil war in neighbouring Syria scares tourists away from Lebanon, too. “I honestly can’t remember a six-month stretch without a problem here,” she says.

Third, Beirut is expensive. A survey last year by Mercer, a consultancy, ranked it as the second-costliest city in the Middle East. Rents can be as much as $1,200 per square metre. Frequent power cuts force firms to fork out for generators. Yet local purchasing power is modest. At Green Falafel, Ms Sfeir’s new eco-friendly themed fast-food restaurant, sandwiches sell for $2.

As if that were not enough, the Lebanese government chokes businesses with red tape. On average it takes 219 days to obtain a construction permit—assuming nothing goes wrong—and 721 days to enforce a contract in a Lebanese court, according to the World Bank. Patronage is pervasive and the internet is sluggish.

Last year Ms Sfeir decided to expand outside Lebanon. Today a fifth of her 500 employees are abroad; by the end of the year she hopes to have 200 manning new restaurants in northern Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. “I looked at conditions at home and realised it was time to focus outside,” she says. “It’s not always easy to work in those places either, but rents are cheaper and people have more money so the returns are bigger.” Lebanon is not the only small nation in the region with a successful diaspora, but its people’s resilience is nonetheless impressive.