Archive | February, 2009

Somebody got it right in Lebanon!

The governor of the Lebanese central bank Riad Salameh will be honored on March 2nd at New York’s Wall Street by ringing the bell when the stock market opens next Monday morning. This kind of honorary celebration is only hosted for elite economic figures in the world.

This comes as a reward for his achievements and strategic decisions through the global economic crisis. And thanks to him, banks in Lebanon had one of their best financial years!

Below is what the Los Angeles Times wrote about his success story during the crisis:

Throughout history, men braved the odds to perform great feats. Outmatched generals snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Titans of industry gambled on bold innovations to reap jackpots. Athletes tested the limits of human endurance in quests for glory.

Riad Toufic Salame, the governor of Lebanon’s central bank, is not one of those men.

Instead, the silver-haired banker became a hero by playing it very, very safe. In 2005, he defied pressure from the Lebanese business community and bucked international trends to issue what now looks like a prophetic decree: a blanket order barring any bank in his country from investing in mortgage-backed securities, which contributed to the most dramatic collapse of financial institutions since the Great Depression.

So as major banks in America and Europe were shuttered or partly nationalized and thousands of people in the U.S. financial sector were laid off, Lebanon’s banks had one of their best years ever.

Read the full article here.

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OpenSesame BarCamp-Lebanon

In their efforts to promote “Openness”, a group of people are oprganizing “OpenSesame BarCamp-Lebanon” in Beirut on February 28, the event will be held at the American University of Beirut.

(If you’re wondering what a BarCamp is, check Wikipedia’s explanation about it)

Through this event forums are provided to discuss open source technology initiatives (like Linux, Apache, WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, OpenOffice, OpenSocial, etc), collaborative problem solving, Creative Commons and intellectual property in Lebanon and the region, open business models, Arabic on the web and collaborative sites (like Wikipedia, etc), and more.

Technology developers, entrepreneurs, students, lawyers, teachers, artists, bloggers, journalists, product and graphic designers, and anyone interested in social, political, or economic development, are all invited to participate in this event.

To get more info on this BarCamp, check its official page, it has all the details on how to sign up, what topics will be discussed, and who’s coming as well.

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Abou il moulouk w Mazeij!

Sunday afternoons are more fun than ever now! Thanks to LBC of course, who has lately started to broadcast the horse races held at the Beirut Hippodrome.

The stars (as I recall) are Abou il moulouk, 3anid, Sa2alouneh 3leik, Miskiin, and Mazeij! And the competition reaches its peak when they all arrive to “kou3 il mathaf” or “beib il saba2”, and then suddenly Mazeij bishidd 7alo w byousal teineh!

Seriously now.. shu allah 7eiklo Khaled Moujaes y3alli2 3a heik 2osas… 😀

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The good, the bad and the ugly!

The good:

Today was the 4th commemoration of Rafic Hariri’s assassination. Most of the companies were off today (except the one I work for) so the best thing was the empty streets in the morning, the road from Sodeco to Jdeideh took 7 minutes via Achrafiyyeh! Ya3ne reit kil yom 14 shbat.

The bad:

In the afternoon we got amused in our neighborhood by fights between people retruning back from the martyr’s square and others from Amal and Hizbullah (I assume).

I witnessed a Mercedes being literally destroyed by around 15 guys armored with iron rods (w mish 7a ni3lon 3an mouyoulon il siyeisiyyeh halla2 3al hawa).

The ugly:

The Mercedes I mentioned above had 5 passengers, and the 15 guys with the rods were beating the hell out of them INSIDE the car. I don’t know the reason why the car has stopped by these guys or why the driver was unable to drive it away of them… but anyway it was a very disturbing scene.

Update:

The horrible:

One of the readers asked wether I reported what I saw to the authorities or not. I was actually in my car with my brother, and there ware soldiers 20 meters away from the fight, so when we passed by them my brother was like “What are you doing here? There’s a fight there and people are getting beaten!!”. Now guess what one soldier answered, “3am nshimm il haw”… (w no comment).

I hope “anon” has an answer by now.

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My photography page!

I usually use flickr to publish my photos online, and lately I’ve been searching for some script that would pull my photostream from flickr and publish it on some dedicated page here. I finally found FlickrViewer which does a great job, not to forget that it’s easy to setup.

So today, I present to you my humble set of photos on the following link:
https://plus961.com/photos (I also added a link to it under “Blogroll” on the right).

Enjoy the collection and keep coming! the page will be frequently updated.

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Waiting…

I hate waiting… I HATE WAITING!

All I am waiting for is a SMALL e-mail and I am running out of patience…

Update:

Never mind, I got it! What a relief!! 😛

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