Spotted by one of my Facebook friends at Dora highway yesterday. The car was obviously heading to the demo near the Grand Serail.
Category: Lebanon
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Lebanese bloggers reinvent the world
The ministry of telecommunication is holding a competition called “Lebanese bloggers reinvent the world” and offering the winner a trip to Silicon Valley with minister Nicolas Sehnaoui.
All you have to do is submit a blog post about one creative invention that you think might change the world, to be assessed by a jury of prominent Lebanese in Silicon Valley working in the ICT sector.
The digital era is revolutionizing our societies.
As Lebanese, we are uniquely equipped with the creativity needed to succeed and shine brighter than any other country on the Digital Sphere. So let’s embrace the digital revolution and reinvent the World!
Whether it’s a flying car, a humanoid Nano-Robot that manipulates our DNA or an environmental country sized biosphere that reduces pollution we all have that one crazy creative invention that might change humanity.
Compose and submit a blog post about this topic under the main title “Lebanese Bloggers Reinvent the World”, accompanied with a subtitle reflecting your own Invention.
Blog posts will be judged by a jury of prominent Lebanese in the Silicon Valley working in the ICT sector based on the writing style and the creativity of the Invention.
The winner will get the chance to visit the Silicon Valley with Minister Sehnaoui end of March.
If you have some creative idea, make sure to write about it and submit it as soon as possible to the competition website www.reinventingtheworld.net, since the competition ends in a couple of days from now on March 1st, and results will be announced on March 6th.
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Disciplinary actions against the Lebanese football players involved in match fixing
Following the reports about illegal betting and match fixing affecting the Lebanese football league started emerging last year with news about players, coaches, and even administrative staff being involved in this scandal. Al-Jadeed TV started tweeting a while ago about the actions to be taken by the Lebanese Football Federation against the involved players.
In total, 24 players turned out to be involved. Two of them will banned for life, Mahmoud Al-Ali who currently plays for Persiba Balikpapan in the Indonesia Super League, and Ramez Dayoub who plays for Selangor FA in the Malaysia Super League. Two others, Hasi Sehmarani and Hadi Jaafar, will be suspended for 3 seasons, in addition to 20 other players who will be suspended for 1 season each.
I’ll be updating the post once a full article is posted somewhere about the issue, but meanwhile you can follow the tweets by Al-Jadeed.
Update:
Check this article for more about the results of the investigation carried by the Lebanese Football Federation.
The 20 players who will be banned for 1 season are Ali Bazzi, Ali Faour, Ahmed Zreik, Hassan Mazhar, Abbas Kanaan, Mohammad Hammoud, Muhammad Abu Atiq, Hussein Dakkik, Samer Zeinedine, Hassan Alawiyeh, Mohammed Baqir Younis, Ali al-Saadi, Omar Aweidah, Tariq Ali, Akram Al Maghrebi, Sadek Assad, Bashar al-Miqdad, Hussein Sharifeh and Ahmad Younes.
So we will basically have to recruit a new national team!
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Busting Law 174 violators in Lebanon
The people behind Law 174’s page on Facebook are doing a good job by not just indicating which places are violating the smoking ban in Lebanon, but also naming the public figures who are breaking the law.
Among the people who made it to the page so far are Assi Hellani who owns “Assi” restaurant in Verdun, Dr. Joseph Azouri who owns “Le Maillon Cafe” along with 12 other doctors, Nathalie Fadlallah who owns “f by Nathalie”, Marlene Boutros Harb, and Nada Riad Salameh.
The number of violations people regularly report to the page definitely calls for increasing the number of tourist policemen in the country!
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Ossit Sawani / Blind Intersections
I was lucky to attend the press screening of the new Lebanese movie Ossit Sawani (Blind Intersections) at Sofil last week.
For a change, this movie doesn’t tell a story from the Lebanese civil war, nor does it suggest a solution for sectarianism in Lebanon. It actually follows three characters, Nour who loses her parents in a car accident and gets into financial problems, India, a rich woman who dreams of having a baby, and Marwan, a 12 year-old kid who lives with a violent alcoholic mother. These three characters obviously come from different backgrounds and never meet throughout the movie, but the effects of one incident will alter the lives of them all. Don’t expect any happy ending, since Ossit Sawani just portrays the daily struggles of Nour, India and Marwan.
I’m not sure how accurate my judgement about Ossit Sawani will be since I’m no movie expert. Anyway, I believe it’s good enough to watch even though the transition from one scene to another was not so smooth at the beginning of the movie but got better as the movie went forward, moreover, I believe some scenes could have been cut shorter. Still the movie is worth the ticket price and eventually supporting its producers.
Ossit Sawani is by the way directed by Lara Saba and produced by Nibal Arakji, and started showing in cinemas as of yesterday.
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The independent state of Roumieh
This photo by Marwan Tahtah was taken in Roumieh prison and made it to the cove page of Al-khbar’s issue for today. If only these muscles were put to good use to stop the chaos in Roumieh!
Check this article on how the prison is currently more like a command centers for some criminals on the run due to the lack of control over the Islamist prisoners.
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Beirut the Space in Between the People and Hope
Check this interesting short documentary on the lack of public space in Beirut and some of the suggested solutions.
via Our Man in Beirut -
In response to Patriarch Rai’s cartoon
In response to the Saudi cartoon of Patriarch Bechara El Rai that was published in Al-Watan newspaper last week, the below giant caricature was hung on Jal El-Dib highway this morning and was shortly later removed by the security forces.
Let’s hope it won’t cause any diplomatic crisis..!
Photo via Jad Fakhry
