Unfortunately true!
via @chemali
According to this article in The Daily Star today, there’s a new highway that is set to be constructed in the near future in Achrafieh linking Hazmieh to Charles Helou and passing by Mar Mkhayel. The project plan has been there since the 70’s but was delayed because some residential buildings have to be demolished, and the Council for Development and Reconstruction is now set to go forward with it starting this summer to help reduce the traffic in and out of Achrafieh.
Some activists however are opposing the project and trying to suggest some alternatives to avoid demolishing of old buildings and preserve the streets that might be affected by this highway. You can read more about it here.
This is definitely not an accurate drawing of the highway, but I’m trying to imagine how will it look like. I guess it will start somewehre in Alfred Naccache, passing by the small bridge in Charles Malek, and then straight to Charles Helou.
WTF!!
As if Lebanon needed more scandals and ugly incidents, this outrageous uncivilized act against a referee in a football match came to add salt to the wound. The referee did not give Al Nahda Club a penalty in the added time of the second half against Al Salam Zgharta, and the players went crazy chasing him all across the pitch. The video here doesn’t show more of the attack but it gives you an enough idea about what happened.
via Figo29
Not sure if we can call Nathalie Fadlallah, Myriam Klink, and Lara Kay stars… But anyway, in all cases tjarrasna.
Thank you Giorgio Tarraf

Check out this interesting report in Al-Safir today about the recent kidnapping incidents that happened over the last year in Lebanon. So far, the responsible groups for these kidnappings were able to collect more than $16 million out of 19 operations, moreover one gangster is even coordinating these operations from inside Roumieh Prison where he’s arrested!
And it doesn’t seem like kidnapping for ransom is going to stop anytime soon, due to the fact that the kidnappers belong to well known large crime families in Bekaa, so arresting few members will not eventually put an end to the whole thing. In addition, these groups just seem to have a strong appetite for making big money.
Don’t mind this wild post as it is just my submission to the “Lebanese bloggers reinvent the world competition” competition run by the ministry of telecommunications in Lebanon, and I’m making use of the extended deadline to submit it.
The competition is calling for Lebanese bloggers to come up with some creative invention that might change humanity, and mine is a network device that takes controls of all your senses the second you are born and allows you to be part of the internet, as in living inside it.
With this device you will neither have to go to school to learn new things, nor travel to new places to live different experiences. There will just be a virtual persona of you living on the internet where you don’t only get exposed to unlimited amount of information, but these information can speak to your senses too.
Unlike what we do now, our virtual personas will never have to wake up early to get things done because the internet doesn’t operate from 9 to 6 only. On a typical day, your brain would wake up with that device being online by default, and you would spend an hour with that Korean guy you met the other day at Coursera.org. Next, you’ll have to see how well is your startup doing by checking your revenues and making sure other virtual personas are satisfied with your service. Once you’re done, you might like to click-away to Australia and experience how does it feel to swim with the dolphins. And finally at night, you can take a stroll round Amsterdam red light district YouTube, and learn an additional thing or two about information security from the newly published videos before putting your brain back to sleep.
Your whole life and experiences will of course be recorded and archived on the internet for future generations to be able to travel back in time by watching them.
Now don’t tell me this post in not feasible because you probably would have thought this is the real future if it were coming from some Hollywood movie!
News websites yesterday were buzzing with information about gunmen who stormed Mohamad Al-Amine mosque in downtown Beirut, and forced Sheikh Hisham Khalifeh to step down from the podium while he was delivering a speech during prayer.
The truth however is that there was indeed a dispute between a few men and the sheikh, but unlike what was mentioned, no one got any guns inside the mosque. A friend was there at the time of the incident filming how the sheikh ended his speech and everything seemed quite normal. So why make people panic for nothing?
The accident happened a few days ago and fortunately only one employee was slightly injured.
Reminds me of the the guys who crashed into Wardieh pharmacy in Hamra 2 years ago.
via @KunHadi