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A Lebanese Blog

Tag: Lebanon

  • The ridiculous increase

    The General Labor Confederation (GLC) suspended Wednesday’s planned strike after the Cabinet agreed late Tuesday night to increase the minimum wage to LL700,00 ($466) from the current LL500,000. The government also agreed to increase by LL200,00 the wages of those earning less than LLl million, and by LL300,00 those who earn between LL1 million and LL1.8 million. The agreement also included raising the daily transportation allowance to LL10,000 from LL8,000 while the education allowance for children jumped to a maximum of LL1.5 million.

    I’m no economics or finance expert, but I’m gonna go ahead and call this increase ridiculous.

    Following which logic did our ministers conclude that people of inferior income should get a smaller increase?! And how is this going to minimize the gap between social classes?

    Not to mention that if you earn 1,900,000L.L while your colleague gets 1,700,000L.L, he/she is entitled to an increase while you are not, and will soon be earning more than you do according to the new agreement! Pretty fair eh?!

  • Screenshots from Flashman (1967) in Lebanon

    Cool find by Beirut/NTSC of the below images taken from “Flashman“, and originally posted by Kheireddine in Skyscraper City.

    So this is is how it was in 1967, the first one shot in Jounieh, the second in Maameltein back when the train ran through it, and the third one in Rawche next to the famous rocks. I am not getting nostalgic or anything, but – alongside that famous scene from James Bond (where he was having sex in Baalbeck!) – this is a throwback for a long-gone era (an era where things were brewing underneath the flashiness).

    So, anyone got that scene of James Bond in Baalbeck? 😛

  • Cedarcom wants to suspend 3G in Lebanon

    Do you remember back in March how the guys at Cedarcom pretended to be fighting for a faster internet in Lebanon and gathered more than 40,000 fans around them?

    The same guys are now working hard to take us back to state zero by suing the Ministry of Telecommunications for launching 3G! And it might be just a coincidence that the new service can go much faster than their Mobi, which they themselves have admitted it cannot go beyond 1Mbps, at a cheaper price. You can read more about the issue in The Daily Star and Al-Mustaqbal.

    Now can someone tell me what were the real goals of their campaign for a faster internet?

  • My last valentine in Beirut

    T-GROUP PRODUCTIONS presents ‘My last valentine in Beirut’, the first feature film to be produced in 3D in the Arab region ever, with one of the highest production costs and biggest production team.

    The movie will have a world wide release with professionally crafted plans of marketing mixes and distribution.
    The people behind the movie offer decades of experience in the movie business, and master exciting edgy storytelling and visual side effects.

    This movie will bring a unique movie experience to the middle east and worldwide as it will bring together the touching history and cultural heritage of the region, together with the latest international technologies in the movie business.

    So far the trailer is getting so much negative comments on Youtube, to which the video uploader replied with the following.

    To all people who are adding their comments, thank you, we respect your honest opinions. Nevertheless, for those of you who are trying to drag the movie into z PORN category: judging a movie which you have never seen from its trailer which is only for few minutes makes your comments irrelevant and unaccountable for, and doesn’t reflect what z movie is about but only what you think in general about Arab girls. I think you might want to look at the big picture.

    To me, the trailer looked really cheap, and producers seem to be overusing sex to sell their movie, it’s even like they’re begging to have it banned like “Help”!

    Anyway, regardless of the movie’s topic, why did it have to be shot in 3D?! Did they want Juliette’s figures to be as real as possible when people watch it?

  • My interview with Future TV on blogging in Lebanon

    Amer Tabsh, the host of Mega on Alam Al-Sabah, interviewed me last month to talk about blogging in Lebanon. Would love to hear your opinion about the discussion!

  • Here’s to launching the 3G service in Lebanon!

    Last day I got a phone call from a gentleman in MTC Touch telling me that I will be granted the 3G service for a 1 month free trial period, and so right now I’m among the lucky people who got to participate in the pilot testing of this service in Lebanon. An yes I’m so excited about it!!

    The service got activated at around 1PM today on my phone and didn’t require any special configuration to run. I randomly started loading websites and found the connection to be pretty fast compared to home ADSL and the crappy GPRS. Below are two tests done using speedtest.net after I shared the connection with my laptop.

    As you can see, download is @ 1.7Mbps which is superb compared to the current internet speeds, while upload is varying between 0.11 and 0.22Mbps. Ping is of course higher that it is supposed to be, and I hope it’ll improve soon. Note that I was in Beirut central district at the time of this test, and I guess speed might vary depending on your location.

    3G subscriptions will be available for both postpaid and prepaid lines, and data transfer will be limited to 4GB/month. It isn’t clear tough how much will the operators charge for it.

    I’ll hopefully be posting more updates on the connection quality and speed throughout this trial period.

  • Mounting the same license plate on two different cars

    These two photos, taken by Mr. Mohamad Machnouk at the same time and in the same parking lot, show different cars with identical license plates. As the plates color shows, these two cars seem to be owned by some Lebanese judge. Talk about abuse of authority!

  • Internet prices going down next month

    Internet prices are finally going down by the end of next month after the cabinet approved the new price list yesterday!

    The good news for consumers: Today a 1 Mbps connection, the second-fastest available, costs 115,000 LL ($76.67) per month. Under the new regime, 1 Mbps will be the slowest connection sold by Ogero, the state-run telecom company, and will cost 24,000 LL ($16) per month. (Both price figures exclude the 10% value added tax.)

    Packages will range from 1 Mbps with a 4 GB download and upload cap (it’s not split; you get 4GB for each) to around 8 Mpbs with a 30 GB cap. Imad Tarabay, CEO of the Internet provider Cedarcom, told NOW Lebanon that as soon as the new packages are implemented, customers with packages below 1 Mbps now will automatically receive the lowest-level new package from their providers (assuming Ogero releases bandwidth to the private sector). Customers can then decide if they want to switch packages or not.

    We’re still way behind what people get in nearby countries but it’s still a good step forward, I just hope there will be enough capacity to accommodate the demand when everyone is automatically switched to 1Mbps next month, and I wish they would reconsider amending those bandwidth cap because one would consume them so fast with the speeds they’re promising.

  • Fuddruckers Lebanon opening on August 26th

    If you’re like me waiting for Fuddruckers to finally open its doors in Dbayeh, then the wait is almost over. I just saw their latest announcements on facebook claiming the grand opening is going to take place on August 26th!

    Too bad for me it’s going to be Ramadan and I usually avoid heavy meals on Iftar, so I won’t be trying it out until Eid comes.

  • No more indoor smoking in Lebanon

    I wonder what will happen now to all these places that are mainly popular for their shisha, like Sanyour for example, when the law is put into effect.

    But then again, this law might end up just like any other law that never gets implemented as it should, or probably gets implemented for a short period of time before the police starts to ignore violators. Let’s wait and see.

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