No electricity leads to violence

This is my personal opinion.



I understand that having the electricity be cut off repeatedly is an annoying thing. First of all, my condolences and real sadness goes towards the families of those who died today in the demonstrations that led to violence, tire burning and closing important roads, such as the airport's. However, I don't know the exact story here, but only from what we hear in the media, whether certain elements were present inside the groups in order to steer this demonstration into a violent one, or mainly angry people demanding electricity, either ways, it's sad and not right. And no one should die for such a cause.
Maybe what happened today (and still happening) is not exactly the same situation as I am going to mention, but it's worth mentioning. We have had electricity be cut off several hours per day (sometimes the whole day), for as long as I remember (for many decades), and we have always paid our bills, and never complained (at least not in demonstrations and tire burning)
We all know that in Baalbeck, Southern Dahye and many other regions, electricity bills are not paid, and collectors are beaten up if they even try to.

It's not an electricity issue, it's just a reason to shed more blood in this country, like we need more reason. Anyway whatever the problem is, we trust that our Lebanese army will have things under control.

Breaking news: Explosion near Chevrolet - Hazmieh

Around 10am this morning, an explosion occurred near Hazmieh, Chevrolet highway. A big fire erupted. At 10:15am it has been put down. The explosion was heard from my work place. The whole building shook, I believe this was the most time the explosion had an impact.

Update 10:35am : At least one casualty, and many wounded. Last news is that the car that was targeted belongs to the security forces.

Update 11:17am : 10 casualties so far (AFP), the person who was targeted was Captain Wissam Eid. News confirm that he is dead and so is his bodyguard, and a by-passer.

Update: 5 casualties, Captain Wissam Eid, and his bodyguard, and 3 civilians. The size of the explosive was 50kg.



Message? I believe it's: "If you think your own security forces will provide security in your country Lebanon, think again!"

2008, rough start, 2007 bad year

It isn't completely surprising that another year in Lebanon starts out very defectively. Needless to try to go back in time and state history, it is utterly perplexing to decide whether the civil war days, the syrian presence days or the post-hariri assassination days are the worst.
It's a rough start with 2008 beginning by an explosion (January 15, 2008) mainly targetting a US embassy convoy taking the American Ambassador from the airport to celebrate his last days in Lebanon, which turned out to be a decoy, nonetheless resulting with 4 casualties and more than 20 wounded in Karantina Bridge, near Dora Highway.

What happened in 2007 really that is so different than 2006 and worth mentioning? Let us try to recap!


The year 2007, and most probably predicted by Michel Hayek, our 21st century Nostradamus, started out violently specifically on January 23 when a general strike by the opposition took place, leading to burning tires, conflicts between opposing parties, closing roads, traffic and pollution!

Two days later on January 25, a riot, a result to a clash between students in Arab University (most probably a quarrel concerning who's right and who's wrong for what happened two days before), erupted between residents of the surrounding area to the University in beirut, calling for reinforcements from the Lebanese Army to calm things down and call for a curfew.


In response to all this, many non sectarian, non political, non religious movements appeared, far from any color and only embracing the black, white or grey, to call upon the Lebanese to stop being sheep and followers and start working for the better of this country, they were against the pathetic bipolarism in Lebanon.

To save you the suspense, almost a year later, I can tell you the end of this movie. They did not succeed.

If you think this movie started out strong, wait for the next unfortunate event, which I naively recollected that it happened in 2006, but no, it was on 13 February the explosion and sad death of 3 and a number of casualties in Ain Alak.

The reason behind my weak memory is far from it being weak than for the fact that too much is occuring in this damned country that we think it is taking placing during a long period of time.

14 February, once a Valentine's day a celebration of Love, now...


A short while later, a war of Billboards splashed across the nation with the famous "I Heart Life", then "I heart Life with dignity", etc.. etc.. leading to many shops and companies taking advantage of it for their own good.

Despite it all, Lebanese still have their humour.

Throughout the year we hear politicians and political leaders (most of whom were once warlords) give speeches, in general they are all bad at it except one, whom I don't support or agree with most of the time, however acknowledge his articulate way of giving a speech, Hizbollah general secretary, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.

Nevertheless, what is beautiful about Lebanon, remains beautiful, and this is why:


Lebanon at one point had two presidents representing it in the Arab Summit.


May 20 to May 27 in 2007 was undoubtedly one of the worst weeks of the year when clashes between the Lebanese Army and Fatah Al Islam started in the Palestinian Nahr el Bared camp in North Lebanon, leading the the infamous war with Fatah Al Islam, resulting with many martyrs and casualties from the Lebanese Army.
Also on Sunday May 20, an explosion killed a woman in Ashrafieh (Beirut).
Monday May 21 recorded an Explosion in Verdun (Beirut).
Wednesday Mar 23, an explosion in Alay (Mount Lebanon).

Meanwhile, Draft resolution 1757 was adopted by the Security Council, declaring a decision in forming an international tribunal under the 7th chapter in order to investigate the assassination of Prime Minister Rafic Hariri.

A while later, and as the Lebanese always cope with the horrible situations that Lebanon goes through with jokes, a long line of jokes started spreading and what better than in a Facebook group.

Another Explosion in Sid El Bouchrieh on June 4 (Eastern Beirut Suburb).
And another in Zouk Mosbeh (Mount Lebanon), three days later.

Due to all the saddening and agonizing events that occured, School year ended early.

The 7th explosion in 2007 took place on June 13 in Al-Manara (Beirut) and this time it was a direct hit and unfortunately a successful attempt of assassination of MP Walid Eido.

As a consequence to the series of unfortunate occurences, festivities in Lebanon were cancelled.

On June 25, UNIFIL troops have taken their share of the explosion where a car bomb killed 6.

As a replacement to the late MP Sheikh Pierre Gemayel, there was elections in Mount Lebanon, where Former President Amine Gemayel ran against Kamil Khoury from the opposition's FPM. The outcome of this elections although at one point both were winners, turned out in favor for Kamil Khoury.


September 2007, started out a bit more positif than the previous months where the Naher AL Bared's war ended, with the Lebanese Army rising victorious.

Yet, it did not continue well when on September 19 a bomb in Horsh Tabet exploded killing MP Antoine Ghanem and 6 other casualties, including the young Charles Chikhani.


As not to leave things metaphorical such as Lebanon being on fire, a fire did happen across most of the forests of mountains in the country.

Jealous for not breaking a record, Lebanon broke its own record, reaching the highest number yet of car accidents. 830 casualties and more than 10000 wounded.

While preparing for the presidential elections, which (to also save you the suspense) have been delayed 12 times by this date, people were not coping so well, delaying big purchases and trying to put some money on the side, especially that everything was getting more expensive.


Emile Lahoud leaves Baabda, becoming a former president, assigning no one behind him, making Lebanon presidentless during the holidays.

At the final days of the year and on the same day Gibran Tueni died 2 years ago, there was an explosion in Baabda (South Metn) on 12/12/2007 killing the Head of Operations in the Lebanese Army Francois AL Hajj with 4 others, making it the 10th explosion this year.

2007
830 car accidents casualties
100+ casualties and injured from explosions
10 Explosions
3 Assassinations
1 Draft Resolution
1 war
0 President

The End.

Breaking News: Explosion near Karatina Bridge in Beirut

At 4:25pm, Tuesday 15 January 2007, an explosion has been heard close to Beirut. Sources confirm that it is near Karatina Bridge in Beirut, before Forum de Beyrouth.

Updated: Local Medias are saying that there are 3 casualties and 10 injured. A black SUV was targeted, belonging to the US embassy, however a civil car has been severely burnt.

Updated: 4 casualties, and more than 20 wounded.

Maxim Chaya and Dr. Michel Obeid with Marcel Ghanem

Finally Marcel Ghanem (LBCI) had two men who are a pride to Lebanon, on his show "Kalam El Nas" last Friday 11 January 2008. Personally, I think it's a waste of time when he has political figures over, they repeat the same stuff and make people more edgy, xenophobic and full of anger, therefore I really beleive he should do more educational shows, awareness, health, economical, business oriented...

Anyway, Maxim Chaya from Lebanon has reached Mount Everest's summit end of year 2007. This is his blog: The Three Poles
This is a video of him planting the Lebanese Flag on the summit, taken from LBC's Kalam El Nas show with Marcel Ghanem.

As for Dr. Michel Obeid (25 years of age) also from Lebanon who was also on the show on Friday 11 January 2008, has done researches in Paris and reached some discoveries (article) in March 2007, concerning a cure for cancer diseases. Basically, the studies he and his team led, were on 12 different types of cancer, the most popular and fatal ones. Please note that, and as he specifically mentioned, it will take up to 10 years to make this medication (if any), because they still did not test it on humans and there is a long process for such a thing to take place.

However and this is my personal opinion, it seems that he really have deep knowledge in cancer cells and how they work, as he explained it will be better than Chemo and Radio therapy, as the last two also kill good cells, decreasing the immunity level of the body and putting it at risk. Seems like there really is hope for finding a cure, it is a matter of a decade or so, but definitely a topic which more researches should be involved with to finding more and more info, in hope that it has no side effects, which according to Dr. Michel Obeid, it did not show any side effects at all.
More info here.

Merry Christmas from our Leaders (Funny)

Turn your speakers on. And click on below image to open the greeting card from Grey.