Beirut Spring

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The Lebanese Are Becoming Cheaper

The more the Lebanese immigrate, the more they harm the salaries of their compatriots abroad. Or so says a piece in the International Herald Tribune.In “A buyer’s market in Lebanon”, Bloomberg’s Daniel Williams writes that the brain outflow from Lebanon is a “double whammy”, where it is “drying up the pool of skilled workers inside Lebanon and reducing salaries for some Lebanese outside.”Some numbers are thrown in:

Mustapha Hamoui · Oct 9, 2007

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Zut! Lebanon Is Dropping French For English

An article in the Toronto Star notes what most of us already know: In Lebanon, French is taking the backseat to English as the “language of status”. But are the Lebanese ready to let go of the Language of Hugo?

Mustapha Hamoui · Oct 8, 2007

Rubbish Journalism

The New York Times is so blinded by Bush Hatred that its Lebanon reporting is becoming an insult to Lebanese intelligence.Thanks to DBK for pointing out this outrageous piece in the New York Times on Lebanon:

Mustapha Hamoui · Oct 6, 2007

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How To Ignore A Sayyed

Today’s Almustaqbal frontpage hardly mentioned Hassan Nassrallah’s major speech yesterday. Is this a deliberate attempt by Hariri’s media to ignore him? Should we take a hint and stop fixating on the Party of God?

Mustapha Hamoui · Oct 6, 2007

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Hassan Nassrallah’s Speech

The folks at ouwet.com are doing an excellent job updating a post with bullet points of Nassrallah’s speech as it’s happening. Some of what he said is very interesting. Check it out.For Arabic readers, find a more extensive coverage at Lebanonfiles.com.Vigorous automatic gunshots are heard all over Beirut, “celebrating” Nassrallah’s speech.

Mustapha Hamoui · Oct 5, 2007

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Foot In Mouth Disease

And the most unconvincing defense for the FPM’s training pictures is this: “The pictures are very old, and they are taken from the cellphones of the arrested people”.Just in case you thought that by “very old”, Mr. Aoun meant “civil war old”, you’d be excused to be perplexed by the cellphone dimension of the story. But don’t worry, the FPM has just what you need: Another excuse: The people in the picture -those girls and boys playing cowboys and Indians- are Mr. Aoun’s personal guard. Yeah, that should convince the skeptics.Update: The story is changing again. Now their spokesperson is saying (H/T Ramzi) that the people in the picture “were just out having fun with real weapons but were not undergoing any military training as such,”, The Aounists are so freaked out they’re tripping all over each other with conflicting accounts. So to recap: Those are very old photos taken on a cellphone for Aoun’s personal guards who are just having fun with real guns.

Mustapha Hamoui · Oct 5, 2007

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