It is wonderful to be living in the information age. With the numerous old and new media you can easily find out what is going on the world. I try to keep abreast of most of what happens in Lebanon. Still, I was surprised when I read that Edgar Choueiri was elected president of the Lebanese Academy of Sciences yesterday.
I had to dig up the information in the Princeton University website since our local newspapers have more pressing issues to cover.
Below is part of the press release:
“The academy was founded in July of 2007 to encourage scientific research in Lebanon and advise the Lebanese government on scientific matters. The organization includes members from Lebanon and other countries and is modeled after the French Academy of Sciences, which offered guidance and support in its development. Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Saniora initially served as the academy's honorary president.”
I had heard of professor Choueiri beause it turns out that he is not only an outstanding physicist, but also an expert practionner of the fine art of Zajal. Still, I have to admit I had never heard of the Lebanese Academy of Sciences and of its founding in July 2007. Like the rest of us, I must have been too busy lounging at the beach to notice.
The concept of the Academy is brilliant: there is a fair amount of Lebanese scientists in universities at home and abroad, and it makes perfect sense to gather them and ask them to advise our beloved leaders. But it is surprising that the creation of the entity has not been publicized better. I could not even find a basic website for the Academy. Is it supposed to be a secret society?
One can only hope that professor Choueiri’s first goal will be to publicize the new institution and to get it to accomplish its advisory work as soon as possible. Good ideas are scarce in Lebanon, and it would be tragic to waste the present one.
MM.
An Independent Source of Analysis on The Middle East
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
Lebanon's New Electoral Law Will Impact Christians
BEIRUT -- Lebanon's new electoral law could define the role of the country's Christian electorate and directly impact the ongoing Sunni-Shia power struggle, experts say.
"The Christians can flip the balance one way or another. Because the Shiites are attached to Iran and Syria and the Sunnis to Saudi Arabia, so as to lessen the attachments, the Christians can balance it out in the national interest of the country," said former Lebanese ambassador to Washington, Abdullah Bouhabib.
for more...click on headline.
"The Christians can flip the balance one way or another. Because the Shiites are attached to Iran and Syria and the Sunnis to Saudi Arabia, so as to lessen the attachments, the Christians can balance it out in the national interest of the country," said former Lebanese ambassador to Washington, Abdullah Bouhabib.
for more...click on headline.
Sunday, October 05, 2008
War On The Corner
by Mohamad Bazzi
(NYT Magazine)
Across the street from my building in Beirut, there’s a bakery that doubles as the local office of a Sunni political party. Normally, the shebab — young men — spend all day and night roaring around the block on mopeds, or soaping and polishing their cars while playing thumping rap music. But one evening last May, while my wife and I were on a visit from New York, they were standing on the sidewalk with a hodgepodge of rifles and handguns. One of them had put on a ski mask, which made his air of menace curiously abstract. When he hoisted his rifle, pretending to shoot, he held it from the waist like a child soldier in Liberia.
In the span of one week, Lebanon had come to teeter on the edge of communal warfare — the one thing all Lebanese politicians have vowed would never happen again since the end of the 15-year civil war in 1990. After 18 months of political deadlock, word went out that the Shiite militia Hezbollah was dispatching hundreds of fighters into the largely Sunni areas of West Beirut.
As the sun set that evening, a couple of teenagers headed over to the corner and hauled a trash Dumpster into the middle of the street. The Dumpster didn’t block the street entirely, so after some debate, the shebab dragged two French doors from a nearby construction site and propped them at a delicate, 45-degree angle against the Dumpster, one on each side, making a contraption that looked as if it might fall over in a strong breeze.
By morning, the Dumpster was pushed aside. The shooting was heavy and very close; you could smell it. Hezbollah was outside, sweeping through the neighborhood while our Sunni neighbors were trying to fight back.
As a child growing up in the early 1980s during the civil war, I spent long nights huddled in the hallway with my parents while various militias traded artillery and machine-gun fire. When the fighting was particularly heavy, we would drag mattresses into the hallway and prop them against the walls. And now I found myself reverting to that old civil-war mode, as our block reverberated with gunfire and the occasional thump of rocket-propelled grenades.
But at a certain point, desperate to know what was going on, we broke one of the cardinal rules I learned during the civil war: stay away from the windows — from anything that can shatter. We peeked through the bedroom curtains.
Across the street, three Hezbollah commandos in green fatigues crouched, Kalashnikovs propped on their knees, in a small garden where kids usually play ball. Two more advanced methodically down the block, shouting to residents: “Don’t go outside! Stay inside! Don’t go out on your balconies!” A teenaged boy, barefoot, ran toward them, shirtless to show he was unarmed, surrendering. As we watched, one fighter swung his rifle toward our window. It pointed directly at us; he must have seen the curtain flutter and thought it was a sniper. We scampered away from the window, back into the hallway.
We decided we might as well get used to our new, reduced home. During the civil war, people relied on battery-powered radios; this time we had wireless Internet access, and soon Annia was instant-messaging her friends in New York.
After an hourlong lull in the fighting, Annia started filling empty bottles with water in case this turned into a siege, or in case our rooftop water tank got shot out, like that of the hotel across the street. She made oatmeal with almonds and strawberries. I took my bowl and settled down to eat on the balcony. A burst of gunfire rippled out. I scuttled back inside. “Maybe it’s not time to start eating on the balcony just yet,” I said to Annia.
In the civil war, people developed routines. At first, they peek out of their windows. When they see that things are quiet, they go out on their balconies. Then other people join them, and soon you have entire families on the balconies, pointing, discussing, analyzing the situation. Some pull up chairs and light cigarettes, or even water pipes. In our case, by noon, a few women were on the sidewalk. Some, braving possible snipers, even made forays into the street. Another lesson: women are often the first to venture out because they’re less likely to be mistaken for combatants. When the call to prayer warbled out, people started filtering down the block, in ones and twos, toward the mosque.
Over the next few days, Hezbollah pulled its fighters off the streets, and leaders of the various factions headed to Qatar to negotiate. The country had been saved. Just as after the civil war, people made a silent pact to submerge their fear and distrust of one another. But the events of that week reminded me how quickly those feelings can rise up again — how easily we can settle back into the familiar, almost comfortable rhythms of civil war.
Mohamad Bazzi teaches journalism at New York University and was recently a visiting fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
(NYT Magazine)
Across the street from my building in Beirut, there’s a bakery that doubles as the local office of a Sunni political party. Normally, the shebab — young men — spend all day and night roaring around the block on mopeds, or soaping and polishing their cars while playing thumping rap music. But one evening last May, while my wife and I were on a visit from New York, they were standing on the sidewalk with a hodgepodge of rifles and handguns. One of them had put on a ski mask, which made his air of menace curiously abstract. When he hoisted his rifle, pretending to shoot, he held it from the waist like a child soldier in Liberia.
In the span of one week, Lebanon had come to teeter on the edge of communal warfare — the one thing all Lebanese politicians have vowed would never happen again since the end of the 15-year civil war in 1990. After 18 months of political deadlock, word went out that the Shiite militia Hezbollah was dispatching hundreds of fighters into the largely Sunni areas of West Beirut.
As the sun set that evening, a couple of teenagers headed over to the corner and hauled a trash Dumpster into the middle of the street. The Dumpster didn’t block the street entirely, so after some debate, the shebab dragged two French doors from a nearby construction site and propped them at a delicate, 45-degree angle against the Dumpster, one on each side, making a contraption that looked as if it might fall over in a strong breeze.
By morning, the Dumpster was pushed aside. The shooting was heavy and very close; you could smell it. Hezbollah was outside, sweeping through the neighborhood while our Sunni neighbors were trying to fight back.
As a child growing up in the early 1980s during the civil war, I spent long nights huddled in the hallway with my parents while various militias traded artillery and machine-gun fire. When the fighting was particularly heavy, we would drag mattresses into the hallway and prop them against the walls. And now I found myself reverting to that old civil-war mode, as our block reverberated with gunfire and the occasional thump of rocket-propelled grenades.
But at a certain point, desperate to know what was going on, we broke one of the cardinal rules I learned during the civil war: stay away from the windows — from anything that can shatter. We peeked through the bedroom curtains.
Across the street, three Hezbollah commandos in green fatigues crouched, Kalashnikovs propped on their knees, in a small garden where kids usually play ball. Two more advanced methodically down the block, shouting to residents: “Don’t go outside! Stay inside! Don’t go out on your balconies!” A teenaged boy, barefoot, ran toward them, shirtless to show he was unarmed, surrendering. As we watched, one fighter swung his rifle toward our window. It pointed directly at us; he must have seen the curtain flutter and thought it was a sniper. We scampered away from the window, back into the hallway.
We decided we might as well get used to our new, reduced home. During the civil war, people relied on battery-powered radios; this time we had wireless Internet access, and soon Annia was instant-messaging her friends in New York.
After an hourlong lull in the fighting, Annia started filling empty bottles with water in case this turned into a siege, or in case our rooftop water tank got shot out, like that of the hotel across the street. She made oatmeal with almonds and strawberries. I took my bowl and settled down to eat on the balcony. A burst of gunfire rippled out. I scuttled back inside. “Maybe it’s not time to start eating on the balcony just yet,” I said to Annia.
In the civil war, people developed routines. At first, they peek out of their windows. When they see that things are quiet, they go out on their balconies. Then other people join them, and soon you have entire families on the balconies, pointing, discussing, analyzing the situation. Some pull up chairs and light cigarettes, or even water pipes. In our case, by noon, a few women were on the sidewalk. Some, braving possible snipers, even made forays into the street. Another lesson: women are often the first to venture out because they’re less likely to be mistaken for combatants. When the call to prayer warbled out, people started filtering down the block, in ones and twos, toward the mosque.
Over the next few days, Hezbollah pulled its fighters off the streets, and leaders of the various factions headed to Qatar to negotiate. The country had been saved. Just as after the civil war, people made a silent pact to submerge their fear and distrust of one another. But the events of that week reminded me how quickly those feelings can rise up again — how easily we can settle back into the familiar, almost comfortable rhythms of civil war.
Mohamad Bazzi teaches journalism at New York University and was recently a visiting fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Water Issues in the Middle East
by Ms Levantine
More than a dozen countries in the Middle East and Africa compete for water from three rivers (Tigris, Nile and Jordan). The level of the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth, has receded about 3 feet (1 meter) each year for the past 25 years.
And continued water scarcity will affect the region’s social and economic potential, increase land vulnerability to salinization and desertification, and raise the risk for political conflict around the limited water available.
Israel is banking on controversial technology, such as desalination plants that convert seawater into freshwater, to meet future water needs. It built the largest
largest desalination plant in the region and is building another four.
Israeli President Shimon Peres, who tackled the issue of water in the Middle East at the Clinton Global Initiative had this to say: “We never had water in the Middle East, even Moses tried to extract water from a stone, it worked for a very short while (laughter). But now we came to the conclusion that we can produce much more water”
President Peres believes even when water is scarce, it is often squandered:
“Our number one priority is to save the waste of water. We estimate that 50% of drinking water are been wasted because of overuse, old systems and old pipes. To save water is the cheapest way to produce water.”
“We are in our 50 year of drought in the Middle East, it is very tragic for many countries like Jordan and Palestine. And water is not national. Either you work together on a regional base or suffer together, what we have to do is introduce a regional relationship which by the way may result in peace too” said Peres.
More than a dozen countries in the Middle East and Africa compete for water from three rivers (Tigris, Nile and Jordan). The level of the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth, has receded about 3 feet (1 meter) each year for the past 25 years.
And continued water scarcity will affect the region’s social and economic potential, increase land vulnerability to salinization and desertification, and raise the risk for political conflict around the limited water available.
Israel is banking on controversial technology, such as desalination plants that convert seawater into freshwater, to meet future water needs. It built the largest
largest desalination plant in the region and is building another four.
Israeli President Shimon Peres, who tackled the issue of water in the Middle East at the Clinton Global Initiative had this to say: “We never had water in the Middle East, even Moses tried to extract water from a stone, it worked for a very short while (laughter). But now we came to the conclusion that we can produce much more water”
President Peres believes even when water is scarce, it is often squandered:
“Our number one priority is to save the waste of water. We estimate that 50% of drinking water are been wasted because of overuse, old systems and old pipes. To save water is the cheapest way to produce water.”
“We are in our 50 year of drought in the Middle East, it is very tragic for many countries like Jordan and Palestine. And water is not national. Either you work together on a regional base or suffer together, what we have to do is introduce a regional relationship which by the way may result in peace too” said Peres.
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