18 Tuesday Sep 2012
Posted in Foreign Policy, LB Politics, Lebanon, Politics, The rest of the world, World
A few conversations took place yesterday between the Lebanese President Michel Sleiman and Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon Ghazanfar (Ghadanfar) Roknabadi. It started with a phone call…
(ring ring ring, ring ring ring, ring ring ring…)
Ghadanfar: errr…hello
Michel: oh thanks for picking up, at last.
01 Friday Jun 2012
Posted in LB Politics, Lebanon, Media Monitoring, Politics, Social Media
Some Future Movement politicians have wrongly attacked in their media appearances the Lebanese Army after what happened recently in the north. So our Lebanese army decided to respond, but in the wrong way.
12 Monday Mar 2012
Posted in Arab World, MB Culture, MicroBlogs, Other Arab issues
And you thought there was nothing to blog about President Michel Sleiman’s visit to Qatar last week?
19 Sunday Feb 2012
Posted in LB Politics, Lebanon
After being considered a “light” pro-Syrian before being elected, President Michel Sleiman advocated the “centrist” policy to the extent he made himself irrelevant in the political balance of power. Thanks to his little bloc in the parliament. But recently, he voiced some subtle opinions, which can be interpreted as critique of the Syrian regime and Hezbollah.
14 Monday Nov 2011
Posted in Arab Spring, Arab World, LB Politics, Lebanon, Politics, Syria
Tags
Addounia TV, Aljazeera, Arab League, arab spring, Lebanese government, lebanon, Michel Sleiman, Propaganda, syria, Tv, YouTube
In response to Syria’s crackdown on its uprising, and with all its decay, the Arab League [of dictators] has marked a historic milestone in its career by suspending Syria’s activities in its organisation. Before the ongoing Arab Spring, this move took place only once when Egypt was expelled due to its unilateral peace initiative with Israel in 1979 (& Libya in 2011); how times change. This is really a big slap in the face, with Syria being ‘the beating heart of the Arab Nation’.
It might be a brave move on the face of it in Syria’s case, but it can only show the Arabs fear from the growing Iranian influence in the region, or simply the delusional rising power of Qatar, or a mix of both (you can check the legal basis of the decision here).
27 Thursday Oct 2011
Posted in LB Culture, LB Politics, Lebanon, Politics
Tags
Addounia TV, Al-Manar, Censorship, Lebanese government, lebanon, LIRA, Michel Sleiman, Press, Social Media, Stop LIRA, Tv, twitter, Walid Jumblatt
A quasi-government Lebanese body, which is desperate for regulation and review itself, is planning to regulate the ‘electronic websites’. The National Council for Audio-Visual Media (NCAVM) announced this week its intention to create a register for websites. They didn’t specify for what type of websites and what are the criteria, though I can only speculate the initiative is targeted at the main sites that deals with news and politics, which became in the recent years as close as they can be to the ‘Main Stream Media’.
These websites would be the likes of Lebanonfiles.com, beiruobserver.com, cedarnews.net, elnashra.com, nowlebanon.com, Naharnet.com, 14march.org, Lebanonfiles.com, and many others including the websites of the main TV channels, newspapers and political parties. Saying that, media is not just ‘politics; it’s advertisement, films, entertainment, documentaries, social and cultural shows – all published or broadcasted. This move by the NCAVM to create a register has a lot of problems and unwanted consequences:
20 Wednesday Jul 2011
Posted in MB Politics, MicroBlogs, Politics, The rest of the world, World
Tags
Foreign Policy, Iran, lebanon, Michel Sleiman, Propaganda, Satire
This is what the Lebanese President Michel Sleiman said yesterday, to an Iranian delegate according to Iran’s news agency (IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency):
…that capitalism has been defeated and the need for global change is vital.
If you want to understand what this is about, you can check the statement here. Personally, I didn’t understand it or in other words I didn’t buy it!
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14 Tuesday Jun 2011
Posted in Caricature of the day
Tags
13 Monday Jun 2011
Posted in LB Politics, Lebanon, Politics
After more than four months of waiting, the designate Prime Minister Najib Mikati has announced today his new government lineup in Lebanon. One thing strikes any observer straight away is to why this formation took so long. The majority of the newly appointed ministers are part of or affiliated with March 8 alliance. Many thought forming this new government should accordingly take only 24 hours (the previous government resignation was branded by March 14 as a Hezbollah coup d’etat)
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12 Sunday Jun 2011
Posted in Caricature of the day
