Category Archive: Government

Mar 07 2010

You Know Lebanon's Judicial System is in Trouble When…

…the Minister of Justice, Ibrahim Najjar, has this to say about a new courthouse: The minister explained that the court’s building has been modernized and equipped to facilitate organizing archives and preserving them by using computers instead of “piled up and at times rotten paper.” Yes Minister Najjar, you will be entering a magical place …

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Feb 09 2010

Why Cant People Wait for the Investigation?

Alright, I originally didn’t want to comment on the ET409 flight that crashed off the Beirut coast late last month but honestly now, it has gotten pathetic: From Reuters: Pilot error caused the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane off the coast of Lebanon last month which killed all 90 people on board, a source …

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Dec 30 2009

Government E-Payment Soon?

It may really happen, though I’m not sure what service you’d pay for online. The European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI) has released a tender for software packages and financial information systems to develop an e-payment mechanism in Lebanon. Don’t have any further details but let’s go through some ideas of what they e-payment system could …

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Oct 23 2009

Multiplying Diamonds

Something magical happens to diamonds soon after they arrive in Lebanon: “85 percent of the diamonds arrive as industrial worth a couple dollars a carat, but some 250,000 more carats leave as gem-quality diamonds than arrive – worth 36 times their import value.” That’s according to the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme, a non-legally binding process …

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Oct 15 2009

Horseshoe Table, Here We Come

We’re in. Nigeria, Brazil, Bosnia, Lebanon and Gabon won seats on the UN Security Council on Thursday. The five countries faced no opposition in their bid for seats on the UN’s most powerful body and were elected on the first ballot by the 192-member General Assembly. They will serve two-year terms on the Security Council …

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