Will the STL stay the course?

Politicians do it, former generals love to do it. Now even patients at a Beirut gynaecology center are doing it: attacking the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL).

The incident today at a clinic in south Beirut – wire copy won’t print those two words without first saying ”the Hizbullah stronghold of” – demonstrates one of the first incidents of popular uprising against STL investigators, even if several occurences and threats of attacks prompted former investigation heads to seek refuge in the quieter climbs of Mount Lebanon. 

The beleaguered court has been beset with a string of high-profile resignations and accusations of politicization since its inception and popular support for the probe into the death of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is it an all-time low ebb.

Seven months, seven photos

Today I am marking, as well as the end of an eventful 2009, seven months in Beirut. I have reported on many interesting and important issues, from Hashish clearing in the Bekaa Valley to interviewing trauma surgeons in Haifa Hospital, Burj al-Barajneh.

Here are seven photos, chosen more or less randomly, from those seven months. I hope for many more in Lebanon. Enjoy!

A boy receiving treatment in Haifa Hospital, Burj al-Barajneh, July

A mural of Jesus in St George's Cathedral, Downtown Beirut, August

UNIFIL mine-clearer, Tibnin, August

Women on a shopping trip, Downtown Beirut, September

The telepherique at Harissa, Jounieh Highway, October

A boy takes part in Ashurah, Nabatiyeh, December

A boy prepares for bloodletting, Nabatiyeh, December

Weathering the storm

A storm breaks offshore from Beirut PHOTO: Akhater http://www.flickr.com/photos/akhater/

“Pray don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me so nervous.”
- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 1

Firstly, apologies for a post about the weather – it is, as Wilde once quipped, “the last refuge of the unimaginative.”

But there can be no refuge for Lebanon’s hapless Minister of Transport and Public Works, who seems to blame everyone but himself for the country’s inability to deal with poor weather. It is the municipalities, Ghazi Aridi laments, who ought to deal with localized flooding and storm damage.

As schools and other public buildings are evacuated, power cuts more rampant than usual and roads turned unceremoniously into canals, Aridi has no one to blame but himself.

Minister of Transport and Public Works Ghazi Aridi

Firstly, is not the responsibility of individual municipalities to protect the safety of Lebanese citizens. That job falls to the ISF, under the tutelage of the ever-proactive Ziad Baroud. This is, ultimately, the primary concern during periods of adverse weather.

But Aridi’s idea of decentralized planning to deal with acts of nature misses the root cause of the problem: for too long Lebanon as been redeveloped in a manner that is haphazard and poorly coordinated.

Individual private sector firms build upon swaths of land, plastering porous soil in impermeable concrete. The reason why rainwater collects and destroys so rapidly in Lebanon is because most of the country is covered in tarmac.

Two weeks ago I was awoken by workers drilling through the asphalt on the street below to get to manhole and drain covers which had been thoughtless tarmaced over the last time the road was relayed. Annoying as this was, the incident epitomizes the make do and mend attitude of the public work’s ministry, unable to reign in local developmental malpractice.

A complete lack of centralized planning is the fault of central administration and the cause of so much damage whenever the heavens break above Beirut and other towns in Lebanon.

Aridi has repeatedly shown an inability to deal with a compartmentalized planning system. Unlike his diligent cohort in the fight against flooding, Aridi seems unwilling to shoulder responsibility.

Lebanon’s Minister of Public Works simply isn’t working.

A tale of two oppositions

The recent Tehran protests against President Ahmadinejad’s election ‘victory’ appear to gather momentum each day and, in no small way, serve to remind me of what could have occurred in the aftermath to Lebanon’s general election 10 days ago.

It is with catharsis that we view the different reactions to electoral defeat between the countries’ opposition parties.

In Lebanon, the Hizbullah-lead March 8 bloc – in spite of receiving the majority of the popular vote – immediately accepted defeat (apart from the notable excption of the Metn district.)

In Iran, supporters of the main opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, have taken to the streets in their thousands, chanting and demanding a recount with such conviction, that the Guardian Council caved in to the popular call. On Tuesday, it announced a recount of disputed ballots.

Why Ahmadinejad’s ‘win’ could be a good thing

I might not the most authoritative source on all things Middle East, Lebanese or Iranian. Or all things for that matter. But the news today that Iran’s incumbent, Mahmood Ahmadinejad, has won Friday’s election, should be viewed with positivity here in Lebanon.

Coming six days after the Lebanese voted in their first post-Syrian elections- in which the ruling March 14 coalition won the majority of parliamentary seats – Iran’s electorate seem to have backed a hardliner and his antipathetic views towards the West.

The Lebanese election result was reported widely – if oversimplistically – as a victory for the West over Hizbullah’s support for (and from) Iran. Much of the Western press’ coverage centred on this reductive dichotomy of West vs East, of petrodollars and liberalism vs resistance and Islamist rhetoric.