last this happened was in 1991... and even then... it didn't snow half a meter in Beit Mery!!!!!

all power lines are cut, trees are down, and Lebanon at 500+ meters has come to a complete standstill...

it's still snowing, 24 hours after it started. i've managed to set up a wireless connection in my car, so i'll be dispatching as often as i can.

here are the first set of photos, stay tuned for more!

Lebanon... comes from the Aramaic word of Laban, which translates to 'snow capped'









tags: snow, snowstorm, storm, blanket, beirut, lebanon, yarze, beit mery, brummana, 500 meters, weather, 1991, record breaking, photographs, blogging beirut, pics, pictures, lebanese

-finkployd- the FREAK weather on Blogging Beirut

not 10 days after the last car bombing in Beirut - targeting an American Embassy Convoy - another car bomb was detonated as Major Eid's car passed Chevrolet between Hazmieh and Furn el Chebbak.

Major Eid, his bodyguard, and three civilians died in the blast. Over 20 others were wounded.

EXCLUSIVE photos after the jump: Photography by SAMER SAAB

Alastair Crooke at an AUB lecture: Armed resistance way to open up real dialogue

Crooke: West is using language that is not meant to mediate but 'erode the Islamists' identity'

A long-time mediator between Islamist groups and the West and a former MI6 agent told an AUB audience on Thursday that armed resistance is the only logical response to the West's refusal to engage with Islamists with respect .

Alastair Crooke, the founder of Conflicts Forum--an international movement which engages with Islamist groups--and a former MI6 British intelligence agent who organized unofficial talks in 2005 between the United States/Europe and Hizbullah, Hamas and other Islamist movements, said that the West is currently using language with armed Islamist groups that is not meant to mediate but "erode, undermine and weaken the Islamists' identity."

"In this context, what should the Islamists' response be? The only way to deal with this is to resist. And resistance, armed resistance, may be one way to open dialogue," he said. "Ultimately, you need to refuse dialogue to get dialogue."

Crooke: Islamists' experience now is sumilar to that of blacks and civil rights movement

"Otherwise, if Islamists give up their arms before negotiating, then what do they have left to negotiate over?" he said. "There has to be pain from walking away from the negotiating table, in order for dialogue to be meaningful and successful. You need respect in order for negotiations to succeed."

Crooke gave the example of when Americans sat down with the Viet Cong to dialogue in the late 1960s, noting that the Viet Cong did not renounce violence before they reached a solution.

Crooke presented his views during a lecture entitled "Talking with Islamists: An overdue task or an exercise in appeasement?" Organized by the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs on January 17 in West Hall's Auditorium B, the lecture attracted a packed audience, a number of whom sat on the window sills of the room. Crooke's talk is the second of the Bill and Sally Hambrecht Distinguished Peacemakers Lectures at AUB, bringing ten prominent international mediators to AUB and Beirut over the coming two years to share their experiences with the AUB community and conflict-resolution practitioners and scholars in Lebanon and the Middle East.

IFI Director Rami Khoury introduced Crooke as an expert with a 30-year record history of dealing with armed groups and engaging with Islamists. Crooke is also a former special Mid-East adviser to European Union High Representative Javier Solana and was involved in facilitating various Israeli-Palestinian ceasefires during 2001-2003. Crooke was also instrumental in the negotiations leading to the ending of the siege of the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem. He has direct experience of conflict over a period of 30 years in Ireland, South Africa, Namibia, Afghanistan, Cambodia and Colombia and has coordinated several hostage negotiations. Crooke has written dozens of articles and contributed to television productions on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, political Islam and insurgency.

Crooke found parallelism between the West's approach to Islamists and its attitude towards blacks in the past, noting that Islamists are now demanding to be seen as human beings just as blacks did in the civil rights movement.

Crooke argued that the West's insistence on considering Islamists as untrustworthy, with no real and meaningful ideology is deeply rooted in colonialism. The language most Westerners use imply that when Islamists say they support democracy they don't mean it, but when Westerners do, it is sincere, he said.

The West is using language to empty the power and identity of Islamists. "This is not accidental," he said. "It is done to paint the Islamists as superficial, with nothing meaningful to say, and to make them look repellent and to turn the West against them."

But in fact, Islamists don't want to eliminate Western thinking, said Crooke. "They are offering a critique of Western society. It's not a critique of the Enlightenment but of what we've turned the Enlightenment into," he said.

Crooke argued that the Islamists are challenging the view of Western modernity, by saying that focusing only on individualism and materialism actually diminishes the individual, whereas focusing on the progress of the community promotes human values.

Although Crooke acknowledged that not all Islamists are interested in engaging with the West, he noted that those who do constitute "about 95 percent of Islamist groups: the mainstream and moderate ones, such as Hamas and Hizbullah."

"We need to escape from our conditioned thinking," he added. "Unless there is a moral awakening in the West, it will remain unchanged, conflict will continue, and no real dialogue will take place."

"Sadly at this stage, the West still cannot hear the other, and dialogue is still premature," he said. "So the only way is to continue refusing dialogue on these terms." --AUB

tags: crooke, aub, dialogue, lecture, lebanon, beirut, lebanese, american university of beirut

-finkployd- Lectures on Blogging Beirut

remember this...? (link)

now they're in jail!!! and i thought we had it better..... eufffffff

Four Lebanese university students have been jailed for a week for making crude remarks on the Facebook social networking site about the singing talents of a woman they met at a party, media reports said on Thursday.

Local newspapers reported that the students -- all male -- were ordered to be detained on January 10 after the young woman's father objected to the authorities in the eastern town of Zahle.

The four were charged with slander and "violating public morality" and were ordered to be held in preventive detention despite objections by human rights groups.


tags: facebook, jail, students, explicit, remarks, zahle, lebanon, beirut, lebanese

-finkployd- Justice Or? on Blogging Beirut

Armor Plated US Embassy SUV - confirmed - targeted by Car Bomb in Dora District of Beirut on January 15 2008 at around 4 PM Lebanon Time.


not confirmed: 16 wounded, 4 dead

US Ambassador was NOT in the vehicle at the time of the explosion.

Explosion took place near Galerie Vanlian.

Car Bomb in Dora District of Beirut, Lebanon
On the Coastal Highway near City Mall
One Dead Confirmed
At least 10 Wounded


tags: car bomb, beirut, lebanon, coastal highway, dora, city mall, citymall, christian, neighborhood, district, death, casualties, january 2008

-finkployd- Car Bombs on Blogging Beirut