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HCP calls for bigger private-sector role in production of electricity

Fri, 17/07/2009 - 10:28am — wafa

BEIRUT: The secretary general of the Higher Council for Privatization (HCP) Ziad Hayek said the public and private sector should work closely to secure an additional 600 MW of electricity. Hayek’s remarks came in a report on the current state of electricity in Lebanon and the best solution to solve the chronic problems of this sector, which has literally exhausted the financial resources of all successive governments.

At present, all of the existing power plants in the country, some of which date back more than 40 years, have a combined maximum capacity of 1,500 MW while the country’s actual need is more than 2,300 MW.

Lebanon has been experiencing severe electricity rationing due to the limited capacity of the power plants.

HCP calls for bigger private-sector role in production of electricity

Fri, 17/07/2009 - 10:28am — wafa

BEIRUT: The secretary general of the Higher Council for Privatization (HCP) Ziad Hayek said the public and private sector should work closely to secure an additional 600 MW of electricity. Hayek’s remarks came in a report on the current state of electricity in Lebanon and the best solution to solve the chronic problems of this sector, which has literally exhausted the financial resources of all successive governments.

At present, all of the existing power plants in the country, some of which date back more than 40 years, have a combined maximum capacity of 1,500 MW while the country’s actual need is more than 2,300 MW.

Lebanon has been experiencing severe electricity rationing due to the limited capacity of the power plants.

Slow internet driving foreign companies away from Lebanon

Fri, 17/07/2009 - 10:09am — wafa

BEIRUT: Many foreign investors are reluctant to establish businesses in Lebanon due to low speed of broadband connectivity which affects their production capacity, the president of professional computer association Gabriel Deek said. “Slow broadband connectivity in Lebanon is behind the success of Dubai in attracting business opportunities that should have come to Lebanon instead,” Deek told The Daily Star.

“We have very slow and expensive broadband connections in Lebanon. Huge companies such as Microsoft need high speed connections for them to be able to connect to their international networks, which costs no less than $50,000 per month in Lebanon,” Deek said.

Syria upholds jail terms for 12 dissidents

Thu, 16/07/2009 - 11:23am — lina

By Agence France Presse (AFP)

DAMASCUS: A Syrian appeal court has upheld 30-month jail terms slapped on 12 opposition figures who called for democratic reforms, a human rights group said on Tuesday. “The appeal court rejected the motion submitted by defense lawyers for the opposition figures who signed the ‘Damascus Declaration,’” said the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “We believe the verdict is political and was issued on the basis of inquiries made by the intelligence services to silence all [democratic] voices,” the Observatory said in a statement.
Abdel-Karim Rihawi, president of the Syrian League for the Defense of Human Rights, reacted by calling for a general amnesty for all political detainees and prisoners of conscience in Syria.

Jordan taps into multibillion-dollar medical tourism industry

Thu, 16/07/2009 - 11:21am — lina

Kingdom hopes to lure US citizens weary of soaring health care costs
Dale Gavlak
Associated Press
AMMAN: Resource poor Jordan is hoping to turn Americans’ misfortune into its fortune.
The largely desert kingdom – already established in the Middle East as a top health care destination – is stepping up efforts to tap into the multibillion dollar medical tourism market with a campaign to lure US citizens weary of soaring health care costs.
“Come here, do your surgery. Afterward, have a vacation, visit Petra, swim in the Dead Sea,” Dr. Fawzi al-Hammouri, the head of Jordan’s Private Hospitals Association, said, listing the country’s most popular tourism destinations. The hospitals are offering package deals, including air travel.

Illegal land reclamation along Lebanon’s coast still taking place – Aridi

Thu, 16/07/2009 - 11:17am — lina

BEIRUT: Transport and Public Works Minister Ghazi Aridi said on Tuesday that illegal land reclamation on government properties along the coast is still taking place. Speaking to reporters, the minister showed the media photos and video clips of violations that are taking place on the coast of Jbeil.
“These violations can never be the right way for promoting tourism in the country,” he said.
Aridi believes that violating the government’s properties is against the values of Lebanese society as a whole and that it only serves a specific social class.
He said that these properties are being given to people in return for a high rental fee and only people with high incomes can afford to make use of them.

UK suffers from worst surge of unemployment in 12 years

Thu, 16/07/2009 - 10:14am — wafa

LONDON: Britain’s unemployment rate surged to 7.6 percent of the work force in May, the highest level since Labor won power in 1997, official data showed Wednesday, baring the depths of damage from the global financial crisis. The latest dire economic data to hit recession-battered Britain comes as luxury car brand Jaguar on Wednesday said it would axe up to 300 jobs and end production of its X-Type car at a factory in northwest England.

The unemployment rate struck a higher-than-expected 7.6 percent in the three months to May, the worst level since January 1997 and the biggest quarterly jump for 28 years, the Office for National Statistics said in a statement.

Palestinian women prisoners mistreated by Israel – report

Thu, 16/07/2009 - 10:12am — wafa

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: A Palestinian human rights group slammed Israeli treatment of Palestinian female prisoners in a UN-sponsored report re­leased on Wednesday, saying pregnant women are often shackled on their way to hospitals to give birth. The women prisoners are held in “Israeli prisons and detention centers which were designed for men and do not respond to female needs,” according to a report by the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, which was sponsored by the United Nations Development Fund for Women.

Pregnant detainees “do not enjoy preferential treatment in terms of diet, living space or transfer to hospitals,” it said. “Pregnant prisoners are also chained to their beds until they enter delivery rooms and shackled once again after giving birth.

W. Bank economy can bounce back if Israel eases siege

Thu, 16/07/2009 - 10:02am — wafa

JERUSALEM: The West Bank economy could strengthen significantly this year if Israel continues to ease its restrictions on all Palestinian trade and movement in the territory, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Wednesday. The forecast was the latest sign of an improvement in security and economic conditions in the Occupied West Bank that could bolster Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and US-sponsored peace efforts with Israel.

Sidon’s young shoeshiners play daily cat-and-mouse game with city’s police

Thu, 16/07/2009 - 9:59am — wafa

SIDON: The hardworking shoeshiners of Sidon often find themselves chased down the streets by the police who consider them to be an annoyance and a source of chaos. This feeling however is not shared by all security officers. Some of them have apparently adopted a more lenient method of dealing with the young boys who earned their living out of “a brush, a box and a little paint,” as one police officer who wished to remain anonymous put it, adding that it was not his job to “fight and bully those poor folks.”

As for the shoeshiners themselves, they roam the streets of the city searching for “a decent income away from begging.”