TAYYAR AL AOUNI 2009 CAMPAIGN SLOGAN

A HUGE BREAK THROUGH

Scientists finally discovered what's wrong with Michael Aoun's brain:
On the left side there's nothing right, on the right side there's nothing left.

PROUD TO BE LEBANESE!

STATISTICS ABOUT LEBANON

1. Lebanon has 18 religious communities.

2. It has 40 daily newspapers, more than 80 magazines, 10 TV Stations, 17 Radio Stations.

3. It has 42 universities.

4. It has over 100 banks (That is banks and not branches of a bank).

5. 70% of the students are in private schools.

6. 92% of its population own Cellular phone. (The highest percent in the world).

7. Many of the Lebanese people are Christians (The highest percent in all the Arab countries).

8. There's 1 doctor per 10 people in Lebanon (In Europe & America, there's 1 doctor per 100 people).

9. The name LEBANON appears 75 times in the Old Testament.

10. The name CEDAR (Lebanon’s tree) appears 75 times too in the Old Testament!

11. Beirut was destroyed and rebuilt 9 times (this is why it's compared to The Phoenix).

12. There's 4 Million Lebanese in Lebanon.

13. There's around 15 Million Lebanese outside Lebanon!

OTHER INTERESTING FACTS

1. Lebanon, the country, was occupied by over 16 countries: (Egyptians-Hittites-Assyrians- Babylonians- Persians- Alexander the greats Army- the Roman Empire Byzantine- the Arabian Peninsula-The Crusaders- the Ottoman Empire- Britain-France- Israel- Syria).

2. Byblos (city in Lebanon) is the oldest, continuously living city in the world.

3. Lebanon’s name has been around for 4,000 years non- stop (it's the oldest country/ nation's name in the world!)

4. Lebanon is the only Asian country that doesn't have a desert.

5. There are 15 rivers in Lebanon (all of them coming from its own mountains).

6. Lebanon is one of the most populated countries in its archeological sites, in the world!

7. The first alphabet was created in Byblos (city in Lebanon).

8. The only remaining temple of Jupiter (the main Roman god) is in Baalbek, Lebanon (The City of the Sun).

9. The name of BYBLOS comes from the BIBLE!

10. Lebanon is the country that has the most books written about it.

11. Lebanon is the only non-dictatorial country in the Arab world (Yes, we do have a President!)12. Jesus Christ made his 1st miracle in Lebanon, in Qana (The miracle of turning water into wine).

13. The Phoenicians (Original People of Lebanon) built the 1st boat, and they were the first to sail ever!

14. Phoenicians also reached America long before Christopher Columbus did.

15. The 1st law school in the world was built in Lebanon, in Downtown Beirut.

16. People say that the cedars were planted by God's own hands (This is why they're called 'The Cedars of God', and this is why Lebanon is called 'God's Country on Earth.' I love Lebanon..... May God bless my homeland forever....

NEW CAR SEAT BELT

This becomes effective June 1, 2009 in ALL Provinces.
The National Highway Safety Council has done extensive testing on a newly Designed seat belt. Results show that accidents can be reduced by as much as 95% when the belt is properly installed. Correct Installation is illustrated below.......

Please advise your family and friends.
This may help save a life!

Laid-Off Foreigners Flee as Dubai Spirals Down

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Sofia, a 34-year-old Frenchwoman, moved here a year ago to take a job in advertising, so confident about Dubai’s fast-growing economy that she bought an apartment for almost $300,000 with a 15-year mortgage.

Now, like many of the foreign workers who make up 90 percent of the population here, she has been laid off and faces the prospect of being forced to leave this Persian Gulf city — or worse.

“I’m really scared of what could happen, because I bought property here,” said Sofia, who asked that her last name be withheld because she is still hunting for a new job. “If I can’t pay it off, I was told I could end up in debtors’ prison.”

With Dubai’s economy in free fall, newspapers have reported that more than 3,000 cars sit abandoned in the parking lot at the Dubai Airport, left by fleeing, debt-ridden foreigners (who could in fact be imprisoned if they failed to pay their bills). Some are said to have maxed-out credit cards inside and notes of apology taped to the windshield.

The government says the real number is much lower. But the stories contain at least a grain of truth: jobless people here lose their work visas and then must leave the country within a month. That in turn reduces spending, creates housing vacancies and lowers real estate prices, in a downward spiral that has left parts of Dubai — once hailed as the economic superpower of the Middle East — looking like a ghost town.

No one knows how bad things have become, though it is clear that tens of thousands have left, real estate prices have crashed and scores of Dubai’s major construction projects have been suspended or canceled. But with the government unwilling to provide data, rumors are bound to flourish, damaging confidence and further undermining the economy.

Instead of moving toward greater transparency, the emirates seem to be moving in the other direction. A new draft media law would make it a crime to damage the country’s reputation or economy, punishable by fines of up to 1 million dirhams (about $272,000). Some say it is already having a chilling effect on reporting about the crisis.

Last month, local newspapers reported that Dubai was canceling 1,500 work visas every day, citing unnamed government officials. Asked about the number, Humaid bin Dimas, a spokesman for Dubai’s Labor Ministry, said he would not confirm or deny it and refused to comment further. Some say the true figure is much higher.

“At the moment there is a readiness to believe the worst,” said Simon Williams, HSBC bank’s chief economist in Dubai. “And the limits on data make it difficult to counter the rumors.”
Some things are clear: real estate prices, which rose dramatically during Dubai’s six-year boom, have dropped 30 percent or more over the past two or three months in some parts of the city. Last week, Moody’s Investor’s Service announced that it might downgrade its ratings on six of Dubai’s most prominent state-owned companies, citing deterioration in the economic outlook. So many used luxury cars are for sale, they are sometimes sold for 40 percent less than the asking price two months ago, car dealers say. Dubai’s roads, usually thick with traffic at this time of year, are now mostly clear.

Some analysts say the crisis is likely to have long-lasting effects on the seven-member emirates federation, where Dubai has long played rebellious younger brother to oil-rich and more conservative Abu Dhabi. Dubai officials, swallowing their pride, have made clear that they would be open to a bailout, but so far Abu Dhabi has offered assistance only to its own banks.
“Why is Abu Dhabi allowing its neighbor to have its international reputation trashed, when it could bail out Dubai’s banks and restore confidence?” said Christopher M. Davidson, who predicted the current crisis in “Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success,” a book published last year. “Perhaps the plan is to centralize the U.A.E.” under Abu Dhabi’s control, he mused, in a move that would sharply curtail Dubai’s independence and perhaps change its signature freewheeling style.

For many foreigners, Dubai had seemed at first to be a refuge, relatively insulated from the panic that began hitting the rest of the world last autumn. The Persian Gulf is cushioned by vast oil and gas wealth, and some who lost jobs in New York and London began applying here.
But Dubai, unlike Abu Dhabi or nearby Qatar and Saudi Arabia, does not have its own oil, and had built its reputation on real estate, finance and tourism. Now, many expatriates here talk about Dubai as though it were a con game all along. Lurid rumors spread quickly: the Palm Jumeira, an artificial island that is one of this city’s trademark developments, is said to be sinking, and when you turn the faucets in the hotels built atop it, only cockroaches come out.
“Is it going to get better? They tell you that, but I don’t know what to believe anymore,” said Sofia, who still hopes to find a job before her time runs out. “People are really panicking quickly.”

Hamza Thiab, a 27-year-old Iraqi who moved here from Baghdad in 2005, lost his job with an engineering firm six weeks ago. He has until the end of February to find a job, or he must leave. “I’ve been looking for a new job for three months, and I’ve only had two interviews,” he said. “Before, you used to open up the papers here and see dozens of jobs. The minimum for a civil engineer with four years’ experience used to be 15,000 dirhams a month. Now, the maximum you’ll get is 8,000,” or about $2,000.

Mr. Thiab was sitting in a Costa Coffee Shop in the Ibn Battuta mall, where most of the customers seemed to be single men sitting alone, dolefully drinking coffee at midday. If he fails to find a job, he will have to go to Jordan, where he has family members — Iraq is still too dangerous, he says — though the situation is no better there. Before that, he will have to borrow money from his father to pay off the more than $12,000 he still owes on a bank loan for his Honda Civic. Iraqi friends bought fancier cars and are now, with no job, struggling to sell them.
“Before, so many of us were living a good life here,” Mr. Thiab said. “Now we cannot pay our loans. We are all just sleeping, smoking, drinking coffee and having headaches because of the situation.”

FATAL ATTRACTION

Michel Aoun suspects his wife of cheating on him, sends Jubran Bassil out to buy him a gun. He goes to their furnished apartment unexpectedly, opens the door, and, sure enough, finds her naked in the arms of a 14th of March. Well, now he’s angry. He takes out the gun. But as he does so, he is overcome with grief and points the gun at his own head. The wife yells, "No, honey, don’t do it." "Shut up," he says. "You’re next."