Pursuit of excellence The vicious survival cycle that Lebanese corporates are stuck in comes at a price. To sustain their existence, they have to constantly bend the rules and outsmart the system, while suffering the inefficiencies and lack of vision that come from the absence of the state. In short, corporates adhere to a short-term management style, winging…… Read More
Usages et applications de la Blockchain et des crypto-actifs en Afrique En France, les crypto-monnaies sont principalement connues et utilisées à titre spéculatif, avec encore peu d’applications économiques concrètes. Cependant, en Afrique, les crypto-monnaies et la technologie Blockchain sont directement envisagées avec un aspect bien plus concret : elles permettent d’améliorer le niveau de vie des africains et de mieux répondre à leurs besoins dans de nombreux […] L’article Usages et applications de la Blockchain et des crypto-actifs en Afrique est apparu en premier sur Blockchain magazine. … Read More
The patriarchy problem Lebanese voters will head to the ballot boxes in just a few days. One of the major changes to the electoral scene after thrice-delayed parliamentary elections has been the increase in the number of female candidates, up from 3 percent of overall candidates in 2009 to 14 percent this election. This time around 111 women…… Read More
Behind the talk April was a milestone month, not one of celebration but of remembrance. Forty-three years ago last month is considered the start of the country’s civil war that drove many Lebanese to emigrate, displaced others, and killed many more, in addition to the 17,000 who cannot be accounted for. Beside the human toll, the civil war…… Read More
Break the chains Watching the fifth masquerade of national elections since my return to Lebanon, I cannot help but recall Amin Maalouf’s masterpiece, “The Rock of Tanios.” In Maalouf’s tale there is an Ottoman sheikh of a mountain village who collects taxes and recruits the able to fight the empire’s wars. In return for his allegiance to the…… Read More
Taxes 101 As evidenced by recent surveys and public polls, Lebanese are disenchanted with their overall tax system and consider their obligation to pay taxes a burden. But they are decrying the many defects of their tax system without even understanding it. According to a national survey conducted in 2012 by the Institut des Finances Basil Fuleihan…… Read More
This won’t be easy This month, Lebanon will send a delegation of state officials to Paris to pitch an infrastructure development program dubbed the Capital Investment Plan (CIP) to the international community and private investors. Alongside the CIP officials will also unveil an economic vision, fiscal discipline measures, and structural and sectoral reforms. Of the four, Executive has only…… Read More
L’espoir fait vivre On March 27, before addressing an auditorium filled with our best scholars, academics, researchers, journalists, intellectuals, and experts who have dedicated their lives for this nation, I asked if any of them was granted access to or had seen or even touched one page of the Capital Investment Plan (CIP) CEDRE project—the answer was a…… Read More
Mother Lebanon Beirut is depicted as a woman by many renowned artists, like Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali, who—during the 1982 Israeli invasion—drew a caricature of his iconic character Handala offering a flower through a hole in the wall to a woman that he named Beirut. She is the patient carrier of our painful history, she is the…… Read More