Posts Tagged ‘Beirut Report’
Beirut Rare Green square in Verdun: Cleared for Concrete? High, medium or no Towers?
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 16, 2014
Rare Verdun greenery cleared for another mall
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Photo: Qaph blog |
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Photo: Gino’s Blog |
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Photo: Skyscraper City |
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Photo: Skyscraper city |
But those plans, which included a hotel/residential tower and cineplex, have changed markedly over the years. From 2005:
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Photo: Skyscraper city |
To 2008, where the tower seems to have been reduced significantly, according to this picture posted on Skyscraper city, which still exists on the Horizon website: To no towers at all in 2013, according to this rendering published by Beirut.com early last year:
Policeman in Beirut: Photography is “illegal” in Hamra?
Are the latest car explosions and threats to “leaders” launching the security forces into a period of tight control over whatever might be considered as intelligence gathering by the various factions (internally and externally:?
Habib Battah posted in The Beirut Report this January 30, 2014
Cop: [Looking exasperated] “Of course. It is illegal to take photos, not just here, anywhere in Hamra! Even anywhere in Beirut!”
Cop: Yes. It’s a law, I don’t know what it is called! I didn’t say anything after the first or second photo, but then you took two or three! But you seemed like a nice guy so I will let it slide. Just don’t take any more, okay?
Me: Do you know what you are saying? Do you know how many people you need to arrest to enforce this law? Do you know how many buses you need to arrest everyone taking photos today in Hamra or the rest of Beirut?”
Suddenly our conversation is interrupted by a loud police siren.
(The plate actually began with number 1)
I then point to a car with no tail lights, a motorcyclist without a helmet, the traffic lights around us, each one illegally festooned with a flag of a certain Lebanese political party that has claimed this intersection as its territory. See red circles:
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Interrupted panorama shot. I couldn’t get a better one because of the new “law” against photography |
Me: So all this illegal stuff is going on right in front of you, every minute, and you want to stop me for taking a picture of it?
Cop: Listen. [Pulls out tiny folded up piece of paper from his pocket] You see this? It says here my duty today is “traffic management.” I can’t issue tickets until after this shift is over tonight.
(I didn’t think of it at the time, but why then was he trying to arrest me if technically he had no right?)
Cop: Let me tell you a story. Once I stopped this guy who was harassing a woman. He was Syrian, he had no ID papers. I got a phone call from headquarters. They said release him immediately. You see people have “waasta” (connections), there are people you can’t touch.”
I bid the cop farewell, wishing him more success at his job in the future.
Postscript:
Of course, I have been harassed for taking photos before, but ironically the police once actually tried but failed to help.
Landfill crisis, Brown spills, sewage dump…: Beirut, Na3meh, Khaldeh,
Posted by: adonis49 on: January 29, 2014
Brown spills, sewage dump…: Beirut, Na3meh, Khaldeh…
For over 15 years, Sukleen (one of the Hariri clan company) has been renewing its contract with the government without bidding procedures and used open air dumps for its garbage collection enterprise.
Sukleen has been charging the municipalities $140 a ton of garbage and paid directly from the municipality fund (like taxes on payrolls), while the few private providers allowed to work and independent municipalities with their own system are paying $40 a ton.
Saida had amassed a hill of garbage and the municipality is fooling us that this hill will become a green garden for the citizens, eventually. With potential perspectives and architectural plans… to back it up.
In Na3meh, the people have been suffering from increased cancer problems, living in an environment of constant stench. They endeavored to sit-in and prevent any more trucks to empty garbage. The government has again promised to resolve this problem within two years...
Habib Battah posted in The Beirut Report this Jan. 27, 2014
It’s a nasty sewage dump- mainly flowing from southern Beirut, Khaldeh and the suburbs like Aramoun/Bchamoun/Choueifat…
Noticed most of your recent posts have to do with that short trip you took to Jordan- best way to learn about Lebanon is to leave it for a few days every couple of weeks- refreshes your perspective
But these satellite images could be quite dated– in some parts of Beirut I have noticed Google earth images to be 2-3 years old.
