BEIRUT, (Xinhua) — The United Arab Emirates (UAE) will lift the travel warning on Lebanon soon, the National News Agency (NNA) reported Tuesday. “A team from the Department of Civil Aviation of the UAE is meeting with the Lebanese Civil Aviation team to study some technical matters,” said Hamad Bin Saeed Al Shamsi, UAE ambassador […]

BEIRUT, (Xinhua) — Lebanese people flocked to supermarkets and shops on Sunday to prepare for the holy month of Ramadan amid worries about an increase in prices of goods during this period. “Every year, prices will surely increase during this month,” a citizen told Xinhua. Lebanese Economy Minister Mansour Bteish called on all shops not […]

BEIRUT, (Xinhua) — Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri signed Friday evening three agreements with his Egyptian counterpart Mostafa Madbouly in Beirut covering various areas, said a statement issued by Lebanese prime minister’s office. The agreements cover the exchange of expertise in taxation rules between Egypt and Lebanon, Lebanon’s import of construction materials from Egypt and […]

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A top Lebanese banker warned on Thursday that a proposed hike in the tax on interest income would affect capital flows to Lebanon, weaken banks’ ability to play their financing role in the economy, and obstruct growth. The Lebanese government is currently discussing a draft 2019 budget that would raise the tax […]

by thepienews.com —Four universities in Lebanon are being investigated for selling fake degrees, which has led to more than 40 people being arrested, with the country’s director general of Higher Education being implicated. According to The National, Ahmed el-Jammal was the highest profile to have been taken into custody in a spate of arrests in […]

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s finance minister says the government has started open-ended discussions to quickly approve the country’s draft austerity budget. Lebanon’s economy is suffering from slow growth, a high budget deficit and massive debt. Ali Hassan Khalil told reporters after a Cabinet meeting Tuesday that the government aims to reduce the percentage of the budget […]

ZALKA, Lebanon (Thomson Reuters Foundation) by Heba Kanso – Farah Ballout’s big, infectious smile is the first thing that greets you at her workplace, a cafe in Lebanon with a mission to do more than just brew coffee. Before she was hired the 29-year-old, who suffers from Angelman Syndrome, a genetic disorder that means she has developmental disabilities, had struggled to find work in a country with high unemployment. “I feel like it is a dream that I started here,” Ballout said as tears rolled down her face. “It feels like you are walking into your home – it doesn’t feel like you are going to work.” Almost all the 14 staff at the Agonist coffee shop near Beirut where Ballout has worked for the past five months have special needs, from autism to Down’s Syndrome.

Wassim El Hage set up the business in December to help people with disabilities, who are typically excluded from the workforce in Lebanon. As a social enterprise – a business that aims to do good as well as make profit – it faces even more of a challenge than most start-ups in a country whose economy has been badly hit by years of political instability and a mass influx of refugees. The country is grappling with an unemployment rate of 30 percent and last year, nearly 2,200 businesses closed, according to Lebanon’s chamber of commerce. For El Hage, that was part of the motivation – Lebanon, he said, desperately needs organizations prepared to hire people who would otherwise struggle to find jobs. “It is not my target to make money or to make profit for my own self. My target is to give them back this money [for them] to be integrated, to be independent, to have a real life,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “We need it in Lebanon.”

by khaleejtimes.com —Debate about lifting the ban on Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has erupted again in the UAE following comments of a popular Emirati commentator and columnist. “It’s so frustrating that Skype is banned in the UAE. How are we meant to conduct interviews and meetings? Such a contradiction in 2021 & 2071 Visions […]

by AFP — TOKYO, JAPAN: Former Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn’s trial, which was expected to begin in September, will be delayed, local media said Saturday, hinting that it may not start this year. The 65-year-old tycoon, currently on bail, is preparing for his trial on four charges of financial misconduct ranging from concealing part of […]

This article does not necessarily represent khazen.org opinion

By Rob Enderle, Computerworld  — I recently took a call about how Microsoft is competing against Amazon AWS and one of the questions really got me thinking about how much the company has changed. I pointed out that the old Microsoft would have been far more aggressive. The weapon they developed in the early days was “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.” It effectively took out both Lotus and IBM’s OS/2 efforts, and nearly took out Apple. But it resulted in a company that cared more about competitors than customers, a firm that was exceedingly arrogant, and one that almost was regulated out of existence in the 1990s. Tactically, the strategy was brilliant. Strategically, not so much…because it nearly killed the firm. Today’s Microsoft is very different. And these differences, while they represent a far lower competitive problem for Amazon, represent a far better path for those of us who actually use Microsoft’s offerings. They’re also why they reached a trillion dollars in valuation this week, a new milestone for the company.

Windows Microsoft

Microsoft came up hard. What I mean is that, from the start, they had issues with IP theft and companies like IBM trying to put them out of business. As a result, they focused aggressively on competitors and often left partners hanging. For instance, I was recently eyeing a book coming out on 3Com. One of the things that badly hurt that company was that Microsoft wasn’t straight with them on Microsoft’s plans with OS/2. That failure to disclose hurt 3Com a lot and significantly contributed to the CEO’s early departure. And rather than apologizing Steve Ballmer said something to the effect that the 3Com CEO should grow up. They did, which meant they never trusted Microsoft again.

Microsoft was a warlike company thinking that locking customers in was a good thing and that as long as they were making money everything was good. I recall the launch of Windows 95 where they had lines of people wrapping around buildings to buy the thing. But when problems overwhelmed support, rather than staffing up, they blocked the support lines so folks couldn’t get through – pretty much assuring they’d have no lines when Windows 98 launched. Instead of competing with Netscape in market they worked behind the scenes to torpedo the company. Ironically, none of what they attempted actually worked. (It reminds me of what was disclosed in the recent Mueller/Trump report where Trump’s staff disobeyed orders and prevented the President from obstructing justice.) But the regulatory backlash took Microsoft out at the knees.