Lebanese Minister Apologizes for Insulting Egypt

by aawsat.com -- Lebanese caretaker Tourism Minister Avedis Guidanian issued on Tuesday an apology to Egypt after criticizing the country’s cleanliness and living conditions. Guidanian, in an interview published on Monday by Lebanon's English-language Daily Star, complained that negative media reports about Lebanon were harming his country's image and hindering tourism. "Look at Egypt - is there a place dirtier than it? People are louder than us, there is more traffic than here - people live in graves, OK? But there is tourism, because they know how to sell the country," Guidanian said. Late on Monday Guidanian apologized for his remarks and visited the Egyptian ambassador to Lebanon on Tuesday, reported the National News Agency. In Egypt, pro-government TV talk show host Ahmed Moussa said he "does not care for his apology", but stressed the good relations between the people of Egypt and Lebanon. Moussa dismissed the minister as a "fool" and said the Lebanese government should "intervene". An official diplomatic source said the minister's statement in the newspaper "does not reflect the position of Lebanon as a country or government, nor the Lebanese people". "The Lebanese people come to Egypt for tourism in large numbers," the source added.

This is the most-demand job that recruiters are looking to fill, according to LinkedIn

by Rosalie Chan --thisisinsider.com -- - Turns out the hottest job of 2018 could be that of a DevOps engineer. LinkedIn just released its report on the most-recruited jobs of 2018, showing that DevOps engineer was the most recruited job, followed by enterprise account executives and frontend engineers, in second and third place, respectively. This job is in high demand, and the money shows it. According to Indeed, job postings for DevOps engineers shot up 91 percent between 2014 and 2017. And the average base salary cashes in at $125,714, per the same data. According to the LinkedIn report, DevOps engineers are also the most recruited jobs specific to the engineering field, followed by frontend engineers and cloud architects.

So what does a DevOps engineer do, anyway? The term "DevOps" is a portmanteau of "Development" and "Operations," two roles that are vital to the field of software engineering. In short, the term refers to tools and practices that help engineers deliver and fix code on a more regular and faster basis, often multiple times a day — a practice pioneered by Facebook and its cohort. Before, developer teams would build and test the code, while operations teams would deploy and monitor the code. A DevOps engineer does both, and generally carries the end-to-end responsibility of developing, testing, deploying, monitoring and improving the code. That said, the relatively flashy new job title can be somewhat vague, and the responsibilities of the role can differ across companies.

Indeed, Engineers argue that "DevOps" is more of a culture and mindset, rather than a single job. A DevOps engineer's responsibilities can overlap with other types of engineers, such as site reliability engineers. And like other software engineers, DevOps engineers have to collaborate with their team to write and restructure code. At the same time, these engineers have to have the right skills to back up this mindset. DevOps engineers have to ensure that the software will work across different platforms, as well as frequently test and deploy their code. To become a DevOps engineer, one should be able to use open source technologies and automation tools, as well as have strong skills in testing, coding and scripting. People skills are also crucial, as the DevOps philosophy requires more collaboration among, well, developers and operations. Still, the very concept of DevOps has become a hot commodity in Silicon Valley: Investors are putting massive amounts of cash into DevOps startups that help their teams take advantage of this mindset. In that light, it's not surprising that companies are hiring for DevOps talent, too. As for the rest of the top three: Frontend engineers build the user interface of websites and apps, which is a crucial part of any software team. Enterprise account executives manage business relationships with a company's large customers, which speaks to the importance of the sales function.

Beirut's ghost apartments are haunting the economy

The ghost apartments of Beirut are haunting the economy.

Permanently-drawn curtains on the city’s empty luxury high-rises and dust gathering over shuttered storefronts in the Beirut Souks mall offer a glimpse of the economic gloom gathering over one of the world’s most indebted countries. Prolonged conflict in neighboring Syria and political divisions at home have hit confidence. Economic growth has been stagnant for years, but a sharp downturn in the property sector risks wider spillovers as cash-strapped developers postpone payments to contractors and run late servicing debt to creditors. The recent withdrawal of a central bank-subsidised housing loan scheme has pushed even more potential buyers away. It’s what Houssam Batal, chief executive officer of Premium Projects, calls the “almost catastrophic scenario” confronting Lebanon’s real estate sector. “We’ve witnessed a delay in collection and had a very hard time to sell,” said Batal, whose development and construction company’s main focus is high-end central Beirut. After struggling to sell apartments valued at $1.2 million, Batal says demand is now shaky for units worth half as much.

The health of the real estate industry bears watching because it contributes an estimated 15% to economic output. According to a study by Bank Audi, property sales plunged 17% in the first nine months of this year while the number of construction permits granted fell 23%. A construction boom that began before the Syrian conflict took its toll, means some apartments have been on the market for years. Few expected the war, which began in 2011, to drag on so long, devastating trade, pushing some 1.5 million refugees into their tiny neighbor of 4 million and costing Lebanon’s economy an estimated $18 billion. The collapse in oil prices in 2014 has deterred the country’s moneyed expatriates. Even Gulf Arab spenders, who once plowed their disposable income into pied-a-terres or buy-to-let investments in Lebanon’s famously-hedonistic capital, are holding back. The slump is mainly “due to the overall wait-and-see attitude among investors because of the macro and political uncertainties,” said Marwan Barakat, chief economist at Bank Audi.

Lebanon has been without a government for over six months. While political deadlock is nothing new, this time, about $11 billion in loans and grants pledged by international donors are at stake. The economy is creaking under the strain of public debt, which the World Bank warns is on “an unsustainable path” toward 155% of gross domestic product by end-2018, while economic growth could slip to 1%. A typical apartment in Beirut, wedged between the Mediterranean Sea and verdant mountains, can cost between $2,000 and $7,000 per square meter, depending on the neighborhood. Though listed residential prices have not fallen significantly, developers are offering more flexible payment plans. One development in Dbayyeh, just outside Beirut, allows customers to rent for up to three years with the right to purchase later. In urgent need of cash, some developers are offering steep discounts on new units, though most are holding out despite the collapse in sales. Philippe Tabet, CEO of Har Properties, said the developer had to restructure its financial model after the downturn. “Clients are delaying payments and banks have increased interest rates, making it harder to obtain funds," Tabet said, though he hadn’t heard of many companies defaulting so far.

Opportunity from Crisis

Seeking to rescue the sector from crisis, a group of developers and investors have set up the country’s first real estate investment platform. Legacy One will purchase vacant apartments in about 100 projects in Beirut and its suburbs and resell them to buyers abroad, said Samir Cortas, head of the Real Estate Developers Association of Lebanon and a partner in the project. The plan is to channel as much as $1 billion into real estate in the hope of breathing life into the sector. Beirut-based Lucid Investment Bank is shaping the strategy and has received regulatory approval to raise $325 million in the first stage. It will allow creditors in troubled properties to swap their exposure to developers’ debt for bonds issued by the investment platform. Loans linked to real estate comprise over a third of private-sector banking debt, according to Cortas, making the scheme attractive to some, though it does little to address the economy’s underlying ills. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri is edging toward forming a government, potentially providing relief for investors and builders alike. That government must then overcome political divisions to implement the fiscal reforms required to unlock financing promised earlier this year for critical infrastructure projects. “There’s no doubt that Lebanon faces great challenges,” Hariri said at an investment conference in Riyadh on October 24. “We cannot rule in Lebanon the way we used to rule in the past. The whole world has changed.”

Customs duties, competition hit Lebanese hopes for quick boost from open Syria border

MASNAA, Lebanon (Reuters) - Lebanese exporters hoping to send their goods to the lucrative Gulf market through the reopened Syrian-Jordanian border are grappling with higher Syrian customs duties and competition from producers who have taken their place. The Oct. 15 reopening of the Nassib border crossing holds out the prospect of a much-needed boost for Lebanon’s economy, reviving a trade artery for the overland export of its fruit, vegetables and manufactured goods. But at the Masnaa border, where hundreds of trucks used to cross into Syria each day, there is no sign yet of traffic recovering to the level that existed before the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011. “They are saying the crossing is open. It is just talk,” said Mohamad Abdulrahman al-Bob, a fruit and vegetable merchant, speaking at his packing plant in the Bekaa Valley. “The security is there, but it’s taxes, taxes,” he said, explaining why he has yet to send his goods overland. “Nothing is clear.”

The amount of goods he exports has halved from 2011 with all his exports today via sea or air. The Nassib crossing was reopened after the Syrian government defeated rebels in the southwest in a Russian-backed offensive. The Syrian government decided in September to increase customs duties on goods transiting through its territory, a decision aimed at providing support for Syrian seaports, state news agency SANA said. Lebanon’s caretaker economy minister Raed Khoury said he had held talks with his Syrian counterpart to urge a reduction of the five-fold increase in the level of customs being applied by Damascus. “Their response is that ‘We, as a country, suffered and the roads are destroyed’ and they want to rebuild the roads,” he told Reuters in an interview. “Our response is that we, as a country (also) suffered from the problem in Syria.” Khoury said more negotiations were needed. “This won’t happen quickly,” he added.

COMPLICATED TIES: Lebanon’s ties with Syria are complicated by the state’s official policy of “disassociation” from regional conflicts. While some Lebanese leaders are urging a full normalization of ties, others oppose this. Khoury said the two biggest problems obstructing a recovery of Lebanese exports are the competition from other countries and the fact that, cut off from export markets, many Lebanese producers had been forced out of business. Before the Syrian conflict, Lebanon exported around $800 million worth of goods via Nassib annually, he said. Agricultural produce accounted for $200 to $300 million of the amount, with the rest being manufactured goods. He estimates that around 40 trucks are entering Syria from Lebanon, compared to 400 a day before 2011.

The reopening of Nassib is seen as a rare chink of light in an otherwise bleak economic outlook. The World Bank said that Lebanon would likely benefit from it in a report that revised down the 2018 growth projection to 1 percent. Nine members of family among 12 killed in Sicily flooding Revival of the export route can’t come soon enough for Wissam al-Samad, who owns a refrigerated warehouse stacked high with grapes. “When Lebanese goods disappeared from the Gulf market, foreign products replaced them,” he said. “Work is down by half.” Additional reporting by Laila Bassam; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky

How a Saudi royal crushed his rivals in a 'shakedown' at the Ritz-Carlton

This article does not necessarily represent khazen.org opinion --

By Dan De Luce, Ken Dilanian and Robert Windrem  nbcnews.com -- WASHINGTON — The Ritz-Carlton in Saudi Arabia's capital bills itself as an "elegant oasis" that "completely envelops its discerning guests in majestic surroundings." But a year ago Sunday, on Nov. 4, 2017, the ultra-luxurious Riyadh hotel — with its marble floors and vast indoor swimming pool — became a gilded prison, when hundreds of Saudi royals, billionaires and senior government officials were detained in an extraordinary power play by the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The involuntary guests were told they had to sign away large chunks of their assets to be released. The detention involved both psychological abuse and — in some cases — torture, current and former U.S. officials say. The move, described by Saudi authorities as a crackdown on rampant corruption, allowed the crown prince to tighten his grip and sent a shock wave through the kingdom's elites. "This was a shakedown operation and a power consolidation operation," said one former senior U.S. official who was in office at the time. The Ritz detentions were designed "to remind people going forward that their wealth and their well-being would depend on the crown prince and not anything else, which is why it was so upsetting for many in the royal family," said the former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. A year later, the event has taken on even more importance in the wake of the death of the Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2. Bin Salman is suspected of ordering Khashoggi's death, and is struggling to defuse the crisis that has put the country's international standing in jeopardy.

If bin Salman survives the fallout over the killing of Khashoggi, it will be in part due to the roundup at the Ritz, when he crushed his rivals and potential opponents. Some of those targeted included royals or officials linked to the late King Abdullah, who died in 2015. His relatives and associates are distrusted by the circle around King Salman, who now holds the throne. But the crackdown generated deep resentment in the House of Saud and numerous enemies, experts and former officials said, and the crown prince could face more resistance from his internal adversaries. Bin Salman, keenly aware that Saudi Arabia's King Faisal was murdered by a disgruntled nephew in 1975, devotes elaborate attention to his personal security, one former U.S. intelligence officer told NBC News. The details of exactly what happened to those detained at the Ritz have remained shrouded in secrecy, and the fate of those still held also remains unclear. A second hotel, the Courtyard by Marriott, located just across the street from the Ritz, was also used as a high-end detention center when space ran out at the Ritz. Both hotels were closed to the public during the operation. The Ritz did not respond to a request for comment. A U.S. intelligence official and two former senior U.S. government officials told NBC News that the detainees were coerced, abused and tortured. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to divulge details, which were contained in classified intelligence reports. The detainees were deprived of sleep, beaten and interrogated with their heads covered. Seventeen were hospitalized, according to the New York Times. One detainee, a Saudi military officer, Maj. Gen. Ali al-Qahtani, died in custody. The Saudi authorities have yet to offer an official explanation in the case. He was a top aide to Prince Turki bin Abdullah, a son of the late King Abdullah. Saudi Arabia has denied that any abuse or torture took place during the detentions. The Saudi embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. At the time, President Donald Trump endorsed the crackdown in a tweet: "I have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they know exactly what they are doing. Some of those they are harshly treating have been 'milking' their country for years!" Trump’s tweet came on Nov. 6, two days after the crackdown came to light. The next day the State Department said it would like to see prosecution of corruption in a “fair and transparent manner.”

Trump's apparent approval of the operation raises the question of whether Washington missed an opportunity to make clear to the crown prince last year that he needed to ease off of authoritarian measures or else risk a U.S. backlash, said a former senior government official with experience in the region: "It should have been a warning to us where this was going," said the former official. Among the nearly 400 detainees was Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a high-profile tycoon with investments in Citigroup and Apple, estimated to be worth more than $17 billion. Alwaleed was summoned to the royal court in the early morning hours of Nov. 4, having no inkling the crown prince had launched a sweeping roundup of the country's most powerful and wealthy figures.

Alan Bender, a Canadian businessman with ties to the Saudi royal family, told NBC News he represented an ex-wife of Alwaleed, who had alleged she was mistreated by the billionaire. Before the November roundup, Bender had been pressing Alwaleed's lawyers to pay his client a financial settlement. After Alwaleed was detained, Bender was flown to Riyadh to "testify" against the prince. Bender said he did so via video-conference, reading a script of allegations while Alwaleed sat in an undisclosed location on the other end of the video chat. Bender said it appeared that Alwaleed was in a room that resembled a jail cell, rather than a hotel suite. He also said al-Waleed seemed to be in rough shape, fatigued, unshaven and twitching. "He looked like he hadn't slept," Bender said. While in Riyadh, Bender said, he learned more about the Ritz operation. Bender said that a top adviser to the crown prince named Saud Al Qahtani "bragged to me that they slapped and hung some detainees upside down." That same adviser has since been sacked, along with other top officials, after the killing of the Saudi dissident Khashoggi. Alwaleed was finally released after 83 days, looking underweight. In an interview with Bloomberg Television, Alwaleed insisted he was not mistreated and that he and the Saudi government had come to a "confidential" understanding. The prince did not respond to requests for comment by NBC News. Last month, Alwaleed appeared at an investment summit in Riyadh, with footage showing him sitting just a few seats away from the crown prince.

After the Ritz crackdown wound down, most remaining detainees were moved to Al Hayer jail, former U.S. officials said. Some of the former detainees have been placed under house arrest, are required to wear ankle monitors or are banned from travelling abroad, the former officials said. The Saudi attorney general's office said in a statement in January that 381 individuals had been "subpoenaed" in corruption cases and 56 would remain in custody, because they "refused to settle" or they were subject to other pending criminal cases. Saudi Prince Miteb bin Abdullah, son of the late King Abdullah and head of the National Guard, a powerful 100,000-strong security force charged with protecting the royals, was released after three weeks in detention and after he reportedly agreed to pay more than $1 billion in a settlement. His brother, Prince Turki bin Abdullah, a former governor of Riyadh province, remains under detention, the former officials said. The Saudi government portrayed the whole clampdown as a successful effort to clean up corruption. Saudi authorities said in January that the government had reached settlements worth $106 billion. It's not clear how much of that is in the form of cash, and how much in real estate or other holdings, which could take months or years to transfer. The government reportedly seized the management of some firms, including Saudi Binladin Group, the giant construction company founded by Osama bin Laden's father. The chairman, Bakr bin Laden, was among those detained last year. The company did not respond to requests for comment. Even before the Ritz detentions, the crown prince's impulsive ways had sparked jitters among foreign investors and the country's wealthy elite. Foreign direct investment has plunged in the past two years and Saudis have moved cash and assets out of the country at a dramatic rate. The Ritz detentions only reinforced concerns for businesses looking at the Saudi market. "The takeaway was if you get on the wrong side of this guy, then your investments and your deal could be at risk. That's a chilling message," said Phillip Cornell, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank and former adviser to the kingdom's state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco.

The most prestigious internships

The 25 Most Prestigious Internships for 2019

1- Google LLC  -- 2- Apple Inc. -- 3- Microsoft Corporation -- 4- Tesla, Inc. -- 5- Facebook, Inc. -- 6- Goldman Sachs & Co -- 7- Amazon.com, Inc. -- 8- J.P. Morgan -- 9- SpaceX -- 10- The Walt Disney Company -- 11- Nike, Inc. --12- Morgan Stanley -- 13- International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation --14- Deloitte -- 15- Berkshire Hathaway Inc. --16- Intel Corporation --17  Espn, Inc. --18- Mercedes-Benz Usa, LLC --19- The Boston Consulting Group, Inc. --20- Spotify USA Inc. --21- Twitter, Inc. --22- The Coca-Cola Company --23- McKinsey & Company --24- Bloomberg L.P. --25- Home Box Office, Inc.

• Microsoft ($7,100 per month)

• Tesla ($26 an hour)

• Facebook ($8,000 per month)

• Goldman Sachs ($5,700 per month)

• Amazon ($6,100 per month)

• JPMorgan ($25 an hour)

• SpaceX ($26 an hour)

• The Walt Disney Company ($16 an hour)

Vault.com recently surveyed more than 13,000 current and former interns from more than 400 organizations for the 2019 Vault Most Prestigious Internships. Vault ranks internship programs based on quality of life, career development, compensation and benefits, diversity, and employment prospects.