by Thomas Schellen

When compared with the banking sector and
the initiatives taken by Banque du Liban (BDL), the year was
unnervingly quiet for the country’s insurance industry. Preliminary
information on the performance of insurance companies suggests that the
4 percent growth in gross premiums to $1.2 billion at the end of the
third quarter was low when compared with growth rates achieved in most
of the past ten years. However, growth was not devastatingly low when
one compares it to the inflation rate in the Lebanese economy, which
edged into positive territory this year, but was too small to provide
the economy with growth incentives.

According to figures by the Association
des Compagnies d’Assurances au Liban (ACAL), premium growth rates in
several lines of non-life insurance were negative at end of September
2016. Indications of positive premiums growth came only from two small
business lines, miscellaneous and public liability insurance and from
motor, medical, and life premiums. Granted, the latter three lines are
the high-volume lines and represent some 93 percent of total insurance
sector turnover in 2016, but at growth rates of 7 percent for life
insurance – which includes savings contracts – and 6 and 3 percent,
respectively, in motor and medical premiums, no single coverage line or
subsector of insurance was reporting figures that could be described as
encouraging. 

By dailynewsegypt Known for his passion for exploring the unknown and his ambition to leave an affluent legacy by enriching people’s lives was his life-long dream, young businessperson Reda Garghour closed his eyes for the last time on Friday in a skiing accident. The 47-year-old Canadian-Lebanese businessperson was a partner and one of the founders […]

By Naharnet

Lebanese Forces leader Samir
Geagea announced Monday that a “middle-ground” solution will be reached
regarding the stalled electoral law. “We will end up with a hybrid electoral law, half of
which is based on the winner-takes-all system and the other half on
proportional representation, and this is what we are working on together
with the other parties because it’s a solution that satisfies most
parties,” Geagea said in an interview with Al-Arabiya Al-Hadath
television.

“We and our allies have a lot of cards and we will never
accept an extension of the current parliament’s term or parliamentary
elections under the 1960 law,” Geagea added. Speaker Nabih Berri and Interior Minister Nouhad
al-Mashnouq have recently warned that the country seems to be heading to
parliamentary elections under the controversial 1960 electoral law due
to the parties’ failure to agree on a new law.

By Nabih Bulos

The bird hunters stepped nonchalantly over plastic bottles,
wrappers and other detritus, unconcerned by the noise they made as they
patrolled this shabby-looking section of Lebanon’s coastline. But,
save for the occasional passenger jet lumbering out of Beirut’s
international airport a mere 500 feet away, the sky above the Costa
Brava landfill was empty. “Not a bird … not a single one,” boasted one hunter. His
words marked the end of the third workday for Lebanon’s state-appointed
“bird repellers” — the government’s answer to a months-long trash
crisis in this capital by the sea. 

The problem came to a head this month when local media
outlet LBC reported a passenger plane from Lebanon’s national carrier,
Middle East Airlines, had almost slammed into a flock of seagulls
seconds after it landed on  Beirut-Rafic Hariri International
Airport’s west runway.   “Today we face an emergency,
there is a danger posed to civil aviation movement by the
birds,” Lebanon Transport Minister Yousef Fenianos said in a press
briefing. “Thank God, up until now, the flights have not encountered any
real danger.”

The birds have been gathering in steadily
increasing numbers since March,  when authorities opened a controversial
landfill in the Costa Brava, despite warnings by civil society groups,
environmentalists and the local pilots’ union of the dangers of
establishing such a site so close to the airport. A number of
international civil aviation organizations stipulate dumps should be
placed more than five miles away from runways.

By Staff Writer, Al Arabiya Lebanese security forces stopped the suicide bomber from detonating his device in one of Beirut’s busiest streets on Saturday night. The would-be attacker, Omar Assi, from the southern city of Sidon, attempted to detonate an 8kg shrapnel-filled bomb belt at a Costa coffee shop in the Hamra district, which is […]

By Monty Munford – BBC

One of the most familiar sights in
the Middle East is of local citizens gathering in cafes smoking hookah
pipes as they drink coffee strong enough to knock out an Arabian horse.

But in Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, such traditional pastimes are being given a hi-tech twist.

Not
only is the city as hip and cool as any city in the West, Lebanese
technology is even changing the nature of the hookah pipe. Finding
the ideal tobacco flavour in the bowl at the right temperature is the
Holy Grail of hookahs, but a start-up called Nara – Arabic for flame –
is solving this with the first “internet of things” hookah pipe. Compact
fast-lighting spheres of charcoal are supplemented by a dense battery
and internet-connected sensors that measure air flow, moisture and
temperature – all vital elements for a perfect smoke.

Nara does its best to keep everything in the bowl
perfectly balanced. And the collected data can be used by cafe owners to
prepare a personal mix for returning customers. With more than
500 million people across the region enjoying a daily hookah pipe, this
is one of several innovations that the Beirut start-up ecosystem is
beginning to create.

By Yayalibnan Five Lebanese inventors Friday took top marks in Kuwait’s ninth international invention fair, state according to media reports. Head of the oraanizing committee Talal Kharafi reveled that 200 inventors from 36 countries participated. Here are the 5 Lebanese that won big for the inventions Dr. Jamal Shorbaji won a gold medal for his […]

By Business Insider We have a new first family in the White House. President Donald Trump has two sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, and a daughter, Ivanka, with first wife Ivana; a daughter, Tiffany, with second wife Marla Maples; and a 10-year-old son, Barron, with current wife Melania.  Having grown up in the spotlight, his three […]

SAN FRANCISCO — Several protesters barricaded the front of Uber
headquarters here on Friday. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick is a member of President Donald Trump’s

economic advisory team, called the Strategic and Policy
Forum. A few protesters were chained to the front door of the building
on Market Street, and no employees were able to enter, according
to Business Insider’s correspondent at the site. The building’s side doors were also blocked by protesters before
police were able to clear the area. Uber has told its employees
to work from home or other offices, BuzzFeed
News reported.

Square’s headquarters are also in the building. At one point, protesters were able to close down Market Street, a
major San Francisco thoroughfare, between 10th and 11th streets.
There was a heavy police presence at the office building. “Trump thinks he runs this town, we have come to shut it down,”
the protesters chanted. “Stop Trump, stop the hate, Uber don’t
collaborate.”

The Daily Star BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Press Federation chief Aouni al-Kaaki Friday unveiled a draft plan to salvage the country’s newspapers’ financial crisis was in the final stages. Kaaki said that the project could help “minimize the collapse that [newspapers] are passing through and preserve some of the current dailies.” Kaaki made his remarks after meeting […]