issue number 141 |April 2014 PERIOD FOR FINALIZING THE MINISTERIAL STATEMENT LEBANON’S KEY INDICES FOR 2013 THE MONTHLY INTERVIEWS MOHAMMAD KHALED QAWBAR www.iimonthly.com Published by Information International sal DRUG USE AND TRAFFICKING IN LEBANON Lebanon 5,000LL | Saudi Arabia 15SR | UAE 15DHR | Jordan 2JD| Syria 75SYP | Iraq 3,500IQD | Kuwait 1.5KD | Qatar 15QR | Bahrain 2BD | Oman 2OR | Yemen 15YRI | Egypt 10EP | Europe 5Euros April INDEX 2014 4 DRUG USE AND TRAFFICKING IN LEBANON 12 PERIOD FOR FINALIZING THE MINISTERIAL STATEMENT IN LEBANON (1960-2014) 15 LEBANON’S KEY INDICES FOR 2013 17 GAS PIPELINE AT LBP 685 BILLION 18 DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF CADASTRAL AFFAIRS 21 PARLIAMENT OF AUSTRALIA 22 MARRIAGE OF FEMALE MINORS BETWEEN LAW P: 28 P: 24 AND RELIGION 24 FOUAD CHEHAB 26 CHOLESTEROL TREATMENT: DR. HANNA SAADAH 27 HOW TO FLY WITHOUT FEAR?: DR. MICHEL NAWFAL 28 INTERVIEW: MOHAMMAD KHALED QAWBAR HEAD OF THE MUNICIPALITY OF SIBLINE 30 LEBANON’S ANIMAL ENCOUNTER CENTER 32 POPULAR CULTURE P: 22 33 DEBUNKING MYTH#80: THE GENETIC FACTORS BEHIND BREAST CANCER 46 ON THE BELIEFS AND PLOTS 34 MUST-READ BOOKS: TURN THE PAGE, FELLOW OF AL-QAEDA 35 MUST-READ CHILDREN’S BOOK: I LOVE FRUIT 49 REAL ESTATE PRICES- FEBRUARY 2014 36 LEBANON FAMILIES: FAMILIES DENOTING 50 DID YOU KNOW THAT?: NATURAL LEBANESE TOWNS (13) DISASTERS 37 DISCOVER LEBANON: QABEET 50 RAFIC HARIRI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TRAFFIC - JANUARY 2014 38 DISCOVER THE WORLD: REPUBLIC OF GUYANA 51 LEBANON’S STATS 39 FEBRUARY 2014 HIGHLIGHTS 43 THIS MONTH IN HISTORY- LEBANON THE GOVERNMENT OF AMIN AL-HAFEZ CONFIDENCE SESSION NOT CONVENED 45 THIS MONTH IN HISTORY- ARAB WORLD REVOLUTION OF RASHID ALI EL-KEILANY IN IRAQ- APRIL 1941 |EDITORIAL THE LEBANESE ARE BETTER THAN WE THINK THEY ARE How do we balance between what we know in theory How close are we to that state and how can we and how we live in practice? Ironically, the powers and prevent it? We have the willingness, the capabilities technologies that have transformed the world into a and the opportunities. And with brains in our head global village have partly contributed to our segregation and feet in our shoes, there shouldn’t be room for into separate clans, tribes and sectarian groups. How despair. Unfortunately, our media’s preoccupation can we satanize and eliminate the other person? How with mediocre politics and entertainment has thrust can we reduce him into nobody, into a bitter enemy, numerous success stories into the shadows. Em Sherif, despite our knowledge that the self and the self of the owner of a renowned gastronomic restaurant in Beirut, other are one? How dare we speak of “coexistence” and is one of many such stories. She owes her success to “civil order” while we fail to have the simplest dialogue none of the Zu’ama \ “We, the Lebanese, are second to none,” we repeat to off the handle if someone begs to differ with us. Where ourselves, taking pride in what’s not ours. Soon after, is our scale of values? What is our point of reference? we switch into a state of frustration and complain Do we use the same standards in evaluating issues and saying “we’ve never been good enough.” politicians irrespective of our personal interests? The fact of the matter is that we are neither as great nor Let us go back to the riverbed. Let us recall the days as degraded as we think we are. We are better than we when we had a school on the scenic banks of that R[ river. The days when cascading rivers existed. Let us to comprehending our history and ourselves. Let us look go back to 3000 years BC when there were archives, up to South Africa and draw lessons from how it was ownership systems and governing laws from Sumer able to attain social cohesion, rather than “coexistence”, to Ugarit to Babylon and let us ponder what went through notions of confession and forgiveness. Inside us wrong. Let us contemplate why we awaited the arrival lies far more virtue than we could ever imagine. of Western missions to start organized schools in the nineteenth century and why we waited that long to see Amidst this living hell, and despite the absence of the females enroll in schools. Let us ask ourselves how state and the decline of its services, from electricity can we live in a country where the sick and the injured to water to public education and transport to lack of are left to die on the doorstep of the hospital due to legislation, we have managed not to err, clinging to lofty poverty and to lack of health coverage and where the intrinsic norms and values that we have chosen to self- youth aspire to nothing but emigration? Is the havoc enforce of our own volition. Theft rates for instance are in which we are wallowing today an eternal doom? As far lower in Lebanon than in many countries that enjoy the centenary of World War I approaches, let us recall far better security and living conditions. Imagine the the words of Gebran Khalil Gebran 100 years ago: [!" amidst continuous blackouts and in the absence of “My people died on the cross… ##[ They died while their hands stretched toward the East police. We have adapted and adopted a self-critical and West, while the remnants of their eyes stared at system that has outplayed the depleted state system. the blackness of the Firmament. Yet, our generations, old and young, strive for change They died silently, for humanity had closed its ears not adaptation. Let us then explore our history through to their cries. facts and documentation and cease to view it as a residue of tales of patron saints versus devils. If we are They died because they did not befriend their enemy. to herald real change and state-building, we ought to They died because they loved their neighbors… They remember that paying allegiance to sects and Zua’ma died because they placed trust in all humanity. They #[ died because they did not oppress the oppressors. #"$O# \ to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.” and not the crushing feet. They died because they were peacemakers. They perished from hunger in a land rich with milk and honey.” 4 | LEADER DRUG USE AND TRAFFICKING IN LEBANON The prevalence of substance abuse seems to be increasing with time. Despite the huge awareness campaigns and the laws that impose sanctions on both the drug [ R !" # [# unreported could be twice as high as those that lead to arrest and prosecution. ![ The police recorded 1225 incident reports relating to the misuse of illegal drugs in 2013, up by 5.4% from '()')(*+/'((+)678* The 2013 reports on drug dealing totaled 860 compared to 703 in 2012 and 545 in 2005, up by 22.3% and 57.8% respectively. )### 2005 and 2013: Number of offences resulting from the misuse of drugs and their trafficking between 2005 Table 1 and 2013 % of change % of change Incident reports 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2012/13 2005/2013 Drug use 1369 820 873 834 908 1323 960 1162 1225 +5.4 -10.5 Drug trafficking 545 437 611 593 781 763 680 703 860 +22.6 +57.8 Source: Internal Security Forces records $%& Studies conducted on a sample of detained drug Between 41 and 50: 14% users in the past few years revealed that the most Between 51 and 60: 10% consumed substances are: Above 60: 3% Cannabis (available at affordable prices): 39% Heroin: 30% With respect to their social status, 43% of addicts Cocaine: 18% were married against 57% who were single. There Narcotics: 13% was an overwhelming majority of men among substance abusers, 80%, while females accounted By age, most drug addicts across samples were for 20% of the sample. According to their socio- between 21 and 30 years of age. economic status, a large number of addicts, 47%, Under 20 years of age: 25% came from a low socio-economic background, Between 21 and 30: 32% against 25% from a middle class and 28% from a Between 31 and 40: 16% high social background. issue 141 | The Monthly is published by Information International s.a.l. LEADER | 5 Unveiling major drug smuggling cases (2012-2013) $'*+,*% Security forces arrested two to having swallowed 55 capsules of cocaine, Lebanese men and a woman on drug use and weighing around 800 grams, and to have taken a smuggling charges. 41.6 grams of cocaine and "`# heroin were found on the drug mules. capsules, all in exchange for USD 7500. $ */ *+,*% Security forces found 4 ** *+,/% Airport Security arrested a narcotics stuffed inside a potato while inspecting Lebanese national holding a Venezuelan passport the luggage of a prison inmate in the Nabatieh after seizing 4300 grams of cocaine from his two prison. double-padded bags. The detainee said that the drugs had been sent from a Brazilian man to his 4 ,5 *+,/: Airport Security arrested nephew in Tunisia and that he had been assigned J O P Q to smuggle them from Tunisia to Lebanon in Airport for attempting to smuggle 4730 grams exchange for USD 20,000. He was supposed to of narcotic pills into the Kingdom of Saudi swap the bags with a member of Al-Masri family Arabia. The smuggler claimed that he had been from the town of Kfartaala for USD 140,000. given the bag containing the drugs by another He also admitted to smoking cannabis and to Syrian, who had moved with him from Syria to obtaining the drug from a Lebanese dealer living Chtoura and had paid for his ticket to deliver the in Baalbeck in the Sherwani neighborhood.