Reading Time: 9 minutes The fourth discussion in Executive’s roundtable initiative was comprised of two broad topics: access to rights, with particular focus on the rights of women, and access to information, with additional focus on freedom of expression and media responsibility. Both topics were deserving of roundtables in their own right and had initially been planned as separate…
Reflections during tumultuous times
Reading Time: 3 minutes The year-end holiday season is a time for self-reflection and goal setting. We at Executive are no different, and so as we prepare to bid 2019 goodbye, we are looking backward to recognize our achievements this year—despite the trying circumstances—to understand what we could have done differently, and to explore ideas and opportunities for growth…
Economic Roadmap
Reading Time: 2 minutes This document—Economic Roadmap 3.0—is the most definitive Roadmap yet in Executive Magazine’s ongoing quest for providing a working platform for advancing the Lebanese economy. Building on a first version published in the December 2018/January 2019 issue of Executive, and a second version published with an additional 261 measures and three entirely new national priorities in…
Executive’s “Quote of the Month” throughout 2019
Reading Time: 2 minutes JANUARY “It’s different from Washington and London, we should maybe teach them how to run a country without a budget.” Then-caretaker foreign minister, Gebran Bassil, answering a question on cabinet formation in an interview with CNN, January 22, 2019. FEBRUARY “My decision and the government’s decision is to work, work, work.” Prime Minister Saad Hariri,…
Lebanon Uprising: Quotes
Reading Time: 6 minutes What are the next steps for Lebanon? Between now and year’s end, what do you propose stakeholders in your field should be doing? “Lebanon should, at long last, find its bearings politically, financially, and economically. A credible and technocratic government should be installed to restore confidence and kickstart the institutional process. The country’s finances should be…
The first 13 days
Reading Time: 11 minutes Day 1: Thursday, October 17 Protests erupt across the country Protests begin in Downtown Beirut around 6 p.m., triggered by media reports earlier Thursday that cabinet had agreed on new taxes for the 2020 budget, including a tax on Voice over Internet Protocols (VoIP) that would have cost up to $6 per month for those…
The lasting change from Lebanon’s mass protests
Reading Time: 10 minutes A proposed levy on WhatsApp might have been the trigger for the October protests, but its backdrop was years of mismanagement and corruption that have brought the Lebanese economy to the brink. The outburst of popular protests occurred throughout the country, unifying Lebanese from across socioeconomic divides. Unseen in previous protests was the breakdown of…
Lebanon’s uprising has potential ripple-on effects
Reading Time: 8 minutes As the aftermath of the Arab Spring saw the Levant descend into another iteration of political posturing and advantage seeking of what in earlier times was often derogatorily called Levantine behavior, Iraqi-Lebanese journalist Husain Abdul-Husain shared his dismay. In a story published five years ago, he drew as his conclusion from a decade of Iraqi,…
Come together to further one of Lebanon’s favorite exports
Reading Time: 3 minutes In a country where it feels there is often little to be proud of, the Lebanese wine industry has offered us quite a few reasons to hold our head high—and could offer us even more if the industry learns to collaborate on a wider scale. The wine industry has seen a lot of growth over…
Lebanese investors must stay alert to opportunities
Reading Time: 3 minutes In today’s Lebanon there are two biases. Let us call them the phoenix bias and the shithole bias. The first is the narrative of an indestructible culture, a country and haven of wealth that has never defaulted on its financial obligations and where no depositor of wealth has to fear the disappearance of a single…