I am being driven through the Marche region of Italy (pronounced “Marshay”). Sitting on the Adriatic – on a clear day one can apparently see the nearest Croatian islands – I’m told Le Marche has been called the poor man’s Tuscany, but that’s neither here nor there. Because anywhere that a stereotypically hot-blooded people – loud and unstable – like the Italians, the Greeks, the Turks or even the Lebanese are often perceived, can respect their environment, their laws and their building codes, gets my vote.
It is hard to explain just how frustrating it is to see a country that gave the world the concept of the Mafia and which is still tarred with the brush of corruption and the buffoonery of Silvio Berlusconi, can do this.
In fact, all I could think of was that the Lebanese should be forced to drive around areas like the nearby Conero Riviera and the Conero National Park to see what their country could still look like if they hadn’t blown it.
I’m with Magda, an Italian of Egyptian ancestry. She works in PR between Paris, Verona and Beirut. Magda has a handful of Lebanese clients, probably because she is in the midst of a massive love affair with Lebanon. The back shelf of her car is festooned with the red and white cedar flag and she wears a cedar pendant bought in Baalbek. “What can I say?” she says. “Beautiful country; beautiful people.”
Magda and I discuss the recurrence of Beirut’s apparently chronic rubbish crisis. She tells me, because of course she knows this nugget of trivia, that the Lebanese capital is now the second most polluted city in the world, behind Accra. “But don’t be fooled by Italy,” Magda warns. “Go to Sicily and you will see how much work is still needed. It is all to do with education.” Then a sudden change of tack. “But you know what? For tomato, we Italians say pomodoro. You say banadoura. We are the same.” Magda is clearly a glass half-full person.
But we probably really are similar. Italy is, after all, where the Mediterranean temperament begins to take on the patina of northern European order. Starched Milan is a universe away from chaotic Palermo. Rome lies somewhere in the middle of the temperament table and Ancona, Marche’s “capital”, lies to the east and the petrol stations around here offer a useful evolutionary table for the gradual East-West metamorphosis.
In Beirut you pull into a tromba and half a dozen attendants will descend on you. They will fill you up, wipe, scrap, squeegee, check your water and offer to bring you any refreshment you want … in the hope of some baksheesh. In the higher latitudes, it’s all self-service but in Italy you have a choice: you can fill your tank yourself or pay a wee bit more to have a callow youth at the neighbouring pump do the honours and wipe the bugs off the windscreen.
Some of this might go some way to explain why we Lebanese love the Italians. Italy is our second biggest trading partner. We import an admittedly modest US$1.65 billion of Italian produce, mostly white goods, ceramics and agricultural machinery, including, let us not forget, the ubiquitous small blue motors that power the water pumps in almost every house in the country. Italy has also stood with Lebanon in its time of need, contributing to the country’s reconstruction process and economic rehabilitation since the 1982 Israeli invasion.
“A good friend of mine was a diplomat in Beirut during the war,” a businessman told me at a dinner on Saturday night. “He said at one point the wall in his office was blown out, but he still went to work. He loved it like no other posting.”
At the same dinner, I got talking to a journalist from La Repubblica who lives in Palermo. “We Sicilians are very different,” she shrugged. “It is chaotic. Yes, we don’t care about the environment as much as we should and we build everywhere and there is too much traffic. What can we do? We are descended from the Arabs.”
Ouch.
Michael Karam is a freelance writer who lives between Beirut and Brighton
business@thenational.ae
Follow The National's Business section on Twitter
Another way to earn air miles
In addition to the Emirates and Etihad programmes, there is the Air Miles Middle East card, which offers members the ability to choose any airline, has no black-out dates and no restrictions on seat availability. Air Miles is linked up to HSBC credit cards and can also be earned through retail partners such as Spinneys, Sharaf DG and The Toy Store.
An Emirates Dubai-London round-trip ticket costs 180,000 miles on the Air Miles website. But customers earn these ‘miles’ at a much faster rate than airline miles. Adidas offers two air miles per Dh1 spent. Air Miles has partnerships with websites as well, so booking.com and agoda.com offer three miles per Dh1 spent.
“If you use your HSBC credit card when shopping at our partners, you are able to earn Air Miles twice which will mean you can get that flight reward faster and for less spend,” says Paul Lacey, the managing director for Europe, Middle East and India for Aimia, which owns and operates Air Miles Middle East.
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
Available: Now
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
Labour dispute
The insured employee may still file an ILOE claim even if a labour dispute is ongoing post termination, but the insurer may suspend or reject payment, until the courts resolve the dispute, especially if the reason for termination is contested. The outcome of the labour court proceedings can directly affect eligibility.
- Abdullah Ishnaneh, Partner, BSA Law
The biog
Mission to Seafarers is one of the largest port-based welfare operators in the world.
It provided services to around 200 ports across 50 countries.
They also provide port chaplains to help them deliver professional welfare services.
The National Archives, Abu Dhabi
Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.
Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en
About Housecall
Date started: July 2020
Founders: Omar and Humaid Alzaabi
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: HealthTech
# of staff: 10
Funding to date: Self-funded
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
MATCH INFO
Borussia Dortmund 0
Bayern Munich 1 (Kimmich 43')
Man of the match: Joshua Kimmich (Bayern Munich)
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
If you go...
Fly from Dubai or Abu Dhabi to Chiang Mai in Thailand, via Bangkok, before taking a five-hour bus ride across the Laos border to Huay Xai. The land border crossing at Huay Xai is a well-trodden route, meaning entry is swift, though travellers should be aware of visa requirements for both countries.
Flights from Dubai start at Dh4,000 return with Emirates, while Etihad flights from Abu Dhabi start at Dh2,000. Local buses can be booked in Chiang Mai from around Dh50
How Alia's experiment will help humans get to Mars
Alia’s winning experiment examined how genes might change under the stresses caused by being in space, such as cosmic radiation and microgravity.
Her samples were placed in a machine on board the International Space Station. called a miniPCR thermal cycler, which can copy DNA multiple times.
After the samples were examined on return to Earth, scientists were able to successfully detect changes caused by being in space in the way DNA transmits instructions through proteins and other molecules in living organisms.
Although Alia’s samples were taken from nematode worms, the results have much bigger long term applications, especially for human space flight and long term missions, such as to Mars.
It also means that the first DNA experiments using human genomes can now be carried out on the ISS.
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
