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The world is talking, are you listening?

Blog Baladi shares this advice: “Beirut has become so expensive that even expats no longer can afford it. Maybe we should stop building 1000 square meters apartments for Arabs to rent/buy and start building reasonable flats with rational prices for Lebanese and the average tourist.”

“I’ve previously called bullshit on the claims that the government wants to protect us. Oops, I just wrote “bullshit” and broke clause #1 of the proposed law,” blogs Mustapha in his post  lambasting the Lebanese Ministry of  Information's plan to discuss a draft law which aims at “regulating websites and protecting their owners”.

“I always ask myself whether the Lebanese online community is actually making things better by raising awareness or is just trying to reach out to more people?” writes Najib questioning  the usefulness of social media in inciting action rather than just being concerned with tweeting and blogging. His post was in reaction to a video in which a man is shown abusing a foreign worker in front of the embassy of her country.

The first Get Together for Lebanese bloggers organized by LebAgg took place on February 9, 2012. ”It was a pretty casual one, the sole purpose was to kick-start a series of more get togethers for bloggers. We were hoping for some brainstorming and bloggers suggesting ideas, but the settings didn't really help whereas there was food and drinks and the bloggers were having fun..” wrote Liliane, who spearheaded this event.

“And when I made up my mind and ran to my mom screaming ”baddi it7ajab” [I want to wear the veil] she looked at me and said if you wear it now will you ever take it off ? I paused and asked her ”Are you ever going to take it off  mama?” she said no, well I will never take it off either I said. And that is how I wore my veil,” says Esraa in her blog 7ijabi [my veil] which she started to raise awareness about the discrimination that she, as a veiled woman, faces.

As snow falls on Lebanon's mountains, Haiku from Lebanon posts its latest:

“The tender snow
Has wiped away
The weeping willow's tears”

Najib is reporting about the collapse of a building in the Ashrafieh neighborhood of Beirut. Rescue workers are removing rubble while trying to save about 30 inhabitants who were in the building when it fell.

Lebanon Aggregator posts its annual “Facts and Figures” about the Lebanese blogosphere. In it you can get, among other things, figures on the increase in number of blogs, facts on blogs becoming books, various specialized blogs and who is reading these blogs, among other tidbits.

In an end-of-year post, Mustapha compiles a collection of top non-political Lebanese blog posts he wrote during 2011. He introduces the collection by saying: “The Arab spring and the turmoil in Lebanese politics dominated the 1,210 posts in this blog in 2011. But this year also witnessed other stories and off-beat, quirky little Lebanese memes that helped shape the year in their own way.”

Salman Andary interviews (Ar) Mr. Saad-eddine Al-Hariri in Beirut! But this interview is with Mr. Saad-eddine Al-Hariri the cab driver and not the ex-prime minister of Lebanon (who is known as Saad Hariri and who has not been in Lebanon for months now).