Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Monopoly in Lebanon

While all Lebanese newspaper are front paging with boring sectarian politics news (except al safir, where the front page was just boring) Al Akhbar, the newspaper with a social agenda, had the issue monopoly on its front page: Lebanon's only mainstay: the empire of monopoly. In the article (aptly titled "monopoly is legally protected in Lebanon") Rasha Abu Zeki reports on a study of markets in Lebanon and how a few companies monopolize all the souk. Not to be missed if you speak Arabic.

In the same page: Lebanon imports 3% of its milk from China, 380 tons which could contain unacceptable levels of cancer-causing melamin. But Lebanon has taken action: samples have been obtained and sent to the lab. Except that the lab admitted it does not have the facilities to carry out the analysis.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

And the there is no other lab in the whole country? In the meanwhile, did they pull out the milk from the markets or hold imports, waiting to test the products?

Rami Zurayk said...

No of course they did not pull out the milk. And they are apparently waiting for the reagents needed for the test.