Lebanon loves to break records but the US isn't amused

The US had turned a blind eye to Lebanon's financial affairs but now they think Hizbollah is running the country.

Even though we are technically still in winter, the media has dubbed the series of unrest across the region the "Arab spring".

It reminds me of what Lebanese sometimes refer to as "roast chicken syndrome", another sequence of events, admittedly on a smaller scale, caused when one Lebanese businessman gets an idea - in this case selling roast chicken - and everyone else follows.

Today, raw fish is the new chicken. You cannot move in Beirut without someone putting a plate of sashimi in front of you as every restaurant tries to work sushi on to the menu.

Away from the food and beverage sector, private taxi companies have mushroomed, while the popular small start-ups appear to be internet cafes and pirating DVDs. I guess we still have to find our very own Mark Zuckerberg.

Another Lebanese craze is the setting world records. It started a few years back in a bid to reinforce the fact that popular oriental dishes have their roots in Arab cuisine.

Championed by the then head of the Lebanese industrialists and the current tourism minister, Fadi Abboud, Lebanon has made the world's biggest plates of hummus, tabbouleh and kibbeh.

Last year, in the presence of representatives fromGuinness World Records, Lebanese wine producers filled the world's biggest wine glass, while on a mountain top near Kanat Bakish, we were treated to the world's biggest lit crucifix.

There's more. An Iraqi friend in Lebanon on a skiing holiday last week, was given a lift into Beirut by an American journalist, who assured him that Lebanon had the world's richest parliament. I have no way to back up this claim, but let's just say it would not surprise me if it were true, given the obvious wealth of some the chamber's more illustrious members.

A quick visit to Forbes, the publisher of the rich lists, will confirm that the caretaker prime minster Saad Harri and the prime minister-elect Najib Miqati have several billion dollars between them.

The rest are hardly starving. In any case, no one makes it to parliament in Beirut as a trade union official.

But there is one record I can verify. Speedtest.net is an online "analysis tool that allows anyone to test their internet connection". It claims to conduct more than 20 million checks every month so clearly they are no slouches when it comes to analysing broadband speed. Of 185 countries listed, Lebanon came last on download speed and second to last on upload speed.

It is an extraordinary statistic, especially when one reads the names of the countries ahead of Lebanon. I wrote an editorial this week urging Mr Miqati's government (assuming it is formed some time this year) to make upgrading the nation's broadband effectiveness a national priority.

Sadly the behaviour of his allies during the recent horse-trading to determine who gets which ministerial portfolio does not suggest this is a cabinet that will rush to address the concerns of the business community.

That said, Mr Miqati may have no choice but to smarten up the business environment, especially if the US government, still irritated by Lebanon's recent bloodless coup, decides to accuse more of the country's banks of money laundering.

First in the US Treasury's crosshairs is the Lebanese Canadian Bank, the nation's sixth biggest, with assets of more than US$5 billion (Dh18.36bn), which has been charged with of being part of a global money laundering network, "cleaning" South American drug money to finance Hizbollah. Lebanon's five largest banks make up 60 per cent of the sector's assets and last week a banker friend admitted the industry was "a little nervous".

The US had turned a blind eye to Lebanon's financial affairs, he said, but now they think Hizbollah is running the country.

"The US says it is a terror organisation, one that unseated its ally," the banker said. "Who knows how far they will dig if the country veers too far in the other direction."

He has a point. Thanks to its banking secrecy laws Lebanon is renowned as a country with financial institutions that engage in transactions involving significant amounts of proceeds from serious crime.

As far back as 2000, it was listed in the top 15 of countries engaged in such practices (there we go; at the wrong end of the table again) alongside Russia and the Philippines, among others.

But there is some good news to come out of all this. As the Arab protesters taunt their leaders, the Libyan president Muammar Qaddafi has seen fit to shut down his country's internet.

Surely Lebanon must have moved off the bottom of the speed test table … for the time being, at least.

Michael Karam is a communications and publishing consultant based in Beirut