Why do Jordanians live so long?

Be born Jordanian and you can expect to live nearly fourteen years longer than the world’s average, with a better than even chance of celebrating your 80^th birthday. Now a quick check of the numbers shows that that is the same if you’re born in the United Kingdom, so, why the surprise? Well you’ll see in a minute.

What are the indicators of life expectancy? Well, sadly but perhaps unsurprisingly, avoid being born in one of those unfortunate African countries in the grip of the HIV pandemic. That’s a good start. Next avoid extremes of heat and cold; Qatar’s and Greenland’s numbers show that one pretty clearly. But the indicator that stands out is money. Roughly speaking the more you have, the longer you live.

There is a measure beloved of economists known as Gross Domestic Product (GDP for short) per capita; it translates roughly into income per person. There is a very good correlation between that statistic and life expectancy at birth on a country by country basis.

It isn’t perfect of course, Monaco natives spend the longest on this earth, while those of Qatar, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and Bermuda can expect to be a little bit richer, but it’s pretty good, with a rank correlation of over 81%.

And then there’s Jordan, way down the list of earners, in the bottom third in fact, yet offering longer life than the top three richest combined. Why?

Smoking is vaguely sort of a bit banned but not all that much. Body mass index is above normal, unlike in Asia and in the UK – in short they’re over-weight. Booze is available if expensive, but not as bad as in Scandinavia. It’s a hot country. Death on the roads is four times as bad as Western Europe’s worst – Belgium.

At this point, there should be some stunning revelation. Here it is. Sorry, I just don’t know the Jordanian secret. I wish I did. And that I could bottle it. And sell it. But I don’t.

So, any modern anthropologist looking for a good subject for a Ph.D. thesis? If so, get a grant to discover what’s so special about Jordan, find it and then PATENT IT BEFORE PUBLISHING. Flog it on Facebook and Twitter and grow rich beyond your wildest dreams.

Oh, and give me 10%. 

Lebanon's earthquakes, when's the next?

So Lebanon’s in an earthquake zone is it?

Well, err, yes. Dr Ata Elias’ address to the British Lebanese Business Group last week, richly if rather frighteningly peppered with pictures demonstrated numerous proofs of the fact. And as an introduction, citizens of Beirut felt a tremor as recently as the evening before Dr Elias' speech.

Dr. Elias is in the American University of Beirut Geology department and his specialist interest is earthquakes. No armchair geologist he, he’s gone out with digging equipment and dug-up small sections of two out of the three main faults (the other’s under water, just off the coast) affecting Lebanon, most notably the one where Africa meets the Arabian Peninsula (the thick red line on the map), then taken photographs of it. Yes, really, there’s an obvious boundary between the two - unbelievers, please see the picture below. Now, we can’t feel it, but Africa and the Arabian Peninsula are moving, very slowly but at different speeds and in different directions, so something has to give from time to time. Hence the Lebanese mountains with sea-shells embedded in them, clearly visible at two thousand metres up. 

According to Dr. Elias, no-one, it seems, can predict when that “something” is going to give, but the result is an earthquake.  More, when the giving is on an underwater fault, then a further consequence is a tsunami. Apparently, the sea retreated approximately three kilometres in 551 AD before surging back in to destroy much of Beirut and, according to contemporary accounts, “drown” Tripoli. What can be done is to calculate the average time between major events at a fault. For two of the faults it seems that if nature ran like clockwork, we could expect an event sooner rather than later. But of course nature doesn’t.  The energy of a quake can’t be predicted either.

Just what are the risks then? It isn’t a question of if but when a magnitude 7 plus earthquake will happen. Much of Beirut is built on sand, which behaves in a very strange way when mixed with water, say from a tsunami; it becomes quicksand and just sucks in anything on top of it.

So, if we can’t predict when, nor how big a ‘quake is going to be, what can we do? Well, we can plan for the consequences, engineers and architects need to structure buildings to be able to withstand the shock, architects and builders need to design in escape routes to high ground for locations, like beaches, near the coast, by teaching people at work, at home and in school what to do during a shock and by local government training the emergency services in coping with the aftermath.

Chile does this very well, Haiti did not; two recent earthquakes occurred in those two countries, the one in Chile, though a thousand times stronger, hardly made the news, while the devastation in Haiti, with a thousand times more deaths, dominated our TV screens for days. Yes, readiness can change the effect by the ridiculously large factor of a million! Where is Lebanon? The good news is that a law was passed in the last decade laying our standards for buildings, and there’s a sign on the AUB beach saying that if the sea retreats, get to high ground immediately. Other than that, the feeling is that Lebanon is a long long way from Chile’s readiness.

Dr. Elias is passionate that his mission is to discover all he can about earthquakes and promote awareness about them and their consequences in the region. If you get a chance, listen to what he has to say and, if you are an engineer, town planner or just buying your own home take note and act.

Why trade with Lebanon?

Lebanon has been a trading nation since before the days of the Roman Empire.

The deep water port of Beirut’s container terminal handles a million containers a year (more than Marseilles). The ancient Phoenician coastal cities of Tyr, Sidon and Tripoli (not to be confused with the Libyan capital of the same name) are joined by modern motorways. There’s a thriving banking industry and a string of universities trying to satisfy the Lebanese thirst for education. Luxury restaurants line the new Zaytouna Bay Marina in Beirut. The local wines are good, ski resorts are small but expanding, the cuisine is varied with an abundance of fresh produce as the base.

Yet for all that, Lebanon seems to be a well-kept secret, at least to the British if not the French, Canadians and Australians who have recognised the opportunities presented here. Is it language? No, indeed for many native Lebanese, at least three languages is the norm – Arabic with the family, a French school and an English speaking university is common. Is it culture? Again, no. Foreigners are made welcome and foreign brands too, Burger King vies with McDonalds, Vivienne Westward, HSBC, Johnnie Walker and … well you get the picture. Is it the echo of the images of war from over thirty years ago, the first to be seen live on TV? Well, perhaps.

Let’s have a few numbers, GDP per capita is estimated at $14,400, just above Mexico and Belarus, just below Malaysia and Argentina. GDP is forecast to grow this year by 3%. Airport passengers are up 14% in the first half of 2012. Lebanon’s banking industry, thanks to tight regulation and control was little touched by the 2008/9 debt crisis and aftershocks that have echoed around Europe and the US.

So what’s wrong? Not enough electricity it’s true, but the first offshore generating barges are being commissioned. Poor internet speeds, but, again the new fibre optic cable to Marseilles and Mumbai has significantly improved that. Little publicity of the true level of business activity, well although Britain’s exports to Lebanon have grown over fivefold in the last decade to over £400 million a year; in Michael Caine’s immortal words “not a lot of people know that!”

One last thought. Indications are that Lebanon has significant reserves of offshore Gas and possibly Oil, if those prove to be correct then this renowned trading nation will have a field selling its raw petroleum and reaping the rewards. According to the English language newspaper, the Daily Star, Lebanon is educationally and culturally positioned to avoid the so-called resource curse and change its ambition from being the Switzerland to the Norway of the Middle East.

Please note that numerous sources have been used here, including Byblos bank, the Daily Star and Index Mundi.