Postscript: Beirut Life and Debt Version 2.016

This essay continues a project begun a decade ago with the article, “A Matter of Life and Debt: The Untold Costs of Rafiq Hariri’s New Beirut.” This new article, or “Postscript,” begins by examining the reception of that first investigation and responds to one criticism directed at the original essay: that it proffers an unfairly pessimistic profile of the reconstruction effort generally and of its prime mover specifically, the now-deceased Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. This paper follows a cost/benefits analysis of the project and the company behind it, Solidere, and examines two other Solidere-styled developments abroad, both results of the company’s attempts to monetize its so-called “brand.” The first of these, “Abdali,” is in Amman. The second of these comprises a trio of projects that SI prepared for Sheikh Zayed City in metropolitan Cairo. The paper argues that Solidere’s failure to disclose the dubious financial dealings behind such projects further erodes the credibility of a company for whom the notion of “business as usual” works first and foremost to benefit the few at the expense of the many

Chromosomal damage induced in human lymphocytes by low doses of D-T neutrons

Unstable chromosome aberrations induced by in vitro irradiation with zero plus seven low doses of 14.8 MeV D-T neutrons in the range 3.55-244 mGy have been analysed in human peripheral blood lymphocytes. In order to obtain the required large numbers of scored cells for such low doses, fourteen laboratories participated in the experiment. The dose responses for dicentrics, excess acentrics and total aberrations, fitted well to the Y = &#945;D model. The &#945; coefficient of yield for dicentrics, 1.60 &#177; 0.07 &#215; 10-<SUP>2</SUP> Gy-<SUP>1</SUP>, compares well with the values obtained in previous studies with D-T neutrons at somewhat higher doses. Results from a previous collaborative study using 250 kVp X-rays over a comparable dose range indicated the possible existence of a threshold below 50 mGy. In the present study there is no clear evidence for neutrons for such a threshold. However, the data were insufficient to permit the rejection of a possible threshold below ~10 mGy