by Al Jazeera — Beirut, Lebanon – Lebanese authorities have started using forceful measures to try and bring the country’s rapidly sliding national currency under control, as angry citizens block roads and attack banks in protest over rapidly eroding livelihoods. “My salary is now worth $100,” a protester shouted during an attempt to block a road in Beirut on Monday as Lebanon witnessed its largest number of demonstrations since a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown was imposed in mid-March. An acute dollar shortage has sent the Lebanese pound tumbling from 1,500 to $1 – the official exchange rate peg since the late 90s – to about 3,000 to one $1 on parallel markets by mid-April – a drop that effectively slices the value of wages and savings by half, throwing millions of financial lives into uncertainty. But last week, the currency’s slide started accelerating dramatically, with parallel market rates opening at around 3,400 Lebanese pounds to $1 on Friday – only to close nearly 12 percent lower, at 3,800 to $1. Some reports said the Lebanese currency plunged as low as 4,000 to $1 on Friday, or more than 17 percent in a single day.

by AFP — Demonstrators blocked roads through Lebanon late Sunday to protest the deteriorating economic situation, despite a lockdown and curfew imposed because of the coronavirus, according to the official news agency. Police quickly intervened to reopen the highways where the demonstrators burned tyres to block roads, the ANI national news agency said. In Zalqa sector, northeast of Beirut, six people were injured, Lebanese Red Cross official Rodney Eid told AFP without providing further details. An AFP photographer saw protesters setting tyres ablaze on the highway north of the capital, in the suburbs of Dbaiyeh, before the army and police moved in. Protesters also mobilised in the main northern city of Tripoli, according to ANI.

And south of Beirut, young people set tyres ablaze on the Damour highway, the agency said. Protesters have staged several daytime demonstrations recently, including a convoy of cars in the capital last week, despite the coronavirus lockdown and nighttime curfew. A nationwide protest movement erupted in October last year, with hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating against the ruling elite and the rampant graft critics say has brought the economy to its knees. Lebanon’s worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war is now compounded by the coronavirus lockdown. Poverty has risen to 45 percent of the population, according to official estimates. Its economy is forecast to contract 12 percent in 2020, according to the International Monetary Fund. The Lebanese pound has also plummeted against the dollar, resulting in high inflation. (AFP)