by voanews.com — The National Symphony Orchestra of Lebanon is feeling the effects of the financial crisis in the country. The crisis has left many people in Lebanon suffering from poverty and struggling to meet simple needs. The crisis worsened because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The August 2020 Beirut explosion also worsened the crisis. The explosion killed more than 215 people and damaged parts of the city, including the building where the orchestra meets. As the value of Lebanese money fell, the 100 or so musicians in the orchestra watched the value of their pay fall from $3,000 to around $200. Most foreign musicians left the orchestra and the country. It is not clear how long the orchestra can keep going.

Cultural loss

Lubnan Baalbaki is the conductor of the orchestra, someone who leads the musicians as they are playing. “We used to do very big productions that would cover the entire classical repertoire. Now it’s very difficult,” Baalbaki said. The pay of those who remain now covers little more than the price of fuel to drive to weekly practices. This has forced Baalbaki to reduce the number of shows from around 30 a year to just a few. This follows a wider loss of Lebanon’s cultural place and activities due to the crisis and the pandemic. One of those loses is summer holiday cultural events. They were seen as a guiding light of the arts in the area. They included famous musicians and Arab celebrities.

By Nana Asfour — nytimes.com —  Etel Adnan, an influential Lebanese American writer who wrote a seminal novel about the Lebanese civil war and achieved acclaim in her later years as a visual artist, died on Sunday in Paris. She was 96. Her death was confirmed by her longtime partner and only immediate survivor, Simone Fattal, who did not specify the cause. For much of her life, Ms. Adnan, who grew up in Lebanon and spent several decades in California, was an international literary figure, her lyrical prose reverberating with generations of Middle Eastern writers. Her most widely acclaimed novel, “Sitt Marie Rose,” (1978) based on a true story, centers on a kidnapping during Lebanon’s civil war and is told from the perspective of the civilians enduring brutal political conflict. It has become a classic of war literature, translated into 10 languages and taught in American classrooms.

Ms. Adnan also wrote numerous collections of poetry. Her latest, “Shifting the Silence,” was published in October 2020. Reviewing her previous collection, “Night,” for The New York Times Book Review, Benjamin Hollander described it as “a meditative heir to Nietzsche’s aphorisms, Rilke’s ‘Book of Hours’ and the verses of Sufi mysticism,” and “an intricate thread of reflections on pain and beauty.” In her poetry, novels and nonfiction, Ms. Adnan often wrote about political discord and violence. Her books on the Middle East, like “The Arab Apocalypse,” a poetry collection from 1980; “Of Cities and Women (Letters to Fawwaz),” from 1993; and “In the Heart of the Heart of Another Country” (2005), address the region from sociological, philosophical and historical perspectives. Ms. Adnan caught the attention of the international art world in her late 80s, when her paintings were included in Documenta 13, the contemporary art exhibition in Kassel, Germany, in 2012. The invitation to the show resulted from a serendipitous visit by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Documenta 13’s director, to Lebanon, where she saw an exhibit of Ms. Adnan’s geometric and vibrantly colored abstract work on generally small canvases.

الردود والردود المضادة … والردود على هذه الاخيرة المردودة … في تحقيق انفجار المرفأ اصبحت مثل “المخمس المردود” في الزجل مع الفرق ان الزجل شعر وموهبة في سبيل الخير في حين ان تعطيل التحقيق هو ظلم

Lebanon’s Minister of Health Dr. Firass Abyad.

By NAJIA HOUSSARI — arabnews.com — BEIRUT: Lebanese health officials have launched an investigation after video images reportedly filmed by a doctor showed emaciated patients tied to filthy beds in a city healthcare center. The footage documented by the Wataawanou Association charity, sparked public outrage when broadcast on news channels on Friday. It highlighted poor conditions in rooms and corridors at the Santa Maria Healthcare Center in Byblos that caters for 55 male and 15 female patients with neurological and mental illnesses. Shots showed skeletal-looking patients sitting or lying on dirty beds, unable to speak, and some with their hands strapped to the bed. Pots with spoiled food and loaves of moldy bread were seen in a kitchen, and other images appeared to depict unhygienic bathrooms.

After the video went viral, Lebanese Health Minister Dr. Firas Abiad and Minister of Social Affairs Hector Hajjar visited the center on Saturday to inspect the premises along with a team of experts from the World Health Organization’s office in Lebanon. “An investigation has been opened to hold those responsible accountable and define the reasons why the center reached such a deteriorating state without informing the ministry, which has a duty to ensure that its patients are treated in good conditions,” Abiad said. The ministry has arranged for the Santa Maria patients to be moved to other facilities pending the completion of a clean-up operation there. A similar health scandal was exposed in February 2019 at Al-Fanar Hospital in Al-Msayleh, in southern Lebanon. Again, patients were transferred to other health centers, including the one at Byblos which received 38 people out of around 90.

كيف السبيل إلى معالجة قلق اللبنانيين الذي اعترف به نصر الله؟ يقول الرئيس ميشال سليمان في مداخلة ألقاها أمام ندوة “مؤتمر المسيحيين العرب” نظّمها مركز LCRS-Politica في 30 آب الماضي: “لبنان ليس بلداً محايداً. وتبعيته لمحور الممانعة جعلت الكارثة التي حلّت به تتعاظم. هناك العزلة الاقتصادية، والاستثمار عندنا أصبح مرهوناً بتعبيتنا لمحور الممانعة الذي له […]

by .fides.org — Beirut (Agenzia Fides) – Faced with the designs pursued by those who want to cancel the singular and unparalleled physiognomy of Lebanon from the Middle Eastern scenario, the only effective response remains that of returning to the founding “roots” of the Lebanese nation, drawing inspiration and criteria from them to face the systemic crisis that is gripping the Land of the Cedars. This is the “line” proposed by Cardinal Béchara Boutros Raï, Patriarch of Antioch of the Maronites, in the introductory speech he gave on Monday, November 8, at the opening of the Assembly of the Catholic Patriarchs and Bishops of Lebanon. In addition to Cardinal Raï, three other Eastern Catholic Patriarchs take part in the meeting, hosted at the Maronite Patriarchal See of Bkerkè (Melkite Youssef Absi, Syrian-Catholic Ignace Youssif III Younan and the newly elected Armenian-Catholic Patriarch Raphaël Bedros XXI Minassian) as well as numerous bishops and superiors general of the various Catholic ecclesial groups present in Lebanon.

In his opening speech, the Maronite Cardinal briefly recalled the constitutive factors of the institutional structure that characterize and protect the Lebanese peculiarity in contemporary historical events. First of all, Patriarch Raï valued the original distinction between political-state institutions and confessional dynamics which, albeit through paradoxical ways, has guaranteed pluralism and diversity as traits of Lebanese coexistence. The prevalence of belonging to the common nation over sectarian divisions – underlined the Patriarch – is the guiding principle to be reaffirmed if we do not want to see Lebanon sink into the quicksand of sectarianism. The National Pact of 1943, cited by the Patriarch in his speech, sealed the historical story of modern Lebanon by recognizing that the “status of neutrality” represents a sort of identity code of the Lebanese nation since its inception.

by al-monitor.com — Families of those arrested in relation to the Beirut port explosion held a protest in Lebanon today. The families demonstrated in front of Lebanon’s Palace of Justice, and demanded the release of their loved ones who are imprisoned. They also alleged that the prisoners’ health is deteriorating, the official National News Agency reported. A massive explosion occurred in Beirut’s port in August 2020, leaving more than 200 dead, thousands displaced, and extensive damage throughout the city. The blast was the result of 1,750 tons of the flammable fertilizer ammonium nitrate catching fire in a warehouse. Lebanese authorities arrested the port manager following the explosion, along with several others. More than 20 port and customs officials have been arrested to date.

Olivier de Schutter, the UN special rapporteur

By Najia Houssari – arabnews.com — BEIRUT: Lebanon continued its freefall into economic turmoil on Friday, with the medical, fuel, and food crises worsening and no political initiative being taken to overcome the deteriorating situation. The value of the Lebanese pound dropped to record lows, trading at 23,000 Lebanese pounds to the dollar on the black market. This crash was at least partly due to a speech given by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday evening, in which he reaffirmed his hostile positions toward Saudi Arabia and called on the Lebanese to have “patience,” offering no solutions to their mounting problems. Fuel prices suddenly shot up on Friday. The price of a 20-liter gasoline canister ranged between 310,800 and 319,600 Lebanese pounds, the price of a diesel canister reached 311,000 pounds, and gas cylinders were selling for 266,000 pounds. The average price of fuel is now equivalent to half of the minimum wage.

Gas station owners reported an approximately 50 percent “decline in the sale of fuel.” Meanwhile, Economy Minister Amin Salam on Thursday decided to reduce the weight of a bundle of bread while maintaining its current price, which is the highest it has ever reached. A 1,050-gram bundle is now sold for 9,500 Lebanese pounds. The Ministry of Economy attributed this to “the high prices of flour, diesel and other materials.”

الرئيس سليمان: نيترات الأمونيوم كانت لا تزال بالباخرة حينما كنت رئيساً ووُضعت في العنبر بعد مغادرتي بخمسة أشهر ولم يكن لدي معلومات عنها وأترك ما يلزم توضيحه لقاضي التحقيق إن أراد الإستماع إلي   لرئيس سليمان: المجلس الأعلى للدفاع إنعقد في 18 أيار 2014 قبل مغادرتي بخمسة أيام ولم يتحدث أحد عن خطورة النيترات وكان […]

by arabnews.com — Najia Houssari — BEIRUT: The Iranian national football team has visited Lebanon on several occasions to compete in the Asian qualifiers. But this week, the Iranian team arrived in a very different set of circumstances, playing Lebanon on Thursday amid a wave of political quarreling and accusations that Tehran is taking over the country and isolating it from its Arab surroundings. The match, which Iran won 2-1, had sparked a renewed sense of patriotism among the Lebanese for the World Cup 2022 qualifiers. The Lebanese goal, scored in the first half, put a smile on the faces of the Lebanese, who are drowning in misfortunes. But while the match sparked national pride among Lebanese supporters, many created fake social media accounts to support the Iranian team and the Wilayat Al-Faqih, the term used to describe the system of governance that Tehran has used since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Although most fans admit that the Lebanese team “lacks equipment, training, physical fitness, and overall readiness due to the financial, economic and institutional crises in Lebanon,” their hearts, as they said, are with the “Cedar men.” Even politicians encouraged the Lebanese national team.

Independent MP Fouad Makhzoumi wrote: “The hearts of all the Lebanese are with our national football team.” Activist Mounir Khater tweeted: “The vast majority of the Lebanese are united behind their national football team. The Lebanese love their country, except for a few whose minds have been plagued by ignorance, and the national concept has mixed with the sectarian concept.” The game took place at the Rafic Hariri Municipal Stadium in Sidon, southern Lebanon, but FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation ruled that fans were not allowed “for security reasons.” Sports experts regretted that this measure deprived the Lebanese team of its “motivation factor.” No television channel covered the game, with fans only able to watch it live on YouTube. FIFA consulted a private security company that had recently conducted an assessment of the security situation in Lebanon. “The report was based on the Tayouneh incident that took place in October,” said Hashem Haidar, head of the Lebanese Football Association.