By SARAH EL DEEB and FADI TAWIL Associated Press- BEIRUT — Lebanese authorities tightened a nationwide lockdown Monday, including an 11-day, 24-hour curfew, amid a dramatic surge in coronavirus infections and growing criticism of uncoordinated policies many blame for the spread of the virus. News of the restrictions to be implemented starting Thursday morning sparked panicked grocery buying as people lined up outside of supermarkets to stock up, raising fears the crowds could further spread the virus. Lebanon had only just announced a nationwide lockdown last week. But many, including the health minister and officials on a government committee, considered it to be too lenient because it exempted many sectors, such as florists, plant nurseries and factories. Hospitals, meanwhile, were running out of beds amid rapidly multiplying COVID-19 cases.

Critics have said uncoordinated and hesitant policies wavering between relaxing restrictions and shutting down were behind the failure to contain the virus. For instance, despite a rise in infections, the government relaxed restrictions ahead of Christmas and New Year’s celebrations, hoping to boost a crumbling local economy as thousands of Lebanese expats arrived in the country. Bars and nightclubs, which had been ordered shut for months, were allowed to open. Daily infection rates have since hovered above 3,000, hitting an all-time high of over 5,000 last week. Doctors and experts say the extent of the spread has yet to be felt, predicting numbers will skyrocket in the coming days, overwhelming health facilities in the country of nearly 6 million. Despite the nationwide lockdown announced last week, a soccer match was allowed to take place in the northern Tripoli province on Sunday with an audience and was aired on TV.

by ALICIA BULLER – arabnews.com — BEIRUT: Lebanese women have long fought against gender discrimination in the system. While activists have made great strides this year in terms of political and social awareness, national legal protections from domestic violence and sexual assault remain inadequate. The country also has a weak framework for basic women’s rights, especially in matters such as divorce, property rights and responsibility for children after divorce. Rawan Yaghi, a former teacher based in Lebanon’s northeastern region of Baalbek, set up social enterprise USPEaK in 2009 with the aim of giving the country’s citizens a voice, particularly its women. The organization’s main objective is to create a democratic community that engages citizens through education. “In my earlier career as a teacher, I was very active in social activism,” said Yaghi. “I was invited to International Women’s Day in Washington. I saw women being celebrated and honored for the enterprises they had started and thought, ‘oh, I can do that.’”

Yaghi registered USPEaK as an NGO in 2015. Since then, 2,600 women have been taught English and 1,200 have been taught about entrepreneurship. She has also overseen the education of about 10,000 Lebanese 7th and 8th grade students, who are taught a set curriculum based on themes such as citizenship and democracy. One of the main areas that USPEaK focuses on is teaching English. Yaghi believes the English language is one of the most important tools Lebanese women can have when seeking employment. “It’s like a passport. When they learn English, they’re able to access information that they are not usually exposed to,” she said. “They can know more about the media and the social work of others and they can get inspired by different ideas.”

Our sinceres condolences to the family of the Hero Massoud Achkar. You will be missed! 

by lorientlejour.com — Tilda ABOU RIZK — Depuis ce lundi matin, Achrafieh pleure Massoud Achkar, affectueusement surnommé Poussy depuis le début de la guerre en 1975. Un des premiers et plus proches compagnons du fondateur des Forces libanaises et ancien président assassiné, Bachir Gemayel, Massoud Achkar est décédé à 64 ans des suites de complications dues au coronavirus, douze jours après avoir été admis aux soins intensifs du centre universitaire LAU-hôpital Rizk, suite à la détérioration de son état de santé. C’était le jeudi 31 décembre. Deux jours plus tard, samedi, une marche aux flambeaux a été organisée à son intention Place Sassine, suivie d’une veillée de prière devant le centre hospitalier. Le chef d’Etat Michel Aoun a rendu hommage au disparu. “J’ai perdu aujourd’hui un ami, uni à lui par l’amour de la patrie depuis de longues années”, a-t-il regretté. “Le Liban a besoin aujourd’hui d’hommes comme lui, un combattant, un patriote, un homme d’honneur qui n’a pas fait de compromis sur la dignité, l’unité et la stabilité du Liban”, a estimé le président, souhaitant “que Dieu ait son âme et console sa famille”.

Avec la disparition de Massoud Achkar, Achrafieh perd un de ses principaux soutiens, une figure charismatique qui, quarante-six ans durant, a défendu inlassablement les mêmes principes souverainistes et maintenu le même discours politique en faveur d’un Liban souverain, indépendant et libre pour lequel il aura plaidé jusqu’au dernier souffle. Ce sont ces mêmes principes qui l’ont poussé à porter les armes alors qu’il était tout juste âgé de 19 ans, au début de la guerre. Avec Bachir Gemayel et plusieurs autres camarades dont nombreux sont tombés en cours de chemin sur les champs de bataille entre 1975 et la fin des années quatre-vingt, ils se sont engagés à protéger les quartiers chrétiens d’Achrafieh, Saïfi, Rmeil et Médawar face d’abord à l’alliance dite palestino-progressiste, puis à l’armée syrienne et enfin aux milices dominant la partie ouest, à majorité musulmane, de la capitale. Poussy Achkar était au cœur de la Résistance libanaise fondée par Bachir Gemayel qu’il a accompagné tout au long de son parcours : dans les rangs du parti Kataëb, puis avec la fondation des Forces libanaises, jusqu’à l’assassinat de Bachir en septembre 1982.

by businessinsider.com — Joshua Zitser — In the wake of Wednesday’s attempted coup, Forbes — the American business magazine — has issued a warning to companies hoping to hire former officials from President Donald Trump’s administration. Businesses that choose to hire Trump administration alumni will, the editor said, be held to account. “Forbes will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie,” the magazine’s editor Randall Lane wrote. “We’re going to scrutinize, double-check, investigate with the same skepticism we’d approach a Trump tweet,” Lane added. In the article titled ‘A Truth Reckoning: Why We’re Holding Those Who Lied For Trump Accountable,’ Lane reflected on the lies that spurred rioters to ransack the US Capitol building.

The easiest way for American democracy to recover from the insurrection, he wrote, is to “create repercussions for those who don’t follow the civic norms.” In the Forbes article, Lane name-called Trump’s press secretaries and a former senior counselor to the president — Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephanie Grisham, Kayleigh McEnany, and Kellyanne Conway — and referred to the group as “Trump’s fellow fabulists.” This ultimatum follows the news that some White House staff are worried about securing their next job, according to Politico. Administration officials told the media outlet that they fear Wednesday’s events will damage their reputations, finances, and future careers. Lower-level Trump staffers are also “trying to save face for future employment,” a source told Politico.

Beirut (AP) — Israeli military jets carried out several low flying flights over Beirut as reconnaissance drones also buzzed overhead Sunday in what has become a daily occurrence. Israel regularly violates Lebanon airspace, often to carry out strikes in neighboring Syria. On Christmas Eve, Israeli jets flew low late into the night, terrorizing Beirut residents who are no strangers to such flights. They were followed by reported Israeli strikes in Syria. The frequency of low flying warplanes over the capital has intensified in the last two weeks, making residents jittery as tensions run high in the region on the final days of President Donald Trump’s administration. “When the drone leaves, the warplanes come. When the warplanes leave, the drones return. They have seen us in our PJs, filmed us in our PJs and surveilled us in our PJs. Now what,” quipped Twitter user Areej_AAH. “Of all types of panic I experienced in life in Beirut, the panic that accompanies the Israeli warplanes flying this low in Beirut is very special,” Tweeted Rudeynah Baalbaky, who said it brought back memories of the 2006 war with Israel. Israel rarely comments on these reports.

by Charlie McCarthy — newsmax.com — Suggestions the U.S. has become a banana republic are way off base, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Thursday. Using his personal Twitter account, Pompeo criticized politicians and journalists who have compared the U.S. to countries where “mob violence determines the exercise of power,” according to Pompeo per The Hill. Pompeo’s remarks were posted one day after demonstrators protesting the presidential election results attacked the Capitol. As of Friday afternoon, five people had died as a result of the insurrection. “In the wake of [Wednesday’s] reprehensible attack on the U.S. Capitol, many prominent people — including journalists and politicians — have likened the United States to a banana republic,” Pompeo wrote. “The slander reveals a faulty understanding of banana republics and of democracy in America. “In a banana republic, mob violence determines the exercise of power. In the United States, law enforcement officials quash mob violence so that the people’s representatives can exercise power in accordance with the rule of law and constitutional government.”

by naharnet.com — Al-Mustaqbal Movement said Sunday that PM-designate Saad Hariri has already presented the line-up of a reformist cabinet to President Michel Aoun, slamming what it called Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil’s “obstacles” and “sectarian and racist standards.” “The Movement leaves it to the Lebanese people to believe or not believe (ex-)Minister Bassil, seeing as we as a Movement will not engage in political polemics that will not bring the country an anti-coronavirus vaccine nor will return the economic cycle to its right track nor will rebuild Beirut and compensate those affected by the port blast,” al-Mustaqbal said in a statement. The statement comes in response to remarks voiced by Bassil in a televised address earlier in the day. “The government is ready and (its line-up) is waiting with the President,” al-Mustaqbal said, adding that such a government “will be a mission government that undertakes the needed reforms according to the French initiative and not according to the sectarian and racist Bassilist standards.” “This is what concerns us and not anything else, no matter how much they get creative in creating obstacles and producing controversial issues,” the Movement added.

by naharnet — Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil lashed out Sunday at Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri and warned of a perceived attempt to return the country to the “pre-2005 era.” “What is the current specialty of the PM-designate?” Bassil said in a televised address, casting doubt on the possibility that the new government will be truly a so-called “government of specialists.” “The rule of specialty was not only broken in naming the premier but also the ministers! What does it mean to give a single minister two portfolios such as foreign affairs and agriculture or social affairs and environment or administrative development and youth and sport? What specialty is this?” Bassil asked. Lamenting that “there is no expertise nor standards nor rules in what is being proposed,” Bassil claimed that the objective is to “downsize the government and cling to 14 or 18 seats in order to aggrieve Druze and Greek Catholics.” He added: “We do not entrust Hariri alone with reform and to them this government is aimed at seizing control of the country and returning us to the pre-2005 era.”

Addressing the public opinion, he went on to say: “Do you believe that these people want a government for reform, forensic audit, combating corruption, recovering transferred and looted funds and lifting secrecy off the accounts of politicians and state employees? Who prevented them from abiding by CEDRE’s reforms? No one, other than laziness, ignorance, reluctance to conduct reform and hunger for stealing public funds.” “There is a Lebanese Ghazi Kanaan and his electoral laws are present and there is a Lebanese Rustom Ghazaleh and his appointments are present,” Bassil added, apparently comparing the two late Syrian officers who were in charge of Lebanon’s file to rival Lebanese leaders. “We won’t allow a return to the era of marginalization and elimination,” Bassil stressed.

by thearabweekly.com — ISTANBUL–Arab sources expected the surprise visit of the Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri to Istanbul, where he held a long meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to have raised the issues of Gulf reconciliation and Turkish-French relations on top of the crisis faced by Lebanon where no government is yet in place despite Hariri’s efforts. Sources believe Hariri sought to explore the Turkish president’s reactions regarding recent developments within the Gulf Cooperation Council countries in light of the reconciliation between Qatar and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and the kingdom of Bahrain, in addition to Egypt, which is not a member of the Council. Erdogan, they noted, has welcomed the declaration issued by the summit of the member states of the Cooperation Council (GCC) held in the Saudi city of Al-Ula. According to the sources, the Turkish president wants to be a part of the Gulf reconciliation process, being the first supporter of Qatar in its policy at all levels.

In statements, on Friday, Erdogan welcomed the reconciliation, saying that it would “be good for the region,” and that his country would directly benefit from it. He stressed that “Turkey will strengthen its relations with the Gulf,” and that ” Turkey will return to its stature in the coming period for the sake of Turkish-Gulf cooperation.” Ankara espouses a narrative that is supportive of reconciliation and tries to appease the Saudi leadership, in particular, in order to take advantage of this reconciliation opportunity and restore the Turkish-Gulf relationship to its status of before the Qatar crisis of June 2017.

by France24 — Marc Perelman — In an exclusive interview with FRANCE 24, Lebanon’s Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh expressed concern about the ongoing financial crisis in his country, warning the situation could “deteriorate” if a government is not formed quickly. He announced that Lebanon’s central bank is ready to provide all the information necessary […]