by thenational.ae — Sunniva Rose — One of the handful of historic buildings in downtown Beirut to have survived the 1975-1990 civil war, the school of Saint Anne of Besançon, may not open again in September. A quarter of its usual 800 students have not enrolled yet. “We keep changing scenarios to adapt to the situation. We are living day by day” said its director, Sister Myrna Farah. Compounded by confinement measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus, Lebanon’s worst-ever economic crisis threatens the survival of the country’s private schools, where 70 per cent of Lebanese children study. With the government increasingly struggling to provide basic services such as electricity, Lebanese schools, and particularly French-speaking ones, are placing their hopes in former colonialist power France. French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who arrived in Beirut on Wednesday evening for a 36-hour visit, is expected to add detail to previous announcements made by the French government about Lebanon’s education sector. “I hope that [his visit] will alleviate the financial blockade that we are under,” said Sister Farah, referring to the cash crisis that forced local banks to limit access to the dollar since November. Earlier this year, French president Emmanuel Macron said that France would support Christian francophone schools in Lebanon, which represent 11 per cent of the country’s 2,854 schools, as part of a regional support programme.

Additionally, 53 schools accredited by the French Ministry of Education will receive interest-free loans and emergency scholarships for non-French families, depending on their needs. Lots of families, even those comparably well-off compared to most in Lebanon, are hoping to receive help. Nayla, who declined to give her family name, has not paid the fees for her two children’s last quarter at school yet. “It’s not that I don’t have the money, but I’m just so worried about the situation” she said, breaking down as she spoke on the phone. “We don’t know what will happen. I spend my time trying to buy cheap meat and beans to freeze. I’d rather keep the money for the basics,” she added. In June, inflation hit 90 per cent, and analysts expect it to worsen. “The economic collapse is happening in an exponential way,” said Maha Yahya, director of the Carnegie Middle East Centre. “What comes out of it cannot be predicted, but what we can predict is greater inflation and that the lira will continue to deteriorate,” she added. The local currency has lost over 80 per cent of its value on the black market since September. The rapid deterioration of living conditions shocked Sister Farah.

by thenational.ae — Sunniva Rose — The American University of Beirut should have better managed the firing of 850 staff members last Friday, the president of Lebanon’s most prestigious university said in a letter to staff and students. Private security and members of the Lebanese military were posted around the AUB Medical Centre as the staff were given letters ending their employment and escorted out, many of them in tears. Now, the institution’s president, Fadlo Khuri, has said the “exceptionally difficult” week could have been better managed. “The reality is that letting this many people go from the AUB family was never going to be easy,” Mr Khuri wrote. “The manner of departures, especially at AUBMC, could and should have been better handled, and some confusion and pain could have been avoided.” Employees organised a protest outside the medical centre on Monday afternoon.

Pictures on social media showed protesters holding banners that read “I won’t leave” and “I will not accept this humiliation”. Protesters read out the annual salaries of Mr Khuri and other top AUB officials, which they said added up to nearly $1 million a year, while visibly upset former employees broke down in tears. On Friday, interviews with the former employees went viral on Lebanese social media. “My mother has cancer. My brother died,” a sobbing woman said. “I had nothing but this institution. What will I do now?” The layoffs took place amid large numbers of army and riot police, causing outrage on social media. Some Twitter users called the university’s management “cowards”.

PARIS (Reuters) – Former Nissan Motor Co Ltd Chairman Carlos Ghosn took a swipe at his old employers in a newspaper interview on Sunday, calling the Renault and Nissan results “pathetic”, driven as much by a lack of joint leadership than the COVID-19 pandemic. Ghosn, who was also the chairman of Mitsubishi Motors Corp, was […]

By Nisan Ahmado — voanews.com — WASHINGTON – New U.S. sanctions targeting the Syrian government appear to also undermine Hezbollah in Lebanon. Experts say the measures are alienating Hezbollah from its political allies in Lebanon and weakening its usage of state institutions to assist the Syrian regime. The sanctions, introduced on June 17 and known as the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, have been described by the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah as an “economic war” that aims at “starving both Syria and Lebanon.” He has called on the Lebanese government to ignore them. While the sanctions may not be devastating for Hezbollah, they could deter other parties in Lebanon’s governing coalition from following the Iran-sponsored group’s wish to improve ties to Bashar al-Assad’s administration, according to Hanin Ghaddar, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute. “Hezbollah has been calling the Lebanese government to normalize Lebanon’s relations with the Assad regime,” Ghaddar told VOA. But, he said, none of Hezbollah’s allies “wants to challenge Caesar Act, especially when there are negotiations going on with the international community to salvage the country from its devastating economic crisis.” Hezbollah has been classified by the U.S. as a terrorist organization since 1997. The group is sanctioned under the 2014 Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act, which prevents entities associated with Hezbollah from gaining access to international financial and logistics networks and blocks its ability to fund global terrorist activities. The U.S. Treasury earlier this year announced further sanctions, blacklisting 15 Hezbollah-affiliated entities in Lebanon.

Political control

 Lokman Slim, a Beirut-based analyst, told VOA that Hezbollah has been working for years to strengthen its infiltration of the Lebanese state and army by weaving a network of alliances across the Lebanese multi-sectarian spectrum. The group’s control over the political scene in Lebanon reached its peak in 2016, when it successfully backed Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian and head of the Free Patriotic Movement party, to become president. However, the group’s allies are now starting to distance themselves from Hezbollah to guarantee their political survival, said Slim. “When Hezbollah’s main ally (Shia) speaker Nabih Berri champions the defense of the banking sector, and when voices from within the Free Patriotic Movement, the party of President General Michel Aoun, start calling into question the feasibility of blindly following Hezbollah, and when Patriarch Rahi, the highest Christian authority in Lebanon, calls on the U.N. to help Lebanon assert its neutrality, we can’t say that Hezbollah is in its glory days,” he said.

khazen.org offers all its support to our Patriarch Cardinal Al-Rahi and stands completely with the initiative of our Patriarch the only step that can save Lebanon from complete collapse. 

By NAJIA HOUSSARI — arabnews.com — BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hassan Diab was fighting to save his job on Saturday after Maronite Patriarch Bechara Al-Rahi repeated his attack on Hezbollah’s role in the government. The row began when Al-Rahi said the US, the EU and the Gulf states were reluctant to help Lebanon out of its economic crisis because they did not want to assist an administration controlled by the Iran-backed group. After meeting the prime minister on Saturday, the patriarch said: “Our country is a democratic country and everyone expresses their opinion, but we cannot live in a country where some people pull horses backward and some pull them forward. “We said nothing new when we demanded Lebanon’s neutrality from regional conflicts. Lebanon was open to all countries, East and West, except Israel, which occupied our land. Our identity is positive and constructive neutrality.”

by english.aawsat.com — Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hassan Diab said on Saturday dialogue was needed over the country’s stance on regional conflicts, after meeting with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rai who has urged Lebanon to remain neutral to help it out of its crisis. The country is in the grip of a financial meltdown, raising concerns for […]

by middleeastmonitor.com — Zawqan Abdelkhalek, a nurse at the American University of Beirut’s (AUB) medical centre since 2012, was laid off on Friday along with hundreds of colleagues as even hospitals buckle under the weight of Lebanon’s economic collapse. “I have a baby daughter, I need to get her food and water and pay for her vaccines,” the 29-year-old said. A currency crash means his pension in Lebanese pounds is now worth just around $500, he said. He blamed the ruling elite for daily power cuts, skyrocketing prices and pushing the country to the brink. “You can’t do anything anymore … who’s hiring today? This is where they got us, and now they tell you ‘go plant crops and buy candles, you’ll be fine’, while we just move backwards” he said.

The AUB, one of the country’s oldest universities and a regional medical hub, did not respond to requests for comment. Local media and employees said the institution laid off more than 500 workers, mainly in administrative and nursing departments. Its president, Fadlo Khuri, had said there would be staff cuts as the financial meltdown and the coronavirus pandemic hit revenues. He told Reuters in May the private institution faced its biggest threat since its foundation in 1866. While Lebanon produces little hard economic data, businesses have shut at a rapid rate. At least 220,000 jobs in the private sector were shed between October and February, a survey by research firm InfoPro showed, with the figures only expected to get worse. Mahmoud Edelbe, a maintenance worker at AUB who also lost his job on Friday, said his monthly income was only around $100 since the Lebanese pound, known as the lira, lost nearly 80% of its value on the parallel market. “Are we the burden on the university?” he said near dozens of ex-employees crowding the hospital entrance. “We get the short end of the stick, we who have nobody to back us or help us.”

By Abbie Cheeseman — nbcnews — BEIRUT — Mohammad Kekhia stares into his nearly empty fridge. His 14-year-old son, Hassan, stands beside him, peering in hopefully. To Hassan’s disappointment, his father closes the door without retrieving any food. There is not enough. Not if they want to have anything left for tomorrow. “We are eating once every two days if we are lucky,” Kekhia says. Lebanon is grappling with its most severe economic crisis in modern history. The lira has lost over 80 percent of its value since October. Unemployment is soaring. Prices are skyrocketing. Hunger is spreading across this tiny Mediterranean country, known worldwide for its cuisine.

The collapse of the Lebanese currency has had knock-on effects in neighboring Syria, which has long used Lebanon as a route around sanctions. And the crisis has left Lebanon, a strategic country regionally, open to intervention from other countries as a bailout from the International Monetary Fund grows more unlikely. Relations have fractured further with the U.S, which is a backer of the army and some parties in Lebanon, as well as the largest donor to the IMF. Hezbollah — an Iranian proxy officially designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., and a political group with unrivaled influence in government — has claimed Lebanon’s crippling dollar shortage results from a U.S conspiracy. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is advocating for Lebanon to “look east” rather than west to get out its economic quagmire, setting its sights on investment from China. Inside Lebanon, the issues involve not East or West but the daily struggle to get by. In the northern city of Tripoli, Kekhia had been living a basic life with his wife and their three children. They have lived for the past seven years in a single room with a tin roof. But now they’re battling hunger and deep poverty. “Yesterday, our neighbors gave us a bag of bread. … We can’t even manage that ourselves,” said Kekhia, who used to work in construction. “Every two days, I go out and try to gather some olives or some labneh [thick yoghurt] so that the children can eat a little.” Three months behind on rent, out of gas, stealing electricity from a neighbor to power their one lightbulb and the fridge, he and his family are desperate. They can no longer afford Hassan’s epilepsy medication.

by reuters — Hezbollah should take the blame for Lebanon’s economic collapse, the country’s top Christian cleric said in an interview with Vatican Radio this week, in his most direct criticism yet of the Iran-backed Shiite movement. Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai’s comments marked his strongest intervention in Lebanon’s crisis, which is seen as the worst […]

by thenational.ae — Sunniva Rose — Nine months after nationwide anti-government protests shook Lebanon, a few hundred protesters rallied around several anti-establishment political parties in the capital Beirut on Friday afternoon to revive their “revolution” as the country’s economic crisis worsens. “We must continue our revolution and change all this system,” said protester Mohaj Chaaban, who attended a rally in Beirut’s Martyr’s Square. “It’s 2020 in Lebanon and we don’t have electricity, we don’t have access to good schools, we don’t have a medical system, we have nothing,” Mr Chaaban told The National, referring to the country’s crumbling infrastructure that has worsened with the current economic crisis. A dollar crunch that caused the local currency to devaluate last summer pushed hundreds of thousands of Lebanese on to the streets on October 17 in what many supporters of the anti-government movement have dubbed the ‘October revolution’. But protests petered out after Hassan Diab’s government was formed in January with the promise that it would address the country’s failing economy. However, little to no reforms were implemented and the government has hit a brick wall in negotiations for a bailout with the IMF.

Meanwhile, half the Lebanese have been pushed into poverty, the local currency has lost over 80 per cent of its value on the black market, and fuel shortages have disturbed everyday life with electricity cuts for about 20 hours a day and disturbances in mobile network coverage. Both former Labour and Telecom Minister Charbel Nahas and former commander of the Lebanese army’s rangers regiment, retired brigadier general Chamel Roukoz, organised the protest in downtown Beirut, in an attempt to encourage the Lebanese to take to the streets once again. “Our project is easy,” said Mr Nahas in a speech, saying his party wanted a “peaceful transfer of power to a government with legislative powers for a period of 18 months with two tasks: (…) managing the crisis fairly and (…) establishing the legitimacy of the only real possible state in our country, which is the civil state.” Both Mr Nahas’ party, Citizens in a State, and Mr Roukoz, who was accompanied by a delegation of retired soldier, advocate for the end of Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing system and for the transition to a “civil state” in which government jobs would be based on competence uniquely and not on sectarian affiliations.