by english.aawsat.com -- The Iran-backed Hezbollah party's flying of a drone from Lebanon over to Israel this week was widely condemned by officials. The party said on Friday that it flew the aircraft over northern Israel, where it hovered for 40 minutes, crossing 70 kilometers before returning to Lebanon. The move triggered Israel's air defenses and the scrambling of fighter jets. Its jets flew at low altitude over Beirut, terrifying the people who are still reeling from the 2020 port explosion. On Thursday, Israel said it had downed a drone that belonged to Hezbollah after it crossed into Israeli air space. Earlier this week, Hezbollah said it had started producing its own drones in Lebanon. Head of Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) Walid Jumblatt took to twitter to mock the state of affairs in Lebanon. He noted that the country fails to generate 24-hour electricity and yet Hezbollah has the technology to manufacture drones. "The recovery plan with the IMF is becoming clear. The senior advisors from the Lebanese team recommended adopting the Lebanese pound and investing it in national companies, such as Electricite du Liban [the state electricity company], the highest example of success," he said mockingly. "I suggest that we invest the depositors' money in the local production of drones, rockets or explosives because they bring better returns," he added.

Other officials slammed Hezbollah for launching the drone and boasting that it was now producing the aircraft in Lebanon. Former President Michel Suleiman said: "Under the slogan 'made in Lebanon' and amid the failure to find hope, a dignified living and alternative energy, the crisis-hit nation can find prosperity in the production of drones, precision-guided missiles, captagon, perpetual garbage, taxes... and everything that takes us to the lowest of lows." Lebanese Forces MP Imad Wakim tweeted an image of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah with a play on words about drones, saying he was being controlled by Iran. Retired officer and opposition parliamentary elections candidate George Nader said: "The state has collapsed and there is a general sense of degradation and indifference."

by english.aawsat.com — Acclaimed Lebanese singer Sammy Clark passed on Sunday after suffering heart problems. Clark, 73, was a singer, composer and …

By LEEN FOUAD -- arabnews.com -- LONDON: Lebanon’s health system is in a precarious state following wave upon wave of political and economic crisis. As the country reels from medical supply shortages, COVID-19 case surges and an exodus of skilled medical professionals, the urgency of the sector’s need for outside help is no longer a matter of debate. In most countries, it might seem reasonable to look to the government to implement reforms to rescue the health system from collapse. But in Lebanon, where it is arguably politics itself that is making the nation sick, the embattled state is unlikely to offer solutions. A new study led by King’s College London and the American University of Beirut suggests Lebanon’s health system is in decline thanks in large part to the same disastrous political decisions and systemic problems that led to the country’s 2019 economic collapse. The study, “How politics made a nation sick,” conducted by the Research for Health in Conflict–MENA project (R4HC-MENA), shows how a series of politically driven disasters has created a crisis state that is unprepared to deal with a deepening public-health emergency.

Dr. Adam Coutts, one of the R4HC-MENA project leads, describes the health situation in Lebanon as “a slow moving trainwreck, which sped up in the pre-pandemic period when the economy collapsed in 2019.” Ever since the end of Lebanon’s civil war in 1990, sectarianism, clientelism and corruption have dominated political life and driven the country into successive bouts of unrest and instability. Corruption, hyperinflation and the 2019 banking sector collapse have plunged Lebanon into the worst economic crisis in its modern history. The arrival of millions of refugees from neighboring Syria has only compounded the strain on its creaking infrastructure. About 19.5 percent of Lebanon’s population of 7 million are refugees from neighboring countries. Already living precariously in impoverished communities, few of them have the means or the connections to obtain vital medications at a time of scarcity.

وفي اليوم السابع … تحت عنوان ” صنع في لبنان ” وفي ظل تعثر صناعة الامل ولقمة العيش والطاقة الاصلية والبديلة، تزدهر …