by middleeastmonitor.com — Lebanon is suffering from an acute shortage of imported drugs, particularly for chronic diseases, amid a lack of foreign …

By BARIA ALAMUDDIN -- arabnews.com -- If we don’t believe in change, we will never witness it. One of the principal obstacles to the revolutionary transformations required for Lebanon to survive as a state is the cynicism that perceives real change to be impossible — that corrupt elites will always cling to power, and nothing can be done about Hezbollah’s traitorous agenda. A symbolic blow was struck against this prevailing cynicism when Beirut’s Engineers Syndicate elected its general assembly. Despite supposed rivals such as the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), the Future Movement, Hezbollah and the Lebanese Forces collaborating in a ploy to retain control, they were swept aside, as nearly 80 percent of votes went to “Syndicate Revolts” candidates affiliated with the uprising. If the votes of 60,000 engineers from across Lebanon’s social spectrum can be replicated in national elections, the mind boggles at the implications!

We have run out of adjectives to adequately describe the rage and despair felt by ordinary Lebanese. All conventional factions have suffered crippling blows to popularity and credibility, and President Aoun, Gebran Bassil and the FPM have found that the depths of public enmity and loathing they command are practically limitless. Even Hezbollah and Amal, whose grassroots support was always taken for granted, have encountered unprecedented disenchantment. In an indication of how far the political class has fallen, investigating judge Tariq Bitar announced legal proceedings last week against a range of politicians, including acting Prime Minister Hassan Diab, over last year’s Beirut port explosion. It is thus no surprise that established factions are keen to see elections delayed for as long as possible, despite intense popular demands that they should be held immediately, as possibly the only route out of the crisis. Experts fear there will be efforts to delay the vote beyond the constitutionally mandated date of May 2022.

حينها، يتمكّن اللبنانيون من إنتاج قيادات سياسية جديدة، فيما تشفى القيادات السياسية القديمة من “متلازمة الترهيب”، وحينها، أيضاً يستطيع لبنان أن ينأى …

By Najia Houssari - arabnews.com -- BEIRUT: The Lebanese judge investigating the Beirut port disaster last year said on Friday he would move to prosecute the country’s outgoing prime minister, Hassan Diab, and that he had taken steps toward indicting several other former ministers, security officials and members of the judiciary. Around 3,000 of tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer exploded on Aug. 4, 2020, killing over 120 people, injuring more than 6,000 and ravaging swathes of the capital, in the midst of the coronavirus disease pandemic and a crippling financial crisis, causing the spotlight to fall on systemic corruption and mismanagement across all levels of Lebanon’s ruling class.

Judge Tariq Bitar began launching prosecutions on Friday, having taken evidence from witnesses for several months. As well as Diab, who has been summoned for preliminary questioning by Bitar, former Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil, former Minister of Defense and Public Works Ghazi Zaiter, former Interior Minister Nouhad Al-Mashnouq and Yusef Fenianos, the former transport and public works minister, are also set to face charges, with the judge formally requesting, through the Office of the Special Public Prosecutor, that their immunity from prosecution be lifted.