by arabnews.com -- NAJIA HOUSSARI -- BEIRUT: Lebanese authorities have ordered a crackdown on illicit foreign currency speculation as protests continue in Beirut. The Attorney General Judge Ghassan Oweidat directed the Lebanese security services, including the Military Intelligence, the Internal Security Forces, the General Security, the State Security and the customs officials, to pursue money-changers who tamper with the national currency and are involved in illicit foreign currency speculation. This move, not the first of its kind, is an attempt to dampen the widespread indignation that has continued for six days and intensified in street protests on Saturday and Sunday, which broke out after the dollar exchange rate hit 11,000 Lebanese pounds.

The protesters set up road blocks with rocks and burning tires on all major streets in Beirut and on the highways linking the regions. The Lebanese army reopened the blocked roads. Hundreds of people protested on Sunday night on motorcycles, roaming near the suburbs inhabited by a majority of Christians, which prompted the mobilization of security forces. A clash took place in Choueifat between the protesters and a driver who drove through a blocked road, injuring seven protesters. The security forces arrested him. The protests have moved from one area to the next without any visible leadership. During the weekend, they went into areas that were not usually affected by protests, including the southern suburbs, the southern road, which Hezbollah deems forbidden to be blocked, and the city of Hermel in northern Bekaa, where people staged a sit-in and burned tires to protest over the poor living conditions.

by arabnews.com -- NAJIA HOUSSARI -- BEIRUT: Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab on Saturday threatened “to refrain” from exercising his duties in protest at politicians’ failure to form a new government. The country’s lawmakers have failed to agree on a new administration since the last one resigned after the devastating Aug. 4 port explosion in Beirut. There has also been a sharp increase in tension between President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri, as well as a currency collapse to contend with. Angry protesters took to the streets in various regions after the dollar exchange rate on the black market jumped to LBP10,450, directing their anger at banks and supermarkets. Diab, addressing the Lebanese in a televised speech, asked why people should “pay the price for political ambitions and maneuvers,” and warned that the country had “reached the brink of explosion” after the currency’s collapse. “Is it required to dissolve the state after it has become the weakest link?” he asked. “The current crisis is likely to worsen, and the scene of the race for milk in the supermarket should be an incentive for transcendence and forming a government. The situation may force me to refrain (from exercising caretaker duties) and I may resort to it, although it contradicts my convictions. Who can deal with the next dangerous repercussions and more suffering of people?”

Analysts feared that Diab’s retreat may lead to a further collapse of the Lebanese pound, with lawyer and former minister Rachid Derbas explaining what could happen. next. “Refraining means (the) complete paralysis of the caretaker government’s work,” he told Arab News. “The late Prime Minister Rashid Karami had previously refrained. But I think that Diab’s move is in response to the pressures exerted on him by the ruling authority to hold Cabinet sessions in violation of the constitution because they do not want to form a new government now.” He added that if Diab decided to refrain there would be more pressure on Aoun and the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) Gebran Bassil, who were “obstructing” the formation of the government. “But I believe that Aoun and Bassil will not back down from imposing their conditions for the formation. Portraying the dispute as between Hariri and Aoun is absurd. Hariri will not give the ‘blocking third’ to Aoun or the FPM, as he is not ready to be another Hassan Diab.” He also forecast the trouble that lay ahead if Hariri walked away from forming a government. “This means that the exchange rate of the dollar will reach LBP20,000.”

By John Cookson -- catholicherald.co.uk -- — Baghdad — Pope Francis ended the first day of his historic trip to Iraq with hymn singing, clapping and white and yellow flowered-garland handed by well wishers shouting: “Long Live the Pope (Viva il papa! In Italian, localised in “Viva La Papa!)” as he entered the Cathedral of Our Lady of Salvation in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. The joyous welcome came as he arrived to pray at Syriac Catholic cathedral in Baghdad’s Karrada district, the scene of one of the worst Al Qaeda atrocities in 2010, when suicide bombers gunned down members of the congregation and priests in an attack that left 58 people dead. Iraqi commandos stormed the church and bullets are still lodged in the sacristy. Forty-eight of the dead were Catholic, and senior Vatican officials are mulling their beatification as martyrs in the first step to possible sainthood. Survivors of the atrocity were among those who greeted Pope Francis, who referred to the church as having been “hallowed by the blood of our brothers and sisters who here paid the ultimate price of their fidelity to the Lord and His Church.”

Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said this week the Pope had come to Iraq as an: “act of love” and it was clear from the faces of the faithful that they adored him, although they were few in number inside the church due to social distancing restrictions. Earlier the Pope touched down in Baghdad to a red carpet welcome and a greeting from Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustapha Al-Khadimi, who escorted Francis to his armour-plated limousine. The pair walked down more red carpet flanked by dancers performing and musicians playing. The Pope clearly enjoyed the moment and clapped to the beat although he was visibly limping from a recent flare up of sciatica which seemed worsen during the day. But if he was in pain he didn’t show it. After a twenty-minute drive to Baghdad’s secure Green Zone, the Pope arrived for a more formal ceremony at the Presidential Palace – a building with a chequered pedigree: It was built for Saddam around 30 years ago, but has been bombed by US Cruise missile strikes and rebuilt at least twice, although a casual observer today would not have known by looking at it.

by english.aawsat.com — Protesters in Lebanon burned tires and closed several major roads on Thursday in a third day of demonstrations as …