By Najia Houssari - Arabnews.com -- The rift between President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri over the formation of Lebanon’s new government widened on Friday. Hariri was instructed to form a new government on Oct. 22, but no progress has yet been made, leaving the country in a political deadlock to add to its economic woes and the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. Video footage was broadcast on Jan. 11 of a meeting between Aoun and the caretaker prime minister, Hassan Diab, in which Aoun accused Hariri of lying when he claimed that his proposed government lineup had been approved. Commentators have claimed that, in doing so, Aoun insulted the office of prime minister and head of government, thus widening the gulf between the president and the prime minister-designate. Over the past 10 days, several attempts to bridge that gap have failed.

On Friday, Aoun’s media office issued a statement in response to what it described as “analyses and articles suggesting that the president is the one who is putting obstacles in the face of the PM-designate to obstruct the government formation process.” “The president did not ask for the obstructing third in the government,” the statement said, adding that “the head of the Strong Lebanon bloc, MP Gebran Bassil, did not obstruct the formation of the government, nor was he involved in this process at all.” Bassil is the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement and Aoun’s son-in-law. The media office also denied that Hezbollah is “putting pressure on the president in the government formation matter.” The statement said that “naming, nominating, and distributing the ministers to ministerial portfolios is not an exclusive right for the prime minister-designate, based on two articles in the Constitution,” adding that the president “has a constitutional right to approve the entire government before signing.” “The president does not have to repeat his call on the prime minister-designate to go to the Baabda Palace, which is waiting for his arrival with a government lineup that takes into account the standards of fair representation in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, especially in light of the extremely pressing circumstances — on more than one level — to form the government,” the statement continued.

by arabnews.com — DUBAI: Former presidential Tiffany Trump’s fiancée proposed to her with a 13-carat emerald-cut diamond by Lebanese designer Samer Halimeh. …

By JOSHUA SHUMAN -- themedialine.org -- The World Bank approved $34 million in emergency financing to Lebanon to allow the country to purchase vaccines against the coronavirus. Under a reallocation of funds from the Lebanon Health Resilience Project, which was launched in June 2017 to shore up the Eastern Mediterranean country’s struggling health care sector, the funds will provide the country with the ability to obtain enough vaccine doses for over two million people. This the first time the World Bank has financed a program to fund the purchase of vaccines for a sovereign state. World Bank Group President David Malpass said in a statement that the bank will continue to offer “our support to many more countries in their vaccination efforts. Our goal remains to mitigate the impact of the pandemic in order to save lives and improve livelihoods.”

Coronavirus infections are at record levels in Lebanon. Since the beginning of 2021, the country’s active cases have more than doubled from 52,000 to over 105,000, while total deaths have increased by 40% from 1,479 to 2,084. One nursing student at the American University in Beirut, who is aware of the depth of the crisis aid that she and her fellow students are having a tough time but “this pandemic is also one of the challenges nurses must face in their career, so we must get accustomed to it.” Lamenting the ongoing crisis, nursing student Carine Dichjknian told The Media Line that “having more than 5,000 positive cases per day for a small country like Lebanon, that lacks the needed medical supplies and hospital beds, is terrible. Almost everyone I know has had the virus or has had contact with a COVID-19 positive person.”

By reuters -- BEIRUT — Beirut university student Mohammad El Sahily was close to graduating in computer science, but uncertainty now clouds his future following a plunge in the Lebanese pound that has left him and thousands like him unable to pay their tuition fees. With Lebanon facing its worst economic crisis ever, two private universities, the American University of Beirut (AUB) and the Lebanese American University (LAU) have raised the exchange rate their fees are based on to 3,900 Lebanese pounds per dollar – at a stroke making teaching almost three times more expensive for students paying in the local currency. AUB student Sahily was studying for his final exams in December when he received an email announcing the hike. “(There was) fear, stress, desperation. I don’t know what I will do, I can’t afford paying for the spring (semester) if I want to take a full load (of courses), so I will have to either take two courses only or nothing at all,” he told Reuters. “This is the case of around 80% of people I know.”

Sahily was one of many undergraduates who took to the streets in December to protest the universities’ move. Leen Elharake, a LAU engineering student and vice president of the student council, called it “catastrophic,” and some students are now calling for a tuition strike. Lebanon has traditionally prided itself on its education system, set up in the 19th century by American and French missionaries and producing a steady stream of graduates who land top jobs in the Middle East region and beyond. But the pressure the system now faces – both from the economic crisis and a strict coronavirus lockdown that has banned face-to-face teaching since Jan. 7 – is weighing as heavily on the institutions as on the students. The economic crisis has left the official peg of 1,500 pounds to the dollar that the universities used to use well out of step with the rate on the street, which has topped 8,500 in recent weeks.