Beirut (AFP) – A Lebanese judge has banned the country's central bank governor Riad Salameh from travelling, days after Beirut received an Interpol Red Notice following a French arrest warrant, a judicial official said Wednesday. Salameh has been the target of a series of judicial investigations both at home and abroad on allegations including embezzlement, money laundering, fraud and illicit enrichment, which he denies. French investigators suspect that during his three decades as central bank chief, Salameh misused public funds to accumulate real estate and banking assets concealed through a complex and fraudulent financial network.

On Wednesday, judge Imad Qabalan questioned Salameh and "decided to release him pending investigation, ban him from travelling, and confiscate his Lebanese and French passports", the official told AFP, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media. Activists say the travel ban on the central bank chief helps shield him from being brought to justice abroad -- and from potentially bringing down others in Lebanon's entrenched political class. "The Lebanese judiciary, with the exception of a few judges, has shown that it is not independent. It is biased for politicians who steer it the way they want," charged lawyer and activist Karim Daher. "The corrupt Lebanese regime... has no interest in Salameh being tried abroad and spilling the beans" about the political class's financial activities, he told AFP.

to access complete list please click here: Highest-Paid CEOs | AFL-CIO (aflcio.org)

by LBCI news  — Jean Abboud, the President of the Association of Travel and Tourism Agents in Lebanon, confirmed that “2023 is …

Sidon (Lebanon) (AFP) – Lebanese activists protested Sunday at a beach in the coastal city of Sidon after a woman said she was harassed there over her allegedly indecent bathing suit, an AFP correspondent said. \ Defying a municipality ban on their demonstration, dozens of protesters, mostly women, gathered briefly in the Sunni Muslim-majority conservative city, the correspondent said. "We have all come to support women's right to be in public spaces, whether in a bikini or a burkini," said Diana Moukalled, a journalist and women's rights activist. "Public spaces don't just belong to certain people as a function of their beliefs, but to everyone. It's a constitutional right," she told AFP.

In last week's incident, a group of conservative religious Muslims reportedly assailed a bather and her husband at the public beach in Sidon, accusing them of not respecting local norms due to the woman's attire. The incident sparked a wave of solidarity on social media, with some women posing in bathing suits with the hashtag #Sidon. Others instead praised the conservative intervention.