By NAJIA HOUSSARI -- arabnews.com -- Beirut : The US and UAE have warned Lebanon about maintaining ties with Hezbollah, as the country’s president convened a meeting to bring together political parties with the aim of “fortifying civil peace.” Lebanon’s domestic turmoil rocketed last year, with street protests, high-profile resignations and financial chaos. A new government, led by Prime Minister Hassan Diab, was formed in January. But there have been concerns about its composition as the majority of its ministers belong to Hezbollah and its allies. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters on Wednesday that the US was prepared to communicate with any Lebanese government that carried out real reform, telling a press conference that the world would act in the interest of Lebanon if this was achieved, and if the government operated in a way that was not “beholden to” Hezbollah. “Lebanon’s financial crisis is rooted in decades of state corruption and waste,” he added.

The UAE’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, went one step further in his assessment of the country’s plight. “Lebanon is paying the price of deteriorating ties with wealthy Gulf Arab states as it struggles to cope with a deep economic crisis,” he said in an interview. He regarded Lebanon’s economic meltdown as “very worrying” and said that the UAE would only consider offering financial support in concert with other states. “If we see some of our friends and the major powers interested in Lebanon and working in a plan, we will consider that. But until now, what we are really seeing here is a deterioration of Lebanon’s Arab relations and Gulf relations over the past 10 years. Lebanon is partly paying the price for that right now.”

BEIRUT (AP) – The Lebanese pound continued to slide in price and hit its lowest level against the dollar on Wednesday, raising …

by armenianweekly.com -- Yeghia Tashjian -- Lebanese resilience is being severely tested by the ongoing financial crisis. Economic and social costs are overwhelming, and the middle class is disappearing as poverty spirals out of control. The Lebanese currency has almost lost 60 percent of its value compared to US dollars in the black market. Unemployment has reached 55 percent. Poverty has exceeded 65 percent, and we have an uncertain and unpredictable political environment. The roaring but essentially non-violent civilian protests, which have swept through Lebanon for several months, have conveyed a compelling demand for change. However, during the last two months, protesters took a violent path, looting and burning banks and stores. On a regional level, the Sunni-Shia conflict has been intensified from Yemen to Syria where institutional decay has further inflamed the region. Amid these uncertainties, Turkey has started to spread its tentacles and mobilize its proxies in Lebanon.

Davit Hirst in his book “Beware of Small States: Lebanon, Battleground of the Middle East” argues that Lebanon is a reflection of the geopolitical developments in the Middle East. Sometimes, the political developments in Lebanon reflect on the region. I would say both the political shifts in the country and the region are interdependent due to the sectarian infrastructure that had shaped the region after the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The fall of Saddam inflamed a Sunni versus Shia conflict whose roots go back to 632 AD following the death of Prophet Mohammad. The conflict was later regenerated with the political vacuum that Americans left with the ousting of the Baathist regime in Iraq. Italian philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli would have advised otherwise, that instead of dissolving the Iraqi army, which was playing the role of “check and balance” to Iran’s influence, the US would have used this army to contain the Iranian expansion and preserve the regional status quo. However, President George W. Bush’s administration unleashed more chaos in the region.

by AP -- One of the Arab world’s oldest and most prestigious universities, which endured civil war, kidnappings and various economic crises, is preparing for what may be the biggest challenge in its 154-year history. The American University of Beirut is confronting a global pandemic, a severe recession and the collapse of Lebanon’s currency — all at the same time — and is planning a series of sweeping layoffs and salary cuts in response. AUB president Fadlo Khuri said the school, which ranks among the top 150 in the world, will lay off up to 25% of its workforce, close administrative departments and shelve an ambitious project for a major new medical center. “The layoffs are very painful,” Khuri told The Associated Press in an interview at the sprawling campus on the Mediterranean Sea. “AUB has never had to do this before, we’ve never been forced to have layoffs.”

The American University of Beirut, which operates under a charter from the state of New York, was the first to introduce American education to the Middle East. For generations, it has educated the Arab world’s elite, produced three presidents, around a dozen prime ministers — including Lebanon’s current premier, Hassan Diab — and countless Cabinet ministers and ambassadors. Its vibrant campus has also been a pillar of Beirut’s cultural and intellectual life, with a diverse student body and a history of activism. The announcement has come as a shock to members of the 6,500-strong workforce of AUB and the American University Medical Center. Tens of thousands of Lebanese have already lost their jobs in a worsening economic crisis exacerbated by the coronavirus outbreak. The crisis is rooted in decades of institutionalized corruption and mismanagement that came to a head last October, igniting mass protests. The economic meltdown has plunged the fragile country into deep uncertainty and threatens to unleash further unrest and chaos. Unemployment has skyrocketed to 35%, and nearly half the population lives below the poverty line, according to the World Bank.