by sputniknews.com — Aoun wrote on his official Twitter account that Lebanon plans to work with its international partners to fight corruption. …

BEIRUT, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) — Lebanese President Michel Aoun assured on Friday that he will not allow the security situation to get …

By Najia Houssari Financial Prosecutor Judge Ali Ibrahim on Thursday met with the Banking Control Commission of Lebanon (BCCL) to discuss claims that the owners of five Lebanese banks had moved personal funds worth $2.3 billion abroad. The meeting took place on the same day as Lebanon’s new Cabinet approved a policy statement aimed at rescuing the debt-ridden country from one of its worst economic crises in decades. The ministerial statement will now be submitted for discussion at a session of Parliament planned for next week. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Wednesday revealed the bankers’ transfers and expressed his “concern over the fate of the depositors’ money.”

The BCCL has described the information on the transfers as “inaccurate” and pointed out that “all banks have made transfers, and the law does not have the right to learn who the owners are.” Berri is opposed to any attempt by banks to impose capital controls on clients’ deposits despite savings restrictions and limits on dollar transfers abroad having been in place since November last year. Meanwhile, activists in the country’s civil movement have called for new street protests against the ministerial statement which they have branded as “a revised version of the previous government’s data that does not take peoples’ demands into consideration.”

By AJ Naddaff BEIRUT (AP) — At a Beirut hospital ward, five Lebanese protesters with bandaged eyes and faces huddled in a circle, their arms wrapped around each other, and they vowed to be back on the streets soon, despite their wounds from recent clashes with police. “We are coming back,” said one of them, 20-year-old Charbel Francis. Such resolve by some protesters signals that demands for sweeping government reforms won’t be squashed easily, even as security forces throw up cement barriers and resort to more violent means of crowd control, such as rubber bullets. But the recent descent into clashes after three months of peaceful protests has also triggered introspection and divisions among the demonstrators about their next moves. More than 500 people, including over 100 security forces, have been injured in confrontations outside the Parliament building in downtown Beirut last month.

Most of the injuries occurred on January 18. For hours, protesters hurled stones, firecrackers and flares at police who responded by firing tear gas, water cannons and shooting rubber bullets. More than 150 people were injured that night, many of them struck in the head and eyes. It was a shocking reversal for a popular uprising against a corrupt political class that started in mid-October and had been characterised by its striking peacefulness — particularly compared to the bloodbath in Iraq, where a similar uprising has resulted in the death of more than 500 protesters since October, most of them shot dead by security forces.