Lebanon private sector steps in to speed up vaccine campaign

Details

by AP --- BEIRUT -- Lebanon's private sector is stepping in to speed up the vaccination campaign against coronavirus by importing at least 1 million doses of Russian vaccines, with the aim of reopening businesses around the country hit by an unprecedented economic crisis. The first batch of 50,000 doses of Sputnik V vaccines arrived early Friday, making Lebanon one of few nations where the COVID-19 vaccine rollout is being boosted by private sector initiatives. Lebanon, a small nation of six million people including around one million Syrian refugees, began its inoculation campaign in mid-February after finalizing a deal for some two million doses with Pfizer. According to Lebanese Health Ministry, the country has so far received 224,640 Pfizer-BioNTech doses over the past six weeks with nearly 100,000 doses already administered. Lebanon's government also began receiving AstraZeneca vaccines this week, with 33,600 doses that arrived on Wednesday. The Pfizer vaccines are funded by the World Bank while AstraZeneca vaccines will be provided under the U.N.-backed COVAX program.

Lebanon is currently in the grips of the worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history, which has been exacerbated by the lockdown measures related to the pandemic. Tens of thousands have lost their jobs and the local currency has lost 90 per cent of its value against the dollar, leading to inflation and shortages in food products and medicines. According to the World Bank, more than half the population is now living under the poverty line. Jacques Sarraf, a Lebanese businessman and head of the Lebanese Russian Business Council, said he hoped the import of the Russian vaccines would help safely reopen businesses around the country. "Our first target will be private companies, factories, banks -- and this is important to reactivate institutions," he told The Associated Press in an interview. Sarraf, who played a major role in bringing the Sputnik V vaccines to Lebanon, said priority will be given for employees at companies and business institutions, including those of Lebanon's national carrier Middle East Airlines and the Banking Association. He added that with the private sector moving in, the numbers of people inoculated daily will multiply by more than three times compared with the current pace. Sarraf said the Sputnik V will be sold at a price of $38 for the required two doses, in addition to hospital fees. The minimum monthly salary in Lebanon is currently 675,000 Lebanese pounds, the equivalent of about $60.

Read more ...

Former US Military Translator Pleads Guilty of Espionage

Details

By By Masood Farivar - voa.com -- A former U.S. military translator pleaded guilty Friday of divulging classified information to a Lebanese national with suspected ties to the Lebanese Hezbollah. Mariam Taha Thompson, 63, who worked as a contract linguist for the U.S. military from 2006 to 2020, pleaded guilty to one count of delivering national defense information to aid a foreign government. She faces a maximum penalty of life in prison. Her sentencing is scheduled for June 23. Thompson, who was born in Lebanon and became a U.S. citizen in 1993, was arrested in February 2020 at a U.S. special operations base in Irbil, Iraq. Prosecutors say she used her top secret clearance to pass the names of U.S. intelligence assets to the Lebanese national in whom she had a romantic interest and and whom she believed would share the information with Hezbollah. Hezbollah was designated as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. According to court documents, the unnamed Lebanese national, described as “wealthy and well-connected,” claimed to have received a ring from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and had a nephew who worked in the Lebanese Ministry of Interior.

Names sought in attack on Soleimani After a U.S. airstrike killed Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in December 2019, the Lebanese national, her unindicted co-conspirator, asked Thompson to provide Hezbollah with information about the human assets who had helped the U.S. target Soleimani, according to prosecutors. Over a six-week period leading up her arrest in February 2020, Thompson provided the Lebanese national with the identities of at least 10 clandestine human assets; at least 20 U.S. targets; and multiple tactics, techniques and procedures, according to the Justice Department. “Thompson jeopardized the lives of members of the U.S. military as well as other individuals supporting the United States in a combat zone when she passed classified information to a person she knew was connected to Lebanese Hizballah, a foreign terrorist organization which intended to use the information to hurt this country,” Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers said in a statement.

-U.S. ambassador tells Lebanese leaders it is time to form government

Details

by reuters -- The U.S. ambassador to Beirut called on Lebanese politicians on Thursday to set aside their differences to rescue the country from its many crises, after months of wrangling that has blocked agreement on a new government. She joined a chorus of foreign officials urging fractious leaders to agree on a cabinet to tackle Lebanon's economic collapse, its worst crisis in decades. "Now that we are almost eight months without a fully-empowered government, isn't now the time to let go of those demands? To begin compromising?" U.S. ambassador Dorothy Shea said after meeting Lebanese President Michel Aoun. The outgoing cabinet has stayed on in a caretaker capacity since quitting in August on the back of the port explosion that killed 200 people and destroyed swathes of Beirut.

Saad al-Hariri was designated prime minister in October but has since been at loggerheads with Aoun over the cabinet. Their dispute intensified after a meeting to discuss a new cabinet ended in a public repudiation this week. "Right now, there is a need for courageous leaders, who are ready to put aside their partisan differences and work together to rescue the country from the multiple crises and self-inflected wounds it is facing," Shea said. The pace of the financial crisis has quickened in the past few weeks, with the Lebanese pound losing nearly 90% of its value, protesters blocking roads and shops closing down. Lebanon's top Christian cleric also repeated calls on Thursday for politicians to rise above disagreements. "We are determined in our path to save Lebanon and the Lebanese," Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai said. (Reporting by Ellen Francis and Maha El Dahan)

Diab rules out reforming resigned Lebanese government

Details

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab has ruled out the possibility of reinstating the government he led until its resignation on August 10, 2020. In a statement issued on Wednesday, Diab said: “Defining the powers of a caretaker government and the role of the resigned Cabinet requires a constitutional interpretation, which is the exclusive right of parliament.” Diab was, indirectly, responding to an invitation issued by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah a few days ago to reactivate the resigned government, as President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri remain in deadlock over the formation of a new government for the crises-stricken country. Diab continued his statement by saying that eight months after his cabinet resigned in the aftermath of August’s devastating Beirut Port explosion, “efforts have not succeeded in forming a government that would save Lebanon from its current crisis. Things have even gone beyond logic and the government’s formation has become a national crisis, which has exacerbated the suffering of the Lebanese. Forming a new government remains a priority.”

The formation of a new government remains fraught with difficulty, however, given the vast political gulf between the two sides. Aoun is reportedly insisting that he and his allies be granted a third of cabinet portfolios, effectively handing them the power of veto over any major government decision. His demand has the indirect support of Hezbollah, which is calling for a “techno-political government,” while other parties are backing a government consisting of independent ministers with no party or bloc enjoying a ‘blocking third.’ Aoun met with the ambassadors of France and Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to try and clarify his position. The Lebanese media described those meetings as “an attempt to be granted clearance and to hold Saad Hariri responsible for the delay.” However, the Saudi ambassador’s statement from the presidential palace about respecting Lebanon’s sovereignty, not interfering in others’ affairs and committing to the Taif Agreement suggested that attempt failed.

Read more ...

Arab League expresses ‘readiness’ to intervene in forming Lebanese government

Details

By MOHAMMED ABU ZAID -- arabnews.com -- CAIRO: The Arab League has said it is ready to intervene to solve the crisis of forming the Lebanese government between President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri. The bloc urged Lebanese politicians to work quickly to end a political deadlock and offered to help Lebanon overcome the crisis. Ambassador Hossam Zaki, assistant secretary-general, said that Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit feels great concern due to debates in the political field that suggest the country is sliding into a severe crisis, the signs of which are now clearly visible. Zaki said: “I renew the Arab League’s readiness to do whatever it takes to heal the current rift in order to reach an agreed-upon equation that enables the premier-designate to form his government without obstruction, in accordance with the French initiative, which was endorsed by the League Council in its last meeting on March 3.”The French initiative calls for the formation of a “mission” government of nonpartisan specialists to enact reforms in order to save Lebanon from multiple crises.

Zaki stressed the need for a government of technocrats to save Lebanon from collapsing by implementing necessary reforms that meet the demands of the Lebanese people. The political crisis has persisted with Hariri announcing on Monday that no agreement was reached with Aoun after the latter stuck to his conditions. “I put my government formation in his hands 100 days ago, and I am ready for any modifications. I facilitated a solution for him with regard to the Ministry of the Interior, but he insists on the blocking third,” Hariri said after a meeting with Aoun at the presidential palace. The blocking third refers to the demand allegedly made by Aoun and his allies for control of a third of cabinet portfolios, allowing them to block any proposal that requires a two-thirds majority. Hariri explained that the list Aoun sent him is “unacceptable” because it is “not the designated president’s job to prepare a piece of paper dictated to him by anyone.”

Why Lebanon Can’t Kick Its Addiction to Indentured Labor

Details

By BY DAVID WOOD, JACOB BOSWALL -- foreignpolicy.com -- Of the 40-strong staff at the cleaning company he works for, Velvet Services, Hamadeh is the only Lebanese among mostly Bangladeshis. “Honestly, I know [Lebanese] people who really need work, but none of them work as cleaners,” Hamadeh said. “I know that they wouldn’t do this kind of work.” Nivine Zarzour, Hamadeh’s boss, has tried to hire more Lebanese, whom she can pay with lira instead of increasingly scarce—and expensive—U.S. dollars. But she has failed to attract Lebanese recruits, which she traces to a deep-seated cultural stigma. “The main reason is not the salary,” Zarzour said. “We [Lebanese] always had foreign cleaners and helpers.” For decades, Lebanon has relied on migrant workers—recruited from such countries as Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and the Philippines—to clean houses, operate gas pumps, and stock supermarket shelves. The largest sector for migrant labor is live-in domestic work, which accounted for 80 percent of migrant labor permits issued last year, according to statistics obtained from the Ministry of Labor.

Demand for foreign workers has propped up Lebanon’s notorious kafala system, which activists decry as exposing workers to modern-day indentured servitude. Originating in the Gulf, kafala ties a migrant worker’s residency in Lebanon to their employer, or kafeel (sponsor). Kafala workers rarely enjoy basic guarantees of rest days, set working hours, or freedom to switch jobs. Without a doubt, Lebanon’s economic crisis has shaken the kafala system. Records from the Ministry of Labor indicate that new migrant worker arrivals dropped by 75 percent from 2019 to 2020. Employers are increasingly unable to pay staff, and foreign workers are now less inclined to gamble on Lebanon. As demand plummets, the number of local recruitment agencies has shrunk from around 600 to 250 companies, according to industry sources. Yet all signs indicate that kafala will reemerge, battered but unbroken, from Lebanon’s financial implosion. Like Hamadeh, some Lebanese might take on shift work in taboo fields like cleaning to make ends meet. But for the most part, it is still only foreigners who appear willing to work in many such positions.

Read more ...