by Maggie Gile – Newsweek — As the country entered its 20th month of an economic and financial crisis, many goods, from gasoline, medicine and electricity, are experiencing drastic shortages. “My life was already difficult,” said Ibrahim Arab, a taxi driver who waited for hours in the hot summer to get gas for his car. “And now the gasoline crisis only made things worse.” Arab works a second job at a Beirut grocery store, though his monthly income has lost 95 percent of its purchasing power. For more reporting from the Associated Press, see below. When he’s not working, the 37-year-old father of two drives from one Beirut pharmacy to another, looking for baby formula for his 7-month-old son—any he can find—even though the infant got severe diarrhea and vomiting from an unfamiliar brand. He worries what would happen if his children got really sick. Once among the best in the region, Lebanon’s hospitals are struggling amid the country’s economic and financial crisis that has led to daily power outages that last for hours, shortages of diesel fuel for backup generators, and a lack of medical equipment and drugs. After 20 months of suffering with no end in sight, a new reality is setting in for most of Lebanon’s estimated 6 million people: Days filled with severe shortages—from spare parts for cars to medicine, fuel and other basic goods in the import-dependent country.

The crisis, which began in late 2019, is rooted in decades of corruption and mismanagement by a post-civil war political class that has accumulated debt and done little to encourage local industries, forcing the country to rely on imports for almost everything. The Lebanese pound has nose-dived, banks have clamped down on withdrawals and transfers, and hyperinflation has flared. The liquidity crunch is crippling the government’s ability to provide fuel, electricity and basic services. A shortage of dollars is gutting imports of medical supplies and energy. The fuel shortage has especially raised fears that the country could become paralyzed. Even private generators, used by the Lebanese for decades, have to be switched off for hours to conserve diesel. “We are really in hell,” tweeted Firas Abiad, director general of Rafik Hariri University Hospital, which leads the country’s coronavirus fight. Despite a heat wave, the hospital decided Monday to turn off the air conditioning, except in medical departments. Electricity cuts have affected internet connections in various cities, while bakeries warn they might have to close due to fuel shortages. The situation has become critical in recent weeks, with scuffles and shootings at gas pumps, including one in the northern city of Tripoli, where the son of one station’s owner was killed.

by aleteia.org — The economic and political crisis in Lebanon, home to the Middle East’s largest Christian community, has deepened ahead of a historic July 1 meeting between Pope Francis and Christian leaders from the country. This week, the country’s currency plunged to a record low of 17,000 to the U.S. dollar, having lost 90% of its value since an economic crisis began in 2019. Mounting anger against the government has been exacerbated by a fuel crisis. A shortage of foreign reserves necessary to import fuel has left many Lebanese waking up at 3:00 a.m. to line up at petrol stations, in scenes more reminiscent of Venezuela than one of the region’s more prosperous countries. For years, Lebanon has stood apart in the Middle East as a haven for Christians. It does not mandate Islam as a state religion, and an informal agreement even dictates that the President be a Maronite Catholic. For this reason, it has welcomed thousands of Christian refugees fleeing persecution in Iraq or Syria. “Over the years, when we have seen a rise in extremism in other countries, Lebanon has been a place where the Christians and the Muslims could live together, be educated together, to work together, and we would like to see this continue”, said Regina Lynch, Director of projects of the charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).

Today, however, its status as a haven for Christians is under threat. The currency crisis has been exacerbated not only by the economic fallout of the pandemic but also by the impact of an explosion last year in Beirut, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded. The blast decimated the mostly Christian neighborhoods around Beirut’s port area, killing at least 200 people. Almost 100,000 buildings were destroyed and several hundred thousand people were left homeless in one fell swoop. “The Catholic schools are in danger of closing. The Catholic institutes like hospitals and clinics are struggling to survive, even to find the funds they need to buy important medicines and important medical equipment, so it’s really five minutes to zero hour now at the moment in Lebanon”, stated Regina Lynch.

by reuters — The government last week effectively cut fuel subsidies as Lebanon grapples with a catastrophic economic collapse that has sunk its currency by more than 90% in less than two years. The energy ministry said the average price of 20 litres of 95-octane gasoline was increased by 35% to 61,100 pounds. That is […]

by Soraya Ebrahimi — thenationalnews.com — The Lebanese Army will start offering tourists helicopter joyrides this week in a bid to fill the coffers of one of the crisis-hit country’s key institutions. Lebanon’s economic crisis — which the World Bank describes as possibly one of the world’s worst since the 1850s — has hit the Lebanese […]

By Aya Iskandarani — thenationalnews.com — Lebanese authorities released two western journalists on Monday, six hours after Hezbollah detained them and handed them over to the security forces. British reporter Matt Kynaston was detained and his phone confiscated after he went to the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburb of Beirut to cover the country’s ongoing fuel crisis, his editor-in-chief at NOW Lebanon said on Twitter. “Journalist Matt Kynaston has been detained on the Airport Road by men who introduced as Hezbollah agents,” Ana Maria Luca said on Twitter. “Before his phone was probably taken away he sent a voice note with a recording of a man saying, ‘I have the right to take his phone. I have the right to take his phone without his consent.'”

Kynaston is employed at NOW Lebanon and has previously worked for The National as a freelancer. He was detained with German reporter Stella Manner, Luca said. The two journalists were handed over to Lebanese authorities and held at the General Security building in Beirut before being released in the evening. Lebanon has long been considered a haven for freedom of speech in the Middle East. But Hezbollah and its Shiite ally Amal have repeatedly cracked down on journalists, activists and demonstrators in Beirut and southern Lebanon after the mass anti-government protest movement of October 2019. Areas under Hezbollah control are out of reach for the Lebanese state. Journalists and media workers are required to ask for permission from Hezbollah before they can report from these areas. “The individual had not asked permission before filming in Dahiye,” a Hezbollah representative told The National. “That may be why he was questioned.”

من مقال يحيى احمد الكعكي اليوم في الشرق:‎ ولكن مع استمرار رفض “البعض” في لبنان لـ”الميثاق الوطني 1943″، و”القانون الدستوري 1990/9/21″، و”إعلان بعبدا 2012″ ، و”مذكرة بكركي” 2014/2/9، ومعهم جميعًا “مسلمات دار الفتوى” 1989/9/21 ، فإنّ “لبنان الكبير”  الذي أعلن عنه في 1920/8/31 سيبقى في “أزمة وجود”..!

منيت أحزاب السلطة في لبنان بالهزيمة في انتخابات نقابة المهندسين في بيروت التي نظمت الأحد، أمام مرشحين محسوبين على ما يسمى “قوى 17 تشرين”، التي تقود التظاهرات الاحتجاجية منذ عام 2019.

ويعد هذا مؤشرا يدق ناقوس الخطر بالنسبة إلى الأحزاب التقليدية المهيمنة، قبل عام من فتح صناديق الاقتراع للانتخابات البرلمانية.

وأعلنت لائحة “النقابة تنتفض” التي تمثل مرشحي المعارضة، فوزها في انتخابات الأحد، التي تعتبر المرحلة الأولى من انتخابات نقابة المهندسين، على أن تجرى “المعركة الأكبر” في انتخابات النقيب والأعضاء العشرة لمجلس النقابة في 18 يوليو المقبل.

وأعلنت اللائحة على موقعها على “تويتر” أن “النقابة انتفضت… فانتصرت”

By Nadim Shehadi — arabnews.com — In the Latin American city of Bogota, a prosperous-looking lady goes to an ATM to withdraw cash and her card is rejected. This is how, in the fall of 2019, the widow of a Lebanese immigrant in Colombia first learned of Lebanon’s financial collapse and the bankruptcy of both its banking and public sectors. Financial collapse strikes like a thunderbolt. Those affected emerge confused and disoriented, hardly realizing what hit them. Economic problems can also have financial repercussions. Unsurprisingly, there is a chicken and egg debate about this among economists: Do real economic factors affect financial phenomena, or is it monetary and financial considerations that affect the real economy? Whatever the answer is, the fact remains that, behind financial phenomena, there exists real economic factors. For example, the 2008 collapse in the US was caused by a “real” economic factor: Bad loans, known as “subprime.” Bankers created complex instruments to reduce their risk and spread these globally. When the crisis hit, it dragged everyone down with it and people are still figuring out what struck them.

In Lebanon, the banking sector gave loans to the Banque du Liban (BDL) central bank that, in turn, lent the money to the government, which kept increasing its debt to pay the interest. Bankers are easy to blame, and probably deserve it; the other side of the story is what happens in the economy and drives the crisis. This is in a country that historically operated a budget surplus and had a sound monetary policy, with risk-averse bankers. What the BDL did is no different from what the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department are now doing in the US, with the trillions of dollars being printed and buying their own bonds. In any other economy, what would follow would be a race between economic recovery and debt servicing to make the latter sustainable. But in the US the government can print dollars as it pleases and feed its own Ponzi scheme indefinitely, as long as the US dollar is the global reserve currency. There is no banking system that can survive a run and, once it happens, it is unstoppable. A run on a bank is when depositors rush to withdraw their money at the same time. It is caused by a sudden loss of confidence. This is what happened in Lebanon after November 2017.

by BY CAROLINE VAKIL — thehill.com — Lebanese troops were deployed to Tripoli on Sunday following protests over Lebanon’s worsening economic conditions that left 10 soldiers and several protesters injured the night before, The Associated Press reported. Protests and riots in the cities of Sidon and Tripoli on Saturday stem from the country’s economic crisis […]