by naharnet.com — Caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hassan broke his silence Wednesday evening over the controversy sparked by the vaccination of around two dozen MPs and parliament employees in apparent disregard for the national queue and the country’s electronic registration platform. Speaking in an interview with state-run Tele Liban, Hassan said he took a “sovereign decision” by asking medical teams to head to parliament to vaccinate the lawmakers “in appreciation of their efforts, after parliament convened for seven consecutive days to approve the vaccine’s emergency use law.” “There is a mobile clinic at the Health Ministry which will move between state institutions… and I will also visit the religious authorities to give them the vaccine the same as I gave it to MPs,” the minister added.

Noting that the age range of the MPs who received the vaccine was “not against logic,” Hassan described the uproar over the issue as “exaggerated” and “out of proportion.” He added: “The ministerial (anti-Covid) committee has jurisdiction and the head of the vaccine national committee Abdul Rahman al-Bizri is part of a consultative committee but the ministerial committee is the one that takes decisions.” As for the vaccines received by President Michel Aoun, First Lady Nadia Aoun and at least 10 of the president’s aides, Hassan said: “The vaccine received by President Michel Aoun is the same vaccine received by citizens in the Bekaa, Akkar, Beirut, the South and all Lebanese regions. This is justice.” The World Bank had threatened Tuesday to suspend financing for coronavirus vaccines in Lebanon over what it said were suspected violations by lawmakers who were inoculated in parliament.

by arabnews.com — LONDON: Britons and Lebanese are enduring some of the strictest lockdown conditions in the world, an analysis by Oxford University has found. Only Eritrea’s and Venezuela’s lockdowns are stricter, according to a tracker compiled by Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government. Lebanon’s lockdown policies are marginally tougher than Britain’s. The analysis, which looked […]

By By Ben Hubbard — nytimes.com — BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Covid-19 vaccination drive in Lebanon erupted in scandal on Tuesday when 16 lawmakers received shots inside the parliament building, violating regulations aimed at keeping the process fair and transparent. The vaccination program, financed by $34 million from the World Bank, began earlier this month when the country received its first doses. To try to ensure accountability in a country known for corner-cutting and corruption, the government is requiring citizens to register for vaccination through an online portal. Medical workers and people over 75 are supposed to get the shots first, administered in official vaccination centers. On Tuesday, Adnan Daher, the parliamentary secretary, confirmed to reporters that 16 lawmakers had received shots. He said the lawmakers were all of the proper age and their turn to be vaccinated had come. But according to lists compiled by local news outlets, about half were younger than 75.

Elie Ferzli, a lawmaker in his early 70s who got the shot on Tuesday, denied in a telephone interview that he had jumped the line, and said he was “shocked” by the public outrage over the shots. “I have meetings every day in the parliament, so how am I supposed to keep doing my job normally and helping people?” he said. Officials overseeing the vaccination program, though, cried foul. Dr. Abdul Rahman Bizri, the head of Lebanon’s vaccine committee, threatened to resign over what he condemned as “a violation we cannot stay silent about,” but he decided to stay on. Saroj Kumar Jha, the World Bank’s director for the region that includes Lebanon, wrote on Twitter before the reports were confirmed that letting lawmakers jump the line was “not in line with the national plan,” and added, “Everyone has to register and wait for their turn!” He said that if the rules were broken, the World Bank could suspend its support for the vaccination program and Lebanon’s Covid-19 response generally. A World Bank spokeswoman did not respond to a query on Tuesday about how the bank would handle the incident.

Beirut (AsiaNews) – The call for a UN-sponsored international conference to get Lebanon out of its current constitutional crisis, issued by the head of the Maronite Church, Cardinal Beshara Al-Rahi last summer, is gaining traction at home and abroad. It received indirect support from Saudi Arabia yesterday. Back in Lebanon after a noticeable absence of two months, seen by Lebanese political circles as a sign of Saudi “disinterestedness” of the fate of Lebanon, the Saudi ambassador to Lebanon, Walid Boukhari, is actively working to renew talks with Lebanese political leaders, from which the Prime Minister-designate, Saad Hariri, is still excluded for now. At the Patriarchal See in Bkerké, which he visited last Friday, the Saudi ambassador renewed his country’s support for Lebanon’s national unity, civil peace and the Taif Accords. “The national and international community are paying attention to the views expressed by the Patriarch on national issues,” the ambassador said before stressing “the need for the proper application of the Taif agreement (1989) guaranteeing ‘national unity and civil peace in Lebanon’.” “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia wants Lebanon to regain its former glory and its pioneering role,” Boukhari explained, “and will always remain the closest friend of the Lebanese people and their constitutional institutions.” The “country’s political memory is evidence that the Lebanese people never tire of fighting for the preservation of their living together in unity.”

Saudi Arabia has accused the prime minister-designate of complacency towards Hezbollah, and has joined the United States in demanding that this party be excluded from the new “mission government” demanded by President Emmanuel Macron, in exchange for structural economic aid to prevent the country’s economic collapse. Since late 2019, the Lebanese pound has lost 80 percent of its purchasing power. For his part, the Patriarch assured the diplomat of his attachment to the Taif agreements and to internal peace, informed sources close to Bkerké said. What is more, his call for an international conference to resolve Lebanon’s crisis, under the aegis of the UN, is peaceful in nature. In a recent homily, the head of the Maronite Church said that an international conference sponsored by the UN is now essential to “save” Lebanon and prevent it “from sinking into obscurantism and capitulating to transnational projects contrary to the essence of Lebanon,” a clear reference to extremist ideologies professed by certain Islamist groups.

BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE — — Judge Fadi Sawan, who has led the investigation into the cause of the massive blast at the Port of Beirut last August, has been removed from the case after two former ministers complained of bias. He has been replaced by Tarek Bitar, the head of Beirut’s criminal court, effective Friday. The devastating explosion was caused by a cargo of 2,750 tonnes of explosives-grade ammonium nitrate, which had arrived in Beirut in 2013 aboard the freighter Rhosus. When the owner abandoned the vessel over unpaid port fees, Lebanese officials offloaded the cargo and left it in a minimally-guarded warehouse, adjacent to a cache of fireworks. On August 4, it caught fire and detonated, killing 204 people and injuring another 7,500. The blast ranked among the largest non-nuclear explosions in history, and it destroyed a substantial segment of Beirut’s waterfront.

Among the three dozen individuals that Sawan charged in the investigation were former finance minister Ali Hassan Khalil; former public works minister Ghazi Zeaiter; a second former public works minister, Youssef Finianos; and current caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab. In response, Khalil and Zeaiter filed a formal complaint alleging that Sawan was pursuing political figures in order to satisfy public demands. The court overseeing the case dismissed Sawan last week, finding that he could not be a neutral party because he refused to recognize Khalil and Zeaiter’s broad claims of legal immunity – and because his own house was damaged in the explosion. Sawan’s replacement, Tarek Bitar, has served as the head of Beirut’s criminal court for the past four years. He was first asked to head the explosion inquiry in August, before Sawan was selected; however, he initially turned it down because of the obligations of his existing role, according to L’Orient Today.

by reuters — BEIRUT: Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Hassan Diab said on Monday he was following up on an oil spill that may have originated from a ship passing near the Israeli coast and has now reached the southern shores of Lebanon. Israeli officials said on Sunday they were trying to find the ship responsible […]

by Nabih Bulos, Marcus Yam —On a remote cliff about 20 miles south of Beirut, a late morning sun roused Imad Beainy. He got out of bed, slipped on a pair of shorts and walked to the cliff’s edge, lighting a joint as he looked over the fruit groves and wild meadows of the Bisri Valley. Hewed between two mountain ranges, the valley extends some six miles along a tributary of the Awali river. In the distance, Beainy glimpsed the sun shining off the cream-colored tiles of the 300-year-old Mar Moussa church. Closer to the cliff, sprinkled around a 15th century Mamluk-Ottoman bridge and the ruins of a Roman temple, lay some 50 other archaeological sites. Beainy, 51, spoke of them as if they were his own; that this land was not just a home but a way of life. Yet for the last seven years, the valley and its history have been in jeopardy.

Bisri is to be the site of Lebanon’s second-largest dam, a proposed mega-project to bring water to Beirut’s ever-ballooning neighborhoods. The pressure of such growth underscores an existential threat to the region as governments already on the brink contend with a future in which they can no longer support some of the world’s fastest-growing populations. Water scarcity, climate change and erratic weather systems are likely to further imperil stability across the Middle East. No fewer than 12 countries in the region make the list of the world’s most water-stressed nations; already-scorching summer temperatures are expected to rise twice as fast as the average global warming, according to the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. The World Bank predicts the Middle East will become the most economically damaged place on Earth due to climate-related water scarcity.

By NAJIA HOUSSARI — arabnews.com — BEIRUT: Lebanon’s caretaker government is under mounting pressure to hold by-elections to fill 10 vacancies in the country’s parliament caused by resignations and the recent deaths of two MPs from COVID-19. In recent months the parliament has lost 10 of its 128 members, raising doubts about legal issues in calculating the quorum, especially with regard to critical sessions, since there is an imbalance of the pact. Eight MPs submitted a collective resignation in protest against the corruption of the ruling authority after the Beirut port explosion. Three of the eight were Kataeb (Phalanges) MPs, while the others were either independent or had left their parliamentary blocs. Two MPs, Michel Murr and Jean Obeid, recently died from COVID-19 complications. The majority of the MPs who have left parliament are Christians, while one is Druze. Of the remaining 118 parliamentarians, 63 are Muslims and 55 Christian.

By-elections were supposed to take place within two months of parliament accepting the resignations of Marwan Hamadeh, Henri Helou, Paula Yacoubian, Nadim Gemayel, Samy Gemayel, Elias Hankach, Nehmeh Afram and Michel Moawad in the wake of the Beirut port blast. However, by-elections have not been held despite caretaker Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi signing a decree inviting electoral bodies to organize the polls. The caretaker government did not sign the decree, which led to a constitutional violation. However, with the deaths of the two MPs, there has been renewed talk of the need to hold by-elections to fill the vacant seats. Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri said this week that he hoped the by-elections could take place in the spring.

by By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton – voanews.com — Families of those who died in last year’s deadly explosion in Beirut protested for a second day Friday and denounced the removal of a judge leading the probe into the blast. The families released a statement saying that the appointment of a new judge would lead to a delay in the probe of the August 4 port explosion, caused by the detonation of a huge stockpile of ammonium nitrate at the port. “On the ill-fated date of February 18, the sound of criminal corruption echoed and its hero this time was the politicized judiciary in Lebanon,” Ibrahim Hoteit, the families’ spokesman, read at the protest near the justice ministry. Hoteit’s brother Tharwat was killed in the explosion, which leveled large parts of Beirut, killed more than 200 people and wounded more than 6,000. The court decision Thursday to replace Judge Fadi Sawan blew up “what remains of conscience and confidence between us and this rotten judiciary,” Hoteit said. Judge Tarek Bitar was appointed Friday by Lebanon’s justice minister to lead the investigation. Relatives of victims of Beirut port explosion burn tires during a protest, after a Lebanese court removed the judge leading the probe in the investigation.

by dailystar.com.lb — BEIRUT: Lebanon is set to hold parliamentary by-elections for 10 vacant seats by the end of March, a statement from the Parliament speaker’s office quoted the caretaker interior minister as saying Thursday. Caretaker Interior Minister Mohammad Fahmi said parliamentary by-elections will take place at the end of March “at the latest,” during […]