by arabnews.com — NAJIA HOUSSARI — BEIRUT: An increasing number of activists in Lebanon are being arrested amid mounting criticism on social media of the government’s handling of the country’s worsening economy. In the latest such incident, activist Michel Chamoun was arrested on Thursday by state security for writing comments on social media that were deemed humiliating to President Michel Aoun. Dozens of protesters blocked the main road linking Beirut to Jbeil and Tripoli, demanding the immediate release of Chamoun and chanting slogans and insults against Aoun and Free Patriotic Movement leader Gebran Bassil. This led to clashes with security forces before army commandos and military police intervened. An army officer and a number of protesters were injured.

On Thursday evening, Chamoun was released after Melhem Khalaf, head of the Beirut Bar Association, intervened. Chamoun said he was released due to pressure from the protesters, and prior to his release he had “to sign a pledge not to insult the president of the republic anymore.” But he insisted: “I will criticize anyone I want as we live in a democratic republic.” After his release, Chamoun headed with Khalaf to join the protesters on Jounieh highway. Then the protesters opened the road for traffic. Lawyer Hassan Bazzi, a member of the Lawyers’ Committee to Defend Protesters in Lebanon, told Arab News: “Freedom of expression in Lebanon is sacred, as stressed by the Bar Association. It’s protected by the Lebanese constitution.” But, he said, “what activists on social media don’t know is that there are limits to criticism, and the law forbids insulting the president of the republic.” Bazzi added: “People can no longer stand the pressure they live under due to the dire financial and economic situation, which has made them lose faith in the country.” It is “unacceptable for the political authority to try to intimidate activists, or to threaten them with arrest unless they delete their comments,” he said. “This is something to be done only upon a ruling by a judge upon the request of the public prosecutor. However, all security agencies try to intimidate opponents.”

by NAJIA HOUSSARI — arabnews.com — BEIRUT: The US Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea met Lebanese Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti on Wednesday, as the country weighed the implications of the US Government’s Caesar Act, targeting people and businesses doing business with the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, for Lebanese companies operating in Syria. Rumors have circulated in Lebanon regarding an appendix in the Caesar Act holding a list of Lebanese entities set to be penalized for cooperating with the Syrian regime. It is unclear how the act will affect coordination between the Lebanese and Syrian militaries, as the two states share a border extending to nearly 375 kilometers. The future role of the Lebanese-Syrian Supreme Council, which coordinates relations between the governments of the two countries, is also unclear.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had called on the Lebanese people “not to submit to this act that aims to starve Lebanon and Syria.” In a speech, he said: “The Caesar Act harms Lebanon perhaps more than it harms Syria. Syria is (our) only passage toward the world, and what the Americans are trying to imply is that our only inland passage is Israel.” Nasrallah added: “To those who will make us choose between killing with weapons or starvation, we will hold our weapons in our hands, we will not starve, and we will kill them.” A Lebanese legal expert told Arab News that the act needed to be more closely examined to know for certain the effect it would have on Lebanon, but added that it did mean the US could impose sanctions. “The issue of sovereignty is not on the table and the decision-maker is the implementer. We have to look at this matter in real terms,” the expert said on condition of anonymity.

by finance.yahoo.com — Leigh Cuen — Cryptocurrency does not appear to be a significant trend in terror financing in the Middle East, but a new round of U.S. sanctions aimed at Syria may tip the scales in favor of experimentation. On Wednesday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said U.S. sanctions against his Syrian ally President Bashar al-Assad are an attempt to “starve” both Syria and Lebanon. Local black market activity related to global assets like dollars is surging, with Lebanese banks failing to meet that demand. “The Americans are pressuring the Bank of Lebanon to prevent it from putting enough dollars into the market,” Nasrallah said. To date, evidence suggests terror groups like Hamas are using only small amounts of bitcoin, at volumes far smaller than what the civilian population in the region is using. In fact, the analytics firm Chainalysis estimates most campaigns by terror groups like ISIS have raised “less than $10,000” worth of cryptocurrency, less than a single Palestinian trader typically sells in a week. That said, among the most prominent terrorist organizations in 2020, Hezbollah in southern Lebanon is arguably the most likely to benefit from using crypto. (Hezbollah is classified as a terror group by the U.S. and 17 other nations. A number of EU countries do not classify Hezbollah as a terror group.)

Randa Slim, the Lebanese-American director of diplomacy programs at the Middle East Institute think tank in Washington D.C., said she believes Hezbollah is interested in bitcoin. “No other party in Lebanon has the kind of access to financial resources nor the military infrastructure to be able to maintain its role. We’re going to see Hezbollah’s dominance over the political life of the country, and increasingly over the economic life of the country,” Slim said, referring to Lebanon’s current economic crisis. Hezbollah’s power may be growing, but bitcoin doesn’t appear to be playing a significant role in that so far. Slim said she hasn’t seen any “focus in Hezbollah-affiliated media and publications on cryptocurrency” and “the money from Iran mostly comes in cash.” Likewise, an anonymous Lebanese bitcoiner said he hasn’t seen or heard anything related to both bitcoin and Hezbollah.

By LEILA HATOUM — arabnews.com — BEIRUT: It is two in the afternoon and Verdun Street, one of Beirut’s upscale neighborhoods, is doubly lit up — by the midday sun and by street lights. “Look at the street lamps shining brightly in the middle of the day while most areas suffer from power outages,” Fatima Hachem, 29, a local resident, told Arab News. The incongruity of the scene — street lights kept unnecessarily on during daylight hours — is unmistakable in a country where residents get between three and 12 hours of electricity a day depending on the locality. Such systemic inefficiencies are all the more glaring at a time when Lebanon is seeking a $10 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Given its disproportionate contribution to Lebanon’s public debt, the urgency of an overhaul of the electricity sector cannot be overstated. “Electricity reform is one of the key steps to re-equilibrate the economy,” an IMF official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Arab News. “We will see it as an emblematic and major improvement.” The official added that, without reforms, “there would be no loan program.” As a first step, the IMF has asked Lebanon to audit its national electricity company, known as Electricite du Liban (EDL). Loss estimates should note “not only the changes in price of fuel oil, but also the change in the exchange rate,” it said. In recent months, the purchasing power of the Lebanese population has eroded, with the currency losing two-thirds of its value, dropping to LBP4,000 from LBP1,515 to the US dollar. “At the moment, the Lebanese government links increasing tariffs on electricity to the increase in power generation, while the IMF believes that those two should not be tied. Also, eliminating electricity subsidies is the most significant potential expenditure saving,” the IMF official said. To generate fiscal savings, it is imperative the Lebanese government increases tariffs as soon as possible, they said. However, this would mean raising electricity charges for most of the population, who are already under economic pressure as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

by devdiscourse.com — The Lebanese central bank aims to bring down the price of the U.S. dollar progressively with the agreement of licensed foreign currency dealers to help stabilise prices as much as it can, governor Riad Salameh told Reuters on Tuesday. President Michel Aoun said on Friday the central bank would supply the currency market with dollars from Monday as part of an effort to prop up the Lebanese pound, which has shed more than 60% of its value since October. Responding to a written question from Reuters, Salameh did not say if the central bank had started supplying the market with dollars. “Our aim is with the agreement of the licensed exchangers to bring the price of the dollar progressively lower, contributing as much as we can to stabilise the prices,” he wrote. “This approach is necessary in a cash economy,” he said. “We hope that reforms will be enacted … to bring confidence.”

Lebanon is grappling with an acute financial crisis seen as the biggest threat to its stability since the 1975-90 civil war. Its currency has fallen amid a hard currency liquidity crunch, which led the state to default on its sovereign debt in March. Dollars continue to trade on a parallel market despite official efforts to regulate dealing. Licensed foreign currency dealers agreed with the government earlier this month to work to gradually reduce the exchange rate to 3,200 pounds per dollar. On the parallel market on Wednesday, one dealer said he bought dollars at a rate of 4,700 and another at 4,800. The official rates on offer at licensed dealers were 3,860/3,910. Queues formed outside some licensed dealers, where several customers said they had bought a maximum of $200 at the 3,910 rate. Lebanon still applies an official peg of 1,507.5 pounds to the dollar for imports of fuel, medicine and wheat.

by arabnews.com — NAJIA HOUSSARI — BEIRUT: The UN in Lebanon has denied it has any intention of stopping its operations or evacuating its personnel from the country. It said that “the support provided by the UN through its activities and operations is continuing and increasing at a faster rate, regardless of the challenges that resulted from the pandemic of the new coronavirus.” Stories circulated on social media at the end of last week about the intention of the UN to withdraw from Lebanon — and that the international organization had told its foreign employees to prepare their passports in preparation for leaving the country. However, the UN in Lebanon described this information as “speculation” in a statement issued on Monday

For the first time since 2011, two World Food Programme (WFP) trucks carrying supplies were seized last Tuesday while crossing the northern coastal road toward Syrian territory. The young men who intercepted the trucks justified their actions by saying that the Lebanese were hungry and that some people in the Lebanese state were “smuggling food items at the expense of the Lebanese people to the Syrian regime.” The two trucks are still parked at the Port of Tripoli after Lebanese customs teams worked to protect them and return them to the port. Malak Jaafar, the WFP spokesperson in Lebanon, told Arab News: “There is no decision yet to move the organization’s convoy from Lebanon to Syria. The convoy includes 39 trucks loaded with foodstuffs to be sent to the organization’s warehouses in Homs, Syria. There are 37 trucks at Beirut port and two trucks at Tripoli port waiting for security clearance so that we can move the convoy toward Syrian territory and there are contacts with Lebanese officials to secure this protection.”

by thenational.ae — The Lebanese army on Monday said it arrested dozens of suspects for vandalism after days of protests against a plunging local currency and the worst economic crisis in decades. Hundreds of protesters clashed with security troops at the weekend across the nation after days of rallies against a ruling class considered to be corrupt and impotent in tackling the worsening crisis. “The total number of arrests made by military intelligence between June 11 and 15 in different Lebanese regions is 36 people for acts of vandalism”, damaging public and private property and attacking troops, the army said. The army launched raids in the northern port of Tripoli, Lebanon’s second city, the official National News Agency reported. For three nights, young men attacked banks and shops and threw rocks at security troops in Tripoli, who responded with rubber bullets and tear gas. Medical services reported dozens of wounded.

Protesters were angered by a steep drop in the Lebanese pound, the rocketing price of food and what they perceive to be the government’s failure to rein in the country’s economic collapse. Relative calm returned on Sunday evening, with protesters holding a peaceful rally in the capital Beirut, while dozens marched to a central square in Tripoli. President Michel Aoun on Monday discussed the protests with the country’s top security body, including ministers and military officials. “Such acts of vandalism will not be allowed after today,” Mr Aoun said after the meeting of the Higher Defence Council. He called for “a wave of arrests, including of those who planned and carried out” such acts, and ordered authorities to increase “pre-emptive” operations to prevent further violence.

by arabnews.com — NAJIA HOUSSARI — BEIRUT: Prime Minister Hassan Diab responded to his government’s political opponents in a tough speech addressing the Lebanese on Saturday night. As the protests continued and clashes between demonstrators and security forces in the city of Tripoli caused injuries, Diab spoke of “a programmed campaign organized by parties known by name and method of thinking that are not deterred from using any method to shatter the image of others.” Diab said that his government “has a high percentage of citizens’ confidence, which has disturbed many of those who bet on its failure, and some have tried to invest without any national deterrent by pumping lies and rumors, to prevent the government from removing the rubble under which the secrets of corruption disappear.” “Know that we have found many keys from that black structure. There is a lot to discover soon with documents and facts, and this structure will fall on those who hide in its corners,” he said. Diab said that “the coup attempt fell and all secret and public meetings and orders of internal and joint operations to stop discovering of corruption failed too.” “They revealed that people’s lives do not concern them and that their aim is to protect themselves.” Diab said that “the state is not bankrupt, there is financial stumbling, but the country is rich in citizens and its resources.”

Addressing the people, he said: “Your rights are reserved with the banks and the Bank of Lebanon and the state is the guarantor.” “There are those who want to go back to before Oct. 17 (the date of protests against the Saad Hariri government) and turn the clock back.” Diab spoke of “political barriers that stand in the way of his government, but change is definitely coming.” He said that “the state oppresses its children and youth and deprives them of their rights.” “When the state weakens, the gangs are strengthened, and when the state retreats, small states appear, and when stability shakes, civil peace collapses, and when accountability stops, corruption prevails,” he said. “The judiciary does not need to be instructed to move. We insist that the judiciary be independent and impartial. The confrontation is difficult, and I call on the Lebanese to be more patient because the battle with corruption is very fierce, because the corrupt will not give up so easily,” the prime minister said.

By Kareem Chehayeb — middleeasteye.net — The threat that Lebanon’s protest movement would be co-opted by the country’s political elite has loomed large for Lebanese since demonstrations first broke out in October. Those concerns appeared realised on Saturday, as a controversial protest in Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square saw supporters of the Kataeb and Lebanese Forces parties facing off against those of Hezbollah and the Amal Movement. Among the crowd, however, were supporters of a man who wears one of the most prominent names in Lebanon, but who has been noticeably absent from the political scene for years: Bahaa Hariri. As the older brother to Saad Hariri, former prime minister and head of the predominantly Sunni Future Movement, Bahaa has kept out of politics almost entirely since the assassination of his father Rafik Hariri in 2005. Since February, however, the construction business magnate has hinted at an interest in returning to politics through the support of a youth forum led by a former member of his family’s party. His return to visibility raises questions about his relationship with Saad, the younger Hariri’s place as Lebanon’s most prominent Sunni politician, and where the loyalties of Saudi Arabia and the UAE lie.

Expanding influence Founded in April 2018, the Beirut-based Political Economic Social Forum is self-described as a collective of civil society actors, creating a space for Lebanese youth to discuss pressing issues and policy-based solutions. The project was founded by Nabil el-Halabi, a lawyer and former member of the Saudi Arabia-backed Future Movement, who also heads the Lebanese Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, a group that has focused heavily on abuses towards Syrian refugees and Islamists. However, over the past year the forum has expanded, with offices opening in Tripoli, Akkar, Sidon, and other Lebanese governorates. El-Halabi said that this came with the support of Hariri, someone he says he has known for over a decade. “He isolated himself from political talk and public affairs,” El-Halabi told local television station Al-Jadeed. “Now he has a vision for Lebanon… [but] he has no interest in becoming prime minister … I can confirm that.” El-Halabi has since been acting as a de facto spokesperson for Bahaa Hariri on Lebanese media. On 10 May, he announced that Hariri would be launching his own television station within the next two months.

BEIRUT, June 12 (Xinhua) — The Central Bank of Lebanon will inject U.S. dollars into the licensed exchange market in order to meet needs of ordinary citizens and importers, the National News Agency reported on Friday. The announcement was made by Vice President of the Syndicate of Money Changers in Lebanon Mahmoud Halawi following an […]