BEIRUT:
There’s no need for protests over proposed taxes, as the government is
looking for revenue to fund a wage hike for public employees, Prime
Minister Saad Hariri said Monday. “All political blocs are
seeking to resolve this crisis,” Hariri told reporters after meeting
with President Michel Aoun at Baabda Palace. He reiterated calls for protesters to form a new committee to convey their demands.
A
few thousand Lebanese flocked to Beirut’s Riad al-Solh Square at noon
on Sunday to protest Cabinet plans to impose a string of taxes to cover
the cost of long-awaited salary increases for both civil servants and
public school teachers estimated at $800 million. Sunday’s protest
capped four days of street demonstrations staged by civil society
activists and supporters of various political parties denouncing the
proposed taxes and demanding action against rampant corruption and the
theft of public money. Hariri said he and President Aoun were keen on combatting corruption and the squandering of public funds. “Our stance is clear. The government wants to restore the peoples’ confidence,” the premier said.
He stressed that the Cabinet cannot approve the salary scale without allocating the needed revenues. “Our taxes don’t aim to target people, we added [taxes] on marine properties and financial companies to end the deficiency.” During
two sessions on Wednesday and Thursday, lawmakers discussed a host of
taxes proposed by the Finance Ministry to cover the cost of the salary
scale bill. Lawmakers approved an increase in the value added tax from
10 percent to 11 percent. However, the session was adjourned over
lack of quorum as Deputy Speaker Farid Makari and Kataeb chief Sami
Gemayel exchanged accusations over the matter.
Turning to the
ongoing debate on the country’s new electoral law, Hariri described
talks on the vote law to govern the upcoming parliamentary elections as
“positive.” “We are approaching pressing deadlines but I am
certain that we will have a new electoral law that represents all
Lebanese,” Hariri said. He said that he was “open” to discuss all
proposed electoral draft laws, stressing that his political group
“wasn’t the obstacle.” In addition to being premier, Hariri also heads the Future Movement.
by Frank T. McAndrew, The Conversation
Recently, my wife and I went through one of the more excruciating
experiences of our lives – the euthanasia of our beloved dog,
Murphy. I remember making eye contact with Murphy moments before she took
her last breath – she flashed me a look that was an endearing
blend of confusion and the reassurance that everyone was ok
because we were both by her side. When people who have never had a dog see their dog-owning friends
mourn the loss of a pet, they probably think it’s all a bit of an
overreaction; after all, it’s “just a dog.” However, those who have loved a dog know the truth: Your own pet
is never “just a dog.” Many times, I’ve had friends guiltily confide to me that they
grieved more over the loss of a dog than over the loss of friends
or relatives. Research has confirmed that for most people,
the loss of a dog is, in almost every way, comparable to the loss
of a human loved one.
Unfortunately, there’s little in our cultural playbook – no grief
rituals, no obituary in the local newspaper, no religious service
– to help us get through the loss of a pet, which can make us
feel more than a bit embarrassed to show too much public grief over our
dead dogs. Perhaps if people realized just how strong and intense the bond
is between people and their dogs, such grief would become more
widely accepted. This would greatly help dog owners to integrate
the death into their lives and help them move forward. An interspecies bond like no other What is it about dogs, exactly, that make humans bond so closely
with them?
For starters, dogs have had to adapt to living with humans over
the past 10,000 years. And they’ve done it very well: They’re the
only animal to have evolved specifically to be our companions and
friends. Anthropologist Brian Hare has developed the
“Domestication Hypothesis” to explain how dogs morphed from their
grey wolf ancestors into the socially skilled animals that we now
interact with in very much the same way as we interact with other
people.
Bodyguards protect Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, center left with hand on mouth, from water bottles thrown by demonstrators in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, March 19, 2017. Demonstrators pelted the prime minister’s car with water bottles on Sunday as protests against new taxes and a stagnant public wage scale gained force in the city. Hariri […]
Anger flamed across Lebanon as lawmakers
approved five new taxes on Wednesday, including increasing the VAT from
10 per cent to 11 per cent. The tax increases come in the latest wave
of austerity measures to offer public sector workers – including police
officers and teachers – new salary packages. Tax payers held protests across the
country, angered by the measures and calling for the government to
tackle corruption within the political system to fund development rather
than increase excises. Another large-scale protest is due to take place in Beirut tomorrow.
Some 6,000 people are expected to join the march which is organised by the Lebanese Communist Party. The political group is calling on the
government to “escalate social spending on health, education and
development, wages and create jobs.” “We are protesting in rejection of
unfair tax policies that pull money out of the pockets of the poor to
finance waste and theft and corruption of power.”
The Daily Star – BEIRUT: Activists gathered in front of the Higher Islamic Shiite Council south of Beirut Saturday to decry the infringement of women’s custody rights. Activists from Protecting Lebanese Women and their supporters demanded the council to lift the minimum age of paternal custody for children of divorced couples to something closer to […]
by AFP – BEIRUT: An animal rights group in Lebanon is caring for three dehydrated, maggot-infested Siberian tiger cubs that were rescued on their way to a zoo in neighboring war-ravaged Syria. Animals Lebanon said Saturday that its members rescued the cubs earlier this week after they had spent more than a week cooped up […]
by Alex Leary, Times Washington Bureau Chief, Instead of attending a fundraising weekend skiing in Montana, Sen. Marco Rubio, 2016 US presidential candidate is in the Middle East this week for an “oversight” visit. “This weekend, I am in the Middle East on an official visit conducting oversight of U.S. programs abroad as a member […]
AFP, Beirut Friday A Lebanese military court on Friday charged 18 people, most of them Syrians, with transferring more than $19 million from Lebanon to the ISIS, a judicial source said. Fifteen Syrians, one Palestinian and two others were accused of “belonging to Daesh (ISIS), creating a money smuggling network and transferring money out of […]
by sputniknews.com Lebanese women seek greater participation in the country’s political life as high-ranking government officials are discussing the possibility of creating a quota for women in Lebanon’s parliament. Both the president and the prime minister of Lebanon have recently broached the possibility of instituting a quota for women in parliament. Inaya Azzeddin, Lebanon’s State Minister for Administrative Development and […]
