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 […]

By: middleeastmonitor.com

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 […]

by The Daily Star BEIRUT: Billionaire Lebanese businessman Fouad Makhzoumi has been linked to French presidential candidate Francois Fillon, raising questions about a conflict of interest, French media reported. Online investigative and opinion journal Mediapart revealed Tuesday that Makhzoumi is a client of the scandal-hit French right-leaning politician, and the billionaire’s company 2F Conseil signed […]

Embed from Getty Images SourceNaharnet , President Michel Aoun held a closed meeting on Thursday in the Vatican with Pope Francis after which the Pope announced that he plans to visit Lebanon pointing out that he always raises prayers for the country. After the meeting, Aoun said: “Lebanon has a special part in the heart […]