BEIRUT: Financial Prosecutor Ali Ibrahim Friday charged 11 people, including a doctor and a pharmacist, with healthcare fraud. A judicial source told The Daily Star the charges included prescription fraud and embezzlement of funds belonging to the National Social Security Fund. Ibrahim referred the detainees to the investigative judge in Sidon, south Lebanon, where […]

  BEIRUT: Prime Minister Tammam Salam Friday scheduled a Cabinet meeting for next week despite the conflict that arose with Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun after the government passed a decree before discussing the appointment of new security officials. Divisions emerged when Cabinet convened its first session in nearly a month Thursday, with Aoun […]

  The cabinet convened on Thursday following a three-week suspension but the session witnessed arguments among ministers on several controversial issues, infuriating Prime Minister Tammam Salam. “We couldn’t agree during the cabinet session today. In the absence of a president there is no clear mechanism on the authorities of each minister,” Education Minister Elias Bou […]

  BEIRUT: Health Minister Wael Abu Faour is seeking charges against two physicians accused of forging birth certificates, a ministry statement said Thursday. The statement said Abu Faour asked the Mount Lebnon judiciary to investigate each case separately. In one case, a birth certificate belonging to child Thomas Anthony David, approved at a mukhtar’s office […]

  BEIRUT: Military Investigative Judge Fadi Sawwan Thursday charged three Syrians of belonging to ISIS and attacking the Lebanese Army. Khaled Mohammad Abu Saad was charged in absentia with belonging to ISIS, attacking the Army, attempted murder of soldiers and burning military posts in the northeastern border town of Arsal. An arrest warrant was issued […]

  The Lebanese army has thwarted a terrorist plot to target areas in North Bekaa with dozens of rockets, An Nahar daily reported on Thursday. The newspaper said that the army arrested 30 people, three of them holding the U.S. nationality, after it received information about the plot. Three of the suspects are Koreans and […]

  Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Monday described extremist groups as intruders, vowing to spread the culture of tolerance along with Muslims. “We lived with Muslims for 1,400 years in the Orient and all the terrorist organizations that threaten and kill are aliens,” al-Rahi told a delegation of youth from several bishoprics across the world. […]

  BEIRUT: An exchange of gunfire around dawn Tuesday between rival drug gangs near the Palestinian refugee camp of Shatila in Beirut’s southern suburbs left two wounded, security sources told The Daily Star. The sources said that two Palestinian gangs engaged in clashes in Shatila’s Farhat neighborhood, causing tensions to soar in the camp. The […]

  BEIRUT: An exchange of gunfire around dawn Tuesday between rival drug gangs near the Palestinian refugee camp of Shatila in Beirut’s southern suburbs left two wounded, security sources told The Daily Star. The sources said that two Palestinian gangs engaged in clashes in Shatila’s Farhat neighborhood, causing tensions to soar in the camp. The […]

  Prime Minister Tammam Salam has said that he called for a cabinet session next Thursday because he could no longer wait for the rival political parties to resolve their disputes. Salam was quoted as saying by his visitors “I could no longer wait.” The PM invited the cabinet to convene, saying the agenda would […]