BEIRUT: She is a nurse at a Beirut hospital, and still Rita Harb can’t find her grandfather’s heart drugs.
She has searched pharmacies up and down Lebanon, called friends abroad. Not even her connections with doctors could secure the drugs. Unlike many amid Lebanon’s financial crash, she can afford them — they just aren’t there.
To get by, her 85-year-old grandfather is substituting his medicine with more pills of a smaller concentration to reach his dosage. That too could run out soon.
“But if he dies, he dies,” Harb said with a small, bitter laugh of resignation that has become a common reaction among Lebanese to their country’s multiple crises.
Drugs for everything from diabetes and blood pressure to anti-depressants and fever pills used in COVID-19 treatment have disappeared from shelves around Lebanon.
Officials and pharmacists say the shortage was exacerbated by panic buying and hoarding after the Central Bank governor said that with foreign reserves running low, the government won’t be able to keep up subsidies, including on drugs.
That announcement “caused a storm, an earthquake,” said Ghassan Al-Amin, head of the pharmacist syndicate.
Lebanese now scour the country and beyond for crucial medications. The elderly ask around religious charities and aid groups. Family members plead on social media or travel to neighboring Syria. Expats are sending in donations.
It’s the newest stage in the economic collapse of this country of 5 million, once a regional hub for banking, real estate and medical services.
More than half the population has been pushed into poverty and people’s savings have lost value. Public debt is crippling, and the local currency plunged, losing nearly 80% of its value. The health sector is buckling under the financial strain and coronavirus pandemic.
Lebanese are back to hoarding basics, such as water and fuel, like they did during the country’s 15-year civil war. Trust in the ruling class — mostly in power since the war ended in 1990 — vanished as the country grapples with a financial breakdown, the pandemic, and the fallout from the deadly Aug. 4 explosion at Beirut’s port that wrecked the facility and large swaths of the city.
Lebanon imports nearly everything, including 85% of its pharmaceuticals.
Lifting subsidies is an inevitable step for the highly-indebted government. This is expected to send prices and inflation soaring and the Lebanese pound further tumbling. Fixed at 1,500 to the dollar for decades, it now hovers around 7,000 for $1 on the black market.
People are hoarding medications, fearing they will no longer be able to afford them. Suppliers are shelving drugs, worried they won’t have enough dollars to buy more — or hoping to sell for higher when subsidies are lifted. Strapped pharmacies can’t stock shelves because suppliers now demand cash payment.
Meanwhile, the difference between the official and black market dollar rate energized smuggling, and subsidized Lebanese drugs were now whisked out to neighboring countries.
In the chaos, six out of every 10 brand drugs have become unavailable, said Malak Khiami, the pharmacist at Amel Association, a humanitarian group that offers primary health care.
Out of 3,400 unionized pharmacies, nearly 300 have shut down, Al-Amin said.
The problem became so bad that one enraged buyer, an off-duty soldier, pulled out his gun and threatened a pharmacist who told him he didn’t have Panadol, a basic pain reliever.
At his pharmacy in Bchamoune, outside Beirut, Ziad Jomaa said he and the gun-toting buyer were both victims of a corrupt and failed political class.
The incident, caught on CCTV footage, brought Jomaa sympathy, including from the pain relief suppliers who immediately sent him 50 boxes.
But he had to take new security measures. He closed the pharmacy door at night, only taking orders through a window, and hired a guard.
“They put me in confrontation with the public,” Jomaa said.
Civil groups stepped in to fill the gaps.
At one of Amel’s centers, in Beirut’s Baajour district, 800 people sought medicine or health care at nominal fees in October, nearly double the number in August. Amel has been keeping up its longest emergency relief program since 2006, when a war with Israel destroyed large parts of Beirut and killed over 1,000 people.
“People are suffering big, big time,” said , said Zeina Mohanna, a board member. They “are set in fear for survival.”
Intissar Hatoum, 63, lined up at the center’s dispensary. Gripping a plastic bag with her empty drug boxes, she came for whatever is available: inhalers, hypertension and heart pills, anti-coagulants. Her unemployed husband suffers from kidney disease. Less urgent are her cholesterol pills.
A housewife, Hatoum relies on her taxi driver son to pay medical bills, often skipping warm meals to afford them. He has asked around southern Lebanon and Syria for their prescriptions.
“He didn’t leave a place he didn’t look,” she said.
Lebanese rely heavily on pharmaceuticals. Nearly 44% of all health care spending is on drugs, compared to around 17% percent in Western nations, according to a BlomInvest Bank study.
For decades, the market has been controlled by some two dozen importers. The law awards select importers exclusive rights in each sector, keeping out competitors and giving them enormous power to resist reforms.
The exclusive import rights are a a key feature of Lebanon’s economic order, which after the civil war’s end became controlled by militia chiefs, wealthy traders and real estate owners. Focusing on services, it was reliant on imports and foreign labor.
As that model falls apart, the market for foreign drugs is bound to shrink, said Viviane Akiki, an economic reporter who also covers pharmaceuticals. “The dollar shortage will impose new solutions.”
But it is not clear Lebanon’s small domestic drug production can fill the gap.
In Beirut’s Zoukaq Al-Blat neighborhood, Mahmoud Mahmoud’s pharmacy was quiet. A few painkillers, supplements and shampoo bottles were scattered on otherwise empty shelves.
Mahmoud believes suppliers are holding back medications waiting for higher prices — or smuggling them. One gout drug, he said, was found in Iraq, selling for $7, more than five times its price in Lebanon.
“They are destroying the profession,” said Mahmoud. “With the way the country is going, the profession is collapsing.”
Frantic search after medicines vanish from Lebanon shelves
https://arab.news/997ec
Frantic search after medicines vanish from Lebanon shelves
- Drugs for everything from diabetes and blood pressure to anti-depressants and fever pills used in COVID-19 treatment have disappeared from shelves around Lebanon
Turkish indictment seeks prison for bank CEO in soccer stars case, state media says
ISTANBUL: Turkish prosecutors have prepared an indictment seeking a prison sentence of 72 to 240 years for the chief executive of lender Denizbank for the alleged fraud of soccer stars, state-owned Anadolu news agency reported.
The new indictment relates to a previously opened case on the alleged defrauding of players including Turkiye’s Arda Turan and Uruguay’s Fernando Muslera by a former Denizbank branch manager. Denizbank has denied any role in wrongdoing.
Anadolu on Tuesday reported Denizbank CEO Hakan Ates and former assistant general manager Mehmet Aydogdu, who faces similar charges, had denied the allegations against them in the indictment, prepared by the Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office.
Responding to the widely reported details on the indictment, Denizbank said late on Tuesday: “We have not received any information regarding the prosecutor’s investigation reflected in some press and publication outlets today.”
The bank said the disclosure of the indictment details violated the confidentiality of the case. Details of indictments are regularly released via Anadolu news agency.
Denizbank said last week that Aydogdu had resigned.
“I do not accept the allegations,” CEO Ates is quoted as saying in the indictment.
Aydogdu was quoted as saying: “I have no connection with or knowledge of the matter.”
No arrests have been made or court appearances set in relation to the new indictment.
Under the case opened last year, prosecutors sought a 216-year prison term for Secil Erzan, the former branch manager charged with defrauding soccer celebrities including Turan, a former Barcelona midfielder, and Galatasaray goalkeeper Muslera.
According to last year’s indictment, Erzan defrauded some $44 million from 18 individuals, promising substantial returns on their investments in a “secret special fund.” There are 24 complainants in the latest indictment.
Erzan convinced them to invest in the fund in part by telling them that former Turkish national team coach Fatih Terim had also invested, according to that indictment.
Erzan has been jailed as the case against her continues.
Israeli strikes kill 15 in Gaza as hospital in north of the region makes distress call
- Palestinian officials say Israeli forces kill 15 in Gaza
- Palestinian civil emergency says one staffer killed in air strike
CAIRO: Israeli forces killed at least 15 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, including a rescue worker, health officials said, as tanks deepened their incursion in the area and blew up homes, according to residents.
Medics said at least 12 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in the area of Jabalia, in northern Gaza, earlier on Wednesday. They said at least 10 people remained missing as rescue operations continued. Another man was killed in tank shelling nearby, they said.
In the Sabra suburb of Gaza City, the Palestinian civil emergency said an Israeli air strike targeted one of their teams during a rescue operation, killing one staff and wounding three others.
The death raised the number of civil emergency service members killed since Oct 7, 2023, to 87, it said.
There was no immediate Israeli comment on the two incidents.
Adding to the challenges facing the health care system in north Gaza areas, the civil emergency service said their vehicles were hardly operational because of shortages of fuel and equipment, citing Israel’s continued refusal to allow them to bring the needed supplies.
In Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, medics said one man was killed and others wounded in an Israeli air strike on the eastern territory of the city.
Residents in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya, and Beit Hanoun, where the army has operated since early last month, said forces blew up dozens of houses in the three areas, adding to fears Israel was seeking to clear residents to create a buffer zone, something Israel denies.
Israel said it sent forces into the two towns and refugee camp to fight Hamas militants launching attacks and to prevent them from regrouping. It said it had killed hundreds of them since Oct 5.
Hamas and the Islamic Jihad armed wing claimed they killed many Israeli soldiers in anti-tank and mortar fire as well as ambushes by explosive devices during the same period.
Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of three medical facilities barely operational in the north of the enclave, said the hospital came under Israeli fire on Tuesday.
“The health care system is still operating under extremely harsh conditions. Following the arrest of 45 members of the medical and surgical staff and the denial of entry to a replacement team, we are now losing wounded patients daily who could have survived if resources were available,” said Abu Safiya.
“Unfortunately, food and water are not allowed to enter, and not even a single ambulance is permitted access to the north. Yesterday, the hospital was bombed across all its departments without warning, as we were trying to save an injured person in the intensive care unit,” he added.
Speaking during a visit to Gaza on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Hamas would not rule the Palestinian enclave after the war had ended and that Israel had destroyed the Islamist group’s military capabilities.
Netanyahu also said Israel had not given up trying to locate the 101 remaining hostages believed to be still in the enclave and he offered a $5 million reward for the return of each one.
Qatar, a key ceasefire mediator alongside Egypt, said it informed Hamas and Israel it will stall its mediation efforts unless the two warring parties showed “willingness and seriousness” to reach a deal.
Hamas wants a deal that ends the war, while Netanyahu vowed the war can only end once Hamas is eradicated.
The 2023 attack on Israel, which shattered Israel’s aura of invincibility, marked the country’s bloodiest day in its history, with 1,200 people killed and over 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel responded with its most destructive offensive in Gaza, killing nearly 44,000 people and wounding 103,898, according to the Gaza health ministry, and turning the enclave into a wasteland of rubble with millions desperate for food, fuel, water and sanitation.
France says window of opportunity open for Lebanon ceasefire
PARIS: France’s foreign minister said on Wednesday that US-led efforts for a truce between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon had created the chance for a lasting ceasefire and he called on both sides to accept a deal on the table.
“There is a window of opportunity that’s opening for a lasting ceasefire in Lebanon that would allow the return of those displaced, ensure the sovereignty of Lebanon and the security of Israel,” Jean-Noel Barrot told Europe 1 radio.
“I call on all sides with whom we are in close contact to seize this window.”
Iran offers to cap sensitive uranium stock as IAEA resolution looms
- Tehran has enough material at up to 60 percent purity for four bombs
- Offer conditional on no resolution against Iran, diplomats say
VIENNA: Iran has tried in vain to prevent a Western push for a resolution against it at the UN nuclear watchdog’s board meeting by offering to cap its stock of uranium just shy of weapons grade, the watchdog and diplomats said on Tuesday.
One of two confidential International Atomic Energy Agency reports to member states, both seen by Reuters, said Iran had offered not to expand its stock of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent purity, near the roughly 90 percent of weapons grade, and had made preparations to do that.
The offer is conditional, however, on Western powers abandoning their push for a resolution against Iran at this week’s quarterly meeting of the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors over its lack of cooperation with the IAEA, diplomats said, adding that the push was continuing regardless.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told his French counterpart Jean-Noel Barrot that the push from France, Germany and Britain to submit a resolution against Tehran would “complicate matters” and contradict the “positive atmosphere created between Iran and the IAEA,” the Iranian foreign ministry said on Wednesday.
During IAEA chief Rafael Grossi’s trip to Iran last week, “the possibility of Iran not further expanding its stockpile of uranium enriched up to 60 percent U-235 was discussed,” read one of the two quarterly IAEA reports.
It added that the IAEA had verified Iran had “begun implementation of preparatory measures.” A senior diplomat added that the pace of enrichment to that level had slowed, a step necessary before stopping.
Western diplomats dismissed Iran’s overture as yet another last-minute attempt to avoid censure at a board meeting, much like a vague pledge of deeper cooperation with the IAEA in March of last year that was never fully implemented.
“Stopping enriching to 60 percent, great, they shouldn’t be doing that in the first place as we all know there’s no credible civilian use for the 60 percent,” one Western diplomat said, adding: “It’s something they could switch back on again easily.”
Iran’s offer was to cap the stock of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent at around 185 kg, or the amount it had two days ago, a senior diplomat said. That is enough in principle, if enriched further, for four nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.
The report said Iran’s stock of uranium enriched to up to 60 percent had grown by 17.6 kg in the past quarter to 182.3 kg as of Oct. 26, also enough for four weapons by that measure.
Inspectors
The second report said Iran had also agreed to consider allowing four more “experienced inspectors” to work in Iran after it barred most of the IAEA’s inspectors who are experts in enrichment last year in what the IAEA called a “very serious blow” to its ability to do its job properly in Iran.
Diplomats said they could not be the same inspectors that were barred.
The reports were delayed by Grossi’s trip, during which he hoped to persuade Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian to end a standoff with the IAEA over long-running issues like unexplained uranium traces at undeclared sites and extending IAEA oversight to more areas.
The draft resolution backed by Britain, France, Germany and the United States condemning Iran for its poor cooperation with the IAEA would also task the IAEA with issuing a “comprehensive report” on Iran’s nuclear activities, diplomats said.
There is little doubt the board will pass the resolution, due to be formally submitted on Tuesday evening for a vote later this week. The last resolution against Iran was in June. Only Russia and China opposed it.
The aim is to pressure Iran to return to the negotiating table to agree fresh restrictions on its nuclear activities since a 2015 deal with far-ranging curbs fell apart. Although most of its terms have been broken, the deal’s “termination day” formally lifting them is in October of next year.
It is the last quarterly board meeting before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear deal in 2018, which prompted its unraveling. It is far from clear if he would back talks with Iran, having pledged instead to again take a more confrontational approach and align Washington even more closely with Iran’s arch-foe Israel, which opposed the deal.
Iraq launches its first national census in nearly four decades
- The census will be the first to employ advanced technologies for gathering and analyzing data, providing a comprehensive picture of Iraq’s demographic, social, and economic landscape
BAGHDAD: Iraq began its first nationwide population census in decades Wednesday, a step aimed at modernizing data collection and planning in a country long impacted by conflict and political divisions.
The act of counting the population is also contentious. The census is expected to have profound implications for Iraq’s resource distribution, budget allocations and development planning.
Minority groups fear that a documented decline in their numbers will bring decreased political influence and fewer economic benefits in the country’s sectarian power-sharing system.
The count in territories such as Kirkuk, Diyala and Mosul — where control is disputed between the central government in Baghdad and the semi-autonomous Kurdish regional government in the north — has drawn intense scrutiny.
Ali Arian Saleh, the executive director of the census at the Ministry of Planning, said agreements on how to conduct the count in the disputed areas were reached in meetings involving Iraq’s prime minister, president and senior officials from the Kurdish region.
“Researchers from all major ethnic groups — Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, and Christians — will conduct the census in these areas to ensure fairness,” he said.
The last nationwide census in Iraq was held in 1987. Another one held in 1997 excluded the Kurdish region.
The new census “charts a developmental map for the future and sends a message of stability,” Planning Minister Mohammed Tamim said in a televised address.
The census will be the first to employ advanced technologies for gathering and analyzing data, providing a comprehensive picture of Iraq’s demographic, social, and economic landscape, offiials say. Some 120,000 census workers will survey households across the country, covering approximately 160 housing units each over two days.
The Interior Ministry announced a nationwide curfew during the census period, restricting movement of citizens, vehicles and trains between cities, districts and rural areas, with exceptions for humanitarian cases.
The count will be carried out using the “de jure” method, in which people are counted in their usual area of residence, Saleh said.
That means that people internally displaced by years of war will be counted in the areas where they have since settled, not in their original communities. The census will not include Iraqis residing abroad or those forcibly displaced to other countries.
Saleh estimated Iraq’s population at 44.5 million and said the Kurdish region’s share of the national budget — currently 12 percent — is based on an estimated population of 6 million. The census will also clarify the number of public employees in the region.
By order of Iraq’s federal court, the census excluded questions about ethnicity and sectarian affiliation, focusing solely on broad religious categories such as Muslim and Christian.
“This approach is intended to prevent tensions and ensure the census serves developmental rather than divisive goals,” Saleh said. The census will be monitored by international observers who will travel across Iraq’s provinces to assess the data quality, he said.
Hogr Chato, director of the Irbil-based Public Aid Organization, said the census will reshape the map of political thinking and future decision making.
“Even though some leaders deny it, the data will inevitably have political and economic implications,” he said. “It’s also fair to allocate budgets based on population numbers, as areas with larger populations or those impacted by war need more resources.”
Chato said he believes the delays in conducting the census were not only due to security concerns but also political considerations. “There was data they didn’t want to make public, such as poverty levels in each governorate,” he said.
Ahead of the census, leaders in Iraq’s various communities urged people to be counted.
In Baghdad’s Adhamiyah district, Abdul Wahhab Al-Samarrai, preacher at Imam Abu Hanifa Mosque, urged citizens to cooperate with the census.
“This is a duty for every Muslim to ensure the rights of future generations,” he said in a Friday sermon the week before the count.
