Lebanon’s economy and basic services have reached ‘precipice of collapse,’ warns US ambassador

US Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea. (AFP file photo)
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Updated 16 August 2021
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Lebanon’s economy and basic services have reached ‘precipice of collapse,’ warns US ambassador

  • President refuses to bow down to political and popular calls for his resignation
  • Hezbollah leader urges formation of new government at ‘any price’

BEIRUT: Lebanon's economy and basic services have reached the “precipice of collapse,” US ambassador Dorothy Shea warned on Monday, as President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati engaged in dialogue to reach an acceptable formula for a new government.

Speaking after her meeting with Aoun and Mikati, the ambassador said the Lebanese were suffering and that every day without an “empowered government committed to and able to implement urgently needed reforms” was a day in which the already dire situation slid further into humanitarian catastrophe.

“We urge those who continue to block government formation and reform to put aside partisan interests,” she added.

The US welcomed the EU’s new sanctions framework to promote accountability and reform in Lebanon, with the ambassador also saying her country would “continue to coordinate” with its partners on appropriate measures.

“Lebanon needs its leaders to take urgent rescue actions, and that can't happen without an empowered, rescue-focused government that begins to address the needs of the people and begins the hard work of economic recovery.”

On Monday, information spread about French and US pressure on all parties in Lebanon to form a government.

The exchange rate dropped at the beginning of the week to LBP18,500 to the dollar despite the ongoing crises.

Consultations to form a government appear to have reached the stage of choosing ministers after an agreement to distribute portfolios to sects and political parties.

An agreement was reached last week between Aoun and Mikati to keep the sovereign portfolios in line with their previous distribution, with the Ministry of Finance going to the Shiites, the Ministry of Interior going to the Sunnis, and the Ministry of Justice going to the Maronites.

But Future Bloc MP Mohammed Al-Hajjar tempered the prevailing optimism.

“We will see how things play out at the end,” he told Arab News. “There is internal and external pressure on Aoun to facilitate the formation of the government.”

He expressed concern about Aoun's attempt to “absorb these pressures by spreading an atmosphere of optimism and then going back on his promises.”

On Monday, Aoun responded to political and popular demands for him to step down by stating that he would not resign.

He said he would carry out his duties until the end and that the president of the republic — “despite the powers that he had lost” — was a partner in the formation process with the prime minister-designate. The president had the right to choose from among the suggested names “in light of his moral authority.”

“No one will shake my stance or keenness to carry on what I have started in the fight against corruption.”

Aoun accused some of seeking to obstruct the formation of the government, saying that strikes had disrupted trade, industry and production. He insisted on a criminal audit into Banque du Liban.

“The closer we get to the audit, the greater the pressure to prevent it. Corruption is the product of the mafia mentality, as facts have proven over the ages.”

His remarks came as the Lebanese flag was lowered at the presidential palace in mourning for the victims of Sunday’s fuel tanker explosion in the Akkar region.

The Lebanese Red Cross found yet another charred body at the site of the incident, bringing the death toll to 29.

Efforts to agree on a new government have been spurred on by a fuel crisis that has brought much of the country to a standstill.

The tanker tragedy and the desperate fight for basic supplies such as fuel have exposed the deterioration of the state’s health and security sectors, with Hezbollah warning the extent of the chaos could worsen and calling for a government to be put together “in any form and at any price.”

The party's secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah said on Sunday night: “The solution to the issue of lifting subsidies is to form a government that takes the appropriate decision. The situation in the country is intolerable. Let the formation take place within days.”

Hezbollah has been blamed for not seriously pressuring its ally Aoun to form a government, but Nasrallah seemed to be addressing the president in his speech: “Enough. Give up your quotas. Form a government at any cost. Everyone must sacrifice.”

 


15 Turkish-backed fighters killed in north Syria clashes with Kurdish-led forces

Updated 55 min 41 sec ago
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15 Turkish-backed fighters killed in north Syria clashes with Kurdish-led forces

  • SDF fighters “infiltrated positions of the Turkish-backed” troops in the Aleppo countryside, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said
  • The SDF is a US-backed force that spearheaded the fighting against the Daesh group in its last Syria strongholds before its territorial defeat in 2019

BEIRUT: At least 15 Ankara-backed Syrian fighters were killed Sunday after Kurdish-led forces infiltrated their territory in the country’s north, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.
Fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who controls swathes of the country’s northeast, “infiltrated positions of the Turkish-backed” fighters in the Aleppo countryside, said the Observatory, which has a network of sources inside Syria.
“The two sides engaged in violent clashes” that killed 15 of the Ankara-backed fighters, the monitor said.
An AFP correspondent in Syria’s north said the clashes had taken place near the city of Al-Bab, where authorities said schools would be suspended on Monday due to the violence.
The SDF is a US-backed force that spearheaded the fighting against the Daesh group in its last Syria strongholds before its territorial defeat in 2019.
It is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), viewed by Ankara as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which claimed the attack on Ankara.
Turkish troops and allied rebel factions control swathes of northern Syria following successive cross-border offensives since 2016, most of them targeting the SDF.


Israel moving towards a ceasefire deal in Lebanon, Axios reports

Updated 25 November 2024
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Israel moving towards a ceasefire deal in Lebanon, Axios reports

BEIRUT: Israel is moving towards a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon with the Hezbollah militant group, Axios reporter Barak Ravid posted on X on Sunday, citing a senior Israeli official.
A separate report from Israel's public broadcaster Kan, citing an Israeli official, said there was no green light given on an agreement in Lebanon, with issues still yet to be resolved.

 


Russian plane catches fire after landing in Turkiye but passengers and crew are safely evacuated

Updated 35 min 26 sec ago
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Russian plane catches fire after landing in Turkiye but passengers and crew are safely evacuated

  • “Eighty nine passengers and six crew members on board were safely evacuated at 9:43 p.m. (1843 GMT) and there were no injuries”

ANKARA, Turkiye: The engine of a Russian plane with 95 people on board caught fire after landing at Antalya airport in southern Turkiye on Sunday, Turkiye’s transportation ministry said. All passengers and crew were safely evacuated.
The Sukhoi Superjet 100 type aircraft run by Azimuth Airlines had taken off from Sochi and was carrying 89 passengers and six crew members, the ministry said in a statement.
The pilot made an emergency call after the aircraft landed at 9:34 p.m. local time, and airport rescue and firefighting crews quickly extinguished the fire, according to the statement.
No one was hurt, the statement said.
The cause of the fire was not immediately known.
A video of the incident posted by the aviation news website, Airport Haber, showed flames coming out from the left side of the plane as emergency crews doused the aircraft. Passengers were seen evacuating the plane through an emergency slide, some carrying belongings.
The transportation ministry said efforts were underway to remove the aircraft from the runway. Arrivals at the airport were temporarily suspended while departures were taking place from a military-run runway.

 


War-hit Lebanon suspends in-person classes in Beirut area til end of December

Smoke billows over Beirut’s southern suburbs after an Israeli strike, seen from Baabda.
Updated 25 November 2024
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War-hit Lebanon suspends in-person classes in Beirut area til end of December

  • Education minister announced “the suspension of in-person teaching” in schools, technical institutes and private higher education institutions in Beirut
  • Suspension of in-person teaching also applies to parts of neighboring Metn, Baabda and Shouf districts starting Monday

BEIRUT: Lebanon has suspended in-person classes in the Beirut area until the end of December, the education ministry announced Sunday, citing safety concerns after a series of Israeli air strikes this week.
Education Minister Abbas Halabi announced in a statement “the suspension of in-person teaching” in schools, technical institutes and private higher education institutions in Beirut and parts of the neighboring Metn, Baabda and Shouf districts starting Monday “for the safety of students, educational institutions and parents, in light of the current dangerous conditions.”
Earlier on Sunday, Lebanese state media reported two Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, about an hour after the Israeli military posted evacuation calls online for parts of the Hezbollah bastion.
“Israeli warplanes launched two violent strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in the Kafaat area,” the official National News Agency said.
The southern Beirut area has been repeatedly struck since September 23 when Israel intensified its air campaign also targeting Hezbollah bastions in Lebanon’s east and south. It later sent in ground troops to southern Lebanon.


Legal threats close in on Israel’s Netanyahu, could impact ongoing wars   

Updated 24 November 2024
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Legal threats close in on Israel’s Netanyahu, could impact ongoing wars   

  • The trial opened in 2020 and Netanyahu is finally scheduled to take the stand next month after the court rejected his latest request to delay testimony on the grounds that he had been too busy overseeing the war to prepare his defense

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces legal perils at home and abroad that point to a turbulent future for the Israeli leader and could influence the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, analysts and officials say. The International Criminal Court (ICC) stunned Israel on Thursday by issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the 13-month-old Gaza conflict. The bombshell came less than two weeks before Netanyahu is due to testify in a corruption trial that has dogged him for years and could end his political career if he is found guilty. He has denied any wrongdoing. While the domestic bribery trial has polarized public opinion, the prime minister has received widespread support from across the political spectrum following the ICC move, giving him a boost in troubled times.
Netanyahu has denounced the court’s decision as antisemitic and denied charges that he and Gallant targeted Gazan civilians and deliberately starved them.
“Israelis get really annoyed if they think the world is against them and rally around their leader, even if he has faced a lot of criticism,” said Yonatan Freeman, an international relations expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
“So anyone expecting that the ICC ruling will end this government, and what they see as a flawed (war) policy, is going to get the opposite,” he added.
A senior diplomat said one initial consequence was that Israel might be less likely to reach a rapid ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon or secure a deal to bring back hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.
“This terrible decision has ... badly harmed the chances of a deal in Lebanon and future negotiations on the issue of the hostages,” said Ofir Akunis, Israel’s consul general in New York.
“Terrible damage has been done because these organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas ... have received backing from the ICC and thus they are likely to make the price higher because they have the support of the ICC,” he told Reuters.
While Hamas welcomed the ICC decision, there has been no indication that either it or Hezbollah see this as a chance to put pressure on Israel, which has inflicted huge losses on both groups over the past year, as well as on civilian populations.

IN THE DOCK The ICC warrants highlight the disconnect between the way the war is viewed here and how it is seen by many abroad, with Israelis focused on their own losses and convinced the nation’s army has sought to minimize civilian casualties.
Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, said the ICC move would likely harden resolve and give the war cabinet license to hit Gaza and Lebanon harder still.
“There’s a strong strand of Israeli feeling that runs deep, which says ‘if we’re being condemned for what we are doing, we might just as well go full gas’,” he told Reuters.
While Netanyahu has received wide support at home over the ICC action, the same is not true of the domestic graft case, where he is accused of bribery, breach of trust and fraud.
The trial opened in 2020 and Netanyahu is finally scheduled to take the stand next month after the court rejected his latest request to delay testimony on the grounds that he had been too busy overseeing the war to prepare his defense.
He was due to give evidence last year but the date was put back because of the war. His critics have accused him of prolonging the Gaza conflict to delay judgment day and remain in power, which he denies. Always a divisive figure in Israel, public trust in Netanyahu fell sharply in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas assault on southern Israel that caught his government off guard, cost around 1,200 lives.
Israel’s subsequent campaign has killed more than 44,000 people and displaced nearly all Gaza’s population at least once, triggering a humanitarian catastrophe, according to Gaza officials.
The prime minister has refused advice from the state attorney general to set up an independent commission into what went wrong and Israel’s subsequent conduct of the war.
He is instead looking to establish an inquiry made up only of politicians, which critics say would not provide the sort of accountability demanded by the ICC.
Popular Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth said the failure to order an independent investigation had prodded the ICC into action. “Netanyahu preferred to take the risk of arrest warrants, just as long as he did not have to form such a commission,” it wrote on Friday.

ARREST THREAT The prime minister faces a difficult future living under the shadow of an ICC warrant, joining the ranks of only a few leaders to have suffered similar humiliation, including Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi and Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic.
It also means he risks arrest if he travels to any of the court’s 124 signatory states, including most of Europe.
One place he can safely visit is the United States, which is not a member of the ICC, and Israeli leaders hope US President-elect Donald Trump will bring pressure to bear by imposing sanctions on ICC officials.
Mike Waltz, Trump’s nominee for national security adviser, has already promised tough action: “You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January,” he wrote on X on Friday. In the meantime, Israeli officials are talking to their counterparts in Western capitals, urging them to ignore the arrest warrants, as Hungary has already promised to do.
However, the charges are not going to disappear soon, if at all, meaning fellow leaders will be increasingly reluctant to have relations with Netanyahu, said Yuval Shany, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute.
“In a very direct sense, there is going to be more isolation for the Israeli state going forward,” he told Reuters.