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BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdel Latif Derian warned on Sunday that the country was once again “falling apart as if those in charge had not learned from previous experiences, which have cost the Lebanese their lives and livelihoods.”
His warning came as Lebanon prepares to commemorate the 17th anniversary of the assassination of late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on Monday amid an ongoing political dispute, fueled by Hezbollah, over how the Cabinet will approve the 2022 draft budget.
The commemoration of Feb. 14 in Beirut is taking place amid uncertainty within the Future Movement after Sunni leader and former Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced his withdrawal from political life and asked his parliamentary bloc not to run for the upcoming parliamentary elections under the party’s name.
Hariri will thus participate in commemorating his father’s assassination without giving his usual speech.
Meanwhile, several political and religious figures visited Rafik Hariri’s tomb in downtown Beirut on Sunday.
“How long can the list of martyrs get? Lebanon itself has almost become a martyr,” Derian commented as he stood before the tomb.
He added: “Today, Lebanon is mired in moral corruption, political failure, and financial and economic collapse.
“Honoring the martyr Hariri lies in preserving his moral and national heritage and continuing public work in light of the constructive approach that he adopted throughout his career until his last breath.”
Also speaking before the tomb, former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said: “The moment Hariri was assassinated on Feb. 14, 2005, the project to destroy the state was launched, aiming at creating multiple powers and disrupting the state’s pillars.
“The attempts to sabotage Lebanon’s parliamentary democratic system are ongoing, intending to change Lebanon’s identity and append it to the well-known regional project.”
Siniora stressed Lebanon’s need for national rescue action by reviving the principles of Rafik Hariri’s national project.
“This is based on restoring the role of the state and extending its full authority over all its lands and facilities,” said Siniora, adding that there is a need to adopt reform policies and rely on Islamic-Christian coexistence.
Siniora stressed the importance of respecting the constitution and implementing the Taif Agreement to restore the national, economic and social wellbeing of Lebanon and the Lebanese.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah and the Amal Movement accused President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Najib Mikati of “passing the budget in the last session without voting on it and making appointments that were not agreed upon.”
Culture Minister Mohammed Wissam Al-Murtada said: “The draft budget was still under discussion, but some proposed amendments and some figures had not yet been handed over to the ministers, despite our repeated requests.
“This means that the Cabinet did not conclude its discussion of the draft budget, did not vote on it, nor did it approve or reject it.”
Al-Murtada claimed that the appointments that were made were not on the Cabinet’s agenda.
“We objected, but suddenly and without a vote, and after the session was adjourned, we learned that the Cabinet had decided on the appointments.”
Ali Khreis, an MP with the Development and Liberation bloc headed by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, said that what happened “does not reflect any responsibility toward basic issues, and only reflects the reality of the law of the jungle and chaos.”
The recovery plan that the government is working on and the draft budget approved by the Cabinet face political and popular objections, mainly from Hezbollah and the Amal movement.
Activists staged a sit-in on Saturday evening near Mikati’s residence, expressing their anger at burdening the people.
The National Salvation Front said: “The ruling authority wants to place the losses of the economic and financial crisis on citizens’ shoulders in defense of the interests of its mafia-militia alliance, without taking any reform steps that help the country overcome the crisis.”
Addressing the Lebanese after approving the draft budget, Mikati said that “a correction has been made to taxes and fees based on the inflation occurring in the exchange rate,” meaning that the budget will adopt the price of an exchange platform in which the dollar exchange rate is equivalent to the black-market rate.
He noted that the economic recovery plan that was being worked on “is the basis for discussion with the (International Monetary Fund). We must set our priorities and carry out the required reforms.
“There are over 14 reform decrees that must be issued by the government, and over 30 reform laws must be issued by parliament.”
Mikati added: “We can no longer provide electricity, telecom, and water for free, and citizens should be more understanding.”
The prime minister warned: “If we do not speed up reform, we may reach a point where we may no longer be able to import wheat. If the issue had been resolved a year ago, the fiscal deficit would have been around $40 billion, while today it is around $70 billion.”
Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Bishop of Beirut Elias Audi referred to the economic crisis during his Sunday sermon.
The bishop said: “From where will citizens get the money to pay the expected price increases when they are barely able to feed their children?
“Are citizens responsible for the state’s collapse and bankruptcy and the Lebanese pound devaluation?
“Is it not the state’s duty to put an end to corruption in its institutions, control its borders, stop waste and smuggling, curb tax and customs evasion, close useless funds and unproductive councils, and collect their dues?”
SAMAWAH, Iraq: Gazelles at an Iraqi wildlife reserve are dropping dead from hunger, making them the latest victims in a country where climate change is compounding hardships after years of war. In little over one month, the slender-horned gazelle population at the Sawa reserve in southern Iraq has plunged from 148 to 87. Lack of funding along with a shortage of rain has deprived them of food, as the country’s drought dries up lakes and leads to declining crop yields. President Barham Saleh has warned that tackling climate change “must become a national priority for Iraq as it is an existential threat to the future of our generations to come.” The elegant animals, also known as rhim gazelles, are recognizable by their gently curved horns and sand-colored coats. The International Union for Conservation of Nature classes the animals as endangered on its Red List. Outside Iraq’s reserves, they are mostly found in the deserts of Libya, Egypt and Algeria but are unlikely to number “more than a few hundred” there, according to the Red List. Turki Al-Jayashi , director of the Sawa reserve, said gazelle numbers there plunged by around 40 percent in just one month to the end of May. “They no longer have a supply of food because we have not received the necessary funds” which had come from the government, Al-Jayashi said. Iraq’s finances are under pressure after decades of war in a poverty-stricken country needing agricultural and other infrastructure upgrades. It is grappling with corruption, a financial crisis and political deadlock which has left Iraq without a new government months after the October elections. “The climate has also strongly affected the gazelles,” which lack forage in the desert-like region, Al-Jayashi added. At three other Iraqi reserves further north, the number of rhim gazelles has fallen by 25 percent in the past three years to 224 animals, according to an agriculture ministry official who asked to remain anonymous. He blamed the drop at the reserves in Al-Madain near Baghdad, and in Diyala and Kirkuk on a “lack of public financing.” At the Sawa reserve, established in 2007 near the southern city of Samawah, the animals pant under the scorching sun. The brown and barren earth is dry beyond recovery, and meager shrubs that offer slight nourishment are dry and tough. Some gazelles, including youngsters still without horns, nibble hay spread out on the flat ground. Others take shelter under a metal roof, drinking water from a trough. Summer hasn’t even begun but temperatures have already hit 50 degrees Celsius in parts of the country. The effects of drought have been compounded by dramatic falls in the level of some rivers due to dams upstream and on tributaries in Turkey and Iran. Desertification affects 39 percent of Iraqi land, the country’s president has warned. “Water scarcity negatively affects all our regions. It will lead to reduced fertility of our agricultural lands because of salination,” Saleh said. He has sent 100 million dinars (over $68,000) in an effort to help save the Sawa reserve’s rhim gazelles, Al-Jayashi said. But the money came too late for some. Five more have just died, their carcasses lying together on the brown earth.
CAIRO: The Supreme Committee for the Management of the Epidemiology and Health Pandemic Crisis in Egypt has announced the abolition of all restrictions imposed on the entry of Egyptians or foreigners.
This followed a review of the epidemiological situation inside and outside the country, during a meeting of the committee headed by Dr. Mostafa Madbouly, prime minister of Egypt, at the government headquarters in the new administrative capital.
The official spokesman for the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Ambassador Nader Saad, said: “During the meeting, a decision was approved stipulating that all restrictions imposed on the entry of Egyptians or foreigners into the Arab Republic of Egypt should be canceled.”
Dr. Khaled Abdel Ghafar, minister of higher education and scientific research, reviewed the latest epidemiological developments for the coronavirus locally and globally. He also reviewed the current statistics on vaccination, explaining that about 86.6 million doses were provided to citizens, with 4.5 million booster doses following. He added that there are currently 57.5 million doses available.
Spokesman for the Egyptian Ministry of Health, Hossam Abdel Ghaffar, said that the decision to cancel restrictions on the entry of Egyptians and foreigners was based on a study of the epidemiological situation around the world.
“The situation in Egypt is in a state of severe improvement, and the rates of infection and hospitalization are decreasing,” Abdel Ghaffar said.
He said that the Supreme Committee took the decision to lift the measures based on the above, explaining that “38 countries worldwide have taken the same measures since May.”
“Today, after two years of dealing with the coronavirus, vaccines have been made available, the virus and its mutations have been understood, and the health world is looking at a different strategy toward the epidemic,” he said.
LONDON: Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi met with Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa on Saturday in Egypt’s Sharm El-Sheikh, the Egyptian Presidency said in a statement.
The pair discussed bilateral ties and regional and international developments, the statement added.
During the meeting, which also discussed joint cooperation particularly in the fields of investment and economy, El-Sisi expressed Egypt’s keenness to strengthen cooperation and coordination to help the region confront current challenges.
King Hamad praised Egypt's role in ensuring security and stability in the region and highlighted the historic ties his country has with Egypt, while noting the improvement of ties between Manama and Cairo in various economic, political and developmental fields, adding that Bahrain is keen on strengthening these relations.
El-Sisi and King Hamad welcomed the upcoming summit being hosted by Saudi Arabia next month during US President Joe Biden’s visit to the Kingdom.
The summit will bring together Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) leaders, Jordan’s King Abdullah, El-Sisi and Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi as well as Biden.
AL-MUKALLA: Four Yemeni army soldiers were killed and 17 more wounded in the latest wave of Houthi attacks in three days, Yemen’s Defense Ministry said, adding a further blow to the UN-brokered truce.
The ministry said that the Houthis violated the truce 288 times on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in former flaring battlefields across the country.
It added that Yemeni forces pushed back many attempts by the Houthis to seize control of new areas and came under drone and missile attacks by the Houthis in the provinces of Hodeidah, Taiz, Marib, Hajjah, Jouf and Dhale.
Most of the Houthi attacks — 80 violations — occurred in the contested Hays district in Hodeidah province followed by 65 violations in Taiz where the Houthis attacked government troops with explosives-rigged drones and medium and heavy machine guns, killing four soldiers and wounding 17.
The total number of army deaths since last Saturday is nine.
Brig. Gen. Abdu Abdullah Majili, a Yemeni Army spokesperson, told Arab News that the army is still observing the truce, despite the Houthi’s violations, repeating appeals to the international community to mount pressure on the Houthis to stop the attacks.
“The terrorist Houthi militia have broken the renewed truce hundreds of times in a clear disregard to international agreements. There are many martyrs in the army in the attacks,” Majili said.
Despite confirmed reports about the violations, the UN and international aid organizations said that human casualties have significantly dropped during the truce and vital humanitarian assistance reached the needy across the country.
In Sanaa, the Houthis arranged military funerals for five officers who were killed on the battlefield.
Dozens of dead Houthi fighters have been buried in similar military funerals during the past two months across the Houthi-controlled areas.
In addition to reducing hostilities, the truce that came into effect on April 2 allowed the resumption of commercial flights from Sanaa airport for the first time in six years and also at least a dozen fuel ships entered Hodeidah port.
But the Houthis have not lifted their siege on Yemen’s city of Taiz, one of the elements of the truce despite two rounds of talks with the Yemeni government and mounting international pressure.
Separately, the EU on Saturday called on local authorities in Yemen’s southern city of Aden to find the people who assassinated journalist Saber Al-Haidari last week.
Al-Haidari, a Yemeni Information Ministry employee and a reporter for a Japanese media outlet, was burned to death in Aden after an IED ripped through his car.
“The EU condemns the killing of journalist Saber Al-Haidari in Aden on Wednesday. We call on the authorities to investigate the incident and bring the culprits to justice,” the EU said on Twitter.
TANGIERS, Morocco: Four women have pressed charges in Morocco against French insurance tycoon Jacques Bouthier, currently under arrest in Paris on charges of raping a minor, a rights group said Friday. Bouthier is accused of various acts of “people trafficking, sexual harassment and verbal and moral violence,” between 2018 and this year, said Karima Salama, a lawyer from the Moroccan Association for the Rights of Victims (AMDV). “An enquiry has been opened and we have faith in the justice system,” she said at a press conference in the northern port city of Tangiers, where the four alleged victims, aged from 26 to 28, had been employed by Bouthier’s firm. Bouthier, 75 and one of France’s richest men, is ex-CEO of insurance group Assu2000, later renamed Vilavi. Three of his Moroccan alleged victims told journalists on Friday about their experiences, using sanitary masks and dark glasses to hide their identities. “He asked to sleep with me and when I said no, he asked me to introduce him to a sister, a female cousin or a friend, saying he would give me a nice present in exchange,” one said. The women said they had been sacked after refusing to “give in to harassment and blackmail” over their employment by Bouthier and other French and Moroccan executives. The women said they had faced repeated sexual harassment and intimidation as well as threats to their jobs, in a city where many struggle to find work. One said he had presented them to men working at the firm, telling them: ‘If you bring in contracts, there will be beautiful Moroccan girls’. “Jacques Bouthier... believes that with his financial power he can get away with anything, in complete impunity,” said AMDV chief Aicha Guellaa. Bouthier, was indicted on May 21 and arrested by Paris prosecutors after a preliminary investigation into accusations of people trafficking and rape of a minor. He is also being prosecuted for conspiracy to kidnap, kidnapping in an organized gang and possession of child pornography.