A man wearing a protective mask due to the COVID-19 pandemic walks past a Christmas tree in Beirut’s Achrafieh district. (Credit: Anwar Amro/AFP)
Authorities are set to further loosen COVID-19 restrictions as Lebanon enters the festive season even as the pandemic picks up pace. The number of patients in intensive care rose from 391 last Sunday to 418 yesterday, while there has been an uptick in local positivity rates in the past week. The 11:30 p.m. curfew has been extended through Tuesday, with the ministerial committee on COVID-19 recommending the closing time be moved back to 3 a.m. starting on Wednesday night. Caretaker Youth and Sports Minister Vartiné Ohanian, who attended the Friday ministerial committee meeting, announced the following day she had tested positive for the virus.
Students gathered Saturday in the Hamra quarter of Beirut to protest recent moves by private universities requiring the payment of tuition fees at an exchange rate of LL3,900 to the dollar. The new payment guidelines, which were instituted by the American University of Beirut and the Lebanese American University, effectively more than doubled tuition fees, which were previously frozen at the official rate of LL1,515. Security forces dispersed protesters from outside AUB’s main gate in the evening, injuring some of the demonstrators following a confrontation where bottles were thrown by students. Groups of angry protesters then smashed bank windows in the neighborhood.
Parliament will convene in the UNESCO Palace at 11 a.m. today for an ambitious single-day legislative session to vote on a wide-ranging set of draft laws. The draft agenda, reviewed by L’Orient Today, encompasses some 70 items, including the criminalization of sexual harassment, the formation of a temporary unemployment relief fund, the removal of subsidies on imported pharmaceuticals that have locally produced equivalents and the lifting of banking secrecy on public accounts. Parliament is also expected to vote on a draft law, approved in committee on Thursday, to extend the operational contract between Électricité de Zahle and Électricité du Liban, which is set to lapse at the end of the year. Capital controls, notably, are off the agenda.
The probe into Customs Director Badri Daher over the circumstances of the release of a Saudi prince caught trying to smuggle captagon resumes tomorrow. Beirut Appellate Court First Investigative Judge Charbel Bou Samra had postponed the questioning of the disgraced official last week to study a procedural motion submitted by his attorney. Daher, who has also been charged in the probe of the Aug. 4 Beirut port explosion, is under investigation for allegedly misusing his position and accepting a bribe to help secure Prince Abdel Mohsen bin Walid Al Saud’s release from Lebanon in July 2020 without paying a fine. The case against Badri was sparked by a complaint filed by Al Jadeed investigative journalist Riad Kobaissi.
Michel Aoun and Saad Hariri are expected to meet early this week to discuss cabinet formation, the president’s media office told L’Orient Today. The president and premier-designate have been at loggerheads as the country slips toward subsidy cuts and potential catastrophe. The media offices of the Free Patriotic Movement, founded by Aoun, and Hariri’s Future Movement engaged in a war of words Saturday night over the constitutional prerogatives of the president in the formation process. Aoun on Dec. 14 said he rejected Hariri’s proposed cabinet lineup because he does not agree with the premier-designate naming all the ministers himself “without the agreement of the president.”
Lebanon celebrates Western Christmas on Friday. Dec. 25 will be observed as a banking holiday, with public institutions set to close.