Parliament met at UNESCO Palace on Monday. (Credit: Hasan Ibrahim/Parliament)
Parliament passed a raft of laws, headlined by one to lift banking secrecy on Banque du Liban and the public institutions for a year to facilitate forensic audits. MPs tackled barely half of the 68 items on the ambitious agenda in the nearly four-hour session, passing legislation to criminalize sexual harassment, beef up domestic violence laws and extend Électricité de Zahlé’s operations, among others. A proposed law to recover money transferred abroad after Oct. 17, 2019 — when Lebanon’s banks first closed their doors — was one of the laws referred to committee rather than passed. Parliamentarians could not agree on laws related to the pressing issue of subsidies, as the central bank’s reserves continue to dwindle while poverty rates rise.
A mysterious murder, bearing the hallmarks of a hit job, in the Aley town of Kahaleh has shocked the nation. Alfa telecom employee Joe Bejjany, an amateur photographer, was gunned down outside his home Monday morning by two assailants who fled the scene on a motorbike. The mayor of the town told L’Orient Today that the attackers left with Bejjany’s mobile phone, adding that it appeared they had been surveilling their victim. Bejjany’s killing follows two unsolved murders in the last six months of a former Customs officer who was formerly stationed at the Beirut port and the head of Byblos Bank’s Ethics & Fraud Risk Management department.
Following a Monday meeting in Baghdad, Iraq’s oil minister announced an agreement to supply Lebanon with fuel, though its mechanism remains vague. Ihsan Abdul Jabbar Ismael said Iraq would sell Lebanon excess fuel oil at global market prices to help the country cover part of its power-generating needs. The Iraqi oil minister said the quantities would be limited and to be announced later, while his Lebanese counterpart said their two ministries would develop mechanisms to implement the agreement. Lebanon is scrambling to secure fuel supplies, with its contract with Algerian state-owned firm Sonatrech set to lapse at the end of next week.
Michel Aoun and Saad Hariri are scheduled to meet this afternoon in Baabda, the president’s media office told L’Orient Today. The president and premier-designate have been at loggerheads over the formation of a new government, last meeting on Dec. 9, when Hariri proposed a lineup of 18 ministers he claimed were independent. Aoun, however, objected to the draft government and the Free Patriotic Movement — founded by the president — and Hariri’s Future Movement have since exchanged barbs. Future Movement official Moustafa Allouche said that he does not see a compromise on the horizon.
Two parliamentary committees are set to meet today to discuss reforms to the judiciary, a proposed Lebanese Drug Administration and retirement compensation for nurses. MP Bilal Abdallah said that the Administration and Justice Committee he belongs to will discuss a proposed law on the independence of the judiciary, saying it has witnessed slow progress. The committee will also tackle a draft formulated by the health committee to regularize Lebanon’s pharmaceutical sector and encourage domestic manufacture under a drug administration modeled after ones in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. MP Assem Araji, who heads the health committee, said this draft, if approved, would then go to a vote in Parliament. He added that his committee will also discuss a draft law to support retirement payments for nurses in both public and private institutions.
Judicial proceedings against Customs chief Badri Daher resume today regarding the blockbuster “Captagon Prince” case. The disgraced official has been charged with illicitly facilitating the lifting of a travel ban on Prince Abdel Mohsen bin Walid Al Saud, who served time for trying to smuggle captagon out of the country, in July 2020. Daher’s lawyer told L’Orient Today that he is unsure whether Daher will appear before the court, which will rule on a procedural motion he submitted last week, due to an outbreak of COVID-19 at the Military Police detention center in Rihanieh where the customs chief is being held. If the judge dismisses the motion, the lawyer said, Investigative Judge Charbel Bou Samra can resume his questioning of Bader.
Lebanon’s COVID-19 restrictions will be relaxed starting from tomorrow night, with the Interior Ministry setting a two-hour curfew. The new 3 to 5 a.m. curfew, which will be in place for Christmas and New Year’s, comes amid demands from owners of nightlife establishments to loosen closing times to help them capitalize on holiday revelry. Amid international concerns over a new COVID-19 variant spreading in the UK, the ministerial committee on the pandemic announced yesterday that it would institute two mandatory PCR tests for passengers arriving to Beirut from London. Many other countries have halted flights from the UK.