A barber works on the sidewalk outside his shop in Saida on Thursday amid severe power outages across the country. (Credit: Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP)
Yesterday’s Parliament session to discuss a parallel investigation into the Beirut blast was canceled after it failed to gain quorum when a majority of MPs boycotted it. MPs affiliated with the Lebanese Forces, the Progressive Socialist Party and the Free Patriotic Movement boycotted the session, and the bulk of the Future Movement’s bloc did not attend. Some 200 protesters blocked the road in Beirut’s Verdun leading to the UNESCO Palace, where the session was set to take place. The civilians denounced any notion of a parallel blast probe, instead calling for a boycott of the session and for immunity to be lifted from top officials to allow the lead investigator, Judge Tarek Bitar, to continue his probe into the explosion. “The postponement of the session is a consolation,” Ibrahim Hoteit, a spokesperson for the families of the blast victims, told L’Orient Today, adding that protesters will put more pressure on politicians, who have “made their intentions clear that they will try to avoid justice as much as they can.”
President Michel Aoun yesterday asked Riad Salameh to rescind his decision to lift fuel subsidies, hours after the central bank governor had reaffirmed it. A statement from the presidency reported that Aoun had asked Salameh to stick to the government’s “exceptional approval” and continue subsidizing fuel imports at a rate of LL3,900 to the US dollar until the government approves a ration card program for vulnerable residents. On Wednesday, BDL announced that it will finance fuel imports at the parallel market rate — currently about LL21,000 to the dollar — in what it said was an effort to curb smuggling and avoid dipping into its mandatory reserves to continue subsidizing imports, which it called illegal. Our sister publication, L’Orient-Le Jour, reported that officials are working on passing a law that would authorize BDL to tap into its mandatory reserves to keep the subsidies in place. BDL’s announcement prompted countrywide roadblocks and was roundly condemned by several syndicates, including the General Federation of Lebanese Workers, the Order of Nurses and the Beirut port truck drivers syndicate.
Hospitals are warning they may buckle under the pressure of another COVID-19 surge amid the drug, diesel and equipment shortages of recent months. The head of Parliament’s Health Committee, MP Assem Araji (Future/Zahle), told L’Orient Today that the health sector may hit rock bottom if another coronavirus surge ensues, as many people continue to ignore social distancing and masking guidelines, while others refuse to take a COVID-19 vaccination. The daily number of new COVID-19 cases has risen from about 300–500 a day last month, to almost 2,000 a day yesterday. On Wednesday, more than 2,500 new cases were recorded. Although a new wave would not be the first time for hospitals to be overrun by coronavirus patients, this time around the drug and electricity shortages pose an added challenge and catalyze a reckoning for the health sector’s neglect by the state.
State telephone and internet services have shut down for all but a few hours a day in the north. Ogero interchanges in several northern areas ran out of diesel to run generators on Thursday, leaving towns such as Akkar al-Atiqa, Bireh and Sir al-Dinnieh only able to access its telecom services when they receive power from the state utility, Electricité du Liban. However, the country has been experiencing prolonged electricity blackouts, with EDL failing to provide power at all in some areas due to a dearth of fuel oil to run its plants. Ogero’s head, Imad Kreidieh, told L’Orient Today that the intermittent outages would be temporary.