Search
Search

MORNING BRIEF

Hezbollah drones condemned, forced returns to Syria, lights out in Mar Mikhael: Everything you need to know to start your Tuesday

Here’s what happened yesterday and what to expect today, Tuesday, July 5

Hezbollah drones condemned, forced returns to Syria, lights out in Mar Mikhael: Everything you need to know to start your Tuesday

Signs on a residential building in Mar Mikhael protest noise complaints. (Mohamad El Chamaa/L'Orient Today)

Want to get the Morning Brief by email? Click here to sign up.

Amal Movement MPs Ali Hassan Khalil and Nasser Jaber introduced a draft law on Monday that would prohibit the government or Banque du Liban from haircutting deposits for any reason. The financial recovery plan is subject to constant unexplained and confusing changes and seems destined never to be finalized, but all versions of it involve a haircut on deposits given the size of the losses in the banking sector. Deposits in Lebanon are highly concentrated, with a relatively small number of accounts holding a huge proportion of the total. These large accounts also benefited from outrageous interest rates on public debt in the years leading up to the financial system’s collapse. Khalil, the subject of two arrest warrants for his alleged role in the Beirut port explosion, continues his activities with impunity and is among several senior politicians blocking the investigation into the explosion.

Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati and caretaker Foreign Affairs Minister Abdallah Bou Habib condemned a Hezbollah operation over the weekend that sent three unarmed drones towards the disputed Karish offshore gas field. The joint statement from the two ministers said that “any act outside the responsibility of the government and the diplomatic path in which the [maritime border] negotiations is happening is not acceptable and poses risks that are avoidable.” The Hezbollah mission coincided with a consultative meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Beirut on Saturday under the auspices of the Arab League. Hezbollah’s role in Lebanese politics has been a sticking point with several powerful Arab states in recent years, contributing to a full-blown diplomatic crisis with the Arab Gulf states last fall that has still not fully resolved.

Caretaker Minister for the Displaced Issam Charafeddine declared on Monday that a new government plan will aim to repatriate Syrian refugees living in Lebanon at a rate of 15,000 per month. Charafeddine met with President Michel Aoun to brief him on the government’s efforts, saying, “It is totally unacceptable for the displaced not to return to their country after it has become safe.” He claimed the Syrian government will cooperate with the Lebanese authorities on the file, although it was not clear what that cooperation might entail and the Syrian government is itself a primary reason many refugees would not like to return. A flurry of reports released in 2021 by rights groups, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, maintained that Syria is “unsafe for return” and detailed the abuses Syrians risk upon returning to their country. The reports have corroborated that, while there has been a decline in military conflict, “arbitrary arrests, detention, torture and ill-treatment, involuntary or enforced disappearances, rape and death” are still common in Syria.

The Beirut municipality has launched a campaign to reduce noise pollution from bars and nightclubs in Mar Mikhael. Spurred by complaints from local residents, business owners will be instructed to lower music volumes and completely turn off their sound systems by 1 a.m. Both rules are already present in the law, but the city has not made concerted efforts to enforce them previously. The city will also oblige the area’s nightlife businesses to clear outdoor seating off sidewalks and will attempt to rein in valet parking services that have expropriated the area’s on-street parking as part of their business model. Mar Mikhael’s sidewalks all but disappear into restaurant seating and illegal sidewalk parking each evening, and traffic grinds to a near halt. The effects of the new municipal campaign on one of the capital’s major nightlife hubs remains to be seen. A spokesperson for the governor said they hope to divert revelers from residential neighborhoods towards downtown, but as Hamra and, Monot before it, can attest, bar-goers are a fickle lot.

Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh sent a letter to opposition MP Melhem Khalaf providing details on Lebanon’s foreign reserves and in particular, gold reserves. In the June 20 letter, Salameh revealed that the total gold held by the central bank is 9.2 million ounces of gold of which around 40 percent are in the United States. According to Salameh the total value of gold reserves is at $17.5 billion. Salameh also noted “Banque du Liban has not carried out any operation, of any nature or form whatsoever, on the gold assets.” According to BDL’s balance sheet, the central bank’s total assets reached $162.98 billion by the end of Feb. 2022.

In case you missed it, here’s our must-read story from this weekend:The unbearable weight of massive incompetence: Your weekly financial news roundup.”

Want to get the Morning Brief by email? Click here to sign up.Amal Movement MPs Ali Hassan Khalil and Nasser Jaber introduced a draft law on Monday that would prohibit the government or Banque du Liban from haircutting deposits for any reason. The financial recovery plan is subject to constant unexplained and confusing changes and seems destined never to be finalized, but all versions of it...