Lebanese basketball player Karim Raphael Ezzeddine (left) facing Australian Mitchell McMarron during the match against Australia for the Basketball Asian Cup Final on July 24, 2022, in Jakarta, Indonesia. (Credit: Adek Berry/AFP)
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Lebanon’s national men’s basketball team lost the final of the 2022 FIBA Asia Cup. The team was defeated by Australia yesterday afternoon by just two points after a strong comeback in the fourth quarter. After qualifying for the final with an 86-85 victory over Jordan, Lebanon lost to the defending champions, scoring 73 points against the winning 75. The Lebanese team narrowed a 14-point differential to one point with seconds left on the clock until the final buzzer announced the two point defeat. “It was a great tournament for Lebanon, giving up is not an option for us … we kept fighting until the end,” team coach Jad El Hajj said in a press conference after the game. Team captain Wael Arakji was named the “Most Valuable Player” of the FIBA Asia Cup 2022 following an outstanding performance throughout the games.
Ahead of Parliament’s legislative session on Tuesday, agenda items include a law paving the way for unlocking international aid and government officials announcing measures to address the country’s compounding crises. The session’s agenda includes laws for public and private school budgeting and fee control, social assistance, making official expanded maritime border claims, compensation to victims who were physically assaulted by security forces during the Oct. 2019 protests, prevention of Syrian refugee integration, the conservation of grain silos damaged by the Aug. 4, 2020 Beirut port blast and making parliamentary committee meetings public. Notably, MPs are expected to vote on a law lifting banking secrecy, a key demand made by the International Monetary Fund in its preliminary agreement with Lebanon, and a law to approve a World Bank loan to finance wheat imports. Awaiting the much hailed international assistance as Lebanon faces its third year of economic crisis, with inflation figures showing a 210 percent increase since last year, officials announced a subsidized wheat distribution policing committee; a meeting with the Algerian ambassador to potentially procure fuel, which slightly dropped in price Friday; and an expected resolution to the passport crisis in October.
Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai described the detention of Archbishop of Haifa and the Holy Land Moussa al-Hage following his return from occupied Palestine as “political police behavior” during a Sunday sermon. Hage’s arrest at the Ras al-Naqoura border crossing last Monday, as he was returning to Lebanon from Israel in possession of aid in cash and medicine, was considered as a message aimed at Rai who lately has been outspoken against Hezbollah’s weapons. “Look elsewhere for agents, you know where they are,” Rai added in his sermon in an apparent reference to Hezbollah whose parliamentary group head insinuated Saturday that Hage could be considered an Israeli agent. The arrest has sparked controversy leading to a meeting between President Michel Aoun and the archbishop as well as calls from the Patriarchate for the dismissal of the government commissioner to the interim Military Tribunal, Judge Fadi Akiki, who ordered the arrest. Caretaker Justice Minister Henri Khoury said Friday that the dismissal was “outside [his] competence as a minister.”
Residents of the village of Tal Hayat in Akkar burned tents in a Syrian refugee camp located in the area on Sunday in retaliation for the death of one of their relatives. The residents’ act was sparked by the belief that a resident of the refugee camp was responsible for the death of a victim who was reported missing on Friday and found dead on Saturday. On Friday, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon Najat Rochdi issued a statement calling for “everyone to refrain from fueling the media and social media with negative sentiments and hatred,” against Syrian refugees amid increased “public discussions over the return of Syrian refugees to Syria.”
In case you missed it, here’s our must-read story from over the weekend: “Jackie Chan films his new movie … in the rubble of the war.”