The Noun collective and relatives of victims gathered Monday in front of the courthouse, in collaboration with Human Rights Watch. (Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today)
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Lebanon has regained voting rights at the United Nations General Assembly after paying its overdue annual contribution for 2021/2022. “Lebanon is again practicing its normal role and is present in the discussions of the United Nations and its committees,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement, almost two months after the country lost voting rights for defaulting on its $1.8 million annual dues to the UN. A diplomatic source told L'Orient Today that the payment was funded equally by the central bank and a Lebanese diplomatic mission in the Gulf. The Foreign Ministry contended that it was not to blame for the delayed payment, adding that it would pay the minimum contribution immediately after UN Secretary-General Antonió Guterres listed Lebanon among the six countries to have lost their voting rights on Jan. 20.
Dozens of public school teachers protested in southern Lebanon, refusing some of their unions’ Sunday decision to resume classes while a number of demands made during a monthslong open-ended strike remain unmet. “We want the revaluation of salaries according to inflation and dollarization,” one teacher said at a protest in Saida, recalling a main tenet of the strike launched in January. Meanwhile, other teachers, accompanied by students, marched from the Education Ministry office in Nabatieh to the area's central bank headquarters. Public school teachers’ salaries have sharply plummeted in value due to the lira’s depreciation. Several public school teachers’ unions on Sunday announced a suspension to the strike after the government approved a fuel subsidy for educators covering five liters of gasoline per working day. One union head welcomed the advance in negotiations, suggesting that, if necessary, teachers could exert additional pressure by refusing to organize or correct the year's official exams. But many teachers almost immediately rejected the unions’ call to return to classrooms before the rest of their demands are met, as others protested the decision in Beirut and North Lebanon on Monday, the first day of supposedly resumed classes.
Australia launched a petition to urge UN Human Rights Council members to approve the establishment of an independent fact-finding mission investigating the Aug. 4, 2020 Beirut port blast. Australian Ambassador to the United Nations Amanda Gorely called, on behalf of 38 states, for a “prompt, impartial, independent, credible and transparent investigation,” echoing a call from the UN high commissioner for human rights — who also called for a crackdown on corruption and structural injustice in Lebanon. An independent fact-finding mission, unlike an international investigation, would not require an invitation from the Lebanese state. “France and other EU states seem to want to approve the establishment of a commission's designation,” Tracy Najjar, whose three-year-old daughter Alexandra was killed in the blast, told L'Orient Today. She added that member states from other regions still need more convincing. The “Noun” collective, a local Lebanese group, in partnership with Human Rights Watch, organized a sit-in outside of Beirut's Justice Palace on Tuesday calling for the establishment of an independent fact-finding mission. The blast probe stalled again in January after lead investigator Judge Tarek Bitar’s attempt to relaunch the case was blocked by one of the suspects named in the case, the country’s top prosecutor Judge Ghassan Oueidat — who also filed a complaint against Bitar and released detainees who had been in custody since the immediate aftermath of the explosion. Relatives of the blast victims held their 31st monthly vigil last Saturday, commemorating the tragedy that claimed more than 220 lives and injured more than 6,500 people. The youngest victim of the Aug. 4 explosion was two-year-old Australian citizen Isaac Oehlers.
The Lebanese Foreign Ministry condemned an Israeli airstrike on Syria's Aleppo airport. The ministry's statement denounced the “persistent Israeli violation of international law” after the strike caused severe damage to a major conduit for inbound aid since Feb. 6, when a massive earthquake devastated swathes of southeastern Turkey and neighboring Syria. Lebanon regularly condemns Israeli strikes against Syria. An official Lebanese delegation visited Damascus in the days following the quake and humanitarian aid was sent to Syria via Lebanon.
Lebanese music streaming platform Anghami on Monday announced that it had achieved a yearly revenue increase of 35.6 percent in 2022. Anghami's revenues totaled $48.1 million last year, one year after the streaming service moved its headquarters from Lebanon to Abu Dhabi amid the former’s worsening economic crisis. Since Elie Habib and Eddy Maroun launched the streaming service in 2012, their team has grown to 180 people, with a user base of more than 100 million listeners. They currently hold 58 percent of the regional market share.
In case you missed it, here’s our must-read article from yesterday: “Faced with economic crisis, Lebanese maestros depart for foreign countries”
Compiled by Abbas Mahfouz