A volunteer firefighting team at the Andaqit training camp practices how to put out a fire on a forested hill. June 4, 2023. (Credit: João Sousa/L’Orient Today)
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The caretaker cabinet is scheduled to convene tomorrow to discuss the repatriation of Syrian refugees and the appointment of lawyers for the French investigation into alleged Banque du Liban corruption. Cabinet’s discussion of displaced Syrians follows a series of new restrictions targeting them, alongside weeks of ramped-up policing of their communities and a rise in deportations. Tomorrow’s agenda also includes a request by caretaker Justice Minister Henri Khoury to appoint two French lawyers representing Lebanon’s interests during France’s proceedings against central bank chief Riad Salameh and his former paramour Anna Kosakova. A cabinet meeting dedicated solely to the appointment of lawyers for the French case was canceled on May 30 after Khoury refused to attend and defended his support for two lawyers who had agreed to work pro bono. The week before, the cabinet requested the replacement of lawyers Emmanuel Daoud and Pascal Beauvais, citing their alleged ties to Zionist organizations. France indicted Kosakova last December and last month requested an Interpol red notice against Salameh suspecting that they conspired to defraud hundreds of millions of dollars from the BDL which ended up as assets in France and at least four other European jurisdictions.
The Progressive Socialist Party on Friday joined other parties in backing the presidential candidacy of former Finance Minister and International Monetary Fund senior official Jihad Azour, ahead of Wednesday’s presidential election session. The PSP parliamentary bloc’s eight additional votes bring Azour closer to the “65 votes” touted by MP Mark Daou last Sunday while announcing his and 32 other MPs’ support for the consensus candidate. Azour is also backed by the Free Patriotic Movement, the Lebanese Forces and others contesting Hezbollah and Amal Movement candidate, Marada Movement head Sleiman Frangieh. On Sunday, Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Naim Qassem said he expects the first presidential election since January to also be inconclusive. Amal Movement MP Qassem Hashem told the Voice of Lebanon that Frangieh’s supporters don’t plan on leaving the session and causing Parliament to lose quorum after a first round of voting (during which 86 votes are needed to elect a President) “but the decision may be taken at the moment. None of the 11 previous parliamentary presidential election sessions progressed past a first round of voting after which candidates can accede to the presidency with a 65-vote simple majority.
The Health Ministry on Sunday announced “the end of the cholera epidemic in Lebanon,” after more than 12 weeks without a single confirmed case of the illness, the state-run National News Agency reported. Last October, Lebanon recorded its first case of cholera since 1993. The last confirmed case was recorded on Jan. 5, bringing the outbreak’s total to 671 infections and 23 deaths from the acute diarrhoeal infection caused by ingestion of contaminated food or water. Between October and January, the ministry mobilized vaccines and supplies, notably fuel to power water infrastructure, offered by local and international donors across areas with high infection rates to mount field hospitals and inoculation campaigns. Lebanon’s United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) representative Edouard Beigbeder told L’Orient Today the cholera outbreak highlighted authorities’ need to “imperatively carry out the necessary water-related reforms.”
The Israeli military on Friday fired tear gas against protesters rallying in solidarity with a farmer who stood off an Israeli bulldozer last Wednesday near the southern Lebanese border. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) “heavily deployed” more of its peacekeepers to restore calm, the group's spokesman Andrea Tenenti told L’Orient Today. The protesters gathered in solidarity with farmer Ismail Nasser who was seen in videos circulating on social media confronting an Israeli bulldozer allegedly encroaching on his land. On Sunday, the Israeli army again fired tear gas toward half a dozen young men near Lebanon's southern border in an area where Israeli excavation works were being conducted, Kafr Shuba’s municipality head Qassem Ghader told L’Orient Today’s correspondent in the south.
In case you missed it, here’s our must-read story from over the weekend: “Unpaid and underfunded, volunteer firefighters battle the odds to save Akkar’s forests”
Compiled by Abbas Mahfouz
Humanitarian convoy reaches Rmeish, Ain Ibl, Dibil despite obstacles