Street art in Beirut. (Credit: João Sousa/L'Orient Today/File photo)
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The mother and grandfather of Lynn Taleb, the five-year-old girl from North Lebanon who died earlier this summer, face criminal charges after forensic doctors confirmed she had been repeatedly sexually assaulted prior to her death, a judge confirmed to L’Orient Today. “Nothing is yet confirmed as the investigations are still ongoing,” said presiding judge Samantha Nassar, explaining that the prosecutor at the appeal court in the north, Judge Matilda Touma, charged Taleb’s grandfather with “assault and intentional killing of the five-year-old child” and accused the mother of attempting to cover up the crime.
A one-month-old boy abandoned in Tripoli is “in stable condition” after being hospitalized on Sunday, the Tripoli Governmental Hospital director told L’Orient Today. The boy will soon be transferred to a "safe place," a Social Affairs Ministry source told L'Orient Today. Last Tuesday, a months-old girl was hospitalized after being found abandoned in Tripoli. Last Thursday, priest Majdi al-Allawi, who runs a childcare center, told L'Orient Today he took in two infants found abandoned in Jbeil the night before.
The Beirut Fire Department has been placed on “maximum alert,” Governor Marwan Abboud said, announcing a series of fire prevention measures amid an ongoing heatwave. The public sanitation service was also placed on alert. Abboud urged for an inventory of locations where dangerous and flammable substances are stored, the maintenance of “clean and clear” public spaces and the eradication of dry vegetation. Last month, an electric generator exploded in the Zoqaq al-Blat neighborhood of Beirut, starting a fire that spread to nearby fuel tanks and damaged three apartments, a shop and six cars. Wildfires have already charred swathes of forests across Lebanon, particularly in Akkar, as experts warned of an increased fire risk due to abundant dry vegetation and rising temperatures.
Kataeb head Sami Gemayel yesterday announced that the State Council ruled in favor of his request to compel caretaker Finance Minister Youssef Khalil to share a forensic audit of Banque du Liban (BDL). “Administrative Court Judge Carl Erani issued a decision today obligating the Ministry of Finance to hand us over the initial report related to the forensic audit,” Gemayel tweeted. When announcing the document request, the Kataeb party asked for the report to be shared with Parliament and made public on the Finance Ministry’s website. The State Council issued a similar verdict last Monday in favor of advocacy NGO Legal Agenda. A forensic audit of BDL is among the prerequisites to unlocking a multibillion-dollar International Monetary Fund aid package.
The caretaker cabinet’s ministers yesterday called for the appointment of a new BDL governor as Riad Salameh nears the end of his term this month with no designated successor. Also yesterday, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati met with BDL’s deputy governors. The deputy governors are expected to hold a press briefing in the near future — initially scheduled for today — after presenting a six-month strategy to the parliamentary Administration and Justice Committee last Thursday. Controversy stirred over the caretaker government’s ability to name the next BDL governor amid the presidential vacuum. Mikati suggested that BDL Deputy Governor Wassim Manssouri would head the central bank; however, Manssouri and his three colleagues implicitly threatened to resign if no successor is named. Current BDL governor Riad Salameh is scheduled to step down at the end of this month after 30 years in office, during which he went from a lauded central banker to a suspect in local and international corruption investigations.
In case you missed it, here’s our must-read story from yesterday: “This semblance of economic normalcy may be deceiving”
Compiled by Abbas Mahfouz
