Torn Lebanese flag floating on a road in Mansourieh, Metn. (Credit: P.H.B.)
- German airline SundAir resumed its flights connecting Berlin to Beirut and will operate two flights per week. It is the first European airline to resume flights to Lebanon since nearly all 60 airlines that typically served Beirut suspended operations when the war escalated in September.
In the Gulf, UAE-based low-cost airline Air Arabia also announced in a message to travel agencies that it will resume flights to Beirut starting Dec. 18, a week before Christmas.
- Lebanon's caretaker Public Works and Transportation Minister Ali Hamieh announced on Sunday that Lebanon's national carrier, Middle East Airlines (MEA), had resumed its flights over Syria, calling on Iraqi Airways to do the same and resume flights to Beirut.
- Lebanon's Minister of Energy and Water, Walid Fayad, relaunched on Tuesday the process of 3D seismic surveys in one of the blocks of the exclusive economic zone (EEZ), where Lebanon has long hoped to find offshore hydrocarbons. The ministry granted a new license to TGS, a company specializing in seismic exploration, to conduct these surveys.
- The Cabinet is set to meet on Dec. 17 to discuss several points on its agenda, including the extension of the agreement to supply Iraqi fuel to Électricité du Liban (EDL), and draft decrees set to reorganize the internal management of the public markets authority. Caretaker environment minister Nasser Yassine is also set to present a proposal for the strategic management of domestic waste in Lebanon, while the Cabinet will also look into the validation of specific requirements for the reconstruction of buildings partially or totally destroyed by the Israeli bombardments prior to the cease-fire which went into effect on Nov. 27.
-Fuel prices decreased across the board on Friday, while the price of domestic gas cylinders remained stable.
Here are the new rates:
Piece of the week:
Former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, now in exile in Moscow, has left behind a battered economy, ravaged by 13 years of uprisings, repression, counter-revolutions, civil war and mass exodus. Read Mounir Younes’ piece:
