Category Archives: Lebanon

Pandemic raises fears over welfare of domestic workers in Lebanon

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Covid-19 lockdown could leave migrant workers across Middle East confined to employers’ households without pay, NGOs warn

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    • Calls by NGOs for increased protection of domestic workers in Lebanon during the coronavirus crisis have cast a spotlight on the predicament of migrant workers across the Middle East, many of whom are highly vulnerable to the pandemic and without support.

    In parts of the Levant, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia, workers from south and south-east Asia account for a large proportion of labour forces. Closed airports, bonded labour, or other forms of unbreakable employment contracts, and little access to funds, have made it close to impossible for those who want to leave to do so.

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    Coronavirus: window of containment ‘narrowing’ after Iran deaths, WHO warns

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    Virus is spreading in Middle East, with confirmed cases in Lebanon and Israel

    Four Iranians have died after contracting the coronavirus, with health authorities warning it has spread to multiple cities, while Israel and Lebanon declared their first domestic cases as the deadly epidemic spreads across the Middle East.

    Asked on Friday if the new cases put the crisis at a tipping point, the World Health Organization director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the “window of opportunity is narrowing, so we need to act quickly before it closes completely”.

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    Lebanon’s financial crisis leaves its envied media industry in freefall

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    Agenda-setting newspapers and TV stations facing scramble to survive amid state dysfunction

    For nearly 80 years since its postwar independence, Lebanon has been a haven for regional media, giving a platform to journalism and entertainment that few other countries in the Middle East would dare to match.

    Its newspapers set agendas, its TV stations tested boundaries, and its proprietors defied both war and downturn, producing content that challenged state narratives and tested the patience of the powerful.

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    Hundreds injured in Lebanon as violence flares in ‘week of anger’

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    Pitched battles between police and demonstrators as leaders fail to form new government

    Protesters hurled fireworks and ripped branches from trees to use against security forces who fired rubber bullets and teargas during the most violent weekend of protests in Beirut since the beginning of mass anti-government demonstrations across Lebanon three months ago.

    Lebanese medical groups said at least 377 people were injured on Saturday, including 80 who were taken to hospital, during the culmination of days of unrest that organisers called a “week of anger” after a relative lull.

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    Fireworks flew as protesters clashed with security forces in Beirut – video

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    Fireworks were let off as protesters clashed with the security force in Lebanon’s capital on Saturday 18 January.

    Officers used water cannon and fired teargas at demonstrators who were protesting the economic crisis the country has faced in decades after politicians failed to agree on a new cabinet following prime minister Saad al-Hariri’s resignation in October

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    Japan issues arrest warrant for Carlos Ghosn’s wife

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    Carole Ghosn accused of perjury, as Nissan says it will pursue former chairman who fled to Lebanon

    Prosecutors in Japan have issued an arrest warrant for the wife of Carlos Ghosn for alleged perjury, as Nissan vowed to pursue its former chairman over his “serious misconduct” while head of the carmaker.

    Tokyo prosecutors’ special investigation squad said Carole Ghosn – a vocal supporter of her husband during his long detention in Japan – was suspected of making a false statement during testimony to the Tokyo district court last April, according to Kyodo news agency. Details of the allegation were not immediately available.

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    Carlos Ghosn ‘caught bullet train’ during escape from Japan

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    Border controls tightened as Japan investigates how ex-Nissan boss skipped bail

    Reports have emerged about how the fugitive former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn managed to jump bail in Japan, as the country’s justice minister said border controls would be bolstered after the audacious escape.

    The 65-year-old executive skipped bail nearly a week ago, fleeing Japan where he had been awaiting trial on multiple counts of financial misconduct, which he denies.

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    Japan issues Interpol wanted notice for Carlos Ghosn

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    Move follows tycoon’s dramatic flight to Beirut to escape corruption charges

    Japanese authorities have issued an Interpol wanted notice for Carlos Ghosn, as the former Nissan and Renault chairman released a statement denying his wife or family were involved in his dramatic flight from corruption charges in Japan.

    The international policing organisation’s “red notice” alerts forces around the world that a person is wanted, in this case by Japanese police.

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    Japan’s media accuse Carlos Ghosn of ‘cowardly act’ after flight to Lebanon

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    Papers question granting of bail, while reports suggest Ghosn met Lebanese president

    The usually staid Japanese media have criticised Carlos Ghosn after the tycoon jumped bail and fled to Lebanon – reportedly inside a musical instrument case – to avoid what he called “political persecution” in Japan.

    “Running away is a cowardly act that mocks Japan’s justice system,” said the Yomiuri Shimbun. By leaving the country, Ghosn had “lost the opportunity to prove his innocence and vindicate his honour”, the paper added, noting that the courts, his defence lawyers and immigration control officials also bore some responsibility in the affair.

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    Carlos Ghosn escaped Japan ‘hiding in a musical instrument case’

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    His ‘big adventure’ reportedly involved his wife, a Gregorian band and ex-special services

    Carlos Ghosn reportedly fled house arrest in Japan in a musical instrument case, in an audacious Hollywood movie-style escape masterminded by his wife, Carole, with the assistance of a Gregorian music band and a team of ex-special forces officers.

    The escape began when the band arrived at his home in Tokyo, where Ghosn has been held under house arrest and strict police surveillance, according to Lebanese TV news channel MTV. At the end of the performance, as the musicians packed up their instruments, Ghosn – whose height is stated at 1.7m, or just under 5ft 6in, in his Wikipedia entry – apparently slipped into one of the larger cases and was taken to a small local airport.

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    Carlos Ghosn, ousted Nissan boss, says he has fled ‘Japanese injustice’

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    Ghosn, who had been banned from leaving Japan, flies to Lebanon and says he will no longer be held in a rigged system

    Carlos Ghosn, who is awaiting trial on charges of financial misconduct, has left Japan and arrived in Lebanon to “escape injustice”.

    The former Nissan chairman issued a statement on Tuesday morning in which he said he would “no longer be held hostage by a rigged Japanese justice system where guilt is presumed”.

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    Lebanon heads for meltdown as protesters keep returning to streets

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    Power of the street has run headlong into a system invested in entrenched graft and incompetence

    In mid-December, a month and a half into protests that have crippled Lebanon and placed its political class in the dock, a priest caused a stir by telling his congregation to start stockpiling food.

    The coming three years would be difficult, the cleric in the southern city of Sidon said. Citing the country’s Maronite Patriarch, he advised people to plant their own wheat. “His Holiness says the crisis will last for years, and famine is approaching.”

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    Proposal for new prime minister fails to quell protests in Lebanon

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    Hassan Diab could be in post at weekend despite unpopularity with those demanding change

    Lebanon’s head of state has named a new prime minister in an effort to break a political deadlock that has paralysed the country and left it unable to deal with a dire financial crisis that threatens to sink its economy within weeks.

    However, the designation of Hassan Diab, a former minister and university professor, failed to spark enthusiasm, exposing yet again the depths of divisions across the fractured political spectrum and among a public that has little faith in the stewardship of its leaders.

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    Lebanon protests roll into second day amid police crackdown

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    Security forces fire tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons in the violent clashes

    Lebanese security forces fired teargas, rubber bullets and water cannons to disperse hundreds of protesters for a second straight day, ending what started as a peaceful rally in defiance of the toughest crackdown on anti-government demonstrations in two months.

    The violence on Sunday comes on the eve of a meeting between the president and parliamentary blocs in which Saad Hariri, who resigned as prime minister on 29 October, is widely expected to be renamed to the post.

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    How street protests across Middle East threaten Iran’s power

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    Demonstrations from Baghdad to Beirut reveal the extent to which Shia dominance across the region has weakened

    Turmoil in Baghdad, paralysis in Beirut and flames of unrest in Tehran; it has been a bad few months for Iran at home and elsewhere in the Middle East, where more than a decade of advances are being slowed, not by manoeuvrings on battlefields or legislatures – but the force of protest movements.

    Early last week, Iran went dark for four days by closing its internet connections down. Even for the country’s autocratic leadership, this was a drastic step. But such are the stakes for a regime that is increasingly facing obstacles across its hubs of Shia influence. And those who laud Iran’s rise, as well as those who fear it, sense it is at a loss over how to respond.

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    Lebanese women demand new rights amid political turmoil

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    Feminist bloc plans to build on role in protests that brought down prime minister

    A man may just have stepped down as prime minister, but the women of Lebanon are not going anywhere.

    During the protests that led to the resignation of Saad Hariri, women were among those chanting, blocking roads and debating the future of the country’s politics.

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    The Guardian view on Lebanon and Chile: too little, too late for protesters | Editorial

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    Mass unrest has seized both countries. The long-term causes will not be resolved quickly or easily

    The events which have brought two countries to the brink were precipitated by apparently small policy shifts that proved emblematic of the ruling elite’s inability to answer or even understand their people’s basic needs while enriching themselves. Chile’s biggest political crisis since the return of democracy almost 30 years ago was triggered by a 3% rise in metro fares, the protests which have engulfed and paralysed Lebanon by a proposed tax on WhatsApp calls. But the underlying causes run far deeper, and have been building for much longer. There is deep anger at political and economic systems that have ignored most of the population.

    These countries are, of course, very different. Lebanon has been staggering along for years, due to both political dysfunction and endemic corruption. The central bank governor warns that its economy – long shored up by remittances from overseas – is now days away from collapse. Recently it emerged that, before he became prime minister, Saad Hariri gave $16m to a South African model: a sum encapsulating the gulf between the lives of those at the top and the rest.

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    Lebanon PM Saad Hariri resigns amid mass protests

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    Hariri says he intends to make ‘positive shock’ to country gripped by anti-government protests

    Lebanon’s prime minister, Saad Hariri, has announced his resignation, in a move set to spark more uncertainty in a country paralysed by ongoing political crises and a nationwide protest movement that has risen up in response.

    Hariri’s announcement came several hours after large groups of youths overran protest sites in downtown Beirut, ransacking tents and stalls set up by thousands of demonstrators who for the past 13 days have demanded an overhaul of the ruling class and an end to rampant corruption.

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    Lebanon protesters form human chain across entire country

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    Anti-government grassroots movement says it wants to foster feeling of national unity

    Tens of thousands of protesters in Lebanon have attempted to form a human chain running across the entire country to symbolise newfound national unity.

    Demonstrators planned to join hands from Tripoli to Tyre, a 170km (105-mile) chain running through the capital, Beirut, as part of an unprecedented cross-sectarian mobilisation.

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