Region

By Bachir Al Khoury
Agence France-Presse

BEIRUT — Lebanon’s new government, finally formed in the throes of an accelerating economic meltdown after 13 months of political deadlock, has its work cut out.

What are the most pressing issues for the Cabinet announced on Friday, and how easy will they be to tackle?

What are the priorities?

Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s 24-member Cabinet desperately needs to lift Lebanon out of what the World Bank has called one of the planet’s worst economic crises since the 1850s.

The Lebanese pound has lost more than 90 per cent of its value to the dollar on the black market, inflation has soared and people’s savings are trapped in banks.

With foreign currency reserves plummeting, the cash-strapped state has been struggling to maintain subsidies on basic goods.

Petrol and medicine have become scarce, the state barely provides two hours of electricity supply a day, and almost 80 per cent of the population now lives in poverty.

“The first priority for the government really will be to stem the collapse,” said Maha Yahya, director of the Carnegie Middle East Centre.

Subsidies needed to be lifted and a safety net put in place to ease the blow on the most vulnerable, she said.

To do this, analysts have said, the Cabinet will need to relaunch talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to unlock billions of dollars in financial aid.

After defaulting on its debt in March 2020 for the first time in history, Lebanon started talks with the IMF, but these quickly hit a wall amid bickering over who should bear the brunt of the losses.

Will this be easy?

The international community has demanded sweeping reforms and a forensic audit of the country’s central bank before any financial assistance is disbursed.

The previous government in 2020 announced a rescue roadmap that included electricity sector reform, restructuring the banking sector and lifting the official dollar peg.

But it has yet to be implemented.

As for the central bank audit, it too has stalled, with the central bank claiming it could not provide the auditing firm with some of the required documents because of banking secrecy.

Economist Mike Azar said that reforming the oversized commercial banking sector and central bank, as well as restructuring the public sector, would be key for any deal with the IMF.

“There isn’t anything you can do short of these two major restructurings,” he told AFP.

But the traditional ruling class that has dominated politics in Lebanon since the 1975-1990 war was likely to be reluctant.

“Restructuring the public sector has an impact on the political parties, as it is the main financing source for their patronage system,” he said.

“How would they accept that?”

Although some of the 24 new ministers in Mikati’s Cabinet are technocrats, all have been endorsed by at least one of Lebanon’s many competing political parties.

Yahya said drawing up a medium- to long-term rescue plan for the country would be a “major challenge” as the new government lacked any political consensus.

“This government was formed with the business-as-usual mentality so everybody there represents one political leadership or the other,” she said.

This means political parties “can use the ministers within the government to block any reform they see as undermining their interests or unpopular in the street”.

Will there be elections?

Mikati on Friday vowed to hold May 2022 parliamentary elections on time.

In a country rocked in 2019 by protests calling for the overhaul of the entire political class, some activists see this as a chance to vote out an old guard deemed incompetent and corrupt, and bring in younger experts to actually represent the people’s best interests.

But analyst Michel Doueihy said the political parties in power since the end of the civil war were ready to do anything to cling on to power.

The traditional ruling “class is trying through this government to catch its breath” and restore some credibility ahead of the next parliamentary elections, he told AFP.

He said their tactics could even include postponing the polls.

BEIRUT — Lebanese commentators voiced scepticism Saturday over the bankrupt state's ability to win back the support of foreign donors after political factions finally agreed a new government following 13 months of horse-trading.

Najib Mikati, who has served as prime minister twice before, on Friday unveiled his team of newcomers, some technocrats but all endorsed by at least one of the political parties dominant since the 1975-1990 civil war.

The 24-member Cabinet, which includes a single woman, faces the daunting task of carrying out reforms demanded by the international community to unlock desperately needed financial aid.

But many Lebanese questioned whether the new team was up to the task, or would be able to bring forward the demands of a 2019 protest movement for an end to alleged mismanagement and corruption.

"There is no confidence in Naji Mikati's government, which represents the interests of a system that engineered the country's collapse," wrote the Al Akbar newspaper, which is close to powerful Shiite movement Hizbollah.

The new government comes as Lebanon is mired in what the World Bank has described as one of the world's worst economic crises since the 1850s.

The overwhelming majority of Lebanese struggle to survive amid soaring inflation, fuel and medicine shortages and almost round-the-clock power cuts.

A huge swathe of the population has sunken into poverty, while thousands of the better off have left the country for new lives abroad.

French-language newspaper L'Orient — Le Jour questioned the naming of "an old-school Cabinet to tackle a herculean task".

Mikati was the third person asked to try to form a new government after the previous one resigned following a massive explosion of ammonium nitrate fertiliser at Beirut port last summer that killed at least 214 people.

It emerged afterwards that officials had known the highly explosive material had been lingering unsafely on the dockside for years, but had done nothing about it.

'Political sterility' 

Activists on social media slammed the new cabinet as representing the same people they hold responsible for the blast.

One user described it as yet another product of "the nitrate regime, political sterility and corruption".

Lebanese political analyst Sami Nader said he doubted the new ministers' ability to lead the country forward as they had been approved by the "same cooks".

He said he feared a continuation of the same "quota politics and bickering over every reform" that had dogged the previous cabinet.

In an emotional speech on Friday, Mikati vowed to leave no stone unturned in his quest to save the Mediterranean country.

But many see the business tycoon, who is reputed to be Lebanon's wealthiest man, as a product of a corrupt oligarchy. He was accused by a state prosecutor in 2019 of illicit enrichment, a charge he denies.

The new government includes some fresh faces.

Among them is new health minister Firass Abiad, the head of Lebanon's largest public hospital, who rose to prominence for his role in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.

Academic Nasser Yassin is to lead the environment ministry.

But critics are doubtful new finance minister Youssef Khalil, a veteran of the central bank, is the best man to relaunch stalled talks with the International Monetary Fund to rescue the economy.

They say he is unlikely to take a tough stance against his former employer, whom many accuse of being behind the current financial meltdown.

The United States and the European Union have both urged the new government to undertake reforms quickly, with Washington calling on Mikati to address "the dire needs and legitimate aspirations of the Lebanese people".

UN chief Antonio Guterres said a new cabinet was a "very important step" but "not enough" as "there are many other things to be solved".

RABAT — Morocco's King Mohammed VI on Friday named businessman Aziz Akhannouch to lead a new government after his National Rally of Independents (RNI) thrashed the long-ruling Islamists in parliamentary elections.

The king appointed Akhannouch "head of the government and tasked him with forming a new government", following Wednesday's polls, a statement from the palace said.

The RNI won 102 of parliament's 395 seats, trouncing the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD), which had headed the governing coalition for a decade but took just 13 seats, according to results released by the interior ministry.

Akhannouch hailed the results as "a victory for democracy".

The billionaire businessman, worth $2 billion according to Forbes, has led the RNI since 2016.

His party is considered close to the palace and has been part of all coalition governments for the past 23 years, except during a brief period between 2012 and 2013.

Following his win, Akhannouch pledged to improve conditions for citizens of Morocco, where entrenched social inequalities have been exacerbated by the pandemic.

"The main commitment of the party is to work seriously as long as we enjoy the confidence of citizens, to improve their daily lives, to achieve their aspirations and regain confidence in their representatives," he said.

The economy shrank by 7.1 per cent in 2020 and the poverty rate shot up to 11.7 per cent during the lockdown, the Moroccan statistics institute said in April.

A recent overhaul of the elections laws meant it was the first time Morocco's 18 million voters cast ballots in both parliamentary and local elections on the same day, an effort to boost turnout.

Around 50.35 per cent of eligible voters participated, according to the interior minister, higher than the 43 per cent in the 2016 legislative polls.

Akhannouch's party also came first in the local elections, winning 9,995 of the 31,503 seats, and the regional poll with 196 of the 678 positions.

Akhannouch said he was ready to begin negotiations to form his coalition government.

“The most important thing is to have a coherent and united majority,” he said in a televised address on Friday evening.

Under Morocco’s constitutional monarchy, the new administration must be submitted for approval by the king, who reserves veto rights.

Akhannouch will likely draw from the main opposition, the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) — founded by an influential royal advisor — which came second in the parliamentary elections with 86 seats, as well as the conservative Istiqlal party, which took 81 seats.

Cabinet horsetrading is not expected to include the PJD however, which announced that it would switch to its “natural” position as the opposition.

Swept to power in the wake of the 2011 uprisings around the Middle East and North Africa, the PJD had hoped to secure a third term leading a ruling coalition.

Despite the change of guard, policy shifts are unlikely since major decisions in Morocco still come from King Mohammed VI.

The head of the Arab world’s longest-serving dynasty has already announced a charter for a “new model of development” with a “new generation of reforms and projects” in the coming years, with political parties expected to sign up.

The plan’s major aims include reducing Morocco’s wealth gap and doubling per-capita economic output by 2035.

DOHA — The daily life of unaccompanied Afghan refugee children in Qatar is punctuated by recurring questions, "where are we going?" and "can I have some chips".

About 200 uprooted young Afghans arrived in Doha aboard flights from Kabul in recent weeks and are being hosted at a reception centre, where they grapple with the trauma of their ordeal.

They are now being cared for by Qatar Charity, a humanitarian organisation that has sought to protect and keep them out of the reach of people traffickers.

Officials are picking a path for the future of the children who have adopted new routines, playing football, exercising and enjoying arts and crafts.

"It's very hard to imagine the trauma that they've been through," said an aid worker based in the Middle East who declined to be named.

"All of them are in a state of shock and trauma, similar to what we've seen in places like Iraq or Syria with kids who have lived in [Islamic State group] areas."

The Taliban's shock takeover rekindled fears among Afghanistan's people of a return to the hardline rule between 1996 and 2001 which was marked by public executions, floggings and amputations for misdemeanours.

Many fled, including the youngsters, some of whom cannot recall the circumstances of their abrupt departure from their homeland, while others give contradictory accounts of how they came to be in Qatar.

According to the UN children's agency UNICEF, around 300 unaccompanied children were evacuated from Afghanistan to Qatar, Germany and other countries after 

August 14.

Questions are swirling about how they came to be at Kabul’s airport and then embark on planes bound for Qatar, and drastically different lives, but answers are in short supply.

The US Embassy in Doha did not comment on the specifics of the children’s case.

A French police officer who was present at the Kabul airport gates described seeing a woman “desperately throw her baby into the barbed wire towards the French special forces who recovered and handed the child to American medics”.

“The baby was treated and evacuated to Doha. He was really tiny. His mother just disappeared into the crowd,” he added.

The officer witnessed other dramatic scenes.

“One man arrived at the gate with three young children who he passed off as his own. They were orphans, he probably used them to get the gate open, but they were also evacuated.”

“Stories like that highlight the chaos. They’ll be part of the history of this fiasco.”

Qatar Charity and other agencies are now taking care of the group who are mostly aged between eight and 17 years old, with the youngest housed at a separate facility.

In Doha, children were settled at accommodations, to which AFP was not granted access, and grouped by age or family group if they arrived together.

As far as possible they were also grouped according to the friendships and bonds forged during their respective journeys.

‘Safe community’ 

“They can get attached to other children very quickly. They feel things stronger than anyone,” Fatima-Zahra Bakkari, a Moroccan in charge of international cooperation for Qatar Charity.

She singled out two children aged 12 and 13 who had become inseparable in just over a week.

When the older child learnt that they were soon to move on, he offered to move out of the younger child’s bedroom so they could prepare for possibly never seeing one another again.

“We all cry a lot,” Bakkari said about the aid workers. “We laugh a lot too,” she added recounting the occasional child waking up to “steal” a packet of crisps.

Despite their homely surroundings, the youngsters still face uncertainty.

“We tell them the time will come, we don’t know when but it will come,” for them to move on, said Bakkari.

Children separated from their parents are “among the most vulnerable children in the world”, according to Henrietta Fore, head of UNICEF.

“It is vital that they are quickly identified and kept safe during family tracing and reunification processes.”

Qatar has provided shelter, physical and psychological care, food and emotional attention.

“Then comes the delicate part,” said the humanitarian official who requested anonymity.

“The-best case scenario is we manage to find first-degree relatives, a grandmother, an aunt, an uncle. But in many cases we might not be able to do that.”

Qatar Charity has set up a hotline for the children to call their relatives, but for those with no one to call their carers will need to ensure they are looked after in the long-term.

“Then eventually the child can integrate in a safe community so they are equipped with the things they need to become a normal adult,” the aid worker added.

BEIRUT — The Syrian army on Wednesday entered part of a southern city retaken from holdout rebels under a ceasefire deal brokered by government ally Russia, official media and a war monitor said.

Daraa province and its capital of the same name, the cradle of Syria's unrest, returned to government control in 2018 under a previous Moscow-backed ceasefire.

But rebels remained in some areas, including the southern part of the city called Daraa Al Balad.

Russian mediation efforts throughout August led to the evacuation of dozens of opposition fighters to Syria's rebel-held north, and a final ceasefire deal on Wednesday last week.

State news agency SANA said army units on Wednesday entered Daraa Al Balad.

They “hoisted the national flag and started setting up positions and combing the area towards announcing it free of terrorism”, it said, using its usual term for rebels.

The latest version of the surrender deal provides for Russian military police to deploy around Daraa Al Balad and the Syrian army to set up checkpoints inside.

It will also allow fighters and young men who avoided mandatory military service to sign up to stay in the city.

Pro-Damascus radio broadcaster Sham FM reported that around 900 men had already signed up to do this.

Those who refuse the terms of the surrender are expected to be evacuated at a later date.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor with sources inside Syria, said the army was expected to deploy at nine positions inside Daraa Al Balad.

It was also to inspect homes inside the former opposition neighbourhood and continue registering people who wished to stay.

The observatory and activists from Daraa however said dozens of opposition fighters were still present in a district and inside a displacement camp on the edges of Daraa Al Balad, awaiting the outcome of ongoing negotiations about their fate.

Activists now expect regime forces to seek to fully retake other patches of the Daraa countryside that have remained outside their control since the 2018 deal.

The fighting has caused more than 38,000 people to flee the southern half of the city, the United Nations has said, amid international alarm over deteriorating living conditions inside.

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories — Israeli forces have arrested at least six relatives of Palestinians who broke out of a high-security jail, a local watchdog said on Wednesday amid protests in support of the escapees.

The six Palestinians staged their jailbreak on Monday through a hole they had dug under a sink in a Gilboa prison cell in northern Israel — reportedly using a spoon.

Israel has deployed drones, road checkpoints and an army mission to Jenin, the home town in the occupied West Bank of many of the men locked up for their roles in attacks on Israel.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said two brothers of Mahmoud Ardah, described in local media as the mastermind of the escape, have been arrested.

The forces has also taken into custody four other people — fellow family member Dr Nidal Ardah, two brothers of Mahmoud’s cousin and fellow fugitive Mohammad Ardah and the father of Munadel Infeiat, another escapee.

All three of these escapees are members of the Islamic Jihad armed group.

Amani Sarahneh, a spokeswoman for the prisoners’ group, told AFP that others could also have been arrested, while some had been only briefly detained.

Asked by AFP, the Israeli forces — which has occupied the West Bank since 1967 — said “several arrests were made overnight”, without elaborating.

“Holding someone in order to coerce a relative to do something is a mafia-style tactic,” tweeted Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director for Human Rights Watch, on Wednesday.

An Israeli injunction is in effect against publishing details of the jailbreak investigation, even as local media report on the scramble to recover from the embarrassing lapse and prevent any possible attack by the fugitives.

The group on the run includes Zakaria Zubeidi, a former militant leader from Jenin.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club reported “tensions” in Israeli prisons on Wednesday.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli prison authorities confirmed to AFP that fires had been lit in Ktziot and Ramon jails.

“The situation is now under control, the fires have been extinguished,” she said as Palestinian groups called for rallies later Wednesday in Nablus, Ramallah and Jenin in support of the men on the run.

Many people in the Gaza Strip and in Jenin took to the streets to celebrate when news of the escape broke on Monday.

Gilboa Prison — which opened in 2004 during the second Palestinian Intifada, or uprising — is a high security site where hundreds of Palestinians are detained among other inmates.

The prison service said all those held at Gilboa over “security offences” were being relocated in case more escape tunnels have been dug beneath the facility.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has called the breakout “a serious event that required a comprehensive effort by all of the security services”.

His Palestinian counterpart, Mohammed Shtayyeh, said on Tuesday he was “happy” about the jailbreak.