Source: Asharq Al-Awsat
Security & Justice
Captured Hezbollah Operative May Have Been Israeli Double Agent, Report Suggests
The alleged senior Hezbollah operative abducted by Israeli special forces last week in Batroun may have been operating as a double agent, according to a report by The Telegraph.
Monday, November 4, 2024
Lebanon’s Probe into Israeli Raid Expected to Take Days as Security Officials Weigh Theories
Lebanese authorities are ramping up investigations into an Israeli commando raid last week in the northern coastal city of Batroun, during which Imad Amhaz, a Hezbollah official, was snatched.
Monday, November 4, 2024
Opinion
The Emptying of Baalbek Is a Moment to Take Stock
“Large numbers of people continue to flee their homes every day, as Israel’s military operations in Lebanon have been going on unabated.” These disturbing words could be from almost any news report about Israel’s invasion of its northern neighbour over the past month. However, they can be found in a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre issued on July 27, 2006.
Saturday, November 2, 2024
A Future Without Hezbollah
At the end of September, when Israel’s campaign to destroy Hezbollah was reaching its height, I met one of the group’s supporters in a seaside café in western Beirut. He was a middle-aged man with a thin white beard and the spent look of someone who had not slept for days. He was an academic of sorts, not a fighter, but his ties to Hezbollah were deep and long-standing.
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Sports
Tottenham Forward Son Heung-min Crowned Asia’s International Player of the Year
Tottenham forward Son Heung-min was crowned as Asia’s International Player of the Year for the fourth time by the Asian Football Confederation at its annual awards ceremony Tuesday.
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Real Madrid Launch Investigation into Racist Insults After El Clasico Defeat
Real Madrid has launched an investigation into racist insults directed at players during Saturday’s 4-0 home loss to Barcelona in LaLiga, it said on Sunday.
Monday, October 28, 2024
Tuesday 8 August 2023 12:26:48
Lebanon Resorts to IMF Funds to Secure Medicines for Chronic Diseases
Lebanon’s Minister of Health, Firas Abiad, has said that the government’s subsidy of drugs for cancer and incurable diseases would continue.
His comments came amid fears of lack of the necessary financing after the end of the term of the Central Bank Governor, Riad Salameh, and the refusal of his deputy, Wassim Mansouri, to transfer the needed amounts from the bank’s reserves, with the lack of the proper legal mechanisms.
Abiad was speaking following a meeting on Monday, which was held in the presence of Prime Minister Najib Mikati and members of the parliamentary health committee, to discuss the heath situation in the country.
The minister said that Mikati briefed the participants on the solutions which the government is seeking to implement to continue to subsidize medicines for cancer and incurable diseases, whether by resorting to the IMF or to other resources in US dollars.
In this context, MP Bilal Abdallah told Asharq Al-Awsat that the health ministry was deploying all efforts to implement new solutions in order to secure the necessary funding for the drugs subsidies.
“There are around 4,000 patients who need these medicines, and we cannot leave them hostages to political bickering,” he stated, noting that this file was the ministry’s utmost priority.