Lebanese politicians have warned that rubbish could start piling up in the streets of Beirut again by early September, four years after demonstrations against a similar refuse crisis brought the country to a standstill.
“Beirut is threatened by a garbage crisis similar to what happened four years ago and left very bad memories for the Lebanese,” MP Marwan Hamadeh, who has occupied ministerial positions including Education Minister and Economy Minister over the past two decades, told The National on Wednesday.
Lebanon has relied on temporary solutions to process its waste since the end of the civil war in 1990. Over 900 illegal dumps have sprung up across the country and become major health hazards.
Mismanagement peaked in 2015 after the capital’s main landfill shut down. Permanent solutions were not found despite massive protests, and activists accuse politicians of corruption in sealing lucrative waste management deals.
In addition to environmental problems caused by the illegal dumps, their location regularly leads to sectarian disputes in a country where power-sharing is based on religious affiliation.
For the past five months, litter has been piling up in the streets of several towns in northern Lebanon after an informal dump closed for financial reasons.
Earlier this month, locals from the town of Terbol, which is dominated by Sunni Muslims, protested the opening of a new refuse centre because they did not want to accept waste coming from Christian villages in the region.
In parallel, Beirut’s landfills are close to saturation, and owners are threatening to stop accepting rubbish from areas where the population is of a different religion after September 1, said Mr Hamadeh.
“The same problem has been going on for years. Already existing environmental problems are exacerbated by additional confessional complications."
In a joint press conference with environment minister Fadi Jreissati on Tuesday, Mr Hamadeh requested that a council of ministers be convened rapidly to focus solely on the refuse crisis.
Mr Jreissati informed him later that afternoon that the council meeting will be held next Tuesday, Mr Hamadeh told The National.
Asked whether Beirut can be spared a new garbage crisis, Mr Hamadeh said he was unsure. “We have signed all the necessary laws in the past, but nobody applies them,” he said.
On Tuesday, Mr Jreissati compared Lebanon’s inability to process its waste to a “civil war” which could potentially “destroy” Lebanon’s tourism sector and more broadly, its economy. Tourism is one of the main drivers of the economy in the small country, which boasts 225 kilometres of coastline on the Mediterranean Sea and snow-capped mountains.
“There is no tourism, health or agriculture if we do not deal with the waste problem,” Mr Jreissati said during the press conference, the state-run National News Agency reported.
“I say that the issue of waste is more important than the economic crisis which politicians and executive authorities have given such importance to. The Environment Ministry submitted a plan on June 3 which has not yet been approved,” he complained.
The minister’s plan includes setting up 25 landfills across the country to replace the illegal dumps.
Formed late January, the latest government vowed to implement quick reforms to clean up the country’s finances but has been paralysed by infighting.
On Thursday, the cabinet will meet for the second time since politicians resumed contact on August 9 after a deadly shoot-out that involved a junior minister paralysed it for 40 days.
Retirement funds heavily invested in equities at a risky time
Pension funds in growing economies in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East have a sharply higher percentage of assets parked in stocks, just at a time when trade tensions threaten to derail markets.
Retirement money managers in 14 geographies now allocate 40 per cent of their assets to equities, an 8 percentage-point climb over the past five years, according to a Mercer survey released last week that canvassed government, corporate and mandatory pension funds with almost $5 trillion in assets under management. That compares with about 25 per cent for pension funds in Europe.
The escalating trade spat between the US and China has heightened fears that stocks are ripe for a downturn. With tensions mounting and outcomes driven more by politics than economics, the S&P 500 Index will be on course for a “full-scale bear market” without Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts, Citigroup’s global macro strategy team said earlier this week.
The increased allocation to equities by growth-market pension funds has come at the expense of fixed-income investments, which declined 11 percentage points over the five years, according to the survey.
Hong Kong funds have the highest exposure to equities at 66 per cent, although that’s been relatively stable over the period. Japan’s equity allocation jumped 13 percentage points while South Korea’s increased 8 percentage points.
The money managers are also directing a higher portion of their funds to assets outside of their home countries. On average, foreign stocks now account for 49 per cent of respondents’ equity investments, 4 percentage points higher than five years ago, while foreign fixed-income exposure climbed 7 percentage points to 23 per cent. Funds in Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Taiwan are among those seeking greater diversification in stocks and fixed income.
• Bloomberg
The%20specs
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
HOW DO SIM CARD SCAMS WORK?
Sim swap frauds are a form of identity theft.
They involve criminals conning mobile phone operators into issuing them with replacement Sim cards, often by claiming their phone has been lost or stolen
They use the victim's personal details - obtained through criminal methods - to convince such companies of their identity.
The criminal can then access any online service that requires security codes to be sent to a user's mobile phone, such as banking services.
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
'Texas Chainsaw Massacre'
Rating: 1 out of 4
Running time: 81 minutes
Director: David Blue Garcia
Starring: Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Mark Burnham
UK-EU trade at a glance
EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years
Co-operation on security initiatives and procurement of defence products
Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries
Smoother border management with use of e-gates
Cutting red tape on import and export of food
The biog
From: Upper Egypt
Age: 78
Family: a daughter in Egypt; a son in Dubai and his wife, Nabila
Favourite Abu Dhabi activity: walking near to Emirates Palace
Favourite building in Abu Dhabi: Emirates Palace
Know before you go
- Jebel Akhdar is a two-hour drive from Muscat airport or a six-hour drive from Dubai. It’s impossible to visit by car unless you have a 4x4. Phone ahead to the hotel to arrange a transfer.
- If you’re driving, make sure your insurance covers Oman.
- By air: Budget airlines Air Arabia, Flydubai and SalamAir offer direct routes to Muscat from the UAE.
- Tourists from the Emirates (UAE nationals not included) must apply for an Omani visa online before arrival at evisa.rop.gov.om. The process typically takes several days.
- Flash floods are probable due to the terrain and a lack of drainage. Always check the weather before venturing into any canyons or other remote areas and identify a plan of escape that includes high ground, shelter and parking where your car won’t be overtaken by sudden downpours.
Vaccine Progress in the Middle East
PROFILE OF SWVL
Started: April 2017
Founders: Mostafa Kandil, Ahmed Sabbah and Mahmoud Nouh
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Sector: transport
Size: 450 employees
Investment: approximately $80 million
Investors include: Dubai’s Beco Capital, US’s Endeavor Catalyst, China’s MSA, Egypt’s Sawari Ventures, Sweden’s Vostok New Ventures, Property Finder CEO Michael Lahyani
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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