BEIRUT— Lebanon's newly-formed government held its
first meeting Monday to discuss ways of rescuing the country from one of its
worst ever economic crises.
اضافة اعلان
The meeting, during which a ministerial statement is to be
drafted to be submitted to a confidence vote in parliament, opened in the
presence of President Michel Aoun.
Aoun said in a statement he hoped the committee tasked with
drafting the statement would include the pursuit of negotiations with the
International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Talks with the IMF on financial assistance are key to
rescuing Lebanon, which defaulted on its debt last year and has since been
sliding into poverty.
More than three out of four Lebanese are now considered to
be under the poverty line, mains electricity is only available a handful of
hours a day while petrol, bread and medicine shortages are sowing chaos across
the country.
"We will tackle solutions to the fuel and medicine
shortages in order to end the humiliation" to the population, Prime
Minister Najib Mikati said during the meeting.
The new lineup was unveiled by Mikati after protracted
horsetrading, 13 months after the previous
government resigned following the
deadly explosion at Beirut port in August 2020.
In the interim, the economic collapse in Lebanon has become
one of the worst on record worldwide, with the currency losing more than 90
percent of its value and foreign partners seeing no sign of political change.
Mikati, the country's richest man and a third-time premier,
succeeded where his two predecessors failed in clinching a political agreement
for a new lineup.
His team was met with skepticism if not scorn by many in
Lebanon who argue that the same parties and political barons that have ruled
for decades were unlikely to deliver major change.
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