...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...could soon receive more aid after a letter from international donors said on Wednesday there had been an agreement to hand out assistance in hard currency as the Lebanese pound crashed to a new low.
Aid to the country in the midst of a financial meltdown exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic is currently handed out in Lebanese pounds at rates set by the Central Bank.
But in a letter to the country's finance ministry seen by the Thomson Rooters Foundation, representatives of the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
, United Nations
...an idea whose time has gone...
and World Bank said they "take note of the verbal agreement" on Feb. 22 by the Central Bank chief and deputy prime minister for aid to be disbursed in US dollars.
"We are confident you share the urgency of rolling out the agreed-upon disbursement mechanisms at the earliest, in order to ensure the consistency and continuity of aid amidst increasingly challenging socio-economic conditions," the letter said.
Lebanon has one of the most unequal wealth distributions in the world and poverty has soared since an economic crisis erupted in 2019, worsened by a kaboom in August that left Beirut's port and downtown business area in ruins.
Protesters burned tires and blocked roads in Beirut on Tuesday, raising fears of wider unrest in a country reeling from soaring unemployment and inflation, the COVID-19 pandemic and a financial crisis rooted in decades of state waste and graft.
Roughly half of the workforce relies on daily wages mostly paid in local currency, and a recent study by aid organization CARE found that 94% of Lebanon's population are earning less than the minimum wage.