Running Water Shortages in Beirut, Mount Lebanon
According to L’Orient Today, “Running water is completely cut off in the localities of Metn, the Beirut neighborhoods of Tallet el-Khayat and Bourj Abi Haidar, and in Bourj Hammoud at the northern entrance of the capital, the Beirut and Mount Lebanon Water Authority announced in a Friday statement. The cutoffs are reportedly due to a lack of electricity since midnight Wednesday.” [L’Orient Today]

Minister of Interior Assures Upcoming Municipal Elections Will Not Be Postponed for a Second Time
Caretaker Minister of Interior and Municipalities, Bassam Mawlawi, publicized the Ministry’s intention to hold the postponed municipal elections – deciding the leadership for municipalities and the makhateer – on May 31st, 2023, after last year’s polling become postponed due to electricity supply and diaspora voting considerations, among other reasons.  [L’Orient Today]

Anchored Sea Vessels Awaiting Unload Costing Treasury Millions Amid Internal Fuel Dispute
According to LBC International, “Three unloaded vessels have been anchored at sea for ten days, awaiting written approval to unload and transfer the amount, costing the treasury millions due to political vendettas. From two weeks ago until today, we have witnessed a legal dispute over buying fuel for Électricité du Liban. The two parties are competing: the Caretaker Prime Minister and the Ministry of Finance on the one hand, and the Ministry of Energy on the other, amid disagreement as to whether the matter requires holding a cabinet session or can be passed by a decree to be settled later.” [LBCI]

French Armed Forces Minister Visited Lebanon on Behalf of President Macron
Sebastien Lecornu, the French Minister of the Armed Forces, under the direction of President Emmanuel Macron, visited Lebanon last week as part of an ongoing cooperation program between France and Lebanon to optimize the LAF’s capabilities and support the peacekeeping operations of the UN. Minister Lecornu visited the French contingent of UNIFIL in addition to holding meetings with Lebanese officials including Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, LAF Commander Joseph Aoun, and caretaker Minister of Defense Maurice Sleem. [The National]

“The 2022 Arab Opinion Index is the eighth in a series of public opinion surveys across the Arab world conducted by Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Doha, Qatar. The 2022 Arab Opinion Index is based on the findings from face-to-face interviews conducted between June and December 2022 with 33,300 individual respondents in 14 Arab countries: Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Tunisia. Sampling followed a randomized, stratified, multi-stage, self-weighted clustered approach, giving an overall margin of error between +/- 2 % and 3% for the individual country samples. The overall samples guarantee probability-proportional-to-size (PPS), ensuring fairness in the representation of various population segments. With an aggregate sample size of 33,300 respondents, the Arab Opinion Index remains the largest public opinion survey in the Arab world. The fieldwork was carried out by an overall team of 920 individuals, equally balanced by gender, who conducted 72,000 hours of face-to-face interviews. The team covered a total of 890,000 kilometers (approximately 553,000 miles) across the population clusters sampled.”

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