Spike in the price of fuel worsens Lebanon’s tough living conditions

Treasury says it needs to modernize its economic sanctions Govt keen to cooperate with IMF to find economic recovery plan

BEIRUT, Oct 20, (Agencies): Lebanon’s government raised the price of fuel Wednesday by about 25%, the National News Agency reported, effectively removing all subsidies on fuel products and pricing them at market rate amid a worsening economic crisis.

The new increase brings the price of 20 liters (5 gallons) of 98-octane gasoline to 312,700 Lebanese pounds - almost half the monthly minimum wage. The spike also affects cooking gas and diesel fuel used for heating, portending a chilly winter ahead.

“Effectively, the subsidies have been removed from fuel in a final manner,” said Georges Brax, a spokesman for the Syndicate of Petrol Station Owners in Lebanon. He said the new prices were calculated at the black-market rate.

“There are no more subsidies from the central bank or the state coffers,” he said, adding that world fuel prices have also been rising, impacting the pricing in Lebanon.

The increase sparked limited protests in

Beirut, southern and northern Lebanon and calls for an increase in the minimum wage. Living conditions continue to deteriorate in Lebanon as the tiny country, once a middleincome nation, slides further into an economic crisis that has already driven over half of the population into poverty. A government plan for a social safety net has yet to materialize in the country, which is now dependent on international financial assistance.

Meanwhile, Lebanese President Michel Aoun stressed his country’s keenness to cooperate with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reach an agreement as soon as possible on updating the financial, monetary and banking recovery plan in Lebanon.

In a statement, the Lebanese presidency said that this came during a meeting between president Aoun and the IMF Executive Director and the representative of the Arab Group, Mahmoud Mohieldin.

The statement quoted the Lebanese president as saying that the cooperation with the IMF also aims to implement an integrated program for social protection and health care, and to pass anti-corruption laws.

WASHINGTON, Oct 20, (AP): The Treasury Department says that the economic and financial sanctions the United States has employed over the past two decades to battle global terrorism, nuclear proliferation, drug cartels and other threats need to adapt to a rapidly changing financial world.

The department issued a report Monday that said it needs to modernize the technology it uses and upgrade its workforce to deal with new tools and techniques, such as digital currencies.

“Treasury’s sanctions review has shown that this powerful instrument continues to deliver results but also faces, new challenges,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in releasing the report.

The report found that since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Treasury’s use of sanctions has increased by 933%, from 912 sanctions designations in 2001 to 9,421 this year.

The sanctions program is administered by Treasury in conjunction with recommendations from the White House and the State Department. The report said it was successful in preventing Iran from using the international financial system and commercial markets to generate revenue from oil sales to support its nuclear program, pushing the country to the negotiating table in 2015.

The report also said that the sanctions effort had frozen and seized billions of dollars in assets from front companies used by the Cali drug cartel, at one point the world’s largest drug trafficking organization. More than 1,600 terrorist entities and individuals have also been sanctioned since the 2001 terrorist attacks, according to the report.

But the review of Treasury’s sanction operations, which had been ordered by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, found that the effort needs to be updated.

The report said sanctions need to keep up with new and emerging techniques being employed by cybercriminals, and a changing financial system where such products as cryptocurrencies have already started to reduce the use of the U.S. dollar, long the world’s reserve currency.

“Technical innovations such as digital currencies, alternative payment platforms and new ways of hiding cross-border transactions all potentially reduce the efficacy of American sanctions,” the report said. “These technologies offer malign actors opportunities to hold and transfer funds outside the traditional dollar-based financial system.”

The report did not provide specifics of what Treasury was planning but last week, the United States joined with more than 30 countries in a commitment to coordinate actions against ransomware attacks through such moves as increasing data sharing among countries and tightening regulations on crypto markets.