Lebanon: Anger mounts over economic crisis as politicians dawdle

Pharmacies shutting and petrol stations rationing scarce fuel supplies as the country plunges deeper into collapse.

Pharmacies went on strike and petrol stations rationed scarce fuel on Thursday across Lebanon as public anger over an accelerating economic collapse intensified with little sign of an end to a high-level political standoff. Politicians have since late 2019 failed to agree on a rescue plan to unlock foreign cash that Lebanon desperately needs. “We are really looking at the abyss, seeing it very clearly, and I think it’s either now or never,” Mohanad Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center said, alluding to the protracted failure to form a viable new government able to launch reforms.