World

Lebanon’s currency continues to tank amid monetary chaos

Lebanon’s national currency further collapsed Monday, trading on the black market at nearly 20 times its value two years ago, worsening inflation and people’s despair.

The Lebanese pound was trading at 27,000 to the dollar on the black market, hitting a new low in its downward trajectory since October 2019 as the Lebanese economy went into a tailspin. The currency is officially pegged at 1,500 pounds to the dollar.

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The economic collapse has been described as one of the worst in the world in over 150 years. Inflation and prices of basic goods have skyrocketed in Lebanon, which imports more than 80 percent of its basic goods.

Shortages of basic supplies, including fuel and medicine, and restrictions on bank withdrawals and transfers, particularly in foreign currency, have increased the desperation of the Lebanese in the once middle-class country.

Poverty has exponentially increased while the political class, blamed for years of corruption and mismanagement, has failed to offer drastic solutions to the crisis. Negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for a recovery plan have been bogged down in political disagreements and blame trading.

The latest fall in the currency exchange rate follows a central bank directive last week that changed the rate used when depositors make withdrawals from existing dollar accounts to 8,000 pounds to the dollar, up from the previous 3,900 to the dollar.

The directive allowed people to recover money they have not been able to access because of informal capital controls introduced by the banks at the outset of the crisis. But experts said it put more pressure on the national currency because the central bank will print more pounds, further decreasing their value and purchasing power.

World

Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan appointed as UAE VP

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan has appointed Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan as the country’s vice president and Minister of Presidential Court, Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported on Wednesday.

Sheikh Mansour was appointed alongside current VP Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who is also the Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, according to WAM.

World

Top US general warns of high ammo use in event of major war

America’s top military officer warned Wednesday that war between the United States and another major power would see “off the charts” munitions consumption and said there is work to be done to ensure the country is prepared.

Ukraine and Russia have fired huge amounts of artillery ammunition since Moscow invaded its neighbor in February 2022, sparking concerns about the amount the United States — which has supplied large amounts of shells to Kyiv — has on hand.

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A “big lesson learned comes out of Ukraine, which is the incredible consumption rates of conventional munitions in what really is a limited regional war,” General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee.

“If there was a war on the Korean peninsula or a great power war between United States and Russia, United States and China, those consumption rates would be off the charts,” he said.

“We’ve got a ways to go to make sure our… stockpiles are prepared for the real contingencies.”

Milley’s remarks came a day after Undersecretary of the Army Gabe Camarillo said the United States aims to greatly expand the production of artillery shells.

“We’re… investing in production capacity — $1.45 billion to expand the 155 mm artillery production from 14,000 a month to over 24,000 later this year, which includes a sixfold increase in production capacity by FY28 to over 85,000 units per month,” he said at an Association of the United States Army symposium.

The country is also seeking to increase production of Javelin launchers and missiles as well as ammunition for HIMARS precision rocket launchers — equipment that has played a key role in Ukraine’s fight against Russian troops, Camarillo said.

World

US Senate backs repeal of decades-old Iraq war authorizations

A majority of the US Senate backed legislation on Wednesday to repeal two decades-old authorizations for past wars in Iraq, as Congress pushes to reassert its role over deciding whether to send troops into combat.

The Senate voted 66-30 in favor of legislation to repeal the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force, or AUMFs, well above the 51-vote majority needed to pass the measure that would formally end the Gulf and Iraq wars.

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To become law, the repeal of the two Authorizations for the Use of Military Force, or AUMFs, must still pass the Republican-led House of Representatives, where its prospects are less certain.

All of the votes against repeal in the Senate were from Republicans and the party's leader in the chamber Mitch McConnell issued a statement opposing it.

Biden has said he will sign the legislation, if it reaches his desk.

Twenty years after the March 2003 US invasion, the vote was a historic step away from a war that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of Americans, complicated policy in the Middle East and bitterly divided US politics.

It was also lawmakers' latest effort to reclaim Congress' authority over whether troops should be sent into combat, which backers of the repeal said had been improperly ceded to the White House as the Senate and House of Representatives passed and then failed to repeal open-ended war authorizations.