One year since start of protests, Lebanon in despair: In October 2019, Lebanese took to the streets in their hundreds of thousands to protest against a myriad of issues - limitless corruption, alarming economic conditions, and epic political mismanagement. Today, more problems have been added to the existing ones, primarily the COVID-19 pandemic and the unbelievable explosion at Beirut’s port on August. Despite this, the protests have almost ended. The real reason for this is that confessional political system that divided Lebanon has proved to be difficult to let go off. Politicians know that the Lebanese people, too, fear that changing this system could lead to other sects gaining more power at their cost. Such is the tragedy of Lebanon. [Omar Shariff, International Editor]
AP