Aoun: Corrupt System Controls Lebanon

President Michel Aoun meets with a youth delegation at the Baabda palace on Sunday. (NNA)
President Michel Aoun meets with a youth delegation at the Baabda palace on Sunday. (NNA)
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Aoun: Corrupt System Controls Lebanon

President Michel Aoun meets with a youth delegation at the Baabda palace on Sunday. (NNA)
President Michel Aoun meets with a youth delegation at the Baabda palace on Sunday. (NNA)

Lebanese President Michel Aoun continued on Sunday his verbal campaign against what he calls the corrupt system, which he said controls the country and fears accountability.

“Failure of every plan for financial and economic recovery means one thing, which is that the corrupt system that still controls the country and the people fears accountability,” he said during a meeting with a youth delegation at the Baabda Palace.

Aoun explained that a recovery plan stems from three main pillars: identifying losses, defining responsibilities and accountability, and determining treatment methods.

He added that the failure to determine the financial losses and their distribution between the central bank, banks and the state led to two serious matters: First, ignoring those responsible for the financial ruin of the country and second, holding the Lebanese people solely responsible for the financial collapse, and depleting their deposits.

“The people must know who is humiliating them on a daily basis as they try to obtain their most basic rights and who is preventing them from freely accessing their money at banks,” Aoun said.

He added that every popular revolution must aim to identify and distribute losses, define responsibilities, hold officials accountable, and find solutions and identify those who caused the financial disaster.

The people alone should not be held responsible for the crisis, he urged.



Switzerland Lifts Economic Sanctions on Syria

A drone view shows the Syrian central bank, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, December 16, 2024. (Reuters)
A drone view shows the Syrian central bank, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, December 16, 2024. (Reuters)
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Switzerland Lifts Economic Sanctions on Syria

A drone view shows the Syrian central bank, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, December 16, 2024. (Reuters)
A drone view shows the Syrian central bank, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, December 16, 2024. (Reuters)

Switzerland said on Friday it will lift a raft of economic sanctions imposed on Syria, including the Middle Eastern country's central bank.

After the toppling of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, targeted sanctions against individuals and entities linked to the former government will still remain in place, Switzerland's governing Federal Council said.

"The aim of this decision is to promote the country's economic recovery and an inclusive and peaceful political transition," the council said in a statement.

After an initial easing of sanctions in March, Switzerland is now lifting restrictions on the provision of certain financial services, trade in precious metals and the export of luxury goods, the government said.

Some 24 entities including the central bank of Syria have also been removed from the sanctions list, it added.

The announcement follows the EU's decision to lift its economic sanctions on Syria at the end of May after a similar move by the US Treasury Department in the same month.