Beirut, Lebanon (AFP):<\/p>\n
Dozens of angry demonstrators attacked several banks in Beirut on Thursday after the Lebanese pound hit a record low, AFP journalists said, amid a deepening economic crisis.<\/p>\n
Lebanon\u2019s cash-strapped banks have imposed strict restrictions on withdrawals, barring depositors from accessing their savings, especially those in US dollars.<\/p>\n
The pound is trading at about 80,000 to the greenback on the black market versus 60,000 at the start of the month, according to exchange rate monitors.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, around 50 protesters smashed the facades of four banks and burned car tyres in the central Beirut neighbourhood of Badaro, AFP journalists at the scene reported.<\/p>\n
The attacks came after calls by the \u201cDepositors\u2019 Outcry Association\u201d, a group that supports depositors\u2019 attempts to withdraw their money.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey stole, seized and looted our money three years ago,\u201d said protester Pascal al-Raisi.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are owners of millions of dollars among us without even a penny in their pockets.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no other solution. We will escalate until we regain our rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
Depositors have carried out similar attacks in recent months to demand access to their savings from banks, which have repeatedly closed for days.<\/p>\n
This month, the Association of Banks in Lebanon declared an open-ended strike, saying the crisis was affecting the entire financial system.<\/p>\n
Lebanon\u2019s economic crisis has left many struggling to make ends meet in a country where poverty rates have reached 80 percent of the population, according to the United Nations.<\/p>\n
The pound\u2019s plunge has triggered a wave of price hikes including on fuel, food items and other basic goods.<\/p>\n
Lebanon is being run by a caretaker government and is also without a president, as lawmakers have repeatedly failed to elect a successor to Michel Aoun, whose mandate expired at the end of October.<\/p>\n
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Beirut, Lebanon (AFP): Dozens of angry demonstrators attacked several banks in Beirut on Thursday after the Lebanese pound hit a record low, AFP journalists said, amid a deepening economic crisis. Lebanon\u2019s cash-strapped banks have imposed strict restrictions on withdrawals, barring depositors from accessing their savings, especially those in US dollars. The pound is trading at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":599,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions\/599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diplomatique.ma\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}