Media Scope: Lab Test Results of ’Lebanese Eat Wastes’ to be Announced

Local Editor

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The French-Saudi arms deal with Lebanon is finalized and awaits final signatures, at the time the Syrian army was targeting terrorist groups and advancing in the Qalamoun area. With these advances, Lebanese Health Minister advances in the food file, which constituted a major scandal on not meeting standards.

France and Lebanon signed on Tuesday a Saudi-funded deal worth $3 billion to provide French weapons and military equipment to the Lebanese army allegedly to help it fight militants encroaching from neighbouring Syria. But this is not news. 

According to As-Safir newspaper, a French delegation arrives to Beirut by the end of this week to meet Lebanese Army General Jean Qahwaji, to finalize the arms deal. The paper quoted Lebanese sources saying that the main reasons for accelerating the process are: Iran's offer to equip and arm the Lebanese army, Qahwaji's latest visit to Washington, the latest events in the Tripoli battles, a draw between Saudi internal entities not to mention the pressure exerted by France. 

During the meeting in France between the Lebanese delegation and a French delegation headed by French President Francois Holland, the agreement was that to seal the deal in a period of no more than 50 days. 

Also, As-Safir revealed that ‘a lobby of Lebanese arms brokers' have been impeding the process. A French official assured ‘some Lebanese figures hampered the process through offering help to finalize the deal in return for huge sums of commission that we rejected.'

On the security level, fierce battles took place in the Syrian region of al-Qalamoun, adjacent to Arsal environs which is occupied by opposition Syrian terrorists. The Syrian army launched major attacks on the terrorist groups causing many casualties among them. 

Sources told al-Akhbar newspaper that the army had bombed a place where the armed terrorists meet usually. They were in a meeting to determine the whereabouts of a vast attack on al-Qalamoun villages. According to the source, 20 terrorists were killed and 30 at least injured, among them was Abu Malek al-Talli who was heading the meeting. The opposition swiftly reacted as its correspondent on twitter accused the Syrian and Lebanese armies of targeting the place, claiming it is where the Lebanese hostages from Arsal were kept. 

On another note, Health Minister Wael Abu Faour is set to dish the dirt Thursday on which of the capital's restaurants and supermarkets are selling contaminated food, the second, much-anticipated installment in a week of high-profile food industry accusations that have overshadowed Lebanon's myriad other concerns.

The minister is due to announce the results of laboratory tests conducted on samples taken from restaurants and other food establishments in Beirut, just two days after he named and shamed popular restaurant chains and supermarkets in areas across Lebanon that were discovered to be selling edible goods with traces of sewage and fecal matter.

Salam expressed his complete support for the initiative, encouraging the minister to carry on and "take suitable legal measures against those who expose the health of the Lebanese to dangers."

MP Walid Jumblatt, whose Progressive Socialist Party is represented in the government by Abu Faour and Agriculture Minister Akram Chehayeb, said the health minister had his full backing.
"The most important thing is to keep up the fight till the end," Jumblatt said in comments published Wednesday. "This should not just create a temporary uproar because people's health is in danger."