In tonight’s News Bulletin:

• COVID-19 Vaccination campaign was launched in Lebanon.
• The tourism sector is collapsing after it was the first to be accused of welcoming the pandemic, so will it resume work soon?
• The epidemic and the ensuing chaos have thrown the school year and official tests into disarray.

We live in a republic of absurdity, a nation that simultaneously makes us laugh and cry. After poverty reached the point of starvation and breakdown, the streets are burning and people are rising up. The solution for senior officials, on the other hand, is as follows: The President of the Republic meets with the Governor of the Banque du Liban in Baabda to inquire about the cause for the high dollar price., reasonable! The first man in the Republic is waking up to the Lebanese’s harsh reality, and has asked the Governor of the Banque du Liban, Riad Salameh, to take action. What happened to the president a week, a month, and a year ago? When the dollar began to rise, where were you? What had he been up to? What was he so obsessed with that he didn’t notice or care about the spike in the dollar’s value? Is he unaware that the Lebanese have become one of the poorest peoples on the planet under his reign, and that the nation he governs has one of the lowest minimum wages in the world, equaling the minimum pay in Afghanistan?

The caretaker government, on the other hand, has not yet understood the precision of the stage and is content with the extremely required and necessary duties. Is this logical in a country on the verge of bankruptcy and a rapidly deteriorating economic and social situation?

The prime minister-designate, on the other hand, flies outside Lebanon once more, this time to the United Arab Emirates. Is this legal? Isn’t Prime Minister Hariri aware that the people are on the verge of suffocation, and that the first and most important requirement for the country’s recovery is the formation of a government? Isn’t Saad Hariri aware that his absence from Lebanon does not, in most situations, speed up the formation of a government?

The country is in crisis, the people are in crisis, and the government’s formation is in crisis. When will Saad Hariri face his impending difficulties and seek to resolve them within rather than evading them by visiting abroad? The fate of Lebanon is at risk. When will our elected officials begin to take responsibility for their actions? When, instead, will we have leaders who will guide us toward development and prosperity rather than recession and collapse?