“Those who usurped public money cannot conduct reforms,” shouted one of the protesters before leaving the building following police intervention. They are blamed for decades of corruption and mismanagement that threw the small nation into the worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history. The protesters were referring to the start of nationwide protests in October 2019 against the country’s ruling class. They replaced it with a banner in Arabic that read “revolutionaries of October 17.” The protesters broke into the meeting room at the ministry and turned a framed picture of President Michel Aoun upside down before removing it. Protesters have blamed the ministry for sluggishness in issuing ration cards that are supposed to give poor families monthly financial aid. The minimum monthly wage is now worth about $27. Some three quarters of the population of 6 million, including a million Syrian refugees, now live in poverty. Prices have been skyrocketing in recent weeks as the government lifted subsidies on fuel and some medicines, making them out of reach for many in Lebanon. The protesters who entered the Ministry of Social Affairs said conditions in crisis-hit Lebanon have become unbearable as a result of the rapid economic collapse and ongoing crash of the pound, which reached 25,100 to the dollar. BEIRUT (AP) - A small group of protesters broke into a ministry building in Beirut early on Friday and removed a photo of the president from one of its main rooms, as the Lebanese pound hit a new low amid a worsening economic and political stalemate.
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