LEBANON: Lebanon opposition continues their anti-government protests.

Hundreds of Lebanese protesters gathered outside the headquarters of Lebanon's main telecommunications company OGERO on Monday ( January 15) as part of a Hezbollah-led campaign to try and topple the government and block its economic reform plans. "The Labour Union continues its move which it started after the prime minister took the decision without consulting the Labour Union on economic and social issues," said Ghassan Ghosson, the head of Lebanon's Labour Union. The protesters waved Lebanese flags and chanted anti-government slogans. Similar protests took place in front of the Energy and a Finance Ministry's tax office last week . The demonstrations, so far thinly attended compared to the vast gatherings organised by Hezbollah and its allies in December, were called by the main labour union confederation and backed by the opposition to press a 41-day-old campaign to topple Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government. Protesters have camped outside Siniora's offices in central Beirut since Dec. 1 to try to force him to cede veto power to the opposition in a unity government or call early elections. Siniora, who has Western and Saudi backing, has resisted those demands, instead announcing an economic reform package to be presented at an international donor conference in Paris. The Beirut government hopes the Jan. 25 conference, which U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to attend, will bring billions of dollars of aid to an economy reeling from Hezbollah's July-August war with Israel. The reforms, which aim to boost growth and ease Lebanon's $41 billion public debt, include raising value-added tax and privatising the mobile telecom sector -- both rejected by the union confederation as damaging workers' rights. The opposition, led by the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Shi'ite Hezbollah, has pledged to organise daily protests near government buildings and facilities until Siniora gives way.

ITN Source | January 16, 2007

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