L'Orient Today

The cabinet approved funding for the Lebanese Army, medicine imports, Health Ministry-insured patients’ treatment costs and road maintenance yesterday, during a session boycotted by seven of the government’s 24 ministers. Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said that holding the meeting was a matter of “responsibility,” referencing the potential harm wrought by unsettled bills on state-insured patients receiving dialysis and cancer treatments. Critics, namely the Free Patriotic Movement, said that convening a caretaker cabinet amid a presidential vacuum constitutes something between an overstep and a power grab; Mikati, after the meeting, restated his disinterest in exercising presidential prerogatives.