اخبار لبنان – وطن نيوز
اخبار لبنان 24 – اخبار لبنان مباشر
W6nnews.com ==== وطن === تاريخ النشر – 2026-02-17 23:49:00
Introductions to the evening news bulletins for Tuesday 2/17/2026 * Introduction to the “NBN” news bulletin. If “Weapon Exclusivity -2” had a quiet passage without critical time limits in the Council of Ministers, the matter did not apply to the decisions regarding gasoline and TVA emanating from the increase in public sector salaries in the longest session that the Council held in Baabda Palace. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam was keen to defend the new tax decisions, considering that they do not affect the popular classes. He said from Tripoli that increasing the price of gasoline was not an easy decision, pointing out that in return, increases in the price of diesel were cancelled. As for Finance Minister Yassin Jaber, he indicated that the revenue from gasoline and TVA fees is not enough to finance salary increases, saying that we will work on several fronts to restore treasury funds. In practice, the decision regarding gasoline took effect immediately, and the price of one can today rose to more than three hundred and sixty thousand liras at once. However, the decisions on new increases did not affect broad union and popular sectors in peace. This resulted in protests and road blockages in a number of areas in Beirut and outside it. At the same time, wholesale statements were issued to federations, unions, and associations rejecting fees and taxes. Noting that she supports improving wages, she affirmed her refusal to burden citizens, especially the poor, with this additional burden, and stressed that what is required is to find fair alternatives far from people’s pockets, and to link any wage correction to real indicators of the cost of living. Regarding the cost incurred by the parliamentary electoral entitlement as a result of the opinion without the request issued by the Legislation and Consultation Authority in the Ministry of Justice, it spoke for itself in deepening the crisis, and instead of being resolved by the authority, its aunt committed a betrayal of the legal and constitutional trust through a fatwa from outside its authority, because it is not the authority that interprets and issues laws. To the political and national entitlements, including the electoral issue, the Lebanese – Muslims and Christians – in the context of blessed religious entitlements. With the advent of the holy month of Ramadan and the beginning of Lent among the Christian denominations, President Nabih Berri extended his congratulations, hoping that this meeting will be a permanent and daily meeting in performance and behavior in a way that preserves the dignity of Lebanon and the dignity of the human being, to whatever sect he belongs to. On these two blessed occasions, President Berri singled out the people of the border villages in the south with a greeting of reverence, appreciation and congratulations, telling them that your fasting and commemoration of the works of the month of Ramadan in these places, your steadfastness and patience are the pinnacle of faith in God, the land and man, and your sacrifices are the measure of authentic national belonging. Regionally, the second round of indirect negotiations ended in Geneva between Iran and the United States, in a negotiating process that is progressing with cautious steps amid exchanged political messages that reflect each party’s adherence to its negotiating ceilings. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi confirmed that an understanding had been reached on the main principles with the United States, noting that the negotiations had witnessed good developments compared to the previous round. He indicated that the two sides would work on two versions of the potential agreement document to be exchanged between the two sides. The Iranian Foreign Ministry had announced its readiness to remain in Geneva for days and weeks in order to reach an agreement. While President Donald Trump announced that he would participate indirectly in the talks, Sayyed Ali Khamenei addressed the US President by saying that what is more dangerous than the aircraft carrier is the weapon capable of sinking it and that it will not be able to eliminate the Islamic Republic. ======= * Introduction to MTV, Ramadan Kareem. Tomorrow, Wednesday, is the first day of the holy month, may God bring it back to Muslims and Lebanese with goodness and blessings. Although Ramadan is generous to everyone, the government is not generous to the Lebanese at all. It gave them with one hand and took from them with the other. Indeed, it took more than it gave. It gave little to retired military personnel and public sector employees, while taking much from all Lebanese. Thus, the increase in fuel and port containers will affect everyone, and will ignite prices in such a way that the fire of high prices will ignite everyone, while the increase will not be of any benefit because the increase in prices will eat up the increase in salaries before it reaches the pockets. For this reason, the government was besieged in the street today and roads were blocked, while the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance devoted themselves to defending decisions that they cannot defend, because they are unjust and unjust. Regarding arms control, there are many skeptics. But what is certain is that what was achieved in the Council of Ministers session is a step in the right direction. This was confirmed by Information Minister Paul Morcos, who considered that the government’s primary goal is the army’s success in implementing the second phase of the arms control plan within a period of four months. Electorally, it is clear that the Speaker of the House of Representatives is using the opinion of the Legislation and Consultation Commission as an excuse to extend the current term. According to information, Berri is preparing to place the extension law proposal on the agenda of a legislative session that prepares the conditions conducive to its holding in the next two weeks. In Geneva, the second round of talks between Iran and America ended in a positive atmosphere, as the Iranian Foreign Minister announced that an understanding had been reached on the main principles with the American side. ======= * Introduction to Al-Manar, the most powerful army in the world. It may sometimes receive a blow that renders it unable to rise from its place, and more dangerous than aircraft carriers is a weapon that can sink them to the bottom of the sea. It is a position that cannot be interpreted. Imam Ali Khamenei raised it in the face of the arrogance of US President Donald Trump, who brags about his army and naval destroyers. As for the war with which he threatens the Islamic Republic of Iran, he knows that he cannot bear its consequences because of America’s political and economic problems and its international reputation, and he knows very well what awaits him if he commits foolishness. Imam Khamenei’s position was strongly heard at the Geneva negotiating table. Although the Iranians, Omanis and Americans were unanimous in their seriousness and positivity in the second round held today on the intention of the nuclear file exclusively, the Iranian Foreign Minister limited this positivity to the initial steps that put the file in the right direction, considering that progress does not mean that an agreement between the two parties is close. There is agreement in Lebanon that the government’s move to increase taxes and wages dashed any hope of the government’s ability to deal with life issues wisely and rationally, increased resentment in the street, and did not satisfy the people or the employees. The ease of extending a hand into the pockets of the poor and pouring the gasoline tax on the already inflamed prices and igniting them with the increase in TVA has inflamed anger and questions together, so why did the government not go to find revenues from sources other than the pockets of the low-income, such as marine property and its wasted money, for example? Then where are the revolutionaries who set the country on fire for an increase of a few cents on the seventeenth of October, and today they happily drink the cup of a several dollar increase on gasoline with the government of the old revolutionaries, the sovereigns and the reformists? Regarding the sovereignty whose blood was wasted, like the blood of the people of its country, the people of the south and all of Lebanon ask, at the gates of the blessed month of Ramadan for Muslims and the time of fasting for Christians, why President Nabih Berri singled out on both occasions the people of the border villages – Christians and Muslims, displaced and steadfast, with a salute of reverence and appreciation, considering that their steadfastness and patience is the pinnacle of faith in God, the earth and man, and that their sacrifices must result in return, liberation and resurrection. And hope for Lebanon. ======= * Introduction to OTV: The majority of the ministers who make up the government are from the Forces, Phalange, Amal, Hezbollah, the Socialist Party, and the Forces for Change. As for the political parties that directly or indirectly object to the government’s decisions issued last night, they are the forces, the Phalange, Amal, Hezbollah, the Socialist Party, and the Forces for Change, in addition to the Free Patriotic Movement, the only opposition party and not participating in the government. Who rules Lebanon? This is the big question that all the Lebanese should think about answering, who, as of this morning, began paying from their pockets the price for the failure of the Lebanese authority, which was established a year ago, to adhere to its promises, as reform was absent, and the country entered a state of stagnation that may be worse than the caretaker stage. Over the past year, the forces have devoted themselves to the Thing Party and its opposite, and there are many examples, including electricity within six months and then blaming the former energy ministers, including voting in favor of the budget in the Council of Ministers and against it in the House of Representatives, and also including in the last hours the Minister of Energy passing the increase in gasoline, then objecting to the government’s decisions. As for the Phalange, there is nothing wrong with it, just like the representatives of change, while Minister Amal presents the budget and proposes taxes, in exchange for harsh criticism of the government’s performance from the duo’s representatives and officials. The same story is repeated with the revelation of facts and the dissipation of rosy dreams, while the external and internal drivers of October 17, 2019, on the back of six cents, were completely absent today, with popular anger limited to sporadic movements in some areas. As for the Prime Minister, he found no justification other than considering the effect of the value-added tax to be limited to the rich, stressing the collection from quarries and marine properties, and the Minister of Finance met him with a press conference in which he explained the difficulty of the aforementioned collection. This is about the local issue, which was absent today from discussion of the fate of the parliamentary elections. As for the most prominent event, it took place in Geneva, where Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced that guidelines for a new nuclear agreement between Washington and Tehran had been reached. ======= * Introduction to the “LBC” It is the story of the pitcher’s raises: catch-up decisions… turning to easy solutions… treatment with painkillers for incurable diseases… a state that pays three hundred and twenty thousand salaries a month, between serving military personnel and retirees, and between serving civilians and retirees. This state does not know the productive civilian population, whose number increases every year with the entry of new employees and the retirement of others. The spiral has become known, the street is moving, the authority is afraid and responds to the demands. From where? From the pockets of the private sector, and then from the pockets of those to whom the increases were given in the public sector. The political class, throughout the ages, has filled the public administration with cronies, cronies, and beneficiaries, and woe, destruction, and great things to those who harm those who benefit. This beneficiary has a leader who protects him. Didn’t the state steal people’s deposits to finance its expenses? Today they are telling you about returning deposits! Since when does a thief return what is stolen if he is not tried and sentenced? They tell you that the state spent the deposits, then they tell you that the state will return the deposits! Just like today: They tell you that the state wants to finance the increase in salaries, so it raised the price of gasoline and increased the value-added tax, in order to increase more than 320 thousand salaries, of which the producers do not know. Because it is a time of elections, whoever dares to harm an employee, whether he is in service or retired, this employee will be called “voter” next May, and the politician who agreed to increase his salary “without his consent and vote” in May will certainly not allow anyone to approach him. When the Minister of Finance stood up during the budget session and shouted: No increases without revenues, and on the tenth of next month a delegation from the International Monetary Fund will come, so what do we say to it? Today, the Minister of Finance responded and said that he had secured the bulk of the revenues. It seems that he told the IMF, and other than the IMF, and especially the donor countries, what he would do, so the bomb was securing revenues from gasoline. ======= * Introduction to the “new” “A Nation’s Summit”… from the citizen’s pocket.. but. From rebuilding the south to sheltering the north, and in between, “drinking the bitter cup of taxes,” Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is moving through a minefield in which he has no camel or camel to carry heavy, long-lasting contracts in a systematic approach that has struck the productive sectors and institutionalized “organized plunder” and pushed the state into a tunnel of financial deficit to the point of bankruptcy and brought it to “hell.” It is a crisis that did not arise from its moment, as successive governments have always fled forward by following the shortest path by imposing taxes by pumping “millions” into the citizen’s pocket and withdrawing them from other pockets. It is a crisis of decades that the authority wasted without a clear economic vision, during which it accumulated losses on top of the losses that peace approached with what is better, even if it hurts, but with the available capabilities in a country that was “plundered” before it was bankrupt, it gave a segment of citizens their rights. The professor, the military, and the employee who deserves his position and not the “stuff” of cronies, favoritism, and the glut of the clique in state institutions are “children of the country” and deserve justice. Rather than using incendiary gasoline, the greatest justice would be to strike the government with an iron hand and collect its taxes from the whales that swallowed sea and river properties and from the crushers that gnawed away the mountains of Lebanon, and to activate oversight of the smuggling corridors. “With the tax of necessity,” the prime minister was able to turn corners, taking “street anger” to his chest and bearing a responsibility that populist governments and parliaments shied away from, throwing their impotence on the shoulders of the citizen during the seven-hour session. In a government that includes all parties, each party revealed its true face. The Lebanese Forces objected, but before the rooster crowed, they reversed and disavowed themselves. The Shiite duo expressed their reservations, but the other half of them in the Development and Liberation Bloc objected, and from outside the “government fund,” the “Ma Khaluna” movement commented on the movement and found an opportunity to target the “We Want and Fina” team under “the slogan of more expensive gasoline and a decision without transparency.” In the face of the clash of interests and the disavowal of its owners from a decision they had voted for and approved the budget, Salam fought his war alone, thus opening a new phase of institutional work away from populism, albeit with a difficult surgical operation that bears the cost of confrontation in a country whose officials are accustomed to fleeing from it. Among this model that Salam established is the silent majority in the country that belongs to the “Couch Party,” which has given up and is fed up with the policies of the authorities and is content to watch the action and receive the reaction without engaging in decision-making. From a country whose “protector was its thieves” and whose arms are still deeply rooted in its institutions far beyond its borders, where Geneva’s coldness was reflected in the conduct of the US-Iranian negotiations. In the second round, the level of heat between the two parties decreased, and both sides came out with a good and positive atmosphere. What indicates the progress of the talks is that the discussion entered into technical issues, which prompted Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, after the round, to describe it as more serious than the previous one, with important progress being achieved that paves the way for drawing the features of a possible agreement, even if the road is still long and sensitive. While Donald Trump activated the monitoring observatory to establish the requirements, he received a verbal message from the guide that the aircraft carrier was dangerous, but what was more dangerous was the weapon that could sink it to the bottom of the sea.
