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Monday, 26 April, 2021 - 07:30
Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Waleed Bukhari meets with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rai. (NNA) Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat
Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Waleed Bukhari said Sunday there were attempts to smuggle 600 million narcotic pills from Lebanon during the past six years, a quantity that could “drown the Arab world with drugs and psychotropic substances.”
“The total narcotic substances and psychotropic substances brought from Lebanon by drug traffickers and seized [by Saudi authorities] amounted to more than 600 million narcotic pills and hundreds of kilograms of hashish over the past six years,” Bukhari said on Twitter.
He said the smuggling of these drugs is not targeting the Kingdom alone, but all parts of the Arab world.
BEIRUT-
Maronite Patriarch Beshara Al-Rai slammed political parties over the obstacles facing the government formation process “for the sake of immediate or future calculations and interests.”
His comments came as the country faces a government deadlock since the designation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri to form the new cabinet more than two months ago.
Speaking on Friday during New Year’s mass sermon, the patriarch stressed that no political party or group had the right “to hinder the formation of the government for the sake of current or future interests, while Lebanon is moving fast towards complete collapse and bankruptcy.”