Caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, on Monday held a series of meetings at the Grand Serail, devoted to an array of educational, health and developmental affairs.

In this context, Premier Mikati met with Caretaker Minister of Education and Higher Education, Dr. Abbas Al-Halabi, who said on emerging that they discussed an array of educational affairs and the current educational situation in the country, in light of the ongoing strike in the public education sector.

Premier Mikati also presided over a meeting at the Grand Serail attended by Caretaker Minister of Interior and Municipalities, Judge Bassam Mawlawi, and Caretaker Minister of Public Works and Transport, Ali Hamieh, as well as MP Sajih Attieh, Secretary-General of the Higher Relief Commission, Major General Mohammad Khair, Dean of the Order of Engineers Syndicate in Tripoli and the North Bahaa Harb, Mayor of Tripoli Ahmed Qamar El-Din, and the UN Deputy Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, Imran Riza.

On emerging, Caretaker Minister Hamieh said that the meeting discussed the issue of conducting a survey of buildings with cracks and weak structure as a result of the earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on February 6, and the quakes that occurred in Lebanon.

Minister Hamieh also pointed out that the meeting decided to task the Minister of Interior to communicate with the municipalities and ask them to provide the Ministry with the list of buildings with cracks and weak structures, especially in Tripoli and Minieh.

Mikati later presided over a meeting devoted to Akkar district’s demands, attended by Ministers Mawlawi and Hamieh, MPs Mohammad Suleiman and Sajih Attieh, Major General Khair, and MP Walid al-Baarini’s representative.

The Caretaker PM also met with Caretaker Minister of Health, Dr. Firas Abiad, who visited him in the company of Thierry Philip, Chairman of the Executive Board at “Institut Curie” and President of the “Organisation of European Cancer Institutes”.

Abiad reportedly briefed Mikati on Philip’s visit to cancer treatment centers in Lebanon, during which cancer-related programs carried out by Lebanon’s Ministry of Health were presented, in addition to the means to boosting areas of cooperation.

The meeting with Mikati took stock of a number of plans and programs being carried out by the Ministry of Health in order to develop the “National Cancer Plan” in cooperation with Institut Curie and the Organisation of European Cancer Institutes.

The meeting also discussed the ministry’s quality program for cancer treatment, as well as the cancer treatment program in Lebanon’s government hospitals.

For his part, Mikati lauded the role played by France supporting Lebanon’s health sector.

Among Premier Mikati’s itinerant visitors for today had been respectively Lebanon’s Ambassador to the Vatican, Farid Al-Khazen, Director General of Ogero, Imad Kreidieh, and a delegation from Dar Al Iftaa in Australia.

Source: National News Agency