Lebanese daily publishes blank edition to protest crisis

Lebanon’s only English-language daily is protesting the country’s deteriorating economic and political conditions by publishing a blank edition.

Each page of The Daily Star’s Thursday edition bore a single phrase referring to one of the country’s problems, including government deadlock, rising public debt, increasing sectarian rhetoric and unemployment. The back page had a photo of the cedar tree, a national symbol, with a caption reading: “Wake up before it’s too late!”

Lebanon has been in the grip of an economic crisis for months, and the government has not met since a June 30 shooting in a mountain village that escalated tensions between the Christian and Druze communities.

Lebanon’s national debt is hovering around $85 billion, or 150 percent of gross domestic product.