Precious little solace

Even as Eric Le Borgne, lead economist at the World Bank, presented the body’s latest report on the Lebanese economy yesterday, he knew facts on the ground were already making it out of date. In the southern city of Saida, at least 17 Lebanese army soldiers had been killed by forces loyal to the fundamentalist Sheikh Ahmed al-Assir while sporadic clashes have been reported in recent days in southern Beirut, Tripoli and the eastern Bekaa region. In these circumstances, Borgne appeared hesitant to back one key part of the body’s findings. The report, optimistically titled “Growing tensions in a resilient economy”, predicted GDP growth at 2.3 percent in 2013, up from 1.4 percent in 2012. But Borgne knew the Bank would almost certainly downgrade this figure later in the year as it was on an optimistic assessment of the country’s political trends. He said the prediction was made earlier in