Beirut

A Lebanese-Canadian academic who is the lone suspect in a 1980 bombing outside a Paris synagogue will go on trial Monday.

A crowd of several dozen angry protesters went on a rampage in Beirut on Thursday, blocking roads and vandalizing bank offices to protest the collapsing Lebanese economy and rules which prevent depositors from withdrawing their money.

Reports this weekend indicated that Lebanese citizens are increasingly turning to sit-in blockades, and outright armed robbery, to pry their savings out of frozen bank accounts as the national economy continues its trajectory toward total collapse.

89-year-old Michel Aoun, president of Lebanon since 2016, vacated his office on Sunday with no successor standing by. Aoun’s departure leaves a country in even more turmoil, as one of his final acts was accepting the resignation of interim Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s government.

Beirut – A customer armed with a rifle and threatening to set himself ablaze held bank workers hostage Thursday in Lebanon’s capital, demanding to withdraw his trapped savings to pay hospital fees, security sources and a family member said.

A section of Beirut’s grain silos collapsed on Thursday, the same day that Lebanon marked the second anniversary of a deadly explosion at the Port of Beirut that devastated the city and damaged the very same grain silos, the National, a U.A.E.-based newspaper, reported.

Sections of Beirut’s grain silos collapsed on Sunday after weakening during a weeks-long fire caused by recent high temperatures that fermented the silos’ grain stores, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported, noting that the silos were infamous for shielding much of western Beirut from an August 2020 port explosion and sustaining partial damage from the blast themselves.

A man wanted by Swedish police in connection with a gang-linked murder in Stockholm in September 2020 has been located and arrested in Lebanon.

At least six demonstrators were reportedly killed, and dozens more wounded, in Beirut on Thursday as tensions grew over the stalled investigation into the August 2020 explosion at the Port of Beirut.

Lebanese Judge Tarek Bitar, the second judge to oversee the investigation of the titanic explosion that devastated the Port of Beirut in August 2020, has survived an effort by several targets of his investigation to remove him and effectively kill the probe.

Protests erupted across Lebanon on Wednesday, the first anniversary of the gigantic explosion at the Port of Beirut, against Iran and its proxy terrorist organization Hezbollah, reportedly leaving dozens injured.

Lebanon on Wednesday marked a year since a cataclysmic explosion ravaged Beirut, with a mix of grief over lost lives and rage at the impunity for its worst peacetime disaster at a time when its economy was already in tatters.

The people of Lebanon noted with dismay on Tuesday that the first anniversary of the huge and deadly Port of Beirut explosion has arrived without any real progress in the much-touted probe to determine who was responsible.

BEIRUT — Ibrahim al-Dika had raised his Belgian shepherd Lexi since she was a tiny pup, but then Lebanon’s economic crisis made him jobless and he had to sell her to repay a bank loan.

(AFP) — A German firm has treated 52 containers of hazardous material at Beirut port and will ship them out of Lebanon, the German ambassador said Saturday, months after a monster port blast.

Hundreds of highly qualified doctors are leaving Lebanon following some of the most turbulent years in the country’s history, undermining its reputation as the medical capital of the Middle East.

The Beirut Bar Association on Wednesday presented Lebanon’s public prosecutor with nearly 700 criminal complaints from victims of the Beirut port blast in August.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — With no new government in sight to adopt reforms that would release urgently needed international aid, poverty is growing in Lebanon, with a pervasive fear that it’s going to get worse.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun used his address to the 2020 U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday to thank the international community for assisting Lebanon after an explosion rocked Beirut, but also insisted on his country’s sovereignty.

A weapons depot belonging to the Hezbollah terror group in southern Lebanon exploded on Tuesday, sending shockwaves through the nation just weeks after a similar explosion decimated the port of Beirut.

Residents of Beirut, Lebanon, were dismayed on Thursday to see a plume of smoke rising from their seaport only a month after a titanic explosion killed over 200 people and damaged much of the city.

A huge fire broke out Thursday at the Port of Beirut, darkening the sky and sparking panic among residents traumatized by last month’s massive explosion that killed about 190 people and injured 6,000 others.

The Lebanese military discovered over four tons of ammonium nitrate near Beirut’s port on Thursday, less than a month after a deadly explosion killed nearly 200 people and devastated large parts of the historic city.

Pope Francis said Wednesday that Lebanon is “more than a state,” it is a “message of freedom,” while calling on Christians everywhere to pray and fast for the troubled nation.

Lebanese Ambassador to Germany Mustapha Adib, 48, was confirmed as the next prime minister of Lebanon in a parliamentary vote on Sunday.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun said on Sunday that he supports calls for Lebanon to become a “secular state,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Lebanon’s effort to form a new government is not going well. Virtually every administration official except President Michel Aoun resigned soon after the August 4 explosion that devastated the city of Beirut. The search for a new prime minister appears to be deadlocked by Lebanon’s factional rivalries and resistance to reform, even as the country’s already shaky economy teeters on the edge of utter ruin.

The Lebanese military released a statement on Monday that said teams of its investigators, assisted by French experts, have discovered 25 containers of hydrochloric acid and 54 containers of other dangerous materials at the Port of Beirut, which was devastated on August 4 by a massive explosion blamed on an improperly stored stockpile of ammonium nitrate.

The German newspaper Der Spiegel published a report this weekend claiming that the ship suspected of bringing 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate to the Port of Beirut in 2013 had ties to a bank involved in laundering money for Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist organization and Lebanese political party.

Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Derian, the highest-ranking Sunni Muslim cleric in Lebanon, added his support Wednesday to calls for an independent international investigation of the massive Beirut explosion on August 4.

Analysis of the historic peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) tends to focus on Iran and Turkey as the big losers. They were certainly the loudest complainers.

The National on Thursday discussed efforts of Lebanese Christians to cope with social, political, and sectarian fallout from the massive explosion in Beirut. To the surprise of few, but the dismay of many, the catastrophe has inflamed religious tensions that are never far from the surface in Lebanon.

Lebanon’s parliament approved a state of emergency Thursday granting sweeping powers to the army.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun has revised estimates of material damage caused by the recent explosion in Beirut to $15 billion, as the city begins the process of rebuilding itself in the wake of such a devastating event. 

Former Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti has warned that potential government collapse in Lebanon following the Beirut blast could trigger a domino effect and sweep chaos across the Mediterranean.

Lebanese officials on Wednesday hastened to reassure the public that imported goods, including foodstuffs, will not be seriously hindered by last week’s massive explosion in Beirut, even though the blast destroyed the city’s vital port facilities.