Lebanon - Page 12

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 Trump administration has blacklisted two former Lebanese ministers, accusing them of conspiring with Iran-backed Hezbollah and participating in widespread corruption at the expense of the Lebanese people.

NICOSIA, CYPRUS (AP) — Cypriot authorities have expressed alarm over the arrival of four boats carrying Syrian and Lebanese migrants in waters off the east Mediterranean island nation’s coastline within a 48-hour span.

BEIRUT — Rescuers resumed a search Friday for possible survivors under rubble in Beirut, buoyed by faint hopes of a miracle a month after a monster blast ripped through the city’s port.

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.

BEIRUT — Lebanon is in such a deep political and economic crisis the country risks collapsing altogether, France’s foreign minister said Thursday, ahead of the French president’s visit to the country next week.

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.

Police arrested the owner of a café in Beirut, Lebanon, on Monday after failing to provide identification documents and refusing to vacate the premises, devastated by the massive explosion in the capital this month.

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.

A United Nations tribunal convicted a member of Hezbollah for the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri on Tuesday over his role in a 2005 terror attack that led to years of violent conflict between the country’s political factions.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The head of Lebanon’s customs authority was formally arrested on Monday after being questioned over the massive explosion in Beirut earlier this month, the state-run National News Agency reported.

Beirut — From his office in Beirut, Shady Rizk had a front-row view of the cataclysmic explosion at the Lebanese capital’s port.

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. 

Beirut’s port partially opened again Wednesday as officials and residents continued to recover from last week’s devastating blasts that killed hundreds and left thousands homeless in Lebanon’s capital city.

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.

A Lebanese blogger’s attack on Hezbollah in the wake of the deadly August 4 explosion at the Beirut port went viral on social media.

A Qatari sociologist says “blasphemy” in Lebanon – including an anti-Islamic culture of gays, promiscuous women, and plastic surgery – is to blame for last week’s port explosion in Beirut.

Subhi al-Tufayli, leader of the Iran-backed terrorist organization Hezbollah in the 1980s, on Tuesday held current leader Hassan Nasrallah responsible for last week’s deadly Beirut explosion and called on Lebanese authorities to put him on trial, along with his patron Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran.

A bombshell report published by Reuters on Tuesday revealed that senior Lebanese officials received warnings as recently as last month that a cache of highly combustible ammonium nitrate held at the Port of Beirut was a threat to its densely populated surroundings and should be moved.

Tehran — Iran is watching developments in Lebanon closely, wary of losing any of its hard-won influence after a deadly mega-blast in Beirut sparked angry demands for reforms to its delicately balanced system.

Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigned on Monday afternoon, following the resignations of several other top ministers and effectively bringing the current Lebanese government to a close.

A police officer in Beirut was reportedly killed on Saturday and hundreds were injured as angry protests swept the devastated city over the weekend.

Reports in multiple Middle Eastern outlets suggested on Sunday that Lebanon’s Prime Minister Hassan Diab may soon step down following the mass resignations of nine lawmakers and four of the nation’s 20 ministers. A third of ministers must resign for the government to collapse.

Lebanese protesters have hung in effigy an image of Hezbollah terror chief Hassan Nasrallah during protests outside the country’s parliament in Beirut, amid mounting anger over the government’s silence after last Tuesday’s explosion killed more than 160 people, injured 6,000 more and destroyed large swaths of the city.

An estimated 80,000 children have been displaced by the explosion in the Port of Beirut on Tuesday, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Thursday.

Lebanese diaspora from all over the world are mobilizing a “financial bloodline” to the crisis-stricken country after a series of devastating explosions rocked the capital of Beirut on Tuesday, causing billions of dollars worth of damage. 

Col. Joseph Skaf, former chief of drug control for the Lebanese customs agency, wrote a letter in 2014 warning that a cargo of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate seized from a Russian-owned ship the previous year at the Port of Beirut was “highly dangerous and constitutes a threat to public safety.” Skaf died under cloudy circumstances in 2017, while the cargo he warned about evidently detonated on Tuesday, causing over a hundred deaths and wiping out a sizable portion of the city.

Dozens of residents of Beirut, Lebanon, took the streets late Thursday to demand accountability from their government after an explosion destroyed much of the city’s port area, leaving at least 150 dead, 5,000 injured, and hundreds of thousands homeless. Security forces responded by tear-gassing desperate residents.