BEIRUT (AP Bassem Mroue) — A former Lebanese government minister on Wednesday asked the country’s top court to remove the lead judge investigating last year’s massive explosion in Beirut’s port because of allegedly “legitimate suspicion” over his handling of the case, state media reported. The development is the latest in a year-long saga surrounding the investigation into the explosion, which plunged Lebanon into another political crisis and accelerated an already unprecedented economic meltdown. The country’s government resigned after the Aug. 4, 2020 explosion and bickering political parties only this month agreed on a new government. Also, months into the probe, the lead judge running the investigation was removed by the Court of Cassation after similar charges were filed against him by senior government officials.

The petition Wednesday by the former public works minister, Youssef Fenianos, came a week after Judge Tarek Bitar issued an arrest warrant for him after he failed to appear in court for questioning. It’s not clear whether the Court of Cassation will take up Fenianos’ lawsuit and if it does, it will have to examine the case and then decide whether to dismiss or accept the request The judge has accused Fenianos and three other former senior government officials with intentional killing and negligence that led to the deaths of more than 200 people in the explosion.

al-monitor.com — Lebanon’s new government raised maximum fuel prices in the country again on Wednesday, a reversal from the previous policy of subsidization. The maximum price of 20 liters of unleaded 98 octane gasoline is 209,300 Lebanese pounds ($139 USD). The price of 20 liters of unleaded 95 octane gasoline is 202,400 pounds ($134). The […]

BEIRUT (CNS) – By Doreen Abi Raad — — At the start of a new academic year, uncertainty clouds the future of Catholic schools in Lebanon. Amid the country’s economic meltdown, Catholic schools have exhausted their resources, and their future is at risk. Of Lebanon’s 330 Catholic schools in Lebanon, educating nearly 200,000 students, 80% of the schools are under the risk of closing, said Melkite Father Youssef Nasr, secretary-general of Catholic schools in Lebanon. “We are facing this crisis with empty pockets,” Father Nasr told Catholic News Service. “We are under tremendous pressure.”

In-school learning in Lebanon has been disrupted for two years, first by nationwide protests that swept the country in October 2019, followed by COVID-19 lockdown measures. “We can’t leave our students at home for a third year. They are facing a learning, psychological and a social loss” from not being in school, Father Nasr said. On top of the educational void, the Lebanese currency has plummeted by more than 90% in less than two years, wiping out the middle class. According to the United Nations, 78% of Lebanese now live below the poverty line, up from less than 30% before 2019. Parents have seen their salaries dwindle to barely a tenth of their previous dollar values. Many have not been able to make tuition payments for two years. Of the country’s 330 Catholic schools, 90 serve the disadvantaged; their tuitions are nominal, and the Lebanese government is to provide a subsidy of approximately 50% for a portion of the student body. However, the government has not paid any such subsidies since 2016.

The USNS Choctaw County has arrived in Beirut, Lebanon, to participate in a first-of-its-kind mission intended to strengthen military ties between the countries, the U.S. Navy said Tuesday.

(UPI) — The USNS Choctaw County has arrived in Beirut, Lebanon, to participate in a first-of-its-kind mission intended to strengthen military ties between the countries, the U.S. Navy said Tuesday. As part of the mission, Central Partnership Station, the U.S. Navy and Lebanese armed forces will exchange subject matter experts on topics including mine countermeasures, disaster response, public health and construction capabilities. Explosive ordnance disposal technicians, Navy divers, medical and health engagement team and a construction battalion will work alongside their Lebanese counterparts, according to the U.S. Navy. The construction battalion is building a maritime security support facility with engineers from the Lebanese Armed Forces.

BEIRUT, (Reuters) – Lebanon’s new government won a vote of confidence on Monday for a policy programme that aims to remedy a devastating economic crisis, despite the parliamentary session being delayed when the lights went off due to power shortages. The programme drawn up by Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s government promises to revive talks with the International Monetary Fund and initiate reforms that donors want to see before they will unlock badly needed foreign assistance. When the session finally began, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri urged Mikati to keep his remarks short because of the power cuts, part of a nation-wide energy crisis which has crippled normal life as hard currency reserves have run out. “From the heart of the suffering of Beirut … our cabinet was born to light a candle in this hopeless darkness,” Mikati said, as he read out the programme. read more “Let’s not bother you and read it all out, let’s save time because of the electricity issue,” Berri, head of the Shi’ite Amal movement, told the Sunni Muslim prime minister. Nevertheless, the session lasted for more than seven hours.

Lebanon is stuck in a deep depression, with fuel shortages leading to few if any hours of state-generated power and leaving people largely dependent on privately-run generators. The cabinet won the vote with a majority of 85 over 15. “We will start with the IMF this is not a choice it is something we have to go through,” he said in a speech, before votes were taken. To unlock aid and turn around the economy, his government must succeed where numerous forerunners have failed in delivering politically difficult reforms, including measures to address corruption and waste.

يلتبس على اللبنانيين موضوع النفط الايراني المستورد بين التصريح الايراني ان تجار من لبنان اشتروه وبين الشكر الموجه لحكومة الجمهورية الاسلامية من حزب الله ….المطلوب من الحكومة التدقيق اذا كان هبة او مقابل ثمن … من حق المواطن ان يعلم

By Ben Turner – livescience.com — Archaeologists digging near a Middle Eastern castle have unearthed two mass graves containing the grisly remains of Christian soldiers vanquished during the medieval Crusades — and some of them could have even been personally buried by a king. The chipped and charred bones of at least 25 young men and teenage boys were found inside the dry moat of the ruins of St. Louis Castle in Sidon, Lebanon. Radiocarbon dating suggests they were among the many Europeans who, between the 11th and the 13th centuries, were spurred by priests and rulers to take up arms in a doomed effort to reconquer the Holy Land. Much like many who came to fight and plunder before them, the soldiers’ long and arduous journeys ended with their deaths — all as a result of wounds they received in battle. But despite the widespread casualties, mass graves from this bloody period of history are incredibly difficult to find. “When we found so many weapon injuries on the bones as we excavated them, I knew we had made a special discovery,” Richard Mikulski, an archeologist at Bournemouth University in the U.K., who excavated and analyzed the remains, said in a statement.

The archaeologists analyzed DNA alongside naturally occurring radioactive isotopes in the men’s teeth to confirm that some were born in Europe, and an analysis of different versions, or isotopes, of carbon in their bones suggests that they died sometime during the 13th century. Crusaders first captured St. Louis Castle just after the First Crusade in 1110. The invaders held onto Sidon, a key strategic port, for more than a century, but historical records show that the castle fell after it was attacked and destroyed twice — at first partially by the Mamluks in 1253 and later by the Mongols in 1260.

The researchers said it is “highly likely” that the soldiers perished during one of these battles, and by brutal means: The bones all bear stab and slice wounds from swords and axes, as well as evidence of blunt-force trauma. The soldiers had more wounds on their backs than on their fronts, suggesting that many were attacked from behind, possibly as they fled during a rout, and the distribution of these blows implies that their attackers charged them down on horseback. A number of the men’s remains also have blade wounds to the back of their necks — a sign that they may have been captured alive before being beheaded. “One individual sustained so many wounds (a minimum of 12 injuries involving a minimum of 16 skeletal elements) that it may represent an incident of overkill, where considerably more violent blows were applied than was actually required to overcome or kill them,” the researchers wrote in their study.

By Hanan Hamdan — almonitor.com — BEIRUT — A convoy of 80 trucks, each carrying 50,000 liters (roughly 13,210 gallons) of Iranian fuel, entered the Bekaa Valley region in eastern Lebanon from Syria on Sept. 16, Hezbollah media official in the Bekaa Valley Ahmed Raya told Al-Monitor. “The first Iranian tanker that docked in Syria and is being transported to Lebanon holds about 50 million liters of fuel, requiring about 1,000 tankers to be transported to Lebanon. This will be done over the course of seven days, when the second ship will have arrived after taking the same unloading and transporting route,” he said. “As soon as the tankers arrived [in Lebanon], Al-Amana fuel company launched preparations to begin distributing diesel within two days to all Lebanese regions, according to the mechanism announced by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah,” Raya said.

At the Ashura commemoration Aug. 19, Nasrallah had announced that an Iranian ship loaded with fuel was set to sail from Iran as the country faces a worsening fuel crisis. In a televised speech Sept. 13, Nasrallah announced the arrival of the first Iranian oil ship, destined for Lebanon, to Baniyas port in Syria on Sept. 12, to be followed by three other ships. He said that the cargo was unloaded in Syria so as not to embarrass the Lebanese state and that the Syrian leadership welcomed the ship, stored its cargo in Baniyas and secured a number of tankers to transport it to Lebanon. Asked about the details of the cargo, Raya said, “It will not be distributed to a specific category of Lebanese. The first part will be donated to government hospitals, retirement homes, orphanages, special needs centers, water institutions, poor municipalities, the Civil Defense and the Lebanese Red Cross.”

by english.alaraby.co.uk — Lebanese authorities seized 20 tons of ammonium nitrate in an eastern region overnight on Saturday, local media reported. The ammonium nitrate was seized in a police raid from a warehouse used for the sale of agricultural fertilisers in the city of Baalbek, belonging to someone whose full name was not identified, the […]

By Becky Anderson, Zeena Saifi and Mostafa Salem, CNN — New Prime Minister Najib Mikati urged Lebanon’s people to put their trust in his government as he seeks “quick fixes” to help his economically shattered country. In his first interview with an international media outlet since forming a government a week ago, Mikati acknowledged that some Lebanese would struggle to put their faith in him and his government after so many politicians have failed them in the past. But, he told CNN, it is “time to have a government” to take decisions and end the country’s political vacuum, before elections that are planned for next May. “I’m doing the quick, the quick fixes that (need) to be done immediately, especially energy, health, education, work and transparency, and show the Lebanese that there is a governance. There is a transparency. That’s what we are trying to do. And hopefully it will take,” he said. He did not clarify how he would carry out these fixes. Mikati, a billionaire who served previously as caretaker prime minister in 2005 and 2011, heads a cabinet that will preside over an economic depression which the World Bank considers one of the world’s worst since the mid-19th century. And while there are new faces in the government, many have been handpicked by the same political establishment and groups blamed for the corruption that led to the country’s economic breakdown.

One of the most urgent economic issues facing the new government is the country’s expensive subsidies program. The Lebanese government increased oil prices by more than 37% on Friday, as the country continues removing subsidies on imports in an attempt to attract international monetary aid. The decision is expected to increase prices for the Lebanese people, who are already struggling with soaring poverty levels. But according to Mikati, some 74% of more than $10 billion dollars in subsidies was “misused by traders, by corrupt people” in Lebanon over the past year — and the program is unsustainable. “The subsidies are almost lifted because we don’t have any more cash or reserves to subsidize oil or other commodities,” Mikati told CNN. “We are going to keep the subsidies on medicine, but subsidies on other commodities will be lifted.” It is important to end the subsidies to start negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the international community, Mikati said. Lebanon’s Central Bank issued a statement last month saying that the fuel subsidies were being exploited by businesses. Around $800 million was paid in import subsidies in July alone, yet fuel shortages were still rampant.