By Najia Houssari -- arabnews.com -BEIRUT: Tons of wheat, corn and barley stored at the Port of Beirut since the devastating explosion that rocked the city 16 months ago are to be disposed of as they are no longer fit for consumption, it has been found. As temperatures change, mold, weevils and other insects have made it impossible to reach the contents of silos at the site without protective equipment; according to the World Health Organization, mold produces mycotoxins “which can cause a variety of adverse health effects and pose a serious health threat to both humans and livestock … ranging from acute poisoning to long-term effects such as immune deficiency and cancer.” Before the blast, the port’s silos contained about 45 tons of wheat, barley and corn, most of which was lost during the explosion. Minister of Environment Nasser Yassin said that six to seven tons remain at the site. Lab tests run on samples of wheat in cooperation with the ministries of economy, agriculture and environment, the American University of Beirut, Saint Joseph University, and the French Embassy, which brought in experts to assist, showed that the crops “are suitable for neither human nor animal use.”

In August, a year after the explosion, the remaining grains were removed from their silos and stored in the open air to reduce the risks of accidental fires in the hot weather, but resulted in hastening the demise of the crops as fit for consumption. A committee formed under the government of former Prime Minister Hassan Diab failed to reach a solution. Yassin told Arab News: “We decided to ferment these quantities and turn them into compost to be distributed to farmers for free, or turn them into industrial firewood to be given to the Lebanese Army to heat its units in the high mountains, or donate them to needy families living in cold areas.” He added: “Turning them into compost allows us to avoid any procedure that produces heavy metals, and we started with this process with the help of MAN Group, which obtained funding from France to treat organic waste resulting from the explosion, and had signed the contract with the Lebanese state in May.”

لخطط الانقاذية السياسية والاصلاحية، الهندسات المالية والاقتصادية والاجتماعية لن تجدي نفعاً في المدى المنظور طالما سيادة الدولة مفقودة. من المفيد وضع هذه …

by vaticannews.va -- A sequence of political crises, financial speculation, the COVID-19 pandemic, and, finally, the massive explosion at Beirut's port on 4 August 2020 have plunged Lebanon into economic disaster. However, according to Maronite Archbishop of Beirut Paul Abdel Sater, not all is lost and there still is hope. "It is a disaster, which has yet to be fully grasped" Speaking to Vatican News in his home in Beirut, Maronite Archbishop Paul Abdel Sater does not mince his words: "Ordinary people are becoming poorer and poorer. Medicines are increasingly expensive and hospitals are unaffordable”, he says.

A humanitarian catastrophe: According to the Lebanese prelate, it is a humanitarian catastrophe that is unfolding day after day with no apparent way out: "For a number of reasons the government is paralyzed, while in our society people are desperate". Hope against all odds: However, although the future seems bleak, not all is lost: "As a Church, as Christians, we still have hope against all odds. We still confide in the goodness of human beings and of the Lebanese people", Bishop Sater says.

A growing chain of solidarity is helping the country cope with one of the worst crises in the country since the 1975-1990 war. Relief from international religious and not religious organizations is of great help to the population and to the Christian community in Lebanon. According to Archbishop Sater, this relief could help contain mass emigration, which is essential if the Middle Eastern country is to remain an example of "religious and cultural pluralism" in the region.

BEIRUT (AP) By ZEINA KARAM and SARAH EL DEEB  — Lebanon’s information minister resigned Friday, a move many hope could open the way for easing an unprecedented diplomatic row with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab nations that has compounded the small country’s multiple crises. George Kordahi, the minister and a prominent former game show host, said he took the decision to step down ahead of French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Saudi Arabia on Saturday. The resignation, Kordahi said at a press conference in the Lebanese capital, may help Macron start a dialogue to help restore Beirut-Riyadh relations. But the crisis goes deeper than Kordahi’s comments aired in late October, in which he was critical of the Saudi-led war in Yemen. His resignation is unlikely going to be a game changer in the dynamics of the crisis. It is rooted in Saudi Arabia’s uneasiness over the rising influence of Iran in the region, including in Lebanon, once a traditional Saudi ally and recipient of financial assistance from the oil-rich kingdom. It is also unlikely to diffuse internal divisions in Lebanon and a government paralysis made worse during the diplomatic crisis.

Saudi Arabia, which has been joined by other Gulf Arab states in a boycott of Lebanon, is unhappy with the dominance of the Iran-backed militant Hezbollah group and its allies on the levers of power in Lebanon. “The Saudi view is that any initiative that does not address that core issue will not succeed nor receive its blessing,” said the risk consultancy Eurasia Group in a statement Friday. “As a result, a minister’s resignation will be viewed as somewhat constructive but largely irrelevant to the much larger issue at hand.” Prospects of significant financial assistance to Lebanon are therefore dim, the group said. That crisis has added to immense economic troubles facing Lebanon, already mired in a financial meltdown. Following Kordahi’s televised comments, the kingdom recalled its ambassador from Beirut and banned all Lebanese imports, affecting hundreds of businesses and cutting off hundreds of millions in foreign currency to Lebanon. That aggravated Lebanon’s economic crisis, the worst in its modern history, which has plunged more than three quarters of the nation’s population of 6 million, including a million Syrian refugees, into poverty.