theowp.org -- The economic crisis in Lebanon has made fuel a scarce commodity, leading to blackouts across the country as the population adjusts to life without electricity. This economic crisis erupted in 2019 as the result of corruption, mismanagement, and sustained policy inaction. According to the World Bank, the crisis has become one of the three most severe economic catastrophes since 1850, with Lebanon’s currency sinking 90%. The lack of power also has had unprecedented implications for human security. Imported fuel reserves have dried up, paralyzing life in Lebanon. To power the country, “Lebanon needs around 3600 megawatts,” said Diana Kaissy, a board member of the Lebanese Oil and Gas Initiative and energy governance expert. “We are currently producing 700 megawatts,” she said – less than 50% the necessary amount. With this output, state electrical company Electricité du Liban is only able to produce approximately two hours’ worth of energy per day, with electricity being totally shut off in some parts of the country. Privately run diesel generators are left to cover the remaining 22 hours.

The energy shortage has had devastating consequences for the healthcare sector. Suleiman Haroun, head of the private hospitals union, said, “Hospitals are going day by day, very few have enough [power] for 2 or 3 days.” The American University of Beirut Medical Center added that it was “facing imminent disaster due to the threat of a forced shutdown” starting on Monday morning. And if shutdowns become a reality, “forty adult patients and fifteen children living on respirators will die immediately.” Hospital patients are not the only ones facing a bleak outlook. “We have only one hour of electricity a day, and six hours of generator cuts a day, so I don’t have anything in my fridge because I can’t stock food,” says Patricia Khoder, communications and media manager at CARE Lebanon. “I can no longer bear to go to the supermarket because I cannot see people crying because they can’t buy food.”

These are the short-term effects of Lebanon’s energy crisis: hospital and business closure, water shortages, and food insecurity as people are unable to use refrigerators. However, the crisis also comes with multi-faceted long-term effects. First, it has the potential to create an education gap, as students are unable to find transport to school or to access power-dependent online learning. (COVID-19 has exacerbated this issue.) Second, the inability to maintain supply lines and equipment may create an infrastructural deficit. This inability to reconstruct and rebuild poses an acute threat to Lebanon in the wake of the Beirut Port Explosion, which affected 163 public and private schools and rendered half of the city’s healthcare system non-functional, in addition to damaging the port itself, which previously handled 70% of the country’s imports. Third, the power failure will drive up wealth inequality. The rich can afford privately run energy services. The poor must go without.

By Hazem Saghieh -- english.aawsat.com -- Those following the Syrian and Lebanese-Syrian news over the past few weeks notice two tendencies: the first is what is happening in Syria and can be summed up in the following events: As Russian aircrafts launched strikes on rural Idlib, six of them according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Right Observatory. These same Russians sponsored talks to bring Daraa back to the regime’s embrace. Destruction and forced displacement, which are part and parcel of Moscow’s “diplomatic activity,” stirred fears of Iranian militias and Lebanese militias loyal to Iran replacing Daraa’s original inhabitants. Their entry into Daraa al-Balad on September 9 for the first time since 2013 ended a siege that had begun early this summer, while the regime had recaptured Daraa’s surroundings two and a half years ago. Thus, the south of “useful Syria” was captured and nothing remains but extending control to the north of “useful Syria,” Idlib.

Syrian regime forces and their allies’ advances were accompanied by another event: Amnesty International issued an extensive report on sexual violence in Syrian prisons and border crossings. This time, it is the Syrians who believed Bashar al-Assad and Gebran Bassil’s claims that they could “return to the embrace of the homeland” who were the victims. Amnesty International documented 66 cases of men, women and children being assaulted by security officials, including 13 children between 3 weeks and 17 years of age, 15 women and 38 men. The report was not given the title: “You are Going to Syria.” A more eloquent and accurate title was given: “You are Going to your Death.”

Meanwhile, as news about Rami Makhlouf died down over the past few weeks, news about Rifaat al-Assad returned to the fore. He was sentenced to four years in prison for embezzlement and fraud after having amassed a fortune of around 70 million euros divided between apartments, mansions and horse stud farms. For those who have forgotten, Rifaat is Bashar’s uncle and Hafez’s brother and partner in power for the first half of the latter’s reign (1970-84). He is among the most prominent if not the most prominent architect of Hafez’s bloody reign, especially with what he did in Palmyra in 1980 and in Hama in 1982. His dispute with his older brother was only about inheritance. Beyond that, “blood does not turn into water.”

by libyanexpress.com -- Despite the threat of possible US sanctions, Hezbollah has arranged up to 80 oil tankers carrying Iranian diesel fuel to arrive in Lebanon via Syria on Thursday. The tankers are destined for Baalbek, about 67 kilometers northeast of Beirut, where the fuel will be discharged into tankers owned by the Iran-backed Hezbollah. The group has also organized a ceremony to celebrate the shipment, which is expected to contain 3 million liters of fuel. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the militant group, said in August that an Iranian fuel tanker will sail toward Lebanon “within hours,” warning Israel and the US not to intercept it. The move, Hezbollah said, was to help ease Lebanon’s crippling fuel shortage that has paralyzed the country for weeks. Raymond Ghajar, Lebanon’s caretaker energy minister, said he “did not receive any request to approve fuel importation” undertaken by Hezbollah.

The delivery would violate US sanctions imposed on Tehran after former US President Donald Trump pulled out of a nuclear deal between Iran and other world powers three years ago. Hezbollah’s step is also likely to expose Lebanon to similar US sanctions. Nasrallah said on Monday the Iranian ship docked on Sunday night in Syria’s Banias port and started to discharge diesel fuel in Syrian tankers that will arrive in Baalbek on Thursday. “The vessel destined for Baalbek will arrive through Hermel,” Nasrallah said. There are no legal border crossings in the region as Hezbollah allegedly uses the Hermel crossing for smuggling. Al-Amana, a US-sanctioned company that belongs to Hezbollah, is expected to receive the transported Iranian fuel. Nasrallah claimed he “spared Lebanon embarrassment by docking the ship in a Syrian port and not a Lebanese one.” However, the arrival of diesel tankers in Lebanon will reveal the state’s vulnerability regarding the violation of its borders and the importation of fuel without its knowledge or approval. The US previously warned that any Iranian fuel ship that brings fuel for Lebanon would equate to “providing Hezbollah with funds.”

by thenationalnews.com -- Lebanon’s former prime minister, Hassan Diab, has left the country for the US days before he was scheduled to appear for questioning at the investigation into the Beirut port blast. Mr Diab said from a plane that he was visiting the US for four weeks, travelling via Istanbul, on a planned trip to see his two sons who are studying medicine in America. His wife, a lecturer at the Lebanese American University, has stayed in Lebanon. Mr Diab said he had made it clear that he intended to travel after a government was formed. He will be unable to appear for questioning despite having been summoned by Judge Tarek Bitar to a hearing scheduled for Monday.

Mr Diab had been out of office less than a week before his departure on Tuesday after 13 months of leading a caretaker government. He earlier failed to appear for questioning when summoned on August 26, prompting Mr Bitar to issue an “enforceable summons” for him to appear next Monday. In December, Mr Diab was charged, alongside three other former ministers, with negligence in connection to the explosion at Beirut port on August 5, 2020, in which more than 200 people were killed. He resigned as prime minister, alongside his cabinet, in the days after the blast.