By Ellen Francis -- BEIRUT (Reuters) - A Lebanese court on Thursday dismissed a judge who had charged top politicians with negligence over last year’s Beirut port explosion, infuriating families of victims who said it showed that the state would never hold powerful men to account. Judge Fadi Sawan had led the investigation into one of the largest non-nuclear blasts in history. In December, he charged three ex-ministers and the outgoing prime minister with negligence. Two hundred people died in the August blast when a huge stockpile of ammonium nitrate, stored unsafely for years, detonated at the capital’s port. Thousands were injured and entire neighbourhoods destroyed. Families of the victims gathered at Beirut’s justice palace on Thursday night to protest against Sawan’s removal from the probe. Clad in black, they cradled photos of their dead loved ones and held picket signs that read: “Where are the investigation results?” One woman sat on the ground and wailed. “We had hope for justice, even if just one percent, justice for my brother so he could rest in his grave,” said Rima al-Zahed. “We’re truly in a rotten country...I swear we’re tired. We want the truth.”

The officials charged by Sawan had refused to be questioned as suspects, accusing him of overstepping his powers. The court of cassation decided to take Sawan off the case after a request from two of the former ministers he charged, Ali Hassan Khalil and Ghazi Zeaiter. Sawan could not be reached for comment. A copy of the decision seen by Reuters cited “legitimate suspicion” over Sawan’s neutrality, partly because his house was damaged in the blast which devastated much of the capital. The move will likely delay an investigation that has faced political pushback and has yet to yield any results. Human Rights Watch called it “an insult” to the victims. “We are back to square one,” researcher Aya Majzoub said. “We need answers, and Lebanon has shown that it is incapable of providing them.”

    Snow blanketed parts of Lebanon on Wednesday, blocking roads and disrupting traffic. Storm Joyce hit late Tuesday in Lebanon with …

by learningenglish.voanews.com -- Recently in Beirut, a small group of people cleaned oxygen machines to send to those in need. The move was the latest in a series of activities by a Lebanese group trying to serve the public during the country’s health and economic crises. Melissa Fathallah is one of the founders of Baytna Baytak, which in Arabic means Our Home is Your Home. “No one is exempt from COVID. Nobody. Nobody has super-power immunity,” she told the Associated Press. Immunity means the power to keep yourself from being infected by a disease. Raising more than $27,000, the group has placed 48 oxygen machines with those in need across the country.

Baytna Baytak began at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic with a very different project. The group found homes for medical workers who were worried about bringing the virus to their families. During Lebanon’s first lockdown in March, the group housed 750 workers in different places. Chloe Ghosh works at a government hospital in Beirut. She has been living in housing provided by the group since the start of the pandemic. She was worried about putting her family at risk. “If I got COVID or anyone my age got COVID, we could survive,” Ghosh said. “But our families, no.” The first place Ghosh stayed was damaged when another disaster hit Beirut, the August 4 explosion at the city’s port. The blast killed more than 200 people, injured 6,000 others and destroyed thousands of homes. Ghosh was not harmed. She moved to another place provided by Baytna Baytak. She now shares a four-bedroom apartment with three other medical workers who work in different hospitals around the city.

by english.aawsat.com -- The judicial investigator probing the Beirut port explosion, Judge Fadi Sawwan summoned former public works minister Youssef Fenianos and the port’s former customs chief Moussa Hazimeh to appear for interrogation next Thursday, Lebanon’s National News Agency said on Monday. Six months after one of the largest non-nuclear explosions on record, which injured thousands of people, victims are still awaiting the result of the investigation, although Lebanese leaders had promised it would come within days. Sawwan had already called former finance minister Ali Hassan Khalil, along with former public works ministers Ghazi Zoaiter and Fenianos for questioning over the blast. However, Zoaiter and Hassan Khalil refused to attend the questioning, saying that as current members of parliament, they enjoy immunity.

The highly explosive chemicals that triggered the Beirut port explosion last August 4 were stored for years in poor conditions at the port, which lies in the heart of the capital. Since August, Sawwan has brought charges against 37 people. But many Lebanese remain skeptical that senior politicians will be held to account, fearing the truth will never emerge from a system riven by corruption. Lebanese authorities have failed in the past six months to deliver any justice for the catastrophic explosion, Human Rights Watch said in a report released early this month.