By NAJIA HOUSSARI -- arabnews.com -- BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri has again held talks with President Michel Aoun during his unexpected visit to Baabda Palace, which did not result in any progress to form a new government. Following the meeting, Hariri said that after his visits to Turkey, Egypt and France, he sensed enthusiasm for forming a government through the roadmap drawn up by French President Emmanuel Macron, which Lebanese political parties agreed to at the Pine Residence on Aug. 6, 2020, in order to save Lebanon, stop the deterioration and rebuild Beirut Port.

From Baabda Palace, he warned that “without a government of specialists non-affiliated with political parties, we cannot undertake the task of saving Lebanon.” He added: “If anyone thinks that if this government includes political members, the international community will open up to us or give us what we want, he would be wrong. The basic idea is to form a government that includes specialized ministers who do not irritate any political team and work only to complete the project presented to them.” He noted that he consulted with Aoun: “We made no progress, but I explained to him the importance of the golden opportunity that we have, so we must accelerate the formation of this government, and every political team must bear the responsibility of its stances from now on.” Hariri insists on forming “an 18-minister government made up of specialists,” and he reiterated his rejection of a blocking third: “This will not change for me.” The political discord between Hariri and Aoun had escalated after Aoun accused Hariri of being a “liar” in a leaked video of a meeting between the president and caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab on Jan. 11.

By Owen Kirby -- thehill.com -- The widely reported mob-style hit on activist and intellectual Lokman Slim on a back road in southern Lebanon last Wednesday night follows a well-known and sad pattern in Lebanese politics: When the Iranian-backed Party of God’s public standing takes a dip, someone pays, always. Someone must, of course, because the “Resistance” — the party that delivered “Divine Victory” over Israel in 2006 — can never be faulted for what has been wrought upon the much-beleaguered Lebanese people. Faulting Hezbollah was Slim’s daily sustenance. Former prime minister Saad Hariri noted in a tweet on Thursday that “Lokman Slim was perhaps clearer than everyone in pinpointing where the threat to the country is coming from… He did not compromise nor back down.” Hariri knows only too well the price of being uncompromising where Hezbollah or its patrons (read: Iran and, previously, Syria) are concerned; the life sentencing, in absentia, at the Hague in December of a Hezbollah operative for his own father’s murder is a ready reminder of the party’s reputation in this regard.

That Slim, himself a Shia, had long criticized Hezbollah’s monopoly over his own community’s social, political and economic life — and by extension Lebanon’s — and somehow lived to tell about it, until now, was a mystery to some. One theory was that by allowing a certain level of dissent within the Shia community that was never permitted to domestic foes without, Hezbollah could glean some internal democratic veneer. Besides, Hezbollah’s communal control and Lebanon’s confessional polarization has been such that the party did not worry as much about competition from within, especially from one armed with only a sharp tongue and independent mind. Not that Slim previously escaped the Party of God’s attention or ire, being regularly labeled in its print, broadcast and social media as a fifth columnist for both expressing his views and a willingness to engage with any and all in the foreign diplomatic and press corps to warn about the threats posed by Hezbollah to Lebanon’s and the region’s stability. The threats to his own person were real, as he knew, and he was not without options and opportunities to weather the periodic storms in some academic sinecure, somewhere safe; but Slim chose to remain in his own country, continuing to expose, publicly, what he knew to be true, regardless of the risks and regardless if anyone at home or abroad were listening.

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon's former army chief told the lead investigator of last year's massive Beirut port blast on Thursday that he had recommended, years before the explosion, that tons of seized ammonium nitrate stored there be sold privately or sent back to importers. The military had no use for the volatile chemical, testified Jean Kahwaji, who was army chief until 2017. Kahwaji was summoned for questioning as a witness six months after the probe began, the first army official and the most senior security official to testify in the probe. He told the lead investigator that the customs department had asked the army in late 2015 if it was interested in the stored fertilizer, which could also be used as an explosive. The army, after carrying out tests, said it had no use for the ammonium nitrate because it was a large amount and "has limited use and because it dissolves with time, it constitutes a danger if stored for a long time,” Kahwaji said.

Kahwaji said the army had no room to store it and no ability to get rid of it. He added the army then asked the customs authority to sell it to a private explosive company in Lebanon or to re-export to the country of origin at the expense of the importers. According to a local media investigation, the importers had carried out their own tests of the nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate, months after it was stored at the port, and then dropped any claims to the shipment. The chemicals ended up staying in the warehouse for six years before detonating. What sparked the explosion remains unknown. The volatile fertilizer ignited last Aug. 4, causing one of the largest non-nuclear explosion in history, disfiguring Beirut and killing 211 people. More than 6,000 were injured in the explosion.

PARIS (Reuters) – Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri on Wednesday dined with French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss the crisis in Lebanon …