CNA Staff (CNA).- The Maronite Catholic Patriarch of Antioch has said an international court may need to examine the circumstances that led to a massive explosion in Beirut on August 4. Speaking to media on Aug. 26 after a visit to a Catholic school in Beirut, Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rai said that while the Lebanese judiciary must look into the explosion, “if it fails, we must go to the international court.” Boutros called the explosion, which killed at least 180 people and injured thousands, “a major crime and a crime against humanity. After six years of the presence of deadly substances, no one moves a finger. It is unacceptable. They do not have the right to remain idle.”

Thousands of people were left homeless by the explosion, which destroyed entire streets. The Beirut neighborhood of Gemmayze, where the cardinal visited the school Wednesday, was hit particularly hard. The explosion originated after a warehouse storing tonnes of the explosive material ammonium nitrate, fireworks, and other flammable materials, caught fire. The explosive materials had been stored in the warehouse, seemingly unprotected, since 2013. The initial fire is believed to have started from a welding mishap.

by middleeastmonitor.com -- French President Emmanuel Macron has sent a roadmap to Lebanese politicians outlining political and financial reforms needed to unlock foreign aid and rescue the country from multiple crises including an economic meltdown, Reuters reports. The two-page “concept paper” delivered by the French ambassador to Beirut, and seen by Reuters, laid out detailed measures, many of them long demanded by foreign donors. They include an audit of the central bank, appointment of an interim government capable of enacting urgent reforms, and early legislative elections within a year. A French Foreign Ministry official declined comment. Macron’s Elysee office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Lebanon’s now-caretaker government, which took office in January with the support of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and its allies, failed to make progress in talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout due to inaction on reforms and a dispute over the size of financial losses. The government resigned over this month’s huge Beirut port explosion that killed at least 180 people, injured some 6,000 and destroyed entire neighbourhoods, and renewed protests against a political elite over endemic corruption and mismanagement that has led to a deep financial crisis. “The priority must go to the rapid formation of a government, to avoid a power vacuum which will leave Lebanon to sink further into the crisis,” the French paper reads.

BEIRUT (UrduPoint News / Sputnik ) Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri said on Tuesday he will not participate in the race to become the head of the government again and said his name should be removed from the list of candidates. "I claim that do not run for the prime minister's post and call on everyone to remove my name from the list of candidates," Hariri said, as quoted by the state-run NNA news agency. The former prime minister has explained his decision by the presence of a number of political forces in the country that refuse to recognize that there is a critical situation in Lebanon and it has caused by multiple reasons, including the long-standing economic crisis. "They see only an opportunity in the situation to take an advantage of power in their own interests," Hariri added. Hariri has also called on the local authorities to accept international assistance to help restore the Lebanese capital following the recent powerful explosion, as well as to conduct reforms and lead the country out of the crisis.

by euroweeklynews -- Following the explosion that tore through Beirut’s Karantina district on 4th August, local health services and hospitals are reaching maximum capacity. Lebanon has suffered a sharp rise in COVID-19 related cases and subsequent deaths in recent weeks. Cases continue to rise to a new high in the aftermath of the explosion that devastated Beirut earlier this month. At a recent press conference, the Health Minister, expressed his fear that: “Public and private hospitals in the capital, in particular, have a very limited capacity, whether in terms of beds in intensive care units or respirators”. The Health Minister is of the firm belief that the government should impose a new two-week lockdown to curtail the rise in cases stating, “We are on the brink, we don’t have the luxury to take our time”.