Lebanon

BEIRUT, Sept 15 (NNN-NNA) – A Lebanese university and a Chinese institute, signed here yesterday, a cooperation agreement, regarding the scientific research on the peaceful development and use of nuclear energy.

The agreement was signed by the American University of Beirut (AUB) and the Institute of Plasma Physics, at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP), one of the most important laboratories in China, on plasma physics.

BEIRUT, Sept 14 (NNN-NNA) – Lebanon, Cyprus and Greece, signed yesterday, a tripartite agreement, to strengthen their cooperation on diaspora affairs, it was reported.

Lebanon’s caretaker Foreign Minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, Greece’s Deputy Foreign Minister of Diaspora Greeks, Andreas Katsaniotis, and Cyprus’ Presidential Commissioner for Humanitarian Issues and Overseas Cypriots, Fotis Fotiou signed the agreement at Lebanon’s foreign ministry, here.

BEIRUT (AP) — A woman accompanied by activists and brandishing what she said was a toy pistol broke into a Beirut bank branch on Wednesday, taking $13,000 from her trapped savings.

Sali Hafez told the local Al-Jadeed TV that she needed the money to fund her sister’s cancer treatment. She said she had repeatedly visited the bank to ask for her money and was told she could only receive $200 a month in Lebanese pounds. Hafez said the toy pistol belonged to her nephew.

BEIRUT (AP) — The Islamic State group killed six U.S.-backed Syrian fighters in eastern Syria saying on Monday that the killing was in retaliation for an ongoing operation inside a sprawling camp housing tens of thousands of family members of the extremist group.

The IS-linked Aamaq news agency released a video showing the shooting of the six members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces near the eastern village of Ruwaished where they were captured alive and later shot dead late Sunday.

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s central bank lifted its remaining subsidies on fuel on Monday, gas station owners said, ending a year-long process of scaling back on the expensive program.

The Central Bank over a year ago announced it would gradually lift fuel subsidies, to slow down the draining of its foreign exchange reserves. Fuel subsidies once cost the cash-strapped country some $3 billion annually. Last week, it subsidized just 20% of the cost of fuel imports.

BEIRUT, Sept 11 (NNN-NNA) – Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, yesterday, reiterated his country’s readiness to provide Lebanon with fuel commodities, construct new power stations, and rehabilitate existing power networks.

He made the remarks during a meeting with Lebanese Energy Minister, Walid Fayad, in Beirut, which came a day after Fayyad indicated that a Lebanese technical delegation would soon visit Iran to discuss the free fuel offer.

BEIRUT, Sept 10 (NNN-NNA) – Four people were killed, when a group of gunmen attempted to rob a mobile shop, and exchanged fire with its owners, in Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli, last night, Al-Jadeed TV channel reported.

The exchange of fire inside the shop killed one of the gunmen, the shop owner and two of his friends, the report said, adding, the gunmen carrying machine guns and hand grenades had fled the scene.

The Lebanese troops were immediately deployed in the area and started to hunt for the attackers, through surveillance cameras.

09 Sep 2022; MEMO: The US mediator in a long-standing maritime border dispute between Israel and Lebanon said on Friday that the negotiations to resolve the conflict have made "very good progress", Reuters reports.

The two countries are locked in US-mediated negotiations to delineate a shared maritime border that would help determine which oil and gas resources belong to which country, and pave the way for more exploration.

BEIRUT, Sept 8 (NNN-NNA) – The Lebanese defence minister warned yesterday, the Israeli army must withdraw from the occupied Shebaa Farms, Kfarchouba hills and north of Ghajar town.

“Lebanon was, and is still in a position to defend its rights and sovereignty,” Maurice Slim told Aroldo Lazaro Saenz, chief of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), during their meeting, urging a solution to border issues between the two countries along the Blue Line.

05 Sep 2022; MEMO: In Lebanon, kids are leaving school for a salary of $7 a week, Haaretz reports.

According to the report, the country is losing a generation of school children, school teachers, university students and lecturers.

With the depreciation of the pound in Lebanon, teachers' salaries have also fallen to roughly $100 a month, which is not enough to pay for the rising cost of fuel, the report says.