Lebanon

04 August 2022; MEMO: Independent UN experts and human rights groups have called on the UN Human Rights Council to launch an international investigation into the 2020 Beirut Port explosion. The call has been made on the second anniversary of the massive blast that killed more than 200 people and wounded thousands more.

The explosion on 4 August 2020 was apparently caused by a stockpile of ammonium nitrate in a port warehouse. A large area of the Lebanese capital was damaged by the blast.

04 August 2022; MEMO: The International Support Group for Lebanon expressed its "concern" on Wednesday at the lack of progress in the judicial process related to the Beirut port explosion that killed more than 200 people and injured 6,500 others in August, 2020. The explosion damaged 50,000 homes, with financial losses estimated at $15 billion.

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanese and international organizations Wednesday called on the U.N. Human Rights Council to send a fact-finding mission to investigate the Beirut port blast two years ago, as a domestic probe continues to stall.

The call by groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International came as the Lebanese investigation has been stalled since December following legal challenges by charged and accused officials against the judge leading the investigation. The Aug. 4, 2020 blast killed nearly 220 people, injured over 6,000 and caused widespread damage in Beirut.

BEIRUT (AP) — It’s been two years since his 3-year-old daughter, Alexandra, was killed in a massive explosion at Beirut’s port — and Paul Naggear has lost hope that outrage over the disaster will bring justice and force change in Lebanon.

The investigation into one of the world’s biggest non-nuclear explosions has been blocked for months by Lebanon’s political powers. Many blame the Lebanese government’s longtime corruption and mismanagement for the tragedy, but the elite’s decades-old lock on power has ensured they are untouchable.

BEIRUT, July 30 (Reuters) - Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri said on Saturday he would not call for a session to elect a new president until the legislature passes reforms that are preconditions for an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout.

An IMF deal is seen as the only way for Lebanon to recover from a financial meltdown that has plunged the country into its most destabilising crisis since the 1975-90 civil war.

BEIRUT (AP) — A section of Beirut’s massive port grain silos, shredded in the 2020 explosion, collapsed in a huge cloud of dust on Sunday after a weekslong fire, triggered by grains that had fermented and ignited in the summer heat.

The northern block of the silos toppled after what sounded like an explosion, kicking up thick gray dust that enveloped the iconic structure and the port next to a residential area. It was not immediately clear if anyone was injured.

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s Hezbollah on Sunday aired drone footage of Israeli ships in a disputed gas field in the Mediterranean Sea, highlighting the tension at the center of U.S.-mediated maritime border talks between Lebanon and Israel.

The footage was aired as the U.S. energy envoy, Amos Hochstein, was landing in Beirut to mediate ongoing talks between Lebanon and Israel over their sea borders. Lebanon claims the Karish gas field is disputed territory under ongoing maritime border negotiations, whereas Israel says it lies within its internationally recognized economic waters.

29 July 2022; MEMO: Lebanese Foreign Minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, said on Friday there is more optimism than ever on reaching a deal to delineate the country's maritime border with Israel via US mediation, according to a tweet from the Ministry's account, Reuters reports.

"There has never been optimism to the extent that there is today," Bou Habib said, noting that the US official mediating the dispute, Amos Hochstein, would arrive in Beirut over the weekend for talks with Lebanese officials.

29 July 2022; MEMO: An official at a Turkey-based grains trading company denied on Friday that barley and flour aboard a ship docked in a Lebanese port had been stolen from Ukraine, saying the source of the flour was Russia, Reuters reports.

The official at Loyal Agro Co Ltd, who declined to be identified, told Reuters that the company had sought to import 5,000 tonnes of the flour on the ship to Lebanon to sell to private buyers, not to the Lebanese government.

BEIRUT, July 28 (Reuters) - A Syrian ship under U.S. sanctions has docked in the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli carrying barley and wheat that the Ukrainian embassy in Beirut told Reuters on Thursday had been plundered by Russia from Ukrainian stores.

The Laodicea docked in Tripoli on Wednesday, according to shipping data website MarineTraffic.

"The ship has traveled from a Crimean port that is closed to international shipping, carrying 5,000 tonnes of barley and 5,000 tonnes of flour that we suspect was taken from Ukrainian stores," the embassy told Reuters.