Lebanon

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon signed deals on Wednesday to purchase electricity from Jordan via Syria to help the small Mediterranean country deal with its crippling energy crisis.

The deals are expected to bring Lebanon up to 250 megawatts of electricity a day within two months, enough for about two hours of power a day. The electricity will be transmitted through Syria. The World Bank is expected to finance the deals, and negotiations are underway.

Lebanon’s Energy Minister Walid Fayyad said he expects financing negotiations to conclude in two months.

BEIRUT, Jan 25 (NNN-NNA) – Lebanon yesterday kicked off the first round of official talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), seeking to unlock aid for the crisis-hit country.

Lebanon’s deputy prime minister and chief negotiator, Saade Chami, said that, the talks focused on a range of economic and political topics, such as the budget, the banking sector and the exchange rate, the office of Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, said in a statement.

Chami expected other rounds of talks will be necessary, in order to reach a deal with the fund.

BEIRUT, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Lebanese Sunni Muslim leader Saad al-Hariri said on Monday he was stepping back from political life and would not run in the parliamentary election, turning Lebanon's sectarian politics on its head as the country grapples with a financial crisis.

Hariri, three times prime minister, also called on his party not to run any candidates in May's vote, indicating several factors were behind his decision, including Iranian influence -- a reference to the heavily armed Shi'ite group Hezbollah.

BEIRUT, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Kuwait's foreign minister said on Sunday Lebanon must not be a platform for hostile acts or words toward Gulf Arab states, an indirect call for curbs on the Iran-backed group Hezbollah in order to improve strained ties.

Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Ahmad Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah spoke after meeting President Michel Aoun in Beirut, during the first visit to Beirut by a senior Gulf Arab official since a diplomatic rift last year. 

BEIRUT (AP) — Clashes between U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters and militants continued for a fourth day Sunday near a prison in northeastern Syria that houses thousands of members of the Islamic State group, the Kurdish force said.

The standoff follows a bold assault by the extremists that breached the premises of Gweiran Prison, allowed an unknown number of militants to escape and killed dozens of U.S.-backed fighters who guard the facility.

Jan 22 (Reuters) - Kuwait's Foreign Minister Sheikh Ahmad Nasser Al-Mohammad Al-Sabah will visit Beirut on Saturday, in the first such visit by a senior Gulf official since a diplomatic spat last year.

In October Kuwait, alongside Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, expelled Lebanese diplomats and recalled their own envoys following a minister's critical comments about the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen.

Sheikh Ahmad would meet Prime Minister Najib Mikati's in the evening, the prime minister's office said in a statement.

BEIRUT (AP) — In the dark streets of a Beirut now often without electricity, sometimes the only light that shines is from headlamps worn by scavengers, searching through garbage for scrap to sell.

Even trash has become a commodity fought over in Lebanon, mired in one of the world’s worst financial crises in modern history.

18 Jan 2022; MEMO: The US imposed sanctions on three people and their company in Lebanon, on Tuesday, for their alleged links to Hezbollah, according to the Treasury Department and reported by Anadolu News Agency.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Adel Diab, Ali Mohamad Daoun, Jihad Salem Alame and their company, Dar Al Salam for Travel & Tourism.

BEIRUT (AP) — An investigating judge in Beirut on Tuesday froze some assets belonging to the country’s central bank governor, who is accused of corruption and dereliction of duties during Lebanon’s unprecedented economic meltdown.

Judge Ghada Aoun said she ordered the freeze “as a precautionary measure” while an investigation into allegations against Gov. Riad Salameh continues. The governor filed to show up for questioning Tuesday in a lawsuit filed by a Lebanese anti-corruption group.

17 Jan 2022; MEMO: The Lebanese Ministry of Energy and Water denied on Sunday Israeli media reports claiming that it had agreed a US brokered deal to import gas "indirectly" from the occupation state. The gas, explained the ministry, will be imported from Egypt.

Israeli Channel 12 reported on Saturday that the US had brokered an agreement to supply Lebanon with natural gas from Israel via Jordan and Syria. This, insisted the ministry in Beirut, is "totally and completely untrue".