PM Hassan Diab forced to exit, saying the corruption is ‘bigger than the state’
Lebanon’s besieged government has fallen, one week after a cataclysmic explosion destroyed Beirut port, with the country’s prime minister, Hassan Diab, claiming the disaster was the result of endemic corruption.
Diab announced the resignation of the government after more than a third of ministers quit their posts, forcing Diab himself to resign.
Continue reading...Change must come from within Lebanon, but Emmanuel Macron and others can help by ending their patronage of a disastrous regime
In the aftermath of the devastating Beirut port explosion last week, it is not just the role of the Lebanese political class that has come under scrutiny, but that of their international peers too. Sunday’s international donor conference led by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, raised €253m (£228m) in relief funds, but it also signalled an important change in rhetoric. For the first time, donors affirmed that relief funds would directly go to the Lebanese people, and that longer-term economic assistance would be dependent on Lebanon implementing structural reforms.
This affirmation came hot on the heels of growing international attention on rampant corruption among Lebanon’s ruling political class, which is widely blamed for the port explosion. It sends the message to Lebanon’s rulers that, while their country desperately needs foreign assistance to stand on its feet, no one can help Lebanon if it does not also help itself. But the communique issued following the conference glossed over the international community’s own role in sustaining Lebanon’s corrupt political class over a period of decades. At the aid conference, Macron said that Lebanon’s future is at stake. What donors need to recognise is that this future is a shared responsibility for them and Lebanon’s leaders alike.
Continue reading...Investigation focusing on why chemicals were stored at port for six years despite warnings
A Lebanese judge has begun questioning the heads of the country’s security agencies over last week’s devastating blast in Beirut, as another cabinet minister resigned in protest.
Judge Ghassan El Khoury began by questioning Maj Gen Tony Saliba, the head of state security, according to the state-run National News Agency. It gave no further details, but other generals are scheduled to be questioned.
Continue reading...Thousands of protesters have taken to the parliamentary precinct in the capital demanding the fall of the government days after a major explosion rocked Beirut, killing 159 people injuring more than 6,000. The protests began at sunset and continued into the night, with demonstrators clashing with police and soldiers. The demonstrations come as two government ministers and a string of MPs resigned from their posts, loosening the government's already parlous grip on power
Continue reading...Clashes broke out between rioters and police as global donors pledged recovery aid
Thousands of protesters pelted Lebanon’s parliamentary precinct with rocks on Sunday, demanding the fall of the government in the wake of the catastrophic blast that destroyed parts of Beirut last week.
The violent rally took place around sunset, as an international donor conference launched to fund the enormous cost of recovery resolved that the country would not be abandoned.
Continue reading...Lebanon’s information minister, Manal Abdel Samad, has quit in the first government resignation since an explosion in the port of Beirut killed more than 150 people and destroyed large parts of the capital. She apologised to the Lebanese public for failing them in her statement
Continue reading...The destruction caused by last week's explosion in Beirut is visible in drone footage shot in devastated neighbourhoods. The close-up footage shows buildings reduced to rubble and homes rendered uninhabitable. The explosion in the city's port killed at least 154 people, injured 6,000 and damaged large parts of the city. Officials say the blast, which was felt hundreds of miles away, could have caused damages worth as much as £11.5bn
A corruption-riddled government has presided over rising poverty for decades. Could the anger released after the catastrophe in Beirut’s docks finally topple it?
The first violent jolt seemed like a neighbourhood accident; a blown generator, or a car crash. Five seconds later, the thundering secondary blast arrived; a crushing surge of energy that instantly sucked the air out of the city, then plunged it back with devastating weight. Giant shards of debris blew through rooms, door frames collapsed and furniture became missiles – all in what seemed like a paralysing slow motion.
A deathly still followed, and then came a cascade of shattered glass from what appeared to be every home, or tower block; hundreds of thousands of panes and pieces falling to earth at once. Many who survived the blast wave did not live beyond the seconds that followed. Days later, giant pools and trails of blood littered pavements and roads, each telling their own tale of life or death in Beirut’s apocalypse. When the glass stopped falling, the screaming started. A yellow pall of dust, smoke and chemicals shrouded the eastern suburbs.
Continue reading...Lebanese riot police fired teargas at demonstrators in Beirut on Saturday and shots were heard in growing protests over this week's devastating explosion. Scores of protesters have taken to the streets calling for the government to be punished for their negligence that protesters say led to Tuesday's gigantic explosion that killed 158 people and injured more than 6,000.
Thousands turn out to call for accountability for one of world’s biggest non-nuclear blasts
Police fired teargas at protesters in Beirut on Saturday after thousands turned out in the city centre to demand accountability for one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions the world has seen.
Driven by anger at the corruption and incompetence that appears to have fostered Wednesday’s tragedy, a crowd gathered in Martyrs Square, where activists have erected a mock gallows for Lebanon’s top politicians.
Continue reading...Footage captured when the blast in the Lebanese capital's port hit the Lau Medical Center-Rizk hospital shows the shockwave shattering windows and ripping doors from their frames. More than 150 people in the city were killed, thousands were injured and hundreds of thousands of homes damaged or destroyed
In the days after the Beirut explosion, the Guardian followed yoga teacher Jana Saleh as she volunteered to help clear up. She finds chaos, disorder and a lack of support from Lebanese authorities: ‘there is no government, no army … nothing’. In the immediate aftermath, she searches through wreckage, helps out older people and clears a hospital smashed beyond repair.
More than 150 people died in the blast, around 5,000 were injured and at least 60 are still missing, according to the health ministry
‘Not one official has been in touch to help,’ says family member, as Lebanon’s sorrow turns to anger
Family and colleagues agree that Charbel Karam was one of the bravest firefighters at the east Beirut fire department. On Tuesday evening, the 32-year-old was on duty when a fairly routine call came in from Beirut’s port: a warehouse appeared to have caught on fire.
By chance, Karam was on shift with his brother-in-law, 27-year-old Najib Hatti, and his wife’s cousin, 22-year-old Charbel Hatti. As the three of them sped down the coastal highway towards the port, Karam video-called his wife Karlen and their two little girls.
Continue reading...On Tuesday evening, a massive explosion ripped across Beirut, killing at least 150 people and injuring thousands more. The scale of the damage was immense, with buildings miles from the port lying in ruin.
The Guardian's international correspondent Michael Safi looks at the cause of the blast and the impact it has had on Lebanon, a country already on the brink of financial collapse
Angry Lebanese plan major protest on Saturday, one day before team investigating explosion reports to cabinet
Dozens of bags of fireworks were stored in the same hangar as thousands of tonnes of ammonium nitrate at Beirut’s port and may have been a decisive factor in igniting the explosive chemical compound that fuelled Tuesday’s huge explosion, a former port worker and other sources have told the Guardian.
As angry Lebanese plan a major protest in central Beirut on Saturday, scrutiny has focused on how 2,750 tonnes of the dangerous material could have been stored so close to residential neighbourhoods for years – despite repeated warnings of the risk it posed.
Continue reading...Fabienne Sahyoun has spent the last two days recovering some of her personal belongings from what is left of her flat. She is among thousands of people left reeling by the explosion, in which at least 145 people died, 5,000 were injured and as many as 250,000 homes were left uninhabitable
Lebanese protesters clashed with police late on Thursday as they tried to approach government buildings in central Beirut. Police responded with teargas and dispersed the crowd.
Shock has turned to anger in the city where nearly 150 people died and more than 5,000 were injured when a huge pile of ammonium nitrate that had languished for years in a port warehouse ignited.
Continue reading...Calls for inquiry mount as officials begin blame game over ammonium nitrate storage
Angry crowds in Beirut urged Emmanuel Macron to help bring political change to Lebanon as the French president toured the city’s devastated port and surrounding neighbourhoods.
As the Lebanese army took control of the site on the first day of a two-week state of emergency, there were growing calls inside and outside the country for an independent investigation into the disaster that killed at least 157 people, left thousands homeless and caused up to $15bn (£11bn) worth of damage to the capital.
Continue reading...State media says several people were injured in protests as country’s ambassador to Jordan resigns over ‘state negligence’
Lebanese security forces fired tear gas at demonstrators in Beirut, as rage over the country’s leadership grew following a massive explosion that laid waste to large parts of the capital on Tuesday.
State media reported late on Thursday that security forces confronted dozens of anti-government protesters in central Beirut Some in the small protest were wounded, the National News Agency, NNA, reported.
Continue reading...France president seizes moment for influence with visit to Lebanon after explosion trailing ‘new political deal’
Emmanuel Macron’s move to boost his country’s influence in Lebanon has shown a French president with the confidence, and political instinct, to seize his moment on the world stage.
Two days after the devastating explosion tore through Beirut Macron toured the site of the blast and some of the capital’s hardest-hit neighbourhoods.
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