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 Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has called for a boycott of the Al Arabiya and Al Hadath channels during a televised speech marking Ashoura. Nasrallah was speaking in a live television address marking the tenth night of the Islamic month of Muharram and the day of Ashoura. “They pay money to spread poisons and go beyond lying to provocation and insults against Hezbollah,” Nasrallah said in his attack of the media against his group, naming Al Arabiya, Al Hadath and UAE’s Sky News Arabia during his speech. “They depend on a policy of pumping media via attack articles and social media. When you turn on the television, each attack comes at the same time, because they all have the same management, brothers and sisters, in a dark room the runs,” Nasrallah said. “You’ll find the report on Al Arabiya, Al Hadath, Sky News, us Lebanese what do we need from them? This and that television channel … The newspapers, the same report sometimes has the same text. So if you have med...

  On Thursday afternoon, August 27, clashes took place in the Khaldeh area, south of Beirut, between a number of tribes and members of "Hezbollah" against the backdrop of hanging religious banners and party flags, the firing of bullets and rocket-propelled grenades, and resulted in the killing of two people and an announcement of implementation, according to the report. Local media. While the Lebanese army is in charge, the army plays the role of the army in resending the retransmission files to the Khaldeh area, and re-sending the retransmission files to the next file. The security relations of the security zones of the neighboring regions. My tweets followed the shooting, the shooting in the army, the Egyptian army communities and each other being shot. According to what was circulated on social media, the "Union of Arab Tribes' Children" appealed to the army leadership and leaders of the security services "to organize a clash in Khaldeh", blaming He...

  ANNAHAR: Consultations to “steer clear from responsibility” after France’s dangerous warning  AL-JOUMHOURIA: Macron’s initiative: A cabinet devoted to reforms, elections  AL-AKHBAR: Tammam Salam getting closer to premiership Khaldeh’s clashes warn of a worse scenario  THE DAILY STAR: Consultations on new PM Saturday or Monday: Baabda source Record 689 virus cases as Lebanon relaxes lockdown

  An-Nahar: 48 hours for Macron in Beirut: Will breakthrough happen?   Al-Akhbar: Salameh's circular: Corporate loans Dollar rate at 4,000! Prime Minister to be designated early next week?   Al-Joumhouriya: Designation: Biting fingers before Macron's return.. Israel threatens, Lebanon files complaint   The Daily Star: France creates reform roadmap for crisis-ridden Lebanon  

  ANNAHAR: Hariri shuffling designation cards    AL-ANBAA: Mobilization along southern borders after suspected infiltration attempt AL-LIWAA: Hariri refuses blackmail by Bassil and Geagea AL-AKHBAR: FPM: We will name whoever Hariri nominates! THE DAILY STAR: Israel reports 'security incident' at border with Lebanon Hariri bows out of premiership race Lebanon explosion no pretext to avoid change: Le Drian Lebanon confirms record 12 COVID deaths in 24 hours Lebanon rejects reform of UNIFIL force on border

  In 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing “Global Intelligence Files”, which are more than five million emails from Stratfor, a Texas-based “global intelligence” company, where the inner workings of a company operating as an intelligence publisher were exposed, but Provides covert intelligence services to large companies.A Stratfor source in Lebanon told WikiLeaks, “Hezbollah has difficulty obtaining military explosives such as C4, RDX, etc., and relies more on the existing supplies of ammonium nitrate to maintain the cache of its explosions, and Hezbollah is having difficulty obtaining Receiving military explosives, because UNIFIL closed the Lebanese coast and prevented shipments of materials from reaching Lebanon. ” The source added, “It is alleged that Hezbollah pays twice the market price for Syrian products and buys up to 15,000 tons of fertilizers from the main Syrian petrochemical facility in Homs, then Syria takes the profits and buys cheaper fertilizers from eas...

  Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced that he would not run for prime minister, requesting that his name be withdrawn from circulation, and said in a statement: “I had instructed myself not to take a political position before the issuance of the judgment of the Special Court in Lebanon regarding the assassination of the martyr Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and before completing contacts with friendly countries and society. The international community and the Lebanese political forces regarding the initiative that the friendly President Emmanuel Macron took during his recent visit to Lebanon. He continued: "In fact, I see that the renewed international interest in our country, headed by President Macron's initiative and the visits by a number of international and Arab officials, represents an opportunity that may be the last and cannot be missed to rebuild our beloved capital Beirut, and to achieve a series of reforms demanded by the Lebanese and we are trying Its implementation...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Fifteen years after the assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, Hezbollah has risen to become the overarching power in a country that is now collapsing under its feet amid a series of devastating crises.  A U.N.-backed tribunal on Tuesday convicted a member of the Iranian-backed group of conspiring to kill Hariri in a 2005 bombing and acquitted three others. The verdict came at a time when Lebanon’s economy has collapsed. Institutions from the security services to the presidency, occupied by a Hezbollah ally, have been found wanting, and people are struggling with the aftermath of the massive explosion that shredded central Beirut this month. Added to this, there is no functioning government and there is a spike in the COVID-19 pandemic. Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has denied that the group has ever controlled Lebanese governments or that it has a majority that would allow it to act on its own. But Lebanon is sli...

  AL-JOUMHOURIA: Rope of conditions strangles premiership appointment negotiations  Rising bets on Macron’s intervention to rescue premiership appointment AL-AKHBAR: Premiership appointment negotiations: France names Hariri!  THE DAILY STAR: Lebanon records 457 COVID-19 cases, three deaths Containers of 'dangerous chemicals' at Beirut Port: Army

  NNA - Caretaker Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants, Charbel Wehbe, met on Tuesday with Chinese Ambassador to Lebanon, Wang Kigian, with whom he discussed the extension of UNIFIL's mandate.  Earlier on Tuesday, Wehbe welcomed Russian Ambassador to Lebanon, Alexander Zasypkin, and French Ambassador to Lebanon, Bruno Foucher.  Source: http://nna-leb.gov.lb/en/show-news/119335/Foreign-Minister-meets-with-ambassadors-of-China-Russia-and-France

  In September 2013, eight Ukrainians and a Russian departed Georgia on a beat-up freighter, apparently heading for Mozambique. Their ship was already in bad shape before it even left the Black Sea port of Batumi. Called the Rhosus, the vessel was leaking, its alarm system was faulty and so was its rescue equipment. But the cargo on board was extremely volatile: 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate in a highly concentrated variant, the kind used to make explosives, with a nitrogen enrichment level of almost 35 percent. Seven years later, on August 4, 2020, it would devastate parts of Lebanon's capital city Beirut, killing around 200 people and injuring thousands. Since then, the world has taken an interest in the Rhosus and its history, with investigators trying to piece together the details of its final voyage. How did the Rhosus end up in Beirut? And who had really ordered the explosive chemicals? Thus far, the story has been that the ship belonged to a Russian man name...

  Beirut is still reeling from the August 4 explosion at its seaport—an event that’s being described as one of the largest ever non-nuclear explosions in the world and the worst disaster in Lebanon’s tragically violent history. As the Lebanese capital tends to its wounds, officials are investigating and promising to hold those responsible accountable. But citizens are understandably loathe to trust the same ruling clique whose incompetence and negligence caused this tragedy. Trending Arabic hashtags like #Prepare_the_Gallows capture their anger, which is generally directed towards Lebanese officialdom rather than just a single party or group. Some, however, are pointing their accusatory finger squarely at the militant group Hezbollah . Despite indications that the Party of God may not have been directly responsible for the incident, the group should not escape scrutiny. Suspicions that the stash of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate belonged to Hezbollah aren’t ent...

  After a long and involved investigation, a U.N.-backed tribunal emerged with only a single conviction, of a minor Hezbollah figure, in the 2005 bombing that killed the former prime minister of Lebanon. Credit... Mohamed Azakir/Reuters The case went to trial in a country far from the crime scene with none of the accused in custody. It cost hundreds of millions of dollars to prosecute and employed armies of investigators, researchers and lawyers. But when the verdict on the most consequential political assassination in Lebanon’s recent history arrived on Tuesday, it left the country without a sense of closure and failed to answer even the most basic question: Who ordered the killing ? For a huge suicide car bomb attack in Beirut in 2005 that rattled the Middle East and killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 21 others, a United Nations-backed tribunal in the Netherlands acquitted three defendants for lack of evidence. The fourth man, Salim Ayyash, was convicted ...

  BEIRUT (AP) — More than 15 years after the truck bomb assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut, a U.N.-backed tribunal in the Netherlands is announcing verdicts this week in the trial of four members of the militant group Hezbollah allegedly involved in the killing, which deeply divided the tiny country. The verdicts on Tuesday at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, based in a village on the outskirts of the Dutch city of The Hague, are expected to further add to soaring tensions in Lebanon, two weeks after a catastrophic explosion at Beirut’s port that killed nearly 180 people, injured more than 6,000 and destroyed thousands of homes in the Lebanese capital. Unlike the blast that killed Hariri and 21 others on Feb. 14, 2005, the Aug. 4 explosion was believed to be a result of nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate that accidentally ignited at Beirut’s port. While the cause of the fire that provided the trigger is still not clear, Hezbolla...

  BEIRUT—The throngs of antiestablishment protesters marching in Beirut after last week’s devastating explosion have turned their sights on one group above all: Hezbollah, the powerful, Iranian-backed Shiite political party and militia that has in recent years become a nearly untouchable force in Lebanon. Hezbollah, which since its birth has billed itself as a bulwark against Israel and other foreign powers and a protector of Lebanon’s Shia population, is facing new, public criticism as an impediment to political reform. Critics say the group helps cover up systemic corruption and has focused its attention abroad instead of dealing with a deteriorating economic situation at home. “They are the biggest obstacle to the project of founding a strong state with working institutions,” said Nizar Hassan, a 27-year-old activist with the Lebanese rights group Li Haki. “They are to blame for a lot of this.” In the case of Hezbollah, it has operated a networ...

  It is not clear whether the messages being sent out by Iran’s influential Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps vis-a-vis Lebanon are the outcome of Tehran’s confidence in its ability to preserve its grip on the country’s politics – through its proxy Hezbollah – or whether they stem from  panic over its inability to escape accountability . What is terrifyingly astonishing, however, is not just the Iranian leaders’ decision this week to use the fatal explosions in the Port of Beirut more than 10 days ago to try and increase their influence, but also the fact that they do not view Hezbollah’s alleged stocking of dangerous munitions at the port to be a problem at all. Other regional powers, meanwhile, are observing the economic and political crisis unfolding in Lebanon either with a sense of helplessness or with seemingly little care for the plight of its people. The Trump administration remains preoccupied with the US presidential election in November. It  u...

"Hezbollah controls security at the Beirut port, which it uses for its smuggling operations and for storing weapons. The assessment in Lebanon is that the investigation of the massive explosion at the port on Aug. 4 will be a whitewash, and that responsibility for the disaster will be laid on junior government officials." "The leaks from the investigation so far do not touch on the claims that Hezbollah turned the port into a weapons warehouse and had actually seized the ammonium nitrate stockpiled there to create explosive devices (IEDs). In 2015, a Hezbollah warehouse storing 8.3 tons of ammonium nitrate was discovered in Cyprus, and six months later, three tons of ammonium nitrate were found in four London hideouts. “On top of the risk of accidental detonations that threaten residential neighborhoods, it was revealed that the charge used in the Burgas bus bombing in 2012 contained ammonium nitrate,” according to one report ." "Nor is it mentione...

  We mourn the loss of life from the horrible tragedy that caused such tremendous destruction to Beirut earlier this week.  We pray for the survivors and their families and for all the Lebanese people as they struggle to put their lives and city back together.  The United States has already pledged more than $17 million in initial disaster aid for Lebanon, which includes food assistance and medical supplies.  This assistance augments the $403 million in U.S. humanitarian assistance to Lebanon since September 2019, including $41.6 million in assistance for the COVID response.  We join others in the call for a thorough and transparent investigation into the cause of this explosion.  The Lebanese people deserve accountability and a government that prioritizes the safety and prosperity of its citizens.  No nation is more generous or compassionate than the United States, and we will continue to help the Lebanese people as they recover fr...

A series of massive explosions rocked Beirut's port on Tuesday – a mushroom cloud rising above the widespread destruction that claimed the lives of at least 100 people and wounded thousands more in the Lebanese capital. Multiple sources said that much of the operations were under "unofficial" control of Hezbollah and indications have emerged that a fire broke out at an explosives depot inside the facility. Several sources also pointed to organized crime operations run out of the port, primarily controlled by Hezbollah, and that the explosion potentially involved "multiple containers." "There is a possibility that fireworks, petrol and weapons were stored together," another intelligence source noted. "Officially, the blast happened at the fireworks and petrol warehouse." The explosion was caused by ammunition nitrate, Iran a is large producer of this commodity. Iran ammonium nitrate production was at level of 68,428 tonnes in 2016. T...