lebanon

Climate Disruption Drives Up Grocery Costs

There was a time when fuel prices were the main concern. Today, it’s the cost of food that’s raising eyebrows. What ends up on our plates is no longer determined solely by supply, demand or inflation. Temperature has become a key factor. Behind the sharp rise in food prices, a quieter but increasingly decisive force has emerged: climate ...

Basketball – Asia Cup: Everyone Behind Lebanon!

From August 5 to 17 in Jeddah, the Lebanese national team will try to move past recent tensions and misfortunes. Arakji is back, but might miss the first two games. Can El Darwich lead the team? And what is a promise worth if it’s forced, Jamaleddine? A Ruthless Format The stage is set. Sixteen nations, four groups, one coveted trophy: the ...

Lebanon’s Death by a Thousand Hezbollah Cuts

It took Lebanon’s cabinet six months to even begin discussing the fate of Hezbollah’s arsenal. Whatever decision emerges will go to the Higher Defense Council for further deliberation and planning, then to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) to devise an implementation strategy. If each step takes as long as the first, disarming Hezbollah could be ...

Noun Assaulted After Port Blast Memorial

William Noun, brother of firefighter and August 4 victim Joe Noun, was assaulted on Monday following a gathering commemorating the fifth anniversary of the Beirut port explosion. A video circulating on social media showed an armed individual confronting and attacking Noun shortly after the memorial. The assailant was later arrested, along with ...

Israeli Drone Kills Hezbollah Member in Khiam

A Hezbollah member was reportedly killed and four injured, on Monday, in an Israeli drone strike that targeted the Old Slaughterhouse neighborhood on the eastern outskirts of Khiam, according to Al-Arabiya television. Hezbollah officially mourned Ali Suleiman Abu Abbas, who was killed in the town of Khiam. The strike came after a relatively ...

August 4: Four Witnesses at the Epicenter

That day began like any other. Sam, a young bartender then working in Hamra, was already on shift, and the restaurant was packed. “I was preparing orders when I felt the ground shaking. A massive jolt. They say there were two explosions, but I only heard one. A sound unlike anything I’d ever heard.” Jacques, architect, was sitting down to ...

Five Years On: Lebanon Marks Beirut Port Blast Anniversary with Calls for Justice and Remembrance

On the fifth anniversary of the devastating Beirut Port explosion, which killed over 200 people and injured thousands, officials and institutions have renewed their calls for justice and remembrance, while tributes were held across the country. Interior Minister Ahmad Hajjar visited the Beirut Fire Brigade headquarters, where he laid a wreath at ...

The Holy Father Remembers Lebanon in Prayers on August 4

“Beloved and suffering Lebanon” was the heartfelt theme of a prayer vigil held Sunday evening in the outdoor courtyard of Our Lady of Deliverance Church, in Beirut’s Karantina district near the port. The ceremony, attended by Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Paolo Borgia, featured a candlelit procession and the blessing of the 75 olive trees - ...

Lebanon, the Unraveling Republic

American political scientists in the sixties were quite pessimistic when analyzing the cascading political crises befalling Lebanon since the late fifties. Leila Meo used the label of “improbable nation” (1963), and Michael Hudson characterized it as a “precarious republic" (1965). This sense of instability prompted numerous scholars to ...

Beirut Port, Five Years On: Has the Investigation Stalled or Is Justice Moving Forward?

Five long years. Five years since the explosion on August 4, 2020, that mushroom-shaped cloud that swallowed the capital, crushed hundreds of lives, and left a nation in shock. Yet in Beirut, life has gone on as if nothing happened. As if more than 240 people had not died, as if over 7,000 had not been wounded, and as if the country were not ...