Source: AFP
Security & Justice
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Israeli forces have systematically destroyed entire neighborhoods in southern Lebanon, leveling more than 37 towns and wiping out over 40,000 residential units, according to Lebanon's National News Agency.
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Gaps in Coastal Radar Enabled Israeli Raid in Batroun, Army Commander Says
Lebanon’s army chief, General Joseph Aoun, detailed to Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati how Israeli forces likely exploited gaps in the country's coastal radar system during the recent raid carried out in Batroun. The briefing comes as Lebanese officials seek answers on how Israel’s elite Shayetet 13 unit carried out the landing undetected.
Monday, November 4, 2024
Opinion
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“Large numbers of people continue to flee their homes every day, as Israel’s military operations in Lebanon have been going on unabated.” These disturbing words could be from almost any news report about Israel’s invasion of its northern neighbour over the past month. However, they can be found in a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre issued on July 27, 2006.
Saturday, November 2, 2024
A Future Without Hezbollah
At the end of September, when Israel’s campaign to destroy Hezbollah was reaching its height, I met one of the group’s supporters in a seaside café in western Beirut. He was a middle-aged man with a thin white beard and the spent look of someone who had not slept for days. He was an academic of sorts, not a fighter, but his ties to Hezbollah were deep and long-standing.
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Sports
FC Barcelona Fears First Team Star Will Be Banned From Playing, Reports SPORT
FC Barcelona is concerned that one of its main first-team stars will be banned from playing at the turn of 2025 because of issues related to his registration and Financial Fair Play (FFP) limits according to SPORT, which cited anonymous sources.
Friday, November 1, 2024
Tottenham Forward Son Heung-min Crowned Asia’s International Player of the Year
Tottenham forward Son Heung-min was crowned as Asia’s International Player of the Year for the fourth time by the Asian Football Confederation at its annual awards ceremony Tuesday.
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Saturday 18 September 2021 17:58:50
Authorities Seizes Dangerous Fertiliser in East Lebanon
Lebanese authorities have seized 20 tonnes of ammonium nitrate -- the same chemical behind a deadly explosion last year at Beirut's port -- in the eastern Bekaa Valley, state media reported on Saturday.
Ammonium nitrate is an odourless crystalline substance commonly used as a fertiliser that has been the cause of numerous industrial explosions over the decades.
At least 214 people were killed and some 6,500 others wounded on August 4, 2020 when a shipment of the chemical carelessly stocked at the Beirut port for years ignited and caused a massive blast.
On Saturday, the National News Agency (NNA) said security forces raided a fertiliser warehouse in the eastern Bekaa Valley, considered a hub for smuggling operations between Lebanon and Syria.
Authorities seized 20 tonnes of the dangerous chemical stored inside a truck parked at the warehouse, the NNA said, adding the material was transported to a "safe place".
Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi, who visited the Bekaa Valley on Saturday, called on security forces to conduct a sweep of the area.
"We must do our best to move these materials to a safer place away from exposure to heat and sun" to avoid a "catastrophe", the NNA quoted him as saying.
The company that owns the ammonium nitrate said that the fertiliser was intended for agricultural use.
"One of our employees informed the relevant authorities that we have ammonium nitrate, so they raided the warehouses on Friday," one of the company heads told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The name of the firm that owns the fertiliser has not been made public pending investigations.
"We have been working in the feed and fertiliser industry for 40 years," the company official added.
When combined with fuel oils, ammonium nitrate creates a potent explosive widely used in the construction industry, but also by insurgent groups for improvised explosives.
Lebanese authorities are still investigating the circumstances in which hundreds of tonnes of the chemical ended up in the Beirut port for years, before the monster explosion that levelled swathes of the city.
