Source: The Vatican News
Lebanon has stepped up efforts to secure the extradition of Russian national Igor Grechushkin, owner of the ship RHOSUS that carried the ammonium nitrate linked to the 2020 Beirut port explosion, dispatching Judge Mirna Kallas of the Public Prosecution Office at the Court of Cassation to Bulgaria to provide formal assurances that he will not face the death penalty if returned to Lebanon.
Monday, October 6, 2025
Fadel Shaker, a Lebanese pop singer turned wanted militant, surrendered to the military intelligence service on Saturday, more than a decade after fleeing justice over his alleged role in deadly clashes between militants and the Lebanese army in 2013.
Monday, October 6, 2025
Nearly a year after the end of Syria’s civil war and the fall of the Assad dictatorship, the country has embarked on a long and complex reconstruction process. The destruction is staggering: entire neighborhoods lie in rubble and basic infrastructure (roads, power grids, and water systems) has collapsed, and public institutions are dysfunctional. Millions of Syrians remain displaced inside and outside the country, schools and hospitals are incapacitated, and what remains of the economy is crippled by unemployment, inflation, and the lingering impact of sanctions (even as many have lately been eased). Ongoing sectarian violence and a deepening humanitarian disaster, with more than 14.5 million Syrians facing food insecurity, compound the crisis. As the international community re-engages in Syria, reconstruction will require many hundreds of billions of dollars in aid and investment as well as assistance to restore governance, security, and stability.
Thursday, September 25, 2025
Recently, during the session of a Lebanese parliamentary committee on a new election law, two of the country’s Shiite parliamentarians, one from Hezbollah and the second from the Amal Movement, floated an idea the government in Beirut should examine closely. The two MPs, Ali Fayyad and Ali Hassan Al Khalil, called for reform of the political system and full implementation of all the stipulations of the Taif Accord of 1989 – the agreement that ended Lebanon’s civil war and sought to update its confessional political model.
Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola says the club expects to learn the outcome of the hearing into its 115 charges of alleged Premier League financial rule breaches "in one month".
Saturday, February 8, 2025
Former Brazil and Real Madrid defender Marcelo has announced his retirement from football, bringing the curtain down on a trophy-laden career that included five UEFA Champions League triumphs.
Friday, February 7, 2025
Monday 30 October 2023 14:45:34
As Israel continues to expand its military assault deeper into the northern Gaza Strip, the UN and medical staff express fears over airstrikes hitting closer to hospitals, where tens of thousands of Palestinians have sought shelter alongside thousands of wounded.
The Palestinian death toll since Israel launched retaliatory attacks on Hamas infrastructure in Gaza on 7 October, exceeds 8,000.
The overwhelming majority of those killed are civilians. They include elderly people, disabled people, women and children who account for almost 3,000 of those deaths.
Meanwhile, relief workers, who are also suffering major losses, said the largest convoy of humanitarian aid to arrive in Gaza still fell far short of needs and are calling for an urgent ceasefire.
Lamenting the fact that since Saturday, 28 October, most contact was lost with UNRWA teams in the Gaza Strip, UNRWA’s HR Director in neighbouring Jordan, confirmed that at least 53 colleagues are confirmed casualties, “which is more than the entire death toll of colleagues during the 10-years of the Syrian war.”
“They are mothers and fathers, teachers, gynaecologists, doctors,” Brusa said expressing fear that the number may have increased given the continuing heavy bombardments.
What’s more, he said, speaking on Saturday, the breaks in communications are making the work of humanitarian operators who are trying to respond to the needs of more than 600,000 displaced people, extremely challenging.
“The UN,” Brusa said, “continues to engage in dialogue with the Israeli authorities through the regular channels,” and continues to appeal for permission to deliver urgently needed commodities.
Fuel, he explained, remains the most urgently needed supply “for trucks to receive and distribute aid, for bakeries, hospitals, water desalination.”
He explained that UNRWA has rationed to the maximum its use of fuel to enable it to stretch its last remaining supply for another day or two, but warned that it will be forced to make a very tough decision to significantly reduce its operation and, in some places to totally bring them to a halt if fuel is not supplied.
Noting that UNRWA supports 50 bakeries, many of which have been bombed, it is trying in cooperation with WFP to provide bread to the 150 UNRWA shelters where more than 600,000 displaced people have sought refuge, Brusa said that “as we are not able to have fuel in the cars to drive the flour to the bakeries, nor give them fuel, the distribution of bread is also likely to stop.”
The lack of fuel, he underscored, is severely undermining the possibility of providing all humanitarian support.
“UNRWA also continues to call for a full lift of the siege and for humanitarian access to be safe, unimpeded, continuous and regular,” Brusa said.
Noting that the number of internally displaced people has now increased dramatically, he said it is four times higher than what UNRWA originally planned as part of its crisis response before the war started.
“The shelters are overcrowded, they lack privacy and sanitation,” he continued saying that for example “in the Rafah logistics base, where more than 8,000 people have sought shelter, 400 people are sharing one toilet.”
Reiterating that hospitals, schools, places of worship, people's homes, shops and sources of livelihood have all come under attack, Brusa said “No place is safe in Gaza.”
He spelt out three urgent priorities:
1 - Lift the siege on Gaza and allow safe, uninterrupted, and regular humanitarian access to deliver assistance to people in need, wherever they are, across the Gaza Strip.
2 - Allow urgent deliveries of fuel to the Gaza Strip, critical for UNRWA operations, bakeries, water stations and medical facilities.
3 - Reach a humanitarian ceasefire to spare more lives from being lost, and protect civilians everywhere, civilian infrastructure and UN facilities.
As of today, there are about one-half million people displaced in Gaza and nearly 630000 of those are in Unrwa shelters.
Brusa was at pains to highlight how most shelters are trying to function at least 25 times their capacity.
“There are still about 300 to 400 thousand people left in the north and we need to be able to deliver assistance to wherever the people who are in need are living,” he said, pointing out that “Civilians in Gaza have paid a tremendous price with over a million displaced, neighbourhoods destroyed and thousands of casualties.”
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