Source: CNBC
The official website of the Kataeb Party leader
Security & Justice
Southern Lebanon Endures Massive Damage: 40,000 Homes Leveled Across 37 Towns
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.
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
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
My Hope for Lebanon
A company of Lebanese soldiers assigned to maintain order in this anxious wartime capital is gathered at its headquarters 100 yards from the Mediterranean. I make the blunder of asking their commander how many of his men are Shiites, Sunnis, Christians and Druze.
Monday, November 4, 2024
The Emptying of Baalbek Is a Moment to Take Stock
“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
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
Wednesday 27 July 2022 11:17:25
With Bread Prices Skyrocketing, Lebanon Waits for Crucial Wheat Imports and International Aide
With Lebanon already facing its biggest economic crisis ever, the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine has exacerbated dire living conditions for the Mediterranean nation of nearly 7 million.
Lebanon imports most of its food and all of its fuel, and over 80% of the country’s wheat comes from Ukraine and Russia.
Since the start of the war, the Kremlin’s blockade on Ukrainian grain exports via the Black Sea has sent bread prices skyrocketing. Last week, the two sides signed an agreement, backed by the U.N., aiming to restart grain exports in the region.
However, Russia’s attack on Ukraine’s port city of Odesa, less than 24 hours after the agreement was signed, has thrown the deal’s legitimacy into question, and sent wheat prices higher. If the deal is successfully executed, crucial grain exports will transit through a sea corridor in the Black Sea, potentially providing relief from a growing food crisis across the globe.
The Lebanon Crisis Analytics Team at Mercy Corps told CNBC Monday that the price of wheat flour has risen 209% since the start of Russia’s onslaught in Ukraine, and 330% since the 2019 economic crisis began.
Food and beverage inflation on an annual basis surged to 332% in June, and the wider inflation figure rose to 210% in the same month, according to government data.
Lebanon’s Minister of Economy and Trade, Amin Salam, told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble “we realized that there was a threat way before we got to the Russia-Ukraine crisis, we knew that the country should have had another set of silos around the country to make sure if something happens, we don’t lose our reserves.”
Lebanon’s wheat silos were destroyed in Beirut’s port explosion two years ago, depleting crucial backup supply.
Lebanon’s caretaker government is now desperately trying to secure sources of wheat, Salam told CNBC, including talking directly to the Russians.
“I know that the government, through the Minister of Foreign Affairs have had several discussions about supporting Lebanon and opening up some of the shipment lines that are blocked, because we are having a hard time really receiving shipments that used to take 10 days, now they take three weeks.”
Salam said his government has “not received any positive feedback” from these discussions.
World Bank lifeline
The World Bank in May awarded Lebanon with a $150 million loan, which the Parliament approved on Tuesday. The loan “aims to finance immediate wheat imports to avoid the disruption in supply over the short term and help secure affordable bread for poor and vulnerable households including displaced population and refugees in Lebanon,” the World Bank told CNBC via email.
“The project will also help strengthen the governance capacity in the wheat sector and help put the agriculture and food production system on a pathway toward recovery and greater resilience.”
Salam says the World Bank loan will last between six to nine months, depending on the global price of wheat.
“So far the price has been going down,” Salam told CNBC. “The estimate is that this loan will serve the country for about eight months of supplies.”
Salam added that his hope is that in eight months, the situation in Lebanon will have improved, and perhaps the government will have received a $3 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund too — a long-promised package of support that has yet to be approved.
The IMF loan is conditional on political and fiscal reforms, most of which the government has yet to make.
“We had no other option than to seek help from the international community. The World Bank was very responsive, very fast,” Salam said.
Salam told CNBC the discussions took around 25 days, and the loan “was the fastest and the first granted to any country globally that is related to food security from the World Bank.”
According to the World Bank, Lebanon’s economic collapse is one of the “top 10 severe crises globally since the 19th century.”
Lebanon has also been classified, once again, as a lower middle-income economy by the World Bank. It is Beirut’s first fall in such classifications since 1998.
According to the World Food Programme, “22 percent of households in Lebanon are food insecure,” and the number of “Syrian refugees who are severely or moderately food insecure stands at 1.3 million, of whom 1 million are receiving assistance.”