Lebanon

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon’s grand mufti, the top cleric for Sunni Muslims, called on Saturday for the formation of a new emergency government of technical experts and for those in power to meet protesters’ demands.

The country is in political and economic turmoil after three weeks of nationwide protests that prompted Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri to resign last week.

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s protests are bringing out people from across the country’s spectrum of faiths and communities trying to throw out the entire ruling elite. They give a glimpse into a Lebanon transcending longtime divisions among sects.

But the young protesters face an entrenched political leadership that depends on sectarianism and an older generation that fears disrupting it could bring back civil war.

That threat resonates less with a generation that has little or no memory of a war that ended in 1990.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The World Bank said on Wednesday it stood ready to extend all possible support to a new Lebanese government that was committed to good governance and creating opportunities for its citizens.

The rapid formation of a government that meets the expectations of all Lebanese people is the most urgent step required in Lebanon, the bank said in a statement after its World Bank regional director Saroj Kumar Jha met with Lebanese President Michel Aoun on Wednesday.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The powerful Lebanese Hezbollah group said on Friday a new government must listen to the demands that fueled protests against the country’s rulers and led Saad al-Hariri to quit as prime minister this week.

The unprecedented, nationwide protests that erupted on Oct. 17 tipped Lebanon into political turmoil as it grapples with the worst economic crisis since the 1975-90 civil war.

Lebanese banks reopened for the first time in two weeks on Friday, with dozens of people waiting at some branches.

BEIRUT, Nov 2 (NNN-NNA) – Hezbollah Leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said that, the resistance in Lebanon is stronger than ever before and it has never been that powerful, NBN local TV channel reported.

“We did not support the resignation of the government, not because we were worried about Hezbollah, but we feared chaos, which would disable the cabinet from paying its employees’ salaries,” Nasrallah said.

Nasrallah said that some foreign powers accused Hezbollah of dominating the past cabinet’s decisions, which is not true.

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov 2 (NNN-NNA) – Around 85 Syrian refugees returned, on Friday, to their homeland from Lebanon.

The Syrian refugees returned from Bekaa area, under the supervision of Lebanon’s general security.

More than one million Syrian refugees are registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Lebanon, while the Lebanese government estimated the true number of Syrians in the country at 1.5 million.

According to the Lebanese authorities, the number of refugees, who had returned to their homeland from Lebanon, reached 172,046 by Mar, 2019.

2 Nov 2019; MEMO: A Lebanese court sentenced an Uber driver to death on Friday for the murder of British embassy worker Rebecca Dykes in December 2017, state news agency NNA said, Reuters reports.

The driver, Tariq Houshieh, confessed to raping and strangling 30-year-old Dykes, who worked at the embassy in Lebanon for Britain’s Department for International Development.

1 Nov 2019; MEMO: A Lebanese security source said a loud explosion was heard near the southern Lebanese village of Nabatieh around 14.00 yesterday which could be caused by the downing of an Israeli drone.

The source added that “information indicates that a surface-to-air missile was fired from Nabatieh targeting the Israeli drone which fell in the vicinity of the town of Kafr Ruman.”

BEIRUT (AP) — The Islamic State group declared a new leader Thursday after it confirmed the death of its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi days earlier in a U.S raid in Syria.

In its audio release by the IS central media arm, al-Furqan Foundation, a new spokesman for IS identifies the successor as Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi — tracing his lineage, like al-Baghdadi, to the Prophet Muhammad’s Quraysh tribe.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S. forces in armored vehicles conducted a patrol on the Syria-Turkey border on Thursday, the first such exercise since a U.S. decision to withdraw from northeast Syria, according to a Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) military source and a witness.

Armored vehicles carrying a U.S. flag were seen near the Syria-Turkey border, the witness said.

A military source from the Kurdish-led SDF said the patrols would “not be one-time” only.