Saudi Arabia and China sign $265million deal to combat coronavirus pandemic
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Roshan Amiri
- . October 5, 2021
- . Update: April 29, 2020 7:34 am
Lebanon– We know little about the mysterious explosion of the port of Beirut, similar to a mushroom cloud that devastated entire neighborhoods of the Lebanese capital. However, more than a year has passed. Official US sources, requests for assistance like other authorized sources, would have ascertained, never denied, that in the port of Beirut, there was not all the ammonium nitrate that was confiscated and superficially kept in the commercial port since then. About half of it was left. What about the rest? What use has been made of a seized substance?
The day of the explosion at the port of Beirut, when 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate blew up, causing 217 deaths, over 7,000 injured, and 300,000 displaced, marked one of the bloodiest and most shameful pages in Lebanon’s recent history. At least ten times in the previous six years, the customs authorities, the armed forces, the security services, and the judiciary had warned of the enormous risks associated with the presence of explosive chemicals in the port area of the Lebanese capital.
Then, finally, neglect and contempt for human lives caused the massacre of August 4, 2020. But what has happened since then has added shame to shame. Right from the start, the authorities tried to obstruct the investigation. They removed Fadi Sawan, the first magistrate in charge of the study, sent armed officers and civilians to beat the victims’ families who protested in front of parliament. In the end, they achieved their goal: to stop the investigation.
The former Lebanese interior minister, Nouhad al-Mashnouq, asked his lawyers to ask the Court of Appeal to remove the magistrate who replaced Sawwan, judge Tarek Bitar. Now the Court is called to decide on the matter. The former minister of public works, Youssef Fenianos, also made a similar request. Meanwhile, the recently replaced government ministers hope that the magistrate has been suspended and with him all hearings. The ministers had always resorted to legal immunities in order not to appear before the magistrate. As ministers in office, the law allows them to do so. But now that he is no longer in office, the situation has changed
The first magistrate was taken out of the Cassation Court for bias, as the explosion had damaged his home. The second, Tarek Bage.
Last year, some 2.5 million Muslims travelled to the Kingdom from across the world to participate the trip that Muslims are obliged to perform at least once during their lifetime following the Quran’s precepts. King Salman has warned of a “more difficult” fight ahead against COVID-19 pandemic, as the kingdom faces the economic impact of virus restrictions and crashing oil prices.
According to Worldometer there have been 17,522 coronavirus cases in Saudi Arabia, with 139 deaths while 2,357 patients have recovered so far. On March 2, 2020, the Riyadh Ministry of Health confirmed the first case of COVID-19. On April 8, as many as 150 members of the Saudi royal family had tested positive. The king’s nephew, Faisal bin Bandar Al Saud, was placed in the intensive care unit at an elite hospital due to coronavirus complications. To date, the kingdom has the highest number of contagions among the Arabian Gulf states.
