Day: February 24, 2023

The Embassies of the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan and Denmark in Lebanon lit up on Friday night their shared Embassies’ complex in Beirut in the colours of the Ukrainian flag to mark one year since Russia’s brutal invasion. “Tonight we light our Embassies in the colours of the Ukrainian flag to mark one year since Russia’s brutal invasion. They are defending the right of everyone to live in freedom.”

Source: National News Agency – Lebanon

ANNAHAR: Judiciary ‘utters’ Salameh while Mikati objects AL-JOUMHOURIA: Preoccupation with government, banking, and judicial clash while country suffers on deathbed AL-AKHBAR: Boldest step in judiciary’s history: Riad Salameh… Please go! ASHARQ AL-AWSAT: Lebanese judiciary prosecutes Central Bank governor over ’embezzlement and money laundering’ crimes Riad Salameh and brother accused of seizing $300 million from Central Bank

Source: National News Agency – Lebanon

Alyona woke up in her home in southern Ukraine to news of military aircraft screeching overhead.

“We had a simple, calm life and suddenly war started,” recalls the 32-year-old mother of three. “It was scary.”

A year later, the war in Ukraine has upended life inside and outside the country — and posed enormous challenges to the World Food Progamme’s (WFP) humanitarian operations.

More than five million people are internally displaced in Ukraine; nearly eight million have joined the swelling ranks of refugees in Europe. Many like Alyona have been uprooted multiple times — part of one of the fastest forced population movements since World War II.

Today, roughly one in three families in Ukraine — 11 million people — are food insecure. Nearly one-third of the population is unemployed. Many are now weathering a bitterly cold winter without power.

Landmines and other war debris have left some farmland too dangerous to plant — a massive setback for one of the world’s biggest breadbaskets.

The fallout of the war has been widespread and devastating — feeding a hike in global prices, deepening hunger in countries as far flung as Lebanon, Sudan and Venezuela, and pushing the most precarious, like Somalia and Yemen — grappling with conflicts of their own — one step closer to a hunger catastrophe.

Now, with a key grain initiative set to expire next month, the impact of the war risks sharpening. ?

“To all the leaders in the world, we need to renew the Black Sea Grain Initiative,” says WFP Executive Director David Beasley of a 2022 agreement allowing WFP and other shipments of Ukraine grain to vulnerable countries.

“It must be renewed at all costs,” Beasley says. “Ukraine alone feeds 400 million people around the world.”

Massive ramp-up

The past year also saw a stunning ramp-up of WFP’s response to an unprecedented crisis — despite sharply higher operating costs. Days after Alyona’s frightening wake-up call, we had launched an emergency operation in Ukraine to provide food assistance and led a logistics push on behalf of the wider United Nations.

Now, on any given month, WFP supports roughly three million war-displaced and affected people within Ukraine, distributing food all over frontline areas. Where supermarkets and banks are functioning, we also distribute cash, which supports local economies and incentivizes shops to reopen when conditions are deemed safe.

Since last March, WFP’s programmes and grain exports have injected more than US$700 million into the Ukrainian economy. Almost all our food is sourced locally, and we work directly with local responders.

The fresh bread, for instance, that WFP sends to thousands of families living on the frontlines, comes from local bakeries — like a women-led business in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv.

“We deliver to villages where there is no electricity, gas or water, to people in destroyed villages left without anything,” says the bakery’s owner Alyona Rakova. “We see how much value our bread has for these people.”

Across the border in Moldova, WFP’s monthly food and cash assistance reaches thousands of Ukrainian refugees as well as host families. Our support includes hot meals for Ukrainians living in special refugee accommodation centres, like one in the central Moldovan city of Criuleni.?

“I always think about dishes that can remind them of home,” says chef Tatiana, who herself was displaced by an earlier conflict in Moldova. “I want them to be happy here.”

Black Sea breakthrough

The war in Ukraine has also intensified a broader food and energy crisis. The fallout was especially acute early last year, as millions of tons of Ukrainian grain were blocked in Black Sea ports. That included WFP food assistance, desperately needed by vulnerable communities in Africa and elsewhere.

Last July saw a breakthrough, with the Black Sea Grain Initiative opening a maritime corridor for food exports. Soon after, the first WFP shipment was on its way; some 23,000 metric tons of wheat bound for the drought-hit Horn of Africa, where millions risked catastrophic hunger. Since then, 16 WFP-chartered vessels have sailed under the initiative.

In countries like Yemen, where some places face emergency hunger levels, WFP wheat which arrived last October reaches families like Mariam Othman’s, in the country’s northwestern Hajjah Governorate.

“If the food basket was not delivered, we could have died of hunger,’` says Mariam, a widow and mother of three of the WFP assistance that also includes pulses and oil.

In Ukraine, WFP is looking ahead at the next growing season — working with the Food and Agricultural Organization, Ukrainian authorities and other partners to clear agricultural land of mines and explosive remnants.

“The main challenges we have today are the fields that we cannot enter because we do not know whether they are mined or not,” says Klepach Alexander Mykolayovych, a farmer from southern Ukraine, who nonetheless remains hopeful of a good grain harvest.

“The faster we can get some of these farming communities up and running, the faster they can contribute to the economy,” and to food diversity, says WFP Ukraine Deputy Country Director Marianne Ward.

For the moment, many Ukrainians like Alyona depend on WFP food boxes containing staples like pasta, canned meat and sunflower oil.

Alyona’s children have returned to school, but electricity and water are erratic, and the family’s future is uncertain.

“I hope the war will end soon,” she says, “and that life will return to normal.”

Source: World Food Programme

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, on Friday received at the Grand Serail, Mufti of Akkar, Sheikh Zaid Bakkar Zakaria, and discussed with him the issue of the disappearance of Imam of Akkar’s Al-Qarqaf town mosque, Sheikh Ahmed Shuaib Al-Rifai. Premier Mikati affirmed that he is in constant communication with the security services in order to uncover the circumstances of this case and to secure the safe return of Sheikh al-Rifai. Premier Mikati also met with Caretaker Social Affairs Minister, Hector al-Hajjar, who said on emerging that he discussed with the Premier issues related to ‘AMAN Program’. The Caretaker Prime Minister also met with a delegation from the Association of Banks of Lebanon (ABL). Speaking in the name of the delegation, the Association’s lawyer, Akram Azouri, said that the Association’s Board decided to temporarily suspend its strike for a period of one week upon the request of Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and in view of the deteriorating economic situation, and in order to serve the interests of employees.

Source: National News Agency – Lebanon

House Speaker, Nabih Berri, on Friday received at the Second Presidency in Ain El-Tineh, Head of the National Liberal Party, MP Camille Dory Chamoun, who visited him with a delegation from the party. Discussions reportedly touched on the current general situation and the latest political developments. Speaker Berri also received former Iraqi Prime Minister, Dr. Adel Abdul Mahdi, in the presence of the “Liberation and Development” bloc MP Qabalan Qabalan. Discussions touched on the situation in Lebanon and the region and the bilateral relations between the two countries. This afternoon, Berri received former Environment Minister Tarek al-Khatib.

Source: National News Agency – Lebanon

A Lebanese parliamentary delegation on Friday left for Baghdad to participate in the conference of the Union of Arab Parliaments. The delegation comprises MPs Ayyoub Hmayid, Qassem Hashem and Michel Moussa, and Parliament Secretary General Adnan Daher, and Riad Ghannam.

Source: National News Agency – Lebanon

“Lebanese Forces” party leader, Samir Geagea, on Friday said in an address during an LF council meeting that “the main challenge at this stage is to cross the political desert, in which Lebanon is struggling in the shadow of a presidential vacancy, financial collapse, political division, and popular anger.’ ‘Whoever crosses this desert and survives politically will be the winner,’ Geagea added.

Source: National News Agency – Lebanon

Caretaker Minister of Health, Dr. Firas Al-Abiad, on Friday expressed his utmost appreciation for the efforts exerted by France to support Lebanon’s health sector ‘promoting government hospitals and providing medicines and vaccines.’ “We look forward to more cooperation, at all levels, to overcome this difficult stage,” Abaid said during his meeting with his French counterpart, Dr. François Braun, on the second day of his Paris visit. Talks between the pair took stock of the most important challenges facing the Lebanese health sector and its medical staff. Al-Abiad also briefed the French Minister of Health on the priorities set by the National Health Strategy, which must be addressed immediately. The pair reportedly agreed to set a framework for coordination and cooperation, in accordance with the priorities set by the National Health Strategy in Lebanon.

Source: National News Agency – Lebanon