BEIRUT, 26 Jauary 2023, (TON): The United States is rerouting $72 million of America’s assistance to Lebanon to help the country’s cash-strapped government boost wages of its soldiers and police officers, the US ambassador said.

Washington is a key donor of the Lebanese Army and its 80,000 members, providing over $3 billion in military aid since 2006. The announcement Wednesday is the first time the US is allocating funds for wages of security personnel in Lebanon.

Lebanon is struggling with an unprecedented economic crisis, one that the World Bank says is among the worst worldwide since the 1850s.

Three-quarters of the population live in poverty, while the Lebanese pound has lost over 90 percent of its value against the dollar.

MADRID, 26 Jauary 2023, (TON): Spanish police have arrested a man suspected of being behind a recent letter bombing campaign that targeted the prime minister and the Ukrainian embassy, the interior ministry said.

A 74-year-old Spanish citizen was arrested in Miranda de Ebro in northern Spain and the ministry said police were searching the man’s home.

Nobody was killed by the six letter bombs sent in late November and early December to various sites in Spain, but an employee of the Ukrainian embassy was lightly injured while opening one of the packages.

Among the sites targeted was the official residence of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Spain’s defense ministry and an air base near Madrid from where weapons donated by Spain are sent to Ukraine.

WASHINGTON, 26 Jauary 2023, (TON): War has always been big business in the United States. According to the seminal anti-war essay “War is a Racket,” gunpowder manufacturer Du Ponts saw their profits increase by more than 950% during The Great War.

US arms sales to other countries skyrocketed in 2022, providing a tidy sum of profits for weapon manufacturers, according to data released by the State Department.

US weapon sales to other countries, largely driven by NATO’s response to Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine and increased tensions in Asia, jumped from $35.8 billion in 2021 to $51.9 billion in 2022.

Direct weapon sales from US-based weapon manufacturers also saw a massive increase, jumping from $103.4 billion in 2021 to $153.7 billion in 2022.

BEIRUT, 25 January 2023, (TON): The Lebanese judge probing the devastating Beirut port blast has charged Prosecutor General Ghassan Oueidat and three judges, a first in the country’s history, a judicial official told media.

Judge Tarek Bitar decided to resume his probe into the deadly August 2020 mega-explosion despite strong political pressure that had led to a suspension of his work for more than a year.

He charged eight more figures, including Lebanon’s top prosecutor Oueidat and the three judges, with “homicide, arson and sabotage”, said the judicial official who spoke to media on condition of anonymity.

PARIS, 25 January 2023, (TON): French foreign ministry said “France repatriated 15 women and 32 children held in jihadist prison camps in northeastern Syria.”

The ministry said in a statement “the minors were handed over to the services in charge of child assistance and will be subject to medical and social monitoring.”

It added “the adults have been handed over to the competent judicial authorities.”

Since the caliphate fell in 2019, the return of family members of fighters who were captured or killed has been a thorny issue for European countries.

JUNEAU, 25 January 2023, (TON): Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy told “lawmakers late Monday he wants to work with them to make Alaska the most pro-life state in the country, with policies supporting families and making the state an affordable and a desirable place to live.”

“Kids are a blessing and they shouldn’t be viewed as a burden. But we all have to accept that raising a family is more challenging than when many of us were growing up,” the Republican told a joint session of the Legislature during the first State of the State speech of his second term.

He cited inflation and housing, food and energy costs, which he said were “making people think twice about growing their family or even starting one.”

NEW DELHI, 25 January 2023, (TON): The Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), the youth wing of the ruling CPI-M in Indian state of Kerala, has announced that they will screen the controversial documentary ‘The Modi Question’ on Tuesday evening in the state capital of Thiruvananthapuram despite stiff opposition from the Bharatiya Janata Party, reported Indian media.

The police are keeping a strict vigil after the Bharatiya Yuva Morcha, BJP’s young wing, declared that they will stop the screening of the banned documentary, which talks about the 2002 Gujarat riots when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the chief minister.

Announcing its decision on social media, the DFYI said a big screen will be installed at Poojapura area to screen the documentary at 6 pm.

GENEVA, 25 January 2023, (TON): The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, appealed for $1.6 billion for its work in 2023, as it struggles to overcome chronic budget shortfalls.

UNRWA which provides services to nearly six million Palestinians registered in the Palestinian territories, including Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, as well as in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria warned that “compounding challenges” had placed it under “immense strain”.

The agency, which counts nearly 30,000 staff most of them Palestinian refugees runs more than 700 schools that offer education to half a million children, and provides health, sanitation and social services, including food and cash assistance.

AMMAN, 25 January 2023, (TON): Jordan’s King Abdullah held a meeting with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the capital Amman, a statement by Jordan’s Royal Hashemite Court said, amid heightened diplomatic tensions over the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem.

Tuesday’s meeting was attended by an Israeli delegation as well as several Jordanian officials, including Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi.

Amman had summoned the Israeli ambassador after its envoy Ghassan Majali was stopped from entering the mosque on January 17.

Jordan’s ambassador’s visit to the mosque came after extreme right-wing Israeli Minister for National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir stormed the mosque compound – Islam’s third holiest site – drawing condemnation from the Muslim world.

TRIPOLI, 24 January 2023, (TON): Major Arab states boycotted a ministerial meeting hosted by Libya’s interim government on Sunday, with just five of the Arab League’s 22 members sending their top diplomats and even the bloc’s secretary general staying away.

The snub underlines Arab divisions over the Tripoli-based government, whose legitimacy is contested by a rival administration in the war-scarred country’s east.

Regional heavyweights Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were not represented at all at the gathering a preparatory session ahead of a foreign ministers’ meeting in Cairo.

Four members sent lower-ranking ministers or ambassadors while Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit was also absent.