Latest news with #LebanonCrisis
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
Hecker Jr., Garnett F. 1936-2025 St. Joseph, Mo.
Garnett F. Hecker Jr., 88, St. Joseph, passed away unexpectedly Saturday, May 31, 2025, on his farm, doing what he loved. He was born Sunday, July 26, 1936, in Corning, Missouri, to Garnett and Nellie (Younger) Hecker. He was a 1954 graduate of Lafayette High School and earned his associate's degree in engineering from St. Joseph Junior College. Garnett proudly served his country as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army Airborne from 1956 to 1959, which included deployment to the 1958 Lebanon Crisis. He met Adelheid 'Heidi' Mueller in Germany during his military service, and they were married on June 23, 1958. She preceded him in death on Dec. 30, 2021. Garnett worked as a partsman for International Harvester for 50-plus years, was a lifelong farmer and a multi-talented 'Mr. Fix-It.' He was a member of Ebenezer United Methodist Church, an avid blood donor, and a member of the Silver & Gold Club. Garnett loved traveling with Heidi, having been to all 50 states and several countries. Most of all, Garnett loved to spend time with his family, especially cheering on his great-grandchildren's sporting events, and working on his farm. He was preceded in death by the love of his life, his wife, Heidi; and his parents. Survivors include his children, Steven Hecker (Connie), Cornelia Schirber (Pete), and Renee King (Russell); grandchildren, Nicole Conroy (Justin), Amber Ostendorf (Chris), Erik Hecker (Gracie Roach), Matthew Schirber (Jocelyn), Stephanie Kudryavtseva (Dimitry Kudryavtsev), and Ashley Schirber, and Regan Atkins (Jeff); great-grandchildren, Parker and Easton Conroy, Ella and Liam Ostendorf, Eleanor Schirber, and Max Kudryavtsev; siblings, Joyce Carol Cox (David), Jerry Hecker (Betty), Dennis Hecker (Rita), Peggy Johnson (JD), and Lanny Hecker (Kim); numerous other extended family members and friends. Farewell Services and Public Livestream 1 p.m. Thursday, Meierhoffer Funeral Home & Crematory. Inurnment with his beloved Heidi, Leavenworth National Cemetery at a later date. The family will gather with friends 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Meierhoffer Funeral Home & Crematory. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests memorial contributions to Ebenezer United Methodist Church, St. Joseph, and to donate blood in his honor. Online guest book and obituary at As published in the St. Joseph News-Press.
LBCI
4 days ago
- Business
- LBCI
MP Gemayel: The Syrian regime is gone, so why are the refugees still in Lebanon?
Kataeb Party leader and MP Samy Gemayel warned that Lebanon is now one of the most overcrowded countries in the world, citing the presence of over 1.7 million Syrian refugees. Speaking at a panel during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Budapest, Hungary, Gemayel highlighted the strain this has placed on Lebanon, a country with a land area of just 10,452 square kilometers and approximately 5 million citizens. He said the refugee population amounts to nearly a 50% increase in the country's original population. "To grasp the scale of the crisis, imagine if France received 32 million additional refugees," he said. Gemayel noted that this situation has persisted for 12 years and argued that the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime removed the justification for Syrian refugees to remain in Lebanon. "What is the excuse today? The regime is gone. Why are the refugees still in Lebanon?" he asked. He called on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to reassess its policies regarding the Syrian crisis, emphasizing that the top priority should be securing the refugees' return to their homeland. Gemayel added that the issue does not concern Lebanon alone but also affects Jordan, Turkey, and several European countries.
The National
06-05-2025
- Business
- The National
Saudi-born businessman to take $24m battle with Lebanese bank to UK court
A Saudi-born businessman has won the right for his battle for a Lebanese bank to give him a payment of $24 million to be heard by a court in the UK. Sheikh Mohammed Omar Kassem Alesayi asked Bank Audi to transfer the money, held in eight accounts, to an account he held with the UBP private bank in Geneva in 2022 but the bank has refused. The request came during Lebanon's banking crisis, which began in 2019, and has resulted in banks refusing to make international transfers. Bank Audi has argued that almost all Lebanese banks have limited access to foreign currency which has significantly curtailed their normal operations. Sheikh Alesayi, who was born in Saudi Arabia but is now a UK citizen, started proceedings against the bank in the English courts, seeking an order that the bank carry out the transfer. His claim is based on decisions of the High Court in London that customers of Lebanese banks are entitled to international transfers based on the law of Lebanon, provided there is a sufficient balance. Under UK law, a consumer living in the UK can bring a claim in an English court against a business that pursues commercial activities in the UK or directs such activities there. Bank Audi denied that it directs commercial activities to the UK and argues the High Court has no jurisdiction over the dispute. The bank also argued that Sheikh Alesayi was not domiciled in Britain when he first opened his account in 1994. But Sheikh Alesayi argued that he should be considered as being domiciled in Britain since 2016, when he opened an account with the UBP, and was by that time living full-time in London. As part of his claim, he told the High Court he has long-standing connections to the UK, dating to the 1970s. His father bought eight properties in the upmarket St John's Wood area of London and gave them to Sheikh Alesayi and his five siblings. From about 1990, he said he established a second home at the property and began regularly attending Regent's Park Mosque. The court was told that he bought a Bentley and had it delivered to the penthouse and also employed a chauffeur, which is indicative of permanent residency. Sheikh Alesayi was granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK as a Tier 1 Investor in 2018. He was granted Settlement Status with Indefinite Leave to Remain in 2021 and then in 2023 he was granted British citizenship. In his ruling, Judge Adam Constable said that 'Sheikh Alesayi has a good arguable case that he was domiciled in London from around 2012 onwards' and that the High Court has jurisdiction in the dispute. Lebanese banks imposed arbitrary restrictions on their clients in 2019 after the state failed to honour its bond commitments and the economy went into a tailspin. The Covid-19 pandemic forced the economic crisis to historic proportions. The possibility of Lebanese depositors soon gaining access up to $93 billion stuck in the country's banks is slim to none, financial analysts say, despite assurances from the Lebanese economy minister. The economic collapse was blamed on decades of financial mismanagement and corruption by Lebanon's ruling elite. Former central bank governor Riad Salameh has also been accused of helping to embezzle hundreds of millions of dollars from the central bank. A subsidiary of Bank Audi, Banque Audi (Suisse) SA, is one of several banks suspected of sheltering the money allegedly embezzled by Mr Salameh. A Swiss financial regulator last year found that Banque Audi (Suisse) 'breached its obligations in the prevention of money laundering' and 'seriously violated financial market law'.
Al Jazeera
06-05-2025
- Business
- Al Jazeera
Lebanon government works to regain donor trust, secure reconstruction funds
Rebuilding is essential after Israel's war on Lebanon destroyed swaths of the country, but will donors pay? Beirut, Lebanon – More than five years into an economic crisis that sent inflation spiralling and saw the Lebanese lira plummet, Lebanon's government is facing its biggest infrastructure project in years: Post-war reconstruction. After 14 months of war with Israel, Lebanon needs $11bn to rebuild, according to World Bank estimates. But, experts say, donors do not trust the Lebanese political class, which has a track record of funnelling construction contracting money to politically connected businessmen. The needs In addition to more than 4,000 deaths, the war took a vast material toll on the country already reeling from a multi-year economic crisis. About 10 percent of the homes in Lebanon – some 163,000 units – were damaged or destroyed, to say nothing of the more than $1bn in infrastructure damage. Most observers, and the new government formed in February, say Lebanon will again need foreign aid, as it did after a previous war with Israel in 2006. But that aid has been slower to arrive than in 2006, with donor attention divided between Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza, and major donors like the United States pushing for the Hezbollah group's disarmament as a precondition. Advertisement Hezbollah, until recently the most powerful political and military force in the country, suffered severe blows during the war and has seen its power curtailed, although many Lebanese continue to support it. Sign up for Al Jazeera Breaking News Alert Get real-time breaking news alerts and stay up-to-date with the most important headlines from around the globe. Subscribe Your subscription failed. Please try again. Please check your email to confirm your subscription By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy protected by reCAPTCHA The country's south, east, and Beirut's southern suburbs bore the brunt of Israel's offensive. Together, they are home to most of Hezbollah's constituents, so restoring their homes and livelihoods is a priority for the party. That translates into leverage for foreign donor states. The problem Politically connected companies overcharged the state's main infrastructure buyer, the Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR), by 35 percent between 2008 and 2018, a 2022 study by local think tank The Policy Initiative found. And the primary contracting regulation was so riddled with exceptions that as little as 5 percent of tenders were under the Central Tenders Board's oversight. All that came to a head in 2020, when a huge blast in Beirut's port tore through much of the capital and donors decided they wanted nothing to do with the state, according to Khalil Gebara, economist and former World Bank consultant who previously advised the Lebanese government. 'Donors stopped transferring money to national authorities or to the treasury,' he said, because they had 'a total lack of trust in national mechanisms'. Instead, donors controlled spending directly or via a World Bank-managed trust fund, or worked through NGOs, Gebara added. That year, the state, which was stalling on implementing International Monetary Fund conditions in exchange for a partial bailout, spent just $38m on its physical investments, down from more than $1.1bn in 2018, the year before the economic collapse, according to Ministry of Finance data. Trying for solutions A year later, Lebanon passed what many considered a landmark reform to state contracting, one of the few reform laws passed in recent years. Advertisement It dragged virtually the entire public sector into one unified framework, abolished a classification system that had frozen out contractors without political connections, and created a new regulator – the Public Procurement Authority (PPA). As crisis-ridden state agencies were corralled into the new system, public investment continued to fall, hitting below $10m in 2022. 'Procurement is going to be a big thing … and absolutely the test for the procurement system and for the regulatory authority,' said Lamia Moubayed, head of an in-house research and training institute at Lebanon's Finance Ministry. Rana Rizkallah, a procurement expert at the same institute, says the law is solid, but it's up to the government to implement what it promised, adding that a crucial part of that is staffing the regulator. The PPA is supposed to be a board of five members backed by a team of 83 staffers but, three years after the law went into effect in 2022, it has a single member and five employees overseeing 1,400 purchasing bodies. A four-member complaints board that the law established also has yet to be formed, so complaints still go to Lebanon's slow, overburdened courts. Jean Ellieh, the regulator's president and sole member, says the state doesn't have the 'logistical capacity' to recruit dozens of regulators in one fell swoop, but he's put in a request for new hires. 'We will work with determination and resolve, regardless of our capabilities,' Ellieh told Al Jazeera. 'We will not give anyone an excuse to evade the application of the law.' Advertisement He added that donors have expressed 'satisfaction' with the PPA's abilities. Bonanzas to the well-connected After several lean years in which the state had to keep spending to a bare minimum, the contracting scene remains dominated by the large companies that built up enough resources from earlier rounds of investment to stay afloat. Wassim Maktabi, economist and co-author of the 2022 report on cartel behaviour in construction contracting, said it would be a tall order to ensure that reconstruction isn't another bonanza for the well-connected. 'Rest assured that these political elites will not let this slip,' he said. In addition, years of high-value contracts mean politically connected firms have accumulated the capital to be, in most respects, bigger and more experienced than competitors. 'Even if political influence was not a factor and you awarded these contracts purely based on merit,' he said, these firms 'would still get a large piece of the pie'. Regardless, Maktabi says, reconstruction is simply too important to stall in pursuit of perfection. Al Jazeera has identified 152 reconstruction contracts totalling more than $30m that are already under way, via the PPA's online portal. Of the top four contract winners in dollar terms, two have political connections mentioned in media reports. The top four companies, Beta Engineering and Contracting, Elie Naim Maalouf Company, Al Bonyan Engineering and Contracting, and Yamen General Trading and Contracting, have won contracts totalling $10.6m, $4.7m, $1.8m, and $1.4m, respectively – 60 percent of the total amount awarded in the PPA contracts examined. Pushing for reformist credibility The new government is negotiating with the World Bank on a $980m plan, known as LEAP, to kick-start reconstruction and be funded by a World Bank loan and foreign assistance. Advertisement But LEAP would only take care of a fraction of the total reconstruction costs. The government also started hiring for a long-stalled electricity regulatory board and new faces on the CDR board. Moubayed says refreshing the CDR board is a World Bank requirement to approve LEAP, which would be a vital win for a government pushing to gain reformist credibility. The World Bank declined to comment on whether refreshing the CDR board is a requirement. It's still unclear how the programme might be structured, but the government has endorsed the creation of a trust fund for post-war reconstruction, 'characterised by transparency'. But, Beirut residents were unhappy with a similar model used in 2020 for the Port blast reconstruction, architect and urbanist Abir Saksouk of Public Works Studio says. A lack of equity between residents, based on which organisation took over repairing each area, further eroded a sense of shared citizenship, she says, calling it an experience that shouldn't be repeated. She is one of many calling for an inclusive reconstruction process led by all stakeholders, including people who have suffered damages, and with the involvement of relevant ministries, because they are a vital part of the process. 'We need a reconstruction framework where state institutions are present… But we also need other representation,' she said.
