Demand jumps for renewable energy as Lebanon plunged into darkness

An aerial view shows Lebanon's capital Beirut in darkness during power outage. (File/AFP)
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Updated 10 October 2021
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Demand jumps for renewable energy as Lebanon plunged into darkness

  • Two main power stations offline because of fuel shortage
  • People seeking alternative to costly private generators

BEIRUT: Lebanon is witnessing significant demand for the installation of solar power units, amid a severe energy crisis that saw the country plunged into a total blackout on Saturday.

Two main power stations went offline because they ran out of fuel, said the state electricity company Electricite du Liban, with people rushing to find alternative sources of energy in anticipation of such a blackout. 

People have also been looking for space on the roof of their building to install solar panels, said one electrical engineer.

They wanted the least amount of energy in order to keep food in the fridge, and their lights, internet and television on.

“In the last three months, the demand for installing solar energy or installing UPS batteries has increased to the point that this equipment disappeared from the Lebanese market and reservations for obtaining them took a month,” electrical engineer Bilal Rahm told Arab News. “Most of those who want to install solar energy are either rich or have children abroad who provide them with fresh money, and some poor people borrow money to get this solar energy. Everyone needs lighting, especially those who have children in schools and universities. One of my customers is a greengrocer who decided to turn to solar energy.

“Sometimes the residents of the building disagree about using the roof for personal benefit, so they ask us to dismantle these panels, but these disputes began to subside because everyone felt that they needed this method and residents agreed to build an iron top on the roof of the building to install solar panels on it. Merchants are taking advantage of this demand and have raised the prices of imported equipment under the pretext of the high cost of air freight.”

Merchants were importing the equipment from different countries, including China, Germany, England and the UAE, he said.

Dealers of electrical appliances, including Marwan Tabbara, described the demand for UPS devices as “frightening” with the onset of winter. People were looking for an alternative to subscribing to a private generator, where the bill was twice the minimum wage.

The Interior Ministry warned people a few days ago to verify “the durability” of solar energy equipment on the rooftops of buildings before the onset of winter and storms that may cause them to fall and “cause ominous damage” to people and property.

The country’s electricity network was completely disconnected after the Al-Zahrani and Deir Ammar power plants stopped as a result of a drop in energy production to below 200 megawatts.

A source at the Energy Ministry said that all was being done “to find a way out” of the problem, while EDL said it was trying to “conduct maneuvers to manually rebuild the public network in the absence of the National Control Center, which was completely damaged due to the Beirut Port explosion.”

The Deir Ammar power plant, located in the north of the country, was closed on Friday due to the lack of diesel.

Al-Zahrani, located in the south of the country, switched off on Saturday afternoon. 

The production capacity of Zouk and Jiyeh power plants — which currently stands at 350 megawatts — decreased to less than 250 megawatts, which led to the disconnection of the network.

Diana Qaisi, executive director of the Lebanese Oil and Gas Initiative and an expert in energy affairs, said: “The disconnection of the network was expected because the Zouk and Jiyeh plants were not subject to real maintenance and there are no maintenance credits. We still have private generators in Lebanon. Are they enough to cover the needs of the Lebanese? Certainly not. They cannot do the job of power plants, and then there is the need for diesel.

“What we were warning of has happened. We said, carry out the required reforms, but all the state is doing is patching, and that is why we have been plunged into darkness. Our warnings were not taken seriously, and no one believed that darkness was coming.”

The next problem, she added, would be securing diesel for generators. Importers needed US dollars and securing this currency from the black market meant raising prices due to the high demand for dollars that were not available in the first place, she explained. 

Lebanon has been experiencing a months-long energy crisis, even as it suffers from economic and financial difficulties.

Rationing of state electricity reached 23 hours a day, with private generators also rationing power.


Lebanon says 2 hurt as Israeli troops fire on people returning south after truce with Hezbollah

Updated 58 min 39 sec ago
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Lebanon says 2 hurt as Israeli troops fire on people returning south after truce with Hezbollah

  • Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded by Israeli fire in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details
  • It said Israel fired artillery in three other locations near the border

BEIRUT: At least two people were wounded by Israeli fire in southern Lebanon on Thursday, according to state media. The Israeli military said it had fired at people trying to return to certain areas on the second day of a ceasefire with the Hezbollah militant group.
The agreement, brokered by the United States and France, includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah militants are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded by Israeli fire in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details. It said Israel fired artillery in three other locations near the border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes from the Lebanese side.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire.” It said troops “opened fire toward them” and would “actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement.”
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel has warned people not to return to areas where troops are deployed, and says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.
A Lebanese military official said Lebanese troops would gradually deploy in the south as Israeli troops withdraw. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The ceasefire agreement announced late Tuesday ended 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza, when the Lebanese militant group began firing rockets, drones and missiles in solidarity.
Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before boiling over into all-out war in mid-September. The war in Gaza is still raging with no end in sight.
More than 3,760 people were killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
Some 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon, and thousands began streaming back to their homes on Wednesday despite warnings from the Lebanese military and the Israeli army to stay out of certain areas. Some 50,000 people were displaced on the Israeli side, but few have returned and the communities near the northern border are still largely deserted.
In Menara, an Israeli community on the border with views into Lebanon, around three quarters of homes are damaged, some with collapsed roofs and burnt-out interiors. A few residents could be seen gathering their belongings on Thursday before leaving again.


Algeria facing growing calls to release French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal

Updated 28 November 2024
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Algeria facing growing calls to release French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal

  • “The detention without serious grounds of a writer of French nationality is unacceptable,” France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said
  • The European Parliament discussed Algeria’s repression of freedom of speech on Wednesday and called for “his immediate and unconditional release”

PARIS: Politicians, writers and activists have called for the release of French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, whose arrest in Algeria is seen as the latest instance of the stifling of creative expression in the military-dominated North African country.
The 75-year-old author, who is an outspoken critic of Islamism and the Algerian regime, has not been heard from by friends, family or his French publisher since leaving Paris for Algiers earlier this month. He has not been seen near his home in his small town, Boumerdes, his neighbors told The Associated Press.
“The detention without serious grounds of a writer of French nationality is unacceptable,” France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on Wednesday.
He added Sansal’s work “does honor to both his countries and to the values we cherish.”
The European Parliament discussed Algeria’s repression of freedom of speech on Wednesday and called for “his immediate and unconditional release.”
Algerian authorities have not publicly announced charges against Sansal, but the APS state news service said he was arrested at the airport.
Though no longer censored, Sansal’s novels have in the past faced bans in Algeria. A professed admirer of French culture, his writings on Islam’s role in society, authoritarianism, freedom of expression and the civil war that ravaged Algeria throughout the 1990s have won him fans across the ideological spectrum in France, from far-right leader Marine Le Pen to President Emmanuel Macron, who attended his French naturalization ceremony in 2023.
But his work has provoked ire in Algeria, from both authorities and Islamists, who have issued death threats against him in the 1990s and afterward.
Though few garner such international attention, Sansal is among a long list of political prisoners incarcerated in Algeria, where the hopes of a protest movement that led to the ouster of the country’s then-82 year old president have been crushed under President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
Human rights groups have decried the ongoing repression facing journalists, activists and writers. Amnesty International in September called it a “brutal crackdown on human rights including the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.”
Algerian authorities have in recent months disrupted a book fair in Bejaia and excluded prominent authors from the country’s largest book fair in Algeria has in recent months, including this year’s Goncourt Prize winner Kamel Daoud,
“This tragic news reflects an alarming reality in Algeria, where freedom of expression is no more than a memory in the face of repression, imprisonment and the surveillance of the entire society,” French-Algerian author Kamel Daoud wrote in an editorial signed by more than a dozen authors in Le Point this week.
Sansal has been a polarizing figure in Algeria for holding some pro-Israel views and for likening political Islam to Nazism and totalitarianism in his novels, including “The Oath of the Barbarians” and “2084: The End of the World.”
Despite the controversial subject matter, Sansal had never faced detention. His arrest comes as relations between France and Algeria face newfound strains. France in July backed Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara, angering Algeria, which has long backed the independence Polisario Front and pushed for a referendum to determine the future of the coastal northwest African territory.
“A regime that thinks it has to stop its writers, whatever they think, is certainly a weak regime,” French-Algerian academic Ali Bensaad wrote in a statement posted on Facebook.


Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer killed in Syria, SNN reports

Updated 28 November 2024
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Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer killed in Syria, SNN reports

DUBAI: Iranian Revolutionary Guards Brig. Gen. Kioumars Pourhashemi was killed in the Syrian province of Aleppo by “terrorists” linked to Israel, Iran’s SNN news agency reported on Thursday without giving further details.
Rebels led by Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham on Wednesday launched an incursion into a dozen towns and villages in northwest Aleppo province controlled by Syrian President Bashar Assad.


Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire unlikely to hold: UK ex-spy chief

Updated 28 November 2024
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Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire unlikely to hold: UK ex-spy chief

  • Richard Dearlove: Agreement suits both parties in ‘short to medium term’
  • Deal leaves Iran ‘exposed’ as its Lebanese ally is temporarily incapacitated

LONDON: The ceasefire deal struck this week between Israel and Hezbollah is unlikely to hold, a former head of MI6 has warned.

Richard Dearlove, who headed the British intelligence service from 1999 to 2004, told Sky News that the deal, which came into effect on Wednesday, is a “retreaded agreement from 2006.”

That initial deal was designed to keep Hezbollah away from the border region with Israel, overseen by the Lebanese military and the UN, but in effect it “did absolutely nothing,” he said.

This week’s deal suits both Israel and Hezbollah “in the short to medium term,” Dearlove said, adding: “The Israelis must know how much of the infrastructure of Hezbollah they’ve taken down … They haven’t taken it down completely, but maybe the Lebanese state can reassert some of its authority as the government of Lebanon and keep Hezbollah to an extent under control. We just have to wait and see what happens.”

He said the ceasefire deal will be a blow to Hezbollah’s backer Iran, leaving the latter “exposed” with one of its allies temporarily incapacitated.

But he warned that this could escalate into “direct” confrontation between Israel and Iran were the latter to launch another ballistic missile attack.


Israeli FM: ‘No justification’ for ICC to take steps against Israeli leaders

Updated 28 November 2024
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Israeli FM: ‘No justification’ for ICC to take steps against Israeli leaders

  • The foreign minister also said Israel would finish the war in Gaza when it “achieves its objectives”

PRAGUE: Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar said on Thursday that the ICC had “no justification” for issuing arrests warrants for Israeli leaders, in a joint press conference with Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky.
Saar told Reuters Israel has appealed the decision and that it sets a dangerous precedent.
The foreign minister also said Israel would finish the war in Gaza when it “achieves its objectives” of returning hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza and ensuring the Iranian-backed group no longer controls the strip. Saar said Israel does not intend to control civilian life in Gaza and that he believes peace is “inevitable” but can’t be based on “illusions.”