On 3rd Anniversary, Beirut Port Blast Probe Blocked by Intrigue and Even the Death Toll Is Disputed

 A view shows the partially collapsed grain silos, damaged in the August 4, 2020 Beirut port blast as Lebanon marks third anniversary of the explosion on Friday, in Beirut Lebanon August 2, 2023. (Reuters)
A view shows the partially collapsed grain silos, damaged in the August 4, 2020 Beirut port blast as Lebanon marks third anniversary of the explosion on Friday, in Beirut Lebanon August 2, 2023. (Reuters)
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On 3rd Anniversary, Beirut Port Blast Probe Blocked by Intrigue and Even the Death Toll Is Disputed

 A view shows the partially collapsed grain silos, damaged in the August 4, 2020 Beirut port blast as Lebanon marks third anniversary of the explosion on Friday, in Beirut Lebanon August 2, 2023. (Reuters)
A view shows the partially collapsed grain silos, damaged in the August 4, 2020 Beirut port blast as Lebanon marks third anniversary of the explosion on Friday, in Beirut Lebanon August 2, 2023. (Reuters)

Three years after Beirut’s massive port blast, attempts to prosecute those responsible are mired in political intrigue, the final death toll remains disputed and many Lebanese have less faith than ever in their disintegrating state institutions.

As the country marks the anniversary Friday, relatives of some of those killed are still struggling to get their loved ones recognized as blast victims, reflecting the ongoing chaos since the Aug. 4, 2020 explosion. The blast killed at least 218 people, according to an Associated Press count, wounded more than 6,000, devastated large swaths of Beirut and caused billions of dollars in damages.

Among those not recognized as a blast victim is a five-month-old boy, Qusai Ramadan, a child of Syrian refugees. His parents say he was killed when the explosion toppled the ceiling and a cupboard in his hospital room, crushing him. The parents have been unable to get the infant added to the official death list, a move that could have made them eligible for future compensation.

They accused the authorities of discriminating against victims who are not Lebanese.

Meanwhile, the blast anniversary brought renewed calls for an international investigation of those responsible, including top officials who allowed hundreds of tons of highly flammable ammonium nitrate, a material used in fertilizers, to be improperly stored for years at a warehouse in the port.

Lebanese and international organizations, survivors and families of victims sent such an appeal to the UN Rights Council, saying that “on third anniversary of the explosion, we are no closer to justice and accountability for the catastrophe.”

Maan, a Lebanese group advocating for victims and survivors, put the death toll at 236, significantly higher than the government's count of 191. The authorities stopped counting the dead a month after the blast, even as some of the severely wounded died in the subsequent period.

Among those listed by Maan Initiative is Qusai, the Syrian infant.

Qusai had been undergoing treatment for a severe liver condition and was transferred to a government hospital near the port about a week before the explosion. Hospital staff said the infant needed a liver transplant and was in critical condition.

On the day of the blast, Qusai’s aunt, Noura Mohammed, was sitting at his bedside while his mother rested at home. The aunt said the staff ordered everyone to evacuate immediately after the explosion, and that she found the infant dead, crushed by fallen debris, when she returned.

Hospital officials said Qusai died an hour after the explosion, with the death certificate listing cardio respiratory arrest as the cause. The family buried him a day later.

“We asked them (the authorities) to register my son among the victims of the blast,” his mother, Sarah Jassem Mohammed, said in a recent interview in a small tent in an orchard in the northern Lebanese village of Markabta where she lives with her husband, two sons and one daughter. “They refused.”

Lebanon is home to more than 1 million Syrian refugees, who make about 20% of the country’s population. A Lebanese group, the Anti-Racism Movement, said that among those killed in the blast were at least 76 non-Lebanese citizens, including 52 Syrians.

Meanwhile, many in Lebanon have been losing faith in the domestic investigation and some have started filing cases abroad against companies suspected of bringing in the ammonium nitrate.

The chemicals had been shipped to Lebanon in 2013. Senior political and security officials knew of their presence and potential danger but did nothing.

Lebanese and non-Lebanese victims alike have seen justice delayed, with the investigation stalled since December 2021. Lebanon’s powerful and corrupt political class has repeatedly intervened in the work of the judiciary.

In January, Lebanon’s top prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat ordered the release of all suspects detained in the investigation.

“The political class have used every tool at their disposal - both legal and extra legal - to undermine, obstruct, and block the domestic investigation into the blast,” said Aya Majzoub, deputy chief for the Mideast and North Africa at the rights group Amnesty International.

Makhoul Mohammed, 40, a Syrian citizen, was lightly injured in the blast in his Beirut apartment while his daughter Sama, who was six at the time, lost her left eye.

Mohammed, who settled in Canada last year, said he plans to sue those responsible for the explosion in a Canadian court.

“The (domestic) investigation will not lead to results as long as this political class is running the country,” he said.



Win the Vote but Still Lose? Behold America’s Electoral College

Voters head into a polling location to cast their ballots on the last day of early voting for the 2024 election on November 1, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Getty Images/AFP)
Voters head into a polling location to cast their ballots on the last day of early voting for the 2024 election on November 1, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Win the Vote but Still Lose? Behold America’s Electoral College

Voters head into a polling location to cast their ballots on the last day of early voting for the 2024 election on November 1, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Getty Images/AFP)
Voters head into a polling location to cast their ballots on the last day of early voting for the 2024 election on November 1, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Getty Images/AFP)

When political outsider Donald Trump defied polls and expectations to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election, he described the victory as "beautiful."

Not everyone saw it that way -- considering that Democrat Clinton had received nearly three million more votes nationally than her Republican rival. Non-Americans were particularly perplexed that the second-highest vote-getter would be the one crowned president.

But Trump had done what the US system requires: win enough individual states, sometimes by very narrow margins, to surpass the 270 Electoral College votes necessary to win the White House.

Now, on the eve of the 2024 election showdown between Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris, the rules of this enigmatic and, to some, outmoded, system is coming back into focus.

- Why an Electoral College? -

The 538 members of the US Electoral College gather in their state's respective capitals after the quadrennial presidential election to designate the winner.

A presidential candidate must obtain an absolute majority of the "electors" -- or 270 of the 538 -- to win.

The system originated with the US Constitution in 1787, establishing the rules for indirect, single-round presidential elections.

The country's Founding Fathers saw the system as a compromise between direct presidential elections with universal suffrage, and an election by members of Congress -- an approach rejected as insufficiently democratic.

Because many states predictably lean Republican or Democratic, presidential candidates focus heavily on the handful of "swing" states on which the election will likely turn -- nearly ignoring some large states such as left-leaning California and right-leaning Texas.

Over the years, hundreds of amendments have been proposed to Congress in efforts to modify or abolish the Electoral College. None has succeeded.

Trump's 2016 victory rekindled the debate. And if the 2024 race is the nail-biter that most polls predict, the Electoral College will surely return to the spotlight.

- Who are the 538 electors? -

Most are local elected officials or party leaders, but their names do not appear on ballots.

Each state has as many electors as it has members in the US House of Representatives (a number dependent on the state's population), plus the Senate (two in every state, regardless of size).

California, for example, has 54 electors; Texas has 40; and sparsely populated Alaska, Delaware, Vermont and Wyoming have only three each.

The US capital city, Washington, also gets three electors, despite having no voting members in Congress.

The Constitution leaves it to states to decide how their electors' votes should be cast. In every state but two (Nebraska and Maine, which award some electors by congressional district), the candidate winning the most votes theoretically is allotted all that state's electors.

- Controversial institution -

In November 2016, Trump won 306 electoral votes, well more than the 270 needed.

The extraordinary situation of losing the popular vote but winning the White House was not unprecedented.

Five presidents have risen to the office this way, the first being John Quincy Adams in 1824.

More recently, the 2000 election resulted in an epic Florida entanglement between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore.

Gore won nearly 500,000 more votes nationwide, but when Florida -- ultimately following a US Supreme Court intervention -- was awarded to Bush, it pushed his Electoral College total to 271 and a hair's-breadth victory.

- True vote or simple formality? -

Nothing in the Constitution obliges electors to vote one way or another.

If some states required them to respect the popular vote and they failed to do so, they were subjected to a simple fine. But in July 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that states could impose punishments on such "faithless electors."

To date, faithless electors have never determined a US election outcome.

- Electoral College schedule -

Electors will gather in their state capitals on December 17 and cast votes for president and vice president. US law states they "meet and cast their vote on the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December."

On January 6, 2025, Congress will convene to certify the winner -- a nervously watched event this cycle, four years after a mob of Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol attempting to block certification.

But there is a difference. Last time, it was Republican vice president Mike Pence who, as president of the Senate, was responsible for overseeing the certification. Defying heavy pressure from Trump and the mob, he certified Biden's victory.

This time, the president of the Senate -- overseeing what normally would be the pro forma certification -- will be none other than today's vice president: Kamala Harris.

On January 20, the new president is to be sworn in.