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Lebanon Awards CMA CGM Contract for Beirut Port Container Terminal

A fisherman travels on a boat in front of a CMA CGM container ship passing through the Suez Canal in Ismailia, Egypt July 7, 2021. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
A fisherman travels on a boat in front of a CMA CGM container ship passing through the Suez Canal in Ismailia, Egypt July 7, 2021. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
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Lebanon Awards CMA CGM Contract for Beirut Port Container Terminal

A fisherman travels on a boat in front of a CMA CGM container ship passing through the Suez Canal in Ismailia, Egypt July 7, 2021. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
A fisherman travels on a boat in front of a CMA CGM container ship passing through the Suez Canal in Ismailia, Egypt July 7, 2021. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

Lebanon has awarded France's CMA CGM (CMACG.UL) a contract for the management, operation and maintenance of the container terminal in the port of Beirut for 10 years, Public Works and Transport minister Ali Hamie told Reuters on Thursday.

A huge explosion at the port in 2020 killed more than 200 people and damaged entire neighborhoods, deepening Lebanon's worst political and economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.

"The contract includes $33 mln that will be paid by CMA CGM to develop the work inside the port," the minister said, without revealing more details about the contract terms.

CMA CGM is controlled by the French-Lebanese Saade family and the group joined French President Emmanuel Macron in relief efforts in Beirut following the explosion.

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Muscat Hosts New Round of Yemeni Consultations for Release of Prisoners

The delegation of the Yemeni government and the joint negotiating team of the coalition countries before the start of consultations with the Houthi group on Sunday in Muscat (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The delegation of the Yemeni government and the joint negotiating team of the coalition countries before the start of consultations with the Houthi group on Sunday in Muscat (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Muscat Hosts New Round of Yemeni Consultations for Release of Prisoners

The delegation of the Yemeni government and the joint negotiating team of the coalition countries before the start of consultations with the Houthi group on Sunday in Muscat (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The delegation of the Yemeni government and the joint negotiating team of the coalition countries before the start of consultations with the Houthi group on Sunday in Muscat (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Under the auspices of the office of the UN envoy to Yemen, Hans Grundberg, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, Muscat hosted on Sunday consultations between the internationally-recognized Yemeni government and the Houthi group over the exchange of prisoners, detainees and forcibly disappeared persons.
Majed Fadael, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Human Rights and the official spokesman for the government delegation, expected that the consultations would continue for about 10 days.
In exclusive statements to Asharq Al-Awsat, he said: “Our basic demand is the release of all prisoners and abductees without discrimination...”
He continued: “We have clear and frank directives from our political leadership regarding this, and that the government delegation deal with full responsibility and commitment to this humanitarian file.”
During the past years, the United Nations, in cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross, succeeded in completing two exchange deals between the two warring sides. More than a thousand persons were released in the first swap deal and around 900 in the second.
For his part, Abdul Qadir Al-Murtada, head of the Houthi delegation, expressed his hope that the round of consultations would be “successful, and that a new exchange deal would be agreed upon.”
He wrote on his X account: “We arrived in the Omani capital, Muscat, to attend a new round of negotiations on the prisoner file, under the auspices of the United Nations, and we hope that it will be successful and that a new exchange deal will be reached.”
In turn, the Presidential Leadership Council affirmed its keenness and support for the efforts and endeavors aimed at ending the suffering of detainees, kidnapped and disappeared persons.