Lebanon's Justice Minister, Marie Claude Najm (left), has resigned following the Beirut blast. Reuters
Lebanon's Justice Minister, Marie Claude Najm (left), has resigned following the Beirut blast. Reuters
Lebanon's Justice Minister, Marie Claude Najm (left), has resigned following the Beirut blast. Reuters
Lebanon's Justice Minister, Marie Claude Najm (left), has resigned following the Beirut blast. Reuters

Beirut explosion: two more ministers walk as Lebanese government on brink


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Lebanese Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni and Justice Minister Marie Claude Najm resigned on Monday, becoming the latest ministers to quit after the catastrophic explosion at the port of Beirut.

The pair, who resigned separately, followed Information Minister Manal Abdel Samad and Environment Minister Damianos Kattar, who walked out on Sunday.

Ms Najm's exit was anticipated as she has been a vocal supporter of protesters who demanded change in last year's uprising.

She was accosted on the street of Beirut last week by volunteers cleaning up from the disaster who chanted "revolution" and demanded her resignation.

Mr Wazni, put forward by Speaker Nabih Berri, was a former advisor to the parliament budget and finance committee.

So far four ministers have resigned and are yet to be replaced. If there are seven resigned ministers in Cabinet it will collapse.

Lebanon’s Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni resigned in the wake of the Beirut blast. Reuters, file
Lebanon’s Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni resigned in the wake of the Beirut blast. Reuters, file

Anger in the wake of the blast has brought people back to the streets on Beirut, months after a nationwide uprising in October.

Lebanese police used teargas to try to disperse rock-throwing protesters blocking a road near parliament in Beirut on Sunday in the second day of anti-government demonstrations.

Tuesday's explosion of more than 2,700 tonnes of ammonium nitrate killed 158 people and injured more than 6,000, compounding months of political and economic collapse and prompting calls for the government to quit.

A number of members of parliament have also quit and the country's senior Christian Maronite cleric, Patriarch Bechara Boutros Rai, said the Cabinet should resign as it cannot "change the way it governs".

"The resignation of an MP or a minister is not enough. The whole government should resign as it is unable to help the country recover," he said in his Sunday sermon.

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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Tearful appearance

Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday. 

Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow. 

She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.

A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.

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Some of Darwish's last words

"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008

His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.