Lebanon Financial News

Dartmouth College and an inventor of the simplified computer programming language known as BASIC, which allowed students to easily operate early computers and eventually propelled generations into the world of personal computing, died Tuesday in Lebanon, New Hampshire. He was 96. The cause of his death, in a hospice, was multiple organ failure from sepsis, said Agnes Kurtz, his wife. In the early 1960s, before the days of laptops and smartphones, a computer was the size of a small car and an institution like Dartmouth, where Kurtz taught, had just one. Programming one was the province of scientists and mathematicians, specialists who understood the nonintuitive commands used to manipulate data through the hulking machines, which processed data in large batches, an effort that sometimes took days or weeks to complete.

Donald Trump to protest against the Biden administration's support for Israel's war on Gaza and attacks on Lebanon have been deeply disappointed by his cabinet picks, they tell Reuters. «Trump won because of us and we're not happy with his secretary of state pick and others,» said Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump. Muslim support for Trump helped him win Michigan and may have factored into other swing state wins, strategists believe.

Lebanon since they invaded six weeks ago, before pulling back early Saturday after fierce battles with Hezbollah militants, Lebanese state media reported. Israeli troops captured a strategic hill in the southern Lebanese village of Chamaa, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Israeli border early Saturday, the state-run National News Agency reported. It said Israeli troops were later pushed back from the hill. It added that Israeli troops detonated the Shrine of Shimon the Prophet in Chamaa as well as several homes before they withdrew, but the claim could not be immediately verified.

Not long ago, Polk County’s biggest draw was citrus

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. TEL AVIV—Israel is expanding its ground operation in southern Lebanon, sending troops into villages farther from its border, in what some former senior security officials worry could turn into a war of attrition. On Thursday, Israel’s military for the second day in row said its troops were reaching new targets in southern Lebanon.

Nawfal's family arrived in Beirut for her wounded daughter's surgery, one of the first things she wanted to do was go to the sea. The Mediterranean had been a constant companion at their home in Gaza before the war. «The moment I smelled the sea, I felt at peace inside — as if I were in Gaza,» she said. But soon their place of refuge reminded her of home in far more distressing ways. Nawfal's 7-year-old daughter, Halima Abou Yassine, is one of a dozen severely wounded Palestinian children brought to Lebanon this year for treatment through a program launched by a British-Palestinian surgeon, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta.

A suspected attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels has seen multiple explosions strike near a vessel traveling through the Red Sea

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. To grasp how bad things are in Lebanon, consider that Syria—where war and tyranny created the world’s largest refugee crisis—now seems like a safe haven. Since September around 500,000 people have fled Israel’s invasion of their country for the war-torn and fragmented ex-state next door.

Israel launched deadly strikes on Gaza and Lebanon Sunday, rescuers and authorities said, ahead of a US deadline for improved aid delivery to the Palestinian territory. Rescuers in Gaza on Sunday said 30 people, including 13 children, were killed by Israeli strikes in the territory's north. The first strike early Sunday hit a house in Jabalia, killing «at least 25» people including 13 children and injuring more than 30, Gaza's civil defence agency said.

Hamas and Hezbollah. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he has spoken three times with Donald Trump since Tuesday's election and they «see eye-to-eye regarding the Iranian threat and all of its components.» Israel's president, Isaac Herzog, is scheduled to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday. The Israeli airstrike in Lebanon killed at least 23 people including seven children in Aalmat village north of Beirut, far from the areas in the east and south where Hezbollah militants have a major presence. Lebanon's Health Ministry said another six people were wounded. There was no Israeli evacuation warning. There was no immediate Israeli comment.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s supreme leader on Saturday threatened Israel and the U.S. with “a crushing response” over attacks on Iran and its allies.

Iran's leadership and allies are bracing for what they would regard as a dreadful outcome of the imminent U.S. presidential election: A return to power of Donald Trump. Opinion polls suggest the Republican Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris remain locked in a close contest. But Iranian leaders and their regional allies in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen are concerned that Trump could well triumph on Nov. 5 and this could spell more trouble for them. Iran's main concern is the potential for Trump to empower Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to strike Iran's nuclear sites, conduct targeted assassinations and reimpose his «maximum pressure policy» through heightened sanctions on their oil industry, according to Iranian, Arab and Western officials. They anticipate that Trump, who was president in 2017-21, will exert utmost pressure on Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to cave in by accepting a nuclear containment deal on terms set by himself and Israel.

Israel and the U.S. with «a crushing response» over attacks on Iran and its allies. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei spoke as Iranian officials are increasingly threatening to launch yet another strike against Israel after its Oct. 26 attack on the Islamic Republic that targeted military bases and other locations and killed at least five people. Any further attacks from either side could engulf the wider Middle East, already teetering over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip and Israel's ground invasion of Lebanon, into a wider regional conflict just ahead of the U.S. presidential election this Tuesday.

Seven people were taken to hospital with moderate or mild wounds, including «a male around 20 with shrapnel injuries», the Magden David Adom (MDA) service said in a statement on social media platform X. The MDA also shared a picture and video that showed a badly damaged building cordoned off while emergency responders swarmed the street.

Izz al-Din Kassab, a high-ranking Hamas official, in an airstrike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. Kassab was the Head of National Relations in Hamas' political bureau. According to the IDF, he was responsible for coordinating with other factions in Gaza and directing military relations. The IDF stated on X, «ELIMINATED: Izz al-Din Kassab, Head of National Relations in Hamas' Political Bureau. Kassab was a member of Hamas' political bureau and was responsible for national relations within the organization, overseeing the coordination and connection between Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza.» The post also mentioned that Kassab directed terrorist attacks against Israel. The attack comes amid heightened tensions between Israel and Hezbollah. The IDF reported that Hezbollah fired over 4,400 projectiles toward Israel in the past month. They also discovered more than 3,000 explosive devices and dismantled 2,500 anti-tank missiles and RPGs in the same period. The IDF claimed to have eliminated over 1,500 terrorists since the conflict began.

ceasefire between Israel and its foes Hamas and Hezbollah ran aground on Friday as Israeli airstrikes killed at least 68 people in the Gaza Strip, according to medics in the Palestinian enclave, and bombed Beirut's southern suburbs. The Israeli military said it killed senior Hamas official Izz al-Din Kassab in an airstrike in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis and described him as one of the last surviving high-ranking members of Hamas responsible for coordinating with other groups in Gaza. U.S. envoys had been working to secure ceasefires on both fronts ahead of the U.S. presidential election next Tuesday.

Kamal Kharrazi, an adviser to Iran's supreme leader, said on Friday that Tehran is likely to increase the range of its ballistic missiles and possibly review its nuclear doctrine, amid growing tensions with arch-enemy Israel and tit-for-tat missile and airstrikes. Asked by Lebanon-based pro-Iran broadcaster Al-Mayadeen whether Iran was ready if conflict were to expand after the recent strikes, Kharrazi said Iran was likely to up the range of its ballistic missiles beyond a self-imposed limit of 2,000 km (1,250 miles). He said that although Iran has the technical capability to produce nuclear weapons, it is currently held back by a fatwa, or religious decree, issued in the early 2000s by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Hamas infrastructure and a militant operating in the area of the central Nuseirat refugee camp, and in Lebanon, where Israel stepped up airstrikes against Hezbollah in the northeast this week. Officials from the al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza said they continued to receive bodies from a barrage of Israeli airstrikes on Nuseirat camp that began overnight, leaving 21 dead, including an 18-month-old and his 10-year-old sister. Strikes on a motorcycle in Zuwaida and on a house in Deir al-Balah, also in central Gaza, on Friday killed four more people, the hospital officials said, bringing the overall toll to 25.

Donald Trump is suggesting that former Rep. Liz Cheney, one of his most prominent Republican critics, should have rifles «shooting at her» to see how she feels about sending troops to fight. Cheney responded by branding the GOP presidential nominee a «cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.» The Republican presidential candidate has been using increasingly threatening rhetoric against his adversaries and talked of "enemies from within" undermining the country. Some of his former senior aides and Vice President Kamala Harris have labeled him a fascist in response. Trump has also long blamed Cheney and her father, former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, for promoting U.S. military interventions abroad — including the war in Iraq — and argued that he started no foreign wars during his presidency.

They said the effort was communicated by U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein to Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati this week, as the U.S. stepped up diplomatic efforts for a ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. Mikati's office in a statement to Reuters denied the U.S. had asked Lebanon to declare a unilateral ceasefire. It said the government's stance was clear on seeking a ceasefire from both sides, and the implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last round of conflict between the two foes in 2006.