Jeffrey Sachs: US-Iran Deal Reached - Peace or Tactical Pause?

Jun 15, 2026 | Prof. Jeffrey Sachs discusses the US announcement that a deal between the US and Iran has been agreed. Jeffrey Sachs

Life in Lebanon as the Country Falls

Oct 23, 2025 | Lebanon, the former “Switzerland of the Middle East”, stands on the brink of becoming a failed state. Years of civil war, border conflicts and corrupt government has left the country bankrupt and spiralling into chaos. The Beirut port explosion reduced the capital to tatters and exposed the utter failure of sectarianism politics. Lebanon now finds itself more vulnerable than ever to foreign influence, once again a key stake for international powers playing out their broader ambitions across the Mideast. But in this deeply divided country, a young generation is ready to battle for reform.

At the supermarkets in Beirut, hyperinflation has led to the food changing price every day. Lilian, 24, hoped to become a diplomat but the economic crisis forced her to quit her studies. Now she is has joined the protest movement and pawns her clothes to buy food. The man most people blame for this desperate situation is Riad Salameh, head of the central bank for the past three decades and accused of embezzling close to a billion dollars. The IMF and World Bank has offered to bail out Lebanon if the central bank opens up its account books. Something that Salameh – with the support of the whole political class – absolutely refuses to do.

Yet economic collapse isn’t the only cause of the country’s woes. In southern Lebanon, safety risks along the border with Israel are a main source of instability. This is a stronghold for Hezbollah, which operates as a state within a state, providing for every aspect of daily life in exchange for absolute loyalty. Further north, the Bekaa valley is the other Hezbollah stronghold. But it is also home to one of Lebanon’s most serious problems the Syrian refugee crisis. The mass arrival of 1.5 million Syrian refugees has further destabilised a nation long distrustful of Syria. Everything is done to hide the Syrian problem. Large international NGO are prevented from working here and the refugees themselves, like 12-year-old Abdelfateh, are forced to slave long hours to survive.

No population census has been held for decades in Lebanon to avoid threatening the fragile balance of sectarian powers. But the sunnis are convinced they form the largest section of the population.They feel oppressed and increasingly look towards Saudi Arabia or Turkey’s Muslim brotherhood for help. But despite everything, people like Lilian are determined to confront these endemic problems. “My destiny is to stay here and engage in political action…. The proverb “Lebanese love life” is very true, we love life despite everything!”

This documentary was produced by Kaliste Productions and directed by Alfred de Montesquiou. It was first released in 2021.

Lebanon: A People in Crisis (Re-upload) | ARTE.tv Documentary

Oct 6, 2025 | Undermined by the corruption of its leaders, the country is going through one of the worst economic crises in its history. Since the collapse of the banking system, Lebanese people have seen their living standards plunge.

The local currency has lost up to 90% of its value, and inflation is soaring. There are also shortages of fuel, electricity, and medicines. Some citizens even say Lebanon is on the brink of becoming a failed state.

Lebanon: A People in Crisis (Re-upload) | ARTE.tv Documentary
Available until 30/09/2028

Lebanon’s Crisis: The Last Hope | The Country That Lost Everything

Jun 30, 2025 | Lebanon was once called the Switzerland of the Middle East. Today, it's on the edge of collapse. This documentary shows how everyday life in Lebanon has become a struggle for survival.

Lebanon: An Economic Crisis and the Aftermath of the Beirut Port Explosion | DW Documentary

Aug 4, 2022 Lebanon is now going through the worst economic crisis in its history. 80 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line. In one year, food prices have jumped 500 per cent due to galloping inflation.

Lebanon was long regarded as the Switzerland of the Middle East. But those days are gone. A series of crises have plunged the nation into the abyss. And its people are suffering.

For Riad, who runs a grocery store in the suburbs of Beirut, business has become hellish. Every morning, calculator in hand, he changes the labels of his products according to the day’s exchange rate. An operation made all the more complex by the fact that his store is plunged into darkness, due to a lack of electricity. The Lebanese government no longer provides more than two hours of electricity per day in the country. It is impossible for the population to heat, light or use their refrigerators. Taking advantage of the situation, a network of private generators has emerged.

The Lebanese pound, the local currency, has lost 90 per cent of its value. The only people unaffected are those paid in dollars. The greenback, which can be exchanged for a small fortune against the local currency, has created a new privileged social class in the country. A salesman in an international pharmaceutical company, Joseph lives like a king in a ruined Lebanon. Thanks to his new purchasing power, he repaid his mortgage in two months, instead of... twenty years!

In a bankrupt state, plagued by corruption, six out of ten Lebanese now dream of leaving the country. In Tripoli, in northern Lebanon, Mohammed and his son set out for Germany by sea. Even though the trip was cut short off the Turkish coast, the young father is still ready to take all possible risks to reach the European Eldorado.

Lebanon Crisis Escalates as Designated Prime Minister Hariri Resigns | DW News

Jul 16, 2021 • Lebanon’s PM-designate Hariri steps down as crisis deepens. Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri says he will not be able to form a government as a bitter political rivalry continues to keep Lebanon without a government. The Middle Eastern country has been without a government since October. This period of political crisis has been accompanied by an unprecedented economic meltdown that has seen the free fall of the Lebanese currency, which has nosedived 90% since 2019 against the dollar. Poverty has skyrocketed and the country faces a dire shortage of medicines, fuel and electricity.

Lebanon Faces Dire Crisis after the Elite Plundered the State for Decades, Exacerbating Inequality

Jul 9, 2021 • Lebanon is days away from a “social explosion,” according to the country’s prime minister, amid what the World Bank has described as one of the worst economic depressions in modern history. The country’s currency has lost more than 90% of its value, unemployment has skyrocketed, and fuel prices have soared. Most homes and businesses, and even hospitals, only have power for a few hours each day, and pharmacies are running low on medicine. The U.N. has warned over three-quarters of households in Lebanon do not have enough food or money to buy food. Lebanon is also facing a massive political crisis following the devastating explosion at the Port of Beirut last August, which killed over 200 people, injured 7,000 and left more than a quarter-million Beirut residents unhoused. Nisreen Salti, an economics professor at the American University of Beirut, says “the entire system crumbled” in Lebanon due to decades of structural inequality. “The business and political class that benefited from the system was able to plunder the economy for 20-odd years,” Salti says. We also speak with Middle East scholar Ziad Abu-Rish of Bard College. He says the economic crisis and the port explosion, for which there have been no major prosecutions, both reveal the impunity with which the country’s elites operate. “Part of the problem is the total lack of accountability,” Abu-Rish says.

Lebanon Economic Crisis among World's Worst in 150 years | DW News

Jun 28, 2021 • Inflation has driven Lebanon's currency to historically low values in recent weeks. The crash of the Lebanese pound is playing its part in the country’s grave economic crisis, which has left half the population living below the poverty line.

Fire and fury have hit the streets of Beirut. Lebanon is descending fast into an economic crisis that the World Bank says will likely rank among the world's worst of the last 150 years. Where some streets witness protests, others host long lines of cars queuing for a share of Lebanon's insufficient supply of gasoline.

Shortages are pushing up the costs of many essentials. The price of subsidized bread has been hiked five times this year alone. Citizens are also getting much less for their money because of record inflation.

The Lebanese pound has been trading at an all-time high on the black market - at over 10 times its official rate against the US dollar.

The crisis is largely the result of three decades of financial mismanagement by successive governments, following Lebanon's civil war. But it's been made even worse by a global pandemic, and the billions of dollars of damage caused by last year's deadly blast in Beirut port.


‘This is the end of times’: Lebanon struggles to find political path through its crisis »

Lebanon in Free-fall: 'For Me, the Country Now Is a Large Jail'

Lebanon is undergoing financial and economic collapse.

The country's currency has lost around 85% of its value and the majority of the population could soon face acute poverty.

The BBC met one nurse who explains what the disintegration of the country means to him

More Than 3 Million Lebanese Face Poverty

More than three million Lebanese - almost half the population - are facing a tough Ramadan. The monthly cost of iftar, or the meal to break their fast, now costs 2.5 times the minimum wage. The World Bank says food prices there have become the highest in the region. Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr has more from Beirut, Lebanon.

Amid Gunfire and a Threat of War, Brothers Cultivate Grapes of Peace
Sami, left, and Ramzi Ghosn produce 300,000 bottles of wine a year. Photograph: The Times
THE TIMES: Across Lebanon’s beautiful Bekaa Valley the vineyards shimmer in the heat of summer. The past decade has witnessed an extraordinary renaissance in the country’s 4,000-year-old winemaking tradition, with an expansion from four Lebanese winemakers in the 1980s to about 35 today.

At weekends Beirut residents drive out to enjoy food cooked in clay ovens next to the Massaya winery, run by two brothers determined to revive the family business in the shadow of Hezbollah’s guns. Amid tinkling fountains, banks of rosemary and trestle tables of grilled chicken and hoummos washed down with cinsault, syrah and cabernet sauvignon blend rosé, war is hard to imagine.

But the tap-tap of machinegun fire and muffled explosions echo in the distance. The training camps and bunkers of Hezbollah, the Shia militia that fought Israel to a standstill in 2006, lie to the north and south of the valley and in the hills along the Syrian border. Israeli spy drones buzz in the sky, their cameras fixed on Bekaa.

When Sami Ghosn returned from a decade living in Europe and America the moment seemed auspicious. The Oslo Accords appeared to herald a new era of peace.

His country, however, lay in ruins, the family estate overgrown and occupied by Palestinian squatters. With a Christian militia friend of his father’s, Sami and his brother, Ramzi, set about reclaiming the ancestral lands in lawless Lebanon. “I was sleeping with my gun,” he recalls.

The first years of production were limited to arak, a fiery aniseed spirit much loved locally. But in 1998 the brothers produced their first wine vintage. The Massaya vineyard is backed by a number of French winemakers and, in its first years, employed a French oenologist. “The challenge was very high and we needed the French support. That gave more substance to our venture,” Ramzi says.

Success came swiftly. The brothers’ 2000 vintage won a five-star accolade in the French viticultural bible Le Revue de Vin de France. It was one star more than the arch rival, Château Musar, the most famous and longstanding vineyard in Lebanon, could boast. Continue reading and comment >>> Tom Coghlan, Bekaa Valley | Monday, June 28, 2010