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Addis Ababa, Sept 21, 2020 (AFP) - A prominent Ethiopian opposition politician on Monday rejected terrorism charges recently filed against him as part of a government plot to lock up rivals rather than face them at the ballot box.

Lebanon's President Michel Aoun has come under fire after it emerged that tea donated by Sri Lanka for victims of the Beirut blast was distributed instead to families of his presidential guards.

Cypriot authorities are alarmed over the arrival of four boats carrying Syrian and Lebanese migrants in waters off the east Mediterranean island nation’s coastline within a 48-hour span.

From Pakistan to Lebanon, Saudi Arabia is scaling back its famed checkbook diplomacy, a longstanding policy of splashing petro-dollars in exchange for influence, which observers say has yielded few tangible gains.

Rai made a thinly veiled attack on Hezbollah Sunday, calling upon the Lebanese authorities in the wake of the Beirut Port explosion to seize all illegal weapons and explosives.

Beirut is still coming to terms with the sheer magnitude of destruction set off by Tuesday's monster blast in the port. Streets are strewn with shattered glass, mangled storefronts, smashed up cars, splintered trees.

Economy Minister Raoul Nehme said Tuesday that the wheat in Beirut's port granaries can not be used and that the ministry lost track of seven employees in the granaries.

Two large explosions rocked Beirut port Tuesday afternoon, killing at least 50 and injuring over 2,700, according to Lebanese authorities, with Lebanon's Prime Minister calling the incident a "catastrophe."

Dozens feared killed, hundreds wounded in Beirut explosions: witnesses

Many Lebanese lawmakers are threatening to kill the government’s economic rescue plan if it does not make drastic amendments to the program, a reliable source said Wednesday.

Zakaria al-Omar was walking through Beirut when a stranger robbed him at knifepoint, a desperate crime of a kind that has become increasingly common in crisis-torn Lebanon.

Just last year, President Bashar al-Assad seemed on the brink of crowning military victories by easing his diplomatic isolation and recovering more of Syria without a bullet being fired.

Egypt said Saturday that tripartite talks with Ethiopia and Sudan over a controversial mega-dam on the River Nile were deadlocked because of Addis Ababa's "intransigence".

Lebanon’s Central Bank announced Wednesday that an electronic foreign currency trading platform to regulate daily exchange rates will go live June 23 and that it must be used by all traders.

Maltese authorities have seized counterfeit Libyan money worth $1.1 billion that was printed by a Russian firm and worsen the north African country's economic problems, the US State Department said.