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President Macron is visiting Beirut today, good to see he's prioritising it, hopefully there's a concerted international effort to get supplies to where they're needed. From some of the reports I've seen the Lebanese government is another incompetent kleptocracy.

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highlandjambo3
5 hours ago, highlandjambo3 said:

Well I was when in the army.......been out a good few years now but when I left I handed back my ID card and uniform.....I didn’t hand back my 25years experience........ Some stuff stays with you.

p.s.........I cant buy a box of fireworks in Tesco now without ID 😂

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Jambo-Jimbo
1 hour ago, fancy a brew said:

President Macron is visiting Beirut today, good to see he's prioritising it, hopefully there's a concerted international effort to get supplies to where they're needed. From some of the reports I've seen the Lebanese government is another incompetent kleptocracy.

 

Of the highest order it would seem, even Macron said that he'd make sure that French aid went to the right people and several activists are pleading with people not to donate to the Lebanese Government as they'll just keep it, but to donate directly to NGO's, charities or to the people themselves.

 

This will probably bring down the Lebanese Government.

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Lebanon never really sorted the divisions that led to the civil war and occupation by Syria and Israel.

Just kind of muddled through and it's never really been stable.

 

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1 hour ago, highlandjambo3 said:

p.s.........I cant buy a box of fireworks in Tesco now without ID 😂

 

Is that because after you retired from the army you still wanted to blow shit up and got banned from Tesco?

 

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highlandjambo3
19 minutes ago, kila said:

 

Is that because after you retired from the army you still wanted to blow shit up and got banned from Tesco?

 

Dam....sussed 

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I believe this was an accident in the way that Chernobyl was an accident - it’s not that there are one or two people who are responsible, but a whole system of corruption and negligence.

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2 hours ago, Cade said:

Lebanon never really sorted the divisions that led to the civil war and occupation by Syria and Israel.

Just kind of muddled through and it's never really been stable.

 

Some would say the opposite. There is a long standing arrangement in Lebanon that the various senior political roles have to be from different factions, eg the president is always a Christian. Unfortunately on occasion it leads to a struggle to find the right people in a group. There is also a bigger Imbalance in the population as after 1948 huge amounts of Palestinians came to the county and now the diaspora from Syria. Then add onto this lots of Christians leaving in the last few years. 

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35 minutes ago, superjack said:

Someone shared this video with me just now. Not sure how authentic it is though.
 

 

Two things immediately stand out as suspicious to me. 
 

1) There is no exhaust trail from the missile - even if it was gliding rather than powered it would have some interaction with the smoke in the air on the way down

2) Using the same scale as the presumed target, that missile is as long as the building it hits is tall. It was what, two or three stories? I don't think there is a missile (other than ballistic) that is that big

 

I'm calling shite on this one

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That video is the most amateurish thing I've ever seen.

I've seen all the original footage of those clips and all they've done is change the colour to hide their badly superimposed "missiles"

 

Total cringe.

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Seymour M Hersh
On 05/08/2020 at 18:01, highlandjambo3 said:

Just thought I’d chuck in my tuppence worth just for your information.

 

I spent a lot of time in the Army blowing stuff up (demolition safety officer or explosives engineer for want of a better word).


Its been reported that this explosion was ammonium nitrate based, which is commonly used in fertiliser at industrial level in the agricultural world.  The IRA used to make bombs from this stuff called ANFO (ammonium nitrate mixed with fuel & oil) that’s what killed Mountbatten.  So, in Northern Ireland it was illegal for farmers to purchase this product if it’s strength was more than 30%. 
 

This Ammonium nitrate also requires a very small amount of commercial explosive to ignite it/to make it go bang (did you recognise the cluster of flashes or smaller explosions before the main explosion), liken it to a bucket of petrol which in itself is not dangerous but, chucking in a lit match changes this perception.  Anyway, to the uneducated/untrained, it may not be common knowledge that this stuff could be dangerous, it looks like a grow bag from B & Q.

 

Thats all

 

On top of this as a comparison there was around 2,700 tons stored in the warehouse in Beirut. The Oklahoma bomber used only 3.5 tons. 

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highlandjambo3
11 hours ago, Seymour M Hersh said:

 

On top of this as a comparison there was around 2,700 tons stored in the warehouse in Beirut. The Oklahoma bomber used only 3.5 tons. 

Ok, 


That 3.5 tons could have been very high strength ammonium nitrate  (I don’t know).


As my post stated below, ammonium nitrate is used as (PART) of fertiliser in agriculture on an industrial level so, let’s say (we won’t really find out with any certainty), it has been suggested In Beirut that the explosive content mass was 2,700 tons but, I’d say that the total fertiliser weight content was 2,700 tons with the ammonium nitrate being 30 (odd) percent of that, so much less than the 2,700 tons mentioned  is (but still a frigging  lot).
 

I also did mention that the seriousness of how dangerous this stuff  (*could be) can be disguised, with smoke and mirrors, as something else....let’s tell everyone it will be great for out farmers growing crops...our economy, feed the world  etc...etc...
 

I would suggest (my optioned course) the agreed storage of this Chemical was based on its use as an agriculture produce......why would any government official agree to store that type of hazard in a city if they knew it’s potential.

 

Anyway.... not massively ITK about Beirut but, I did like playing with stuff that goes bang and consider myself quite knowledgeable in these matters..........don’t steal the milk from my front door.....I’ll hunt you down ant you won’t want that 😉

 

* our farmers still use this fertiliser.......it is actually safe.

 

 

 

On 05/08/2020 at 18:01, highlandjambo3 said:

Just thought I’d chuck in my tuppence worth just for your information.

 

I spent a lot of time in the Army blowing stuff up (demolition safety officer or explosives engineer for want of a better word).


Its been reported that this explosion was ammonium nitrate based, which is commonly used in fertiliser at industrial level in the agricultural world.  The IRA used to make bombs from this stuff called ANFO (ammonium nitrate mixed with fuel & oil) that’s what killed Mountbatten.  So, in Northern Ireland it was illegal for farmers to purchase this product if it’s strength was more than 30%. 
 

This Ammonium nitrate also requires a very small amount of commercial explosive to ignite it/to make it go bang (did you recognise the cluster of flashes or smaller explosions before the main explosion), liken it to a bucket of petrol which in itself is not dangerous but, chucking in a lit match changes this perception.  Anyway, to the uneducated/untrained, it may not be common knowledge that this stuff could be dangerous, it looks like a grow bag from B & Q.

 

Thats all

 

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The Cabinet and PM may have resigned now, but they'll all just get shuffled around and stay on as MPs.

Some of them will even end up back in the Cabinet.

 

The public are calling for all opposition MPs to stand down, and if 1/3 of MPs quit then that triggers a general election.

 

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On 04/08/2020 at 22:17, Barack said:

It's a staggering amount just sitting there in that proximity.

 

For reference and scale; Timothy McVeigh the Oklahoma bomber, used 2 tons of ammonium nitrate.

 

thats mental didnt know thats what was used on oklahoma terrible

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  • 5 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...

Lebanon's two main power plants have run out of fuel and shut down.

Some local generators in some neighbourhoods are still going but they'll run out soon too.

Almost the whole nation now has no electricity.

 

Since the currency was unpegged from the US Dollar, it's plummeted and lost it's value 15-fold.

Fuel suppliers are demanding to be paid in dollars.

Hence no fuel.

 

The entire nation is fecked.

 

 

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Was hearing on the news that people can't even afford to buy paracetamol as it's so expensive now, mind there isn't any to buy in the first place but if there was the people couldn't afford it.

 

Unless the Lebanese government do something PDQ law and order is going to completely break down and there is a real fear that the country could lurch into civil war again.

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2 minutes ago, Jambo-Jimbo said:

Was hearing on the news that people can't even afford to buy paracetamol as it's so expensive now, mind there isn't any to buy in the first place but if there was the people couldn't afford it.

 

Unless the Lebanese government do something PDQ law and order is going to completely break down and there is a real fear that the country could lurch into civil war again.

A civil war the same as the last one would be very unlikely. The balance of the religions in Lebanon has changed a lot since then with the Christian percentage well down from the 50+% it roughly used to be. This was eroded by initially the Palestinian refugee population (which most Lebanese blame for the civil war) and now with large numbers from Syria and elsewhere taking the figures even further away. Also a lot of Christian’s left during the civil war. There is however a fair bit of tension between the various Muslim sects around the country. And this could be a source of conflict in future as the Sunni population resent Iran’s influence in the country through Hezbollah. 

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11 hours ago, Tazio said:

A civil war the same as the last one would be very unlikely. The balance of the religions in Lebanon has changed a lot since then with the Christian percentage well down from the 50+% it roughly used to be. This was eroded by initially the Palestinian refugee population (which most Lebanese blame for the civil war) and now with large numbers from Syria and elsewhere taking the figures even further away. Also a lot of Christian’s left during the civil war. There is however a fair bit of tension between the various Muslim sects around the country. And this could be a source of conflict in future as the Sunni population resent Iran’s influence in the country through Hezbollah. 

 

Civil war was maybe a bit strong.

Civil unrest though is very likely if the Lebanese government don't sort this out PDQ, as the public's patience is going to run out very quickly.

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An alarming turn of events in Beirut, as clashes between Christian's & Shia's left at least 5 dead after a gun battle broke out during a protest about the judge leading the inquiry into the port explosion.

https://news.sky.com/story/beirut-clashes-erupt-during-protest-over-explosion-inquiry-at-least-five-dead-in-lebanon-as-gunfire-breaks-out-12433547

 

Lebanon has enough problems to contend with, without an escalation of secterian violence breaking out.

Edited by Jambo-Jimbo
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Christians happened to live close to the docks, so they were disproportionately affected by the explosion.

Conspiracy theories are flying around that the whole thing was a Muslim plot against them (aye because blowing up half the city to target one neighbourhood makes total sense)

 

All 6 deaths yesterday were Muslims, killed by Christian snipers.

 

:vrface:

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1 minute ago, Cade said:

Christians happened to live close to the docks, so they were disproportionately affected by the explosion.

Conspiracy theories are flying around that the whole thing was a Muslim plot against them (aye because blowing up half the city to target one neighbourhood makes total sense)

 

All 6 deaths yesterday were Muslims, killed by Christian snipers.

 

:vrface:

There are some Christians in that part of the town but the main Christian population is in the east of the city, the west is mainly Sunni and the Shia population is traditionally more rural. Conspiracy theories are part of the Lebanese psyche and have been for years. 

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Doctor FinnBarr
1 hour ago, Tazio said:

There are some Christians in that part of the town but the main Christian population is in the east of the city, the west is mainly Sunni and the Shia population is traditionally more rural. Conspiracy theories are part of the Lebanese psyche and have been for years. 

 

Hard to believe Beruit was the "playground" of the middle east in the 70s. Never been but no chance of ever going now.

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8 minutes ago, FinnBarr Saunders said:

 

Hard to believe Beruit was the "playground" of the middle east in the 70s. Never been but no chance of ever going now.

It’s been largely rebuilt since the civil war and is still a popular destination. The tourist industry is very important to the city to this day, it’s a beautiful city as the architecture is very mixed due to the European influence. 

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3 hours ago, Cade said:

Christians happened to live close to the docks, so they were disproportionately affected by the explosion.

Conspiracy theories are flying around that the whole thing was a Muslim plot against them (aye because blowing up half the city to target one neighbourhood makes total sense)

 

All 6 deaths yesterday were Muslims, killed by Christian snipers.

 

:vrface:

Why do you never see that criminals come from all kinds and religious political sects.

It's only ever one way with you.

 

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  • 9 months later...

A huge chunk of the damaged grain silo had collapsed due to a fire that has been raging for weeks.

Due to government incompetence/corruption, hardly any clean-up has happened since the explosion in 2020.

There is still thousand of tons of grain on site.

It started to ferment.

Fermentation turns grain starch into glucose then glucose into alcohol.

Alcohol is extremely flammable.

It's a hot summer.

The grain caught fire.

:vrface:

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