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Lebanon’s electricity was down for a day, but the crisis was years in the making

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Lebanon’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/lebanon-power-beirut-electricity-collapse/2021/10/09/e2588e88-28fb-11ec-8739-5cb6aba30a30_story.html">electricity failed</a> over the weekend, plunging the country into further <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/21451455/beirut-port-explosion-lebanon-political-crisis-hezbollah">difficulty</a> on top of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/beirut-middle-east-lebanon-business-4dbb84e6f2b43e0e1e1f090b592c0c04?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=APMiddleEast&utm_source=Twitter">economic collapse</a>, <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/lebanon/2020-08-14/corrupt-political-class-broke-lebanon">political corruption</a>, and a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/5/21355584/lebanon-beirut-explosion-economic-crisis">deadly port explosion</a> in Beirut last year.
Though limited power was <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-58861477">restored</a> Sunday after about 24 hours of outages, the collapse of the state-run electrical grid on Saturday is just the most extreme manifestation of a chronic fuel shortage that has plagued Lebanon for <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-58856914">the last year and a half</a>.
Lebanese citizens have struggled with the state’s electric company, Electricité du Liban, for years, and its shortcomings mean that private generators are common, at least for those who can afford them. Even in an ordinary week, it’s common for people to have as little as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/life-grinds-halt-lebanons-blackouts-2021-08-13/">one or two hours</a> of daily electricity from the state grid.
But the crisis came to a head Saturday when the nation’s two largest power stations ran out of enough diesel fuel to provide even a few hours of electricity in a country already confronted with multiple crises.
The Deir Ammar and Zahrani power stations shut down in quick succession over the weekend after fuel ran out, leaving Lebanon’s population of more than 6.8 million people without public power. The blackout comes just over a week after the government allowed a contract with a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-middle-east-lebanon-beirut-07429c4a33c544bd6994a749c745834d">Turkish company</a> supplying power via two barges off the coast of Beirut to lapse, cutting off that energy supply.
Though common, private generators proved insufficient during the outage — as Beirut-based journalist Bel Trew <a href="https://twitter.com/Beltrew/status/1446808827626729474?s=20">pointed out on Twitter Saturday</a>, not only are such generators incredibly expensive to run and equally subject to Lebanon’s fuel shortages, but they do little to keep essential services like hospitals running.
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Lebanon now has zero state power meaning the entire country is running on private generators. They are prohibitively expensive: my last month’s bill was 3.75 million lira which is $2500 on official rate& about $250 on black market. How is the airport running?What about hospitals? <a href="https://t.co/eFzcVhxH1I">https://t.co/eFzcVhxH1I</a>
— Bel Trew (@Beltrew) <a href="https://twitter.com/Beltrew/status/1446808827626729474?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 9, 2021</a></blockquote>
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According to Washington Post reporters Nader Durgham and Liz Sly, even before the weekend’s outage, chronic fuel shortages meant that hospitals have been “forced to suspend operations or halt vital procedures,” among a slew of other issues.
“It is drastic, and it has been drastic for a while,” <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/lebanon-power-beirut-electricity-collapse/2021/10/09/e2588e88-28fb-11ec-8739-5cb6aba30a30_story.html">Lebanese Energy Minister Walid Fayyad told the Post</a>. “With a few hours a day people can go about their basic needs for a couple of hours, and of course it is better than nothing, but the situation is dire and we need more than a few hours a day.”
But Lebanese citizens put the situation in starker terms.
“We have forgotten what electricity means,” Abdul-Hadi al-Sibai, a Beirut taxi driver, told the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/10/world/middleeast/lebanon-electricity-outage.html">New York Times</a>.
A <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/lebanese-power-outage-will-last-few-days-government-official-2021-10-09/">6 million-liter fuel donation</a> from the Lebanese armed forces brought power back on Sunday, ahead of the schedule <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/lebanese-power-outage-will-last-few-days-government-official-2021-10-09/">originally predicted by Lebanon’s central government</a>. However, it’s not a permanent solution — <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/lebanese-power-outage-will-last-few-days-government-official-2021-10-09/">according to Reuters</a>, the new supply of fuel will only be enough to keep the lights on for three days. A shipment from Iraq is set to boost the fuel supply later this month, according to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/9/fuel-shortage-forces-shutdown-main-lebanese-power-plants">Al Jazeera</a>, and the energy ministry announced Sunday that it had received a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/lebanon-energy-ministry-says-received-approval-100-million-fuel-import-credit-2021-10-10/">$100 million fuel credit</a> from the central bank of Lebanon, so that the country can again pay to import fuel.
Lebanon has dealt with energy problems for decades; hours-long outages have long been a part of everyday life. But the country’s current <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/5/21355584/lebanon-beirut-explosion-economic-crisis">economic crisis</a>, combined with <a href="https://theconversation.com/pandora-papers-as-ordinary-lebanese-suffer-elite-secretly-drain-off-billions-169383">political corruption</a>, has turned what was once a serious, but for many, manageable inconvenience into a far more acute crisis.
“There is no fuel and limited generation, so the variation in frequency is ruining the grid,” Marc Ayoub, an energy researcher at the American University of Beirut, explained to <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/9/fuel-shortage-forces-shutdown-main-lebanese-power-plants">Al Jazeera</a>.
The shutdown comes as Lebanon is experiencing shocking hyperinflation; the Lebanese lira, which is pegged to the dollar, has dropped <a href="https://www.the961.com/todays-lebanese-lira-us-dollar-exchange-rate-october-8th-2021/">90 percent in value</a> since fall 2019 and is currently trading about 18,900 lira per dollar on the black market. Prior to Lebanon’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/world/lebanon-crisis.html">2019 economic implosion</a>, the exchange rate was 1,500 lira per dollar.
That astronomical inflation makes <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/05/world/middleeast/lebanon-economic-crisis.html">ordinary goods like medicine</a> hard to come by, much less enough fuel to power an entire country.
Critically, the compounding crises have serious political implications, both internally and outside of Lebanon. Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shia militant group — which is part of Lebanon’s government, although the US has designated it a terror group — brought in gasoline fuel by the truckload from Iran via Syria, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/16/world/middleeast/lebanon-hezbollah-iran-fuel.html">according to a New York Times report</a> last month, apparently flouting US sanctions.
Currently, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/lebanon-power-beirut-electricity-collapse/2021/10/09/e2588e88-28fb-11ec-8739-5cb6aba30a30_story.html">according to the Washington Post</a>, those US sanctions are also a major obstacle to a plan for Lebanon to import gas from Egypt via Syria, which could improve the long-term outlook for Lebanon’s power grid. That could soon change, as US ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea <a href="https://english.alarabiya.net/amp/News/middle-east/2021/08/19/US-to-help-Lebanon-with-electricity-Lebanese-presidency">confirmed</a> in August that the Biden administration is seeking “real, sustainable solutions for Lebanon’s fuel and energy needs.”
For the time being, however, the Lebanese government has been conspicuously absent in responding to the interconnected crises facing the country, despite the fact that Lebanon <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-58516034">formed a new government last month</a>. That absence has only served to highlight Hezbollah’s ability to deliver basic goods where the central government fails, potentially giving the group a larger foothold in the country.
Lebanon’s new government is also its first functional administration since a major explosion rocked its capital, Beirut, last year, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-58516034">according to the BBC</a>. In the aftermath of that crisis, the existing government <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/10/21361816/lebanonese-government-resign-beirut-explosion-protest">resigned</a>, creating a stalemate that took <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/lebanon-forms-new-government-ending-13-month-standoff">13 months to resolve</a>.
In June, the <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2021/05/01/lebanon-sinking-into-one-of-the-most-severe-global-crises-episodes">World Bank</a> identified the collapse of Lebanon’s financial system as “in the top 10, possibly top three, most severe crises episodes globally since the mid-nineteenth century,” adding that there’s no sense of how the nation will recover from such a catastrophe.
Despite that severe diagnosis, global actors like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have thus far largely <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/who-pays-lebanon-faces-tough-question-imf-bailout-bid-2021-09-23/">declined to step in</a> due to a lack of faith in Lebanon’s government and its disinclination to deal with any of the several interconnected and deeply rooted crises facing the country.
Specifically, Lebanon’s 2019 financial collapse sprang from decades of bad economic policy: Ultra-wealthy, deeply entrenched public servants have long benefited from a peculiar political system and <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/21451455/beirut-port-explosion-lebanon-political-crisis-hezbollah">enriched themselves further</a> by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/02/opinion/lebanon-protests.html">helping themselves to public funds</a>. From 2018 to 2020, the country’s GDP fell from $55 billion to $33 billion — a precipitous drop typically associated with the outbreak of conflict, according to <a href="https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/394741622469174252/pdf/Lebanon-Economic-Monitor-Lebanon-Sinking-to-the-Top-3.pdf">a recent World Bank report</a>.
Calls for the resignation of the whole government, with the <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2020/1/19/21073004/beirut-lebanon-protests-300-injured">rallying cry</a>, “All of them means all of them,” erupted in October 2019, after attempts to raise money by <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50293636">taxing the use of WhatsApp</a>, the messaging service widely used both within Lebanon and to communicate with the rest of the world, including a large Lebanese diaspora.
That resignation did eventually <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/8/10/21361816/lebanonese-government-resign-beirut-explosion-protest">occur</a> — but not until <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2020/8/8/21359980/protesters-beirut-lebanon-blast-fall-regime">August 2020</a>, after a massive explosion in Beirut, caused by more than 2,700 tons of improperly stored ammonium nitrate, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53720383">killed hundreds</a>, injured thousands, and left hundreds of thousands homeless. The explosion <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-security-blast-wheat/after-blast-lebanon-has-enough-grain-for-less-than-a-month-minister-says-idUSKCN251190">also destroyed Lebanon’s major grain silo</a>, leaving the country with less than a month of reserves at the time. It also destroyed Beirut’s port area, which handled about 70 percent of the food imports in a country that <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=26194&LangID=E">imports about 85 percent of its food</a>.
Despite the popular outrage that drove Lebanon’s previous government to resign, there are signs that the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-58516034">new administration</a>, led by Najib Mikati, a billionaire and Lebanon’s wealthiest man, will be more of the same. Mikati, who is now prime minister, has held the position twice before — meaning he comes from the exact system that plunged the country into its current upheaval.
That government, as <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/21451455/beirut-port-explosion-lebanon-political-crisis-hezbollah">Faysal Itani</a>, adjunct professor of Middle East politics and security at Georgetown University, wrote for Vox last year, is deeply entrenched, making it difficult to change, despite its many and obvious problems. As Itani explains:
<blockquote>
Lebanon’s political system is the product of a decades-old power-sharing arrangement among leaders of Lebanon’s 18 religious sects, the most important being the Sunni and Shia Muslims and Maronite Christians. This system, known as confessionalism, parceled out political power according to sectarian quotas, with each sect usually led by one or several members of prominent political families.
</blockquote>
Despite the lack of public services and the blatant corruption of those in power, Lebanese politicians have generally proved adept at playing up sectarian disputes and doing just enough to keep their constituents satisfied.
However, the depth of Lebanon’s current crises, exemplified by the outright collapse of the state power grid Saturday, means that the status quo of previous Lebanese governments might not be good enough going forward. Already, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/9/fuel-shortage-forces-shutdown-main-lebanese-power-plants">Mikati, the new prime minister, has pledged</a> to end the fuel crisis and restart talks with the IMF to shore up the economy, a potential lifeline for Lebanon — if he keeps his promise.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/10/10/22719115/lebanon-power-grid-collapse-beirut-crisis">https://www.vox.com/2021/10/10/22719115/lebanon-power-grid-collapse-beirut-crisis</a>

vox Lebanon’s electricity was down for a day, but the crisis was years in the making

Lebanon’s electricity failed over the weekend, plunging the country into further difficulty on top of economic collapse , political corru...

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Delays Star Trek Actor William Shatner's Space Flight

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Delays Star Trek Actor William Shatner's Space Flight" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-10/5tub6jn8_star-treks-william-shatner_625x300_04_October_21.jpg" title="Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Delays Star Trek Actor William Shatner's Space Flight" /></div>
William Shatner, 90, will be the oldest person ever to go to space. (File)
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Washington:
Blue Origin announced Sunday it was delaying an upcoming flight set to carry actor William Shatner to space due to anticipated winds.
Shatner, who played Captain James T. Kirk in the cult classic TV series "Star Trek," is due to become the first member of the iconic show's cast to journey to the final frontier as a guest aboard a Blue Origin suborbital rocket.
His history-making flight was scheduled for October 12.
But "due to forecasted winds on Tuesday, October 12, Blue Origin's mission operations team has made the decision to delay the launch of NS-18 and is now targeting Wednesday, October 13," a spokeswoman said in a statement.
The new flight is scheduled for 8:30 am (1330 GMT).
Shatner, 90, will be the oldest person ever to go to space.
His trip will take him and the NS-18 rocket crew just beyond the Karman line, 62 miles (100 kilometers) high, where they will experience four minutes of weightlessness and gaze out at the curvature of the planet.
Blue Origin's decision to invite one of the most recognizable galaxy-faring characters from science fiction for its second crewed flight has helped maintain excitement around the nascent space tourism sector.
For fans, the 10-minute hop from a West Texas base back to Earth will be a fitting coda for a pop culture phenomenon that inspired generations of astronauts.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-delays-star-trek-actor-william-shatners-space-flight-2571029">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-delays-star-trek-actor-william-shatners-space-flight-2571029</a>

news world Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Delays Star Trek Actor William Shatner's Space Flight

William Shatner, 90, will be the oldest person ever to go to space. (File) Washington: Blue Origin announced Sunday it was delaying an ...

Couple Arrested For Selling Information On US Nuclear Warship

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="Couple Arrested For Selling Information On US Nuclear Warship" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/65ep5ff8_businessman-arrest-generic-istock_625x300_01_September_18.jpg" title="Couple Arrested For Selling Information On US Nuclear Warship" /></div>
The US couple is due to appear in West Virginia federal court on October 12. (Representational)
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Washington:
A US couple has been arrested in the state of West Virginia for allegedly selling information on nuclear warships to what they believed was a foreign state, the Justice Department said Sunday.
Jonathan Toebbe, who worked as a nuclear engineer for the US Navy, and his wife Diana -- both in their forties -- were arrested by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents on Saturday and charged with violating the Atomic Energy Act in a criminal complaint, the Justice Department said in a statement.
For nearly a year, the couple "sold information known as restricted data concerning the design of nuclear powered warships to a person they believed was a representative of a foreign power," the statement said, adding that the recipient of the information was, in fact, an undercover FBI agent.
Jonathan Toebbe, who had access to restricted data on nuclear-powered warships through his work, collaborated with his wife to exchange data on submarine nuclear reactors for around $100,000 in cryptocurrency, the complaint affidavit alleges.
The affidavit says Toebbe in April 2020 mailed a package to a foreign government "containing a sample of restricted data and instructions for establishing a covert relationship," according to the statement.
According to the complaint, the FBI intercepted the package, and the undercover agent posed as a representative of the foreign government in order to establish a relationship with the couple.
The agent sent Jonathan Toebbe, who used the pseudonym "Alice," an email offering him a gift as thanks for the data. But Toebbe responded with caution, asking instead to set up a "dead drop" location and to be paid in cryptocurrency.
The couple in following months transferred multiple SD cards of data to the agent. In the first dead drop, "the SD card was wrapped in plastic and placed between two slices of bread on a half a peanut butter sandwich," the agent said in the complaint.
Other SD cards were hidden in a chewing gum package and a sealed Band-Aid wrapper, with the Band-Aid still inside.
The couple was arrested Saturday after leaving another SD card at a dead drop location.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland praised the agencies involved for "thwarting the plot" and "taking this first step in bringing the perpetrators to justice," the statement said.
The Department of Defense declined to comment when contacted by AFP.
The couple is due to appear in West Virginia federal court on October 12.
US nuclear-powered submarines have been the subject of recent attention when Australia and Britain in September unveiled a new defense contract for such subs, negotiated secretly over several months.
In order to join the pact, Australia tore up a landmark multimillion-dollar contract with France, sparking an international row that saw Paris recall its ambassador to Canberra.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/couple-arrested-for-selling-information-on-us-nuclear-warship-2570992">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/couple-arrested-for-selling-information-on-us-nuclear-warship-2570992</a>

news world Couple Arrested For Selling Information On US Nuclear Warship

The US couple is due to appear in West Virginia federal court on October 12. (Representational) Washington: A US couple has been arrest...

Canada's Health Sector Braces For Staff Crunch As Vaccine Mandates Loom

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="Canada's Health Sector Braces For Staff Crunch As Vaccine Mandates Loom" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-10/t6ccpt2s_canada-vaccination-reuters-650_625x300_10_October_21.jpg" title="Canada's Health Sector Braces For Staff Crunch As Vaccine Mandates Loom" /></div>
The uncertainty sparked by vaccine mandates in Canada underscores challenges on road to recovery. (File)
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Vancouver:
Canada's health and long-term care industries are bracing for staff shortages and layoffs, as deadlines for vaccine mandates loom across the country, with unions pushing federal and provincial governments to soften hard-line stances.
For hospitals and nursing homes, a shortage of workers would strain the already overburdened workforce dealing with nearly two years of the pandemic. The uncertainty sparked by vaccine mandates underscores the challenges on the road to recovery.
Devon Greyson, assistant professor of public health at the University of British Columbia, said officials are steering into uncharted waters with mass vaccine mandates, and it's not clear how workers will respond.
"A shortage of workers can mean people's health and well being. It's scary," Greyson said.
However, he added, "we're in an ethical situation where it's also scary not to ensure that all health workers are vaccinated. So it's a bit of a Catch-22."
To tackle staff scarcity, at least one province is offering signing bonuses to nurses. Provinces including Quebec and British Columbia have made it mandatory for healthcare workers and nursing staff to be vaccinated to continue working in their respective fields.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also unveiled one of the strictest vaccine mandates in the world last week, saying unvaccinated federal employees will be sent on unpaid leave and making COVID-19 shots mandatory for air, train and ship passengers.
Layoffs have are started to hit, with one hospital in southern Ontario last week dumping 57 employees, representing 2.5% of staff, after its vaccine mandate came into effect. A long-term care home in Toronto put 36% of its staff on unpaid leave after they refused to get vaccinated, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp reported.
British Columbia will place staff at its long-term care and assisted living sector on unpaid administrative leave if they fail to get at least one shot by Monday.
Some 97 per cent of long-term care staff in Vancouver and the surrounding areas have at least one dose as of October 6, the province said. But northern BC has only 89% of staff with at least one dose, although the data was still being updated.
The province recently changed the deadline, giving more time for people to receive their second vaccine dose. "It is because we know we have a very limited healthcare resource," Dr Bonnie Henry, the province's medical officer, said.
'Political' Decision
Quebec is offering C$15,000 bonuses to help attract and retain about 4,300 full-time nurses. Some 25,000 healthcare workers who are yet not fully vaccinated ahead of an October 15 deadline risk suspension without pay, said Christian Dube, the province's health minister.
Some 97% of all staff in University Health Network, which operates medical facilities in and around Toronto, Ontario, has been vaccinated ahead of October 22, with efforts underway to find backup for the remaining.
Daniel Lublin, a Toronto-based employment lawyer, called the mandates "very political" and based on the majority view that vaccines are good. "The fallout is that it's another segment of the Canadian workforce that is going to be faced with job loss if they choose not to vaccinate."
The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), which represents 215,000 federal workers, said while the union supports the government's vaccination stance, its members who do not get inoculated should not be punished.
"Especially when remote work options are available that do not jeopardize the health and safety of co-workers and allow our members to continue to serve Canadians," said Chris Aylward, PSAC president.
Treasury Board, which oversees the public administration, is engaged with PSAC and other labor representatives about the implementation of the mandate, a government source said.
Louis Hugo Francescutti, an emergency room physician in Edmonton, said he worked with several people who were continuing to refuse vaccination, even though it would cost them their jobs when the mandate takes effect on Octobr 31.
Alberta has one of the lowest vaccination rates in Canada, and its hospitals have been overwhelmed by the fourth wave.
"We're so under the water right now that losing a couple of people who don't want to get vaccinated - it's going to be sad (but) the impact will be minimal," Francescutti said.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/canadas-health-sector-braces-for-staff-crunch-as-vaccine-mandates-loom-2570964">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/canadas-health-sector-braces-for-staff-crunch-as-vaccine-mandates-loom-2570964</a>

news world Canada's Health Sector Braces For Staff Crunch As Vaccine Mandates Loom

The uncertainty sparked by vaccine mandates in Canada underscores challenges on road to recovery. (File) Vancouver: Canada's health...

US, Russia Lift Sanctions To Allow American Official's Visit: Moscow

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="US, Russia Lift Sanctions To Allow American Official's Visit: Moscow" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-10/oib08qlk_victoria-nuland-us-reuters-650_625x300_10_October_21.jpg" title="US, Russia Lift Sanctions To Allow American Official's Visit: Moscow" /></div>
US official Victoria Nuland is expected in Moscow from October 11 to 13. (File)
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Moscow:
Russia will allow US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to visit for talks despite having previously blacklisted her, after Washington agreed to lift a similar restriction placed on a Russian citizen, Moscow said on Sunday.
The US official, who is expected in Moscow from October 11 to 13, visits at a time when political ties between the countries are badly strained. She will meet senior officials to discuss bilateral, regional and global issues, the State Department has said.
"She was actually on our sanctions lists that mean that a person cannot cross the border," Maria Zakharova, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, was quoted as saying by RIA news agency.
"They (the US) included Russian representatives and foreign policy experts on their sanctions lists. So in this case, the question was resolved on a parity basis. Yes, she will be in Russia," she was quoted as saying.
Zakhrova later clarified to the Govorit Moskva radio station that one Russian citizen had been removed from the US sanctions list. She did not disclose the person's name.
The United States has imposed an array of sanctions on Russia. Relations between Moscow and Washington sank to post-Cold War lows in 2014 after Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, and they remain strained over a range of other issues.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
 
 
source <a href="https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-russia-lift-targeted-sanctions-to-allow-american-officials-visit-moscow-2570920">https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-russia-lift-targeted-sanctions-to-allow-american-officials-visit-moscow-2570920</a>

news world US, Russia Lift Sanctions To Allow American Official's Visit: Moscow

US official Victoria Nuland is expected in Moscow from October 11 to 13. (File) Moscow: Russia will allow US Under Secretary of State V...

Sydney Lockdown Ends After "100 Days Of Blood, Sweat And No Beers"

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<div class="ins_instory_dv_cont"><img alt="Sydney Lockdown Ends After '100 Days Of Blood, Sweat And No Beers'" src="https://c.ndtvimg.com/2021-10/nari19v8_sydney-opera-house-oct-2021650_625x300_10_October_21.jpg" title="Sydney Lockdown Ends After '100 Days Of Blood, Sweat And No Beers'" /></div>
Sydney lockdown ends: New South Wales state recorded 477 cases on Sunday.
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Sydney:
Elated Sydneysiders were emerging from almost four months of "blood, sweat and no beers" early Monday as a long coronavirus lockdown was lifted in Australia's largest city.
Sydney's more than five million residents have been subjected to a 106-day lockdown, designed to limit the march of the highly transmissible Delta variant.
With new infections now falling -- New South Wales state recorded 477 cases on Sunday -- and more than 70 percent of over-16s double vaccinated, Sydney was dusting off the cobwebs.
A handful of venues -- including some bars and slot machine rooms -- planned to open at 12:01 am local time to vaccinated customers.
"Be the first to have a cold schooner, and be the first to catch up with friends," said owners of Easts in the city's famed Bondi neighbourhood.
Hairdressers will be among those businesses throwing open their doors later in the day, although many have been booked out for weeks to come by shaggy-haired customers.
Since June, shops, schools, salons and offices have been closed for non-essential workers and there have been unprecedented restrictions on personal freedom.
There were bans on everything from travelling more than five kilometres from home, visiting family, playing squash, browsing in supermarkets to attending funerals.
"Very few countries have taken as stringent or extreme an approach to managing Covid as Australia," Tim Soutphommasane, an academic and former Australian race discrimination commissioner, told AFP.
There will still be limits on mass gatherings and international borders and schools will not fully reopen for a few weeks yet.
But otherwise daily life will look more like normal.
'You've Earned It'
For most of the pandemic, Australia successfully suppressed infections through border closures, lockdowns and aggressive testing and tracing.
But the Delta variant put paid to any dream of "Covid-zero", at least in the largest cities of Melbourne and Sydney which are now pivoting to "living with Covid".
"It's a big day for our state," said New South Wales' recently appointed conservative premier Dominic Perrottet.
After "100 days of blood, sweat and no beers," he said, "you've earned it."
But despite the celebratory mood, there are lingering concerns about what reopening will bring.
Perrottet encouraged patrons to treat staff with kindness, with fears that bans on the unvaccinated could lead to protests and confrontation.
There are also fears that reopening will inevitably bring a rash of new infections.
The Australian Medical Association this week pilloried Perrottet when he appeared to shift the focus away from health and onto the economic recovery.
"The AMA supports gradual opening up of the economy and the loosening of restrictions, but it is critical to observe the impact of each step on transmission and case numbers," the doctors' body said.
"Otherwise New South Wales may still see hospitals become completely overwhelmed despite high vaccination rates." 
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news world Sydney Lockdown Ends After "100 Days Of Blood, Sweat And No Beers"

Sydney lockdown ends: New South Wales state recorded 477 cases on Sunday. Sydney: Elated Sydneysiders were emerging from almost four mo...