Lebanon on Wednesday marks a year since a fire at Beirut's port led to the country's worst peacetime disaster and precipitated its decline.

On August 4, 2020, a fire at the Beirut port ignited one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history. It disfigured the city, took more than 200 lives and shattered Lebanon's psyche.

Days of political turmoil in Tunisia over a crippled economy and surging coronavirus infections have left the country's allies in the Middle East, Europe and the United States watching to see if its fragile democracy will survive.

European countries — most notably nearby Italy — worry about a flood of migrants should Tunisia slide further into chaos.

Op-ed by British Ambassador to Lebanon Ian Collard

“The main hope of a nation”, said the Dutch scholar Erasmus, “lies in the proper education of its youth”. For Lebanon, this has never felt more true. The country’s best times have been founded on a strong investment in its education sector – creating Lebanese thinkers, entrepreneurs, and professionals who were able not just to shape their nation positively but whose ambitions spread into the region and indeed beyond. Sadly, one of the greatest risks to Lebanon now, as it deals with one of the most challenging periods in its history, is what is happening to the education of its children.

A year after the cataclysmic Beirut port blast, Shady Rizk's doctors are still plucking glass from his body. The latest extraction was a centimeter-long sliver above his knee pit.

Tunisia, the cradle of the 2011 Arab Spring revolts and long seen as its sole democratic success story, has been plunged into crisis with the threat of more turmoil ahead.  

Najib Miqati, a billionaire businessman and Lebanon's latest premier-designate, is a political veteran viewed by some as emblematic of the crony politics that steered the country towards collapse.

From his shock detention to an audacious escape from Japan, the rollercoaster saga of former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn made headlines around the world.

Lebanon has been mired since late 2019 in a deep economic and financial crisis, exacerbated by a political deadlock which intensified on Thursday when prime minister-designate Saad Hariri stepped down.

As Lebanon's economy tanks, foreign envoys are resorting to increasingly undiplomatic language to make clear their exasperation with politicians who demand bailout cash without delivering basic reforms in return.