Donors' Conference Aims to Boost Lebanese a Year After Beirut Blast

PARIS - France hopes to secure more than $350 million in humanitarian aid for Lebanon’s crisis-battered population at a donors’ conference it co-hosts with the United Nations Wednesday — marking the year anniversary of Beirut’s deadly port blast. International pressure is growing for Lebanon’s fractious parties to unify and push through reforms.  

Roughly 40 representatives of international institutions and heads of state were expected at this video conference, including U.S. President Joe Biden and Jordan’s King Abdullah.     It marks the third international meeting Paris has hosted this past year to support ordinary Lebanese, struggling under deepening poverty and spiraling inflation and unemployment. The World Bank calls Lebanon’s political and financial crisis since 2019 the world’s worst since the mid-19th century.     Co-hosted by the U.N. Wednesday’s virtual talks come exactly a year after the massive explosion of fertilizer stocked at Beirut’s port, which killed more than 200 people, injured thousands and devastated big chunks of the capital.