welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. lebanon has long been a dysfunctional state, tragically for the lebanese people it suits many powerful players, both inside and outside the country to keep it that way. having just about staved off total economic collapse at the start of this decade, lebanon is currently the arena for an increasingly dangerous showdown between israel and the iranian—backed militia hezbollah. my guess is lebanon's economy minister amin salam. does his government have the means and the will to avert a national calamity?

amin salam in beirut, welcome to hardtalk. thank you, thank you, stephen. always a pleasure. well, it's great to have you back on the show and if i may, i want to start with some words you said just one week after october 7 — that is, after the hamas attack on southern israel — and at the very beginning of israel's massive military response. you said at that point, "we do not want to be here in lebanon a bargaining chip in a larger geopolitical game." isn't that precisely what your country has become? stephen, you've known me for always my honesty and transparency and we reached a point in lebanon where

everything is very clear and there's nothing to hide. and saying the truth and sharing the truth, admitting what is at fault, is the best strategy to follow. so, yes, i was very clear in what i said at that point of time, particularly because lebanon is a small state in this region, has been paying a very, very high price for conflicts around lebanon and in the region for at least the past 75 years. and we have unfortunately been always a country where all the struggles have been moved to be solved amongst nations. we turned into a weak card that is today being played among the big nations as a bargaining card. we do not wish, and we do not deserve to be in this position, not as people, not as a nation, not as a sovereignty. lebanon is a country that has struggled and paid a very high price.

it is time for lebanon and the international community to consider that this state, this nation, that has embraced over 80 religions and sects, has proven to be one of the best and most diverse countries in many sectors with major successes outside lebanon from its people that deserve the time of peace, it deserves a time of stability and we do not deserve to be a bargaining card and do not want to be a bargaining card but until today, it seems we are a bargaining card. so, whatever you deserve, the reality that we see day by day and week by week is an intensification of the violence across that borderline between your country and israel. the death toll among lebanese civilians, leaving aside

hezbollah fighters and the death toll on the israeli side of israeli soldiers and civilians, but the lebanese civilian death toll is now at least 68 and around 100,000 of your civilians who live in the south of your country have been displaced, forced to move. are you ready to acknowledge that the situation is only going to get worse as things stand today? well, stephen, as a government, we have been doing our utmost in the diplomatic side with international players to avoid escalation, to avoid getting this spillover of the war in gaza to really turn into a major war in lebanon but based on what you have shared today, that's information that we know, i can tell you we are officially in a state of war. if anybody is talking

about escalation, they are hallucinating because the escalation has happened. you said there's over 100,000 displaced people. we are talking, you know, official numbers that are about 68. i think we are over that number with official and unofficial numbers of deaths of civilians and others in soldiers, etc. so, we are officially in the state of war. hang on, you say we are officially in a state of war but this is not your war. this is hezbollah�*s war with israel. the lebanese national defence forces are barely even a presence in the south of your country. all this shows is the absolute weakness of the lebanese state. well, stephen, let me tell you, as i started in the beginning, yes, there is major desperation. there is major weakness.

even now when you hear about the international community behind the scenes, doing discussions, there has been a lot of talk at discussions are not directly with the lebanese government as a member of this government, i'm not happy to know that this is the case. i'm not happy to be part of the government that is considered not be major or not the first entity to discuss, you know, the situation with but we know — we know — this situation is not new to lebanon. we know that many of the things, including the maritime border discussions, have had a similar path one way or another and this is not really the best scenario to say that this government... crosstalk. it's certainly not the best

scenario foryou, minister, because you are minister of economy and trade and this intensification of the war is deeply damaging to the interests, the economic interests, of the lebanese state in terms of agriculture, in terms of tourism, in terms of displaced people and all of the costs that come with that. you know that much better than i do so are you now ready, as a senior member of the lebanese government, to say that it is time for hezbollah to rethink? to at least withdraw their forces from the southern border area to an area north of the litani river or even still better to actually disarm their forces so that israel no longer sees a military threat along its northern border? we certainly, stephen, from an economic impact from the minister of trade, i can tell you the country and the country's national economy at some point in 2023, before the war started, we began with the same some development, seeing some improvement, despite the fact

that we still have long ways to go for true reforms and for talking, really, about the recovery in the economy. but there is no doubt, as you just stated, that this war has weighed very heavily on the economy. losses on the major sectors including agriculture, including tourism recruited two major sectors that were still pumping some oxygen into the economy for the past few years — now are assessed in losses in the billions of dollars. the minister of agriculture alone announced that the losses in the agriculture sector are between $2—3 billion. we did an assessment, a brief assessment on the impact of the tourism sector and we are talking as well between $3—5 billion expected losses and already calculated losses in this year so...

crosstalk. to answer my question, is a time for people is it time for people like you to say to hezbollah to stop it. in the interests of the people of hezbollah, either disarm or move all of your thousands of resistance fighters and the rockets to a position north of the litani river, away from direct threat to israel? i can tell you from a very diplomatic point of view we have been asking if i want to call them stakeholders in this war to really, really leave lebanon alone because i mean many, many different players, as you just stated. in the beginning, this war is being, you know,... crosstalk. minister, don't use words like �*stakeholders�* because it's kind of — it's avoiding the real issues here.

i need you to address hezbollah. i was interested the other day — one of hezbollah�*s christian allies, the leader of the free patriotic movement gebran bassil said hezbollah is behaving in a delusional way right now, he said they are crossing the limits of defending lebanon, crossing the border and getting involved in a conflict in which we cannot make our own decisions here in lebanon and he was actually maybe being braver than you and he is a former ally of hezbollah. why can't you say to me hezbollah has got to change its strategy? no, i can tell you hezbollah and others, and israelis and the intervention of all others, they should all consider we cannot carry the sword, we cannot go further with the escalation. anybody involved, hezbollah or the israelis or the iranians

or all of the forces that are being involved, should consider that lebanon cannot carry this heavy price. crosstalk. there are states over which you obviously have no control but hezbollah is a militia, a resistance, whatever you want to call it, inside lebanon and you speak as a senior minister in the government of lebanon. yes. you have a capacity, at least in theory, to influence... absolutely. ..hezbollah in a way you cannot possibly influence israel and iran. no, absolutely. i mean it — and, stephen, i was one of the first ministers early on when i was asked, i was very clear that we should, and whoever is involved, hezbollah and others, because we know as well there were other militias in lebanon that

started trying to use lebanon as a land as well to get involved in the war. so, we were very clear, i was very clear from the beginning that we cannot carry this wait, we cannot economically, politically, socially, we cannot get engaged, cannot hold or carry that burden of this war because lebanon is at the edge of total collapse. one final point on that — you say lebanon is on the edge of total collapse and we've seen intensification not only in the south of lebanon but we've seen an israeli drone strike in beirut, the heart of your capital city, and in recent weeks we've seen israeli air raids in the baqaa valley, from the south in the east of your country. how likely do you believe it is that going to end up with all—out war between israel and hezbollah and what would that do to lebanon? to be quite honest, in the first few months we were thinking that

the intervention of larger nations, including the efforts that the us and france and some european countries were putting would really put an end to this or at least shield lebanon but today, i can tell you based on the escalation that has happened so far and the politics that we keep hearing about regarding the issues that are going on in israel that there is an interest to keep this war going. because the israeli prime minister has an interest to keep this war going because of his issues internally. that really is a big concern because they keep pushing the card and we've been seeing more escalation as well on lebanon in the past few weeks so i would say that things changed from a few months until today. i think we are at a serious risk of having this get out of control, from all parties engaged. and all the nations that

were trying to help lebanon has taken a little bit of a backseat in the past few weeks. the diplomatic movement that we have seen a few months ago is not as obvious today. it has been at least one month since we left lebanon to go to attend the world bank meetings. since then, we have not seen serious engagement to avoid, you know, a more regional war, as they call it. that is a very bleak assessment and in the middle of all of the concern, you clearly have about the direction in which the war is going, you still have to try to turn around the lebanese economy. ijust wonder, you were appointed at a time when the country was in complete economic meltdown. there was basically a de facto default in the banking sector. today, the currency is, frankly, still dominated by the us dollar. the local lebanese pound

has a black market rate which is nothing like the official rate and you said you would fix that but you haven't fixed it yet. to what extent do you feel your country is teetering on the brink of economic meltdown? i can tell you based on the work that has been done, despite the fact that the challenges were beyond, you know, the control of a new government that really started its work when everything was already — all the damage was done. 0n the front of the lebanese lead, i can tell you that since we took a and since we worked on some economic reforms, at least from the efforts that have been done by the minister of economy, they consider that us dollarising the economy was a bad decision, only since that day, we managed to stabilise the dollar. it's been over eight months now since i took the decision

to allow the dollar to be used and in the market and be used as the main currency for trade, etc etc. the dollar rate has been about 89,000. this has been a major step and then, by harvard university assured that what we did was the best thing, given the situation we on top of that, we tried to, you know, minimise the damage that was done with the loss of value of salaries for the public sector but it's all, i would say, band—aids until we have all of the reforms. well, exactly, band—aids until you get real reform. the world bank a year ago called for swift, decisive action, particularly on reform is the only way to restore long—term financial stability. i noticed in the budget that you managed to get through the national assembly, you have raised some taxes,

you have raised some tariffs but analysts looking at your economy still don't believe the sums add up. i mean, how are you going to convince the lebanese people to pay more tax and to actually get your government itself to be serious about rooting out corruption? well, the thing, stephen, is as we mentioned earlier, the problem that there is, amongst the political parties in lebanon, a kind of a stalemate situation now. none of the political parties seem to want to get to a resolve in lebanon. they are all waiting for the big deal to come through which would include 360 comprehensive political economic and social regional deals, anybody you talk to now on the street or in the government, they tell you we're waiting for the big and the regional deal to come,

to be able to first elect the president, get a new government because you know everything in lebanon now is a caretaker situation. 0ur government is a caretaker government. we lack the process of the head of the constitution which is a president. every other director or general director in the government is just replacing another one unofficially. so, we are in a state of caretaker government by all means and the political parties, particularly the parliament, is paralysed. all of the political parties are waiting to see what is the big package that is going to come from the international community? the deal between iran and the us? the french? everybody involved, the arab countries? what is the deal that is going to bring a president, solve the 1701... right, you said at the beginning of this, "stephen, i am going to be straight with you. "i will say how it is.

"i am an honest politician." but you just outlined your country cannot even elect a president. for1.5 years... yes! ..you have been without a president. you tell me somebody a bit detached from the sort of confessional, communal politics that has dogged lebanon for so long, how are you going to fix this? well, the only way out, stephen, and i had this discussion when we were in washington last week with the imf, when they were asking us whether you guys going to do all of the prior actions to get the final bill for the imf... yes! ..i was very clear as a member of the delegation and minister of economy, i told the world bank and the imf that you guys know that this government, after two years, got to a point where due to the political tensions among all of

the political parties, everybody is waiting for the big deal to get their best bite at the — or get the best share of the deal. everybody is refusing to make a serious decision to have a president, is refusing to make a serious decision to fix the economy, and that's shameful. i was not very happy and proud to be sitting in front of the imf, telling them that realistically, only a new government will get an imf deal going. this is the truth, stephen. hang on, you just used a powerful world. hang on, you just used a powerful word. right now, you are feeling ashamed of your own government? yes, i am ashamed, i am ashamed, and i'm not talking particularly about the council of ministers, i'm talking about the entire lebanese government, including our parliament. right. because the final decision of the law is not with the cabinet. it's with the parliament. crosstalk. i understand, you've made that point. here is a general thought for you. i said at the very beginning there were too many people inside lebanon who profit

from the chaos in your country. would it not help if, at some point, actually, as a country, began to accept that accountability is important — and i'm thinking of your former long—serving governor of the central bank riad salameh, who faces a host of serious accusations, particularly in europe, of embezzlement to the tune of him and his family to the tune of $300 million and he was allowed to leave office, as i understand it, is no longer living in lebanon. he is not right now subject to charge inside lebanon. and i should make it clear that he denies the allegations. it isn't about time that people like him are brought before a court of law and their guilt or innocence is properly tested ? he is held to account? i want to thank you for bringing this on because you have it on record in our last interview, and you were surprised when i answered a similar question and i told you that he should have

been out of his office, out of his job back when we did the interview. two years ago. and look what happened! nothing. yes, and my opinion didn't change, and i blamed our government to keep a person that was indicted or at least had suspicion of illegal activity at the time in office, handling the government's money, handling the people's money, you know? it was shameful at the time not to take a decision and now, it's even more shameful that over five major countries, including the us, canada, the united kingdom, france, switzerland, i'm not going to go further with the list, have charged and indicted and asked for, you know, to hold this person accountability and our own government didn't do anything. so, listen, final question because we're almost out of time but you keep coming back to the word �*shameful�*.

yes. when lebanese people inside and outside of the country hear you talk, isn't the biggest problem of all that the people of your country lose all hope and belief that your country can and will do better? well, people of lebanon, inside and outside, they know what is the way and the path forward to a true country, to a true government, to a true nation. whatever i'm saying will not impact them because they know that saying the truth and facing those issues is the only way out. there are people who always have hope and people will come back to lebanon but they know unless we hold people responsible, unless we acknowledge and say that we know what our problem is, we will never get a better lebanon. we will never build a real country. we need to acknowledge our problem, we need to say where the government messed up

for the past 20 years and start putting people injail and holding people accountable. amin salam, i thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk. thank you. thank you, stephen. hello there. on monday, we saw the first signs of some warmer weather, particularly across southeastern parts of the uk, in the sunshine and through the rest of the week it is going to be a warmer week. that's the good news. there's still going to be some rain around as well. mind you, and it's been across western areas, closer to low pressure and these weather fronts

that we've seen some further rain. but across the east, it is still looking dry on tuesday. see where the colder air is around the backside of that area of low pressure. but ahead of it, we're drawing in a southerly wind and that's going to push the warmth further north on tuesday. got a bit more rain now coming in to south west england, wales and for a while across northern ireland, just clipping western parts of scotland. many other eastern areas will be dry. it'll cloud over a bit more in east anglia in the southeast, threatening one or two light showers. but with that southerly wind, it's going to be a lot warmer than monday was across the midlands into northern england and also in scotland with temperatures possibly reaching 16 or 17 degrees here. the cloud coming into the southeast is on that weakening weather front that will push northwards, bring a little bit of rain on tuesday night, should have moved away by the time we get to wednesday. so some sunshine around on wednesday. a few showers left over

from some old weather fronts. but this thickening cloud coming in from the continent that will start to bring some rain across the english channel later on in the day. temperature—wise, though, not looking too bad at all, really. it's a bit more like it for this time of the year. we've got 17 degrees both in glasgow and also in birmingham on wednesday afternoon, but we're going to find an easterly wind picking up and that brings the risk of some mist and fog around the east coast of scotland, northeast england, it's a warmer wind, but it's coming in over the cold seas, hence that mist and fog at risk here. but aside from that, some sunshine in scotland, northern england, perhaps northern ireland for a while, more cloud further south and the chance of a bit more rain around. always going to be a bit cooler on thursday in wales and the south west of england. it will be cooler along the coast of eastern scotland. but for western scotland temperatures could reach 20 degrees in the highlands. still got that easterly wind as we head towards the end of the week. lower pressure to the south. mind you, we could see some further pulses of rain or showers coming back into england and wales and into northern ireland. looking drier at this stage across much of scotland, again, that easterly breeze. so the highest temperatures will be again across western scotland.

18 degrees in glasgow could get higher than that towards the west coast, but cooler where we've got that rain further south now as we head into the bank holiday weekend, this is where the forecast typically gets rather more difficult. there's not a great deal of consensus with the computer models. we may well see on saturday some showers or longer spells of rain coming up from the south across england and wales and a bit more cloud this time across western areas of scotland. so temperatures not quite so high on saturday. now, our preferred model is usually this one here, which is going for a wetter scenario through the bank holiday weekend. it may be a little bit too extreme, maybe a little bit focusing on the rain too much, but it's hinting at some lower pressure. so showers around probably over the bank holiday weekend. it's beyond that. we may see the weather changing back again and it may be turning a bit drier as well. and that's because the low pressures that we'll see for a while tend to get pushed away. and this blocking high pressure extends down from scandinavia. but a lot of uncertainty in the forecast

over the bank holiday weekend.

welcome to newsday, reporting live from singapore, i'm steve lai. the headlines... america's top diplomat calls on hamas to agree a ceasefire deal with israel,

as hopes rise of a breakthrough. us colleges continue to see protests against the gaza war nationwide, with protesters defying orders to leave and facing suspension. search begins for a new first minister of scotland after humza yousaf�*s resignation. flooding intensifies in kenya, with dozens of people killed after a dam bursts. a mysterious roman artefact goes on public display for the first time in the uk. welcome to bbc news — broadcasting to viewers in the uk and around the world. we begin in with the situation in the middle east. there are renewed hopes of a breakthrough in the ceasefire neotiations between israel

and hamas after weeks of stalemate between the two sides.