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By Timour Azhari BEIRUT (Reuters) -The U.S. Treasury has imposed sanctions on two top Lebanese contractors and a lawmaker close to the Hezbollah movement over alleged large-scale corruption that undermined the rule of law in Lebanon. Businessmen Jihad al-Arab and Dany Khoury, close to former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri and Christian politician Gebran Bassil respectively, were sanctioned on Thursday for alleged corruption related to state contracts. Lawmaker Jamil Sayyed was sanctioned for allegedly seeking to skirt domestic banking policies and regulations and transfer $120 million abroad, presumably to enrich himself and his associates, a Treasury statement said. The allegations come amid an unprecedented economic crisis in Lebanon blamed on years of bad policies and corruption by the ruling elite that the United Nations says has left three-quarters of the population affected by poverty. Sayyed did not directly deny allegations he had skirted banking regulations with a $120
BEIRUT (Reuters) -Firefighters put out a blaze that raged for several hours at a gasoline storage tank in southern Lebanon on Monday, the latest blow to a nation grappling with crippling economic and fuel crises. There were no reports of casualties in the fire at the Zahrani oil facility on the Mediterranean coast, which had sent a huge column of smoke into the sky. Energy minister Walid Fayad said the fire resulted from a mistake while gasoline was being transported from one storage tank to another, the National News Agency (NNA) reported. We must await the results of the investigation into the causes of the fire, he added. A security source and a witness said the blaze had been put out after a battle that lasted most of the morning. Fire trucks from Beirut some 45 km (30 miles) away were ordered to go and help, the NNA reported. The gasoline belonged to the army, the prime minister s office earlier quoted Fayad as saying earlier. The army had diverted traffic away from the facility i