Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

As fuel pumps remain dry, UK’s Johnson says plans in place for supply chains

By Michael Holden, Kylie MacLellan and Costas Pitas

LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Boris Johnson sought on Wednesday to quell public fears as panic-buying left fuel pumps dry across major cities, saying the government was making preparations to ensure supply chains were ready for the run-up to Christmas.

Johnson said the situation at gas stations was improving, though in many regions, hundreds of forecourts remained closed and motorists spent hours hunting for fuel or sat snarled in queues waiting to fill their tanks.

“We now are starting to see the situation improve. We are hearing from industry that supplies are coming back onto the forecourt in the normal way and I would just really urge everybody to go about their business in the normal way,” Johnson said in televised remarks.

Johnson’s comments were his first since the fuel supply problems began at the end of last week when oil companies reported difficulty transporting petrol and diesel from refineries to filling stations.

Opposition Labor leader Keir Starmer accused him and the government of lurching from “crisis to crisis”.

There have been growing calls for doctors, nurses and other essential workers to be given priority in filling their cars to keep hospitals and social care services running, but Johnson said it would be better if “we stabilize it in the normal way”.

SUPPLY CHAINS

An air of chaos has gripped Britain, the world’s fifth-largest economy, in recent weeks as a shortage of truck drivers strained supply chains and a spike in European wholesale natural gas prices tipped energy companies into bankruptcy.

The post-Brexit dearth of truckers has been exacerbated by a halt to truck-driving-license testing during COVID lockdowns as well as people leaving the haulage industry.

It has sown chaos through supply chains and raised the specter of widespread shortages, price increases ahead of Christmas, and a prolonged rise in inflation.

“What we want to do is make sure that we have all the preparations necessary to get through until Christmas and beyond, not just in supplying the petrol stations but all parts of our supply chain,” Johnson said.

To tackle the shortage of drivers, the government has been forced to bring in measures it had previously ruled out, such as issuing temporary visas to 5,000 foreign drivers.

It has also put a limited number of military tanker drivers on standby to be deployed to deliver fuel if necessary.

Haulers, petrol stations and retailers say there are no quick fixes as the shortfall of truck drivers – estimated at about 100,000 – is so acute, and because transporting fuel demands additional training and licensing.

Ministers want businesses to pay more and offer truckers better conditions, rather than count on cheap foreign labor.

“What I don’t think people in this country want to do is fix all our problems with uncontrolled immigration again,” Johnson said. “We tried that for a long time… and in the end people could see it was leading to a low-wage, low-skill approach.”

‘CRAZY’

Industry groups said the worst of the fuel shortages seemed to be in London, the southeast and other English cities. Fights have broken out at some forecourts as drivers jostled for fuel and pictures on social media showed some people filling up old water bottles with fuel.

“I can’t believe it – it’s crazy,” said David Scade, a 33-year-old delivery driver who drove for hours searching for fuel in London. “They keep saying there is no shortage but I suppose everyone is panicking now.”

The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), which represents independent fuel retailers who account for 65% of all the 8,380 UK forecourts, said there were signs the crisis was abating.

“We have conducted a survey of our members this morning and only 37% of forecourts have reported being out of fuel today,” said Gordon Balmer, executive director of the PRA, which had previously reported up to 90% of stations had problems.

“With regular restocks taking place, this percentage is likely to improve further over the next 24 hours.”

Retailers, truck drivers and logistics companies have warned that prices for everything from energy to Christmas gifts will have to rise because of the shortage of truck drivers.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) urged the government to broaden the size and scope of its temporary visa scheme.

“It will take many months before there are enough new British drivers to cover the shortfall,” said Andrew Opie, director of food and sustainability at the BRC.

European drivers have also indicated they would not take up the visa offer, which only lasts until Dec. 24. Some Polish haulers said the offer was laughable and the German freight industry said drivers who left after Brexit would not go back.

(Additional reporting by Ben Makori, James Davey, and Joice Alves in London and Rene Wagner in Berlin; Writing by Michael Holden and Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Alistair Bell, Philippa Fletcher, Nick Macfie and Gareth Jones)

Brazil hospital chain hid COVID-19 deaths, whistleblowers’ lawyer tells Senate

By Anthony Boadle

BRASILIA (Reuters) – A Brazilian hospital chain tested unproven drugs on elderly COVID-19 patients without their knowledge as part of an effort to validate President Jair Bolsonaro’s preferred ‘miracle cure,’ a lawyer for whistleblowing doctors told senators on Tuesday.

At least nine people died of COVID-19 during the trials at the Prevent Senior hospital chain from March to April 2020, but their charts were altered to hide the cause of death, lawyer Bruna Morato told a Senate inquiry.

Prevent Senior did not reply to a request for comment.

Pedro Batista, owner and executive director of the hospital chain, acknowledged in testimony to the Senate inquiry last week that patients’ charts where altered to remove any reference to COVID-19 after they had been hospitalized for two weeks, saying they were no longer a risk of contagion.

He denied testing unproven drugs on patients without their knowledge, saying patients were asking for treatments in clinical trials and doctors made the prescriptions they saw fit.

“It’s the doctor who prescribes any medicine and, at the time, everyone recalls comments from (President Bolsonaro) and other influential people, so there were a lot of patients demanding prescriptions,” Batista told the senators.

On Tuesday, Morato, representing 12 doctors employed at Prevent Senior, said the company threatened and fired doctors who disagreed with a predetermined “COVID kit” that included hydroxychloroquine, erythromycin and ivermectin. There is no scientific evidence that those drugs are beneficial in the treatment of COVID-19.

“Very vulnerable elderly patients were told there was a good treatment, but they did not know they were being used as guinea pigs,” Morato, the whistleblowers’ attorney, told senators investigating Brazil’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

She said doctors were told not to explain the treatment to the patients or their relatives.

“The purpose was to show that there was an effective treatment against COVID-19,” Morato said.

She said the hospital wanted to help the Bolsonaro government, which was touting the unproven drugs as an effective treatment against the virus that would protect Brazilians from contagion if they went back to work.

“It was like an exchange, I was told. Some doctors called it a pact, others described it as an alliance,” she said.

The Health Ministry did not reply to a request for comment. It is unclear how much the government knew about the alleged trials.

In a speech last week at the United Nations, Bolsonaro again praised “early treatment” of COVID-19 via off-label use of unspecified drugs, claiming that science would some day vindicate their use against the coronavirus.

The pandemic has killed nearly 600,000 Brazilians in the world’s second-deadliest outbreak outside the United States.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

Senate Republicans block U.S. debt-limit hike again

By David Morgan and Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Senate Republicans blocked an attempt by President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats on Tuesday to head off a potentially crippling U.S. credit default, raising questions about whether partisan tensions in Congress will threaten the nation’s economy.

With federal government funding due to expire on Thursday and borrowing authority set to run out on Oct. 18, Democrats who narrowly control both chambers of Congress are working to head off twin fiscal disasters while simultaneously trying to advance Biden’s ambitious legislative agenda.

So far, Republicans have prevented them from doing so.

Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday blocked a vote that would have suspended the nation’s $28.4 trillion debt limit. Senate Republicans a day earlier defeated legislation that would have raised the debt limit and extended government funding.

Lawmakers now have just three days to avert a possible government shutdown by midnight Thursday, the end of the current fiscal year. Failure to do so could result in furloughs for hundreds of thousands of federal workers in the middle of a public health crisis.

Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives and Senate said they would soon advance spending bills to head off a shutdown.

Fiscal brinkmanship has become a regular feature of U.S. politics thanks to ongoing partisan polarization.

The most recent government shutdown, occurring during the presidency of Biden’s Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, lasted 35 days before ending in January 2019.

A government shutdown or a default would be a setback for the Democrats, who ahead of next year’s congressional elections have portrayed themselves as the party of responsible government after Trump’s chaotic presidency.

Democrats are also struggling to unite behind two pillars of Biden’s domestic policy agenda: a $1 trillion infrastructure bill and a $3.5 trillion social spending package.

OCT. 18 DEADLINE

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told lawmakers that the government would run out of options to service the debt by Oct. 18. Republicans have refused to cooperate to raise the debt limit, saying they do not want to help Democrats spend more money. Democrats point out that much of the nation’s debt was incurred under Trump.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer proposed holding a vote to raise the debt limit that could pass with just the support of the chamber’s 48 Democrats and the two independents allied with them as long as Republicans agreed to allow the vote to occur.

“If Republicans really want to see the debt limit raised without providing a single vote, I’m prepared to hold that vote,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

But McConnell blocked the vote, saying Democrats should fold the debt-ceiling increase into a $3.5 trillion spending bill that would expand the nation’s social safety net. Democrats have already set up special rules that would allow that package to pass the Senate without Republican support.

Democrats are still negotiating the size and content of that package. It could take several weeks to clear Congress and reach Biden’s desk, dangerously close to the debt-limit deadline.

Schumer called that approach a “non starter.”

Democrats had originally planned to handle the social-spending bill, championed by the party’s left wing, in tandem with a $1.1 trillion infrastructure package that has drawn bipartisan support. But they have scheduled a House vote on the infrastructure bill on Thursday even though the social-spending bill is still being negotiated.

Lawmakers on the party’s left insisted that Congress must first pass the social spending bill.

“We articulated this position more than three months ago, and today it is still unchanged,” Representative Pramila Jayapal, leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a statement.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan, David Morgan and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Andy Sullivan, Will Dunham and Jonathan Oatis)

Chile lawmakers take ‘first step’ towards easing abortion rules

By Fabian Cambero

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Chile’s lower Chamber of Deputies approved on Tuesday a plan to debate a bill that would expand the legal access for women to get abortions, despite opposition from the South American country’s center-right government.

The lower house passed the motion with 75 votes in favor versus 68 against and two abstentions, which allows it to move forward examining the bill that proposed legalizing termination of pregnancy up to 14 weeks.

The bill still faces a lengthy process before it could become law. Chile in 2017 legalized abortion for women under conditions where their life was in danger, a fetus was unviable or when a pregnancy had resulted from rape.

“We are happy and excited because we have taken a tremendous step, which we did not expect, to be honest, in terms of the rights of women,” said lawmaker Maite Orsini, one of the promoters of the bill.

“This is a first step and we are not going to stop fighting until abortion is legal, free and safe for all women in Chile.”

The bill will now have to be reviewed by the legislative body’s Commission for Women and Gender Equity and then be voted on again in the Chamber of Deputies, before moving up to the Senate.

A number of countries around conservative Latin America have taken steps to decriminalize abortion, including Argentina last year and Mexico, where the Supreme Court unanimously ruled this month that penalizing abortion is unconstitutional.

(Reporting by Fabian Cambero; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Nick Macfie)

Drug distributors strike 1st opioid settlement with Native American tribe for $75 million

By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) -The three largest U.S. drug distributors will pay more than $75 million to resolve claims they fueled an opioid epidemic in the Cherokee Nation’s territory in Oklahoma, marking the first settlement with a tribal government in the litigation over the U.S. addiction crisis.

Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin on Tuesday said the settlement, which will be paid over 6-1/2 years, would “enable us to increase our investments in mental health treatment facilities and other programs to help our people recover.”

The deal announced by the Cherokee Nation came after distributors McKesson Corp, AmerisourceBergen Corp and Cardinal Health Inc, along with the drugmaker Johnson & Johnson, agreed to pay up to $26 billion to resolve similar claims by states and local governments.

That settlement did not cover any of the country’s Native American tribes. The three distributors are in talks to resolve those cases, and other companies continue to face similar lawsuits.

Drugmakers Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd and Endo International Plc on Tuesday separately said they agreed to pay $15 million and $7.5 million, respectively, to resolve claims they contributed to the opioid epidemic in Louisiana. Teva will also donate $3 million worth of medications.

The distributors in a statement called the deal “an important step toward reaching a broader settlement with all federally recognized Native American tribes across the country.” The companies deny wrongdoing.

The Cherokee Nation became the first Native American tribe to sue drug distributors and pharmacy operators in 2017. The sovereign Cherokee Nation has more than 390,000 citizens.

It accused the distributors of flooding its territory with millions of prescription opioid pills, an oversupply of addictive painkillers that resulted in abuse and overdose deaths that disproportionately affected Native Americans.

More than 3,300 similar lawsuits have been filed by states, counties, cities and tribal governments. Nearly 500,000 people died due to opioid overdoses in the United States from 1999 to 2019, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Cherokee Nation, represented by the law firms Boies Schiller Flexner, Fields PLLC, and Whitten Burrage, also sued pharmacy operators CVS Health, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc and Walmart Inc. They deny wrongdoing.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in BostonEditing by Bill Berkrot)

U.N. aid chief to Ethiopia on famine in Tigray: ‘Get those trucks moving’

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Tuesday he assumes famine has taken hold in Ethiopia’s Tigray where a nearly three-month long “de-facto blockade” has restricted aid deliveries to 10% of what is needed in the war-torn region.

Griffiths told Reuters during an interview that his request was simple: “Get those trucks moving.”

“This is man-made, this can be remedied by the act of government,” he said.

War broke out 10 months ago between Ethiopia’s federal troops and forces loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which controls Tigray. Thousands have died and more than two million people have been forced to flee their homes.

“We predicted that there were 400,000 people in famine-like conditions, at risk of famine, and the supposition was that if no aid got to them adequately they would slip into famine,” said Griffiths, referring to a U.N. assessment in June.

“I have to assume that something like that is happening,” he said, adding that it was difficult to know exactly what the situation was on the ground in Tigray because of a de-facto aid blockade and lack of fuel, cash and trucks.

Ethiopia’s U.N. mission in New York said that “any claim on the existence of blockade is baseless.” It said aid groups “faced shortage in trucks as a result of the non-return of almost all trucks that traveled to Tigray to deliver aid.”

Truck drivers carrying aid into Tigray have been shot at at least twice and some Tigrayan drivers have been arrested in the neighboring region of Afar, although they were later released, according to U.N. reports.

Griffiths said a lot of trucks go into Tigray and don’t come back, compounding the humanitarian problems.

“First of all, they probably don’t have fuel to come out,” he said. “And secondly, they may not wish to, so the consequences for humanitarian operations – whatever the cause – is problematic.”

In Tigray the United Nations says 5.2 million people, or 90% of the population, need help.

According to the United Nations, screening of children under age 5 during the first half of September revealed that 22.7% of are malnourished and more than 70% of some 11,000 pregnant or breastfeeding women are acutely malnourished.

“As a comparison this is about the same levels of malnutrition that we saw in 2011 in Somalia at the onset of the Somali famine,” Griffiths said.

Griffiths said 100 trucks a day of aid needed to get to Tigray, but only 10% had gained access in the past three months.

“We need the Ethiopian government to do what they promised to do which is to facilitate access,” said Griffiths, who met with Ethiopia’s Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen last week during the annual U.N. gathering of world leaders in New York.

Mekonnen assured him that access is improving, but Griffiths said “it needs to improve a great deal more.”

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; editing by Grant McCool)

U.S. consumer confidence hits seven-month low; goods trade deficit widens

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. consumer confidence fell to a seven-month low in September as a relentless rise in COVID-19 cases deepened concerns about the economy’s near-term prospects, fitting in with expectations for a slowdown in growth in the third quarter.

The survey from the Conference Board on Tuesday showed consumers less interested in buying a home and big-ticket items such as motor vehicles and major household appliances over the next six months. Consumers were also not as upbeat in their views of the labor market as in the prior month.

Economic activity has cooled in recent months as the boost from pandemic relief money faded and infections flared up, driven by the highly contagious variant of the coronavirus.

“But given that wave seems to be cresting, there’s hope confidence just hit its nadir,” said Robert Frick, corporate economist at Navy Federal Credit Union in Vienna, Virginia. “Assuming predictions of Delta dropping hold true, this setback may be a three-month trough during the recovery rally.”

The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index dropped to a reading of 109.3 this month from 115.2 in August. The third straight monthly decline pushed the index to the lowest level since February.

The measure, which places more emphasis on the labor market, has dropped 19.6 points from a peak of 128.9 in June. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the index nudging up to 114.5.

“These back-to-back declines suggest consumers have grown more cautious and are likely to curtail spending going forward,” said Lynn Franco, senior director of economic indicators at the Conference Board in Washington.

Consumers’ inflation expectations over the next 12 months slipped to 6.5% from 6.7% last month. The Federal Reserve last week projected its key inflation measure at 3.7% this year. That was up from the 3.0% median the U.S. central bank projected back in June. The U.S. central bank has a flexible 2% inflation target.

The Conference Board’s so-called labor market differential, derived from data on respondents’ views on whether jobs are plentiful or hard to get, fell to a reading of 42.5 this month from 44.4 in August.

This measure closely correlates to the unemployment rate in the Labor Department’s closely watched employment report. September’s employment report is due to be released next Friday.

Stocks on Wall Street were trading lower. The dollar rose against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury prices fell.

HOUSE PRICES SURGE

Fewer households intended to buy long-lasting manufactured goods such as motor vehicles and household appliances like washing machines and clothes dryers this month. That supports expectations for a sharp slowdown in consumer spending this quarter, which will ultimately restrain economic growth.

Gross domestic product growth estimates for the third quarter are mostly below a 5% annualized rate. The economy grew at a 6.6% pace in the second quarter.

Expectations for slower GDP growth were reinforced by a separate report from the Commerce Department on Tuesday showing the goods trade deficit rose 0.9% to $87.6 billion in August as businesses imported more products to replenish inventories. Trade has subtracted from GDP growth for four straight quarters.

Imports of goods climbed 0.8% to $236.6 billion, lifted by consumer goods and industrial supplies. But imports of food, capital goods and motor vehicles fell. Motor vehicle imports were likely weighed down by a global shortage of semiconductors, which is impacting production.

Rising imports offset a 0.7% gain in goods exports to $149.0 billion, supported by industrial supplies and consumer goods. But the nation reported a decline in exports of capital goods, motor vehicles and food products. Exports are increasing as global economies continue to recover from the pandemic.

Some of the increase in imports ended up in warehouses at wholesalers and retailers. Wholesale inventories accelerated 1.2% last month after gaining 0.6% in July. Stocks at retailers edged up 0.1% after increasing 0.4% in July. Retail inventories were held back by a 1.5% tumble in stocks of motor vehicle. The drop, which followed a 0.2% gain in July, reflected shortages related to the scarcity of microchips.

Retail inventories excluding autos, which go into the calculation of GDP, rose 0.6% after advancing 0.5% in the prior month. Business inventories were sharply drawn down in the first half of the year. Last month’s increase should soften the hit to GDP growth from the widening goods trade deficit.

News on the housing market was discouraging, with the Conference Board survey showing less enthusiasm among consumers for home purchases over the next six months amid higher house prices, which are pushing homeownership out of the reach of many.

A third report on Tuesday showed the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home price index surged a record 19.7% in July from a year ago after accelerating 18.7% in June.

Sustained house price inflation was corroborated by a fourth report from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) showing house prices soared a record 19.2% in the 12 months through July. That followed an 18.9% jump in June.

(Reporting By Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

Afghan army collapse ‘took us all by surprise,’ U.S. defense secretary

By Phil Stewart and Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Congress on Tuesday that the Afghan army’s sudden collapse caught the Pentagon off-guard as he acknowledged miscalculations in America’s longest war including corruption and damaged morale in Afghan ranks.

“The fact that the Afghan army we and our partners trained simply melted away – in many cases without firing a shot – took us all by surprise,” Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“It would be dishonest to claim otherwise.”

Austin was speaking at the start of two days of what are expected to be some of the most contentious hearings in memory over the chaotic end to the war in Afghanistan, which cost the lives of U.S. troops and civilians and left the Taliban back in power.

The Senate and House committees overseeing the U.S. military are holding hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively, where Republicans are hoping to zero in on what they see as mistakes that President Joe Biden’s administration made toward the end of the two-decade-old war.

It follows similar questioning two weeks ago that saw U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken staunchly defending the administration, even as he faced calls for his resignation.

Austin praised American personnel who helped airlift 124,000 Afghans out of the country, an operation that also cost the lives of 13 U.S. troops and scores of Afghans in a suicide bombing outside the Kabul airport.

“Was it perfect? Of course not,” Austin said, noting the desperate Afghans who killed trying to climb the side of a U.S. military aircraft or the civilians killed in the last U.S. drone strike of the war.

Senator James Inhofe, the Senate Armed Services Committee’s top Republican, squarely blamed the Biden administration for what critics say was a shameful end to a 20-year endeavor. Inhofe said Biden ignored the recommendations of his military leaders and left many Americans behind after the U.S. withdrawal.

“We all witnessed the horror of the president’s own making,” Inhofe said of Afghanistan.

Many of the hardest questions may fall to the two senior U.S. military commanders testifying: Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Marine General Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Thai volunteer takes to skies to drop supplies to flood victims

BANGKOK (Reuters) – A paramotoring enthusiast in northern Thailand has taken to the skies to help deliver urgently need supplies to people cut off by floods.

Thrill-seeker Vichai Tiyasan, 38, has been motoring over waterlogged lands to drop off dry food and essential items in Sukhothai, one of 30 provinces impacted by floods in the past week.

Footage of his ultralight aviation endeavors have been shared widely on social media.

“The flood covers most areas of Sukhothai province. The situation is worse comparing to the past years,” Vichai told Reuters by phone.

A paramotor, also known as a powered paraglider, comprises a back-mounted metal frame with a propeller driven by a petrol-fueled motor resembling a giant household fan. The pilot can steer it using brake toggles that are similar to that of a parachutist.

At least six people died and two were missing in the floods, according to the disaster agency, which has also issued flood warnings in areas along the Chaophraya river, including the capital Bangkok.

Thailand is no stranger to flooding and in 2011 was hit by its worst floods in half a century, in a crisis that lasted months and saw hundreds of people killed, heavy industry devastated and many parts of the capital paralyzed.

(Reporting by Jiraporn Kuhakan, Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

Beirut blast probe faces derailment for second time

BEIRUT (Reuters) -A probe into the catastrophic Beirut port explosion faced the risk of being derailed for the second time this year on Monday when a senior politician wanted for questioning filed a complaint doubting the lead investigator’s impartiality.

The move followed a smear campaign by Lebanon’s political class against Judge Tarek Bitar, who was appointed after his predecessor was forced out following similar accusations by officials he wanted to question about suspected negligence.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati expressed hope Bitar would continue in his role, saying Lebanon could not bear the removal of a second judge after the complaint led to the probe being frozen pending a court ruling.

In an apparent show of support for Bitar, Mikati told broadcaster LBCI he had heard Bitar was above all suspicion and that security precautions had been taken regarding threats that were said to have been made against at him, though Mikati said the decision to freeze the probe was a judicial matter.

More than a year since the blast, attempts to bring any senior official to account for the more than 200 lives lost and thousands injured have made no progress, with powerful parties including the Shi’ite group Hezbollah and others in the ruling elite alleging bias in the investigation.

The probe was frozen on Monday on the basis of the complaint by Nohad Machnouk, a Sunni Muslim lawmaker and former interior minister Bitar wanted to question on suspicion of negligence.

The blast, one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded, was caused by a huge quantity of ammonium nitrate that was unsafely stored at the port from 2013.

A judicial source told Reuters the investigation must now remain on hold until the court of cassation decides either to accept or reject the complaint.

“There is great anger among the families. There is a type of disgust towards the political class,” said Ibrahim Hoteit, a spokesperson for victims’ families whose brother was killed in the blast, responding to Monday’s move.

The families, who accuse Lebanon’s entrenched political class of impunity, have demanded an international probe, saying every time the investigation begins it gets blocked.

“It’s clear they are using all legal means and immunities to stop the investigation,” said Nizar Saghieh, head of The Legal Agenda, a research and advocacy organization. “The impunity system is defending itself in an ugly way without boundaries.”

Bitar has faced opposition since July, with politicians refusing to waive the immunity of several former ministers and security officials the judge wanted to investigate.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah last month accused Bitar of “playing politics” and called the probe “politicized”.

Bitar’s predecessor, judge Fadi Sawan, was removed after a similar complaint from two former ministers he had charged.

Bitar had issued requests in July to question former prime minister Hassan Diab and other top officials charged by his predecessor with negligence over the blast.

All have denied wrongdoing.

On Sept. 16, he issued an arrest warrant for former public works minister Youssef Finianos after he failed to show up for questioning, the first against a top official in the case.

A document seen by Reuters and sent just over two weeks before the blast showed the president and prime minister were warned about the risks posed by the chemicals and that they could destroy the capital.

(Reporting By Laila Bassam and Maha El Dahan; Editing by Jon Boyle, Tom Perry, David Evans, William Maclean and Jonathan Oatis)