The backstory: Lebanon's prisons are critically overcrowded, and a general amnesty law has been debated for years. The push intensified as humanitarian conditions deteriorated and security forces accumulated tens of thousands of outstanding arrest warrants across the country.

• Joint parliamentary committees approved an amended amnesty draft on Tues⁠day, with Speaker Berri calling a general parliamentary session for Thurs⁠day to put it to a final vote.
• The formula reduces death sentences to 28 years of imprisonment (approximately 21 actual years, since a prison year equals 9 months), and life sentences to roughly 13 actual years; detainees held over 14 years without a final judgment would be released while trials continue.
• Hard exceptions remain—terrorism, corruption, public funds crimes, money laundering, rape, human trafficking, and domestic violence are all excluded from the amnesty's scope.
• Unofficial figures suggest over 12,000 wanted persons exist nationwide, concentrated heavily in Bekaa (50%) and the North (20%), though thousands of outstanding warrants can be issued against a single individual.

What to watch: The contentious clause releasing detainees held over 14 years without final verdicts still lacks full consensus inside the committees, meaning Thurs⁠day's general assembly vote could see last-minute amendments or splits along bloc lines.

• The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Union announced a $22 million funding package for Spinneys operator Gray Mackenzie Retail Lebanon—the first EBRD investment in Lebanon since 2019.
• The package breaks down as a $20.5 million loan plus a $1.5 million investment grant for energy efficiency and capital expenditure, structured under the EU's Municipal, Infrastructure and Industrial Resilience Guarantee program.
• The funding is expected to create between 800 and 1,000 direct and indirect jobs, finance three to four new store branches, and establish new meat and chicken production facilities.
• Economy Minister Amer Bisat also toured Tripoli, signing MoUs at the Chamber of Commerce, presenting a new logistics center at the Free Economic Zone, and inaugurating a solar power plant inside the Rachid Karami International Fair—which has recently attracted over 120,000 visitors.

Why it matters: The EBRD's return to Lebanon for the first time in five years signals that at least some international institutions still see a viable private sector here, even as the broader economy remains in freefall since 2019.

• Rafic Hariri International Airport is operating at around 45% of its Apr⁠il 2025 capacity since the ceasefire, up from just 25–35% during active hostilities between Feb⁠ruary 28 and the truce—but still far below normal levels, according to Civil Aviation chief Captain Mohammed Aziz, as reported in An-Nahar.
• Daily passenger traffic currently stands at about 10,700; from May⁠ 1–19, 84,367 passengers arrived while 72,987 departed.
• More than 13 airlines have returned—including Qatar Airways, Emirates, Turkish Airlines, and EgyptAir—but most have slashed frequencies; Turkish Airlines dropped from 4 daily flights to 1, Emirates from 3–4 to 1.
• Ticket prices have risen roughly 20% due to fuel and insurance costs, with jet fuel climbing from around $700 to nearly $2,000; a family of five from Montreal now faces travel costs of up to $10,000–$12,000, versus $5,000–$6,000 before.

Zooming out: European carriers like Lufthansa and Eurowings continue to suspend Beirut routes—not solely because of Lebanon, but as part of a broader Middle East risk calculation that won't shift until the region's security picture stabilizes.

• Kardo Jaf, a 28-year-old Iraqi Kurd who operated under the alias Kardo Ranya, was arrested by Kurdistan Regional Security Agency officers after a BBC investigation unmasked his real identity, which he had kept secret to evade international arrest warrants.
• Jaf's network is believed to have transported thousands of migrants across the English Channel into the UK in recent years; he had advertised a "VIP" family smuggling service priced at £160,000, with cheaper options involving dangerously overpacked boats.
• The UK's National Crime Agency confirmed a suspected smuggler had been arrested on May⁠ 13, with its Director General of Operations stating the NCA currently has more than 100 active investigations into top-tier organized immigration crime networks across the Middle East and Africa.

The bigger picture: The case illustrates how open-source journalism and law enforcement coordination can reach smuggling networks that previously operated with relative impunity across international borders.

• RSF Brigadier General Al-Fateh Abdullah Idris, known as "Abu Lulu," was sanctioned by the UN Security Council on Feb⁠ruary 24 for human rights abuses after four videos verified by Reuters showed him shooting at least 15 unarmed captives in al-Fashir on Oct⁠ober 27 during the RSF's takeover of the city.
• Nine sources told Reuters that Abu Lulu has since been released from prison and returned to active combat in Kordofan; 3 separate sources—including an RSF commander and an RSF officer—said the deputy RSF commander personally ordered his release.
• The RSF-led government issued a statement flatly denying the release, saying Abu Lulu "has been in detention since arrest and has never left prison," while Reuters was unable to independently reach Abu Lulu or confirm the exact date of his release.
• A separate UN probe had found more than 6,000 people were killed by RSF fighters between Oct⁠ober 25 and 27 alone, and an independent UN investigation concluded the mass killings in al-Fashir bear the hallmarks of genocide.

What to watch: Whether the RSF-appointed accountability committee proceeds with a formal trial—or whether Abu Lulu's reported return to combat signals how much weight that process carries—will be closely tracked by UN monitors and international rights groups.

• Researchers have updated their framework of plausible carbon emission scenarios, retiring the extreme ends: the new worst case projects 3.5 degrees Celsius of warming by 2100—a full degree less than the old scenario—while even the best case now shoots past the Paris Agreement's 1.5-degree target.
• The world is currently about 1.3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and warming at roughly a tenth of a degree every five years; the "middle" scenario, which scientists say reflects society's current trajectory, projects 3 degrees of warming by century's end.
• The improved upper-end outlook is partly credited to renewable energy costs falling by nearly 90% over the past 15 years, though scientists warn that climate feedbacks—such as carbon releases from oceans and forests—could add another 0.5 degrees on top of emissions-driven projections.

Zooming out: The narrowing of scenarios captures both the measurable progress of the global energy transition and the gap that still exists between current policy ambition and the pace required to avoid significant climate disruption.