After years of a trade ban that cost Lebanon one of its most valuable export markets, Saudi Arabia has formally directed its private sector to start importing Lebanese goods again — a royal order, a first shipment, and new scanning machines at Beirut port to prove it.

• Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Foreign Trade circulated a royal order from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the Federation of Saudi Chambers, instructing companies to resume importing Lebanese products.
• The first shipment left Beirut port on Jun⁠e 20 bound for Jeddah Islamic Port, in the presence of Saudi Ambassador Fahd Al-Dosari — the ceremony was framed explicitly as a symbol of rebuilt trust.
• Saudi Arabia was Lebanon's top export market before the ban, accounting for roughly 12% of Lebanon's total exports and valued at approximately $378 million in 2014; the Kingdom alone represents about 85% of the Gulf market.
• Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said Lebanon would not be allowed to become a launchpad for harm against Arab neighbors, and the port's new scanning devices are designed to back that pledge with verifiable security controls.

Why it matters: Regaining access to a market that once dominated Lebanon's Gulf export market — at a moment when the country desperately needs hard-currency revenue — could meaningfully shift the economic outlook if the trade volumes actually recover.

Lebanon's biggest banks are turning profits for the first time in years, but the numbers tell a more complicated story: the sector is still largely frozen in place, waiting for a restructuring that hasn't arrived.

• Bank Audi recorded profits of $19.39 million in Q1 2026, up from just $1.7 million in Q1 2025 — driven mainly by a 19% rise in commissions collected from customers, not a recovery in lending.
• Bank of Beirut and the Arab Countries swung from a loss of $59.75 million in Q1 2025 to a profit of $53.87 million in Q1 2026, while loans to customers rose 13% year-on-year to over $1.12 billion — a real, if narrow, return to lending.
• At the sector level, banks' placements with Banque du Liban still represent 75% of total balance sheet volume, while total loans have fallen to just 4.16% of the balance sheet — a year-on-year decrease of 7.36%.

Zooming out: The profit recovery signals that banks are stabilizing their income lines, but with three-quarters of assets parked at the central bank and restructuring still unresolved, the sector's ability to fuel a real economic rebound remains tightly constrained.

Lebanon's Justice Minister walked into an international congress in Paris and announced the country is formally moving to end capital punishment — drawing applause from the crowd and a pointed comment from Emmanuel Macron aimed at Israel.

• Justice Minister Adel Nassar announced at the 9th International Congress Against the Death Penalty that "Lebanon has begun the process of abolishing the death penalty after a moratorium of more than 20 years."
• The congress was organized by the French association Ensemble Contre la Peine de Mort (ECPM) and held at the Maison de la Radio et de la Musique in Paris on Jun⁠e 30.
• French President Emmanuel Macron publicly thanked Lebanon for the announcement, calling it a "courageous" decision while contrasting it with what he described as opposite moves elsewhere in the region.

What to watch: An announcement at an international congress is a political commitment, not yet a law — the question now is how quickly Lebanon's parliament translates the moratorium into formal abolition legislation.

An investigative report by the Tiny Hand organization reveals how children of detainees were systematically stripped of their names, registered under false identities, and scattered across a network of Assad-era care homes — and how thousands are still missing to⁠day.

• The Syrian Network for Human Rights database indicates at least 5,359 children remain under arrest or enforced disappearance from Mar⁠ch 2011 to Nov⁠ember 20, 2025, including 3,736 disappeared by the former Assad regime.
• Documents reviewed by investigators show children with known identities were registered as "foundlings" through a chain of security referrals, care homes, and police reports — with lineages formally altered in civil registries.
• Syria's current authorities launched a widespread arrest campaign in 2025, detaining former Ministers of Social Affairs and Labor and multiple care home directors as part of ongoing investigations into the file.
• A committee inside the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor is verifying cases daily, but its coordinator told investigators the file is too large to be handled by one ministry alone.

The bigger picture: The scale of the file — children who grew up under different names, in different families, across a fractured country — means that even as Syria rebuilds institutions, the human cost of the Assad years will take decades to fully reckon with.

Amnesty International has published a sweeping report accusing Sudan's Rapid Support Forces of crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing during their campaign to seize the city of el-Fashir between 2024 and 2025.

• Amnesty interviewed 247 victims or witnesses between early 2024 and Oct⁠ober 2025 in North Darfur, documenting systematic attacks on Zaghawa settlements around el-Fashir.
• The report alleged widespread deliberate violence against children, including killing, abductions, forced recruitment, and rape, with RSF fighters burning homes long after residents had fled — consistent, Amnesty said, with intent to render areas uninhabitable.
• During the RSF's final offensive on el-Fashir in Oct⁠ober 2025, Amnesty said "hundreds were executed, and many others were tortured or detained" as they attempted to flee.
• A UN independent fact-finding mission in Feb⁠ruary had separately concluded that the 2025 assault on el-Fashir bore the "hallmarks of genocide."

What to watch: Amnesty stressed its investigation is ongoing and that its findings "may be relevant to the crime of genocide" — a legal threshold that, if pursued, would put pressure on the UN Security Council to act as the RSF now threatens el-Obeid in North Kordofan.

Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund has published its first audited financials on the London Stock Exchange, revealing a year in which net profit more than doubled and total assets crossed the trillion-dollar mark — numbers that put it among the world's most consequential sovereign wealth funds.

• Net profit surged 152% to $17.36 billion in 2025, while operating profit climbed to $20.8 billion from $9.2 billion in 2024 — growth of more than 120%.
• Total assets rose 5% to $1.21 trillion, up from roughly 720 billion riyals in 2017, with the fund targeting 10 trillion riyals by 2030 under Saudi Vision 2030.
• The fund issued its first euro-denominated green bond worth 1.65 billion euros, with demand exceeding the offering by more than six times, signaling strong foreign investor appetite.

Zooming out: The PIF's trillion-dollar milestone — and its new 2026-2030 strategy shifting from sector-building to integrated economic ecosystems — positions Saudi Arabia as a central node in global capital flows at a moment when regional investment competition is intensifying.