Lebanese expert suggests multiple parties involved in deadly pager attack

A Lebanese expert said he believes that Israel worked with other countries and foreign companies to conduct two widespread attacks in Lebanon that have killed 37 people so far.

Tuesday's pager explosions in Lebanon killed 12 people, with 2,323 others injured, Lebanese Health Minister Firas Abiad said at a news conference on Thursday, adding that 226 people injured on Tuesday are still hospitalized.

The death toll in explosions of hand-held radios across the country on Wednesday rose to 25 with 608 injured, Abiad said.

During an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN) in the Lebanese capital Beirut on Wednesday, Ali Omais, director of the Center for Strategic Research and Studies at Makassed University of Beirut, analyzed the causes of the explosion.

"This is a very dangerous incident because Israel was able to penetrate Hezbollah. And Hezbollah also holds Israel responsible. This issue is considered very dangerous, because Israel was able to penetrate Hezbollah's security structure. Just as it was able to penetrate the devices, it was also able to penetrate Hezbollah’s security systems and knew that they would purchase a large quantity of pagers. Because booby-trapping these pagers requires technical support from multiple parties, I believe that the Israelis cooperated with other countries and companies. Such an act also requires large devices, which may have come from the manufacturers of these pagers in the first place. So I believe that there is cooperation from several parties, including Israel, to booby-trap these devices," he said.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Thursday in a televised speech that the deadly device explosions across Lebanon are "an act of war and a declaration of war by Israel."

Israel "violated all red lines," Nasrallah said, calling the incidents "massacres."

He stressed that Hezbollah will not stop its military operations until the conflict in the Gaza Strip ends.

Nasrallah also noted that Hezbollah has set up several internal investigation committees to conduct in-depth examinations into the explosions at the technical and security levels, in order to obtain results in a short period of time.

Lebanese expert suggests multiple parties involved in deadly pager attack

Lebanese expert suggests multiple parties involved in deadly pager attack

China's top regulators on Monday announced a series of detailed measures to further ease the burden on companies and step up support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The specific measures include addressing the practical difficulties troubling small and micro market entities in production and operation and will keep enhancing targeted and differentiated assistance to individually owned businesses, said Luo Wen, head of the State Administration for Market Regulation, at a press conference in Beijing on Monday.

And the government will strive to effectively alleviate the burden on enterprises and make more efforts to reduce institutional transaction costs, he said.

"We will vigorously advance the reform on one-stop government services, pushing the services for enterprises to shift from 'multiple places, multiple windows and multiple times' to 'one place, one window and one time.' We will make greater efforts to reduce the burden on enterprises and carry out special inspections and random checks on illegal charges levied on businesses with the focus on key charging bodies and key industry sectors," said Luo.

He said the financial supervision departments will strive to step up their efforts on support for the real economy to alleviate the financing difficulties of small and micro businesses.

Luo emphasized the need to tailor financial products and services for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, and implement differentiated arrangements in terms of credit lines, interest rates, financing maturities, and repayment methods.

"We will promote the combined effect of equity, funds, bonds and other financing instruments, and realize an amount of 300 billion yuan (about 42.4 billion U.S. dollars) of credit enhancement and granting for quality financing each year, which will fully benefit all types of businesses," said Luo.

Top regulators release plans to support SMEs by streamlining services and boost financing