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This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: Lawsuit seeks accountability for Beirut port blast

Marc Filippino
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Wednesday, August 25th. This is your FT News Briefing.

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Joe Biden won’t budge on the deadline to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan. And the UK is rolling out new rules to try to protect children’s data online. Plus, we’ll look at a lawsuit over the explosion at the port of Beirut that killed more than 200 people.

Kate Beioley
It’s been a year and there’s still no clarity around the situation, really.

Marc Filippino
I’m Marc Filippino, and here’s the news you need to start your day.

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Joe Biden is sticking to his plan to pull American troops out of Afghanistan by August 31st. The president did so despite pressure from key allies to extend the deadline. He repeated his decision yesterday.

Joe Biden
Each day of operations brings added risk to our troops. But the completion by August 31st depends upon the Taliban continuing to co-operate and allow access to the airport for those who were (inaudible), transported out.

Marc Filippino
Now, some suggest that Biden doesn’t want an extension because he’d have to negotiate that with the Taliban, and that could make him look weak. Here’s the FT’s Aime Williams on what the administration is saying to that.

Aime Williams
Their response is that it’s not a sign of weakness. The Taliban have control of Kabul. Those are the facts on the ground — they’re co-operating with the Taliban and they want out. But they also reiterate, you know, if the Taliban use force, then US forces will respond as they’re allowed to do in self-defence. They’re quite sensitive to the suggestion that it’s a weak posture. But it does seem to be true that they are relying on the Taliban’s co-operation at this time, for sure.

Marc Filippino
So Aime, let’s switch gears to what is considered a pretty contentious issue, and that’s refugees coming out of Afghanistan. Biden touched on that a bit in his White House press conference yesterday. What did he have to say?

Aime Williams
Well, he reiterated something he said actually on Sunday when he spoke from the White House as well, which is that he feels the US has a duty to take in Afghans who’ve helped the US mission in Afghanistan to rehouse them, give them visas, let them live on continental US soil. We know that the Pentagon is using full military bases at the moment, they’re aiming to hold 25,000 Afghan refugees essentially across those four bases. And we know that a few planes, I think it was four or five planes, have landed at Washington Dulles Airport so far full of refugees. And we know that that number will increase for sure.

Marc Filippino
That’s the FT’s Aime Williams.

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Next week, the UK will have new rules for social media companies, video streaming services and gaming platforms. The goal is to protect children’s data. The Information Commissioner’s Office or ICO is issuing the rules which look to limit companies from tracking location or personalising content or advertising for kids. Regulators also want to target behavioural nudges, like automatically playing videos so that kids are hooked and keep watching. Companies that break the code could face a fine of up to 4 per cent of global turnover. Some of the world’s biggest social media companies have already announced changes ahead of the UK regulations going into effect. So take YouTube. It said it would turn off default auto play on videos for children under 18. Instagram introduced a new feature preventing adults from messaging people under 18 who don’t follow them. And TikTok said it would no longer send push notifications to kids after certain times at night. US lawmakers have been keeping an eye on UK regulations, and they’ve called on American companies to adopt them, although voluntarily.

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It’s been a year since a massive explosion at the port of Beirut killed more than 200 people and caused billions of dollars in damage to Lebanon’s capital, but no one has been held accountable yet. Now, a group of Lebanese lawyers, along with individuals affected by the blast, are suing Savaro, the chemical company that’s based in the UK. The FT’s legal correspondent Kate Beioley joins me now to talk more about this. Hi Kate.

Aime Williams
Hiya.

Marc Filippino
Kate, can you give us some details about this case, which is now at the High Court in London?

Kate Beioley
Yeah, sure. Well, I mean, as you said, the case relates to this massive explosion in the port of Beirut last year, which killed more than 200 people. It was caused when hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate that were being stored in the port ignited and triggered this massive blast. So the case is being brought by Lebanese lawyers against the UK registered chemicals company, which they say was responsible for that explosion. Now, they claim that Savaro, that chemicals company, owned the chemicals and is responsible for the blast. And they said the loss of life and all of the damage because they weren’t properly stored or disposed of. And we should say that Savaro itself hasn’t called a defence yet. So we don’t know what their full argument will be. We know they will defend the case. And we know they’ve said that the company was dormant.

Marc Filippino
Yes, so let’s talk about Savaro. What do we actually know about this company?

Kate Beioley
Yeah, I mean, maybe it’s helpful to go back to the kind of root of this issue. So this legal challenge is claiming that Savaro owns this almost 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate, which was destined for an explosives company in Mozambique in 2013. What happened is the ship that was transporting that cargo found it in Beirut’s port. And that material, the chemicals were then offloaded the following year, 2014, to this port warehouse at the instructions of Lebanese court. Now, in terms of the ownership, there has been some controversy around that as well. So a new Savaro director was appointed on Friday and Ukrainian lawyer who said that he’d acquired the company’s corporate ownership.

Marc Filippino
And what are the Lebanese lawyers hoping to achieve with this lawsuit? Are they seeking damages or are they looking to assign blame? What’s the direction here?

Kate Beioley
Well, they are seeking damages. I mean, mainly it’s been a year and there is still no clarity around the situation, really. So the victims families, you know, everyone is still really in the dark about exactly what happened and who is to blame. There’s a domestic investigation into what happened, but that’s been hampered by political interference. The main thing is that no one has been held accountable. So mainly lawyers just say they want justice for this horrendous tragedy and they are also seeking damages. But those will be calculated at a later time. The main thing here is, is really an attempt to hold someone to account.

Marc Filippino
Kate Beioley is the FT’s legal correspondent.

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Before we go, a word from a pandemic winner.

Danielle Bennett
Low and slow, 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Take a look at that sexy mahogany fella off the grill.

Marc Filippino
That’s Danielle Bennett, otherwise known as Diva Q. She’s grilling pork butts in a video for bbqguys.com. The online barbecue retailer went public the summer via Spac or blank cheque merger at a valuation of nearly $1bn. Now, in case you didn’t know, Americans love to cook outdoors. I am very much in this category. And according to one industry survey, two out of three American adults own a grill or smoker. During the pandemic, all that time at home and outdoor entertaining made grill sales even hotter. So companies that specialise in this sort of thing seized the moment to raise money. In addition to bbqguys.com, a company specialising in wood pellet cooking called Traeger went public via an IPO. Even the granddaddy of grill makers, Weber, decided to float on the public markets, and its shares are still cooking well above the IPO price.

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You can read more on all of these stories at FT.com. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back tomorrow for the latest business news.

This transcript has been automatically generated. If by any chance there is an error please send the details for a correction to: typo@ft.com. We will do our best to make the amendment as soon as possible.

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