The patriarchs of the Orient on Wednesday called for international protection for Christians, considering that the idea of establishing a province for this religious minority “has become acceptable.” "What we care about is safeguarding the presence of our (Christian) brothers and providing protection for them,” Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi said after a visit to […]

  WASHINGTON, Aug 20 (Reuters) – The FBI believes the Islamic State video purporting to show the beheading of American journalist James Foley is authentic, GlobalPost reported on Wednesday. "The FBI on Wednesday morning told the Foley family they believe the video is authentic," according to GlobalPost, a Boston-based online publication that employed Foley as […]

  EIRUT: Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai called on Eastern and Western states to stop funding terrorism Sunday, urging them to stop sending militants to battle in Iraq and Syria. Rai renewed his appeal to the international community to stop providing terrorist organizations with money and weapons. The patriarch also urged states to stop “sending mercenaries […]

  WITH only the clothes on her back and a toothbrush in her pocket, Mariney, a Mexican-American NGO worker, flew from Beirut to Cyprus in April. It was a routine visa run made by many expatriates in Lebanon before the expiry of their two-month “tourist" visas, which are free on arrival. But when Mariney was […]

  Cars and trucks formed on Tuesday long queues at Lebanon’s northern border crossings after heavy security measures were taken by Lebanese and Syrian border posts, the state-run National News Agency reported. NNA said that the queues of vehicles reached several kilometers long at the Abboudiyeh and Arida crossings. (Link)  

(Reuters) – Missouri Governor Jay Nixon lifted the curfew for the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson on Monday and began deploying National Guard troops to help quell days of rioting and protests spurred by the fatal shooting of a black unarmed teenager by a white policeman. Nixon said the National Guard, which he called in […]

  BEIRUT: Lebanon’s private school teachers announced Monday that they would end their boycott of correcting official exams, while the secondary school teachers sent a contradictory message by announc ing their boycott would continue. "After discussion, the general assembly unanimously voted to continue with all forms of movement and escalation until the salary scale is […]

Hillary Clinton was expressing what has become Washington’s new conventional wisdom when she implied, in her interview with Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic, that “moderates” might have prevented the rise of the Islamic State. In fact, the United States has provided massive and sustained aid to the moderates in the region. Remember, the Islamic State, […]

  The Church of England has delivered a withering critique of David Cameron’s Middle East policy, describing the government’s approach as incoherent, ill-thought-out and determined by "the loudest media voice at any particular time". The criticisms are made in an extraordinary letter to the prime minister signed by the bishop of Leeds, Nicholas Baines, and […]

  EIRUT: Lebanese NGOs Wednesday called for the immediate release of 27 men who were detained on charges of being gay after police received a tipoff that a group of men were at a Turkish-style hammam in a Beirut neighborhood. On Aug. 9, a unit with the judicial police’s Moral Protection Bureau raided the Agha […]