I was admiring what I presumed was a migrating stork, flying low over my village, when multiple shotgun blasts sent it lurching, left and then right like a Lancaster bomber hit by multiple bursts of flak. Another salvo found its mark and the bird folded, plummeting to Earth.
A hundred metres away I found its executioners, three young men inspecting their kill, holding it by its impressive wingspan.
I asked why they had shot a bird that was probably protected and which they were never going to eat. They just laughed, dumped the carcass where it landed and ambled off, presumably in search of other sport. Later that day I saw one of the young men’s fathers and told him what had happened. He also chuckled. Kids, eh?
Syrian Christians denied entry into the United States, archbishops say
Philadelphia (CNA/EWTN News) – According to federal data, since October 2014, 906 Muslim refugees from Syria were granted U.S. visas, while only 28 of Syria’s estimated 700,000 displaced Christians were given the same. Even when accounting for population percentages (Christians account for 10 percent of the religious makeup of Syria), the numbers of visas granted seems widely disproportional.
Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil and Melkite Archbishop Jean-Clement Jeanbart of Aleppo spoke at an Aug. 4 press conference at the Knights of Columbus 2015 Convention in Philadelphia about the situation for Christians in the Middle East.They said that while they do not believe the discrimination against giving Christians visas goes all the way to the top of America’s administration, their people have noticed the injustice. "Our people are asking these questions: how come we apply for the American visa and are denied?" Archbishop Warda said.
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Look Around Paris In August And You’ll See Why The French Succeed At Life x
Cody C. Delistraty, The Atlantic
Between 1853 and 1870, Baron Haussmann ordered much of Paris to be destroyed. Slums were razed and converted to bourgeois neighborhoods, and the formerly labyrinthine city became a place of order, full of wide boulevards (think Saint-Germain) and angular avenues (the Champs-Élysées). Poor Parisians tried to put up a fight but were eventually forced to flee, their homes knocked down with minimal notice and little or no recompense. The city underwent a full transformation—from working class and medieval to bourgeois and modern—in less than two decades’ time.
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World’s most unusual war memorial? Beirut’s tank monument 20 yrs old
By Nick Ames
By Nick Ames
Celebrating its 20th anniversary this month is one of the most unusual structures in the Middle East – the Monument for Peace in Beirut.
Constructed from concrete with Soviet-era T55 tanks, mortars, heavy artillery and armoured personel carriers embedded into its 30 metre high form it is the work of French based architect Armand Fernandez.
Officially called Hope for Peace it is also known as the Tank Monument and is situated in Yarse, close to the Lebanese defence ministry buildings.
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High remittances helping Lebanon to weather financial crisis
albawaba.com
The Large inflow of remittance of o Lebanon are one of the main reasons the country was spared the fate of Greece, Bank Audi said in a report issued Thursday.“Lebanon’s remittances to GDP ratio stands at 18 percent today, one of the highest worldwide, against a mere 0.3 percent for Greece,” the report said.It added that these inflows have allowed Lebanon to weather the financial crisis, although the country still needs structural reforms and fiscal adjustments to reduce the public debt.
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Dana Hotel and the soul of the Lebanese south
Victor Argo
We met up with the Hamra brothers, hoteliers and self-made entrepreneurs in the best of Lebanese tradition, at a place where old ways of peaceful coexistence stand firm in the face of great outside pressure.
“Settled by my forebears,” Pulitzer prize winning reporter Anthony Shadid wrote in his book ‘House of Stone’, “Marjayoun was once an entrepôt perched along routes of trade plied by Christians, Muslims and Jews which stitched together the tapestry of an older Middle East. It was, in essence, a gateway – to Sidon, on the Mediterranean, and Damascus, beyond Mount Hermon; to Jerusalem, in historic Palestine; and to Baalbek, the site of an ancient Roman town. This was a place as cosmopolitan as the countryside offered.”
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Aoun Accuses Qahwaji of ‘Politicizing’ Army, Urges Lebanese to Prepare for Protests
by Naharnet Newsdesk: naharnet.com/
Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun launched on Saturday a scathing attack against Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji, accusing him of serving the interests of politicians instead of those of the nation.
He declared after an extraordinary meeting of the Change and Reform bloc: “Qahwaji has politicized the army and we warn him against placing the military in confrontation with the people.”
The meeting was held following the extension of the term of senior security officials on Thursday despite Aoun’s objections.
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