Lebanon’s new government agreed to a compromise policy statement on Friday that fell short of explicitly enshrining the militant group Hezbollah’s role in confronting Israel but which would give all citizens the right to resist Israeli occupation or attacks.   The agreement on the compromise language came after weeks of dispute brought the government […]

    Mar Elias Monastery and the Monastic Reform After the Lebanese congregation  met in the presence of Patriarch Youssef Dargham el Khazen and the apostolic representative Youssef el Semaani, they took a decision to separate monks and nuns living in the same monasteries. When the time came to transfer the Saint Elias Monastery nuns […]

  Questions about the fate of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which disappeared Saturday over Southeast Asia, continued Friday to hang in the air. Here is what we know — and don’t know — from hard data to conspiracy theories.   1. Where is the plane? As evidence grows that the plane could have flown for […]

  President Michel Suleiman said on Friday that Hizbullah’s involvement in battles in Syria weakened it, stressing that any endeavors to extend his tenure don’t serve the national interest. “The March 8 and 14 alliances have erred against me and they have both played with the nerves of the Lebanese people,” Suleiman said in an interview […]

  Visiting Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said Thursday that his country was keen on supporting Lebanon to confront the crisis of the Syrian refugees.  “No state has ever confronted what Lebanon is facing,” Niinisto said during a joint conference with his Lebanese counterpart at Baabda Palace.  We want to provide the biggest possible support to […]

  Police in Spain arrested a rich Lebanese man suspected of trying to buy the healthy liver of a poor immigrant to receive it as a transplant, officials said Wednesday.   They said it was the first such organ trafficking racket uncovered in Spain, which is a pioneer in advanced transplants and performs more such […]

  Lebanon has come at the bottom of a ranking of women in the lower house or single house of parliament in The Women in Politics Map 2014, launched by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and U.N. Women. The research, which was released on Tuesday, gave Lebanon a 3.1 percent of female representation, putting it 139th in the […]

  As the conflict enters its fourth year, millions of children in war-torn Syria and in refugee camps in neighboring countries are suffering from a severe lack of medical care. One in 10 children — more than 1.2 million — has fled Syria; there are over 500,000 Syrian children living as refugees in Lebanon. Since […]

  A militant group issued a rare apology Saturday for a twin suicide bombing in Beirut that killed eight people and wounded dozens, including children from a nearby orphanage. The al Qaeda-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades issued the statement on militant websites apologizing for civilian deaths. It said a "technical fault" affected the second of two […]

    The privatization of public sectors would boost economic output and public access to services, Lebanese President Michel Sleiman said Saturday. “We need to think seriously about re-studying subsidies policies in addition to adopting the right privatization methods in some sectors to improve productivity and reduce the burden for citizens,” he said. This is the […]