The priceless treasures of Syria’s history – of Crusader castles, ancient mosques and churches, Roman mosaics, the renowned "Dead Cities" of the north and museums stuffed with antiquities – have fallen prey to looters and destruction by armed rebels and government militias as fighting envelops the country. While the monuments and museums of the […]

Damascus, Syria, Aug 3, 2012 / 05:06 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The head of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church encouraged Syria’s Eastern Catholics to offer prayers for peace during their church’s traditional August 1–14 fasting period in honor of the Virgin Mary. During the run-up to the August 15 feast of the Dormition of the Mother of God (known in the West as the Assumption), Melkite Catholics will be “praying especially for the safety of all Syrians and for the cessation of the violence,” Patriarch Gregorios III said in a letter marking the two-week fast.

“We pray too during this period for the return of charity, friendship, fellowship and compassion among all citizens,” wrote the patriarch, whose headquarters are located in the Syrian capital Damascus. He called for liturgical services to be supplemented with “special litanies for peace and reconciliation,” and for the faithful “to participate in these services, with fasting, prayer and repentance.” Syrians, he said, “ are still capable of loving and forgiving each other, being reconciled and showing tolerance to one another … United together, they can rebuild what has been destroyed and work for development and prosperity, for a better future for all citizens.”

The patriarch’s prayer is for “a renewed, free, secure, conciliatory Syria, in which citizens regardless of group, party, religion or affiliation can enjoy freedom, dignity, employment and education.”

  رأى الوزير والنائب السابق الشيخ فريد هيكل الخازن في تصريح له اليوم، "أن نداء المطارنة الموارنة الاخير دق فعلا جرس الانذار، وأطلق صرخة مدوية لا بد أن يتوقف عندها المسؤولون في الحكومة، وأن ينصرفوا الى المعالجات الجذرية والجدية للاوضاع الداخلية الملحة والخطيرة، بدل إدارة الظهر لأنين المواطنين وللمشاكل الحياتية والتعقيدات المعيشية". ولفت الى "أن […]

    US Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly on Thursday condemned the deportation of 14 Syrian nationals from Lebanon during a meeting with Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun. “The ambassador said that the US was deeply disturbed by the recent deportations of 14 Syrians.  She stressed the importance of protecting all Syrians, including dissenters […]

  Electricite du Liban contract workers officially announced on Friday the end of their three-month strike and the resumption of work at the company after striking a deal with the government. “We will end our strike and the committee will continue to hold meetings to follow up the implementation of the deal,” Lebnan Makhoul,a member of […]

  DIMAN, Lebanon: The Council of Maronite Bishops launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s government Wednesday, warning that the deteriorating economic situation and lack of decision-making could lead to Lebanon’s collapse. The “deep political divisions … lack of a clear, unified vision … putting personal and sectarian interests before national interests … lack […]

  BEIRUT: Regional powers are pouring in money and guns, jihadists are joining rebels battling to overthrow Bashar al-Assad, while his own well-armed but hard-pressed forces are fighting back ruthlessly with combat aircraft and artillery. Gruesome scenes of slaughtered civilians or executed rebel fighters provide daily snapshots of the worsening conflict in Syria. Video apparently showing […]

  President Michel Suleiman on Wednesday threw his weight behind the Lebanese army’s decision to bring to trial those who target the military and rejected arms spread randomly across the country. In his Army Day speech at the Shukri Ghanem barracks in Fayyadiyeh, a suburb of Beirut, Suleiman said: “The judiciary should issue verdicts against those […]

No one has any idea what the Middle East will look like next year, much less in five years — especially the revolutionary players themselves.

There are not even the old familiar fault lines this revolutionary time around. Are the Sunni Gulf kingdoms eager to support revolutionaries in Syria and North Africa? Perhaps and perhaps not — given that the fall of strongmen like Mubarak, bin Ali, Qaddafi, and Assad may lead to Muslim Brotherhood–inspired Islamist governments, which would like to see the oil-rich monarchies become less Western and more theocratic. Or — though this is less likely — if pro-Western reformist movements were to prevail, such governments would like to democratize and secularize the Gulf. Who are our best allies in breaking up the dangerous Iran-Hezbollah-Syria axis? Islamist extremists who want to kill the hated Assad slightly more than they do us — at least for now?

Who can sort out Lebanon? Does a grateful Iraq feel that Syria has been more sympathetic to its Shiite government than its Sunni neighbors have been, or is it experiencing schadenfreude that its terrorists are now doing to Syria what Syria’s used to do to Iraq? Will new Arab Islamist governments seek solidarity with the anti-Western Persian theocracy, or will they fall back into their religious and ethnic fears of Iranian Shiites?

Amid this chaos there are a handful of constants that can guide U.S. foreign policy.

  في جانب من مبرّرات برودة الحماسة الظاهرة حيال زيارة البابا بنيديكتوس السادس عشر، أنها ليست للبنان على غرار تلك التي قام بها البابا يوحنا بولس الثاني في أيار 1997 وأودع اللبنانيين، والموارنة خصوصاً، الإرشاد الرسولي الخاص بلبنان. يأتي خلفه لتسليم بطاركة الكنائس الكاثوليكية في ست دول عربية، هي مصر والعراق وسوريا والأردن وفلسطين ولبنان، […]