by indcatholicnews.com — On his first official visit to the UK, His Beatitude Cardinal Mar Beshara Boutros Al-Rahi, Patriarch of Antioch, and head of the Maronite Church, has taken part in a series of meetings with church leaders, politicians and Lebanese delegations yesterday. He was welcomed to Lambeth Palace by Archbishop of Canterbury. The Archbishop said: “We prayed together for Christians in the Middle East, especially Lebanon – a place close to my heart.” The Patriarch then went on to the Palace of Westminster, where he took part in a number of official meetings, most notably with Lord Tariq Ahmad, Minister of State for the Middle East; Sarah Mackintosh, Deputy National Security Adviser, who has responsibility for the Middle East; and with Parliamentarians, organised by the All Party Parliamentary Group to the Holy See.

The Patriarch was accompanied by Archbishop Paul Boulos El-Sayah; His Excellency Rami Mortada, Ambassador of Lebanon to the United Kingdom; and Mr Maran Francis, Counsellor at the Lebanese Embassy. In recent days, His Beatitude has also met with representatives of various Lebanese parties at the Maronite Parish in London, for which meeting he was accompanied by Abbot Hadi Mahfouz, General Superior of the Lebanese Maronite Order, and Father Fadi Kmeid, Maronite parish priest in London.

Story by Marquise Francis — AFP — India is expected to surpass China and become the world’s most populous nation within the next three months, according to a recent report by the United Nations’ population division, marking a seismic shift on the global stage in a trend with significant social and economic impact for both countries. “Most people think India’s economy is still a fraction of what it could be in the future, which means there’s so much promise,” Dr. Audrey Truschke, an associate professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University, told Yahoo News, adding that much of the potential is due in large part to India being “such a young country.”

Of the rapidly growing 1.41 billion people in India, about 1 in 4 are under the age of 15 and nearly half are under 25. By comparison, China’s population is about 1.45 billion, but those under 25 make up only a quarter of the population. “The Indian subcontinent has always supported a robust human population,” Truschke said. “India has also long been compared to China, and they have for a long time traded with one another. So as much changes over the course of human history, that’s something that recurs — both the dense population of the subcontinent, as well as the comparison with China.” Since 1950, India and China have accounted for an estimated 35% of the world’s population growth, with China emerging as a global industrial power. Combined, the two population epicenters are a significant slice of the world’s roughly 8 billion people.

By Brad Kallet, Editor at LinkedIn News – Your Instagram navigation bar is going to look a bit different in February. Beginning next month, the Meta-owned social media giant is going to put the Compose button (the + sign) back in the center of the navigation bar, and the Reels button will be moved to […]

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group on Tuesday condemned the cartoons published recently by the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that mocked Iran’s ruling clerics and urged France to punish the publication. The Iran-backed Hezbollah said the offensive caricatures were an “ugly act by the magazine” that targeted Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, […]

By Alessandra Riemer, Editor at LinkedIn News, Record-high inflation doesn’t seem to be driving away buyers in the luxury auto market, especially in the U.S. British carmaker Rolls-Royce made about 35% of its sales across the pond last year, at an average $534,000 a pop. The BMW-owned company also sold the most vehicles in its […]

(ANSAmed) – BEIRUT, JANUARY 9 – The number of people who attempted last year to reach Europe from Lebanon irregularly increased by 176%, according to figures just released by the Beirut office of the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR. UNHCR spokesperson Lisa Abou Khaled was quoted as saying by French-language Lebanese daily L’Orient-Le Jour that from […]

by arabnews.com — NIRMAL NARAYANAN — RIYADH: Saudi Arabia is set to overtake India as the fastest-growing major economy in 2023, driven by gains from energy prices. According to official data released by India’s Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation, Saudi Arabia is expected to outpace India with 7.6 percent gross domestic product growth as the rising revenues from higher energy prices continue to bolster the Kingdom’s economy. This puts India in the second position with an expected GDP growth rate of 7 percent in the fiscal year ending March, as weakening demand has hampered the growth prospects of Asia’s third-largest economy. “The growth in real GDP during 2022-23 is estimated at 7 percent, compared to 8.7 percent in 2021-22,” said the Indian ministry in a statement.

The Indian government is using this estimate to decide its spending priorities in the upcoming union budget that will be presented on Feb.1, 2023, which will also be the last full-year expenditure plan of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government before elections in 2024. Even though India started the ongoing fiscal year on a good note, monetary policies adopted by the Reserve Bank of India to combat inflation have apparently tampered with the growth curve of the nation. India’s central bank, which has raised its benchmark rate by 225 basis points so far this fiscal year, is expected to announce further hike after its policy review meeting scheduled between Feb. 6 to 8.

By Ruiqi Chen, Editor at LinkedIn News — OpenAI’s expected $29 billion valuation is only the latest signal of the artificial intelligence craze even as the tech industry faces layoffs and tough economic conditions. Investors funneled more money into generative AI companies in 2022 than in the previous five years combined, reaching a total of […]

Lebanese judges are set to end their five-month strike after an agreement on financial assistance was reached. Judicial work should resume progressively on Monday, The National has been told. The deal struck with the judges’ mutual fund for financial assistance aims to improve judges’ purchasing power after their salaries were slashed by more than 95 per cent amid a sharp currency depreciation. Lebanon’s unprecedented economic crisis, described by the World Bank as one of the worst in modern history, has taken a huge toll on judicial staff — and all the public sector’s professions. Judges started a strike in mid-August to protest against the decline of their salaries and the deterioration of their work conditions. As judges join strike for better pay and conditions ordinary Lebanese suffer This led to paralysis of the judicial system, with some of the nation’s top courts completely halting their activities, including for urgent judiciary matters.

Last week, the general assembly of judges agreed on new financial support, “ranging between $500 and $1200 per month, which will be financed by the Ministry of Finance, through the judges’ mutual fund”, a judicial source told The National. This is a type of monthly bonus, and not a salary increase, because “this would have implied a revaluation of the end-of-service indemnities”, the person said, who was not involved in the negotiations. Following the decision, the Supreme Judicial Council called “judges to return to the exercise of their duties, in a way that secures the continuity of the judicial public service”, in a statement published on Thursday. It is not known how the cash-strapped country will finance this new financial support in dollars, as details remain sparse. A Ministry of Finance representative said they did not have information on the mechanism and The National could not reach the Ministry of Justice for comment.

By Saundra Latham, Editor at LinkedIn News — Mercedes-Benz aims to build a North American network of 2,500 high-powered EV chargers by 2027, putting it in direct competition with Tesla and its extensive network of Superchargers. The plan, announced Thursday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, will see the chargers spread among some […]