Changiz M. Varzi

As its landmarks disappear one-by-one, Beirut is suffering from a severe
case of architectural amnesia. With the guns of civil war long silent,
the Lebanese capital is still losing magnificent pieces of its past
through the razing of its longstanding memorable buildings.

The city once known as “the Paris of the Middle East” is today a hodgepodge of unsightly high-rises made of concrete and glass that have replaced the grand old structures.

The one thing that has unified the Lebanese political and economic
power-holders amidst decades of political strife, armed conflict and
sectarian confrontation is the pouring of money into Lebanon’s property
market, which has accelerated the process of demolishing legendary
houses.

“This is not a new phenomenon in Lebanon; politicians have always
been unresponsive to these issues,” Elie Karma, a preservation activist
from Beirut, tells Equal Times.

Your Majesty, President Obama, Excellencies, Ladies
and Gentlemen,

In absolute terms, Lebanon is by far the biggest world
donor to the cause of refugees. According to the World Bank, over 15 billion
dollars have been contributed by the Lebanese economy to ensure public
services, education and health to the Syrians and Palestinians who compose one
third of our population today.
In the past
two years, no less than five major high-level conferences on the subject have
taken place. No less than three meetings are held this week here, at the
UN. What do we have to show for all this mobilization of political power? Very
little indeed, especially when we consider the overflow of those crossing now
to Europe.

 This faltering of the international
community should be urgently remedied:
First, by
devoting the substantial funding required in order to manage the consequences
of the crisis.  Second, by massively investing in development aid in
order to trigger durable growth, create jobs and fight poverty for the benefit
of host populations and refugees alike.   Third,
by establishing a transparent mechanism to track the multiplicity of funding
flows, generate synergies and avoid waste.   Fourth,
by significantly activating burden-sharing efforts by all countries which have
the possibility to relocate refugees, including by the countries of the region.

By Deacon Keith Fournier

I am a Catholic Christian seeking to apply the principles of the Social
teaching of my Church to my political, economic and social
participation.I offer a few examples of how I have approached evaluating
the
two candidates for the Presidency of the United States based upon
principles derived from my  faith. I gratefully accepted the invitation
to become a member of the Catholic
Advisory Group to the campaign of Donald J. Trump for the Presidency of
the United States of America. I did so because I love my country, my
God, my Church and my family. I am honored to serve and will offer the
kind of advice which I have expressed in this essay to the Trump/Pence
campaign.

CHESAPEAKE, VA (Catholic Online) – I write as a private American
citizen concerned about the future of the Nation I love. In this essay I
am expressing my personal political views – and I have a right to do
so.

I am a husband to my wife of forty years, father to our five
grown children and grandfather to seven. I am a “family man”, deeply
concerned about the American family and its future. I am also a
constitutional lawyer. I spent much of my career defending religious
freedom as the first freedom and the right to life as the first right. I
have stood at the intersection of faith and culture for  decades in
both ministry and activism.

By catholicherald.co.uk

Pope Francis has said that a global war on marriage is underway and
Catholics must respond by helping couples stay strong and by providing
pastoral care to those experiencing difficulty. “Today there is a global war to destroy marriage,” the Pope said
during a meeting in Tbilisi with priests, religious, seminarians and lay
people active in parish life.

“Today you do not destroy with weapons, you destroy with ideas,” the Pope said. “It is ideological colonisation that destroys.” The only way to defend marriage against the onslaught, he said, is to
help couples “make peace as soon as possible, before the day ends, and
don’t forget the three words: ‘May I?’ ‘Thank you’ and ‘Forgive me.’”

“Marriage is the most beautiful thing that God has created,” Pope
Francis said. In marriage, man and woman become one flesh, “the image of
God.” “When you divorce one flesh you sully the God’s image,” he said.

by Joseph A. Kechichian, Senior Writer

Beirut: Lebanon has long stood out as the black sheep of the Middle
East, mainly because it absorbed rather than shunned Western cultural
values, at a time when the Middle East was being colonised by Britain
and France in the early part of the 20th century.

Beirut, its capital, was known in its golden age as “the Paris of the Middle East”. Both
Muslims and Christian Lebanese attended English and French schools and
universities. These institutions helped transform the small country’s
abilities to act as a window for both East and West.

But why exactly has Lebanon’s identity developed so drastically different from that of its Arab neighbours? First, Lebanon’s unique geographical position has placed it at the crossroads of civilisations.

Secondly, its people’s openness to outsiders.

Throughout
its history, Beirut has been destroyed and rebuilt at least seven times
from the period of the Phoenicians 3,000 years ago, followed by the
Romans and, more recently, to Arab conquerors who first came to these
shores around 1400AD.

By Ryan Suto – Business Insider

Like other longstanding American relationships in the Middle
East, the ties between Washington and Riyadh have nothing to do
with human rights or democracy. The alliance rests mostly on two
key factors: natural resources and regional stability.

First, in addition to being the Custodian of the Two Holy
Mosques, the House of Saud is the custodian of a singular holy
resource: oil. Saudi Arabia’s role as the largest
exporter of the crucial fossil fuel, as well as its cultural
and political influence over other six other Arab OPEC members, makes
friendship with the kingdom a valuable, and seemingly
indispensable, asset for a fuel-thirsty superpower.

Second, in the Cold-War era, maintaining a balance of power
between Western allies such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and
Soviet allies such as Iran and Syria, was central to US policy in
the region. Making overt advances in non-aligned countries like
Egypt or through intermediary forces, such as supporting Saddam
Hussein against Iran, was our preferred method of balancing
Soviet influence in the region.

In this context, retaining Saudi Arabia as a proxy for Western
influence in the Arab world was an easy policy decision. Without
American patronage, the Saudis might have turned to Russia.
Further, although Saudi Arabia has no formal relations with
Israel, unlike Egypt after the Camp David Accords, the Saudis
have never used state force against Israel, making the kingdom
more palatable to Washington.

worldbank.org

The Syrian crisis and refugee influx into Lebanon are putting an
unprecedented amount of social and economic pressure on Lebanon’s public
education system. Out of a population of 1.5 million Syrian refugees,
almost 500,000 are children of school age (3–18 years). The protracted
nature of the Syrian crisis and the immense demand for schooling have
strained the quality of public education, too.

In response, Lebanon’s Ministry of Education and Higher Education
(MEHE), launched the Reaching all Children with Education (RACE)
initiative in 2013 to improve access to formal education for Syrian
refugees and underprivileged Lebanese—both objectives that have the
strong support of the international community.

As a longstanding partner of the Government of Lebanon (GoL), the World
Bank has been expanding its support to the education sector. Prior to
the onset of the Syrian crisis, it supported the US$40 million Second Education Development Project. In 2015, the World Bank approved a US$32 million Emergency Education System Stabilization Project; and now the Bank will also approve the US$224 million Support to Reaching All Children with Education 2 program (S2R2).
This support includes an exceptional US$100 million of concessional financing from the International Development Association (IDA)
to address the education sector’s immediate needs and create the
foundations for longer-term recovery. IDA funds are normally only made
available to the world’s poorest countries.

By Joseph Eid

Beirut — “Good morning!
I’m an AFP photographer. Would it be alright to use your roof to take
pictures of the garbage mountain in front of your building?”

“Welcome, welcome my dear, come in. Would
you like some coffee? I can give you a full interview if you want. Will
your pictures show how bad the smell is?”

Since Lebanon’s trash crisis began last
July, I have asked this question dozens — perhaps hundreds — of times.
I am greeted with the same enthusiasm each time, with residents eagerly
ushering me onto their rooftops or near their windows to snap pictures
of the piles of rubbish lining Lebanon’s roads.

After several rounds of government deals
on the issue, we thought the waste crisis had been brought under
control. But over the past month, piles of garbage have once again
invaded our streets and neighbourhoods, from Lebanon’s rocky mountains
to the capital’s busy streets.

by Daily star lebanon BEIRUT: National Liberal Party head Dory Chamoun Wednesday called for presidential candidate Michel Aoun to release his medical records to prove he is physically and mentally fit to run the country. “If someone wanted to sell his land and he was over 80, he is required to provide a medical record […]