The Lebanese Army clashed with Syrian rebels Thursday after the military shelled the militants’ hideouts in the outskirts of the northeastern border region of Arsal. The fighting erupted after an Army vehicle came under fire in Al-Rahwe, prompting soldiers to return fire, a security source said. (Link)  

 New UN report says armed group has performed public executions and that Syria has used chlorine gas in combat. The United Nations has accused the Islamic State group of committing war crimes including amputations and public executions, sometimes in the presence of children. The world body also said it believed the Syrian government had used […]

  Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi proposed on Thursday that any future outgoing president should continue to carry out his tasks until the political arch-foes agree on his successor in order to avoid vacancy at the country’s most important Christian post. “We have always said that the parliament must convene and elect a new head of […]

  The patriarchs of the Orient on Wednesday strongly deplored the Arab countries and the international community’s “silence” over attacks against Christians in the Middle East, calling for issuing fatwas against takfirism and for stopping any support for terrorist groups. “It has become known that attacks against Christians are taking a dangerous turn that threatens […]

  BEIRUT: Beirut’s tap water is free of germs and safe to drink, the Beirut and Mount Lebanon Water Company said Tuesday. “After conducting chemical tests on several samples … during the months of May and June, results revealed that the water was free of germs,” the company said in a statement. (Link)

  A few steps from Brisk Cafe on Beirut’s Hamra Street, a teenage Syrian squats with her three children and cups her hand appealing for loose change. Along the road, a Syrian shoeshine boy urinates against a poster. “This is not the Hamra Street we used to know,” said Mustapha Broush, the cafe’s supervisor. “We […]

  Figures released by the Order of Engineers of Beirut and Tripoli show that the number of construction permits reached 10,091 in the first seven months of 2014, constituting a marginal decrease of 0.2 percent from 10,115 for the same period last year.   However, the surface area of construction permits issued in the first […]

    Britain is at risk of being “sanitised” of faith because an “aggressive form of secularism” in workplaces and public bodies is forcing Christians to hide their beliefs, a former attorney general has warned. Dominic Grieve said he found it “quite extraordinary” that people were being sacked or disciplined for expressing their beliefs at work. […]

  Islamic militant terrorists ISIS is giving non-muslims in Iraq three options: leave, convert or die. A WorldWatch Monitor report tells the personal account of Iraqi Christian Mikha Qasha.  In August, WWM reported that Qasha, an elderly paralytic, was moved from his home in Qaraqosh after ISIS members threatened him with weapons giving him one week […]

  Some 2,200 years ago, Carthaginian military commander Hannibal – who some maintain is of Phoenician descent – set out to defeat the Romans by attacking from the north, through the chilly and hostile Alps. During this journey, on which he was followed by 60,000 troops, horses and three-dozen war elephants, Hannibal, as legend has […]