BEIRUT: Standard & Poor’s downgrade of three leading Lebanese banks is unlikely to have an impact on the prices of bonds or interest rates, bankers said Thursday, but they called the decision a clear warning that Lebanon needed to get its act together and implement fiscal reforms. “I don’t think this downgrade of the credit […]

WASHINGTON – The United States Friday expressed "regret" at losing voting rights at UNESCO, two years after Washington and Israel stopped funding the UN cultural body over Palestinian admission. Congressional restrictions on US payment of UNESCO dues were triggered when the Palestinians gained membership to the Paris-based body as a state in 2011. "We regret […]

 With pen and paper in hand, it took Assaad Chaftari five minutes at his home nestled in a cluster of pine trees in the mountains overlooking Beirut to write a public apology for his role in the atrocities committed during Lebanon’s civil war. Thirteen years later, he’s still the sole senior figure from the slew […]

BEIRUT: The United States handed over Lebanon a Cessna Aircraft Wednesday during a ceremony held at Beirut’s international airport as part of efforts to strengthen the Lebanese Army. U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon David Hale said during a ceremony at Rafik Hariri International Airport that the transfer of the aircraft was a “reflection of the strong […]

BEIRUT: Students and faculty of the American University of Beirut reacted with shock and sadness Wednesday to the apparent suicide of a 20-year-old engineering student. Marwan Mustafa Hamzeh, a third-year mechanical engineering student, was found outside Penrose men’s dorms after falling or jumping from the sixth floor balcony. Hamzeh was a resident of Kerr Hall, […]

In the 18th century, The sons of Hajj Sleiman el Khazen from the house of Cheikh Abou Nawfal originating from Ajaltoun, built there the Saint Simeon Stylites Church. Since then, the church is under the patronage of the same house and is now handled by the two engineers Cheikh Philippe and Cheikh Clovis el Khazen.

  Damascus, Syria, Nov 5, 2013 / 04:06 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican’s nunciature in Damascus was hit by a mortar round at 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday, damaging the building but neither killing nor injuring any persons. “Given the hour, there was only material damages, not to people,” Vatican press officer Fr. Federico Lombardi said […]

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – "Lebanon has opened its borders, opened its arms, and the international community owes it to Lebanon to do everything it can to help Lebanese society adapt to this," UNICEF chief Anthony Lake says. Lake had just returned from a visit to a camp in the eastern Bekaa Valley, about two miles from the Syrian frontier.

Lake says that international donors must do more to help Lebanon absorb a flood of refugees straining its schools and public services. Lebanon has an already weak government and threadbare national services that began long before before the Syrian crisis erupted two and a half years ago. Lebanon is now struggling mightily to support Syrian refugees, scattered in informal camps across the country’s most deprived areas. According to the United Nations, 800,000 Syrians have either registered or are awaiting registration as refugees in Lebanon. Many more are estimated to be unregistered. Some Lebanese officials say there could be more than one million refugees in the country.

The World Bank has estimated the cost to Lebanon at around $2.6 billion over three years. Government-funded schools, which cater for the poorest third of the population, face being overwhelmed with Syrian children, even if only a fraction of these kids enroll.