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Holy See Delivers Speech at the Presidential Palace

“Mr. President, Distinguished Civil and Religious Authorities, Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Ladies and Gentlemen, Blessed are the peacemakers! It is a great joy for me to meet with you and to visit this land where “peace” is much more than just a word, for here peace is a desire and a vocation; it is a gift and a work in ...

Storms in Lebanon: Why We Name Them, Why We Fear Them, Why We Wait for Them

Adam, Farah, Norma, Zeina, Yohan, Oscar… In Lebanon, winter storms have taken on the appearance of characters. They pop up on weather maps, scroll across TV tickers and flood Instagram stories, as if winter too had its own cast. Yet behind the folklore of first names and the debates about “one storm too many” lies a much more serious ...

Pope Leo’s Speech During Youth Meeting in Bkerke

Dear young people of Lebanon, “assalamu lakum!” (peace be with you!) This greeting of the Risen Jesus (cf. Jn 20:19) sustains the joy of our meeting. The enthusiasm we feel in our hearts expresses God’s loving closeness, which brings us together as brothers and sisters to share our faith in him and our communion with one ...

LAU Medical Center – Rizk Hospital: A Century of Medicine at the Heart of Beirut

A hundred years ago, a young surgeon just back from Paris put up a sign near the Nasra tram stop in Sodeco: “Dr. Toufic Rizk Clinic.” Twelve beds, three nurses, one passion: practicing modern surgery in a Lebanon still finding its way. At the time, no one could have imagined that this small beginning would grow into a full hospital in 1957 ...

Teetering on the Edge: Escalation Along the Lebanon–Israel Border

The Israeli-Lebanese border is now one of the Middle East’s most volatile fronts, where a “low-intensity” conflict feels less like crisis management and more like a dress rehearsal for an imminent war. U.S. and Israeli officials are no longer debating whether fighting will erupt again, but how quickly and extensively it could escalate, ...

The Next Israel–Hezbollah War Could Be Inevitable — and Crippling for Hezbollah

When Israeli jets struck Beirut’s Haret Hreik on 23 November 2025 and killed Haitham Ali Tabatabai, Hezbollah’s chief of staff and the man responsible for rebuilding its shattered military infrastructure, the message was unmistakable. Israel was not simply targeting a militant; it was signaling that the post-war “ceasefire” is dead, that ...

The Layers of Pope Leo XIV’s Inaugural Journey

Pope Leo XIV’s first foreign trip is striking and prompts a closer look at what motivated his choice of destinations. To those versed in Church history, his decision to travel first to Turkey and Lebanon may appear obvious, but it remains thrilling. Contemporary Turkey harbors the most important venues of paleo-Christian history. Turkey ...

The Path Is Made by Walking: How Each Step Creates the Way

Within this framework, the statement can be read as an ethic of movement, desire, and fruitful incompleteness. It suggests that truth is not a fixed object, but a direction; not a trophy, but a process. Likewise, failing is not a mistake, but the condition of one who is on the journey. As Franck Pavloff, French writer and psychologist, puts it in ...

Could the IMF’s debt plan for Lebanon unintentionally bolster Hezbollah?

The International Monetary Fund risks unintentionally reviving a war-weakened Hezbollah by insisting Lebanon push heavier losses onto the banking sector than critics say is necessary — a move they argue would entrench the cash economy that Iran’s terror-designated proxy thrives on. At issue is how the IMF wants Lebanon’s ...

Basket – 2027 World Cup: Qatar Break the Streak, Lebanon Fall Back into Their Old Ways

On Sunday evening at the Nouhad Nawfal Sports Complex, everything seemed aligned for another quiet night: a full arena, a fiery atmosphere, an opponent already automatically qualified for the 2027 World Cup and presented as the group’s small underdog. Lebanon started seriously, put the ball inside, found rhythm in transition and immediately ...

No More Free Passes: U.S. Ties Security Aid to Lebanese Action

The U.S. Congress has sent a clear, stern message to Beirut that Washington’s support for the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) is no longer a blank check. The latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), up for a vote in the House of Representatives, imposes new conditions and restrictions on U.S. aid to the Lebanese army, ...

The Damask Rose, Defiant Memory of a Wounded Syria

South of Damascus, each spring returns with a scent that war could not wipe away. In the fields of Al Marah, the same quiet wonder unfolds again. The Damask rose blooms with stubborn grace. As every year, the steady ritual of renewal stirs a sense of hope, and Roula Ali Adeeb walks the rose-a tad tweaked but close lined paths, gathering each ...

AIDS in Lebanon: A Chronic Disease, A Stubborn Taboo

The history of AIDS officially begins in the early 1980s, when research teams, including that of Luc Montagnier at the Institut Pasteur, identified the human immunodeficiency virus. At the time, doctors had neither reliable tests nor effective treatment. Today, the situation has radically changed: triple and dual antiretroviral therapies control ...

Beirut Sports Festival: Karim Andari Invests 4 Billion LBP to Support 80 Students Through “Loubnaniyoun”

Sports are stepping into the classroom. At the Qubic Center in Horch Tabet, the president of the Beirut Sports Festival, Karim Andari, and the president of the association “Loubnaniyoun,” Nadine Daher, formalized an unprecedented partnership: 4 billion Lebanese pounds granted to the NGO to cover school fees for 80 students from various regions ...

Lebanon’s Collective Trauma Needs Peace

There was an unmistakable irony on Monday as Lebanon’s “Sunni street” marked the first anniversary of the fall of the Bashar al Assad regime. The same community that has condemned its Shia counterparts for venerating Iran’s rulers now engages in the same political canonization, this time for Syria’s new leaders. The motorbike convoys ...

Silos of Beirut: Autopsy of an Announced Pollution

On 4 August 2020, Beirut exploded a first time, in a flash of ammonium nitrate, debris and shattered glass. Since then, the city has continued to explode in a muffled way: in the bronchi of the inhabitants, in the lungs of the children of Karantina, in the gutted silos that spit back out heat, smoke and dust. Last Thursday, the file came back ...

The Gentle Dictatorship of the Socio-Economic

Domination does not always present itself through harshness. Some forms advance gently, not through coercion but through the pull of seduction. They show no signs of authoritarian rule and present themselves instead as paths that promise freedom. The current socio-economic order belongs to this quiet family of tyrannies. It draws individuals into ...

Basketball – 2027 World Cup Qualifiers: Lebanon Survives a Scare, Khayat Delivers the Dagger

In Doha, the script had everything to become the perfect trap. Facing Lebanon was a Qatari team already qualified by default for the 2027 World Cup as host nation, but in full “resurgence” and determined to send a message to the rest of Asia. Opposite them, a Lebanese team favored on paper, 30th in the FIBA rankings, with a new coach on the ...

WASL: Riyadi in Tears, Sagesse in Celebration

One scene almost says it all: in Astana, the “Yellow Castle” leaves the court with heads down, its 15-game group-stage winning streak gone in the Kazakh cold. In Ghazir, a few hours later, the “Green Castle” finally erupts in joy after a nightmarish start to the campaign. With Riyadi no longer as frightening and La Sagesse beginning to ...

Football – Liverpool: The Fall of King Salah at Anfield

There are phrases that fall like bombs. When Mohamed Salah hints that he has been “thrown under the bus,” it is no longer just the frustration of an unhappy player. It is a signal of rupture. A message launched in the full glare of the media. And at that moment, at Liverpool, no one could pretend anymore that everything would still be settled ...

Pope Leo’s Speech During Interfaith Dialogue

Dear brothers and sisters, I am deeply moved and immensely grateful to stand among you today, in this blessed land—a land exalted by the prophets of the Old Testament, who beheld in its towering cedars emblems of the righteous soul that flourishes beneath heaven’s vigilant gaze; a land where the echo of the Logos has never fallen ...

Pope Leo XIV Urges the Christians of the Levant to Embrace Courage and Peace

Under a clear blue sky and before nearly 150,000 worshippers gathered along Beirut’s seafront, Pope Leo XIV celebrated the public Mass, closing his three-day apostolic visit to Lebanon on Tuesday, December 2. From early morning, faithful from across the country streamed to the waterfront, while the nation’s top officials joined the assembly, ...

Basketball – Lebanon Beaten at Home: a Bump In the Road or A Real Warning Sign?

For several years, playing Lebanon on its home floor was almost an impossible mission. Since the blowout loss to South Korea on February 23, 2019, Zouk Mikaël had become a true fortress: ten straight qualification wins, across all FIBA competitions. Iraq, Bahrain twice, Indonesia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines, New Zealand, Syria, the ...

Who Really Defeated ISIS in Syria?

In the narrative promoted by Moscow and Damascus, Russia and Bashar al-Assad’s regime are credited with delivering the decisive blow against ISIS in Syria. This account frames Russia’s military intervention, which began in September 2015, as the turning point in the fight against the terrorist group. Yet, a closer look at the data paints a ...

Real-Life Horror to TV Drama: Feared Syria Sites Become Sets for series

At a Damascus airbase once off-limits under Bashar al-Assad, a crew now films a TV series about the final months of the ousted leader's rule as seen through the eyes of a Syrian family. "It's hard to believe we're filming here," director Mohamad Abdul Aziz said from the Mazzeh base, which was once also a detention center run by Assad's air force ...

Israel Accuses Hezbollah of Assassinations in Beirut Port Blast Case

New and highly sensitive allegations emerged on Tuesday after the Israeli army accused a specialized Hezbollah cell—Unit 121—of assassinating four Lebanese figures who allegedly held information implicating the Shiite militia in the August 2020 Beirut port explosion. The claims, made by the army’s Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee ...

Syria's Sharaa Vows to Promote Coexistence, Reconciliation One Year after Assad's Ousting

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa vowed to usher in an era of justice and coexistence a year after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, with tens of thousands taking to the streets to mark the anniversary. Sharaa's Islamist-led alliance launched a lightning offensive in late November last year and took Damascus on December 8, bringing a sudden ...

I Didn’t Choose to Love Fayrouz

I didn’t choose my name, and I didn’t choose to love Fayrouz. In our home, loving Fayrouz was a heritage, a love passed down like a family secret. My name, borrowed from one of her songs—as my father proudly reminded me—bound me to her in a way I couldn’t escape. And I knew it from the very start, from the moment I could speak: “I am ...

The Compelling Challenge of Israel’s Diplomatic Opening to Lebanon

Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Leiter’s diplomatic opening to Lebanon is a major turning point amid the encumbered political horizons, uncertainties, and doomsaying enveloping the country. Coming at the heels of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s peace offer, the benevolence and the moral density of this statement cannot be overlooked ...