Khazen

Suleiman Meets GLC

  President Michel Suleiman stated on Thursday that the dispute over the transportation allowance must not be left unresolved, reported the National News Agency. He demanded that all cabinet decisions be respected “in accordance with the mechanism that has been adopted for 16 years.” [Read More]  

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Sulieman Briefs Mansour, Qortbawi on Ban’s STL Letter

    President Michel Suleiman on Wednesday briefed ministers of foreign affairs and justice, Adnan Mansour and Shakib Qortbawi, on the content of the letter he received from U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon through the foreign ministry, in which the U.N. head noted that he was inclined to extend the mandate of the Special Tribunal for […]

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Patriarch Rai delays visit to Tripoli

  Patriarch Bechara el Rai was expected to make a visit to the city of Tripoli but he delayed his visit due to current events and Salafists’ annoucements.  Indeed, Sheikh Al Rafii declared on LBC TV today that the Salafists are not happy with Patriarch Rai’s statements, mainly regarding the situation in Syria as his […]

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St.Maroun

  "Historia Religiosa", written by Theodoret of Cyrrhus around 440 A.D. is our only source on St. Maroun’s biography. The author describes the life of hermits in Cyrrhus and vicinity. In chapter 16 the author mentions that St. Maroun was one of those hermits. He had a tremendous influence on his disciples (22). St. Maroun […]

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How a Tenacious Summer Analyst Applicant Got Laughed at by Goldman, Morgan

, As summer analyst recruiting season continues and superdays near, Wall Street has been having a laugh with one New York University applicant who, to say the least, took a surprisingly dogged approach with his cover letter.

He wrote:

"I am unequivocally the most unflaggingly hard worker I know, and I love self-improvement. I have always felt that my time should be spent wisely, so I continuously challenge myself … I decided to redouble my effort by placing out of two classes, taking two honors classes, and holding two part-time jobs. That semester I achieved a 3.93, and in the same time I managed to bench double my bodyweight and do 35 pull-ups."

Since Thursday, February 2, when a Bank of America Merrill Lynch director forwarded the cover letter out to his entire team, offering drinks "to the first analyst to concisely summarize everything that is wrong with" the note, it has passed through more than a dozen firms.

Already investment banking and accounting teams at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Nomura, Citi, Deutsche Bank, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG, Wells Fargo, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Perella Weinberg Partners, and Barclays Capital have read the note, along with the student’s relatively robust resume.

The letter, which read with perhaps a tad much hubris, comes at a time when summer recruiting is at its peak and anxiety among the nation’s junior class is high. Resume drop days, or the deadline when resumes must be received, have largely passed, and students are now in the throes of first round interviews and superdays.

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Catholics and Protestant Evangelicals in USA and relation

Why a Pennsylvania-born grandson of Italian immigrants who attends Mass in Latin or a recent convert Speaker Gingrich is emerging as the favorite of conservative Protestants.

The answers help explain not only the political dynamics of the current race, but point to a generational shift from the 1960 campaign, when John F. Kennedy had to reassure evangelicals like Billy Graham that he wasn’t too Catholic to be president.

"Now here we are, 50 years later, and evangelicals are not only willing to vote for Roman Catholic candidates but frankly they are flocking to Roman Catholic candidates" like Santorum and Newt Gingrich, said Ralph Reed, head of the Faith and Freedom Coalition and a top evangelical political activist. "This is a big moment in American religious and political history."

On Friday, Gingrich secured a major evangelical endorsement when Tim LaHaye, a minister and author of the Left Behind series of novels, threw in his support.

Both Reed and Hudson note that Santorum’s appeal to conservative Protestants isn’t really — or even mainly — a case of mistaken religious identity. Plenty of evangelicals know Santorum is a practicing Catholic; it’s just that it doesn’t matter the way it once did.

What’s really important is that Santorum espouses their values, because in a multifront culture war, an "ecumenism of the trenches" prevails over Reformation-era disputes about doctrine. So when Santorum makes full-throated opposition to gay marriage and abortion his signature issues, he is in effect singing from the evangelical hymnal.

"Rick Santorum may technically not call himself an evangelical, but he is definitely one when it comes to social issues, so don’t get too caught up in the title of ‘Roman Catholic,’" David Brody, chief political correspondent for Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, wrote after the Iowa vote. "Santorum is an evangelical at heart."

 

Newt Gingrich continuously defends Christian Stands, and the main leader speaking  the core Social values and  about Christianity injustice.

 

Please click read more to read the whole artcile

 

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Zawahiri urges Lebanese Muslims to help Syrians

  Al-Qaeda has so far been absent from the Lebanese scene and reports about Qaeda bases in Lebanon were quickly refuted by most security officials and politicians. However Zawahiri’s message yesterday comes to pose a serious question as to how deep is Al-Qaeda in Lebanon? "I appeal to every Muslim and every free, honorable one […]

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البطريرك الراعي: نأمل ان يعود الموارنة الى أرضهم بعدالة وكرام

  ترأس البطريرك الماروني مار بشارة بطرس الراعي قداساً احتفالياً في كنيسة سيدة النعم في نيقوسيا بحضور رئيس الجمهورية القبرصي. البطريرك الراعي وفي عظة القاها بعد الانجيل المقدس دعا الى الصلاة من اجل وحدة الكنيسة الكاملة شاكراً الرئيس القبرصي على مودته ورعايته لأبناء الجالية اللبنانية المارونية في قبرص ومتحدثاً عن تاريخ وجودهم منذ 1200 سنة. […]

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When Is a Compromise Not a Compromise? Contraception Catholics

Couple of Articles that outline the contraception and changes on religious institutions

WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) – We present, in its entirety, the first response of the United States Bishop concerning the alleged "compromise" of the Obama Administration to somehow "fix"  its unjust and unconstitutional edict. It is taken from the Bishops web site and can be found here.

We ask our readers to pray for the our Bishops and stand in solidarity with them. They have shown tremendous courage. We know they will continue to do so going forward. We expect they will speak further as the alleged "compromise" – and its implications – are fully studied.We will continue to follow this vital matter closely.

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The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have issued the following statement:

The Catholic bishops have long supported access to life-affirming healthcare for all, and the conscience rights of everyone involved in the complex process of providing that healthcare. That is why we raised two serious objections to the "preventive services" regulation issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in August 2011.

First, we objected to the rule forcing private health plans – nationwide, by the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen-to cover sterilization and contraception, including drugs that may cause abortion. All the other mandated "preventive services" prevent disease, and pregnancy is not a disease. Moreover, forcing plans to cover abortifacients violates existing federal conscience laws. Therefore, we called for the rescission of the mandate altogether.

Second, we explained that the mandate would impose a burden of unprecedented reach and severity on the consciences of those who consider such "services" immoral: insurers forced to write policies including this coverage; employers and schools forced to sponsor and subsidize the coverage; and individual employees and students forced to pay premiums for the coverage.

We therefore urged HHS, if it insisted on keeping the mandate, to provide a conscience exemption for all of these stakeholders-not just the extremely small subset of "religious employers" that HHS proposed to exempt initially.

Today, the President has done two things.

First, he has decided to retain HHS’s nationwide mandate of insurance coverage of sterilization and contraception, including some abortifacients. This is both unsupported in the law and remains a grave moral concern. We cannot fail to reiterate this, even as so many would focus exclusively on the question of religious liberty.

Second, the President has announced some changes in how that mandate will be administered, which is still unclear in its details. As far as we can tell at this point, the change appears to have the following basic contours:

It would still mandate that all insurers must include coverage for the objectionable services in all the policies they would write. At this point, it would appear that self-insuring religious employers, and religious insurance companies, are not exempt from this mandate.

It would allow non-profit, religious employers to declare that they do not offer such coverage. But the employee and insurer may separately agree to add that coverage. The employee would not have to pay any additional amount to obtain this coverage, and the coverage would be provided as a part of the employer’s policy, not as a separate rider.

Finally, we are told that the one-year extension on the effective date (from August 1, 2012 to August 1, 2013) is available to any non-profit religious employer who desires it, without any government application or approval process.

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