By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM),

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – Inquisitr reported Todenhöfer, a former MP with Angela Merkel’s CDU party, spent 10 harrowing days on the ISIS frontline. He "dodged bullets" while being chauffeured by the notorious video executioner "Jihadi John," also known as Mohammed Emwazi.

"The terrorists plan on killing several hundred million people," he wrote. "The west is drastically underestimating the power of ISIS." Todenhöfer was reportedly only allowed to get close to ISIS because of his reputation as an outspoken critic of U.S. policy in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This project was opposed by my family for seven months. My son ultimately accompanied me – against my will. He meant to protect me. And he filmed there."

AP, By ZEINA KARAM and DAN PERRY

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria has already been shattered by more than four years of civil war, and with no solution in sight, some players on the ground and observers outside have concluded its fate will be to break up along sectarian or regional lines — in a best-case scenario, tenuously held together by a less centralized state.

A true partition would risk yet more mayhem, including ethnic or sectarian cleansing and battle over every bend in the border. But so spectacular is Syria’s disaster that many wonder whether its disparate groups can share a unifying national sentiment again.

Reuters

Lebanese security forces arrested 40 Palestinians on Wednesday as they tried to leave by boat from the northern city of Tripoli for a journey toward Europe, the National News Agency said.

The group, which included men and women, was aiming to reach Germany and had come from the large, long-established Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon’s south, NNA said. The boat’s owner was also detained.

There was no immediate comment from Lebanese justice authorities, but it is an offense to enter Tripoli’s port area without a security clearance or ferry ticket.

By Habib Toumi, Bureau Chief Gulf News, Manama: Lebanon’s cabinet has distanced itself from statements by Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, that Bahrain condemned as blatant interference in its domestic affairs. Prime Minister, Tammam Salam, stressed on “Lebanon’s commitment to better bilateral relations with Bahrain, and all states in the Gulf Cooperation Council”, […]

Associated Press, BEIRUT –  A special U.N.-backed tribunal on the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has fined the manager of a local TV station for not removing information about identities of confidential witnesses in the long-running probe. The Netherlands-based court ruled in August that Al-Jadeed TV’s deputy director, Karma Khayat, was guilty […]

By The Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) – Latest developments at the United Nations summit on the adoption of an ambitious blueprint to eradicate extreme poverty and other global goals. (All times local).

8:30 p.m.

Yemen’s foreign minister says that less than a year of fighting in his country has wiped out decades of development, while the U.N. chief in a meeting with Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister has called for an immediate cease-fire in the Yemen conflict.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Riad Yassin told at U.N. gathering of world leaders that Houthi rebels who seized large parts of the Arab world’s poorest country have not abided by U.N. Security Council resolutions adopted earlier this year. One resolution demanded that the Houthis immediately give up control of government institutions.

Elias Muhanna

In the spring of 2010, three Lebanese comic-book artists were ordered to come to the Beirut headquarters of the Directorate of General Security, where the country’s censorship authorities are located. Omar Khouri, Hatem Imam, and Fadi (the Fdz) Baki were in their early thirties, and had known one another since they were kids. (I’ve known Khouri and Baki since then as well.) In 2007, they founded Samandal, a trilingual comic magazine based in Beirut, which became an important platform for Middle Eastern comic artists. “When we were first called in, we had no idea what was going on,” Khouri said. “We assumed that there was a problem with our publishing license or some missing paperwork.”

By: Emily Holman

Two days after my arrival in Lebanon in mid-July, and almost one month after the publication of Pope Francis’s most recent papal encyclical, Laudato Si’, collection of the nation’s rubbish reached a standstill. Activists and residents of environs surrounding the Naameh landfill, in mountains south-east of Beirut, refused to accept any more rubbish following a planned closure for the site scheduled for July 17^th, which had already been postponed since January. When the government tried to continue to use the site, residents took matters into their own hands, and blocked the roads to the Naameh landfill. With nowhere to go, the rubbish could not be collected. Garbage piled up. People marched on the streets and threw eggs in protest at government inability both to respond to the situation, and to take the preventive measures that became necessary long ago.

By Joseph Kechichian, Senior Writer

Beirut: A few days after Moscow deployed several warplanes to a Syrian airbase near Latakia, presumably to prop up the regime of Bashar Al Assad which lost significant ground to rebel forces since the beginning of the year, Washington reiterated its ongoing support to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), as it announced the disbursement of fresh funds to acquire defensive weapons.

“I am very pleased to announce today that my government is allotting an additional $59 million for border security equipment for the army,” declared US Ambassador David Hale after meeting Prime Minister Tammam Salam at the Grand Serail [Government House] on Wednesday.

Except for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which offered a $3 billion grant to Beirut in late December 2013 to purchase weapons from France—another $1 billion was added in August 2014 to boost the country’s counter-terrorism forces—the United States was one of the few countries that stood by Lebanon, and for so long.