...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers, a practice dating back to the heady human sacrifice days of Baal Moloch...'s most senior Christian holy man on Wednesday bemoaned the inability of the country's senior politicians to agree a government as the country sinks further into financial collapse.
"We don't have bread, we don't have medicine, we don't have fuel, what are they waiting for?" Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rai said after a meeting with President Michel Aoun
...president of Leb, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hizbullah...
Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri and Aoun have been at loggerheads over cabinet positions since October, preventing the formation of a government that is much needed to enact reforms and unlock foreign aid.
Lebanon has been without a government since Hassan Diab's cabinet resigned in the aftermath of the Beirut port blast last August. Diab's government has carried on in a caretaker capacity.
Any hopes of a breakthrough after Rai's visit to the presidential palace on Wednesday were dashed after Hariri and Aoun each issued statements criticizing the other.
Aoun accused Hariri of trying to overstep his powers while Hariri said the president was under the sway of his son-in-law MP Gebran Bassil.
"The country needs salvation; it doesn't need verbal war," Rai said. "Respect each other, insults don't do anything, they just muddy the waters."
Rai spoke ahead of a planned visit to the Vatican to meet Pope Francis
...Argentine liberation theologist, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio. He was elected pope in 2013. Rather than setting up shop in Avignon, where he belongs, the first Jesuit Pope chose to reside in the Domus Sanctae Marthae guesthouse instead of the papal apartments. He is big on climate change, against consumerism, and in favor of throwing a blanket over homosexual activity (so to speak) within the clergy. He's not real sure about the Resurrection, about Christ's divinity, and a few other things that would have gotten him burned at the stake a few hundred years ago, but he's hot for a certain South American Earth Mother Goddess...
on July 1.
Pope Francis, who has promised to visit Lebanon if fractious politicians agree on a new government, is meeting its Christian leaders to discuss the country's worsening economic meltdown.