Articles

To illustrate his point and give it a biblical dimension, Pope Leo XIV uses, in his encyclical Magnifica humanitas on the digital age and Artificial Intelligence (AI), a metaphor: humanity must choose between building a new “Tower of Babel” or building the “Holy City.” The story of the Tower of Babel is a biblical episode from the Book of Genesis. Shortly after the Flood, while all human beings spoke the same language, they set out to build a city and a tower whose top would reach the heavens, in order to make a name for themselves. Then God confused their language so that they could no longer understand one another, and scattered them over the face of the earth (Genesis 11:1-9).

At the very moment that a conference was being held in Paris at the French National Assembly, giving a voice to our free Shiite fellow citizens*, a village in southern Lebanon, perched 180 meters above sea level, was making itself remembered. On Friday, June 5, a spirit of defiance arose in Baysarieh: a scuffle broke out between local residents - mostly Twelver Shiites and supporters of Nabih Berri - and Hezbollah militants who wanted to install rocket launchers in the middle of the village. The Lebanese Army had to intervene to separate the opposing sides and restore order. A video captured the collective clash which, in a supreme irony, took place in a street adorned with pistachio-green banners bearing the colors of the Amal Movement!

Is the transitional 'memorandum of understanding' intended to end the war between the United States and Iran really close to being finalized? The triumphalist announcement made by President Donald Trump about an 'imminent deal' with Iran has already been undermined by 'leaks' in Iranian state-controlled media, which continue to proclaim that the Islamic Republic got everything it was seeking: control of the Strait of Hormuz, the immediate release of frozen funds, the lifting of sanctions, and American investment to revive the Iranian economy… A post by Trump on his social media platform abruptly set the record straight. However, it seems unlikely that this will prevent a deal from being reached — a view reinforced Friday evening by an announcement from the Pakistani mediator, who officially confirmed that the two sides had reached an agreement.

The world today seems caught between the fever of the World Cup and the social media posts of American President Donald Trump, with all the immediate repercussions these carry for the violent swings in oil and gold prices, and for the considerable profits reaped by the speculations tied to them. Yet this media “noise” conceals behind it shifts that are deeper and more consequential, manifest in the redrawing of the network of regional and international alliances, driven by the accelerating fallout from the confrontation underway between the United States and Israel on one side, and Iran and its ramifications on the other.

Amid the political and media clamour surrounding the ongoing negotiations between Lebanon and Israel under American sponsorship, many are absorbed by the traditional question: does Israel want peace? Are we standing before a new phase in relations between the two countries, or merely facing security arrangements imposed by the balance of power that emerged from the war? But the truth is that this question, however important, is not the most important one for Lebanon. The fundamental question today does not concern what Israel wants, but what Lebanon has managed to reclaim for itself after long decades of confiscation of its national decision-making.

And here we go again. Tensions are rising in the region with a new wave of strikes on Iran, announced for this evening by U.S. President Donald Trump, who also threatened to seize control of the strategic island of Kharg — the linchpin of Iran's oil economy. However, in yet another reversal, Trump later posted on his Truth Social platform that he had decided to call off the strikes he had been threatening against Iran, asserting that "discussions with the Islamic Republic have been seen and approved by Iran's highest authorities." And, as is often the case, the news was quickly denied by Iran's Fars news agency. But according to Axios , senior Iranian officials confirmed that a "framework agreement" had been reached, but that they were "awaiting the approval of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei."