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Pope Leo XIV is set to urge peace and unity on his second day in Lebanon on Monday, bringing a message of hope to young people whose faith in their crisis-hit country has dwindled.After arriving from Turkey on his inaugural visit abroad as pontiff, Leo urged Lebanon’s leaders to serve their long-suffering people, who have emigrated in droves from the Mediterranean country.Lebanon is reeling from a six-year economic collapse widely blamed on official corruption and mismanagement, and many also fear renewed war between Israel and Hezbollah despite a ceasefire in November 2024 that sought to end more than a year of hostilities.Israel has intensified strikes on Lebanon in recent weeks despite the truce, while the cash-strapped Lebanese government is under heavy US pressure to disarm the Iran-backed militants.Leo’s visit comes as “we are struggling with many economic, social and political problems”, said Elias Abou Nasr Chaalan, 44, a jeweller and father-of-two.”We need hope and to unite as Lebanese,” he said, noting that the pope had already brought together Lebanese officials and religious leaders.”Through our unity, we can overcome all difficulties,” he told AFP.Leo will first visit a monastery in Annaya in the mountains north of Beirut which hosts the tomb of Saint Charbel, a Maronite hermit who was canonised in 1977 and who enjoys broad popularity beyond the Christian community.Depictions of the white-bearded saint can be found in homes, vehicles and workplaces across the country.- Youth gathering -He is then to address bishops and clergy at a shrine in Harissa, also north of Beirut, where a giant statue of Our Lady of Lebanon overlooks the Mediterranean from a plunging hilltop.The pope will also hold an inter-religious event in central Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square, before meeting young people at the patriarchate of Lebanon’s Maronite church in Bkerke, outside the capital.Authorities have proclaimed December 1 and 2 as official holidays, and ramped-up security measures include road closures and a ban on all drone photography.Thousands lined the streets to greet the pontiff’s convoy on Sunday despite rainy weather.Leo has called on Lebanon’s leaders to place themselves “with commitment and dedication at the service” of the people and has urged reconciliation in a country whose 1975-1990 civil war divisions have never healed.”Peace is knowing how to live together, in communion, as reconciled people,” Leo said, also noting Lebanon’s “exodus of young people and families seeking a future elsewhere”.His 48-hour trip has been eagerly awaited in multi-confessional Lebanon, where the last pope to visit was Benedict XVI in 2012.In Turkey, Leo took a cautious approach, balancing political sensitivities while also urging unity and respect for religious diversity.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on trial facing corruption charges, announced Sunday he had submitted a pardon request, saying the long-running cases were tearing the country apart.US President Donald Trump wrote to Israeli President Isaac Herzog earlier this month, asking him to pardon Netanyahu, who has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in the proceedings.”The trial in my case has been ongoing for nearly six years, and is expected to continue for many more years,” Netanyahu said in a video statement, without admitting guilt.He explained he wanted to see the process through until acquittal, “but the security and political reality — the national interest — dictate otherwise.”The continuation of the trial is tearing us apart from within, arousing fierce divisions, intensifying rifts,” he added. The cases against Netanyahu have exposed divisions in Israeli society between his supporters and opponents. Netanyahu’s backers dismiss the trials as politically motivated.The premier and his wife Sara are accused in one case of accepting more than $260,000 worth of luxury goods such as cigars, jewellery and champagne from billionaires in exchange for political favours.He is also accused of attempting to negotiate more favourable coverage from two Israeli media outlets in two other cases.- ‘Extraordinary request’ -Netanyahu said the demand for him to testify three times a week had “tipped the scales”, calling it an “impossible requirement”.”An immediate end to the trial will greatly help to lower the flames and promote the broad reconciliation that our country so desperately needs.”Netanyahu’s statement was accompanied by a 111-page letter his lawyers submitted to Herzog which likewise did not admit culpability.Herzog’s office confirmed it had received Netanyahu’s request.”This is an extraordinary request which carries with it significant implications. After receiving all of the relevant opinions, the president will responsibly and sincerely consider the request,” it said.In September, Herzog indicated that he could grant Netanyahu a pardon, saying in an interview that the prime minister’s case “weighs heavily on Israeli society”.Netanyahu, 76, is Israel’s longest-serving premier, having spent more than 18 years in the post across three spells since 1996.During his current term, Netanyahu proposed far-reaching judicial reforms that critics say sought to weaken the courts.Those prompted massive protests that were only curtailed after the Gaza war began in October 2023.Likud leader Netanyahu has said he will stand in the next elections, due before the end of 2026.- ‘Only the guilty seek pardon’ -The timing of Netanyahu’s request — submitted a few weeks after Trump’s letter to Herzog — was “an orchestrated move”, Israeli legal expert Eli Salzberger said.Herzog’s decision could take weeks, and if he grants the pardon, it is likely to be challenged in the Supreme Court, dragging out the process even further, said Salzberger, a law professor at the University of Haifa.Under Israeli law, however, a pardon can only be granted to a convicted criminal.Salzberger predicted that “if the pardon request is denied, it will be an easier path for (Netanyahu) to settle on a plea bargain” — an option the premier has so far rejected.Opposition leader Yair Lapid insisted Sunday that a pardon must be conditioned on Netanyahu’s “admission of guilt, an expression of remorse and an immediate withdrawal from political life”.Yair Golan, head of the left-wing opposition party the Democrats, said: “Only the guilty seek pardon.”However, senior ministers backed Netanyahu’s request.Defence Minister Israel Katz said a pardon would end the “deep rift that has accompanied Israeli society for nearly a decade”.And Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Netanyahu had “been persecuted for years by a corrupt judicial system that fabricated political cases against him”.- ‘End of Israeli democracy’ -Netanyahu is the first sitting Israeli prime minister to face a corruption trial.Ex-premier Ehud Olmert was questioned in a corruption case, but resigned in 2009 before being tried and sentenced to 27 months in prison for fraud.Dozens of protesters demonstrated outside Herzog’s private home in Tel Aviv, urging him to reject Netanyahu’s request.”People of Israel understand what is at stake — and it really is the future of our country,” prominent anti-government activist Shikma Bressler, 45, told AFP.She said Netanyahu had been trying to “destroy the judicial system” and because it wasn’t happening fast enough, “now he’s approaching the president”.Moshe Radman, 40, claimed Netanyahu was trying to “run from his trial”.Ami Dror, 52, said Herzog’s job was to “protect Israeli democracy… and if you demolish law and order, this might be the end of Israeli democracy.”

Visiting Pope Leo XIV urged the Lebanese people on Sunday to embrace reconciliation and remain in their crisis-hit country, while calling on its leaders to put themselves fully at the service of their citizens.The pope, bearing what he described as a message of peace, had previously visited Turkey, where he kicked off his first overseas tour since being elected leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics in May.Long hailed as a model of coexistence, multi-confessional Lebanon is nonetheless plagued by sectarian and political rifts, and has seen waves of emigration.Since 2019 it has been ravaged by successive crises, from an economic collapse widely blamed on official mismanagement and corruption, to a devastating Beirut port blast in 2020, to the recent war between militant group Hezbollah and Israel — which many Lebanese fear could return.Leo told officials, diplomats and civil society representatives in a speech at the presidential palace that “there are times when it is easier to flee, or simply more convenient to move elsewhere. It takes real courage and foresight to stay or return to one’s own country.”He urged Lebanese people to take up the “path of reconciliation”, and called on the country’s leaders to place themselves “with commitment and dedication at the service of your people”.No real reconciliation process was undertaken following Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war, and the latest conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has deepened divisions.- ‘Promote peace’ -Lebanon rolled out the red carpet and a 21-gun salute for Leo, who was greeted at the airport by children and a brass band as ships at the port sounded their horns. Two Lebanese military aircraft escorted his plane on descent. Hundreds of people standing along the roadside braved heavy rain to greet the pope along his route to the presidential palace.”The pope is not just for Christians but for Muslims too, and we love him a lot… We want him to bless our land,” said Zahra Nahleh, 19, from Lebanon’s war-ravaged south, who was waiting to welcome the pontiff.Leo told journalists on the plane that his tour had “a special theme of… being a messenger of peace, of wanting to promote peace throughout the region”.He went on to emphasise that theme in his speech at the presidential palace, using the word “peace” more than 20 times, without mentioning any specific conflicts, including the war between Hezbollah and Israel.The two-nation trip is something of a test for the first American pope, whose understated style contrasts with that of his charismatic and impulsive predecessor, Francis.Although Leo’s four-day visit drew little attention in Turkey, a Muslim-majority nation whose Christian community numbers only around 100,000, his 48-hour stopover has been eagerly awaited in Lebanon, a religiously diverse country of around six million people.Lebanon’s last papal visitor was Benedict XVI in 2012.Youth scouting groups affiliated with Hezbollah waited to welcome the pope along the road in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where the Iran-backed militants hold sway and which Israel pounded during the war last year.Posters of the group’s slain chief Hassan Nasrallah appeared near billboards welcoming the pontiff in the area, which Israel struck again last week, killing Hezbollah’s military chief.Despite last year’s truce, Israel has kept up regular raids on Lebanon, usually saying it is striking Hezbollah targets.On Saturday, Hezbollah had urged the pope to reject Israeli “injustice and aggression” against Lebanon. – ‘Duty for humanity’ -Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said that “safeguarding Lebanon” — a unique model of coexistence among different religious communities — “is a duty for humanity”.”If this model disappears, nowhere else can replace it,” said Aoun, the only Christian head of state in the Arab world.Christians play a key political role in Lebanon, where power is shared among the country’s religious communities, but they have seen their numbers dwindle, particularly due to emigration.In Turkey, Leo’s visit focused on calls for greater unity among different branches of Christianity. On his last day there, he went to the Armenian Cathedral expressing encouragement for the largest of Turkey’s Christian communities — with some 50,000 members — and thanking God “for the courageous Christian witness of the Armenian people throughout history, often amid tragic circumstances”.It was an apparent nod to the massacres the Armenians suffered at the hands of the Ottoman troops in 1915-1916, which has been qualified as genocide by around 30 countries, although Turkey firmly rejects the term. burs-lg/smw

The Afghan suspect in the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington may have been radicalized after entering the US, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said when questioned about his motive on Sunday talk shows.Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, faces a first-degree murder charge in the November 26 shooting that left a 20-year-old guardsman dead and another critically wounded.”I will say we believe he was radicalized since he’s been here in this country,” Noem said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We do believe it was through connections in his home community and state, and we’re going to continue to talk to those who interacted with him, who were his family members, who talk to them,” said Noem during a separate interview on ABC.Lakanwal entered the United States in 2021 as part of a massive airlift by then-president Joe Biden’s administration during the US military withdrawal and subsequent return to power of Taliban forces.A resident of the western US state of Washington, Lakanwal allegedly drove cross-country to carry out the shooting a few blocks from the White House — an attack that shocked Americans on the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday. Officials from President Donald Trump’s administration, which reportedly granted Lakanwal US asylum in April 2025, have blamed Biden’s administration for lax vetting during the Afghan airlift.Noem told ABC’s “This Week” that Lakanwal was “maybe vetted” after entering the United States but said it was “not done well.””Crooked Joe Biden, Mayorkas, and so-called ‘Border Czar’ Kamala Harris really screwed our Country by letting anyone and everyone come in totally unchecked and unvetted!” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform Sunday. Officials said that before coming to the United States, Lakanwal had served in a CIA-backed Afghan “partner force” unit fighting the Taliban. US government officials have since suspended visas for all Afghan nationals and frozen decisions in all asylum cases.