More than a year after Algeria launched a pilot program to teach English in elementary schools, the country is hailing it as a success and expanding it in a move that reflects a widening linguistic shift underway in former French colonies throughout Africa.

Students returning to third and fourth grade classrooms this fall will participate in two 45-minute English classes each week as the country creates new teacher training programs at universities and eyes more transformational changes in the years ahead. Additionally, the country is strengthening enforcement of a preexisting law against private schools who operate primarily in French.

Rana Hariri doesn't know when she'll be able to send her children back to school, as Lebanon's grinding economic crisis thrusts the fate of public education into uncertainty.

Lack of funding for the school system has precipitated repeated teachers' strikes and school closures, resulting in children being increasingly pulled out of the formal learning system, and in some cases being forced to work.

"The Immortals" have spoken: the 388-year-old Academie Francaise, custodian and promoter of the French language, has a new leader in the form of author Amin Maalouf.

The French-Lebanese writer, 74, becomes only the 33rd person to occupy the post of "perpetual secretary" since the body's founding under King Louis XIII in 1635.

Lebanese singer and actress Najah Salam, who surged to fame in the mid-20th century in the Middle East for her songs promoting pan-Arabism, has died, her family said Thursday. She was 92.

Her family did not disclose the cause of her death.

After a 148-day strike, Hollywood screenwriters secured significant guardrails against the use of artificial intelligence in one of the first major labor battles over generative AI in the workplace.

During the nearly five-month walkout, no issue resonated more than the use of AI in script writing. What was once a seemingly lesser demand of the Writers Guild of America became an existential rallying cry.

More than 11,000 Palestine Refugees children in South Lebanon will not be able to join their peers at the beginning of the school year on 2 October. This is a quarter of refugee school children and is due to violence and clashes in the Ain el-Helweh camp, the largest in the country.

“UNRWA was forced to take this decision given all our eight schools inside the camp have been taken over by armed groups. They have sustained significant destruction and damage. Other schools – outside the camp- are currently being used by displaced families,” said Dorothée Klaus, Director of UNRWA Affairs in Lebanon.

Ambassador of the European Union to Lebanon Sandra De Waele on Monday opened the 28th edition of the European Film Festival in Lebanon at the Sursock Museum.

Below is the speech delivered by De Waele at the ceremony as received by Naharnet:

Pope Francis on Saturday labeled the weapons industry as being a key driver of the "martyrdom" of Ukraine's people in Russia's war, saying even the withholding of weapons now is going to continue their misery.

Francis appeared to refer to Poland's recent announcement that it is no longer sending arms to Ukraine when he was asked about the war during brief remarks to reporters while returning home from Marseille, France.

Ten years after Pope Francis made a landmark visit to the Italian island of Lampedusa to show solidarity with migrants, he is joining Catholic bishops from the Mediterranean this weekend in France to make the call more united.

The question is whether anyone in European corridors of power will listen, as they scramble to stem a new tide of would-be refugees setting off from Africa.

Tensions between Canada and India have escalated over the assassination of a Sikh independence advocate in June.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his country was investigating credible allegations that Indian government agents were connected to the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, but India has rejected the allegations as absurd.