A little taste of revolution

 Some 400 members of Lebanon's secular Left marched on downtown Beirut today. Rightly pissed about the country's 'government' and rising food prices, the demonstrators called for change. Those I spoke to said they had been inspired by the recent events in Tunisia and Egypt-esque movement and were hoping for a revolution of their own. Maybe when the sun comes back out...
There's a good commentary on the protest at the Lebanese voices blog, here.

Anti Mubarak protest in Beirut

 Police guarded the Egyptian embassy in Beirut today with riot gear and razor wire as around 200 or so protestors gathered to demonstrate against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the actions of Egyptian security forces over the last few days. Not exactly reminiscent of the chaos currently unfurling in Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt, but, hey, every little helps.

It ends with a whimper

 And so Lebanon's 'Day of Rage' yesterday wound up with a few hundred clearly sectarian supporters pitching up for a bit of chanting in Martyrs' square. And a disturbing rendition of the national anthem (below). A good account of the whole sorry state of affairs can be found here, courtesy of Dana Moukhallati. The New York Times has a nice picture round-up, here.

Tires of fire

It's been a busy day in Beirut, with a handful of hardcore Sunni supporters protesting against the selection of Najib Mikati as Lebanon's premier, after Saad Hariri's government collapsed earlier in the month.

Most of the protesting took place in the Northen city of Tripoli but some hundred (at most) demonstrators blocked off the Cola intersection for a good portion of the day, as well as other skirmishes around the city.  No doubt the world's press will tell us the whole country is a ablaze, but for now, in Beirut at least, the busses are still running and everything is pretty much normal - bar the obvious.

Esquire's Alexandria spread

Here are a few more pictures from my cold and wet jaunt to Alexandria in December, which will be in next month's Esquire Middle East. (un-subbed)Words, as ever, by Mr Josh Wood.

Beirut's Synagogue and Jewish cemetery

For those of you who are a little rusty on your Swedish, the headline below reads "Hezbollah supports Jewish shrine," or so says google translate...

Swedish national daily Svenska Dagbladet printed my pictures of the (almost) reconstructed Beirut Synagogue and old Jewish cemetery to accompany a story by freelancer Emma Löfgren on January 2nd, which made for a nice start to the year. The guy in the picture is Anthony, the decorator responsible for getting the Synagogue back into shape which, rumour has it, may have been destroyed by Israeli shells in the first place...