Islamists vs Assad

Islamist groups in Tripoli – Lebanon's northern city – have been staging protests against the Syrian regime for a while but tonight marked their first demonstration in Beirut. The protesters apparently clashed with a  pro-Assad crowd early on in the event but were soon parted by a heavy security presence. There's a good report of how the evening played out here.

Assad supporters do their best to out-shout the Islamist demonstration, separated by  lines of security forces.

Popping the cover cherry

So lil ol' me finally managed to get something printed on the cover of a magazine, which is nice. The subject, Othman Belbeisi, is just about one of the most interesting and genuine people you could hope to meet. After the 'shoot' he regaled me and my assistant-for-the-day  Naziha Baassiri over coffee and shisha with tales of the frankly crazy situations he faces on a near daily basis. As the head honcho of the International Organization for Migration in this neck of the woods, Othman is tasked with helping the region's domestic workers - possibly the most powerless of all the social strata in this part of the word -   get out of all kinds of scrapes, mostly  from escaping the clutches of crazy tyrants, be they Libyan 'Leaders' or Lebanese Madames. Anyway, JO's (a Jordanian magazine) own Cory Eldridge says it far better, see his story below, along with a nice nearly-candid shot I was able to take of Othman while enjoying his tales of derring do, an amazingly elderly grandfather and why Jordanian shishas are just better.