Tear gas and flying flag sticks

After what seemed like a fairly inflammatory speech by some political big cheese at the end of the otherwise-uneventful funeral of the recently assassinated Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, an odd combo of hard-line Sunni and right-wing Christian groups (for anyone wondering why these two make odd bedfellows check here) made a rush for the Serail (the Lebanese government's Whitehall, I guess) and had it out with the army and police who were guarding it. Sticks and stones versus tear gas wasn't really a fair fight, but I guess they started it. As an aside,  for any one with a stuffy head, tear gas, it seems, is great for clearing sinuses once you get passed the whole retching confusion thing.

There's a few more here too.

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.