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.

Fadlallah's funeral

The Guardian had this to say about Lebanon's most senior Shiite cleric, who died of a longstanding illness on Sunday and was buried today. Hundreds of thousands of mourners jammed the streets of Haret Hreik, a suburb in South Beirut on what felt like one of the hottest days of the year so far. The guy in the last frame is misting the crowds with a much welcomed water hose - not so great for cameras. Haret Hreik is usually off limits for photographers who don't have a very good reason to be there, so it was nice to actually be assisted by the Hezbollah officials who'd usually be taking a very different view.

A nausea-inducing stop motion video of all the day's frames is here - first attempt at this, needs some tweaking but it gives you an idea of the scale of the day.