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.

Sewage on Beirut beach

Looks nice, yeah? Shame that the lovely reflection is in fact coming from a pool of stagnant water which flows freely from a storm drain straight onto one of the few remaining public beaches in Beirut.
These were for a massive story Executive is running this month by Sami Halabi about the myriad problems within Lebanon's water sector. Sounds boring, but when you've been waking up wondering if you'll have water today for the last few months like many here in Beirut, it makes for a compelling read – in short; government is shit, resources are mismanaged, usual story. I'm sure Sami will have the more eloquent version on his blog soon.