Word: beirutization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...sectarian conflict in Iraq has implications for the whole Middle East. Long before Americans recognized sectarianism as a problem it was already shaping attitudes beyond Iraq's borders. Not long after Saddam fell from power, King Abdullah of Jordan warned of an emerging Shi'ite crescent stretching from Beirut to Tehran - emerging Shi'ite power and Sunni reaction to it was on everyone's mind in the region...
...Grand Serail, an Ottoman-era palace that houses Lebanon's government, began its life as a garrison for Turkish soldiers. The buff limestone building was restored after this country's long civil war, and it still looms over downtown Beirut like a hilltop fortress, with its arabesque arches punctuating the fa?ade like so many cannon slits...
...current political battle for Lebanon, the Serail has become a garrison once again, under siege by an angry army of opposition supporters camped out in white refugee tents in the squares of central Beirut. On Sunday, with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators answering Hizballah and its allies' call for reinvigorated protests to topple the government, the Lebanese Army lined the causeways leading to the Serail with razor-wire barricades and tank columns, while riot police in full black battle armor guarded the citadel's gates...
...rhetorical battle took a turn for the worse on Thursday, when in a speech that was broadcast to the crowds in Beirut on giant projection screens, Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah accused Siniora's government of collaborating with Israel to destroy Hizballah in this summer's war with the Jewish state, in part by trying to block supplies from reaching the battlefront of southern Lebanon. Siniora and his allies have responded by saying that Hizballah is acting on orders from Iran and Syria - from whom the group's military wing receives weapons and other aid - to destabilize Lebanon and mount...
...East and West - both open to foreign investment and the frontline of the Arab struggle against Israel - has been badly damaged. Lebanon is losing some $40 million each day the crisis continues, in lost business and from the costs of deploying the army and police round the clock in Beirut, according to government ministers. This is on top of the reconstruction costs from the war with Israel, and from the 15-year civil war that ended in 1990, which together have put the country about $40 billion in debt - $9 billion of which comes due next year. But with Syria...