Word: beirutization
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When Samir Kassir, a leading Lebanese journalist, met with friends in Beirut for dinner last week, he was in a buoyant mood. Syria had withdrawn its troops from Lebanon, and a series of parliamentary elections that began on May 29 were set to result in a new government led by the anti-Syrian opposition. "Samir was very happy. He was telling us it was a new era for democracy in the region," says Malek Mrowa, a businessman and friend of Kassir's. The next morning, the 45-year-old Kassir, a university lecturer and columnist for Lebanon's An-Nahar...
ASSASSINATED. SAMIR KASSIR, 45, outspoken Lebanese journalist and critic of Syrian control in Lebanon; in a car bombing in Beirut. The first attack on a prominent Lebanese opposition figure since the killing of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in February, it came less than a week after the anti-Syrian opposition won a clear victory in the first round of Lebanon's parliamentary elections. Syria, still influential despite its withdrawal of troops under international pressure, denied involvement in the murder, which reignited national outrage and prompted calls for the resignation of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud...
...with him. "He said, 'I'm sick and tired of the sons of bitches.'" Dr. Khoury was beeped to perform an emergency operation at American University Hospital. Hariri got behind the wheel of his armor-plated Mercedes Benz, with Fleihan in the passenger seat, and drove toward his West Beirut mansion in a six-vehicle convoy. As they passed the seafront Hotel St. Georges, a Beirut landmark, an explosion caused by a 1,000-kg bomb turned the site into an inferno. Hariri's charred body was identified by a ring on his finger and a swatch of fabric from...
...attackers hoped to silence the anti-Syrian front that Hariri had built, they were disappointed just seven days later, when 150,000 people descended on Martyrs' Square in Beirut to mourn Hariri, wave Lebanese flags and demand Syria's withdrawal. The blast did, however, have a chilling effect on one group close to Hariri: his family. Days after their father's funeral, Hariri's four sons fled the country following a warning that they might be next. But as the Syrians began pulling out their troops, paving the way for elections, the Hariri clan grew concerned that without its leadership...
...didn't want a political dynasty. What I would like to do is work in politics for three or four years, establish a real party and then just step down." But gradually he is warming to the role that fate has delivered him. When he appeared at a recent Beirut campaign rally, he practically had to be dragged out of his seat to read a speech to supporters. But at the end of the rally he leaped onto a chair to blow kisses to the well-wishers. "Saad! Saad! Saad!" the crowd chanted, as sure a sign as any that...