Word: beirutization
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Despite a recent three-month jihadist uprising, a nine-month street campaign by the Iranian opposition to bring down the U.S.-backed government and rumors of war swirling all around, it's business as usual in Beirut's packed nightclubs. The good-looking people in this good-time town have long partied to a sound track of popping champagne corks, clacking high heels and the generic beat of computer-generated dance music--whatever it takes to drown out the beat of Lebanon's continual crises. But for a relatively small number of Beirut hipsters, there's another sound track...
Makram Azzi, 65, a retired pilot for Middle East Airlines, Lebanon's national flag carrier, said the blast tore his front door from its hinges. "What can you do? This is a war," he said, still visibly shaken. Ghanem, 64, had returned to Beirut from the Gulf only two days earlier. Like many anti-Syrian legislators, he had spent the summer months abroad out of safety concerns. Eight prominent anti-Syrian figures have been killed in a series of assassinations since February 2005 when former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri died in a massive truck bomb blast. Many Lebanese have blamed...
Antoine Ghanem, an anti-Syrian Lebanese lawmaker, was killed Wednesday when a suspected car bomb exploded beside his Chevrolet in a leafy suburb of east Beirut, setting the vehicle ablaze along with at least a dozen others and killing some nine bystanders. His death will complicate the scheduled election of a new President next Tuesday and further polarize the warring anti-Syrian and pro-Syrian factions here whose bitter feuding has stalemated the country for almost a year...
...blast was heard throughout east Beirut and a tall plume of thick black smoke rose into the early evening sky. The bomb exploded at a junction of a main street filled with rush hour traffic. Broken glass and masonry blasted from adjacent apartment buildings and office blocks littered the street as firemen doused the flames of burning vehicles. A cordon of green-bereted Lebanese troops sealed off the area from an angry and anxious crowd. "There's blood everywhere, blood, blood," cried a distraught Ziad Ghosn, eyeing a crimson trail in the bomb-blasted ruins of his brother's apartment...
...Beirut has played host to numerous visiting dignitaries in recent days, each one attempting to resolve the stalemate and defuse the lingering fear of civil conflict breaking out. U.S. officials publicly maintain a neutral stance, saying only that the election should be held on time and without foreign meddling, a reference to Syria. But there is little doubt that Washington prefers a President who will continue to uphold Lebanon's independence from Syria and will seek to implement U.N. resolutions calling for the disarming of Hizballah, regarded by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. On the other hand, Syria...