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| waqarabro | May 8 2008, 10:19 PM |
Swash-buckling
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rival sides exchange gunfire in Lebanon May 8, 2008 BEIRUT: Lebanon’s international airport was closed on Thursday because of Hezbollah-led anti-government protests, with all flights cancelled and roads to airport closed. “All flights between midnight and four have been cancelled,” said the official, who did not wish to be named. “Airline employees didn’t come in today. There is no one” at the airport, she said. The rival sides exchanged gunfire in the village of Saadnayel in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley Thursday. There was no immediate wordon casualties. On Wednesday demonstrators blocked the road leading to Rafiq Hariri International Airport with burning tyres and mounds of earth, leaving arriving passengers stranded and forcing others to miss their flights. The protests caused massive disruption to traffic, and many passengers had no choice but to walk along the main airport road and negotiate the obstacles as they sought to make their way home. The strike was originally called by the country’s main labour union to push the government to raise the monthly minimum wage which has been unchanged since 1996. But it quickly degenerated into violence between supporters of the Western-backed ruling coalition and the opposition, backed by Syria and Iran. Hezbollah was also infuriated by government allegations it was spying on the airport and by the cabinet’s decision to remove the head of airport security, a figure close to the opposition, from his post. The violence was a serious escalation of the country’s prolonged political crisis, which has left Lebanon without a president since November. |
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| UPDATED NEWS · Education | |
1:54 PM Nov 25
