Lebanon’s Mediterranean beaches are scattered with trash, its waters often too polluted for safe swimming. From the start, the protesters included people from every religious background and class who did not spare their own communities’ leaders from mocking chants, the more unprintable the better. “They should be in prison,” said Josiane Haddad, 23, a psychology student. “All of them, no exceptions.”All week, a strange mood has gripped the country, hovering somewhere between a holiday and the mad scramble to prepare for a hurricane. People were euphoric, at first like schoolchildren granted a surprise snow day and then like riders on an untested roller coaster, the drop somewhere out of sight.

Source: New York Times October 23, 2019 22:56 UTC