CNN’s Paula Zahn is currently interviewing the Syria ambassador to the US, and a surprising development: Syria has opened its borders to American civilians "no visas required" to leave Lebanon. This might be welcome news to people like chef Anthony Bourdain and his crew from The Travel Channel’s "No Reservations" who all flew to Beirut to film an episode of the series last week and got stranded when Israel bombed the airport. The New York Post’s PageSix reports that Bourdain commented that the "mojitos are great" and professes that the Lebanese people are "really, really nice" and that most Lebanese he’s met have professed their embarrassment of Hezbollah actions in their country. Then again, maybe they know he’s not picky about what he eats - including the still-beating heart of a snake. (That’s not for shock value, it’s true.) There are an estimated 25,000 American citizens in Lebanon, and while no evacuations have been ordered for them, they are being asked to keep in contact with the US embassy there.
During the day today, Hezbollah was 1-1 in shooting rockets as Israeli warships. While they tagged one, the other they attempted to bomb didn’t go nearly as well - they missed and hit an Egyptian ship. This happened after Israel bombed Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut and also targeted the Hezbollah militant group leader’s own home. Hezbollah is now declaring that if Israel wants open war, they’re ready and they’ll take their retaliation to Israel’s soil in Haifa and, as they say, "beyond". This isn’t so interesting, since they have been launching rockets towards the northern part of Israel for the last several days already - they’ve just named a city to target. The truly mysterious event that happened today involved the US brokering a deal for Israel to not bomb one of recently repaired Beirut airport runways, so that a plane carrying the Lebanese Prime Minister and 5 other planes could take off. Not surprisingly, Israel bombed the hell of the runway afterwards. About the only news worthy note about Palestine is the fact that militants there forced open a gate at the Egyptian border, allowing Palestinians trapped in Egypt when fighting commenced to go home. Unfortunately, Israel believes that their soldier Hamas is holding could be smuggled into Egypt through the same gate.
Back here at home, the Dow has dropped 400 points and the price of crude oil has risen to above $77 per barrel due to the tensions in the Middle East. Most analysts say that should the price reach $100 a barrel, Americans will be paying $4 per gallon.
Update 9:22pm: On Larry King Live at the moment, the Lebanese advisor to the Prime Minister of that country wants to have dialog with Israel, but since they don’t recognize Israel as a state, they have to have that dialog through "other means." Seems to me if you wanted to save your people from all this bombing, you might forego that view and start speaking directly to them whether you recognize Israel as a state or not. They’re bombing you back 20 years and counting...
Technorati Tags: Breaking News, Current Affairs, Syria, Dow, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Anthony Bourdain, CNN
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