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Lebanon Security Forces Fire Tear Gas, Water Canon at Protesters

VOA News

   Security forces in Beirut's capital fired water cannon and tear gas at
   angry protesters outside parliament Wednesday, where a new government
   was being formed.

   The demonstrators rallied near the parliament building in the early
   hours to protest the new government. They hurled stones, firecrackers
   and sticks at police and tried to remove the newly erected barricades
   placed outside parliament, where Prime Minister Hassan Diab's
   government had been installed just hours earlier.

   Diab's new government, which is scheduled to meet for the first time on
   Wednesday, ended an impasse triggered by the resignation of Prime
   Minister Saad Hariri last October.

   Protesters have been calling for sweeping reforms and a government made
   up of independent technocrats that could deal with Lebanon's crippling
   economic and financial crisis, the worst the country has faced in
   decades.

   A liquidity crunch has led banks to restrict access to cash and the
   Lebanese pound to slump. Jobs have been lost and inflation has soared.