LEBANON: LOOTERS RAMPAGE THROUGH BEIRUT FOLLOWING PEACEFUL PROTEST AGAINST RISING PRICES.

Record ID: 350095

  • Title: LEBANON: LOOTERS RAMPAGE THROUGH BEIRUT FOLLOWING PEACEFUL PROTEST AGAINST RISING PRICES.
  • Date: 27th August 1987
  • Summary: 1. GV & SV Demonstrators running from bank a guards fire shots in air. (2 SHOTS) 0.17 2. GV Burning tyres in road. 0.23 3. GVs Marchers running down Hamra. (3 SHOTS) 0.30 4. GVs & SVs Protesters smashing shops. (6 SHOTS) 1.14 5. GVs Youths and children scrambling for money. (2 SHOTS) 1.25 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 11th September 1987 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BEIRUT, LEBANON
  • Country: Lebanon
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA2P1PC6B5UCAU2AHJL9ZYJ3EXW
  • Story Text: BEIRUT, LEBANON

    Rioters cut Beirut's Airport Highway and looters raided foreign exchange shops in the city centre on August 27 during protests against the fall of the Lebanese pound and the resulting poverty and hunger. It was the worst street violence since Syrian troops moved into Moslem West Beirut during February 1987. The trouble began when several hundred marchers, mainly young men, marched to the Central Bank where guards fired automatic weapons into the air to stop them storming the building. The marchers then made their way to the once fashionable Hamra area where they smashed into commercial foreign exchange shops. At one point scores of children and youths scrambled in the streets for bank notes thrown into the air by the looters. The Lebanese pound, once the strongest currency in the Middle East, lost 71 per cent of its value in the year up to August while the price of basic consumer items like bread and sugar rose in the same period by 300 per cent. Acting Prime minister Salim Hoss recently proposed selling one fifth of Lebanon's 9.2 million ounces of gold reserves to raise 800 million United States (US) dollars in order to prop up the pound.

    <strong>Source: REUTERS - MOUSTAFA KASSEM</strong>
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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