Protests in Lebanon turn violent as security forces use tear gas.
Lebanese security forces fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of protesters, mainly retired soldiers, who tried to break through the fence leading to the government headquarters in downtown Beirut. The retired soldiers and policemen demanding better pay clashed with riot police and troops. The protest was called for by retired soldiers and depositors who have had limited access to their savings after local banks imposed informal capital controls amid the crisis. Lebanon, a small Mediterranean nation of 6 million people, including 1 million Syrian refugees, is in the grips of the worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history, rooted in decades of corruption and mismanagement by a political class that has ruled the country since the end of the 1975-90 civil war.
