Beirut gets new look with poster truce

City gains new look after having been dominated by political posters "What a relief," Assad Shami, an 80-year-old Shiite barber in Basta, says Muslims factions took down posters around Beirut at the start of the month Poster disarmament was embraced with creation of national unity government BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) -- In polarized Lebanon, flaunting a political leader's poster can be enough to spark a gunfight. So shopkeepers on Beirut's al-Maamoun Street are breathing a little easier now that "poster disarmament" has been declared. Most of the posters once plastered on Beirut's walls and lampposts have come down by agreement between the main factions of Shiite and Sunni Muslims -- part of a broader attempt to ease nearly three years of sectarian and political tensions that almost dragged the country back into civil war. The... [read full story]