This was earlier today but I had been called away and am just getting to it.
From Al Arabiya (English) October 18:
Saudi Arabia calls on its citizens to abide by the travel advisory to Lebanon and for those in the country to immediately leave.
The Saudi Embassy in Lebanon said it was closely following developments in south Lebanon, “calling on all citizens to adhere to the travel ban and to leave Lebanese territory immediately for those who are currently in Lebanon.”....
....MORE
Also at Al-Arabiya, October 18:
France advises citizens against traveling to Lebanon
Netherlands advises against travel to south of Lebanon
Where this gets doubly interesting is a comment by Dario Garcia Giner at The Blind Spot's resurrected Spot Markets Live, October 17 i.e before the riots and attempted firebombing at the U.S. Embassy, Beirut:
Well, if Trump built an embassy, it would look like this
Julian Rimmer
like the trump taj mahal casino in New Jersey
Dario Garcia Giner
What’s weird about it?Well, the embassy is twice as expensive as the next-most expensive American embassy ; the $750mn, 104 acre Iraqi embassy – while being the second-largest American embassy in terms of project size at 42 acres.
And locals are simply flummoxed about it. Why all this money?
The Americans have Israel 30 minutes helicopter ride south, Incirclick an hour north, and Cyprus 30 minutes west....
Dario also had some thoughts on Armenian mining, facts that some of our readers may be aware of, but he lays it out in black and white so the story won't be off the front pages for very much longer.
See: Spot Markets Live Transcript, 17/10/23 (Azerbaijan and Armenia, oil, meme stocks)
I swear that Embassy reminds me of nothing so much as some hilltop Crusader fort:
Krak des Chevaliers from the southwest
That's at Qalʿat al-Ḥiṣn, Syria, just north of the current Lebanon/Syria border
