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Banks, businesses ransacked in worst economic crisis in 48 years

Karami quits as price riot rocks Lebanon
BEIRUT. May 7 Prime Minister Rashid Karami resigned Wednesday as demon slratora rampaged through the capital and other cities to protect skyrocketing prices and a plunging currency, re ports AP
Gangs of youths armed with sticks and Atones roved the streets of Beirut ransacking banks. n>oney exchange shop* and other businesses and smashing expensive cars.
Several people, including President Ellas Hrswl’s younger son. were Injured Wednesday, the second day of protests over Lebanon s worst economic crisis tn 48 years of Independence.
Police fired automatic rifles tn the air and used tear gas to try to disperse protester* and
prevent lotting. Chants of "Down with the government! Down with Karamlt' resounded through the streets of Betrut all morning
The protests united Christiana and Muallma. so often at each other's throats In Lebanon ■ long civil war Church bells tolled In support of the demonstrations Muslim sheiks used minaret loud speaker* to urge believers to join the protests.
To hell with the government! To hell with all officials I We are hungry!" shouted Zainab Hoteit as she held her four-year-old son. All. and smashed the neon sign of money exchange shop with a stick.
Police said the violence ebbed after world spread that
Karami and his Cabinet had stepped daw
I have resigned to save the country." Karami told re porters after a three-hour meeting with Hrawl The risk lies In the nation's collapse and the assassination of the state "
As Karami spoke, protesters barricaded highway* through out Lebanon with blazing tire* and toppled telephone poles on the first day of a four day nationwide strike called by union leaders. Banks, school* ■hop*, newspaper*, govern me nt office* and other bus! nesrea were closed.
Unions and most politicians blame government overspending and mismanagement for the economic crisis
The Lebanese pound — which sold for 2 5 to the dollar before the outbreak of the clvfl war In 1975 — ha* plunged to 2.100 to the dollar from 880 since the Central Bank ■topped propping up the cur rency In February. That rent price* soaring tn a country that Imports 85 per cent of Its ba sic need
Hrawl, a Maronite Catholic. Indicated he would resort to force to avoid a new cy^r of turmoil that would reverse the relative stability Lebanon has enjoyed since the end of the civil war In 1990
"I declare that we do not accept and would not allow the return of anarchy to the street*. Let us avoid drastic measures we can do without
Karami ■ 30 man. half Christian, half Mushm Cabinet was formed on Dec 24. 1990. with a mandate to shore up the economy, devastated by a civil war that wreaked an estimated dlrs 25 billion in damage
In Zahle, Hrawl s hometown tn the eastern Bekaa Valley, demonstrators beat the president s son. George. 41. after ransacking a gasoline station he owns.
Policemen rushed to the scene and fired at the crowd, wounding five people, a police spokesman said
Earlier, two youths were tn Jured when protesters tried to break Into the Arab Bank on Beirut ■ main commercial street, said ’he spokesman, who could not be identified
under police rules. Guards wounded one of the youths and hit another on the head with a pistol butt, he said
Thick black clouds of smoke from burning tires engulfed Beirut and other cities and towns Demonstrators also overturned hundreds of trash containers and set the garbage on fire
Nine people were hospitalized In Beirut and the Bekaa Valley suffering from smoke inhalation. the police spokesman said
In the northern town of Zghorta about 2.000 demon ■ trators armed with sticks. Iron rods and stones, broke through a police cordon and stormed city hall smashing windows and furniture