41.   A senior Lebanese cleric has called for a crackdown against public parties serving alcohol to celebrate the festival marking the end of the Moslem fasting month of Ramadan.

42.   The Orthodox church, with its separate calendar, celebrates festivals at different times to the Catholic church.

43.   Many families celebrated the festival with simplicity, without the usual shopping sprees.

44.   Officials have decreed that the water festival should be celebrated in the proper traditional manner and have warned that any deviation would be frowned upon.