Visas to the US to be shortly granted from Beirut

The political advisor at the US embassy in Beirut, David Hale, said on Monday that, "Preparations to grant Lebanese citizens entry visas to the US from Beirut are about to be completed."

The Lebanese will be able to get visas directly from Lebanon instead of having to receive them from Damascus or Nicosia.

This was expressed during the meeting Hale attended with the chairman of the Lebanese Journalist Union, Muhammad al-Balbaki, while accompanying the new public relations director at the US embassy in Beirut, Susan Cress Hovanick.

Hovanick told al-Balbaki that the US ambassador to Lebanon, David Satterfield, authorized her to "talk with the Lebanese journalists on matters that facilitate their duties and documentation they need to this end."