SCOTT SIMON, Host:
NPR's Peter Kenyon is in Beirut, where he found the Lebanese gift for breezy adaptability to crisis tempered with anxiety for the future.
PETER KENYON: As the saying goes in this gorgeous, war-battered Mediterranean capital, no government, no problem.
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KENYON: At a cafe in the Hamra neighborhood, television host Sawsan al Sayed threads her way between tables laden with coffee, cocktails and water pipes to explain the proper way to respond to a government that disappears.
SIMON: (Through translator) The Lebanese are used to this situation. Like one day there's a government, one day there isn't a government. They accept everything and they're flexible. And they wait and see.
KENYON: The secretary general of the March 14th Movement, Faris Souhaid, says the March 8th opposition wanted Lebanon to denounce and withdraw funding from the international tribunal before indictments are issued. He says March 14th refused because he believes the indictments will show that Hezbollah, which considers itself a resistance force against Israel, broke its pledge never to turn its weapons against its own people.
SIMON: I think that after the indictment there is no division between 8 and March 14. The division will be between murderers and victims.
KENYON: Back at the cafe, TV host Sawsan Sayed, who works for an Arab women's channel, ponders the question: What do Lebanese women want to see from the next government?
SIMON: Women in Lebanon cares about beauty, not more. They don't like politics. And they hate politic man.
KENYON: Peter Kenyon, NPR News, Beirut.