General Strike in Damascus.

The author says that he was arrested by the French secret police on the Beirut, Lebanon-Damascus, Syria train before arriving in Damascus, and was shipped back, guarded by four black French-African soldiers under a French superior, to the Palestine frontier. For the last thirty-two days not a shop, not a restaurant, not a cafe, not a theater has been open in Damascus. Not a worker has been at his bench, not a clerk at his desk. A foreigner arriving in Damascus without any Arab friends is likely to starve. Food simply cannot be bought.