French in Lebanon are connected by text

Daily Star Lebanon reports:

French nationals in Lebanon have received warnings by SMS to refrain from heading to any demonstrations and to keep up-to-date on the developing political situation. According to the SMS, "French nationals are warned to keep themselves informed by any means they can on how the situation is developing and avoid at all costs places where there are demonstrations."

More: Link

I’m not quite clear on whether this is actually a text service offered and delivered by the French Embassy or by someone privately.  Either way it’s obviously a very smart use of the medium. 

I thought I’d check to see if the British Government / Foreign Office has anything smart like this.  I didn’t do a ton of research, I just googled ‘British Embassy SMS’.  The first link returned is a page from the British Embassy’s Czech Embassy.

Promising, I thought.  Smart — give the on-call consular guy or girl the ‘duty’ mobile so they can take calls or SMS from concerned British nationals whenever. 

Not a bit of it!  The SMS number that google picked up on the Embassy page is for the Czech Union for the Deaf, who are smart enough to make use of the medium.  No SMS number listed for the British Czech Embassy that I could find.  This despite Vodafone, one of the country’s biggest companies and a world market leading company being the first in the world to offer analog and digital mobile services and the first to offer data, voicemail and SMS services. (According to BritainUSA.com)

(By the way, if you’re in Prague and you’re in trouble – Mission Impossible style — you can get the Embassy duty officer on 602 217 700.  Just not by text it seems.)