By Zeina Daccache, Two condemned prisoners residing in a high security Lebanese prison and participating in the drama therapy sessions taking place inside the facility since February 2008 recently described their experiences with the following metaphors: "Prison is a microcosm of the outside world; it holds all kind of people, from differing religious communities and from differing regions throughout Lebanon and consequently belonging to different political parties. In prison, absurdly as it sounds, one learns how to reconcile with the other before returning to the biggest prison: the Lebanese society, (IF, we ever return to it)" - E.F., a Lebanese Christian from Mount Lebanon.

"Prison is a train station. You are forced to wait. You wait along with different people that you never chose willingly to spend time with outside the station ... However, you start socializing with them and plan together future travels" - G.I., a Lebanese Muslim from the Bekaa Valley.  With any publicly funded project, one typically goes through an exercise beforehand of setting objectives and goals to be presented to concerned authorities. It has long been a dream of mine to implement a drama therapy program in Lebanese prisons. More precisely, this became my goal in 2002, when I had the chance to work in the Volterra Prison in Italy and I have since then wanted to do the same thing in my own country, Lebanon. I applied for a grant from the European Union to implement a Drama Therapy Project inside the biggest detention center in Lebanon: the Roumieh Prison, where condemned men from different regions of Lebanon reside.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice  on Friday joined fellow US diplomats in marking the 25th anniversary of the bombing at the US embassy Beirut which killed 52 people on April 18, 1983. "Even when the tragedy of April 18 was followed by further attacks on our Marine barracks later that year, on our embassy annex in 1984, and still others beyond that, the terrorists never broke our will," Rice said during a ceremony at the State Department. "It is in continuing to champion the cause of a democratic Lebanon  that we pay greatest honor to those who died and those who suffered on that day." The attack by the Islamic Jihad Organization, which US officials have said was a forerunner of Hezbollah  the Iranian- and Syrian-backed Shiite militia, was at the time the deadliest attack ever on a US diplomatic mission.

Rice used the commemoration to hint at Washington's accusations of interference by Syria into the affairs of neighboring Lebanon, with politicians in Beirut"afraid for their very lives" as the embattled government remains locked in a long-running standoff with the opposition.  With "fellow members of parliament, journalists and, of course, Prime Minister rafiq Hariri... gunned down in the streets or claimed by terrorist bombs, who can blame them?" the top US diplomat said.

BEIRUT (AFP) – Lebanon’s parliament speaker Nabih Berri on Saturday moved a table with 14 seats around it into the building to …