BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of Shi'ite Muslims in Lebanon turned a religious ceremony on Thursday into a peaceful protest against a series of cartoons in the Western media lampooning the Prophet Mohammad. The European Union sought to calm tension, calling for a voluntary media code of conduct to avoid inflaming religious sensibilities, while the United States accused Iran and Syria of deliberately stoking Muslim rage.

The leader of Lebanon's Hizbollah  group pledged no compromise until there was a full apology from Denmark, where the cartoons first appeared, and European countries passed laws prohibiting insults to the Prophet."Today, we are defending the dignity of our Prophet with a word, a demonstration but let (U.S. President) George Bush and the arrogant world know that if we have to ... we will defend our prophet with our blood, not our voices," Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbollah, told the crowd.

The annual Shi'ite mourning ceremonies mark the death of the Prophet's grandson, Imam Hussein, killed in Kerbala in Iraq 1,300 years ago. Security sources put the turnout in Beirut at 400,000 and similar processions are due throughout the day in other Shi'ite centres; notably in Iraq and Iran.

Zahie LaHood makes Lebanese flatbread so rich in tradition it can reduce a man to tears and swell his heart with gratitude. In the middle of summer, when days are hot and humid, LaHood starts baking in her basement kitchen at midnight. In the fall and winter, she might not heat up her Roper gas oven until 3 a.m. 

Before dawn on chilly autumn mornings, her house in Peoria, Ill., feels warm and snug, filled with the comforting aroma of yeasty baked bread. Though LaHood, 80, sold her bread in Chicago markets when she first came to Peoria from Lebanon, she now bakes only for family and friends.Her flatbread is family tradition for all six of her children. Each family will get six dozen "loaves" of the 15-inch circles of pliable bread - the traditional bread of Lebanon. An ancient dance of hands and feet starts after the bread dough rises the first time, and LaHood shapes it into small balls. Once the dough begins to rise again, her hands pick up speed. She pats balls into a pancake shape and blankets them with kitchen towels, allowing the pieces to rest as she works through the batch.When she's ready to bake, she takes each piece of dough and throws it - shaping, pinching, tossing and twisting from hand to hand. Her movements are so fast, even daughters who have observed this ritual for 50 years can't duplicate the motions or confidently describe the choreography.