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.

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BEIRUT (AFP) – Lebanese General Michel Aoun, and the head of the Shiite movement Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, said they had reached agreement on several thorny issues."The fate of Hezbollah’s arms should be examined within the framework of a national dialogue and a round table," Sheikh Nasrallah said at a joint press conference after the reading […]

Lebanon’s Interior Minister Hassan Sabeh announced his resignation on Sunday after a mob attacked the Danish consulate in Beirut in riots sparked by controversial Prophet Mohammed cartoons.Almost 30 people were injured as furious crowds stormed and set ablaze the building housing the Danish consulate, despite the presence of riot police who had initially used tear gas and batons to keep protestors at bay.

"I submitted my resignation to the government after criticisms were raised," Sabeh said after an extraordinary cabinet meeting.He said he had refused to give security forces the order to fire on the protestors because "I did not want to be responsible for any carnage.

BBC news, The Lebanese government has apologised to Denmark after protesters ransacked its Beirut embassy, plunging troubled Lebanon into fresh political turmoil. The mission was attacked on Sunday by Muslims angry at cartoons satirising the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish paper. The interior minister quit after the attack and the commander of the army has offered to step down.

The Beirut government has condemned the cartoons, but also denounced the violence in which one person died. "The riots harmed Lebanon’s reputation and its civilised image and the noble aim of the demonstration. The cabinet apologises to Denmark," said Information Minister Ghazi Aridi. Correspondents say violence took on a sectarian dimension as Muslim extremists took over the streets in Ashrafieh, the Christian neighbourhood where the mission is located, and went on a three-hour rampage, wrecking property.

BY Elias Chamoun, Can the Lebanese Christians be granted their own independent state by partitioning Lebanon between them and the Lebanese Muslims under international law?

On the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, lies a small country that many used to refer to as being the jewel of the Mediterranean. A country that was once considered to be the Switzerland of the East, and whose capital, Beirut, used to be called the Paris of the East. That country is Lebanon. There, was a model government and society of how Jews, Christians, and Muslims could all cooperate and peacefully coexist together. When taking a closer look at Lebanon one can notice something very different from all the other Near Eastern countries; the presence of a large Christian community (in proportion to the population) in a country surrounded by a sea of Islam. Descendent from the Phoenicians, the Christian ethnic group is the oldest community in Lebanon and compromises almost half of the country