Click on the photos below to learn more about the Druze faith, culture and history.

American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee are sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for “hostile acts” after the pair allegedly entered North Korean territory illegally while reporting a story about North Korean refugees in China.

Center-right parties score a decisive win in European Union parliamentary elections. The results contribute to calls for the resignation of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose Labour party came third place behind the small, anti-European integration U.K. Independence Party.

Africa’s longest-serving leader, Gabon’s President Omar Bongo, dies at 73.

A judge in Northern Ireland awards 2.5 million dollars to the families of 29 people killed in the 1998 Omagh bombing. Four leaders of the Real IRA are found liable for the bombing, the biggest single atrocity in decades of “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland.

Lebanon’s political parties wrap up their campaigns for a general election on Sunday between pro-Western factions and an alliance led by Iranian-backed Hezbollah. At least 19,000 expatriates return to Beirut to cast their votes. International monitors, including former U.S. president, Jimmy Carter, will observe.

U.K. Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, vows to he will “fight on” even as his sixth Cabinet minister in the last week steps down. Members of Brown’s Labour party call for his resignation, and say they may decide his fate on Monday.

A suicide bomber detonates himself inside a mosque in the remote Pakistani village of Hayagai Sharqai during weekly Muslim prayers. The attack kills at least 30 people, continuing a series of violent attacks this week in the Northwest Frontier Province that has displaced thousands.

Officials in China rescue three people from a landslide that buries at least 60 others in an iron ore mining area in the country’s southwest Chongqing Municipality.

Pakistan troops claim they have encircled the Taliban in the Swat Valley. Fighting there has displaced over two million civilians.

A radio journalist is killed in Somalia as government troops battle al-Shabab militants for control of Mogadishu. The fighting has killed over a 100 and displaced 46,000.

Malawi’s president Bingu wa Mutharika wins re-election among charges of vote rigging.

Three former military commanders that led a 300-man tank battalion in a revolt against the Georgian government are shot by Georgian police, one fatally.

Japan closes 4,800 schools in response to an increasing number of swine flu cases as mask shortages continue.

Fathi al-Jami, Libya’s best-known dissident, dies of at 68 of apparent untreated complications from a heart ailment. Jami was convicted in 2005 of trying to overthrow the Libyan government by calling for a free press and fair elections.

North Korea launches a limited mobile internet service targeted at government-approved users.

Appearing before an Indian court on the first day of his trial, the only surviving suspect in last year’s Mumbai attacks says he’s from Pakistan.

Elections in Macedonia are free of the violence that marred last year’s elections; the conservative candidate is in the lead but faces a run-off vote.

India’s Tata Motors releases the long-awaited Nano, the world’s cheapest car.

Photos: Adam Toy

In the summer of 2006, as the Iranian-backed Hezbollah fought off Israelis in Lebanon and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad faced down President George Bush at the United Nations, a bus full of Iranian pilgrims left Tehran on a journey to the holy city of Karbala, deep inside a shattered Iraq. “Pilgrimage To Karbala” follows this intense journey into the heartlands of Shia Islam, revealing how two ancient crimes — the murder of Muhammad’s grandson and the disappearance of a six-year-old imam became the founding legends of Shiism and increasingly dominate events and attitudes in the Middle East today.

Photos: Adam Toy

BAFTA award-winning filmmaker Kevin Sim directed WIDE ANGLE’s “Beslan: Siege of School No. 1″ about the bloodiest act of terrorism in modern Russia in which Chechen gunmen took over a school and kept more than 1,000 women and children hostage for three days. His other films include “Sacred Ground,” a FRONTLINE episode on rebuilding the Twin Tower site; “Remember My Lai,” also for FRONTLINE; HITLER’S SEARCH FOR THE HOLY GRAIL; THE SHAKESPEARE MYSTERY; and COLLEGE GIRLS, a six-part series chronicling a generation of students at Oxford’s last women-only college.

The assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on Valentine’s Day 2005 prompted hundreds of thousands of Lebanese to take to the streets in a powerful show of national unity. Their ‘Cedar Revolution’ drove out Syrian troops after 29 years of occupation, just ahead of the parliamentary elections in May and June. Can Lebanon, a country of 18 different ethnic groups that fought a 15-year civil war, achieve independence from foreign interference and overcome renewed division within?

“Future for Lebanon” takes viewers to the oldest democracy in the Middle East as voters go to the polls in a new era. This film features a democracy advocate who organized the sit-in in Martyr’s Square, a Hezbollah candidate running on anti-Israeli and anti-American sentiment, and a youth organizer for the Future movement inherited by Rafik Hariri’s son Saad. “Future for Lebanon” also observes the new politics of Lebanon grappling with old sectarian tensions as this election plays out. From the beaches of Beirut to the radical rallies of Hezbollah, WIDE ANGLE explores political change in one of the pivotal nations of the Arab region — change from within, not imposed from the outside.

Photo of Director Paul Mitchell

The roots of the film go back to the end of 2004.

Several of us at Wilton Films had been involved in various ways with the “people’s power” revolutions of recent years.

I had spent a lot of time in Yugoslavia during the war there and a lot of close friends had been very involved in the demonstrations that eventually brought down Milosevic. We have also worked in Georgia and Ukraine for years, and I was in fact filming in Kyrgyzstan just a few days before that government collapsed.

So the idea of making a film following a revolution was in the air for us, but, like so many films, the reason we ended up in Lebanon was down to serendipity. Tania Rakhmanova, executive producer on the film, was in Lebanon in February, on a skiing vacation. Following the funeral of ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, she decided not to hit the slopes, but to join the first big demonstrations on Monday, February 21, 2005. While she was there, she met Asma Andraos and Daniella Rizkallah, who were just setting up what would be called Civil Society. And at that moment we knew we could make a film.

At the start of filming I was worried that there wouldn’t be enough excitement to make a film. After all, the demonstrations were over, the elections looked like a sure thing for the Hariri camp, and there was a general air of post-revolutionary malaise in Lebanon. But then, before we had really got going, field producer Tima Khalil suggested it might be interesting to take a trip up to the town of Bekfeya, where the right-wing Christian Phalange Party was born. They were putting back a statue of the Phalange’s founder, Pierre Gemeyal, which had been blown up by pro-Syrians several years ago.

Our principle cameraman was en route from shooting a soap opera in Dubai, and our sound recordist was on a plane from a different shoot in Sudan. So we asked another cameraman to step in and I did the sound. After filming the statue’s unveiling, all hell broke loose. The Phalange supporters marched past the Pro-Syrian party building in town, taunting them with their chants. The inevitable riot began. Bottles and rocks were thrown and the Lebanese army intervened to keep the two sides apart. It was when an Army jeep came screeching up through out of the fog, with a mounted 50 calibre machine gun, (I remember that in an earlier war we used to call them water-skiers, because of the way the gunners hold onto the twin-handled weapon) that I realized it wasn’t going to be all THAT peaceful.

At times, watching Lebanon struggle to re-assert its democratic history, I was full of awe. At other moments, for example filming thousands of mourners at the funeral of the pro-democracy journalist Samir Kassir, it filled me with a kind of futile pity. Four rounds of elections, and two car bombs later, we wrapped the shoot. It was an extraordinary experience.

Soldiers control a crowd at an anti-Syrian demonstration

Can Lebanon, a country of 18 different ethnic groups that fought a 15-year civil war, now achieve true independence and overcome renewed divisions within?

by Michael Young
July 2005

There is gloom in Lebanon these days, as the public feels little has really changed since the Syrian Army withdrew in April. The reality, however, is that everything has changed, though many of the same political actors will remain at center stage. What the Lebanese ignore — especially amid the high expectations following the public demonstrations against Syria after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on February 14 — is that, in their country, change and continuity tend to advance together.

The Lebanese political system is sectarian, and will continue as such for the foreseeable future. Parliament is divided evenly between Christians and Muslims, though the latter are a majority, while the three highest posts in the state — that of president, prime minister and speaker of parliament — are reserved for Maronite Christians, Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims, respectively. The tendency is to regard this setup as backward; however, it has imposed compromise on all since no one community can hope to control all the others; it has also allowed for democracy in a region replete with despotism, since the state is weaker than society’s component parts.

Yet, in this environment, what is taking place today is a hardnosed struggle over Lebanon’s future. Domestic political actors, but also unwanted Syria, the United States, and France, are seeking to fill the vacuum left by the Syrian departure. Many Lebanese find this struggle unbecoming in the shadow of the massive March 14 rally that brought together about a million or more Lebanese in a show of national solidarity. They may well be right, however that astonishing event was also a Rashomon moment. People read it and its long-term implications in different ways, even as a majority did agree then on two commonalities: that Syria had to leave Lebanon; and that the gathering was necessary in response to a large March 8 rally organized by Hezbollah, which tried to show that Lebanese opposition to Syria was less widespread than believed.

Demonstrators rally for Syria to withdraw its military forces from Lebanon

What subsequently gelled public displeasure was passage of an unpopular law for parliamentary elections in May and June. The law was a variation on the 2000 election law, a gerrymandered monstrosity shaped by Syria. Yet for politicians across the political spectrum, it had the advantage of consolidating their hold on power. The paradox was that the law was agreed upon by opposition groups: the Hariri bloc, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, and some members of a Christian grouping known as Qornet Shehwan — as well as pro-Syrian groups, such as Hezbollah and the Amal movement of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. This was a traditional Levantine compromise, but for many onlookers it was also unprincipled, since the law merely ensured the dealmakers would dominate the new parliament.

Where the convenient arrangement broke down was in its furious rejection by most Christians. Indeed, the law marginalized the more representative Christian opposition groups, or made them subordinate to Hariri and Jumblatt. It also denied independent Shias a parliamentary presence, by ensuring that Hezbollah and Amal would triumph in predominantly Shia constituencies in the South and the Bekaa Valley.

Among Christians, the main beneficiary of this anger was Gen. Michel Aoun, the former head of a military government in 1988-90 who, in May, returned from long exile for having opposed Syrian hegemony in Lebanon. Aoun particularly attacked opposition politicians behind the election deal, accusing them of corruption, prompting ripostes that he was dividing the opposition. The general has presidential ambitions and was surely keen to eliminate possible rivals from within his Maronite community; however, he also tapped into genuine, and understandable, Christian discontent, and was rewarded by the victory of his candidates in several constituencies, earning him the largest Christian bloc in parliament.

Aoun’s successes notwithstanding, the election results favored the election law dealmakers — most notably Saad Hariri, the son of Rafik Hariri and newly crowned prince of Lebanon’s Sunni community. With his allies, he controls just under two-thirds of parliament. Hezbollah and Amal, predictably, swept the Shia community. Jumblatt earned a Pyrrhic victory in the districts where he is influential: In a harsh race in the Aley-Baabda constituency, his candidates won, but only thanks to the Hezbollah vote, after the Druze leader had alienated his own Christian electorate.

Disarming Hezbollah, which the United Nations calls for in its Resolution 1559 that demanded a Syrian withdrawal, is the next step for the international community. Inside Lebanon, however, the prospect of disarming the most powerful militia against its own will is regarded with trepidation, partly because many Shias consider, rightly or wrongly, such a move as designed to weaken them. Moreover, without weapons Hezbollah would lose its militant identity. This suggests tough bargaining, or worse, ahead, with Hezbollah unwilling to give up its weapons and the other communities, while not wanting a confrontation, loath to stand athwart the U.N. for the sake of a militia, and community, that alone remains armed.

A pro-Syrian rally led by the Syrian-backed Lebanese political party, Hezbollah

This complex situation allows no ready solutions to Lebanon’s myriad other challenges — eliminating what remains of the Syrian intelligence presence, which is almost certainly responsible for the bombs and assassinations continuing to this day; reducing a large national debt that might, otherwise, bring about economic collapse; deciding the fate of President Emile Lahoud if it is discovered that he or associates knew about, or helped cover up, the Hariri assassination; reforming the public administration; passing a new and fair election law; and much more. The ambient confusion will also stymie the public’s palpable appetite for an amelioration of political life.

However, Lebanon has resources and a sense of priorities. In its competition, the political class will probably find equilibrium. Change will not be as profound as people desire, but indefinite stalemate is hardly an option either. It’s to move beyond that that a million people came together on March 14, and no one, politicians or otherwise, can forget it.

Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR newspaper in Lebanon and a contributing editor at REASON magazine in the United States.