EGYPT: Women need not apply

By recently calling for a ban on non-Muslims and women from running for the Egyptian presidency, the Muslim Brotherhood has reignited a debate over how genuine their espousal of democratic values is.

The 79-year-old Egyptian organization has been striving to project a democratic image for years. Yet, this new platform, circulated among intellectuals for the last few months, has shattered this image by arguing that women and Coptic Christians and other non-Muslims are incapable of meeting the religious requirements that would qualify them to assume Egypt's highest political office.

Besides the stir this ban has caused, the platform has exposed the internal rift between the doves and hawks in the nation's largest Islamic group. The former have expressed their endorsement of women's and Copts' full political rights on several occasions. However, the platform is a blow to their moderate discourse showing that hard-liners have a strong grip over the group.

— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo

SAUDI ARABIA: Banished from the kingdoms

Director Peter Berg's "The Kingdom," a star-studded Hollywood blockbuster set in Saudi Arabia, has been banned from the screens of at least three Persian Gulf kingdoms.

Puritanical Saudi Arabia, where most of the film's story unfolds, doesn't allow any movie theaters. But other Gulf states have given the film a big thumbs-down. News agencies report that Kuwaiti censors have banished the film from the nation's screens. Even libertine Bahrain's Ministry of Information has barred the action-packed thriller.

ISRAEL: Shifting rules to live by

The change was so gradual, I can’t recall exactly when the buses stopped giving me the willies.

I moved to Jerusalem with my wife and our 10-month-old daughter in late 2003, a time when Palestinian suicide bombers were regularly blowing themselves up in restaurants, markets and aboard public buses packed with Israelis. Some friends back home were appalled we would take such a risk. “Have you taken leave of your senses?” a former college roommate chided in an e-mail before our departure.

I assured everyone we’d be careful — or as careful as you can be when violence is random and regular at the same time. We adopted some ironclad rules: Never ride the buses; stay out of crowded markets, choose restaurants with security guards and sit as far from the front door as possible.

Still, during our first three months in Jerusalem, I covered two gruesome bus bombings within a few blocks from our apartment. I began to view the green-and-white city buses as rolling time bombs, and got a shiver every time I was stuck in traffic next to one.

No more. The last time a bus blew up in Jerusalem was in February 2004.

MIDDLE EAST: Pop stars and soda pop

When Lebanese mega pop star Nancy Ajram signed a six-figure endorsement deal with Coca-Cola in 2005, Pepsi took the challenge, and very seriously.

Not content with signing one rival singer, Pepsi assembled a whole team of Arab world pop stars and cast them in a full-length musical, a totally unprecedented move by a multinational in the Middle East.

The two giant beverage companies have been gearing up vehemently to claim the soft-drink allegiance among Arab youth. This comes as no surprise in a region with a burgeoning population of Muslim youths often socially or legally forbidden from drinking alcohol.

A night in Tunisia

The fish restaurant glowed in the alley. The door opened, a man slipped through hanging beads. Calamari sizzled, plates clattered. A lute player sat like a relic against the whitewashed wall, singing of love and country and God hovering somewhere beyond the coast. The waiter, a corkscrew dangling from his pocket, was sweaty and quick. A boy rushed in with a bag of what appeared to money, but turned out to be baguettes. Old men sat cross-legged. Tablecloths were dotted with cigarette burns; they looked like tiny islands on a white sea. The men whispered and laughed, they sipped rose, they breathed in the fish, the grit and the smoke, happy to be out for another evening in their worn blazers, a trickle of cash in their pockets. They clapped for the lute player.

A few streets over, above a market closed for the night, a blogger known as Mr. Yahyawi sat in the gray light of a computer, evading government censors. He typed with abandon, his hair as kinetic as the circuitry he navigated to escape the firewalls and break out into the ether with messages of torture and political repression, and all those things not discussed in fish restaurants. He hop-scotched through cyberspace, taping into proxy servers, disguising his electronic footprint. Sometimes the government, often cited by international agencies for human rights abuses, tracks him and fries his computer with a virus. He writes in French and Arabic. His motto is: We live under a kingdom, not in a democracy. About 800 people visit his site each day. That's not many, but he's too obsessed to ponder numbers. He will be posting long after the lute has fallen silent and the waiter has showered and gone to sleep.

"The gateway to progress," he said, "is when people start expressing themselves."

— Jeffrey Fleishman in Tunis

ISRAEL: The accidental terrorist

An innocent trip to the grocery store Monday night almost developed into an international incident — and a sobering glance at the very real fears lurking just below the surface of daily life in Jerusalem.

I was ravenous and a little light-headed from a hard-fought squash match, so I parked my car on the sidewalk (Israeli style) on Emek Rafaim Street — a strip of stores, restaurants and fast food joints. When I returned to the car, laden with grocery bags, a middle-aged Israeli-American woman started yelling at me for almost giving her a heart attack. She was on the phone to the police and in the process of reporting a suspicious vehicle — mine.

At first it seemed ridiculous, but after hearing her reasoning, I started to feel really embarrassed and clueless. I had left the car unlocked with the windows open and my gym bag sitting on the front seat, across the street from a crowded street cafe.

Even worse, the trunk of my rental car — as I’ve discovered — is apparently prone to popping open.
The open trunk was the last little suspicious detail that seemed to push her over the edge and onto the phone with the police. I don’t like to think how the rest of the night would have gone if I'd stayed another 10 minutes in that store.

The irony of all this: I truly believe the woman's suspicions had nothing to do with me being Arab-American.

So was she paranoid? Or am I clueless, careless and completely out of step with the psychology of this country? Been pondering this one for three days now, and I think I’m siding with her.

— Ashraf Khalil in Jerusalem

Israel confronts the A-word

Israelis howled in protest against Jimmy Carter’s recent book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," and its critique of discriminatory Israeli policies. But Carter wasn’t the first to make the analogy with the racial separation policies once practiced in South Africa. A few Israeli leftists have long used the A-word to draw critical attention to their country’s treatment of Palestinians.

Today the word popped up on signs brandished by demonstrators who blocked Israel’s Highway 443 during the morning rush, before police cleared them away and made three arrests. "Caution: Apartheid Road," one sign read. The grievance: Israel bans Palestinian vehicles from the highway, which cuts through the West Bank to connect Jerusalem with the Israeli town of Lod.

The protesters, numbering several dozen, are with a coalition of Jewish and Arab organizations that favor Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank. One Jewish activist, Hadar Grievsky, told Israel’s Army Radio: "There is a policy here of apartheid. Highways are built on roads that were seized from Palestinians and are accessible only to Jewish drivers."

Army Radio’s audience no doubt cringed. Most Israelis, including many on the left, argue that Israel’s separation policies are based not on racism but on a need for protection against suicide bombers. The Israeli military says the prohibition of Palestinian traffic on the road is temporary and subject to security considerations.

The protesters suspect that the ban has a hidden purpose — to pave the way to Israel’s annexation of more West Bank land. If the state were interested only in protecting Israeli lives, they say, it could limit the travel of Israelis on roads cutting through the West Bank and build roads inside Israeli territory instead. In making this argument, the protesters use the term apartheid to mean "acts that are used as a means for establishing and maintaining domination of one racial group over another."

Thursday’s highway blockade drew an acid comment from Otniel Schneller, a right-wing member of Parliament, who dismissed its anti-apartheid theme as the work of outside agitators. "A lot of anarchists come from overseas, funded by terror, and do whatever they want," he told Israel Radio. "We must demand that the police not let these anarchists into Israel to light fires and to ruin the atmosphere we are trying to create."

— Richard Boudreaux in Jerusalem

IRAN: Surf's up, in Tehran

On a recent visit to Iran, I was shocked to discover that one of my favorite blogs — the Huffington Post — was blocked by my Internet service provider.

"The requested page is Forbidden," it said when I tried to log on.

Dejected, I tried to visit another website on the opposite side of the political spectrum, the Drudge Report, only to find that it too was blocked out. My favorite trashy gossip site, TMZ, blocked! Even Wonkette, blocked!

The warning pages include a space where you can submit the names of websites that might have been blocked in error. I've submitted countless websites countless times. But they've never reversed a decision. My favorite sites always remain blocked.

Now, it's easy to understand why the Islamic Republic of Iran wants to filter out pornography websites. Iran, is after all, run by conservative clerics. You can also relate to why they would block the sites of dissident bloggers who wield the Internet as a weapon against the system. The Iranian government, in turn, demands that all Internet service providers filter out a list of websites with adult or anti-establishment content.

But come on! Do they really need to block MySpace? The Seattle Times? The Arizona Republic?

Using one Internet service provider, I found even the Boston Globe's website was blocked . Are the Red Sox really a threat to anyone except the New York Yankees?

I got curious. I started looking for which sites were blocked and which weren't. I found out that it was very arbitrary. Oanda, the website I use for converting currency rates, was blocked while Regime Change Iran, was not.

Creative Iranians find their way around everything. Thanks to a couple friends, I discovered a whole subculture devoted to circumventing the filters. Friends e-mail each other ever-changing proxy addresses that let them access whatever site they want.

The Iranian government filters out the proxies as soon as they find them, but new ones constantly pop up. The demand is just too great, and people are willing to go to great lengths to read and see what they want when they want.

Once in Tehran, I got a phone call from a new Internet service provider. It was a telemarketer. She was offering dial-up Internet rates at a decent price. I was polite, but non-committal. She read my mind, moved in for the kill.

"For a small added fee," she said, "we can get you unfiltered Internet."

— Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Photo: The Internet can be an exercise in frustration in Iran, especially when your favorite sites for killing time are filtered out. Credit: Borzou Daragahi

PAKISTAN: A little kindness amid chaos

On the night Benazir Bhutto’s convoy was attacked on the outskirts of Karachi, I hurried out of my hotel to get to the scene. For the last mile or two, I had to travel by motorbike — one ridden by a young follower of Bhutto’s Pakistan People's Party, flagged down by my desperate driver when he realized he wouldn’t be able to get close enough.

As we approached the chaotic scene, I felt my dupatta — the shawl-like scarf worn by Pakistani women and adopted by foreigners like me — fly off my shoulders. As I jumped off the bike, I looked around. I spotted it, but it had already been trampled, perhaps run over by another motorbike. The ground was sticky with blood and pebbled with broken glass.

IRAN: How I learned to stop worrying and love Ahmadinejad

As a reporter covering Iran, former president Mohammad Khatami drove me nuts. He frequently improvised his speeches and strayed far from his prepared remarks, often adjusting them to the audience he was addressing.

At the holy shrine of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, for example, he played up his Islamic credentials and devotion to the 1979 revolution that brought clerical rule to Iran. To students at Tehran University, he presented himself as a strident freedom fighter and advocate of individual and social liberty.

He was often totally misunderstood or misquoted because reporters didn’t know what to expect from him, and often, what he was talking about. You had to arrive on time for every speech and not miss a word. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, however, causes me no such worries.

“The utopia of mankind is a city where justice, affection, love, self-esteem, dignity, liberty, science, knowledge and wisdom rule,” he told students in the Armenian capital of Yerevan this week, before returning home to Tehran.

GAZA: Plenty of blame for both sides

Hamas and Fatah each have abused Palestinians’ rights since facing off in a mini civil war in the Gaza Strip this summer.

So says Amnesty International, which today accused the rival Palestinian factions of what it called “flagrant disregard for the human rights of the civilian population already worn down by decades of Israeli occupation, military campaigns and blockades.”

LEBANON: Facebook for president!

Lebanese politics are notoriously cumbersome and  convoluted. Today, squabbling politicians yet again delayed a decision on choosing a new president, this time putting it off until Nov. 12. The deadline before the country is hurtled into a constitutional crisis is Nov. 24.

But while they've been slow to pick a president, they've been super quick to take on new fads, especially Facebook, the social networking website which has rapidly taken on a life of its own among the outgoing and chatty Lebanese.

Lebanese have headed to Facebook with an enthusiasm bordering on the extreme. The website's Lebanon network has 125,000 members, about one for every 32 residents of Lebanon. By comparison, Israel has about 90,000 Facebookers, or one for every 67 residents, while gigantic Egypt has 180,000 or one for every 444 residents.

ISRAEL: PR offensive for an assassin

This week, Israel marks the 12th anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin with a series of ceremonies and school programs. But his killer is the one dominating headlines.

Yigal Amir, a right-wing Jewish extremist serving a life sentence for the fatal shooting on Nov. 4, 1995, is the focus of an energetic campaign by supporters urging his early release. Well-known ultranationalists, calling themselves the “Committee for Democracy,” mailed out thousands of postcards saying Amir should be freed in the name of “peace” and “democracy.”

EGYPT: Love and rage amid the pyramids

Names of love were scrawled on the desert rock. Written in camp fire ash, some were new and black, others were fading. Most were English language names; kids from international schools scribbling teenage declarations in the wind and the heat. A few were ensconced in hearts. They scrolled up the wall like history.

Hannah Loves John.

Love is like that. Sure it is. Bruce Springsteen sang those words. But this is not The Boss' territory. This is bone-colored desert, where a voice can't even summon an echo, a place that eons ago a river ran. Time stole the water, leaving only a bed of rock and sand. Most people come here now to go four-wheeling or to escape the crush and madness of Cairo. In the minutes before dusk, they seem a scattering of modern nomads, climbing the ridges and outcroppings, grilling hot dogs and settling in for sunset. From up here, the ragged city unfolds. And beyond that, gauzed in dust and amber haze, rise the Pyramids of Giza. They look like eye slits on the horizon. But their geometric perfection wasn't enough to put them on a new list of the Seven Wonders of the World that included the Colosseum in Italy and the Great Wall of China. The pyramids had to settle for an "honorary" status in a global Internet vote concocted by a Swiss adventurer. 

Egyptians were furious. Some sensed a conspiracy. Architectural genius, they argued, should not be subjected to commercial whims and popularity contests. They have a point. It seems apparent that whoever voted in the ranking didn't sit here at dusk, didn't imagine all that came before him, didn't revel in mysteries still unknown, didn't gaze across an ancient plain where stone and young love endure against the elements.

— Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo

MIDDLE EAST: Where East doesn't meet West

The massive concrete barrier snaking through the West Bank may get most of the attention, but  an equally formidable wall exists in the minds of the residents of Jerusalem.

Last week, I attempted to set up an interview with representatives from the international aid organization Save The Children. The simple act of agreeing where to meet was a sobering lesson in the invisible barriers that have become a part of daily life here.

“I’m new in town,” I told their spokesman over the phone. “But just give me the address and I should be able to find your office.”

“Well, we’re in East Jerusalem and the streets here don’t really have names or signs,” he said.

“Umm ... OK. Well, is there a nearby landmark so I can tell the cabdriver?”

He almost laughed; the request was so naïve. “You’re coming from West Jerusalem, right? Most taxi drivers from the west won’t come to East Jerusalem.”

Friends tell me of leftist, peacenik Israeli friends -- strong supporters of Palestinian rights -- who nonetheless speak of Arab East Jerusalem as an impossibly exotic and dangerous place. It’s not prejudice, they say, as much as an unspoken taboo combined with (perhaps justified) fear of a hostile reception. 

One journalist here once tried to meet an Israeli source who absolutely refused to go to East Jerusalem. So he instead arranged to meet in the lobby of a five-star hotel, at which point he told the source: “By the way, you know you’re in East Jerusalem now, right?”

— Ashraf Khalil in Jerusalem

IRAN: Law and order, just a warm-up act

Before a turbaned cleric led Friday prayers in Tehran, Iran's head of law enforcement took the stage, delivering a blistering condemnation of America, which recently played host to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and promising another wave of pressure on Iranians who adhere to Western cultural ways.

"In the so-called cradle of the free and open society -- the U.S. and Columbia University -- they asked our respectable president, 'Why aren't boozing, homosexuality and debauchery allowed in your country?'" law enforcement chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moghadam told those gathered for Friday prayers and politics at Tehran University.

He said that a "collapse of ethics" in the West had led to a disintegration of the family. He praised the Iranian government's crackdown on "thugs and gangs" over the last six months.

"Thanks to enforcing law and order, we are witnessing a dramatic reduction in homicides," he said. "Despite the nagging of the West-toxified critics  who want Iranians to abandon their Islamic and national values and embrace rotten Western values, the wrongdoing of the thugs has decreased."

He also told Iranians to expect even more law and order on the streets.

IRAQ: Celebratory shooters come under fire

Celebratory gunfire is a time-honored — and occasionally deadly — tradition in Iraq. No wedding or soccer victory is complete without it.

But in the southern city of Samawah, patience appears to be wearing thin with the practice. When revelers began firing rounds into the air over the three-day Eid al-Fitr celebrations that mark the end of Ramadan, the police media department issued this curt statement:

"Three newlywed grooms were arrested by the police during the Eid days because of the random celebratory shooting by their families during the wedding celebrations, which resulted in annoying the civilians. We need to end this phenomenon."

— Alexandra Zavis in Baghdad

LEBANON: Where there's smoke, there's fire

The banner headline across Thursday's edition of the pro-Hezbollah Lebanese paper al-Safir was strident: "Washington officially requests turning Lebanon into an allied military base."

Citing what it said were excerpts from official minutes of meetings between U.S. and Lebanese officials, the paper reported that the U.S. proposed an official agreement increasing American aid for Lebanon's military, including training centers in Sunni-dominated northern Lebanon, in exchange for bringing Lebanon closer into the American sphere of influence.

IRAQ: The unfiltered view

It seems like every other day another blogger joins the exodus from Iraq, but there are still many out there providing an unfiltered view of life in a war zone. Here are a just a few:

• Last of Iraqis
• Neurotic Iraqi Wife
• Healing Iraq/
• 24 Steps to Liberty
• Days of My Life

— Alexandra Zavis in Baghdad

EGYPT: Check your dictionary. . .

The statement was oddly out of character. It seemed like a misprint. Essam El-Erian, a prominent member of Egypt's radical Muslim Brotherhood, announced something one doesn't usually hear from a hardened Islamist.

"If we come to power, we will recognize Israel and respect all treaties," El-Erian recently told Al-Hayat, a respected Pan-Arabic daily. The statement hung in the political air like a strange balloon, eliciting furrowed brows and bewilderment all around.

The Muslim Brotherhood's aim is to establish Sharia law and a return to the caliphate -- hardly aspirations that would suggest taking a moderate stand toward a nation many Islamists wish to annihilate or bury in the sea. The comments had to be paid attention to, however. El-Erian is a leader in the Muslim Brotherhood's dovish camp, but he has been jailed several times for his Islamist views. His credentials are in tact.

Still, what was going on here? Did the comment reflect an ideological shift in the organization? Most likely not. It appears to be an effort by younger brotherhood members to appeal to secular intellectuals and the West. It also comes amid a government crackdown against the group, which won nearly 20 percent of the seats in the Egyptian parliament in 2005, that has resulted in hundreds of arrests.

Sensing that some might think the brotherhood was going soft, the organization's Supreme Guide Mohammed Mahdi Akef set the record straight:

"The Muslim Brotherhood dictionary does not have the word Israel."

— Noha El-Hennawy and Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo   

IRAQ: Tent city for Western contractors

A recent trip to the U.S. military base Camp Liberty located in the Baghdad airport compound introduced me to the community of contractors working in Iraq.

Beds were lined up 30 to 40 in a row. There was wireless Internet. People generally lived there one to two years at a time, working for different Western companies. They offered to show me around the camp and take me to the base’s shopping mall.

I only stayed a few days, but everyone wanted to make me feel at home. There were even a half-dozen Iraqi women now living in the camp looking for new jobs. They had turned a tent into their home and were weighing their options in choosing their next employer.

— Ned Parker in Baghdad

ISRAEL: Friendly interrogations

“Where are you from? What do you do? Oh really? Well, what do you write about?”

The young woman smiled and paused while making my cappuccino. “I guess, as a journalist, you must be more used to asking questions than answering them.”

“Actually, since I’ve come to Israel, it feels like I’m constantly answering people’s questions,” I said.

“Yes we’re very curious,” she said, “and very suspicious.”

Truer words were perhaps never spoken. Since arriving in Israel three weeks ago, every day seems to involve at least one extended Q&A session with soldiers, police officers or inquisitive civilians — especially in West Jerusalem, where Arabs seldom venture.

Sometimes aggressive, sometimes just curious, the questions all seem to tiptoe around two major points: What ARE you, and most importantly, are you a threat?

While meeting friends at a downtown restaurant last week, I walked past a parked Israeli army jeep. One of the soldiers looked me up and down and waved me over with a finger for another quick session.
I told him I am an American, then when I told him my name, his eyes lit up with an “a-HA” look as if he’d caught me in a lie.

It went on for another 10 minutes or so, with the soldier receiving a well-practiced summary of my life story and professional profile. Having concluded that I wasn’t Palestinian, he started smiling and practicing his decent Arabic on me.

All in all, it was both a little galling and weirdly friendly. The soldier seemed pleasantly oblivious to the fact that my car was parked illegally on the sidewalk right next to his jeep with a parking ticket under the windshield wiper.

— Ashraf Khalil in Jerusalem

ISRAEL: At the zoo, studying sounds of people

“Papa, why are they all speaking Arabic?”

The question jostled me into paying closer attention to my surroundings and, sure enough, my 4-year-old daughter was right about what I had not noticed at first: everyone around us was speaking Arabic.

We were visiting the Jerusalem zoo, known formally as the Tisch Family Zoological Gardens in Jerusalem — the Biblical Zoo. It is a soothing oasis on a scenic swath of West Jerusalem, the holy city’s predominately Jewish side. It is also one of a handful of places in this polarized city where you can find Jews and Arabs having a good time in each other’s presence, if not together. From numerous visits, we were used to seeing Arab families from East Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel who come to see the animals and make picnics on the zoo’s grassy lawns.

But this day was a departure from the unwritten rules that tend to carve Jerusalem into Jewish and Arabs halves along rigidly observed lines. Nearly all the zoo’s visitors were Arabs; I spotted only a handful of Hebrew-speaking Jews all afternoon. My daughter Selma is quite used to hearing exclusively Arabic when we’re in East Jerusalem, but not at the zoo.

The big Arab turnout had a simple explanation: the three-day celebration ending the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Families were spending time together with meals, gift-giving — and a leisurely day at the zoo.

“Because there are a lot of Arab people at the zoo today,” I said, explaining about the Muslim holiday. Seeming satisfied, Selma returned to our main quest of finding a tiger, done for now with her people-watching but awash in the happy clamor of Arabic-speaking families.

— Ken Ellingwood in Jerusalem

EGYPT: Be careful what you say about the president

Ibrahim Issa has long been an annoyance to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and the ruling National Democratic Party. As editor of the independent newspaper, al-Dustour, Issa attacks the government with satire and sensationalism from his sparse office in downtown Cairo. He's in trouble again. His missives suggesting that Mubarak lapses into comas and may be near death have led to criminal charges and accusations that he jeopardized national security. A trial on the allegations will resume later this month.

Egyptian journalists have been arrested, fined and jailed for decades. But in recent years they have enjoyed wider latitude in criticizing Mubarak. This is changing. At least 10 journalists, including five editors, face possible jail sentences for speaking their minds. The hostility toward the press comes as the 79-year-old Mubarak, who has led Egypt for 26 years, is sensitive about the end of his era and the naming of a successor. Many are betting on his son, Gamal.

Rumors of an ill president have titillated the nation for weeks, forcing Mubarak to appear on TV shaking hands with world leaders and visiting factories. Egyptians studied the images looking for signs of frailty in a parlor game of national anxiety. Tensions have somewhat calmed. But editors and human rights activists say the charges against the bespectacled Issa and other journalists are another crackdown on freedom of expression in a country that has had an uneasy balance between democracy and authoritarianism.

— Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo

IRAN: Grass always greener on history’s other side

Before the 1979 Islamic Revolution brought clerics to power, Iranians living under the Western-leaning Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi yearned to get in touch with their religious roots. A 1963 novel called “The life of Muhammad” or “Muhammad, the Prophet Who Ought to be Re-embraced,” by the Romanian writer Constant Geoghiu Virgil, became a bestseller, especially among the seminary students who fueled the toppling of the monarchy.

A similarly titled bestseller nowadays in Tehran may signal Iranians longing to get in touch with even deeper roots. Hassan Waghefi’s “Cyrus, the King Who Ought to be Re-embraced,” gives a romantic account of one of Iran’s celebrated ancient kings.

Since its May 2007 release, it has sold nearly 6,000 copies and is still going strong. Except for self-help books and cheap escape literature, few books in Iran ever sell more than 3,000 copies.

Cyrus, who ruled ancient Persia in the 6th Century B.C., founded an empire that stretched from Turkey to India.

EGYPT: Repose on a train

The man rushed in and the doors closed behind him. He slid between passengers and found a place to stand in a crowded train car bound for downtown Cairo. He opened his Koran; the gold lettering on the cover fading, the pages worn. He recited verse. He was a slight man in an open collar shirt. He seemed a government clerk or someone like that, a man who worked for low wages, but kept an air of respectability with polished shoes and pressed trousers. His timbre soothed. It set the train's clatter to the rhythm of prayer. The doors opened, feet shuffled, a hiss, the creak of metal and then the doors closed again as the train sped past alleys, crumbling walls and laundry blowing on rooftops.

The man prayed through nine stops. He did not call attention to himself, but his cadences beckoned like whispers in a dream. Passengers around him closed their eyes; in a city of 16 million they had found repose in a stranger's voice. The desert air was not so hot. The press of flesh and sweat were bearable. All life's annoyances, muffled. The train dipped into a tunnel and the man's voice limned the dark, the prayers not ceasing until the doors opened and he shut his Koran and hurried out with the others toward the stairways to the clamor and the light.

— Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo      

EGYPT: It's in the mail...

My first letter arrived.

It was beautiful, not the content itself, it was from an insurance company, but just the fact that it got here. I have been living in Cairo for two months. And until yesterday, I was mail-less. The first few weeks I thought, perhaps, I'm not as close to family and friends as I should be. I longed for even junk mail, a flyer, a brochure with my name and address typed on the outside. Or even occupant. Something to say I am here. Nothing.

I know things had been sent to me. But they never arrived, vanished into the maelstrom of the Egyptian postal service.

Living overseas one gets accustomed to the idiosyncrasies of a new country. The Germans have strict rules for crossing the street; the Italians have no rules for crossing the street, or for much else. But I got mail in Berlin. And, honestly, I got it in Italy too. Now I'm in Egypt wondering how many packages and letters have gone astray? Did I win $1 million in a sweepstakes I never entered? Is Ahmed's Muffler Repair running a special? Is someone offering to steam clean my couch? Such questions torment.

Then my elusive postman — I have yet to encounter him face to face — made a delivery to my small box, the one with the ill-fitting door and broken hinges. It was from my insurance company, but it gave me the joy one gets from a love letter. I am here. I exist on this street, in this flat. I am confident more letters will follow; I have found my way into the crowded Egyptian system.

If you happen to be a bill collector or someone else I may owe money to, please know that the check is in the mail.

— Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo

LEBANON: Martrydom and misfortune

If Times Square embodies the essence of New York, Trafalgar Square that of London and La Place de L’Etoile that of Paris, then the heart of Beirut is Martyrs Square.

During World War I, the occupying Ottoman forces hanged six nationalists in the central Beirut square. Later, a statue, representing these six heroes holding the flame of freedom, was erected at this site to commemorate their sacrifice for the nation. But the martyrs’ statue turned out to be a curse. Ever since this original incident, Beirut has been a factory for "martyrs."

From Hezbollah militants dying in fights along the borders with Israel, to pro-Western politicians assassinated in car bombs, Lebanon has stockpiled the dead. And the martyrs category has grown to encompass a wide range of people.

IRAN: Today's lesson — The clash of civilizations

Ayatollah Mohammed Emami Kashani is a soft-spoken 90-year-old who speaks with fiery anger against the West. Leading Friday prayers in Tehran today, just before the start of the academic school year, he urged the universities that have been at times hotbeds of anti-government activism "to promote Islamic civilization" against the influence of the West.

"Our Islamic civilization had been ravaged by the West but, fortunately, the Islamic Revolution halted that ravage," Kashani said to those assembled at Tehran University for Friday prayers. "Now you young students should revive that Islamic civilization."

He reminded students that a generation of young people had sacrificed their lives to uphold the revolution. "Your parents' generation braved bullets," he said. "Why should you not shoulder the responsibility to promote Islamic civilization?"

— Borzou Daragahi and Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran

Photo: Ayatollah Mohammed Emami Kashani; Credit: AFP

GAZA: Lean times for holiday shoppers

Border closures that followed Hamas’ violent takeover in the Gaza Strip have depleted supplies of everything from cement to cigarettes. Parents hoping to buy gifts for their children to celebrate the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan are finding slim pickings.

Ramadan ends Friday or Saturday with the traditional feast, called Eid al Fitr, that typically includes gifts for children. Popular items such as sweets and clothing are in short supply as a result of the shutdown in shipments through the main cargo crossing from Israel, which has been sealed since mid-June. Israel cited security reasons in closing the Karni crossing, but it has permitted limited shipments of basic foodstuffs and medicine through other crossings.

Most merchandise sold in Gaza comes from Israel, though a lot of the candy is produced in places like Turkey and imported through the Jewish state. For the first time in memory, many Gaza shoppers are unable to find favored chocolates. Parents go store to store in search of children’s shoes and clothing, but what is left in the depleted stocks is months old and unfit for the fall season.

The withered economy has left few people with money to shop with, anyway. The markets, usually jammed with buyers near the end of Ramadan, are uncrowded. A sign of the hard times is that it’s remarkably easy to find parking next to the main market on Omar al-Mukhtar Street, one of Gaza’s main boulevards.

— Rushdi abu Alouf in Gaza City and Ken Ellingwood in Jerusalem

IRAN: Red lights and red lines

As a journalist in Tehran, the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran, you never know what to expect. What can you get away with, and for how long? Will a move get you into trouble, jammed up in a messy dead-end, or will it be smooth sailing?

We’re talking, of course, about navigating Tehran’s tangled traffic.

I find myself constantly apologizing profusely for arriving half an hour early for an appointment, or hustling in, out of breath, an hour late.

There seems to be no golden rule about how long a trip will take. Longtime residents assure me that I should budget an hour for a certain trip from the north of Tehran to downtown, but I breeze through empty highways and get there with 45 minutes to spare. 

A friend tells me it’ll take 15 minutes to get across town to his house. I curse myself for listening to him an hour later, as I stew in traffic.

What’s more, Tehran drivers must be among the most reckless in the world, waiting till the last moment to cut across three lanes of traffic to get to a highway off-ramp.

Contra-flow bus lanes don’t help, nor do the swarms of devil-may-care motorcyclists who ignore red lights and one-way street signs.

People always ask about the difficulties of practicing journalism in Iran. But just getting around town here is a nerve-fraying experience that rivals maneuvering the political intricacies of any country.

— Borzou Daragahi in Tehran

ISRAEL: Same number of people, just more of them

The monthlong stretch of the Jewish High Holidays has ended, and life in Israel is returning to normal, if sluggishly.

Army Radio reports this week that the average Israeli gained from four to 13 pounds during the long string of family get-togethers. Dietitians calculate the meal-hopping has added as much as 5,000 tons to Israel's national weight, the equivalent of 830 elephants, give or take. (The zoo in Jerusalem already has six.)

But help is around the corner. In a few weeks, Israelis can compete in a race to the observatory at the top of Tel Aviv’s Azrieli Towers, the second highest building in Israel. That’s 49 floors, or 1,144 stairs — surely enough to burn off a pile of those calories.

— Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem

ISRAEL: This TV mystery is real

What is screwing up satellite television service in Israel?

For more than a month, subscribers to Israel’s Yes service have endured frequent disruptions — images that jump and freeze — that have created a public-relations nightmare for the company and something of an international mystery.

The problem began Sept. 6, the day Israel apparently carried out an air strike on an undisclosed target in Syria. Israeli media say officials suspect that the subsequent disturbances in the television signals from Yes, one of two multichannel providers in Israel, is interference from foreign ships.

One report suggested the possible involvement of a Russian spy ship. Other press accounts point to radar transmissions from Dutch vessels belonging to a United Nations force off the coast of Lebanon. The maritime force was deployed to help keep peace after Israel’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon last year.

The balky TV signals have spurred as many as 400,000 complaints to Yes each day, forcing the company to hire more workers and offer compensation to many of its 530,000 subscribers. A top company executive says the firm might not be able to withstand another month of trouble.

Yes has chartered planes and ships to pinpoint the source of signal disruptions, and shareholders have appealed to top Israeli officials to help. The company’s website says the “disturbances are caused by external elements beyond our control and are apparently due to security events.”

Meanwhile, its chief rival, a cable firm called Hot, is planning a drive to recruit new viewers.

— Ken Ellingwood and Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem

ISRAEL: Olmert questioned by police

Israeli police questioned Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for five hours today as part of an investigation into whether he sought to improperly influence the privatization of Israel’s second-largest bank in 2005.

The session was a reminder of the legal troubles facing Olmert at a moment when he is in discussions with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas over reviving substantive peace talks.

Police are looking into whether Olmert, then serving as finance minister, tried to fix terms of the government’s controlling interest in the Bank Leumi sale in order to help two associates who were potential bidders. He has said he acted properly. A second round of questioning is scheduled for Thursday.

Israel’s attorney general, Menachem Mazuz, has ordered a separate investigation into Olmert’s purchase of a Jerusalem apartment in 2004. Olmert, unpopular with voters since Israel’s inconclusive war with Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon last year, faces allegations of possible corruption in two other cases stemming from a past tenure as trade and industry minister.

But some of the clouds over him may be lifting. Israeli media reported today that the commission investigating the government’s performance during the 2006 Lebanon war won’t blame specific officials when it issues a final report in coming months. That would save Olmert from the possibility of an official call to step down and make it easier to keep his governing coalition intact, at least for now.

— Ken Ellingwood in Jerusalem 

IRAQ: Bringing up baby — online

Everyone knows about Internet chatting and shopping. But have you heard about Web-based-parenting?

Not long ago, you could find me every week in the baby supplies sections of our local Baghdad supermarket, stocking up on milk and diapers for my 3-year-old son, Omar, and 1-year-old daughter, Miriam.

But things have gotten so dangerous here that I decided to send my family out of the country for their safety.

Now, when I go to the supermarket, I still instinctively stop in that section and have to remind myself that my kids are no longer here with me. Every two months, I go to visit them for a week. The day I leave is always the happiest day for me; the day I get back is always the worst.

The only way I have to see my family on a regular basis is through a webcam I set up on my office computer. The first time we did this, Omar kept staring at my image on the screen saying, "Papa? What are you doing in Mom's computer?" Then he would look behind the monitor to see if I was hiding there.

Another day, my wife called over the Internet and said in an exasperated tone, "Papa! Talk to Omar. He won't stop punching Miriam." Then Omar came online saying, "Papa, she punched me first." I told him, "She is your younger sister. You should take care of her, not beat her." So he apologized and kissed her, and I went back to work.

A couple of days ago, Omar asked me on one of these calls, "Papa, why don't you come here?" I told him that I have to work in order to buy him lots of toys. So he said, "Why don't you come here, and I will work instead?" That gave me a shock. I realized that Omar and Miriam are growing up fast, and I am missing their childhood.

— Mohammed Rasheed in Baghdad

ISRAEL: But what about Crocs?

Israel’s parliament opened its winter session today and lawmakers were thrown quickly into debate over the hot-button issue of . . . jeans.

A new dress code imposed by Speaker Dalia Itzik to improve the image of the legislature, or Knesset, came under fire after an aide to another lawmaker, Shelly Yacimovich, was denied entry for wearing jeans.

Yacimovich, a former journalist and member of the left-leaning Labor Party, mocked Itzik’s initiative, saying that “dealing with the material from which one’s pants are made is a rather negligible matter.”

EGYPT: Inshallah

Before moving to Cairo this summer, I was warned about less-than-reliable landlords, those conveniently punctual characters when it comes to collecting rent who are less prudent when it involves fixing leaks, damaged roofs and other curious mishaps that can befall an Egyptian flat. So it was with skepticism that I called my landlord, hoping, praying that he would do something about the fridge, which rattled a lot but never got any frostier than warm.

"Someone will be right over." Click.

I thought, "Sure they will." Minutes later, a small cadre of men in overalls, one carrying a tool box, knocked and filed into the kitchen with a spooky degree of seriousness. They screwed and unscrewed, did things with wires and said: "It is fixed. Inshallah."

Inshallah means "God willing." Everything in Egypt runs on Inshallah. It is an Inshallah country.

ISRAEL: Is Google Earth a threat to security?

Israel’s Yediot Aharonot thinks so. Under the front-page headline “Transparent Country,” the newspaper reported Friday that updates in Google Earth’s online satellite imagery service make it possible for Israel’s enemies to see clearer, sharper pictures of the Jewish state’s air force bases, missile lauch sites and the top-secret nuclear reactor in the Negev Desert.

IRAQ: When checkpoints go bad

For a minute there, I thought we were about to become the latest Iraq security contractor story.

It was 8.30 a.m., and a Los Angeles Times driver was taking me to a news conference inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone. I sat next to him in a head scarf, trying to look as Iraqi as possible as we inched along a street crowded with people on their way to work.

The Green Zone is protected by layers of checkpoints. An Iraqi soldier scanned our badges and waved us through the first stop. But as we pulled in behind an armored SUV in a long line of cars waiting to be checked by U.S. soldiers, the back door opened, a large gun was pointed at us, and a foreign security contractor held up a fist – a sign used by the military to tell you to stop moving.

EGYPT: Star-gazing in Cairo

By Borzou Daragahi in Cairo

Cairo’s teeming, smog-choked streets cloak all in anonymity. Even blond-haired, blue-eyed foreign visitors don’t draw too much attention.

But I've never experienced anything quite like walking out of the Café Arabica in downtown Cairo with the famous actress Hind Sabri while reporting my story on the Egyptian movie industry.

All of a sudden, the calloused eyes of Cairo street vendors, police officers and passersby lit up with delight, swarming toward her. A few asked for autographs, but most just greeted her politely.

I felt like a bigshot, as if I were hangin’ with Julia Roberts.

“Madame Hind! Madame Hind!” the teenage boys called out, bowing as they approached her.

IRAQ: Hand on belly, foot in mouth

By Tina Susman in Baghdad

One perk of being a woman in Iraq today is bypassing the long lines of men waiting to be frisked at most public buildings and at the entrance to the Green Zone in Baghdad.

Women zip ahead and enter a curtained area labeled "Female Search," to be frisked by a woman out of sight of prying eyes. These private moments can lead to some odd encounters. "Oh, you have a baby!" one female searcher said cheerfully after running her hands over my belly. In reality, a parasitic infection was causing my midsection to swell, but what to do? My mind raced in the stifling heat of the closet as I tried to suck in my gut while pondering a response.

If I told her I was ill, she would be embarrassed for having mistaken my bloated abdomen for a pregnancy. Or she might think I was another flabby American inventing a medical excuse for my extra girth. The solution was obvious.

"Yes, I have a baby," I said, grinning like a happy mother-to-be as I gathered my belongings and headed into the sunshine.

IRAQ: A sheik's burden

By Tina Susman in Baghdad

It's not always easy being a sheik. Sure, you get to live in a marble mansion with 20-foot-high ceilings, chandeliers, and staff to serve sumptuous meals and pour tea. But you also have to greet an endless stream of visitors, and a true sheik never turns away anyone at the door, no matter what they want.

Consider the situation that Sheik Raad Sabah Alwani found himself in last year.