ISRAEL: Age of marriage

The average age of marriage in Israel is 27 for men, 25 for women. But in certain groups — among both Jews and Arabs — marrying much younger is a cultural or religious norm. Girls may be "married off" to relieve a family's financial burden, or to protect their "good name" — synonomous with that of the family's.

In Israel, 2,000 girls younger than 17 are wed every year. Between 2000-2005, 10,000 girls under 18 were married; 90% of them were 17, and 10% even younger. Rights activists are concerned that the actual numbers are higher, with marriages being performed by religious figures but registered with state authorities only when couples have come of age. Some are even believed to send their daughters out of the country to be married. Wedding minors outside the present constraints of the law is a criminal offense and punishable by two years in jail, or a fine. Religious courts are instructed to report underage marriages to the authorities but compliance is questionable.

PERSIAN GULF: Bhutto's death shakes the region

Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on Thursday reverberated powerfully in the oil-rich Persian Gulf kingdoms, where many Pakistani and other South Asian expatriates live and work.

Impoverished workers from that region constitute the main labor force driving the Gulf’s booming construction works. The Gulf, emerging as the Middle East's services and financial hub, also attracts skilled and educated engineers, managers and scholars from the South Asian subcontinent.

The Gulf News, a United Arab Emirates English-language daily, said the killing stunned local expatriates. "Pakistanis in the UAE have reacted with shock and grief to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and described her demise as a national tragedy," the paper reported.

EGYPT: An Iranian in Cairo

What was Ali Larijani, a representative of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, doing in Cairo? Was Iran's former nuclear negotiator just visiting the pyramids with his family, or was there more to his visit than that?

Many saw the visit as an attempt at healing the long-standing rift between Iran and major Arab powers. Although Larijani was ostensibly on a private trip with his family to Egypt, he seized the opportunity to hold talks with powerful Egyptian officials.

IRAQ: A night on the town in Baghdad

"It's safe! You can go out, even at night!"

I have been hearing this over and over for the last three months, since violence started to drop in Baghdad. So last week, I told three of my Iraqi colleagues at the Los Angeles Times, "Let's go out and have dinner!"

It had been almost two years since we had ventured out after dark. So we decided to play it safe and chose a restaurant about 10 minutes from our compound.

LEBANON: Neocon stopover

Lebanese bloggers and commentators are all abuzz about the Bush administration's curious choice to help defuse Lebanon's ongoing political crisis: Elliott Abrams, the aide to Vice President Dick Cheney who is known as one of Washington's top neoconservative insiders.

After a long absence by U.S. officials in the country, Abrams, along with assistant secretary of State David Welch, were dispatched twice to Lebanon, on Dec. 14 and 18, from "the heart of the neoconservative stronghold," as an op-ed in Lebanon's English-language newspaper the Daily Star put it this week.

EGYPT: Rage over borders and aid

The Israeli accusations that Egypt was not doing enough to prevent weapon smuggling across its borders has recently caused a storm of fury in Cairo. Earlier this week, the Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni accused Egypt of doing a "terrible" job in securing the borders with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

IRAN: Paying to play in Tehran?

Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf, the mayor of Tehran, is handing out wads of cash, about $2 million, to various religious associations in what some see as a preparation for a 2009 presidential run.

Qalibaf, a former member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is giving the money for festivities marking the holy month of Muharram, which is important to Iran's 95% Shiite Muslim majority. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who ascended to the presidency from the Tehran mayor's post in 2005, made a similar move in the run-up to his election.

Qalibaf insists that he is a "modernizer" and not a conservative. He says he has not made up his mind whether to run for the presidency. But some observers insist that he has already started his candidacy.

Government largess has played an important role in cementing the support of pious groups for various conservative political candidates. During the 1989-97 presidency of Hashemi Rafsanjani, then-Tehran Mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi launched an unprecedented campaign of contributions to mosques and Shiite religious associations.

The cash was meant in part to soothe the anger of hard-liners opposed to new cultural centers built to appeal to more secular-minded youth and the relaxation of strict codes of dress and behavior imposed in the years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

When Ahmadinejad became the mayor of Tehran, government contributions to the Shiite associations increased dramatically, helping garner support for his presidential run.

Qalibaf, a former police chief, ran against Ahmadinejad in 2005 but lost in the first round of voting.

— Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran

Photo: Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf. Credit: Kamran Jebreli /Associated Press

Lebanese stocking stuffer: a president

It's a bittersweet holiday season for Lebanon's Christians. Not since the darkest days of its civil war 20 years ago, have Christians here  been as been as politically divided as they are nowadays. A large number of Christians support the pro-U.S. March 14 coalition while others back Michel Aoun's group, which has thrown its lot in with the Shiite Muslim militia, Hezbollah.

They're so divided they've been unable to decide on a president, which in Lebanon has long been drawn from the Christian community.

And the sniping has gotten nasty, with Maronite Archbishop Jbeil Beshara calling Aoun a "tool who can't take any decision on his own" and Aoun lashing back at Beshara's remarks as "immature, irresponsible and inexcusable."

Lebanese politicians today turned down an offer by France to try to once again mediate the months-long impasse. Meanwhile the government of Fouad Saniora unilaterally amended the constitution without parliamentary approval to allow for the ascension of army chief Gen. Michel Suleiman as president.

IRAQ: Trying to fly the not-so-friendly skies

Complaints about holiday travel headaches in the United States ring hollow in Iraq where not even Kid Rock, Robin Williams, Miss America and comedian Lewis Black can make the helicopters fly if the wind, sand, and security don't cooperate.

The four were part of a United Service Organizations' Iraq tour and were due to perform Dec. 19 at a military base on the edge of Baghdad. The day got off to an auspicious start. The skies were clear, albeit colder than normal — perhaps in the low 50s, with a brisk breeze. Hours before the show, troops lined up outside gymnasium. The show was first-come, first-served, and there was room for only a few hundred. Chief Warrant Officer Eli Martinez was one of the first in line. "It's a piece of back home," Martinez explained when asked what possessed him to stand outside for hours in the cold.

SAUDI ARABIA: Hajjis, finally!

It’s done.

Everyone is absolutely shattered. The men are all limping around comically with blistered feet and chafed thighs, laughing as they compare freshly shaved heads.

Nobody told them it would be this hard. In all their preparations, all their conversations with veteran hajjis, nobody had mentioned the mountains of garbage they walked through in Muzdalifa, or the prospect of marching six miles in cheap sandals through choking crowds desperately trying to keep your group leader's flag in sight.

Several pilgrims have wondered whether there’s some sort of conspiracy of silence at work among hajj survivors.

Maybe people just don’t want to discourage prospective pilgrims; maybe the experience gets rosier upon reflection. Or maybe it’s simply impossible to do these experiences justice with mere words and you simply have to experience it yourself.

Either way, it’s done. It was a religious obligation and it’s done.

For many, it was the hardest thing they’ve ever done, and at times it was sheer misery. But now that it’s over, they’re already getting a little nostalgic.

— Ashraf Khalil in Mecca

Photo: Young California pilgrims relaxing in Mecca after a grueling hajj.