IRAQ: Girls go to war, on the sports field

Najaf is best known for its holy Shiite shrines and lately for the fear and intrigue that have taken hold among its religious leaders as different factions compete for power and influence over Iraq's Shiite south. But this week, it has become the center of a different kind of competition: among girls and young women vying for athletic awards from the minister of education.

The eight-day competition began April 26 and has brought teams from 11 southern and central provinces to compete in volleyball and soccer. Suaad Saqab Kamil, who oversees women's sports in the Ministry of Education, said it's the first time the competition has been held since the start of the war five years ago.

Kamil admitted the teams are not up to the standards one might hope, but she hopes with training and support, that will change. The best surprise, she said, has been the encouragement of fans, who participants feared might create problems given this city's religiously conservative nature. As we wrote recently, women's sports face huge obstacles in Iraq,  due to insecurity, inadequate financial support and the growing influence of hard-line Shiite Muslims.

IRAN: Messages of war and bombings escalate

If the medium is the message, as the Canadian scholar Marshall McLuhan put it, the Iranians couldn't possibly mistake the recent communications by the United States. 

On Tuesday, President Bush told reporters that the Israeli bombing of an alleged North Korean-designed nuclear facility in Syria was not just directed against Pyongyang and Damascus, but was also a not-so-subtle telegram to Tehran.

Answering a question about the sudden resurfacing of the Sept. 16 attack on the Syrian facility, Bush strongly suggested that the United States and Israel had Iran in mind when Syria was bombed:

IRAQ: Recovering a ransacked heritage

 

For a few precious hours, Iraq's shuttered National Museum threw open its doors to journalists this week to celebrate the return of more than 700 looted antiquities, seized over the years by Syrian customs officials.

Clay cones inscribed with cuneiform script, one of the earliest forms of writing, ancient statues, golden necklaces and daggers were on display for the cameras. Museum officials showed off the serial numbers identifying items as part of their collection.

For now, the museum remains closed to the public. Once the journalists had gone Sunday, museum staff began boxing up the items, which will be kept under lock and key until security improves in Baghdad.

IRAQ: Army casualty identified

Army Spc. David P. McCormick, 26, of Fresno, Texas, died Monday in Baghdad of wounds suffered when his base came under rocket attack, the Defense Department announced Tuesday. The soldier was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 75th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Ft. Campbell, Ky.

At least 4,058 American troops have died since the war began in March 2003.

LEBANON: Trouble stirs along Israel border

Not all quiet lately on Lebanon's southern front with Israel.

Peacekeepers in southern Lebanon have come under political fire by Israeli authorities for reportedly covering up for Hezbollah's re-arming activities.

This comes at at particularly tense time. All sorts of people are warning of yet another round of war erupting between the Jewish state and the Lebanese Shiite militant group.

The Israeli daily Haaretz today quoted government and military officials accusing the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) of concealing information about Hezbollah.

Why would they do that? To avoid any friction with the Iranian-backed group, the paper reports:

IRAN: A Muslim actor as Jesus Christ

He is an Iranian Muslim who looks so much like a Hollywood or Renaissance image of Jesus Christ that the faithful sometimes make the sign of the cross when they see him.

Ahmad Soleimani-Nia has been playing Jesus for seven years, keeping his hair long and lightly dyed, his beard knotty and vibrant.

He is the star of "Jesus, the Spirit of God," a new film from Iran that depicts the man Christians believe to be the messiah and son of God as a tormented Judean prophet heralding the coming of Muhammad, the founder of the Muslim faith. Nia's Jesus is at once serene, devout, driven and passionate.

In real life, if there is a real life after a spiritual and artistic odyssey that is still not over, Nia lives in Tehran. He was once a soldier in the Iranian army and then a welder for — the irony is interesting in this Jesus story — his nation's Atomic Energy Agency, which the Bush administration accuses of pursuing nuclear weapons.

That may unsettle some American neo-cons, but perhaps not as much as the film itself, which suggests that Jesus wasn't crucified and never rose from the dead.

Check out the rest of the story in today's Los Angeles Times. 

— Jeffrey Fleishman in Tehran

Photo: Ahmad Soleimani-Nia as Jesus. Credit: minbar.tatar.ru/rus/Messiah.htm

SYRIA: More questions about alleged nuclear site

Professor William Beeman at the University of Minnesota passed along a note today from "a colleague with a U.S. security clearance" about the mysterious Syrian site targeted in a Sept. 6 Israeli airstrike.

The note raises more questions about the evidence shown last week by U.S. intelligence officials to lawmakers in the House and Senate. 

The author of the note pinpoints irregularities about the photographs. Beeman's source alleges that the CIA "enhanced" some of the images. For example he cites this image:

The lower part of the building, the annex, and the windows pointing south appear much sharper than the rest of the photo, suggesting that they were digitally improved.

The author points to more questions about the photographs of the Syrian site.

ISRAEL: Death of the innocent

The tragic images on display today were all too familiar for residents of the Gaza Strip: the crumbled remains of a family home, the wailing relatives outside the hospital and the tiny white-shrouded corpses.

Equally familiar were the war of words and dueling accusations that ritually follow tragedies like today's explosion that killed a mother and four of her young children.

Palestinian officials placed the blame on "Israeli aggression." Israeli officials blamed the willingness of Palestinian militants to attack from areas crowded with civilians and laid ultimate blame on Hamas and other Gazan militant factions.

IRAQ: Summer in the city

When a roadside bomb shattered the rear windows of Mohammed Adhami's Chevy Lumina minivan, he faced a dilemma few outside Baghdad could imagine: Should he spend hundreds of dollars to replace the windows, or should he use his money to fix the car's air conditioner before the unbearable summer heat arrives?

Adhami opted for the A/C, and on a recent spring day, with the temperature already hitting 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 Celsius), he was one of scores of customers at White Palace in downtown Baghdad, an air-conditioning shop for vehicles that becomes one of the busiest spots in the capital as the temperature begins to rise. Transparent nylon could replace the windows, he reasoned, but there's no substitute for good air conditioning.

Welcome to summer in Baghdad, where daytime temperatures can top 120 degrees F (49 C), and where having a car without A/C is not only unthinkable but dangerous. Between the heat, the dust and the dry air, staying cool in the summer is a daily struggle — one that can mean the difference between life and death. It's so bad that many Iraqis, like Abu Ahmed, who don't get enough electricity at home to run an air conditioner, use their cars as safe havens from the horrible heat.

SYRIA: Was Damascus building a nuclear program?

So are the Syrians or the Americans bending facts about Kibar?

That's the site in the eastern deserts of Syria destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on Sept. 6. The consequences Kibar airstrike continue to unfold. Los Angeles Times Washington bureau reporter Nicole Gaouette writes today about the bipartisan skepticism of U.S. lawmakers about the timing and substance of the Bush administration's presentations (see video below) about the site last week.

The presentations to the Senate and House intelligence committees were meant to show that North Koreans were helping the Syrians build a plutonium reactor. Instead, the evidence drew unusually strong criticism.

ISRAEL: King Solomon's judgment, 2008

Parents separated and estranged, teenage daughter commits suicide. The essence of tragedy. But the story cannot be put to rest until the daughter is, and this won't happen until the parents agree on how.

The mother asked that her daughter be cremated, a very uncommon choice in Israel. The father agreed at first but changed his mind and sought traditional burial. The mother claimed that he had no authority to intervene, as he was not the girl's biological father.

By the time the DNA testing proved his fatherhood, it was too late: The body had been cremated. All a judge could do was to issue an injunction against scattering her ashes. When police arrived at the mother's house, she said it was too late for that too and the police left with the urn and remaining ashes, which the father wants buried traditionally.

EGYPT: Chaos, war and traffic

Egyptians ruefully ponder the traffic on their streets and the chaos in their hearts. They seek, especially in rattling, boisterous Cairo, anecdotes and asides to describe their exasperating predicaments. Here’s a sobering assessment from writer Suleiman Gouda, who recently mused in the newspaper Al-Wafd:

What’s really strange is that when an Egyptian is in a capital other than Cairo, he/she behaves well every step they take and turns from a chaotic creature, who is used to unlimited chaos in his home country, into a civilized person.

Gouda goes on to say that he was startled by a glimpse at traffic statistics:

When a recent report says that the number of those killed (and injured) in accidents in Egypt hit 73,000 in a single year, this only means what is happening in our streets is a war, not an ordinary movement of traffic. The U.S. has been fighting in Iraq for five years, and the number of its soldiers killed did not exceed 4,000!

Yet, somehow, Egyptian friendliness and a wry sense of humor overcome the din of horns and the screech of brakes in a tangle of rolling eyes and shared, knowing smiles.

— Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo

Photo: Cairo gridlock. Credit: auto.howstuffworks.com   

ISRAEL: What is behind spy arrest?

The arrest of 84-year-old Ben-ami Kadish on charges of spying for Israel continues to fuel speculation and analysis here and in the U.S. A Jerusalem Post survey showed that 71% of more than 3,000 respondents believed that the Kadish case would harm U.S.-Israeli relations.

Much of the speculation centers on the curious timing of the arrest — not only more than 20 years after Kadish's alleged crimes took place but one month before President Bush will travel here to help celebrate the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel's founding.

One interpretation was that the Bush administration was using the case to pressure Israel into greater concessions in its talks with the Palestinians. Another claimed that the U.S. Justice Department remained obsessed with proving that convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard was just part of a larger ongoing network.

ISRAEL: Exodus commander dies at 90

Before there was Hollywood's Ari Ben-Canaan, there was Yossi Harel. Barely 30 years old, he commanded the legendary ship Exodus, carrying some 4,500 Jewish refugees and Holocaust survivors from Europe to British Palestine in 1947. He died Saturday at age 90.

The ship sailed from a small port near Marseilles, France, on July 11, 1947. The British authorities, determined to stop the illegal immigration of Jews that had increased after the war, had adopted a new policy to return ships to their European point of embarkation and had warships accompany the Exodus once it left French territorial waters.

On the morning of July 17, a refugee named Dvora was on deck of what was still the SS President Warfield, watching the British warships approach. "That morning, our ship's name was not yet the Exodus.... Late in the afternoon, I saw a friend of mine, a Belgian boy, struggling with a long piece of cloth and some paint. He explained he was going to paint the name of our ship on the sheet: Hagana Ship, Exodus 1947.... After a while, the job was done. That is how our ship became exodus," she wrote in her memoirs.

IRAQ: The results were stunning

Iraqi troops have made two major assaults in recent weeks on Shiite militia forces in the oil city of Basra. For the second — more successful — of the assaults, the Iraqi government called in troops trained by U.S. Marines in Anbar province, west of Baghdad.

The after-action reports of that assault, in which a Marine lieutenant was killed, are now becoming available. The battle was dubbed Operation Charge of the Knights.

Col. Robert Castellvi, senior military advisor to the commanding general of the Iraqi army's 1st Division, is giving high marks to the troops trained by his Marines. Two brigades and a headquarters company moved 500 kilometers with 48 hours' notice and within 24 hours of arriving were engaged in combat.

Castellvi writes:

IRAQ: A close call for a knight

Abu Abed isn't your typical knight. As we wrote back in December, he is suspected of being a former Sunni Muslim insurgent, and his past is shady at best. But Abu Abed now is working alongside U.S. forces as head of a paramilitary force known as the Knights in the Land of the Two Rivers, a role that nearly cost him his life Saturday.

Two of Abu Abed's guards were killed and he suffered shrapnel wounds in the head, eye, back and other parts of the body when a bomb went off outside a building where Abu Abed had been summoned for a meeting with local leaders.

Abu Abed described the dramatic event in a phone call Sunday.

IRAN: Is Washington telling the truth, or setting stage for war?

On Friday chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael G. Mullen delivered stern words against Iran, accusing it of continuing to supply weapons and training to Iraqi militants to target American troops despite promises not to do so.

Mullen's words carry weight. He's uniformed military, not some beltway ideologue.

Still, many in the U.S. and the world feel burned by the Bush administration's pre-war claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and support for Al Qaeda that turned out to be false.

Others believe the allegations that Iran is messing up U.S. plans in Iraq.

What do you think? Vote in the poll below.

—Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Photo: An Iranian soldier wears a gas mask during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

IRAQ: For one fallen soldier's dad, pain lingers

A pot of coffee brews inside the one-story home on Seth Dvorin Lane, as the father of a dead American soldier salutes his son's picture and sets out to keep his memory alive another day.

His weathered home sits on a street named after Army 2nd Lt. Seth Dvorin, 24, killed by a roadside bomb near Iskandariyah, Iraq, on Feb. 3, 2004.

Seth liked playing basketball, traveling to places like Europe and Israel, flying remote-controlled helicopters and driving Mustang cars, says his father, Richard Dvorin, a refrigerator of a man, before he breaks into tears for the fifth time this afternoon.

Dvorin, 65, knows his son's story sounds like one you've heard before. He knows you probably don't care to read about another dead soldier.

He wants you to pay attention anyway.

Click here to read the rest.

—Erika Hayasaki in East Brunswick, N.J.

Photo: Richard Dvorin, 65, who keeps his son's military medals on display at home, works at a hot line for soldiers and their families, fielding calls about post-traumatic stress, depression, anxiety and death. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

IRAQ: Without hesitation

Two young Marines killed in the explosion of a suicide vehicle are being praised for saving the lives of dozens of Marines and Iraqi police by preventing the vehicle from penetrating a police compound in Ramadi.

Lance Cpl. Jordan C. Haerter (above) and Cpl. Jonathan T. Yale were standing guard early Tuesday morning when a blue dump truck packed with 2,000 pounds of explosives came speeding toward the compound. The two quickly went through the "escalation of force" procedures: waving their arms, shouting and shooting flares.

When the truck refused to stop, Haerter and Yale stood in its path and opened fire. The truck rolled to a stop about 30 feet from the entry point and exploded, spreading destruction about 130 feet in all directions, demolishing a mosque and injuring 20 Iraqi civilians.

Haerter, 19, of Sag Harbor, N.Y., was killed instantly. Yale, 21, of Burkeville, Va., died moments later. Both were from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

An official after-action report says the two acted without hesitation or concern for their own lives and saved the lives of 33 Marines and 21 Iraqi police inside the compound:

"Recognizing the danger to their fellow Marines and partnered Iraqi police, Cpl. Yale and Lance Cpl. Haerter fearlessly gave their lives in their defense."

—Tony Perry in San Diego

Update 5/11/08: Haerter and Yale have been nominated by Marines to receive the Silver Star for combat bravery.

Photo: Lance Cpl. Jordan C. Haerter, before deploying to Iraq. Photo credit: Newsday (Long Island, N.Y.)

IRAQ: Walls closing in for Iraqi travelers

By Said Rifai in Baghdad

I grew up abroad and used to take traveling for granted.

From the day I was born, my family and I traveled several times a year. There were summer and winter vacations to exotic islands in the Far East, European road trips, shopping sprees in Hong Kong and the annual trip back to Iraq to visit with family, getting acquainted with the fatherland so to speak.

I traveled so much that I got sick of it at one point and just wanted to settle down. My wish came into being when my father retired and we moved back to Baghdad in 1993 - finally, a place to call home.

ISRAEL: Turkey mediates possible Syria deal

Despite months of tension, Israel and Syria appeared Thursday to be engaged in indirect talks on the outlines of a peace accord that would include an Israeli pullout from the Golan Heights.

Direct, U.S.-brokered talks over the territory, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War, collapsed in 2000. There have been periodic peace overtures since, but the current effort is viewed as more serious because it is being mediated by Turkey, which has close relations with both countries.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert described his hope for a deal in an interview last week before Passover, telling the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, "I am acting on this issue, and I hope that my efforts mature into something meaningful."

Click here to read more.

—Richard Boudreaux in Jerusalem

IRAN: War fears spike after Mullen remarks

The barometer of tensions between Iran and the United States went up a notch or even two today as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael G. Mullen accused Iran of stepping up weapons and training to its surrogates in Iraq despite promises to stop doing so.

Los Angeles Times Pentagon correspondent Julian E. Barnes is following the story from Washington:

...Mullen said there was not a massive infusion of weapons but said over time there had been "a consistent increase" in arms shipments. Speaking at a morning news conference, Mullen said weapons had been intercepted in Iraq that showed evidence of relatively recent manufacture in Iran...

Also today came word of another possible confrontation between U.S. forces and Iranians in the Persian Gulf. According to the Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet, an American contractor fired approaching speedboats that identified themselves as Iranian vessels. Iranians said no such incident took place.

Insiders say Mullen is no warmonger. They say Mullen is not eager to get America's overstretched military embroiled in a war with a country three times bigger than Iraq.

IRAQ: Baby abandoned at base gets a home

U.S. forces living on the bases scattered across Baghdad's neighborhoods have grown accustomed to visits from locals looking for help, work or just offering tips on criminal or insurgent activities. But the local who paid a visit earlier this month to troops at a base called Callahan, in northeastern Baghdad, came bearing something nobody had expected: a newborn baby boy.

The unexpected arrival occurred in the midst of recent fighting involving U.S. and Iraqi forces and Shiite militiamen. Many of the troops engaged in the battles live at Callahan, a former shopping mall in a neighborhood near the militia stronghold of Sadr City. The sight of someone leaving a mysterious bundle outside their base at this time of heightened tensions was discomfitting, to say the least.

BAHRAIN: Crackdown on homosexuality

After years of clamping down on gays, Bahraini officials believe they have found a sure-fire cure for the "dangerous" practice of homosexuality.

Instead of relying only on sporadically imprisoning gay adults, a number of lawmakers are pressing for draconian measures to uproot homosexuality altogether, starting with children.

They have urged the government to spy on kids at schools and "punish" any pupils "who veer towards homosexuality."

MIDDLE EAST: A rift within Al Qaeda

Al Qaeda increasingly faces sharp criticism from once-loyal sympathizers who openly question its ideology and tactics, including attacks that kill innocent Muslims, according to U.S. intelligence officials, counter-terrorism experts and the group's own communications.

A litany of complaints target Osama bin Laden's network and its affiliates for their actions in Iraq and North Africa, emphasis on suicide bombings instead of political action and tepid support for, or outright antagonism toward, militant groups pressing the Palestinian cause.

The criticism apparently has grown serious enough that Al Qaeda's chief strategist, Ayman Zawahiri, felt compelled to solicit online questions. He responded in an audio message released this month. For more than 90 minutes, Bin Laden's second-in-command tried to defuse the anger.

Click here to read more.

—Josh Meyer in Washington

Photo: Ayman Zawahiri, left, Al Qaeda’s chief strategist, seen here with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998, recently responded on tape to questions, many angry. Credit: Mazhar Ali Khan / Courtesy Paladin InVision/WETA

IRAN: Considering Hillary Clinton's 'obliterate' remarks

A supporter of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has sent a note in a response to an earlier post suggesting that the presidential candidate's statement vowing to "totally obliterate" Iran if it were to launch an attack on Israel was taken out of context.

Actually, what she said Tuesday on ABC's "Good Morning America" was that she would "totally obliterate them" even if they merely "consider" launching an attack on Israel.

Here's a clip from the interview with ABC's Chris Cuomo:

Below a transcript of the entire exchange:

ISRAEL: A little spying between friends

This was already going to be a year where we heard a lot about convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Jay Pollard. As the Bush administration winds down, speculation has been steadily building about a potential end-of-term pardon for the former Navy analyst serving a life sentence for espionage.

President Clinton, at the end of his presidency,  considered a pardon for Pollard -- who was granted Israeli citizenship in prison. But Clinton was reportedly talked out of it by the intelligence community, which was still livid about the scope of the damage done.

Now a new Israeli spy scandal has brought up Pollard's name again. Accused spy Ben-ami Kadish, an 84-year-old retired Army engineer, reportedly had the same handler as Pollard, an allegation which revives longstanding speculation that Pollard was just part of extensive and ongoing Israeli network in America.

"This was a much larger espionage operation with sleeper cells in the United States than we understood or could have known at the time," said Joseph E. DiGenova, the former U.S. attorney who helped prosecute Pollard.

IRAN: Hillary's threat to "obliterate" in war reverberates

 

Better be careful what you say in the heat of a political campaign. It could have global repercussions.

Presidential contender Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's vow to "obliterate" Iran, presumably with nuclear weapons, if it attacked Israel on her watch was duly noted in the U.S.

[UPDATE: To see a video and full transcript of the comment, click here.]

Jaded American insiders shrugged off the remark as typical campaign season bluster, filed away with myriad other exaggerations and gaffes.

But it prompted shock overseas as well as headlines from Bulgaria to New Zealand.

EGYPT: A birthday protest for the president?

Cyber-dissidents and Facebook activists are preparing to give Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak a birthday present that is certain to spoil the cake and candles mood. On May 4, when the leader turns 80, opposition groups have called for a national strike to protest low wages, inflation, poverty and political oppression that have led to growing anger against Mubarak.

The dissidents have the Internet, but Mubarak controls the intelligence and security forces. It’s being couched as a battle between technology, and tear gas and batons.

A national strike several weeks ago turned out to be more symbolic than successful. Police shut down most protests before they started and many in this nation, where more than 40% of the population lives on less than $2 a day, couldn’t afford to give up a day of work to punch their fists in the air.

But activists were inspired, rallying around Esra Abdel Fattah, a 27-year-old blogger who was arrested earlier this month while plotting a protest movement on a Facebook network that included an estimated 64,000 members. She was released from prison earlier this week.

The question for the Egyptian opposition, however, is can electronic dissidence lead to placards and marchers in the street? Historically, Egyptians are not known for taking on their leaders in massive public protests, and the Mubarak government is moving swiftly to silence bloggers, satellite TV channels and other contrarian voices. People are angry, but are they determined?

—Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo

Photo: President Hosni Mubarak (AFP)

MIDDLE EAST: Al Qaeda speaks again

Al Qaeda struggles to show that it still has its fingers on the pulse of the world, even as it hides out in the rocky mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The latest presumptive audio recording by Al Qaeda's No. 2 seems to suggest that the Islamist organization is striving to stay relevant.

In the extensive two-hour message posted on the Internet Tuesday, Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, particularly lashed out at the Iranians for their ambitions in Iraq and the Arab region, as well as their attempts to discredit the Sunni Islamist group.

IRAQ: First violence, now inflation

By Usama Redha in Baghdad

When I feel bad or uneasy, the only thing that relaxes me is to go shopping in my neighborhood bazaar.

The busiest time is about 5 p.m. Lots of people come to buy groceries, glasses of fruit juice and snacks to enjoy as the heat of the day begins to ebb. But the last time I went, the bazaar wasn't nearly as crowded as it should have been. The vendors had piled up their fruit and vegetables in neat rows and were polishing them to make them shine. But few people were buying.

I always look around first to see who has the best stuff. But this time I was stunned by the prices, which are supposed to be cheap this time of the year. Most fruits and vegetables had gone up 30% or 40%. So my search was for the cheapest price, not the best quality.

MIDDLE EAST: Danish cartoon controversy continues to ripple

The anger unleashed in the Muslim world by the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad more than two years ago is apparently far from simmering down.

In the latest of the drawings' consequences, the Danish government decided to close its embassies in Algeria and Afghanistan after threats of terrorist attacks against their premises in these two countries. According to a report in a Danish newspaper, the Danes have evacuated their staff from embassies in Kabul and Algiers to an unidentified "safe location," where they continue to work.

The newspaper said that the Danish intelligence linked the threats to the reprinting of the cartoons in February by international newspapers.

MIDDLE EAST: Spy games

Two blockbuster Middle East espionage tales emerged from Washington today.

First, a scoop by Los Angeles Times diplomatic reporter Paul Richter and intelligence reporter Greg Miller: The CIA plans to brief key lawmakers in a closed-door session about the mysterious Syrian site that was the target of an Israeli air raid in September.

The report cites anonymous Beltway officials. Here's an excerpt:

LEBANON: A theater that delves into Arab thinking

 

Sherif Abdel Nour, the Lebanese-Palestinian playwright and director, says he's determined to use art to highlight Arab concerns as a counterweight to Western influences.

Last week, Abdel Nour celebrated the opening of his new production, “Hanthalaza’s Journey from Slumber to Consciousness,” at Beirut's Babylon Theatre.

The satirical play mocks the apathy and submissiveness that characterize much of the Arab world.

“My objective is to bring the Arab culture closer to the people through theater,” said the 30-year-old director. “There is a tendency to stay away from issues related to the Arab identity and to perform Western plays.”   

To achieve his objective, Abdel Nour created his own theatrical troupe, grouping amateurs from different parts of the Arab world in 2001. So far he's staged 16 plays, all of them tackling Arab social and political concerns.

IRAQ: The Arab media gang up on Rice

Try as it might, the U.S. has apparently failed again to convince its Arab allies in the Persian Gulf to promise to step in with their cash and credibility in support of the fledgling, Shiite-led Iraqi government.

In a visit to Bahrain on Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried to convince oil-rich Persian Gulf nations to relieve Iraq of billions of dollars of debt, open embassies in the war-torn country and help counter Iran's growing influence.

She walked away empty-handed. Instead, Rice's latest visit to the region has prompted a fresh storm of criticism against U.S. policy in Iraq, which is the subject of a big conference in Kuwait today.

SAUDI ARABIA: A nightmare for women

Human Rights Watch today released a 54-page report criticizing the lack of women's rights in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, one of America's key allies in the Middle East.

It is a lengthy indictment of a a legal system that deprives women of basic rights considered ordinary almost everywhere else in the world.

According to the report, the law treats Saudi women like children, maybe worse.

If you're a Saudi woman, you can't board an airplane, get a job, go to school or get married without the permission of a male "guardian," whether a husband, father or, if they're both out of the picture, your son.

You're not even allowed to make decisions on behalf of your own children without the approval of your husband or father.

Sometimes you're even barred from undergoing a medical exam or leaving a hospital without the permission of a male relative.

EGYPT: Lutes and Sufi chanters

As the rising sounds of oriental percussion and lutes resonated around him, the frail Sufi chanter struck a glass with prayer beads in fast repetitive movements. His vibrant voice sang love for the prophet Mohammed.

The man featured at a cultural center in Cairo was Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tuni, one of Egypt's emblematic figures of Sufism, a school of Islam with mystical dimensions. Al-Tuni represents an old line of performers of musical and singing traditions transmitted orally from generation to generation.

Sufis believe they can transcend into a state of altered consciousness and experience closeness to Allah, or God. This is usually achieved through a set of rituals that involve whirling the head or the body to intense rhythmic music and repetitive chanting of divine names.

IRAN: Watching Pennsylvania from Persia

If an Iranian woke up in America and glimpsed the front page of a newspaper, he'd be reminded of home: a teetering economy, a restless populace, a tough-talking leader.

This nation is fascinated by what it calls the Great Satan, and it is watching the U.S. primaries for signs of how it might benefit from crises similar to its own facing the next American president. Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, this theocracy has clashed with Democratic and Republican administrations alike; it has endured international sanctions while practicing shadow diplomacy and brinkmanship.

Iranians know the new U.S. leader will inherit an overextended military in Iraq, a declining dollar, high oil prices and a sub-prime mortgage crisis that are straining the American economy. This scenario, analysts here suggest, may lead to a softer U.S. foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has become widely admired for his harsh line against the Bush administration.

Click here to read more.

—Jeffrey Fleishman in Tehran

SYRIA: Radio as a sound sensation

It's the midmorning commute, and time for the horoscope on "Good Morning Syria," the nation's hottest radio show.

"Cancer," host Honey Sayed addresses listeners first in Arabic, then in English, with an air of sisterly candor, "don't get all worked up for nothing."

On the other side of the window, deejay Abdullah Shaaban cues an oldie from John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. "I got chills, they're multiplying," Travolta sings. "And I'm losing control."

Honey laughs and continues with her astrology report. "An opportunity is present," she coos into the microphone, "so take it, Leo."

Newly instituted freedom on the nation's airwaves has transformed Syria's sonic landscape. Some say it is shaping the way people view themselves, part of a wave of global influences turning this nation, whose government is the most hostile to the West in the Arab world, into the culture most amenable to it.

Click here to read more.

—Borzou Daragahi in Damascus

Photo: Her bubbly laugh has become her signature, and is even used for promos. “A guy called me up and said he wished he could make my laugh his ring tone,” Honey Sayed says. Credit: John Wreford / For the Times

IRAQ: No comparison

The performance of Iraqi troops and police — including nearly 1,000 desertions — during the first March battle against Shiite militias in the oil city of Basra was something less than exemplary.

But Marine brass in Anbar province remain convinced that the Iraqi divisions they've been training will acquit themselves far better when their time comes to take the lead in fighting insurgent groups.

At a teleconference briefing Monday for Pentagon reporters, Col. Lewis Craparotta picked his words carefully but left little doubt that Marines feel the Iraqi troops in their section of the country are — to be blunt — better than those who were sent to fight in Basra.

"We've still got some challenges integrating some of their logistics," Craparotta said, "but I think these are some of the best Iraqi security forces in the country, based on the training and the time we've invested in them.  And I don't see a comparison with these forces with what I've read happened in Basra." 

Craparotta is the commanding officer of the Regimental Combat Team One, which has responsibility for that portion of Anbar that includes Fallouja and Ramadi, once battlegrounds.

Al Qaeda has been "neutralized" in the two cities and has little popular support, Craparotta told reporters. But he expects them to attempt a comeback at some point.

"This is a pretty smart enemy," he said. "It's an enemy that tends to come back where they started. And both Ramadi and Fallouja are key cities, or were key cities."

—Tony Perry in San Diego

Photo: Marine Col. Lewis Craparotta, commander of Camp Pendleton-based Regimental Combat Team One. Credit: U.S. Marine Corps

ISRAEL: Sitting down with Carter

Jimmy Carter knew what he was getting into when he launched his one-man Middle East diplomacy tour.  After emerging as the most prominent American critic of Israeli policy, the former president wasn't expecting to be received here with open arms.

But as the Nobel Peace Prize-winner returned to Jerusalem after meeting with Hamas leaders in Damascus, his aides said they were amazed that not a single Israeli government minister was willing to meet with him during the several days he was here last week.

"We expected a cold reception but not to be treated like this," said one Carter advisor.

Carter hailed the public acceptance by Hamas of a two-state solution on pre-1967 borders, provided the proposed peace deal was approved in a Palestinian referendum. The development, Carter said, proved  Israel and the U.S. were "making a very serious mistake" in refusing to meet with the militant group, which won parliamentary elections in 2006 and now controls the Gaza Strip.

Carter laughed when asked if he thought his actions would spark debate back home about the United States' foreign policy and its approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

IRAN: Warming up to once-despised Jimmy Carter

The Iranian government has officially and regularly decried former President Jimmy Carter since the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. 

But it looks like some within official Iranian circles are willing to let bygones be bygones, especially now that Carter has defied the Bush administration by meeting with the Palestinian militant group and Iranian ally, Hamas.

Iran's animosity toward Carter stretches back decades. He was, after all, the U.S. commander in chief who toasted deposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi months before a popular 1978 uprising against his rule, briefly offered the monarch sanctuary in America and dispatched an ill-fated rescue team to free American diplomats and embassy employees being held hostage in Iran.

But politics makes for strange bedfellows.

IRAQ: Shiite vs. Shiite battle mounts

The relative peace created by the surge in Iraq is a fading memory. Talk of imminent strife dominates the news coming out of Iraq.

Cleric Muqtada Sadr, his forces under seige in Basra and Baghdad, warns of all-out war if the Iraqi government continues its offensive. Here's a translation of an extract from the statement he issued Saturday:

I am directing the final warning and talk to the Iraqi government to return to the right pathway, the peaceful way, reject violence towards its people — or they will be like Saddam's government. If the government would not return to the right pathway and rein in the militias that have interfered, we will announce an open war until liberation.

EGYPT: Lust and a blue pill

Under the headline "Impulse to Lust," one can ponder old men, anxious grooms and the value of cufflinks. Diverse topics to be sure, but not when looked at through the enticing, blue prism that is Viagra. Gamal Nkrumah writes in the Al-Ahram Weekly about Egypt’s 10-year love affair with a pill that has “saved marriages and ruined others.”

Hag Ahmed, a 68-year-old Viagra devotee, gives the pills as presents to his closest associates. “My friends appreciate it far more than a tie or expensive cufflinks,” he says. Nervous grooms have come to rely on it, as well as young men looking to, shall we say, inflate their prowess. 

“There are perfectly healthy young men that want to experiment with Viagra to enhance their sexual abilities,” said pharmacist Manal El-Shazli. “Pornographic films have become readily available on satellite television channels and the Internet. An ever-increasing number of young men want to try everything they watch, and they believe that Viagra is their best friend; that is the ideal instrument to realize their dreams."

When it comes to sex and its accoutrements, the world, despite frictions between Islam and the West, is pretty much the same from Cairo to Los Angeles, a landscape of angst, joy, desire, wonderment and pharmaceuticals.

—Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo

Photo credit: viagra-picture.org

IRAN: Tehran addict blues

The man in the mustard-colored blazer had a new haircut. It shined in the morning light as he stood near a strange, vulnerable collection of guys at the edge of a park, where murals of ayatollahs and martyrs floated above rooftops and gardeners lugged hoses to the sound of water fisch-fisch-fisching over cold green grass.

They asked God for courage to change what could be changed and wisdom enough to know what couldn't be undone. It seemed like a good prayer, and the man closed his eyes and joined in for a moment. Then he cleared his throat and tried to gather the part of himself that he had somehow lost years ago.

"I'm a lodger in a small room," Gholam Reza Akbarabadi said. "These men and I help each other. We talk about daily things -- like today, for example, I have temptati