ISRAEL: Swine flu and the P-word

Like many other animals, pigs are not kosher. But a loaded history has rendered them a deep cultural abhorrence to Jews, and the animal has come to symbolize the ultimate "otherness," the deepest expression of non-Jewishness and the worst of filth. In 1962, Israel passed a law prohibiting raising pigs for slaughter, permitting it only among certain predominantly Christian Arab communities -- although there are loopholes. A long-standing bone of contention, the subject has played a significant part in Israeli politics (see "Outlawed pigs: law, religion and culture in Israel"). 

Pig protagonists like that of "Charlotte's Web" are nearly a cultural impossibility. So profoundly loathsome is the pig that many pious Jews do not even call it by its name and refer to it as davar acher, ('the other thing" or "another matter"), a multipurpose euphemism for several unmentionables.

With swine flu confirmed in Israel, pigs are causing a different kind of stink.

UAE: Torture video threatens to sour relations with Washington

A videotape allegedly showing an Afghan grain dealer being savagely tortured by a member of the United Arab Emirates’ royal family is apparently casting a gloom over relations between the United States and its oil-rich ally.

The release of the 45-minute tape last week by the U.S. network ABC was met with condemnation by international human rights groups, especially after authorities in the Persian Gulf nation tried to suppress the incident. CNN, quoting senior U.S. officials, reported Wednesday that the tape was slowing down the ratification of a civil nuclear deal between Washington and Abu Dhabi.

According to CNN, the U.S. administration has judged that “sensitivities over the story can hurt” the closing of the deal. 

Excerpts from the tape, which reportedly involves Sheik Issa bin Zayed al-Nuhayyan, a brother of the UAE crown prince, showed a man being beaten with whips and a plank of wood with nails, assaulted with an electric cattle prod, having sand shoved into his mouth and salt poured on his wounds and finally being run over by a car.

The 2004 incident, which allegedly involved a policeman, was said to have taken place in the desert at the prince’s ranch in Abu Dhabi. The prince allegedly sought revenge against the Afghan dealer for cheating him of more than $5,000 in a grain deal.

Judicial officials in the UAE said Wednesday that an investigation into the tape had been launched. A statement by the Abu Dhabi Justice Department said that the government “unequivocally condemns the actions depicted on the video.”

Human Rights Watch denounced the alleged torture. The international watchdog said that the UAE would be considered as the entity torturing individuals if those responsible for the incident and those commanding them were not prosecuted.

The tape was leaked to the media by Bassam Nabulsi, a U.S. national and a former business associate of Sheik Issa. Nabulsi, who said he was also detained and tortured by police in the UAE under orders from the prince, has filed a lawsuit in Texas, citing the video as evidence of the royal’s brutality.

The Afghan man has reportedly survived the torture after spending months in a hospital recovering from serious injuries and bone fractures. According to local officials, the case was closed in 2004 after the dealer and the prince had settled the matter privately with no charges pressed on either side.

The question remains whether UAE’s rulers will conduct a serious investigation of the case so as to save the reputation of the nation depicted in brochures and ads as a haven for business and tourism.

The incident pries open a window on the abuses and the harsh conditions to which laborers, especially those from poor Asian countries, are subjected in the Arab state. 

-- Raed Rafei in Beirut 

EGYPT: After avian flu, Egypt fears swine flu

 

After being unsettled by years of battling deadly bird flu, the Egyptian government has decided to slaughter the nation's 300,000 pigs to prevent the spread of swine flu. The health ministry has reportedly put all hospitals and quarantine center on alert to slow the spread of the virus in Egypt.

Health minister Hatem Gabaly announced that no cases of swine flu had been discovered. There is fear around the globe that the new virus could turn into a pandemic.

The World Health Organization raised its alert level as the number of confirmed cases increased. Mexico has reported at least 150 deaths that may be due to swine flu. Schools there have been closed (pictured above) in an effort to stem the outbreak. Egypt already has its hands full as it struggles to control the bird flu. Egypt is the country most affected by bird flu outside Asia; 65 cases, including 26 deaths, have been reported since 2006.

Many observers place the blame for the proliferation of the avian flu on people’s ignorance of the lethal virus and their reluctance to give up their domestic poultry.

— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo

Photo: A woman picks up her daughter from school in Mexico after the government extended the closure of schools nationwide. Credit: David Maung / AFP / Getty Images

IRAQ: Mutterings of tribal revolt

By Iraqi standards, Sheik Ali Hatem Sulaiman is royalty. He's the emir, or prince, of the Dulaim, Iraq's biggest tribe and the one that dominates in the former insurgent stronghold of Anbar province.

So when he threatens a tribal revolt, it's worth taking note.

For the past few weeks, Sulaiman, 38, has been trying to rally the support of tribes across Iraq for a tribal conference whose goal, he says, will be to replace the government of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki unless certain, as yet unspecified, demands are met.

If the U.S. military attempts to defend the Iraqi government by claiming that it was democratically elected, the Americans also will find themselves on the receiving end of the tribes' wrath.

 "I warn anyone who says this is a democracy that we will pour a gallon of gasoline into his mouth and set him on fire," Sulaiman saidin one of the more colorful threats made during an interview at his Baghdad office, lined with pictures of his tribal ancestors.

IRAN: Fake Israeli oranges stir debate in Tehran

Iranian officials probably did not imagine that an Israeli “infiltration” of their territory would happen this way. They were taken by surprise when oranges with the label “Jaffa Sweetie Israel PO” were found ready to be unpacked in fruit markets throughout Tehran last week.

The “suspicious” oranges spurred the Iranian government to launch an investigation for the Islamic Republic to impose a strict ban on all goods produced by its sworn enemy, Israel.

According to local media reports, the oranges were apparently packaged in boxes bearing a “made in China” sign and shipped to the Islamic Republic via neighboring Dubai.

IRAN: Jailed U.S. journalist Saberi on hunger strike

An American journalist convicted by Iran of spying for the U.S. has gone on a hunger strike to protest her eight-year prison sentence, according to her father.

Reza Saberi said his daughter, Roxana, 31, has been on a hunger strike since Tuesday in Tehran's Evin Prison. She was sentenced one week ago after a one-day trial that found her guilty of using her role as a journalist to pass information to U.S. intelligence services.

"Today is the fifth day," Reza Saberi told the Associated Press. "She will remain on hunger strike until she is freed."

The Obama administration contends Saberi is innocent and has urged that her conviction and sentence be overturned on appeal. The case has complicated U.S. moves toward reconciliation with the Islamic Republic, which is in the midst of an election campaign seen as a key battle between moderate and hard-liners linked to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But in recent days, Ahmadinejad has indicated that he does not want the Saberi ordeal to detract from negotiations with Washington, most notably over Iran’s nuclear programs. Ahmadinejad and the country’s chief judge have stressed that Saberi should receive a swift and fair appeal -- a sign that the harsh sentence was the wrong message to send after Obama’s efforts to improve diplomacy between the two nations.

Some analysts have suggested that the Saberi case was orchestrated by hard-liners who are opposed to closer ties with the U.S. Others have said that Ahmadinejad – a populist conservative – saw the detention of the journalist as a way to test the resolve of the new Obama White House.

Saberi told her father she was detained in January for buying alcohol, which is forbidden in Iran. She was later charged with espionage. Human rights groups have condemned the verdict, and journalist organizations said the case epitomizes Iran’s poor record on civil rights.

A dual U.S. and Iranian citizen, Saberi had reported for the BBC and National Public Radio and was working on a book about Iran’s culture and politics.  

-- Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo

Photo: Roxana Saberi. Credit: Agence France-Presse

ISRAEL: The 'Jewish state' debate

The new Israeli government is currently engaged in what it's calling a "policy review." Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's peace policies seemed pretty clear until the recent elections, but now his new government is consolidating its policies, which will be outlined in Netanyahu's meeting with President Obama in May.

Meanwhile, much scrambling for diplomatic foothold is taking place. In his recent meeting with U.S. envoy George J. Mitchell, Netanyahu was said to demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The U.S. said this was not a precondition to the talks, and Netanyahu swiftly clarified that this wasn't actually a condition for beginning talks, only for making progress in the future. 

EGYPT: Bahais accused of inciting sedition

The religious saga of the Bahai community is not over yet.

A prominent hard-line Islamist filed a complaint this week with Egypt's prosecutor-general against two Bahais, accusing them of defaming monotheistic religions, fomenting sedition and threatening national security, according to a report by a local newspaper.  

Youssef el Badry -- along with a couple of other clerics and 18 lawyers --  has reportedly singled out Basma Moussa, a prominent Bahai follower who has recently become known for her outspoken criticism of the state’s discrimination against Bahais, and Ahmed Abouel Ela, who appeared on TV last month and said he converted from Islam to the Bahai faith.

The case follows a recent verdict  that acknowledged the right of Bahais to receive official identification documents that don't categorize them as either Muslims or Christians. Bahais are cautiously contemplating the implementation of the verdict.

Yet, even if implemented, the verdict does not necessarily mean that Bahais would be fully tolerated in a society immersed in Islamic conservatism. 

Plaintiffs accused Bahais of being responsible for the violence that has recently erupted in southern Egypt. Muslim radicals set the houses of some Bahai families in the upper Egypt province of Sohag on fire in the wake of a TV show in which Ahmed Abouel Ela appeared and  reportedly claimed that the province hosted a large number of Baha’is. 

-- Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo

Photo: The shrine of Bahaullah, founder of the Bahai faith, in the Israeli city of Haifa. Credit: Nelson Ashberger / Bahai Media Bank

SAUDI ARABIA: Underage marriages to be regulated

Modernists in Saudi Arabia are striking back in their ongoing fight for influence and power with hardliner Islamists in this ultraconservative nation. After a court refused for the second time to annul the marriage of an 8-year-old girl to a man 40 years older than her, the Saudi minister of justice said last week that his government was planning to regulate the marriage of underage girls.

The Saudi justice minister, Mohammed Issa, told local media that his ministry wanted to “put an end to arbitrariness by parents and guardians in marrying off minor girls." 

The minister, however, did not elaborate on how marriages to minors would be kept in check. Other media reports quoting high-ranking officials said that a new law pertaining to marriage in the kingdom was being drafted and would set the minimum age of marriage as 18. 

IRAQ: Twittering in Baghdad

"Saw the real Baghdad today by driving out in the Red Zone. Lots of work to do, but people are on the street talking and things are moving."

"A bit hotter today in Baghdad. So much concrete. It's everywhere."

So read some of the tweets from Baghdad from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, who is visiting Iraq as part of a delegation of new-media technology executives invited by the State Department to explore ways technology can help rebuild the country.

It's going to be a challenge, they acknowledged in a meeting with reporters today at the heavily fortified U.S. embassy in Baghdad's Green Zone, where they have been staying since Sunday.

The Iraqi government still struggles to provide round-the-clock electricity, and millions of Iraqis lack access to clean drinking water, let alone the Internet.

Altogether, Internet penetration is estimated at around 5% of the population of 28 million people. That means most of the technologies represented by the delegation, including executives from Google, Howcast and YouTube, are beyond the reach of ordinary Iraqis.