MIDDLE EAST: U.N. report finds many problems in Arab world

Even the most optimistic of demographers can find reams of troubling statistics and startling anecdotes gleaned from living conditions in Arab nations across the Middle East and Africa.

The newest in a series of U.N. studies called the Arab Human Development Reports offers a sobering glimpse at the problems facing the Arab world: water scarcity, urban growth, persistent poverty, lack of democracy and human rights and a rapidly growing young population. 

These strains are intensifying during the global economic crisis.

The dominating headlines in the Arab world tend to be the Iraq War, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and apprehension over Iran's nuclear program. 

But the region's living conditions -- from high unemployment and rising hunger -- also threaten regional stability.       
   
Highlights in the U.N. report, Challenges to Human Security in the Arab Countries, include: 

MIDDLE EAST: An Arab tribute to the King of Pop

Middle East analyst and blogger Juan Cole of Informed Comment writes today about Michael Jackson’s popularity in the  Arab world. Jackson lived in Bahrain for a time after he was acquitted on child molestation charges in 2005. But he had a falling out with his benefactor, a son of the Persian Gulf island's emir.

Cole includes a link to a Middle Eastern video tribute to the King of Pop posted on YouTube. Although the comments suggest that a Jackson soundtrack may have been superimposed over a clip of men in traditional Arab robes dancing to music from the Gulf, Cole says “it is the height of hybridity either way.”

"Given the stereotyping of Gulf Arabs as medieval and fanatical, and given the hurtful prejudice against their very form of clothing in the West, it is only right that they should have the last word here on Michael Jackson's universal appeal."

Read Cole's post: Michael Jackson, Islam and the Middle East.

— Amber Smith in Los Angeles

Photo: Two Bahraini girls pass a poster of Michael Jackson at a store in Manama, Bahrain, on Friday, June 26, 2009. A store employee said Jackson's CDs sold briskly on word of the singer's death. Credit: Hasan Jamali / AP
 

EGYPT: To publish or burn

The man who once threatened to torch Hebrew-language books now, in a twist of international literary diplomacy, apparently wants to publish them.

Egyptian Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni is attempting to tidy up his past comments about burning Israeli books by offering a more conciliatory gesture: to print them in Arabic. The change came as writers and artists criticized Hosni’s nomination to head the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

“Farouk Hosni is the opposite of a man of peace, dialogue and culture, he is a dangerous man who inflames hearts and spirits,” went an open letter signed by filmmaker Claude Lanzmann, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel. “We invite all countries dedicated to liberty and culture to take the initiatives necessary to avert this threat and avoid the disaster that would be his nomination.”

Hosni is trying to untangle himself from comments made last year when asked if there were Hebrew-language books in Egypt’s Alexandria library. He reportedly said: “If there are any, I will burn them myself.”

The quip fit the spirit of the artistic war Egypt has waged against Israel for decades. This nation may have been the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel, but the Palestinian crisis prompted Egypt’s writers, intellectuals, musicians and artists to boycott the Jewish state. That sentiment may work for a novelist but not for a politician seeking the U.N. post for promoting cultural understanding.

Hosni has apologized. The ministry has announced it will publish in Arabic the works of  Israeli writers David Grossman and Amos Oz. Or will it? A report over the weekend in Daily News Egypt suggests otherwise.

Stay tuned for the next chapter. 
    
-- Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo

Photo: Farouk Hosni. Credit: BBC 

EGYPT: Swine flu at American University in Cairo

 

The Egyptian Health Ministry this week confirmed five new cases of H1N1 flu, or swine flu, among students and a staff member at American University in Cairo.

The cases were discovered after a screening of 234 campus residents. Three of the the five people  infected had recently arrived from San Diego, New York and Tanzania. Previously, the virus was detected in two students living in a university dormitory in Cairo's Zamalek neighborhood. Egyptian health officials have ordered a quarantine of the dormitory until June 15.

"We have great sympathy for all of the people who are being confined to the dormitory. It is not a place you would like to be shut in for a week at a time,"  university President David D. Arnold said at a news conference. "We are carrying out sample testing on students at the university's other campuses to determine if the virus has spread beyond the dorm."

In a statement, the university said that the people in the latest cases of H1N1 "have not exhibited any symptoms of the flu.... The two students originally diagnosed with the flu have recovered and are expected to be released within the next few days."

The first H1N1 case in Egypt was confirmed last week when a 12-year-old American-Egyptian girl tested positive for the virus at Cairo International Airport upon her return from Europe. The girl was taken to a hospital and later recovered.

According to the Egyptian health quarantine report, passengers who have entered Egypt on more than 4,700 airplanes and 408 ships have been tested for the H1N1 virus. Egyptian authorities had earlier been criticized for overreacting to the virus threat last month when the government slaughtered the nation's 300,000 pigs. 

-- Amro Hassan in Cairo

Photo: American University of Cairo dormitory under quarantine. Credit: Associated Press

EGYPT: How Obama's speech won hearts

Even days after Barack Obama's speech, Egyptians are still captivated by the American president. While some Islamists and opposition figures are dissecting and criticizing the address, many Muslims are waiting to see what the future holds, and if Obama will implement his vision into action. The general feeling is that people's hearts were won over by Obama's rhetoric and flair.

 

The emotional connection between Arabs, in general, and Egyptians, in particular, with the United States has been a pull-and-push relationship over the last 60 years. The administration of George W. Bush culminated in years of ill will, forcing many Arabs to at least pretend to despise the world's most powerful country. So how did Obama's 55-minute speech succeed in nearly wiping away animosity among moderate Muslims?

 

Talking to politicians, analysts, religious figures and citizens, both before and after the speech, I could sense that Obama has become an accepted figure among most Egyptians. A generation of his family were Muslims, he's the first African American to lead the United States, and some of his views about peace in the Middle East -- which contradict his predecessor's -- have created a good feeling toward him.

 

Then he chose Cairo as his venue to address the Muslim world, which was considered by many as a massive gesture of goodwill. The previously mentioned reasons made Egyptians simply love Obama's speech before he even started it, commencing his words with "assalamu alaikum" (or "peace be upon you"). Obama's references to passages from the Koran to underline his views was more than enough for some to become infatuated with him straightaway.

 

It is clear that most Egyptians were waiting for any American gesture, and that hope came in the shape of Obama and his words. People here have a very strong bond with the United States as a country and a culture, especially those born in the 1950s and '60s, who grew up to watching American movies and TV and listening to its pop songs. They were struck by the American dream and many fled Egypt to follow this dream in the U.S.

 

Younger generations imitate Americans, even in the way they speak English. Politically, many remain suspicious of American foreign policy, but culturally, millions of Egyptians are enamored by America, and by its president. Obama reached out and they have reached back.

 

--Amro Hassan in Cairo

 

Photo: President Obama salutes the crowd at Cairo University. Credit: Associated Press

EGYPT: Obama speech great news for Cairo University

Over the last couple of weeks, Cairo University has been at the center of the Middle East’s attention. The university, which will be hosting President Obama’s anticipated June 4 speech, is undergoing major renovations.

The Egyptian government is installing a first-class press and media center near the main hall, where Obama will make his address. The main hall itself is getting a new Egyptian flag – instead of the old torn one –along with air conditioning, lighting and sound systems. Campus roads are being refurbished and swept, and the university’s famous dome is being polished by hand.

Many areas around the university campus also are having  renovations. A number of neighboring streets will be covered in flowers when Obama arrives, a scene that didn’t even occur when Cairo University celebrated its centennial last year.

Cairo University has been a main pillar in Egyptian higher education for generations. But until it was chosen as a venue for the speech, the university had looked pretty much the same for the last 30 years.

It was thought that Al-Azhar Mosque was a main contender as the site for Obama’s speech. Now Azhar officials are looking at Cairo University with envy. Their mosque missed out on a great redecoration opportunity.

Watching how Cairo University and its surroundings are being transformed in a fortnight to one of the tidiest and most beautiful spots in the country may make Egyptians hope the U.S. president visits more often.

-- Amro Hassan in Cairo

Photo: Cairo University. Credit: Reuters

 

EGYPT: Justice for the corrupt

Egypt’s rich and politically connected, often floating above the law with manicures and arrogance, have not fared so well these days.

Hisham Talaat Mustafa, a burly billionaire with ties to the ruling regime, was sentenced to the gallows last week for arranging the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Suzanne Tamim, a talented, but troubled Lebanese pop star. She was found with her throat slit in her high-rise Dubai apartment in July.

Mustafa’s verdict followed a seven-year prison sentence given in March to Mahmoud Ismail, the owner of a huge bank account and a dilapidated ferry that sank in the Red Sea and killed more than 1,000 passengers in 2006. Ismail, who fled to London following the incident, was sentenced in absentia and most likely will not do any jail time.

EGYPT: Activist burned in attack, says ruling regime involved

Embattled political activist and foe of the Egyptian ruling party Ayman Nour has accused the country's government of ordering an attack in which an unknown assailant burned his face and escaped on a motorcycle.

Nour said he believed "the regime is involved in one way or another" in the weekend attack.

"Somebody might have done it on the regime’s behalf or have done it as a complement to the regime," he told The Times on Sunday in a phone interview.

"I was in the car heading to a board meeting at the party when a guy on a motorcycle put a gas box on fire and threw it at me. My face and hair as well as some of my clothes got burned. Then the guy ran away. I saw him; he seemed to be in his late teens," said Nour. "I suffer from first-degree burns in the face and 20% of my hair got burned." 

EGYPT: Flu deaths and frayed nerves

The deaths are disturbing in their frequency.

The latest victim is a 4-year-old girl from the Nile Delta who this week became the 27th Egyptian to die of bird flu since 2006. The news has further agitated a nation whose real-life threats and imagined pandemic fears have created the spooky, lurking-evil aura of a B horror film.

The rising incidence of bird flu here – the highest level outside of Asia – has spurred a battle between health officials and people accustomed to keeping domestic chickens and geese. According to media reports, 12 new bird flu cases have been detected since April 1. That’s more than the total number of cases for 2008.

The panic over bird flu has fed into Egypt's fears over the global swine flu outbreak. Still, Egypt has no swine flu cases. And yet the government is slaughtering 300,000 pigs raised by Coptic Christians. World health officials say that’s an overreaction, but Egypt apparently couldn’t cope with the specter of another flu epidemic.

Newspapers and TV are full of stories and pictures of pigs in trucks being led to the killing fields and of little boys and girls succumbing to bird flu. It’s a creepy mix of science, funerals, overactive imaginations and talk of mutations and vaccinations.  

EGYPT: Obama and, maybe, a mosque

Where, oh where, will the president speak?

The White House has been scouting possible venues for President Obama’s speech in Cairo early next month. Egyptians are hoping the American leader will address the Muslim world from the Al-Azhar Mosque, the most revered institution in Sunni Islam.

The 10th century, sand-colored mosque would – at least for Egyptian officials – provide a resonant backdrop for Obama to reach out to a Muslim world that grew angry and suspicious of the U.S. during eight years of the Bush administration.