MIDDLE EAST: Women's status up in Saudi Arabia, down in Syria, says study

The subject of women's rights in the Middle East is contentious. Sensational media coverage of honor killings and child brides equates religious conservatism with gender inequality, incensing Western feminists on the one hand and provoking regional backlashes on the other.

The reality is far more nuanced, according to the the 2009 Global Gender Gap Report released in late October by the World Economic Forum, which ranks countries based on women's economic participation, educational attainment, health and political empowerment.

In Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar -- socially conservative Persian Gulf countries that all rely on some form of Sharia Islamic law -- more women than men enroll in higher education, although they have yet to be fully incorporated into the workforce. 

Syria, on the other hand, which is ruled by a nominally secular regime, has slid in the rankings for the last three years. 

Iran scores low in the fields of economic, educational and health equality, but performs relatively well on political empowerment. 

Saudi Arabia and Egypt still hover near the bottom of the list, but have improved steadily since 2006. 

Yemen remained the lowest-ranked country in the world for the fourth year in a row.

JORDAN: Indonesia to sue doctor for dumping sick maid outside a hospital

The Indonesian Embassy in Amman intends to sue a Jordanian doctor for allegedly abusing an Indonesian domestic worker at his home and then abandoning her outside a medical facility after she became ill with tuberculosis, the Jordan Times reported today.

Indonesian deputy envoy to Jordan Ari Wardhana told the paper that the victim, identified only as "Aminah," had not only been abused by her employer and his family, but also had been forced to work without pay since she arrived in Jordan in 2008.

“We are currently collecting information from the girl to file a lawsuit against the doctor," Wardhana said.

“We will take this matter to the Jordanian government," he added. "She is a human being and should have been treated in a better way."

Ahmad Armouti, president of the Jordan Medical Assn., said his organization will investigate the doctor, who has so far gone unnamed.

MIDDLE EAST: Daily headlines from Gaza, Israel, Iran in your mailbox

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MIDDLE EAST: Arabs assail new Israeli government

Perhaps no one summed up Arabs' disillusionment and frustration with the new Israeli governmentof  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman better than writer Talal Awkal in Thursday’s edition of the Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Ayyam. 

“If the outgoing government, which claimed it was committed to peace, continued building the racist Separation Wall, set up more military roadblocks, taking their number up to 650, sped up its efforts to Judaize Jerusalem, and expanded the construction of settlement housing units to unprecedented levels, what can we expect from a government of which Netanyahu and Lieberman constitute the main pillars?” Awkal wrote. 

Awkal was not alone in his wry, despondent assessment of the new Israeli team. 

Reactions from across the Arabic press show how recent statements made by Netanyahu and the controversial Lieberman have been taken as confirmation of what they describe as Israel’s expansionist agenda. 

MIDDLE EAST: Iran, Lebanon, Jordan upgrade air power

Iranian media quoted Air Force chief Brig. Gen. Ahmad Mighani as telling reporters that the Islamic Republic has set up a new military branch devoted exclusively to air defenses that will be in charge of guarding Iran's nuclear sites from potential Israeli or U.S. air attacks.

The branch, called the Name of the Holy Prophet Command, will draw together all the antiaircraft systems, surveillance gear, radar and missiles from the country's regular military branch as well as the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps under one umbrella with a mandate "to enhance and expand combat capabilities of the country's air defense unit," said Mighani, according to a report published on the website of Iran's English-language Press TV news channel.

"To counter the enemy's advanced military equipment, we should be equipped with state-of-the-art air defense technology," Mighani said.

JORDAN: Al Qaeda-linked group accused in attack on choir

An Al Qaeda-linked group was allegedly responsible for a violent attack on a Christian choir group in the Jordanian capital of Amman last July, authorities revealed Tuesday.

The incident took place in a downtown Amman neighborhood. A gunman opened fire on a bus full of tourists, wounding six, including four Lebanese musicians from a university choir.

After months of investigation, a group of 12 Jordanians of Palestinian origin were put on trial Tuesday on charges that included July's shooting.

Their indictment alleged that the group's mastermind, Shaker Khatib, was trained by a Lebanese offshoot of Osama bin Laden's organization.

JORDAN: Attitudes, sentiment shift away from U.S.

The change came about six months ago.

Suddenly, the Jordanian government wasn't as hostile as it used to be toward the Islamic Action Front, Jordan's branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Middle East's original Islamic fundamentalist group.

Then-intelligence chief Mohammad Dahabi met with the Action Front's parliamentary delegation. Members of the group were removed from official blacklists, said Zaki Bani Ershid, secretary general of the party.

Jordanian diplomats began reaching out to countries such as Syria and Qatar, rivals of U.S. allies in the region, as described in a story about Jordanian policy during the Gaza offensive in today's Los Angeles Times.

Ershid  speculates that Jordan's government was shifting course after feeling betrayed by the U.S., watching the collapse of the Arab-Israeli peace process and perceiving that Washington was willing to toss its friends under the bus.

Jordanian big shots were perturbed by what they saw as the U.S. betrayal of its allies. They watched Russia overwhelm staunchly pro-American Georgia and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah overpower the U.S.-backed March 14 coalition in Lebanon without Washington taking any decisive action. Jordan feared they also would be betrayed.

JORDAN: Egyptian rights activist barred from entering Jordan

Gamal Eid did not expect Jordanian authorities to hold a grudge for so long.

Two years after he criticized Jordan for its poor record on freedom of speech, the Egyptian human-rights activist was detained by Jordanian security officials as soon as he landed in Amman on Dec. 15.

Hours later, he was deported to Cairo.

Eid is the director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, or ANHRI.

He was invited to Jordan to attend a workshop for journalists held by the Swedish International Cooperation Agency, according to a statement posted on the ANHRI website Tuesday.

That was about two years after Eid openly criticized freedom of expression in a number of Middle Eastern countries, one of which was Jordan, as a speaker in a media conference in November 2006 in Amman, the statement said.

JORDAN: Controversial drama wins an Emmy award

An impossible romance between an Arab and an Israeli set against destruction and chaos was the main theme of a Jordanian-produced TV series that won a prestigious television award in New York this week.

"Al-Ijtiyah" (The invasion), which tells love stories at the time of the Israeli incursion into a West Bank city in 2002, became the first Arab production to win the International Emmy Award.

The series, produced at an estimated cost of $3 million and praised for its artistic and technical achievements, was named best new telenovela from among 40 nominees from 16 countries.

EGYPT: Stop the pirates

Worried that piracy could scare ships away from the Suez Canal, Egypt today held emergency talks with nations bordering the Red Sea on how stop brazen Somali gunmen from hijacking oil tankers and other vessels.

The Cairo meeting was called amid concerns that pirates were disrupting sea lanes and creating panic that might force shipping companies to avoid sailing the Red Sea region. Such a scenario would hurt the Egyptian economy, which relies heavily on fees vessels pay to pass through the Suez Canal.

Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki was quoted by the state news agency as saying: “All options are open.” He added that the country’s national security agencies will decide “whether a diplomatic and political solution would be preferred.”

Egyptian officials met with their counterparts from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan and Jordan. The nations faced the prospect of how end a standoff with pirates who on Saturday captured a 1,000 foot tanker carrying $100-million worth of Saudi crude. The bandits anchored the ship off the Somali coast and are holding the ship’s crew hostage.