MIDDLE EAST: Saudi beauty queen attacked for weight

Beauty contests are notoriously catty, and the Miss Arab World pageant in Cairo last week proved no exception.

Muwadda Nour of Saudi Arabia had barely lain hands on her faux-jewel encrusted crown when critics began sniping that at approximately 200 pounds, she "did not meet the required standards" of a beauty queen, according to the popular Arab entertainment site Wikeez.

Delphine Edde, the publisher of Wikeez, confirmed to The Times that the site spoke with organizers and contestants at the event.

Despite the controversy, Nour kept her crown, beating out 15 other young women between the ages of 18-24 from around the region. 

Jessy Zaher of Lebanon took second place.

The Miss Arab World pageant aims to be more inclusive by allowing veiled and non-veiled women to compete alongside without having to compromise their values for events like swimwear competitions. Instead, the contestants strut down the catwalk in their national costumes.

 For more pictures, visit Wikeez's slideshow of the event.

-- Meris Lutz in Beirut

Photo: Miss Arab World 2009-2010 was attacked for being too heavy. Credit: Reuters

LEBANON: Alien robot invades Beirut for groundbreaking Arab animation fest

A new invader has descended on Beirut: He is Grendizer. 

The iconic Grendizer of 1970s anime fame is the official poster boy (bot?) of the Beirut Animated film festival, which opens today as a collaboration between  Beirut-based Samandal Comics and the Metropolis art cinema.

Grendizer is a unifying figure for an entire generation of Lebanese who grew up during the country's bitter 15-year civil war. When Beirut was being torn to pieces by local warlords and their foreign-funded militias, the Grendizer cartoons were a welcome distraction for children who were more likely to miss school because of shelling than chicken pox.

Although Grendizer has been a great marketing tool, Metropolis' Rabih Khoury said he and the other organizers tried to emphasize the artistic range of animation, which is often dismissed as kid's stuff. To this end, Beirut Animated will feature 40 animated films and shorts, with a special emphasis on Arab productions.

The festival already has generated buzz with a number of clever mixed-media Internet shorts reimagining Beirut under siege by aliens, monsters and robots, both benign and menacing. The clip below features a somewhat awkward encounter between the cameraman and the robot guarding the entrance to the Candlelight Bar, an infamous prostitution den known locally as a "super nightclub," in West Beirut.

MIDDLE EAST: Israel, Hezbollah in warning war

Israel keeps an eye on its northern neighbor. An ear, too. After a long silence during which multiple espionage rings were uncovered in Lebanon, Israel informed the United Nations that it would continue to gather intelligence in Lebanon so long as the government isn't in full control of its territory. 

This was Israel's answer to an official Lebanese petition to the U.N. after the discovery in late October of suspected Israeli listening devices in southern Lebanon. A few days later, Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon also confirmed that Israel was gathering intelligence. When Hezbollah is disarmed and the border becomes one of peace, we will stop, he said.

Hezbollah isn't disarming. U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559 called for the Lebanese government to extend its control over all Lebanese territory and for the disbanding and disarming of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias. That's not happening. Hezbollah is holding both ends of the stick, entering the political and governmental system while holding on to its arms.

LEBANON: New government greeted mostly with pessimism and a dash of hope

Even while the Lebanese press and many analysts welcomed the new Cabinet and national unity government in Tuesday's papers, many harbored doubts over whether Prime Minister Saad Hariri will be able to bridge the deep divisions between his coalition and the opposition, supported by Syria and Iran.

"Government of the Two Trenches," read a headline carried in the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, which is considered to be close to the opposition.

Lebanon's national unity government received warm plaudits amid the questions over whether the rival U.S. and Saudi-backed majority and the Hezbollah-led opposition would be able to set aside their long-running disputes to work together. 

The new government underwent internal tussles over distribution of ministerial posts even in the first hours after its formation on Monday.

LEBANON: 'Clear pattern' of migrant-worker deaths alarms rights advocates

On Oct. 21, 26-year-old Zeditu Kebede Matente of Ethiopia was found dead, hanging from an olive tree in the southern Lebanese town of Haris.

Just two days later, her compatriot, 30-year-old Saneet Mariam, died after falling from the balcony of her employer’s house in Mastita, just north of Beirut.

It's been a deadly month for women working as domestic laborers in Lebanon. At least six have died under mysterious circumstances, constituting a "clear pattern that cannot be ignored," Human Rights Watch researcher Nadim Houry told the Daily Star recently.

LEBANON: Israel admits spying on its northern neighbor

Israel has openly admitted to collecting intelligence in Lebanon, an uncharacteristically frank admission and a slap in the face of its neighbor.

Of course, everyone spies on everyone in the Middle East. 

But in the past, for the sake of politesse, Israel has refused to acknowledge mounting espionage operations in Lebanon, although their existence is an open secret.

Lebanon has arrested dozens of alleged spies working for Israel this year alone, and recently found and destroyed a number of eavesdropping devices attached to Hezbollah's communications network. 

At the time, Israel said allegations of spying "did not warrant a serious response."

But during a recent visit to the volatile border separating Israel from Lebanon, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon confirmed Israel's information-gathering activities in Lebanon, which he said targeted Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militia and political organization that maintains de facto control over southern Lebanon.

"The moment Hezbollah renewed their attacks, we began to collect intelligence. ... We will stop when Hezbollah disarms itself and the border is a border of peace," Ya'alon said, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

"When we are in conflict with an enemy, we gather information about them," he added.

LEBANON: Militant group's attack on Israel complicates the situation along tense border

For years, Israel's main concern on its northern border was the militant Shiite group Hezbollah, a tightly organized resistance movement that participates in the Lebanese government but still maintains its own military and social infrastructure. 

But now another player has appeared, a previously little-known Islamist group calling itself the Battalions of Ziad Jarrah, a branch of the Abdullah Azzam Brigade, that has now claimed responsibility for its second rocket attack on Israel this year.  Ziad Jarrah was a Sept. 11 hijacker, and Abdullah Azzam a mentor of Osama bin Laden.

Although Hezbollah has been labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. and Israel, it often coordinates with the Lebanese army and the U.N., which maintains a peacekeeping force in the south.

The Battalions of Ziad Jarrah, on the other hand, are thought to have connections to Al Qaeda, using the well-known Jihadist Fajr media center to claim responsibility for the rocket that was fired on northern Israel on Tuesday from the Lebanese border village of Houla. 

LEBANON: Chefs smash world hummus and tabouleh records

Beirut's Saifi Market on Sunday was filled with the sounds of chopping, cheering and the sweet, grassy smell of tons of freshly cut parsley.

Thousands of visitors showed up over the weekend to cheer on 250 sous chefs and 50 of their instructors from the Kafaat School of Catering as they toiled over two days to beat the Guinness record for the world's biggest hummus plate and tabbouleh salad. The final weigh-in for hummus on Saturday was 2,056 kilograms, or 4,532 pounds, more than quadruple the previous record.

On Sunday, the tabbouleh came in at 3,557 kilograms, or 7,841 pounds -- more than 3 tons.

The vessel itself, a giant, rotating terracotta-colored hummus bowl, won the distinction of world's largest plate.

LEBANON: Pop princess faces Egyptian outrage over 'Nubian monkey' lyrics

Haifa Wehbe is no stranger to controversy. The sultry Lebanese provocateur made a name for herself on the Arabic music scene with her signature coquettish pout and tongue-in-cheek songs like "Boos al Wawa" ("Kiss the Boo-Boo) and "Ya Ibn al Halal" (roughly, "Hey, Good Little Muslim Boy").

But now the pop princess is finding herself at the center of a different kind of scandal after Egyptian lawmakers expressed outrage over allegedly racist lyrics in her new song "Baba Fein?" ("Where's Daddy?"), according to news reports. 

The song, a duet between Wehbe and a young singer who plays her son, is supposed to be a lighthearted lyrical argument revolving around bedtime, with the child at one point singing the line, "Where's my teddy bear and the Nubian monkey?"

LEBANON: Hezbollah releases video, denies Israeli 'rocket' claims

 
Hezbollah has released its own video claiming that the "rocket" captured on Israeli surveillance tape after an explosion at the home of Abdel Nasser Issa in southern Lebanon was nothing more than the rolled-up metal door to the garage where the explosion occurred.

On Monday, Issa, a Hezbollah member, was reportedly injured in the blast that scorched the garage of his home in the village of Teir Felsay. Competing claims surfaced immediately as to whether the explosion was caused by a Hezbollah weapons cache or an unexploded Israeli ordnance, with Israel airing footage taken by an unmanned drone supposedly showing Hezbollah fighters removing rockets from the site of the blast.

Hezbollah's footage, which originally aired on the group's Al  Manar television channel, shows men loading the door into a covered truck while UN peacekeepers look on. Click here to watch both videos on the BBC's website.

A piece posted on Hezbollah's website wa3ad.org explains that accidents with unexploded Israeli ordnances are not uncommon, and that some people may take them home and try to defuse them (Arabic link) in order to then sell the emptied shell to scrap-metal dealers. At least 290 people have been killed or injured by unexploded Israeli ordnances in southern Lebanon; a number of those incidents have been linked to scrap-metal collection.

Sheikh Naim Qassem, a top official in Hezbollah, has denounced the Israeli drone's violation of Lebanese airspace as the "real attack on Lebanon." Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh told the Lebanese daily As-Safir that he intends to file a complaint with the UN Security Council, of which Lebanon is a non-permanent member as of Thursday.

-- Meris Lutz in Beirut

Photo: Al Manar aired footage Thursday supposedly showing the "rocket" captured on Israeli surveillance film was actually the rolled-up garage door. Credit: almanar.com.lb