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The disclosure of an alleged draft bill that would grant the Egyptian government wider authority in controlling the media and silencing political opponents, including Facebook activists, has drawn quick condemnation from journalists and human rights groups.
The bill, which was leaked to the independent daily newspaper El-Masry El-Youm, would give the government of President Hosni Mubarak control over all visual and audio transmissions in the country, as well as on the Internet. It stipulates that the media should respect "social peace, national unity, citizenship, public order and morals" -- vague terms that journalists view as an attack on freedom of expression. El-Masry El-Youm reports that Parliament will deliberate the bill in the fall.
"The law aims at shutting up all mouths; it is a law to terrify, intimidate, control and destroy," wrote prominent broadcast journalist Tarek El-Shamy in independent daily El-Dostour. The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights condemned the bill as "a new step to violate freedom of opinion and expression."
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Israel and Hezbollah are evidently moving toward a prisoner exchange deal that will bring home the two Israeli army reservists kidnapped in July 2006, an incident which triggered the second Lebanon war. After two long years of public campaigning and private anguish, the families may soon attain closure as the second anniversary of the kidnapping approaches and reports of an imminent deal persist.
 Between press interviews, meeting with government officials and attending support rallies, it is doubtful whether the families had time to pay attention to the 55th international advertising festival in Cannes this week. But Cannes paid attention to them and perhaps tribute too as it granted a prestigious Golden Lion award to an Israeli advertising agency for a public awareness campaign it ran last year to keep the missing soldiers atop the nation's agenda.
The campaign called for a five-minute Internet blackout on the first anniversary of the kidnappings. More than 400 Israeli websites complied and on July 12 at 9:05 a.m. -- the exact hour of the blast that had killed three soldiers and injured another three, including Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, who were kidnapped -- shut down and posted a Web page with the message "the soldiers cannot be found," designed like the universal "page cannot be found" message one gets when loading an inactive website. Television and radio stations stopped broadcasting, too, to participate in what became an Internet equivalent of the minutes of silence observed on somber commemoration days in Israel.
The campaign was produced pro-bono for an activist organization promoting awareness of the abductees' agenda by Y&R Interactive, of the Israeli office of Shalmor, Avnon, Amichay/Y&R.
Meanwhile, Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit remains captive in Gaza. Seven hundred twenty-three -- and a lot of people are counting.
-- Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem
Photo: "The soldiers cannot be found" on the MSN website. Click to enlarge. Image courtesy of Shalmor, Avnon, Amichay/Y&R.
 Egypt is using a new media law to prosecute the owner of a satellite TV company for his role in broadcasting violent anti-government street protests. The law, passed by the Arab League in February, is the latest attempt by regimes in the region to silence independent satellite channels.
Charges have been filed against Nader Gohar, owner of the Cairo News Co., which provides links and equipment to Al Jazeera, BBC and other international networks. Police raided Cairo News in April after Al Jazeera broadcast images of riot police battling with protesters in Mahalla, a Nile Delta town where 27,000 textile workers have been protesting inflation and low salaries.
Gohar is expected to be tried later this month for broadcasting without permission. His company has been shut down and he faces fines and up to one year in prison. Human Rights Watch has called the charges part of a campaign by the government of President Hosni Mubarak to “stifle freedom of the press.”
The Arab League law, sponsored Saudi Arabia and Egypt, pressures channels from broadcasting transmissions that “negatively affect social peace, national unity, public order and public morals” or “defame leaders, or national and religious symbols [of other Arab states].”
—Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo
Photo: Cairo's rooftops are a sea of TV satellite dishes. (BBC)
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On May 8, we posted an item on this blog looking at what the United States was and was not saying about the alleged presence of Iranian weapons in Iraq. We noted that the chief U.S. military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner, had not cited Iran or Iranian influence during a news briefing May 7, when he gave a rundown of weapons caches uncovered during several weeks of fighting between Iraqi and U.S. forces, and Shiite militiamen.
This omission was notable because in the previous two weeks, both U.S. and Iraqi officials had been very vocal in accusing Iran of providing weapons -- some manufactured just this year -- to fighters involved in the latest battles.
Recently, we've been alerted to an item that appeared May 12 on MSNBC's Countdown program using that blog item as the basis for an inaccurate report attributed to the Los Angeles Times. Here is the link to the MSNBC piece.
This should set the record straight for those who have no plans to read the blog item or view the MSNBC report: the Los Angeles Times did not report that Bergner's May 7 briefing was supposed to be "the big day" that the American military showed off the Iranian weapons it has long said are being smuggled into Iraq. The Times did not report that Bergner had told us this briefing was going to be a "dog and pony show" offering conclusive evidence of Iranian involvement in Iraq's unrest.
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 By Raed Rafei in Beirut
Last week, I became a victim of the violence against the media that has been part and parcel of the recent fighting and unrest in Lebanon.
After taking a photograph of a dying man who was shot during a funeral, I was attacked by an angry mourner.
He was outraged because I was taking photos. I tried to explain that I was a reporter and that I was doing my job, but he grabbed a stick and got ready to hit me. I decided to stop resisting and hand him my camera.
Luckily, more cooler heads were around to calm him down and extricate me from the madness. One of them, Ali, took me by the hand and started running to a "safe place."
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 Sarwa Abdul Wahab was many things: a lawyer, a journalist, a daughter, a dreamer. Last week, she became a victim, another in the long list of media workers murdered in Iraq by extremists who target journalists for exposing the violence, corruption and human rights violations taking place in much of the country.
Wahab, who was 35, was in a taxi with her mother on the morning of May 4 when gunmen forced the car to stop. It appeared to be a kidnapping attempt. Wahab resisted and was shot to death in front of her mother, whom she was taking to a hospital to visit an ailing relative.
The killing occurred in the northern city of Mosul, which Iraq and U.S. officials say is the last holdout of Sunni Muslim insurgents loyal to Al Qaeda in Iraq. She wasn't the first journalist to die in Iraq, and sadly, she probably will not be the last. Many of the reporters, editors, and television anchors slain since the war began five years ago have been women, a reminder of the extra risks female journalists face in a country where rising religious conservatism creates hurdles for professional women.
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Will the real Abu Hamza al-Muhajir please stand up? No, not the one detained Thursday near the northern city of Mosul who convinced Iraqi officials that Abu Hamza al-Muhajir is his name. It's another Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, who heads the Sunni Muslim insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq, who U.S. and Iraqi officials want. 
For a few hours late Thursday and early today, it seemed the Al Qaeda in Iraq chief might actually be in custody. The Defense Ministry spokesman, Mohammed Askari, was convinced enough that he announced al-Muhajir's arrest and said he had been assured by security officials in the Mosul region that they had their man.
But U.S. military officials, who would be thrilled to announce such a catch, insisted they could not confirm the arrest.
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 By Borzou Daragahi in Beirut
Things started to calm down when the bespectacled nebbish young man with a bandage over the bridge of his nose showed up.
He was short, pudgy and wore a plaid shirt buttoned to the top of his neck. And unlike the other Shiite militiamen who had detained us and taken away our cameras and identification cards, he refused to shake hands with the women.
But the frantic, black-clad Amal party militiamen clearly looked upon this fellow with respect. Once he arrived, the militiamen became calmer and more respectful toward us. They started offering us Pepsi, cigarettes and gum. After being detained by a gang of Shiite militiamen for nearly an hour during Lebanon's troubles today, we were confident we'd be soon be released.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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
Usually, the tone of the reporters' voice is enough. Radio phrases such as "fierce combat," "heavy exchange of fire" or "grave incident" are harbingers of trouble. Long-trained in reading between the lines of journalistic nuances, Israeli ears quickly note the omission of the "no casualties among our forces" and know this can only mean one thing: A soldier has died.
American soldiers in Iraq fight and die thousands of miles from home, but Israel's front lines are on its doorstep. And for all its fragmentation, Israel remains a small country with small-town-like family and social ties. Most get their daytime news from one of two radio stations, and bad news travels fast in a country where nearly everyone knows someone in the army.
So, military fatalities are not formally announced until the immediate family has been informed. Information is withheld temporarily, not for "Good Morning Vietnam" kind of reasons, but to spare families from learning this from the media. "The family has been notified" is the familiar media phrase that spells reassurance for many; but the final public relief, or grief, comes with the publication of the name.
Wednesday was one such day. The 7:00 radio reports raised suspicion, by 10:00 there was little room for doubt. At 11:51 it was cleared for publication that three soldiers had been killed in Gaza. Then came the news flashes with the first name at 13:31, the second at 16:34 and the third at 17:39. An Israeli-born demanding a combat assignment-or-bust, a Bedouin tracker and an ideological new immigrant; "the story of Israel at 60," said Minister Yitzhak Herzog. This morning, Hadassah Uvdati spoke on Army Radio of her son Matan, among yesterday's dead. 24 hours, full circle.
Prominent Israeli novelist David Grossman's new book, "Isha Borahat Mibesora," (Woman flees tidings), is the story of a mother who has a bad premonition about her soldier son and embarks on a journey throughout the country rather than being tormented by the anguish of awaiting the bad news at home. Grossman had a wish that the book he was writing would protect his sons during their army service. It didn't. His son Uri was killed in 2006 on the last day of the second Lebanon war.
—Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem
 The Associated Press photographer detained by the U.S. military more than two years ago on suspicion of involvement in insurgent activities is finally set to go free after Iraqi judicial officials ordered him released under terms of a new amnesty law.
Bilal Hussein's fate had been uncertain in recent days as the U.S. military suggested that it was not convinced by the Iraqi committee's ruling. Read more about the history and details of this mysterious case here.
The Iraqi panel had said that an amnesty law passed by the Parliament in February applied to Hussein's case, which had been shrouded in secrecy from the moment he was picked up by U.S. Marines in western Al Anbar province on April 12, 2006.
Late Monday, the U.S. military released a statement with a slightly grudging tone acknowledging that American officials had reviewed the Iraqi panel's decision and accepted its decision that the amnesty law covered Hussein. "We reviewed the circumstances of Hussein's detention and determined that he no longer presents an imperative threat to security," Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, the deputy commander of detainee operations in Iraq, said in the statement.
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For the record: The Obama campaign said the Hebrew-language blog is a private project and is not an official campaign blog. The Obama advisor quoted in the item never contributed to the blog and did not provide the quote attributed to him, it said. The campaign only sent the blogger copies of the candidate's speeches and position papers. The Obama advisor's last name is spelled Lynn, not Lin.
The perception that Barack Obama might be friendlier to the Palestinian cause than his rival presidential contenders probably won’t win him too much support in Israel.
Regular assessments in the Israeli press of each candidate's support for Israel consistently show Obama trailing John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton, who are regarded as basically tied.
Perhaps mindful of that dynamic, Obama’s camp has begun a push for Jewish and pro-Israeli votes, including the unveiling of a campaign blog in Hebrew.
"It is very important to the candidate, Barack Obama, to form a relationship with the Israeli public and give it his messages without intermediaries in order to show his great support for the State of Israel, said Obama’s adviser for Middle Eastern affairs, Eric Lin, in an introductory posting.
A commentary published in the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said Obama's efforts prove that “now more than ever, the battle for the United States presidency passes through the State of Israel.”
—Ashraf Khalil in Jerusalem
Photo: Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, addresses a rally at South Bend Washington High School Wednesday April 9, 2008 in South Bend, Ind. Credit: Joe Raymond / Associated Press
A bill proposing internet providers block access to pornography, gambling and other sites passed a first reading (out of 3 needed to finalize legislation) in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, recently. Intending to protect minors from adult content, the bill sparked debates questioning the effectiveness, ethics and motives behind it. Proposed by Amnon Cohen, a legislator from the ultra-orthodox party Shas, the bill automatically became suspect and was interpreted by some as an attempt to impose a conservative religious agenda on liberal Israelis. Some oppose the notion on principle, others object on grounds that it is ineffective and yet others feel it puts Israel in bad company.
 Exactly how the screening would be done isn't entirely clear yet. One option is that such sites will be blocked by default and users seeking access may ask their provider to remove the block, after proving they are of age. Currently, some 70,000 users already subscribe to screening services of their own initiative, says communications minister Ariel Atias, who let numbers do the talking: 60% of Israeli children surf pornographic sites, 47% have internet access in their private rooms, 40% have given out information to adults and 65% of the parents don't care what their kids do on the web."Anyone with eyes in his head and children at home doesn't want them visiting such sites," he said, adding that this proposal will "force customers to be active, take responsibility."
Gadi Shimshon, an internet analyst, objects. "we all want to protect children," but having to actively request adult sites unblocked will put people on "shame lists." "Get out of my pants," wrote critic Raanan Shaked, envisioning the person handling his request, loudly:"Unblock the porno sites for Raanan Shaked! Orly, are you there? Yes, the porn! For Shaked!" Naturally, the call would be recorded.
Israel has the highest percentage of internet users in the Middle East but evidently doesn't like sharing certain practices with with some of its distant neighbors. Headlines such as "Internet censorship: not only in Iran and Saudi Arabia" and "Good morning Pakistan" reflect feelings about censorship- and countries believed to employ it.
"If you too understand that Iran is here," reads the flier (shown right) inviting people to a protest Wednesday , adding: "so long as we're still allowed to demonstrate here". The organizers, 'Surfing to Freedom' , stress they abhor the violence, humiliation and exploitation associated with pornographic content but say this isn't the issue: "the movement was born to avert a harsh blow to Israeli democracy". They asked protesters to come dressed in black and-- of course-- modestly .
— Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusaelem
Photo: "SO long as we're still allowed to demonstrate...If you too understand that Iran is here, if you believe freedom of expression is vital to our future, if you believe this crosses the line...surfing to freedom starts here!"
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The U.S., Europe and other powers hope to get Iran to stop its uranium enrichment program by offering it a package of economic and security incentives.
But judging by recent murmurs in the Iranian press, the conservatives now dominating Iran’s political and security establishment don’t sound like they’re ready to deal.
On the contrary, the right-wing Iranian press has a struck a triumphant tone and dismissed any compromise over the nuclear program, which the leadership of the Islamic Republic is trying to embed into the country’s national identity.
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Amid the notifications prodding me to become a vampire or a zombie and one-line shout-outs from friends around the world, the plea for help on the social networking website Facebook stood out starkly.
The message, written in all capitals to underscore its urgency, came from Pooya Dayanim, an Iranian American living in the Los Angeles area:  TURKISH AUTHORITIES HAVE ARRESTED AMIR-FARSHAD EBRAHIMI, A PROMINENT GERMAN-BASED IRANIAN JOURNALIST ON CHARGES THAT HE COLLABORATED WITH THE FBI IN THE FLIGHT OF A PROMINENT IRANIAN OFFICIAL LAST YEAR. TURKISH AUTHORITIES HAVE ADVISED MR. EBRAHIMI THAT IN ORDER TO AVOID ANOTHER SIMILAR INCIDENT THEY ARE DEPORTING HIM IN THE NEXT FEW HOURS BACK TO IRAN WHERE HE WILL SURELY BE TORTURED AND EXECUTED.
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The Egyptians are sending a low-ranking official. The Saudis, too, are sending a nobody, while the Lebanese are actually sending nobody.
Prime Minister Nouri Maliki of Iraq may have to struggle to wrest himself from his troubles, while the archipelago nation of Comoros, undergoing a coup d'etat, is probably in no position to send anyone to the Arab League Summit, where Arab heads of state or their delegates are scheduled to meet this weekend to talk about...well, that's a good question.
Cynics will cackle that the Arab League summits rarely accomplish anything. Previous summits have focused on the situation in Iraq or the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
But so far about only thing this year's summit in Damascus has been mostly about is who is attending and who is blowing it off.
(Let's not forget the biggest issue: who's actually going to pick up the tab.)
Today, as foreign ministers of the Arab states met, the hundreds of journallists who've descended upon Damascus from around the world were left to interview each other at the international press center.
I have already fielded two requests for interviews. While waiting for news to break, I called up a source in Damascus for an interview.
With my cellphone cradled between my chin and shoulder, I began taking notes. Suddenly three photojournalists descended on me and began clicking away.
Apparently, I was the only journalist at the press center actually working.
— Borzou Daragahi in Damascus
Photo: Arab League Secretary General Amr Mousa speaks to a journalist after the meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Damascus on March 27. Credit: LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/Getty Images
Wissam Sharaf is not the kind of guy you'd welcome to your neighborhood, or to your city or country, or even the one next door, for that matter.
World-weary at 34, the television journalist is a veteran of conflicts and strife in Pakistan, Liberia and the Darfur region of Sudan. This year he's moving from France to his native Lebanon. And not because he wants to get closer to his family roots.
"Now I want to come to Beirut," Sharaf tells me, smirking. "Because I think it's gonna move."
Dark clouds loom on Lebanon's horizon. In the streets, young men gather weapons. Off the Mediterranean shore, U.S. warships have approached for the first time since the 1980s. The Shiite militia Hezbollah boasts that it has rearmed in preparation for the next round of conflict with Israel.
Click here to read more.
— Borzou Daragahi in Beirut
Photo: Lebanese protesters burn tires during a demonstration over power cuts in the southern suburb of Beirut earlier this year. Credit: ANWAR AMRO/AFP/Getty Images
 While President Bush defended his decision to invade Iraq tooth and nail, media in the Arab world lambasted the U.S. war for unleashing disasters, divisions and terror.
Bush was addressing defense officials at the Pentagon on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq.
A fiery editorial in today's edition of the English-language Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star rebuked Bush for blaming the destruction of Iraq on the Iraqi people: The Bush administration and its apologists like to blame Al-Qaeda for all the chaos that has plagued Iraqis since 2003, but it was Bush and his advisers who brought terrorism to Iraq.... They have helped keep it there, as well, by consistently failing to provide many of the benefits they promised as mitigating factors for the nightmare they unleashed: Millions of people have been displaced, millions more are unemployed.
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These have not been good times for journalists in the Middle East.
As Ashraf Khalil reports from Jersualem, Israeli authorities are threatening to shut down at least tighten up on the operations of Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab news channel.
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While U.S. news outlets might be scaling back the on-air minutes, column inches and front-page headlines devoted to Iraq these days, the same doesn't go for Al Arabiya, the Arabic-language satellite news channel that was born just as the Iraq war began five years ago.
Despite its many setbacks, including the deaths of four journalists in the line of duty, it will continue to report and even expand its Iraq coverage for the Arab world.
The Dubai-based station has quickly reached the top of the Arab media world. It now rivals or beats its more well-known rival, Al Jazeera, across the Arab world. It's the hands-down winner for audiences in Iraq, where Al Jazeera has been barred from operating. Just as CNN fame grew out of its coverage of the 1991 Gulf War, the Iraq conflict has become part and parcel of Arabiya's identity.
 Its journalists have always been more adventurous than their Western colleagues, and they've paid for it. On the wall of the Arabiya offices were images of Iraqi correspondents killed in the line of duty. The most famous is Atwar Bahjat (pictured at left). She was slaughtered by insurgents in her hometown of Samarra as she reported on the bombing of the shrine there on Feb. 22, 2006.
We paid a visit to the nearby Baghdad offices of Al Arabiya (a bundle of flowers in hand) to congratulate them on their five years in existence and have a chat with their bureau chief, Jawad Hattab. They reside in a drab hotel they've taken over outside the Green Zone.
Hattab welcomed us with tea and thick-brewed Turkish coffee. I asked him if management was pushing Arabiya to cut back on Iraq news and associated costs, now that violence was down.
On the contrary, he said. Since the 1990s, Iraq has been a very "vague" country for the Arab world, and only now do people have a chance to get to know it.
"Iraq is still the center of everything happening in the Middle East," said Hattab, himself an Iraqi native. "We're expanding our work and duties in Iraq because we're now covering areas we weren't able to reach before."
But what about the ongoing conflicts in Israel and Lebanon and the U.S. presidential campaign? Aren't they bumping Iraq coverage off the news?
"In the other regions, you get news every now and then," he said. "But in Iraq it is continuous."
— Borzou Daragahi in Baghdad
Photos: At top, Atwar Bahjat (drawing at left), Ali Adbul Aziz, Ali Khateeb and Mazen Tomeizi were Arabiya journalists killed in the line of duty. Above, Bahjat without the head scarf she wore on air to avoid the hostility of Islamists. Credit: Caesar Ahmed
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appeared for a freewheeling hour-long press conference at the home of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Monday. He smiled and winked at the reporters and welcomed their questions.
There was nothing explosive or urgent in his remarks. It was interesting to watch how he handled the press. He flattered Iraq, calling it "the land of education, manners; the land of peaceful living by people of differing religions; the land of idealism, poets, writers and scientists ... and artists."
But he also harshly criticized the U.S., without naming it, urging America to head back home and let the countries of the Middle East resolve their problems. Check it out: "The states that come from a distance must allow the regional states to run things independently. Foreign countries must not interfere in the matters of local states because they are capable of working out things. Peace and stability will return to the region if the foreigners leave. We believe the powers that came from overseas thousands of miles away must leave this region and leave the issues in the hands of the locals. If they claim that they want to spend their money to develop the region I think it's better to spend this money in their own country. The people here witnessed from the foreigners nothing but sabotage, destruction and humiliation. Those who came from far places did not make any gains in here. The only thing that they gained is anger and hate from the public. No people from this region likes these foreign powers. Actually most people hope for the departure of the foreign powers."
Here are more excerpts from his opening statement from our unofficial, hastily assembled transcript. Scroll down for excerpts from the question-and-answer session with reporters:
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To no one's surprise, pan-Arab television news networks such as Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera flooded the airwaves Saturday and Sunday with gruesome images from Gaza, where an Israeli operation to stop to rocket attacks on southern Israel has left scores of Palestinians dead.
But it was somewhat surprising to see how little attention Iraqi news channels gave to the Palestinians' plight. The crawlers scrolling at the bottom of the screen gave regular updates on Palestinian casualties. But the big news by far is the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Iraq.
Some in The Times' Baghdad Bureau sardonically suggested to me that after five years of violence in Iraq, they are unmoved by the suffering of the Palestinians.
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A decision to make Israel the guest of honor at the upcoming Paris book fair has angered Muslim countries around the world. On Saturday, Iranian authorities announced that they would boycott the five-day book fair.
Iran wasn't the first country to opt out of the fair. It may not be the last.
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Saddam Hussein tried to restrict how much Western culture his nation could absorb.
But "Adam-12," starring Kent McCord and Martin Milner as L.A. cops, was deemed OK and developed a following through reruns.  Mark Wilson, who retired from the Escondido police department, now works as a consultant for the State Department in Iraq. He uses references from the show in trying to get Iraqi police to stop strutting around with AK-47s. He's had some success.
"I tell them, hey, the L.A. cops patrol some pretty rough areas, but they don't need AK-47s," Wilson said. "They know it's true from watching 'Adam-12.' "
— Tony Perry in Hit in the Euphrates River Valley.
Photo: Even Saddam Hussein dug the classic L.A. cop series, "Adam-12." Credit: IMDb
 Arab foreign ministers passed a resolution that imposed a list of restrictions on satellite television channels.
The resolution sponsored by Egypt and Saudi Arabia says that satellite channels should not affect "social peace, national unity, the public order,” “Arab morals” and “the highest interests of the Arab world.”
Egyptian Information Minister Anas El Fiqqi says the resolution is not intended to restrict the satellite media, but rather to set norms for regulating them.
Yet the minister's statement fell short of convincing journalists, who contend that the governments are seeking to tighten their grip over the growing satellite media, which have been moving ahead with breaking political taboos. All Arab countries except Qatar accepted the resolution.
“Qatar thinks that this resolution should be referred to legal and legislative bodies in Arab countries before accepting it because the freedom of the media should not be restricted,” said Mohammed El Malky, Qatar’s acting ambassador in Cairo, as quoted in the local press.
Qatar is the host of the influential Al Jazeera news channel, which has upset many Arab governments with its critical reporting.
In Egypt, journalists think that one of the main objectives of the resolution is to put a curb on Egyptian current affairs shows that have contributed immensely to raising the level of political criticism in recent years.
Prominent commentator Mohammed Sayed Said put it this way in the Al-Badeel daily: "What was required from those poor ministers was to close the half-open window that helped people listen to free opinions during the last few months or years.”
— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo
Photo: Al Jazeera and other independent-minded news channels are the targets of a new agreement between Arab countries. Credit: aljazeera.net
A foreign correspondent for a major European newspaper was in Tehran the other day along with her editor. They were at the Laleh Hotel, a giant place that was part of the Intercontinental chain before the 1979 Islamic Revolution and is now believed to be a major surveillance outpost used by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security of the Nation.
The correspondent came to Tehran in coordination with both the Iranian Embassy in Paris and the office of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had arranged an “exclusive” interview for the newspaper with the feisty head of state. They were to return home the next day after the interview, leaving them with little time to explore the country and find out what ordinary people think.
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A new film portraying the inhumane living conditions in Cairo slums has stirred a huge controversy in Egypt. The movie, "Heena Maysara," (An Arabic expression widely used to mean "when things improve") zooms into the social dynamics that govern the slum areas where thousands of Cairenes struggle amid poverty and ignorance, drawing very little attention from the ruling elites. The movie tackled prostitution, street children, incest, drug smuggling, homosexuality and religious extremism as examples of deviant practices that are widespread among Cairo's marginalized communities.
All this is highlighted through the stories of two main characters: "Adel Hashisha" and "Nahed." Adel Hashisha, a young unemployed man, supports his mother and the children of his brother who left for Iraq in the 1990s. To feed his family, Hashisha turns to drug smuggling and ultimately becomes one of his neighborhood's top thugs. In the meantime, Hashisha also serves as a police informant spying on Islamist cells that have been growing in his neighborhood. However, after the police raids his house, tortures him and his mother to extract confessions from them about his brother who has allegedly joined Al Qaeda in Iraq, Hashisha decides to have his revenge by helping Islamist militants against the police.
Nahed is another significant character. The beautiful young woman runs away from her mother's house as her step-father has been consistently harassing her sexually. She meets Hashisha, sleeps with him and gets pregnant by him. Given his terrible economic conditions, Hashisha refuses to marry Nahed or to raise the child, which forces the latter to abandon the infant. In her quest for a living, Nahed is exposed to different forms of sexual abuse. A scene in which another woman tries to seduce Nahed has caused a huge uproar.
One prominent Islamic scholar has called for prosecuting the two actresses who played that scene on charges of promoting lesbianism and fomenting vice. Another scholar was quoted by the media as saying: "There are no lesbians in Egypt and we will never have any in the future." However, one of the actresses involved replied: "The scene was neither explicit nor immoral; on the contrary, it was very realistic and relevant to the context of the movie."
— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo
In between coverage of crises in the Gaza Strip, Iraq and Lebanon, Arab news channels and websites followed U.S. political news from Iowa, where two upstart candidates bucked conventional wisdom and came out on top in the presidential caucus.
Though domestic economic issues are playing the dominant role in the U.S. race, events in the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran, also figure strongly on the American agenda, and the Arab world has taken notice.
 Throughout Thursday and today, the main Arab news channels, Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera, aired the results in short news bulletins. They included sound-bites from Democratic contender Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, vowing to bring change to America. In one clip Qatar-based Al Jazeera featured shots of Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the Republican winner, with a voice-over noting that he was a former preacher.
An Al Jazeera commentator concluded that the caucus "sets the tone" for the rest of the race.
Dubai-based Al Arabiya's coverage tonight featured correspondent Mona Shakaki reporting live from Iowa. After a graphic animation introducing the network's "Race to the White House" coverage, Shakaki described the impact of Obama's victory over Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y,), who finished third behind Sen. John Edwards."The voters said 'yes' to the candidate of change and hope and 'no' to the candidate of experience who represents the U.S. establishment."
 She described Huckabee's victory as a triumph for religious conservatives, but noted at the end that the race is far from over.
Angry Arab News Service predicted that a wounded Clinton "will now claim that Sen. Obama has pledged to ask Mahmoud Ahmadinajad to be his running mate if he wins the nomination."
Obama and Clinton differ starkly on foreign policy, with the Illinois senator saying he'd be willing to talk to the clerical leaders of Iran while Clinton saying she wouldn't. As'ad AbuKhalil, the sharp-witted southern California scholar who runs the
On the Al Jazeera website, the comments in response to the Iowa caucuses showed a diversity of views about America and its democratic ways.
"Unfortunately, none of the candidates is really independent," wrote Mishmish from Egypt. "They are politicians and will be subjected to the influence of major corporations and private groups. They will never be able to deliver all their agenda no matter how good it is."
"To my Muslim brothers, do not get deceived by this democracy," wrote Boy Ahmed Nafae from Mauritania. "It is only in appearance, but what happens behind the curtain is more serious...There is neither a Democrat nor a Republican, but there is an evil bandit who envies Islam and Muslims."
— Raed Rafei and Borzou Daragahi in Beirut, and Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo
 For the last four years Amir Ali has made spraying the walls of the Iranian capital with colorful designs his mission in life. His signature, or tag as graffiti artists call it, is "Bam-Bam," after the tough little kid Bamm-Bamm in "The Flintstones" cartoon series. Babylon & Beyond recently caught up with him.
“Two or three times I have been chased by police in Tehran while I was putting my signature 'Bam-Bam' at the end of my drawing," he said. "Once the police officer even threatened he would shoot his gun, but I did not listen and I just ran and fled from the scene.”
Believe it or not, the 18-year-old high school student is part of a coterie of like-minded graffiti and underground artists prowling the streets, viaducts and bridges of Tehran.
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 An old Arabic saying goes, "What the Egyptians write, the Lebanese publish and the Iraqis read."
Today, this proverb could be easily challenged. The bulk of Arab writers are not from Egypt and the number of those who read books in Iraq, let alone the Arab world as a whole, is alarmingly low.
The only constant is Lebanon, which remains home to the Arab world's most thriving publishing houses. One important reason is the atmosphere of freedom that does not exist in any other Arab country. This results in Arab authors turning to Lebanese publishers for printing books on sex, politics and other sensitive topics.
This hypothesis can be tested these days at Beirut's annual Arabic book fair. Now in its 51st year, it hosts more than 100 Arabic publishing houses mostly from Lebanon, according to Lebanon's Daily Star.
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Was it a family feud or a family murder?
Mystery still surrounds the reported massacre Nov. 25 of 11 members of an Iraqi journalist's family. Relatives who say they are among those claimed dead swear they are alive and well and that the journalist, Dhia Kawaz, invented the story in order to get money and sympathy from charity groups.
The sympathy part worked. Within hours of the reported killings, Reporters Without Borders and Iraqi media representatives were condemning what appeared to be another case of Iraqi journalists being targeted for their work.
Still, something seemed odd.
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In a high-end hotel in downtown Beirut, fearful of a new wave of assassinations, Lebanese lawmakers are holed up awaiting to complete a pivotal political mission, the election of a new president.
But many eyes in the Arab world these days are focused on another group confined to fancy digs. In an upscale villa atop a nearby mountain, a television show brings together the Arab world's hottest models and trendiest fashion designers to compete on a popular new reality television show called Mission Fashion.
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 On a recent visit to Iran, I was shocked to discover that one of my favorite blogs — the Huffington Post — was blocked by my Internet service provider.
"The requested page is Forbidden," it said when I tried to log on.
Dejected, I tried to visit another website on the opposite side of the political spectrum, the Drudge Report, only to find that it too was blocked out. My favorite trashy gossip site, TMZ, blocked! Even Wonkette, blocked!
The warning pages include a space where you can submit the names of websites that might have been blocked in error. I've submitted countless websites countless times. But they've never reversed a decision. My favorite sites always remain blocked.
Now, it's easy to understand why the Islamic Republic of Iran wants to filter out pornography websites. Iran, is after all, run by conservative clerics. You can also relate to why they would block the sites of dissident bloggers who wield the Internet as a weapon against the system. The Iranian government, in turn, demands that all Internet service providers filter out a list of websites with adult or anti-establishment content.
But come on! Do they really need to block MySpace? The Seattle Times? The Arizona Republic?
Using one Internet service provider, I found even the Boston Globe's website was blocked . Are the Red Sox really a threat to anyone except the New York Yankees?
I got curious. I started looking for which sites were blocked and which weren't. I found out that it was very arbitrary. Oanda, the website I use for converting currency rates, was blocked while Regime Change Iran, was not.
Creative Iranians find their way around everything. Thanks to a couple friends, I discovered a whole subculture devoted to circumventing the filters. Friends e-mail each other ever-changing proxy addresses that let them access whatever site they want.
The Iranian government filters out the proxies as soon as they find them, but new ones constantly pop up. The demand is just too great, and people are willing to go to great lengths to read and see what they want when they want.
Once in Tehran, I got a phone call from a new Internet service provider. It was a telemarketer. She was offering dial-up Internet rates at a decent price. I was polite, but non-committal. She read my mind, moved in for the kill.
"For a small added fee," she said, "we can get you unfiltered Internet."
— Borzou Daragahi in Beirut
Photo: The Internet can be an exercise in frustration in Iran, especially when your favorite sites for killing time are filtered out. Credit: Borzou Daragahi
What is screwing up satellite television service in Israel?
For more than a month, subscribers to Israel’s Yes service have endured frequent disruptions — images that jump and freeze — that have created a public-relations nightmare for the company and something of an international mystery.
The problem began Sept. 6, the day Israel apparently carried out an air strike on an undisclosed target in Syria. Israeli media say officials suspect that the subsequent disturbances in the television signals from Yes, one of two multichannel providers in Israel, is interference from foreign ships.
One report suggested the possible involvement of a Russian spy ship. Other press accounts point to radar transmissions from Dutch vessels belonging to a United Nations force off the coast of Lebanon. The maritime force was deployed to help keep peace after Israel’s war with Hezbollah in Lebanon last year.
The balky TV signals have spurred as many as 400,000 complaints to Yes each day, forcing the company to hire more workers and offer compensation to many of its 530,000 subscribers. A top company executive says the firm might not be able to withstand another month of trouble.
Yes has chartered planes and ships to pinpoint the source of signal disruptions, and shareholders have appealed to top Israeli officials to help. The company’s website says the “disturbances are caused by external elements beyond our control and are apparently due to security events.”
Meanwhile, its chief rival, a cable firm called Hot, is planning a drive to recruit new viewers.
— Ken Ellingwood and Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem
 By Borzou Daragahi in Cairo
Cairo’s teeming, smog-choked streets cloak all in anonymity. Even blond-haired, blue-eyed foreign visitors don’t draw too much attention.
But I've never experienced anything quite like walking out of the Café Arabica in downtown Cairo with the famous actress Hind Sabri while reporting my story on the Egyptian movie industry.
 All of a sudden, the calloused eyes of Cairo street vendors, police officers and passersby lit up with delight, swarming toward her. A few asked for autographs, but most just greeted her politely.
I felt like a bigshot, as if I were hangin’ with Julia Roberts.
“Madame Hind! Madame Hind!” the teenage boys called out, bowing as they approached her.
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