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.

SYRIA, ISRAEL: Facebook sparks new conflict over Golan Heights

Facebook users in the Golan Heights, which was captured from Syria by Israel in a 1967 war, now find themselves at the center of a new, virtual skirmish over the disputed territory.

Until recently, Facebook users in Golan towns were listed as living in Syria, prompting more than 2,600 Israelis to form a group called "Facebook, Golan residents live in Israel, not Syria." Now, users are allowed to choose whether their hometown is listed as part of Israel or Syria.

Honest Reporting, the Jerusalem-based organization behind the campaign, wrote on the group's page that "it is not for Facebook to decide the national origin of Golan residents."

Alex Morgalin, the creator of the group, wrote in an e-mail to The Times that the petition was not motivated by political considerations.

"We do not take a position on the future of the Golan," he wrote. "What we are concerned with is the present -- that people who identify as Israelis, living under Israeli law, were not allowed to identify themselves that way."

SAUDI ARABIA: 'Pure' Islamic alternative to YouTube launched

In a move to preserve religious and moral values in cyberspace, a group of unidentified Saudis have launched a "clean" Islamic alternative to the leading video-sharing site YouTube. 

It's called NaqaTube.

Naqa means "pure" in Arabic. The website offers a collection of edited and Islamically "clean" clips from YouTube under the banner, “Participate with us in a clean website."

Site administrators censor video clips that express critical views of the government, Islamic scholars and members of the Saudi royal family. 

In keeping with Saudi Arabia's strict religious and moral codes, music videos and clips featuring women are also banned. Any music videos on NaqaTube must adhere to Islamic rules.  

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Yahoo to join forces with Arabic site

Web giant Yahoo has announced its acquisition of the Arab-based site Maktoob.com.  

According to reports from Bloomberg, the New York Times, Agence France-Presse, and PC World, the purchase was announced at a news conference in Dubai today, though its specific terms were withheld.

At the conference, Yahoo’s Senior Vice President and Head of Emerging Markets Keith Nilsson said, “Maktoob is a terrific local brand. Yahoo will be combining its global technology and Maktoob’s local Arabic content.”

IRAQ: Pentagon hopes video game can help with post-traumatic stress disorder

The U.S. Defense Department has released a video on its DODvClips.mil website describing the use of a video game as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.

Reporter Robert Channick, writing for the Chicago Tribune, describes the use of the game at a hospital in Elk Grove Village, Ill., as part of an immersion therapy program. "Players put on goggles and headphones and use a joystick to dodge roadside bombs and snipers while the scent of diesel fuel wafts around them," he wrote.

Continue reading Channick's "Virtual Iraq targets combat disorders."

IRAN: Google launches Farsi translation service

 

Today Google added Farsi to the 40+ languages available for translation, sans cost, on its Google Translate service. One of Google's principal scientists, Franz Och, writes that the Farsi-language tool can be used to translate news, websites, blogs, e-mails, tweets and even Facebook messages.

Since Iranian authorities shut down text messaging and barred foreign journalists from working in the streets, opposition supporters have turned to social networking sites to get word out about their protests. Said Och, “Like YouTube and other services, Google Translate is one more tool that Persian speakers can use to communicate directly to the world, and vice versa.”

A Google spokesman  told the London Times, “This is not a political statement. There’s a huge amount of interest in the events in Iran and we hope this tool will improve access to information for people inside and outside the country.”

Because the site was launched quickly to fill a need, Och acknowledges that there might be some glitches. “As with all machine translation, it's not perfect yet. And we're launching this service quickly, so it may perform slowly at times.”  He did reassure future users. “We'll keep a close watch and if it breaks, we'll restore service as quickly as we can.”

— Amber Smith

Photo: This image from Google, downloaded Friday shows a search page of a translation of an English text into Farsi. Credit: AP 
 

IRAN: Facebook unblocked after hoopla over ban

Iran unblocked the popular Facebook social networking website just days after it was banned, an Iranian news agency is reporting.

A report published today on the website of the Iranian Labor News Agency, or ILNA, said Facebook was now accessible for ordinary Web surfers. 

The rescinding of the ban came a day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied he was behind the decision to block the site, which has been used by his challengers to rally supporters for upcoming elections.

IRAN: Authorities block Facebook amid heated election campaign

What the Iranian authorities give, they can easily take away, as shown by the government's seesawing attitude toward Facebook, the popular social-networking website that it apparently ordered blocked to ordinary Web surfers in recent days. 

There's no official word, but most assume it's to try to minimize the effect the site might have on the outcome of  the critical June 12 presidential elections.

Iranian Internet-service providers had long banned Facebook, making it inaccessible to dial-up and broadband users. Government officials were fearful it could be used by intelligence officials abroad to recruit operatives or by activists to organize anti-government protests.

But in January, after watching the way activists were using Facebook to promote opposition to the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, Iranian authorities apparently warmed up to the quirky website and quietly lifted the ban. 

ISRAEL: Loose lips on Facebook, security service warns

Two Israelis meet in New York. Or Nepal. Or Mars. So, you're from Israel? Wha'dja do in the army? 

Within minutes, they work out the connections with enough information for a detailed flow chart of all common landmarks, army buds and acquaintances.

These days, they don't even have to meet. Social networks help keep tabs on old friends. Also to befriend – or "befoe" new ones. 

This week, Israel's General Security Service took the unusual step of issuing a warning urging Israelis to be alert to terrorist activity on the Internet. Specifically, people were warned against unsolicited approaches on social networks by strangers offering meetings abroad or easy money and seeking information. Seemingly innocent contacts might be terrorist efforts to recruit or kidnap. (Presumably this works both ways: A few months ago a Syrian paper had warned of Mossad and CIA recruiting efforts on Facebook as well.)

EGYPT: Court bans pornographic websites

The Egyptian administrative court has ordered the government to block obscene websites, calling them threats to national security.

“Public liberties and rights are not absolute [and] they must be restricted by the need to protect the family which constitutes the cornerstone of society and which is based on religion, morals and nationalism” read the verdict.

“On the Internet, there are websites that diffuse poison and foment vice among different segments of the Egyptian society, which poses a threat to all religious beliefs and public morals and values,” added the court which ordered both the Information and Communication ministries to take necessary measures to enforce the verdict.

While the government is chasing opposition bloggers and Facebook activists, most pornographic websites remain untouched. In April, a civil servant was sentenced to seven years in prison and his wife to three years for setting up a swingers' club on the Internet. The criminal case was reportedly the first of its kind in this Muslim nation of 83 million people. 

Earlier, Nizar Ghorab, a lawyer known for defending radical Islamists, filed a suit against the government accusing it of laxity in dealing with the threat posed by pornographic websites. Ghorab hailed the verdict “as a victory over vice and corruption”.

— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo