...Or Does It Explode?

Libyan Newsstand Snapshot: "Independent" Press

WC in Southern Tunisia

It's there when you need it.

Syrian Market: What Product is Really Being Sold?

Reuters Factbox on Maghreb Politics...

...is a depressing read:

*The army exerts wide influence on public affairs. The country has been under a state of emergency since 1992 because of an Islamist rebellion. Street marches are banned.

* Algeria ranks 102nd out of 177 countries in the U.N. Human Development Index, which measures factors like access to health and education. According to Freedom House, a U.S.-based watchdog group, Algeria scores 6 for political liberties and 5 for civil liberties on a scale that has 7 as the most unfree.

* Muammar Gaddafi, in his mid-60s, has ruled since 1969 when he staged a bloodless coup and abolished the monarchy. In the 1970s he proclaimed citizens should rule through Basic People's Congresses which, in theory, hold ultimate power.

* Libya is 64 on the U.N. index and scores 7 for political liberties and 7 for civil liberties on the Freedom House scale. Unemployment is unofficially estimated at 30 percent.

* The Makhzen [in Morocco], a network of landowners, tribal and religious leaders and modern bureaucrats and politicians, is the core of the ruling system. Parliament is seen as ineffective.

* President Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali, 71, came to power in 1987. He won elections in 1989, 1994, 1999 and 2004.

* Tunisia ranks 87 on the U.N. Human Development Index and scores 6 for political liberties and 5 for civil liberties on the Freedom House scale.

No breaking news, but seeing these factoids side-by-side and reviewing the numbers ain't pretty.

Ladies-Only Iftar at Riyadh McDonald's?

If you look closely, you can see the sign indicating the ladies-only ordering line.

Little Rock Integration: 50 Years Later

A half-century ago today, 1,000 troops from the 101st Airborne Division deployed... to Little Rock, Arkansas. Their mission: ensure nine black teenagers could enter Central High School to attend classes. The "insurgents" they faced: an unruly mob of angry whites. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus had decided not to protect the black students, whose mere presence in the school was deemed a cultural assault. So the president reluctantly sent soldiers to escort the teenagers.

The whole drama played out on TV, and Americans followed each development every night on the news as the stand-off dragged on for weeks. Every morning, the "Little Rock Nine" were accompanied by troops past a gauntlet of screaming whites into the doors of Central High. Less than 100 years after the end of the Civil War between North and South, it seemed that political tensions could boil over into full-on confrontation again.

Fifty years later, it seems a lot of sound and fury over a most trivial matter. The rage of the mobs looks insane. The high-pitch tensions between the Arkansas authorities and the President look so outdated. And the notion that the nine black students wouldn't be allowed into class seems ridiculous.

Or does it?

Ahmadinejad in New York; Bans Newspaper

No, the AhMadman did not shut down the New York Times - not yet, at least. It's those pesky papers back home:

Iran’s judiciary has sealed off the offices of a popular news Web site critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s policies after journalists continued to update it despite official filtering, the Web site said.

Blocking access to Baztab.com earlier this year was seen as part of the clampdown. Updates to the Web site, which is published in English and Farsi, were still available to Internet users outside Iran until the offices were sealed.

The last item on the Web site carried the headline: “The wish of the presidential office was realised and Baztab’s offices were sealed off”. The site, when accessed via a link outside Iran, indicated it was last updated on Sept. 23.

“Baztab’s offices were sealed off on Wednesday. The judiciary says that as the Web site has been filtered, its offices should be closed down as well,” Mohammad Javad Barbarian, Baztab’s managing director, was quoted by Etemad-e Melli daily as saying...

In addition, two prominent pro-reform newspapers, Ham Mihan and Sharq, both critical of the government, have been shut down.

The irony today is painful.

Saudi National Day Special: Graffiti Youth

Today marks the anniversary of the Saud clan taking over Arabia and naming the land after themselves. Here is a report on one aspect of what they've spawned:

College dropout Abdullah al-Alwani wanted to stand out among his friends, but he couldn't afford a splashy car or brand-name clothes. Bored by a lack of things to do in this conservative kingdom, he decided to make his mark by spray-painting X 5, his chosen nickname, hundreds of times across the city.

Mohamed Jamal Abo-Umara, the newly appointed official in charge of Jiddah's beautification, spent months on Alwani's trail. He alerted the police, told local newspapers he was looking for X 5 and offered a $1,300 reward to anyone who could lead him to the city's most prolific graffiti artist.

In May, a journalist offered to introduce the two men to each other on the condition that vandalism charges be waived, and both agreed.

But the June encounter, widely covered by the local media because of X 5's notoriety, ended up addressing not just the graffiti problem but also what had fueled it -- a host of frustrations faced by Alwani's generation.

Since then, Alwani and his graffiti buddies have appeared smiling and apologetic in dozens of magazine, newspaper and television interviews, focusing a rare spotlight on Saudi youth.

Like many of his generation, Alwani, a slight 20-year-old with an Afro tinted volcano red, is buffeted between the Western culture piped into his life via satellite television and the Internet and the strict religious culture prevalent around him.

"I want graffiti walls like they have in the West. We need soccer fields and basketball courts in every neighborhood," said Alwani, who prefers low-riding jeans to the traditional white robe commonly worn here. "And I want to dress the way I want without people making fun of me."

Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy and one of the world's most socially repressive societies, also has one of the world's youngest populations, with more than 50 percent of its 22 million citizens younger than 21.

Jordanian Bloggers: "Their Nation's Woodwards and Bernsteins"?

A nice insightful feature by Natasha Tynes on Jordanian bloggers making news and prompting change:

I grew up in Amman in the early 1980’s, an era characterized by a notable lack of democratic processes or any form of freedom of expression.

As a child and young adult, I regularly heard about tragic incidents that happened to family members and friends on a regular basis: mistreatment at hospitals, embezzlement, discrimination, unchecked domestic abuse, corrupt government employees, basic human rights violations - you name it.

We Jordanians would hear about such events, get distressed, and do absolutely nothing, swallowing our pride and moving on regardless of the scars left behind. It was our survival mechanism. We had no choice but to move on since one would listen and we were always worried about the harsh repercussions of speaking up.

Times have changed. I was thrilled and excited recently to see a group of Jordanians speaking up and rallying for a cause in an organized manner that yielded tangible results...

This is how “Who Sane” (whose real name is, of course, Hussein) described his father’s ordeal [of mistreatment in a government hospital]:

“Because the hospital is really bad and I can’t begin to explain how horrible it is, my dad ended up with a) a brain seizure, b) severe pneumonia, c) kidney malfunction and d) blood infection. All which he picked up and was caused by his stay at the Prince Hamza Butchery (that’s what we’re calling it now).”

As soon as Hussein posted the story on his blog, Jordanian bloggers reacted swiftly. They linked to the story of the heinous incident, translated it into Arabic and condemned the horrific treatment given to the father of their fellow blogger.

It was the biggest unanimous campaign ever launched by the Jordanian blogosphere, which is only few years old.

Bloggers contacted newspapers and talked with officials. Jordanian blogger Batir Wardam, who is also a journalist, took things to the next level by publishing two stories about the ordeal of Hussein’s father in the local daily Ad Dustour. Other media outlets later picked up the story as well after Wardam’s articles got the ball rolling. Wardam was then contacted by officials from the health ministry who wanted to get in touch with Hussein and his family.

A few days later, Hussein reported on his blog that his father (who was transferred to another hospital) was visited by the Health Minster, Salah Al Mawajdeh, . Al-Mawajdeh, who represented King Abdullah, assured Hussein’s father that a “rigorous investigation is currently in place to identify those who committed the mistakes and punish them.”

Watching these developments unfold before my eyes was jaw-dropping. What I saw plain as day was that a group of young Jordanian bloggers had succeeded in causing a national conversation on the dire situation of the hospital that was supposed to be one of the top facilities in the country after it was inauguration by King Abdullah last year...

This was Jordan’s Walter Reed story. But unlike the US where the horrific situation of the veteran’s hospital was exposed by the Washington Post investigative reporters, this story was brought into the limelight not by investigative reporters, but by dedicated bloggers who might not have had formal journalistic training but had enough zeal and passion to expose the tragedy.

Good on you, mates! Jordanian bloggers, of course, have other, more sensitive taboos are that are not yet addressed a la "Woodward and Bernstein." But you have to give them credit for this breakthrough.

"Hand of God" in Libya?

Christian Today runs a report on the small re-flourishing of Christian life in Libya, apparently fueled by African migrants and Asian foreign workers. The article reveals new openings - but also severe (and humiliating) restrictions on the Christian community that remain:

A new wave of religious freedom is sweeping across Libya, say Christians in the north African country, after three decades of restrictions against the tiny Christian population.

"People are respecting us. They accept us. We are free," says Roman Catholic Bishop Giovanni Martinelli, who is based in Tripoli, the capital of predominantly Muslim Libya.

The 1969 revolution that brought Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi to power led to church buildings being confiscated and then closed down. Catholics were allowed to keep only two churches, one in Tripoli and the other in Benghazi.

The formal name of the country is the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, but human rights organisations say the country is authoritarian.

"The biggest church was a cathedral, but was turned into a mosque. They took all the churches with the revolution," recalls Martinelli...

Most worshippers are Africans, mainly illegal migrants, and Asians, and Martinelli now celebrates three services in different languages every Friday, whilst the Muslims go to their mosques. There are Christian services in Korean and English in the morning, and in the afternoon there is a service in Philipino for the Philippine community. On Sunday the Mass is in Arabic...

The church building dates back to the 17th century. It was rededicated on 9 March, having been restored as part of a project to renovate the old City of Tripoli by a committee set up to protect the local heritage.

Still, the Anglicans can now only repaint the church, and must not add anything to the building. They are not even allowed to erect a cross.