Stories about Middle East & North Africa from April, 2006
The Lebanese Bloggers Last Week: looking outside and building bridges
Although last week witnessed the seventh Lebanese “National Dialogue” session, Lebanese Bloggers didn’t seem to care. Apparently, many of them are resigned to the sessions being just talk shops. Raja wrote in The Lebanese Bloggers: I can't even fathom the number of times our “leaders” have decided to leave things...
Iran: Virginity Matters!
IranJensy (Persian) says virginity of a girl is so important in Iranian society. Blogger asks how men, who have had sex with many women can expect the girls have no sex before getting married?
Iran: Refugee Seekers in Church!
Panhajoyan (Persian) writes that a small group of Iranian refugee seekers, since 24 April, have occupied a church in Belgium to stay in country. Many Iranian refugee seekers are under threat by Belgian government to be sent back to Iran.
Iran: Blogger Remains in Jail!
Webgardian writes according to ILNA (Iran Labour National Agency) Arash Sigarchi's, jailed blogger & journalist, appeal was rejected by Supreme Court. He must stay in jail for three years.
Egypt: Lesson to be learned
Today Zeinobia talks about important Egyptian term that you may have heard or read it while reading the modern Egyptian political history or even while following the news of the clash between the Judges and the regime nowadays. The term is “The Judges Massacre”!
Jordan: Customer Service
Speaking her mind about the ‘customer service’ in the Arab world, Khalidah says: “We see large companies with hundreds of employees and fancy titles, their organization charts can fill a whole wall, each manager has managers and those report yet to more directors, those directors report to boards and boards...
Palestine: Confused!
Lucy Widaad has a serious question for you: “Can you guys help me make a list of things we can do here in Palestine to help progress the peace process… How can we demonstrate that we do not want occupation any longer without resorting to violence?”
United Arab Emirates: Democracy or no democracy?
Keefieboy is afraid that the real danger that democracy poses to the Middle East right now is that the ‘wrong’ people will win. Because the moderate voices of the moderate candidates will not be heard. Because the indigenous population of the Middle East is so pissed off with the way...
Saudi Arabia: No chance for woman's rights
Woman's rights in the Arab/Islamic world is hitting the Middle East news again. Justice and marriage are the last two compromised systems in favor of men, Sabbah said. In fact, he sees that the new Fatwa, which allows marriage after the woman forfeit her rights, is sort of legalization of...
Pulse of the Saudi Blogosphere
Football and ice hockey, hijab and fatwas, bloggers meetups, and much much more from the Saudi blogosphere this week. Let's go… Starting with Swalfy, who did not seem so surprised that Riyadh Gitex, which supposed to be the biggest IT exhibition in Saudi Arabia does not has a website. He...
Landing at the Iraqi Blogodrome
Iraqi bloggers pose something of puzzle for the mainstream media. The quality of the writing is good and bloggers sometimes have better news than their own reporters. But how do you use it? Some have the right idea and report what the bloggers are saying. This Associated Press article was...
Iran: Joking with Nulcear
Bazardispatch says Iranians intend to survive any storm by laughing through it. Blogger reports that one of Ahmadineghad's mottos is “Nuclear Energy is our absolute right!” well the newest SMS in Tehran is: “Having two wives is our absolute right too! But who becomes a second wife?” teasing Islamic code...
Martinique/Gwada: Palm Tree Shaped Antennas
Technophile InternetRapide.com praises (FR) the aesthetic value of Morocco's palm tree-shaped antennas.
Palestine: Mob like mentality?
In deviantART, the Palestinian artists simply cannot select their country from the dA country list. “Free-Palestine” community asked deviantART to add “Palestinian territories” to the country list. The answer was: “deviantART does not tolerate Mob like mentality…“. dA then banned “Free-Palestine” members, and deleted all of their content, EP said.
Egypt: Judicial System
While the judicial system in Egypt is facing a hard time with the government, the civilian support for the beaten judges are also treated harshly. Baheyya writes about the latest developments and has a link to a video which shows the security forces’ disbanding of the peaceful vigil in support...
Iraq: Where is the opposition?
While the Iraqi government is still under-establishment, Omar remind us that he once was offended when he heard that although the democratic elections toke place, yet democratic government is not established. Omar began to see a lot of truth in these words. But, what about the opposition? For healthy democracy...
Israel: Who are those pensioners?
Batya wonders: During the Israeli election campaign, nobody paid too much attention to the pensioners on the Retirees Party list. It was considered by most to be a “joke” party, but boy were we all surprised when they ended up with a very healthy and youthful seven seats in the...
Iran: Contractual Workers Fired!
Jomhour (Persian) writes that there are collective firings of contractual workers in all over country. He adds on the other side of story government appointed employees and workers have benefited a sharp raise in their salaries. Blogger says this raise has nothing to do with productivity of these workers. This...
Iran: Women, Football & Ayathollahs
Bidari (Persian) considers Ahmadinejad's decision to let women watching football in stadiums a real mistake. Blogger says people who back President don't have this kind of requests. In addition now several Grand Ayatollahs are against Ahmadinejad's decision.
Marriage, Birthday and identity crisis in the Moroccan blogosphere
I'll start today with some good news. The first one: Morocco is among the four African countries which count the biggest numbers of internet users in a continent where only 22 million people use the net, that is 2.5% of the 900 million people living in Africa. But, this number...
Iran: Animal Rights!
Arrianna Matthieus, an American-Iranian blogger based in the United States writes about animal rights in Iran. Blogger says “In present day Iran, the cultural tradition has long overlooked the fact that dogs were highly esteemed in ancient Persia and that animals were protected from harm, and yet, in the Islamic...
About our Middle East & North Africa coverage
Mariam Abuadas is the editor for the Middle East & North Africa. Email her story ideas or volunteer to write.
