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Drawing a New Map for Journalism in the Mideast

By Robert F. Worth

DUBAI (UAE): It has been almost four years since Abdul Rahman al-Rashed set out to cure Arab television of its penchant for radical politics and violence. It was never an easy task. But as the director of one of the leading satellite channels in the Middle East, he thinks he has made a difference.

"You have to remember, it was television that made bin Laden into a celebrity," says Mr. Rashed, an affable, soft-spoken 52-year-old, as he sat back in the ultramodern glass and steel offices of Al Arabiya, a network here. "That made Al Qaeda, and its recruiting, and this is how violence spread throughout the region."

Mr. Rashed does not directly accuse Al Jazeera, his main competitor, of these sins. But it is clear enough what he has in mind.It was because of Al Jazeera, after all, that Mr. Rashed ended up presiding over Al Arabiya's five-floor headquarters in Dubai's Media City, overlooking a sprawling artificial lake surrounded by palm trees.

Source: [New York Times]

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Interview: 'Girls of Riyadh' author Rajaa Alsanea

By Christina Gillham

When Rajaa Alsanea's "The Girls of Riyadh" hit bookstores in the Middle East in 2005, it caused a furor. Referred to by some as a "Sex and the City" for Saudi Arabia, the book delved into the social, romantic -- and sometimes sex -- lives of its four female characters. Published first in Lebanon -- and published in the United States this month -- the book almost immediately made its way to Saudi Arabia, where it was denounced by religious conservatives as immoral and hailed by reformists as a much-needed condemnation of Saudi Arabia's restrictive society.

Alsanea, 24 years old at the time, was propelled to stardom, making appearances on TV, receiving supportive phone calls from the royal family and an endorsement from no less a figure than the king's labor minister and close adviser, Ghazi al-Gosaibi. "The Girls of Riyadh" explores the lives of four young women -- Lamees, Sadeem, Gamrah and Michelle. Their stories are told by a narrator in a series of postings on an Internet chat room.

The women, like their creator, are upper-class Sunni Muslims whose lives revolve around various romantic entanglements, shopping, school and struggling against their society's strict moral code. Alsanea wrote the book while in college, where she studied dentistry. Now living in Chicago, she is doing her residency in endodontics (root canal) and studying for her master's degree in oral sciences. She spoke to NEWSWEEK's Christina Gillham.

Source: [Newsweek]

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An Iraq war translator's take on US language failure

Last year, the Hamilton-Baker commission reported that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad had only six fluent Arabic speakers on its staff -- a fact that went largely unnoticed next to ostensibly bigger and more pressing problems with the war in Iraq. But one wonders if a failure to communicate isn't the root problem of the fiasco. How can the U.S. reach hearts and minds if they can't even speak the language?

The lack of Arabic translators in Iraq appears to stem from a Bush Administration decision to outsource translation services to private contractors. Called "linguistic support," these companies, two of the largest of which are Titan Corporation and DynCorp International, have received billions of dollars to provide language interpreters to the Iraq reconstruction effort.

But many of the supposed "translators" sent to Iraq were untrained, had poor language skills, or couldn't speak Arabic at all. In many cases the contractors appear to have conducted no screenings or interviews with prospective translators. And Titan Corporation interpreters are accused of involvement in two cases of prisoner abuse in Iraq and one case of espionage at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. For an inside look at the U.S.'s failure to communicate, Radar spoke with Dustin Langan, who worked as a translator in Iraq for defense contractor MZM Incorporated for 11 months between 2003 and 2004.

Source: [Radar Online]

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Sheik Hamad: 'The Street Is Not With Us'

By Lally Weymouth

In the days before the united Nations Security Council passed its Lebanese ceasefire resolution, a group of Arab League emissaries flew to New York to demand last-minute revisions in the French-U.S. draft resolution. The Arabs' objection: the draft emphasized the security of Israel's border without demanding the immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops and called for an international force with real power, which Lebanon opposed. The Arab delegation pressed its case -- and finally won. The negotiations were underway when the group's leader, Sheik Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, foreign minister and deputy prime minister of Qatar, spelled out his thinking to NEWSWEEK's Lally Weymouth. Excerpts:

WEYMOUTH: What [were] the Arab League's reservations about the draft resolution?
AL-THANI: In Lebanon, Hizbullah and the Shia are around 40 percent of the population, so if the Lebanese government went to enforce it [the draft resolution] ... we might see a civil war again.

Does the Lebanese Army have the power to disarm Hizbullah?
Why do they have to take on Hizbullah? They have to take the place of Hizbullah, and Hizbullah has to become a normal political party.

Source: [Newsweek]

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Interview: Are Islam and the West incompatible?

Since last summer's terror attacks on London, British authorities have focused a keen eye on radical Muslim groups in the United Kingdom. The revelation this month of the purported plot to destroy U.S.-bound airliners over the Atlantic Ocean, and the belief that its suspects may be tied to terrorists in Pakistan, have only heightened British concerns about so-called homegrown terrorists.

To fight what security officials consider dangerous elements, the government has cracked down on groups believed to support terrorist activities. Anjem Choudary, 39, has been associated with two such organizations that have been outlawed. A lawyer from Ilford, East London, and a longtime Muslim activist, he was a leader of Al Muhajiroun, a U.K.-based group committed to the creation of a global Islamic state. Al Muhajiroun was dissolved in 2004 and its founder, Omar Bakri Mohammed, deemed "not conducive to the public good" by the British government shortly after he fled to Lebanon in the wake of the July 7, 2005, London bombings.

Choudary was also a spokesperson for Al Ghurabaa, widely believed to be a successor group to Al Muhajiroun. Last month the British government banned Al Ghurabaa under new antiterror legislation that prohibits the glorification of terrorism. According to U.K. media reports, Rashid Rauf, a principal target in the investigation into the recent airline plot, was acquainted with members of Al Muhajiroun. NEWSWEEK's Karla Adam recently spoke to Choudary in Walthamstow, East London, a neighborhood where several of the suspects in the airliner plot were arrested. Excerpts:

Source: [Newsweek]

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Interview: HM Queen Rania of Jordan

By Margarette Driscoll

If the veiled woman has become the symbol of the culture clash between East and West, Queen Rania is her nemesis. Jordan's young queen, who has reigned over the Middle Eastern kingdom with her husband King Abdullah for nearly seven years, is on a charm offensive to present a new kind of Arab woman to the world.

Rania, 35, the privileged daughter of a paediatrician, educated in international schools, has never worn the veil, nor will she. "In Jordan we believe there should be no coercion under Islam," she says. "Unfortunately, people think of the Middle East as a monolithic whole, but each country has its own characteristics, its own level of stability and security and its own level of openness for women."

It irks her that westerners in any case see the veil as a sign of helplessness and oppression: "To us it's a sign of modesty and devotion to God and it's up to women whether they wear it." A mother of four who admits she was "terrified" when she discovered that she was to become queen, Rania describes herself as "an Arab woman through and through", but has the international look of a supermodel.

Source: [The Times]

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Yemeni editor discusses Prophet caricatures from jail

By Rod Nordland

Mohammed al-Asaadi is an improbable martyr to a free press. As the editor in chief of the generally pro-government Yemen Observer, a weekly English-language newspaper owned by Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh's media adviser, al-Asaadi has not been party to the sort of controversies that have seen many Yemeni journalists jailed in recent years. But when his newspaper ran an article about the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist, Asaadi decided to reprint the cartoons -- albeit with a large X censoring most of them, and an article denouncing them. On Feb. 11, he was arrested and charged with insulting the Prophet. He is now in jail in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, awaiting trial. Newsweek arranged for a visitor to take a cell phone to him today, and Newsweek's Rod Nordland interviewed him by phone.

NEWSWEEK: Is this your first time in jail?
Mohammed al-Asaadi: It's the first time ever I've been a prisoner, or even in front of a judge.

How are the accommodations?
I'm in a temporary prison, awaiting a hearing, so it's not so bad. It's a basement, and we have to buy everything we need, even bottled water. There are 15 of us sharing one big room and one toilet, but the others aren't common criminals. A couple are journalists, because it's the prison of the prosecutor for press and publications.

Source: [Newsweek]

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Hirsi Ali: 'Everyone Is Afraid to Criticize Islam'

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch politician forced to go into hiding after the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, responds to the Danish cartoon scandal, arguing that if Europe doesn't stand up to extremists, a culture of self-censorship of criticism of Islam that pervades in Holland will spread in Europe. Auf Wiedersehen, free speech.

SPIEGEL: Hirsi Ali, you have called the Prophet Muhammad a tyrant and a pervert. Theo van Gogh, the director of your film "Submission," which is critical of Islam, was murdered by Islamists. You yourself are under police protection. Can you understand how the Danish cartoonists feel at this point? [See related story]

Hirsi Ali: They probably feel numb. On the one hand, a voice in their heads is encouraging them not to sell out their freedom of speech. At the same time, they're experiencing the shocking sensation of what it's like to lose your own personal freedom. One mustn't forget that they're part of the postwar generation, and that all they've experienced is peace and prosperity. And now they suddenly have to fight for their own human rights once again.

SPIEGEL: Why have the protests escalated to such an extent?

Source: [Der Spiegel]

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King Abdullah: Terror won't divide Jordan, Iraq

AMMAN (Petra) -- His Majesty King Abdullah on Saturday said the Kingdom will not permit terrorists to divide Jordanians and Iraqis. Iraqis living in Jordan, he said, are "dear brothers" who live in dignity in their second homeland. "Their security is our security and we will not accept that any harm should come to them," he said.

In an interview with the Jordan News Agency, Petra, King Abdullah warned that no one should exploit Wednesday's terrorist acts to harm Jordanian-Iraqi relations and said the Kingdom will continue to be a safe haven for every Iraqi who is forced, by circumstances in the neighbouring country, to come and live in Jordan.

The King said counterterrorism efforts should include confronting those who justify terror or incite others to commit acts of terror. Those who incite and justify terrorism and those who actually commit acts of terror are equally guilty for the crime, he said. The King told Faisal Shboul, director general of Petra, that any individual, group or party that justifies terrorism, that advocates violence against innocents or that defends such acts and ideas is unacceptable.

Source: [The Jordan Times]

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Mary Nazzal: Amman bombs designed for carnage

On Wednesday evening, three five-star hotels in the heart of Amman, Jordan, were struck by powerful blasts which killed at least 57 people and injured up to 300. Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed that four of its members carried out the attacks to hit "enemies of the faith, Jews and crusaders" who congregated in Amman.

The hotels had been identified in the media as US-owned establishments, a statement denied by Mary Nazzal-Batayneh, owner-representative of the Radisson SAS, one of the bombed hotels. "Firstly, news reports have been indicating that the Radisson SAS was specifically attacked because it is an American hotel.

"I want to make it clear that the Radisson SAS is a Scandinavian chain and owned by Palestinian-Jordanians," Nazzal-Batayneh said in a statement released to the media. A wedding hall seems to have been the target of the attack on the Radisson SAS. Aljazeera.net's senior editor Firas al-Atraqchi interviewed Nazzal-Batayneh, who had just returned to Amman from London, where she has a home.

Source: [Aljazeera.net]

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