ABU DHABI—By 8 a.m. on a September morning in Abu Dhabi, the sun is already so strong that if you forget to put on your sunglasses before you step outside, your eyes start to tear up and you sneeze from the sheer burnt whiteness of the light. By midday, the flat landscape is bright beyond Read More
BEIRUT, Lebanon—The Middle East's first openly lesbian bar, Coup d'Etat, was launched in Beirut late last summer, shortly after an internationally-brokered ceasefire ended the month-long war between Israel and the Lebanese militia, Hezbollah.
There was little fanfare. Beirut's streets were no longer reverberating to the sound of nightly Israeli air strikes, but as thousands of Read More
To Rebecca Ballantine, a Brooklyn-dwelling mother of a two-and-a-half-year-old, her Tibetan nanny is a part of the family. Ms. Ballantine, who has a history of involvement with Tibet, knew her nanny for about six years before hiring her, and has become close to her nanny’s husband and son as well. Ms. Ballantine was also quite Read More
One of the most recent victims of the violence that has escalated in the Palestinian territories in recent weeks was none other than Farfur, the cartoon jihadi mouse that enraged observers worldwide after Al Aqsa TV, a station with ties to Hamas, introduced him earlier this year on a children's program aimed at Palestinian youngsters. Read More
When Girls of Riyadh, a first novel by a young Saudi woman, then-23-year-old Rajaa Alsanea, was first published in 2005, it created a firestorm of controversy across the Arab world. The book, which tells the intertwining life stories of four young Saudi women who have been friends since their school days, garnered praise from Arab Read More
DAMASCUS, SYRIA—House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Syria last month, and the related question of whether or not the U.S. should formally re-engage this Baathist republic, remains as controversial a topic on the streets of Damascus as it was in the days afterwards among Beltway bloggers. And, perverse as it may seem to some American Read More
DAMASCUS, Syria, Feb. 13—I first met Nash a little over two years ago, in the crowded courtyard of a Damascus high school that was being used as a voting center for Iraqi refugees participating in their country’s first free elections.
He wore an Atlanta Braves baseball cap at a jaunty angle, and he practically bounced Read More
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov. 28—Last Wednesday afternoon, I was sitting in a café in Hamra, the traditionally Muslim neighborhood in West Beirut, wondering why my cell phone had stopped working. There were plenty of units left in my Lebanese pay-as-you-go account and I’d charged the handset recently, yet each attempt to make a call or to Read More
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov. 28—Last Wednesday afternoon, I was sitting in a café in Hamra, the traditionally Muslim neighborhood in West Beirut, wondering why my cell phone had stopped working. There were plenty of units left in my Lebanese pay-as-you-go account and I’d charged the handset recently, yet each attempt to make a call or to Read More
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Oct. 24—There it is again: a high, ominous, whining-whistling sound, followed by a great explosive BOOM! It’s very nearby this time, perhaps just a few yards beyond the thin wall that separates my tiny garden, with its two scraggly orange trees, from the rest of West Beirut.
The impact sets a couple Read More
