Schoolgirls outside Cairo’s Alabaster Mosque. Photo: Flickr user Ed Yourdon

The Arab world has over 350 million people and stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf. Unified by a common Arabic culture and history, these 25 countries are at varying levels of economic and political development.

But there seems to be a set of demographic issues that apply to many — if not all — of the nations in the Arab world. We take a deeper look at high birth rates and gender inequality and then compare them to other regions of the world.

Martin Savidge hosts Magda Abu-Fadil and Bernard Haykel to discuss these issues:

• Youth bulge: jobs for young people, emigration, political instability
• Gender gap: young women, variation across Arab states, political power
• Big picture: comparisons to other regions, replacement level, demographic transition

GUESTS:

Magda Abu-Fadil is director of the Journalism Training Program at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and has years of experience as a foreign correspondent and editor with international news organizations such as Agence France-Presse and United Press International.

Bernard Haykel is a professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, where his research interests include contemporary politics, Arabian history and Islamic fundamentalism.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producer: Ben Piven
Associate Producer: Mohammad Al-Kassim

Just a few years ago, Iraqi women running for parliamentary seats didn’t show their pictures on any campaign signs because of Iraq’s conservatism. But that’s different now.

Al Arabiya also highlights the story of so-called “forgotten Iraqis” — desert Bedouins.

Worldfocus’ Mohammad Al-Kassim translated this report.

View a montage of Iraqi election advertisements compiled by Al Jazeera English.

Sonson with sunglasses. Photo: Tamara Palinkat

Worldfocus associate producer Mohammad Al-Kassim spent five days in the Haitian capital one month after the devastating earthquake hit the impoverished Caribbean island. While he was at the University of Miami field hospital, he came across the story of Sonson, a young orphan.

Sonson is a Haitian boy who was found in a garbage dumpster two weeks after a calamitous earthquake hit his hometown of Port-au-Prince.

Salvation Army workers found Sonson and brought him to the University of Miami medical field hospital located near the airport in the Haitian capital. Doctors there treated Sonson for worms, bacteria, and superficial cuts on his foot. Despite the awful conditions he was found in, Sonson is in fairly good shape physically according to medical personnel.

No one seems to know the whereabouts of his parents or even his real age, which nurses at the hospital estimate  at about two or three. He is scheduled to undergo a hand x-ray soon to determine age by his bone development.

Sonson has a big following here; he’s especially popular with the ladies.

Tamara Palinkat, 38-year-old Canadian volunteer with the University of Miami’s Project Medishare, is in Port-au-Prince helping with the earthquake recovery efforts. She says that she took an immediate liking to Sonson, drawn to his survival instinct.

“The idea that this little fella was fending for himself at the age of 2 or 3 years old pulled at my heart strings,” said Tamara.

Tamara has no children of her own but says that she always knew that one day “a child would adopt me and that would be that.” She wants Sonson to be that child.

She has started the adoption paperwork process, registering Sonson as an unaccompanied child with UNICEF and making known her desire to adopt him. She also wrote a letter requesting approval from the Canadian Embassy.

Sonson feeds Tamara. Photo: Tamara Palinkat

Tamara is busy with her volunteer work but says she is spending as much time with Sonson as she can. Her face lights up when she talks about him.

According to Tamara, the little boy doesn’t have nightmares but does spend a lot of time lost in thought, staring in one direction for a long time as if reliving past events. Tamara says Sonson was very withdrawn at first but has slowly been coming out of his shell.

In the short time they have known each other, Sonson has become the center of Tamara’s world. She doesn’t know yet if her adoption bid for Sonson will be successful — for now, she is focusing on her volunteer work and staying hopeful.

- Mohammad Al-Kassim

On a recent trip to Israel, Worldfocus associate producer Mohammad Al-Kassim visited the school, where he met several young men who had found a new purpose in life through their studies there.

Michael Adlerstein, the Assistant Secretary-General in charge of renovation, says the project is long overdue because of the deteriorated physical state of the building.

The 39-floor Secretariat is plagued with hazards such as leaking roofs, asbestos, and antiquated HVAC systems.

New York architect Michael Adlerstein is no stranger to high profile projects, as he previously renovated New York’s Statue of Liberty and consulted on the preservation of India’s Taj Mahal.

Though the UN building is being renovated and remodeled, it will not necessarily have a new modern and futuristic look. “We are going back to the old coloring of the glass that has the film on there that was done for blast protection several years ago,” he said.

In fact, the building will look more like 1952 than 2010.

“Basically the UN will look exactly as it did when the ribbon was originally cut,” said Adlerstein.

The money for the renovation comes from the member states through a special assessment separate from the regular budget of the UN.

The project, which started in 2008, is budgeted at $1.87 billion and is scheduled to finish in 2013. The money for the renovation comes from the member states through a special assessment separate from the regular budget of the UN.

Once the renovations have been completed , the building will have a hybrid heating system, new insulation, and new lighting. Assistant Secretary-General Adlerstein noted that the new construction would result in lowering the energy consumption of the UN by more than half and the water consumption by over 45%.

- Mohammad al-Kassim

Israeli soldiers on leave in the city of Jaffa. Photo: Mohammad Al-Kassim

Talk about war is getting louder in the Middle Eastern press, with many speculating about a possible outbreak of hostilities not only between Israel and Hamas, but Israel and Syria, or Iran and a host of adversaries.

In a column in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, Bradley Burston writes, “The countdown to the Second Gaza War has begun in earnest.”

The peace process is widely believed to be at an impasse, and there are other significant developments as well.

This week Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak publicly warned Hamas “to watch its step,” while senior Hamas and other Palestinian factions are warning of another Israeli offensive on Gaza.

And last week Hamas blamed Israel’s Mossad for the killing of one of its a top commanders in Dubai, UAE, and vowed revenge.

The Israeli Air Force has stepped up its bombing of tunnels in Gaza and is reacting with airstrikes every time a rocket is launched out of Gaza towards Israel.

Meanwhile, in Gaza, two Palestinian factions claimed responsibility for planting two barrels of explosives that washed up in an Israeli port, marking a new tactic and an escalation of the conflict.

This week the top news out of Iran concerns the deployment of U.S. anti-missile systems off Iran’s coast in the gulf, leading to rising tensions with Tehran.

Some experts say heavyweight Saudi Arabia has been engaged in a proxy war with Iran in Yemen over Iran’s alleged support of the rebels there.

Israel could in theory find itself in a war on multiple fronts. Earlier this week in a bold statement, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said war with Syria was inevitable, and added that Iran is still a central danger to Israel’s security and all options are still on the table in how Israel deals with Iran.

Just last week, the London based pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported that Syria has called up its reserve military forces in anticipation of a full-scale war with Israel.

In Lebanon, the Secretary General of Hezbollah– the Lebanese Shi’a Islamist political and paramilitary group — Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, said his forces will “change the face of the Middle East region” if there is another war with Israel. The last time Israel and Hezbollah clashed was in the summer of 2006 and that war lasted for 34 days.

- Mohammad Al-Kassim

Mohammad watches the football game.

The news of the football match between Egypt and Algeria is dominating the front page headlines in both Egypt and Algeria Thursday. The rhetoric is high, and the war drum beat is getting louder.

The Algerian newspaper Al-Fajr devoted a portion of its web site page to the coverage of the match. The same was for true for Egypt’s leading newspaper Al Ahram, whose website greets viewers with a large colorful picture of Egyptian fans waving the red, white and black flag of their country at a stadium.

Meanwhile, the Algerian government is helping to shuttle at least a thousand of its citizens to watch the match in Angola.

For the Egyptians, this match is an opportunity to settle scores and regain its wounded national pride after its loss to Algeria in a playoff match in Khartoum, Sudan last November.

Fans of both teams were involved in violent clashes and accusations of mistreatment flew. Whether similiar passions will be ignited after this game remains to be seen.

- Mohammad Al-Kassim

When the quake struck, Kristensen was in his 3rd floor office preparing for a meeting. He considered trying to run out of the building but instead jumped under a desk. A bookcase fell against a filing cabinet in such a way that he had enough space in the rubble to stretch his arms and legs.

Kristensen, a citizen of Denmark, was without food or water for five days. Since he was largely unharmed, Kristensen chose to stay in Haiti to help with the rescue mission. Mohammad al-Kassim of Worldfocus spoke with him from Port-au-Prince.

Photos are courtesy of the United Nations on Flickr and United Nations television.

For more Worldfocus coverage of Haiti, visit our extended coverage page: Haiti’s Poor.

Soon afterward, General David Petraeus visited the Yemeni capital of Sana’a for a meeting with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, where he delivered a message of support from President Barack Obama.

The U.S. is pledging military aid to Yemen, a close U.S. ally and one of the world’s poorest countries, which is facing a civil war in the north and a separatist movement in the south.

Meanwhile, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for a conference to be held in London on January 27, 2010, to assist Yemen in its fight against al-Qaeda.

Mohammad al-Kassim interviews Abdullah Alsaidi, Yemen’s Ambassador to the U.N., about the Yemen’s battle against al-Qaeda in light of its own internal difficulties, as well as the Christmas day bomb attempt.

Also, listen to Worldfocus Radio: Yemen’s Multiple Wars.

Al-Qaeda in Yemen. Photo: Al Jazeera

Mohammad Al-Kassim is a producer with Worldfocus.

It took an incident like the Christmas day failed bombing of the Delta/Northwest airliner to bring Yemen to the forefront of the news in the U.S.

It was Yemen where Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was allegedly trained by al-Qaeda. Currently Yemen offers al-Qaeda the perfect environment to reorganize and reinvent itself, and that’s precisely why the world’s focus is now shifting to the small Arabian Peninsula nation.

It’s not news to many that Yemen has been a safe haven for al-Qaeda for many years. Yemen has a weak centralized government, tough terrain and rugged mountains — and a severely fragmented tribal population with little loyalty to the government.

Also, let’s not forget that Osama Bin Laden’s family was originally from Yemen, and the al-Qaeda mastermind still enjoys wide support there.

Last week, General David Petraeus visited the Yemeni capital of Sana’a for a meeting with President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Petraeus delivered a message of support from President Obama to the Yemeni president and told him the U.S. is pledging military aid to Yemen.

Meanwhile British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for a conference on terrorism to be held in Yemen at the end of this month. Officially, the Yemeni government is a close ally of the U.S. And it’s one of the world’s poorest countries despite being a neighbor to Saudi Arabia, which is the world’s largest oil exporters and among the region’s richest.

Internally, the weak central Yemeni government has its hands full. For the last six years, the Yemeni army have been engaged in a de facto civil war in the North with a Shi’a rebel group called the Houthis. Yemen’s government accuses the group of being loyal to Iran and receiving weapons from them. Fighting has escalated since last August.

Saudi Arabia’s army was sucked into the conflict when the Saudi government accused the Houthis of crossing the border and attacking a Saudi patrol. A short war ensued between Saudi Arabia and the rebels. Some experts - including Worldfocus contributing blogger Dwight Bashir - argue that Saudi Arabia is fighting a proxy war with Iran in Yemen.

The government also faces a strong secessionist movement in the south over perceived northern exploitation of its resources, as I reported last fall. Another problem facing Yemen is the influx of African refugees, mainly Somalis, who cross the Gulf of Aden to escape the failed Somali state. Al-Shabaab militants from Somalia have also threatened to join with al-Qaeda in the impoverished Arabian country.

The failed Christmas day bombing brought Yemen and its myriad problems forcefully to the forefront of the world’s headlines. Unfortunately, the Western media was reacting to events rather anticipating them. Hardly any Western news outlets had a real presence there until the Christmas attack.

It’s disturbing that it took such an event to shine the spotlight on Yemen. The crucial country should have been on the radar long ago.

- Mohammad Al-Kassim

A screenshot of Al Arabiya’s homepage showing Iran protesters.

Worldfocus’ Mohammad al-Kassim writes about bias in the Arab media’s depiction of events in Iran.

The post-presidential election demonstrations in Iran have been closely monitored by U.S. and Western media outlets, and the coverage is sympathetic with the reform movement.

But the coverage in the Middle East — especially the Gulf region — is conflicted.

Middle Eastern news outlets’ coverage of the events in Iran generally reflects the political ideology of the companies’ owners.

The Arabic-language satellite channel Al Jazeera, which is owned by the Qatari government, is the most influential channel in the Arab world — with an average of 45 million daily viewers. Al Jazeera continues to operate from Iran because of its favorable coverage of re-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Qatari government is Iran’s only ally in the Gulf.

Al Jazeera’s main rival satellite channel is Al Arabiya, which is based in Dubai and partly owned by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Al Arabiya has been very aggressive in its coverage of events in Iran, which led to its ban on reporting from there and the closing of its offices by the Iranian government

In Lebanon, the pro-Iran Hezbollah news web site Al-Manar is clearly in support of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his government. On its website, it reported on remarks made by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during which the Iranian supreme spiritual leader said that the protesters were a tool of the West and that opposition leaders were responsible for Iran’s problems.

Al-Manar also reported positively on the tens of thousands of government supporters who turned out for state-sponsored rallies.

Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat, an Arabic newspaper based in London, reported that Iran’s Foreign Minister said yesterday that if Britain doesn’t stop its support of the demonstrators, “it will be slapped on the mouth.”

That quote was the paper’s headline.

We can expect more of the same in the coming months, as Arab media organizations vie for political influence.

- Mohamad al-Kassim

For more, view our Voices of Iran extended coverage page and listen to our online radio show on Baha’i faith and modern Iran.

Currently, Barghouti is the Secretary-General of the Palestinian National Initiative, a political party that was formed in 2002 with Edward Said, Dr. Haidar Abdel-Shafi and Ibrahim Dakkak. The Initiative (al-Mubadara in Arabic) calls for nonviolent resistance against the Israel occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Worldfocus producer Mohammad al-Kassim recently interviewed Barghouti in New York. The rising Palestinian politician talks openly about the difficulties facing the Middle East process, infighting among Palestinians and the Obama administration. Despite all the obstacles, Barghouti feels surprisingly positive about the future.

Also, listen to Barghouti on Worldfocus Radio: Jerusalem United or Divided?

In one of the world’s most contentious cities, there are two conflicting claims to sovereignty over holy places and residential neighborhoods. East and West Jerusalem are divided along ethnic and religious lines — in addition to the separation fence that Israel built to secure the city.

Palestinians claim the eastern sections of the city as the capital of a future Palestinian state. While successive Israeli prime ministers have announced support for a two-state solution, there is ambivalence about how and when to alter the city’s political fabric.

Martin Savidge hosts Mustafa Barghouti and Gershon Baskin on this week’s Worldfocus Radio show “Jerusalem United or Divided?”

The radio show builds upon three Worldfocus signature videos about Israel — on hi-tech, divorce and settlements — and will focus on the following areas:

• Geography of Jerusalem: East and West, Old City, Temple Mount and security barrier
• Demographic Shift: secular flight, “Judaization,” and “united” capital city
• Shared Capital: unilateral statehood, joint sovereignty and Palestinian government

Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Photo: Ben Piven

GUESTS:

Mustafa Barghouti is the secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative (al-Mubadara), also known as the “third way.” A Ramallah resident, he serves in the Palestinian parliament (PLC) and was the Minister of Information in the short-lived Palestinian unity government. He came in second (with 19%) to Mahmoud Abbas in the 2005 presidential elections. He also appeared on the Daily Show last month.

Gershon Baskin is co-chairman of the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information, a Jerusalem-based organization committed to the two-state solution. He specializes in the future of Jerusalem, strategic cooperation and water issues. He was also on Israeli PM Ehud Barak’s team of Jerusalem experts following the Camp David talks.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Ben Piven and Lisa Biagiotti
Researcher: Mohammad al Kassim

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the children’s television show Sesame Street. I grew up with Sesame Street when my family lived in Kuwait, where we watched the Arabic version, called Open Sesame (Iftah ya Simsim).

The Arabic version included all the characters in the American Sesame Street with a few changes. For example, instead of Big Bird, it had a big, lovable character named No’man. The characters had Arabic names; Bert was Bader, Ernie was Anis and Kermit the Frog was Kamel the Frog.

No Arabic children’s program in the Middle East was as influential as Open Sesame.

Open Sesame had a major influence on me as a human being. It provided me with an alternative way of learning that hardly existed in the Arab world at the time. The show was made up of actors from around the Arab world. Thus, it familiarized us with the different accents that existed among Arabs from North Africa to Egypt, passing by Iraq and the Gulf.

Open Sesame encouraged and promoted sharing, friendship, and cooperation. It taught me about numbers, the alphabet, manners and waiting my turn. To this day, I still remember many songs I learned from the show about how to be a good neighbor, wash your hands and count to ten.

The show lacked the special effects that many children’s shows have now, yet its masterful use of puppets and the always-entertaining music revolutionized children’s educational programming and learning in a region that desperately needed it then — and more gravely needs it now.

Cath Turner of Al Jazeera English reports on Sesame Street’s impact in countries from Jordan to South Africa.

- Mohammad al Kassim

In a country where a woman is confined to her home, Joya is breaking all kinds of cultural, social and religious stereotypes. In May 2007, she was suspended after referring to the parliament as a stable, she said at least in “in a stable we have animals like a cow which is useful in that it provides milk and a donkey that carry a load.”

She speaks candidly about the challenges facing Afghanistan. She says that the low turnout in the presidential election is proof that the Afghan people are dissatisfied with the current government. She attributes the rise of Taliban to the failed policy of the U.S. in Afghanistan. She is also a staunch opponent of increasing U.S. troop levels in her country. Joya wants the U.S. and NATO to keep in mind that no foreign military has ever succeeded in controlling Afghanistan.

For her, the status of women now is no different than under the Taliban. She says that it may even be worse because the rate of suicide and abduction is high, and many rapists go untouched.

Because she is unabashedly outspoken, her life is under constant threat and she must be accompanied by bodyguards. But nothing so far seems to succeed in slowing her down. For sure not the many failed assassination attempts on her life, or the awful treatment she gets from her male colleagues in parliament.

Joya spent her childhood at a refugee camp in Iran and Pakistan, and returned to the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in the late 1990s and worked for an underground organization helping women. She is now on a book tour in the U.S.  promoting her memoir, A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Woman Who Dared to Speak Out, co-written by Derrick O’Keefe.

- Mohammad Al Kassim

Pottery, glass and ceramic making are ancient industries in Hebron, Palestine. The city’s leather, stone, glass and ceramic goods are found throughout Palestinian, Israeli and Arab markets — but this is changing with the advent of economic globalization and fierce competition from inexpensive Chinese goods. Additionally, the political instability that has plagued the region for many years scares away tourists.

Emad El Natche and his family own and operate a Hebron glass and ceramics factory. Mr. El Natche spends hours in front of a gas oven melting recycled glass bottles at high temperatures. No two pieces that Mr. El Natche creates are alike; he prides himself on the attention to detail each piece gets. He says all of his creations are unique because of the process that no machine can replicate.

Despite the challenges from globalization and a lack of master craftsmen, El Natche remains hopeful that this ancient craft is not going to disappear without a fight.

- Mohammad al Kassim

South Yemenis in favor of secession from the North protested around the world this week on the anniversary of an uprising against former colonial power Britain.  In New York, a few hundred vocal Americans of South Yemeni descent demonstrated outside the United Nations building.

South Yemen was an independent nation after the British left in 1967. North and South Yemen unified in 1990 and a new country- the new Republic of Yemen  - was born with Ali Abdullah Saleh as its leader and San’a as its capital.  But the union has been uneasy and southerners have complained of being marginalized.

“We are a nation living under occupation,” said Hamza Saleh Meqbel, Vice President of TAJ (Southern Democratic Assembly), a South Yemeni political organization based in the United States.
Mr. Meqbel says the central government in the capital Sanaa has reneged on all commitments it promised and signed with the south upon unification.

“The unification treaty is invalid because the regime in Sanaa has lost its credibility. It was supposed to be a partnership, but the north has turned to occupiers and we no longer want a part of this unity.”

Ahmad al Muthana, the President of TAJ, claims that his group represents the majority of people in the south. “We are constantly in communication with our brothers in the south, we fully support them in their struggle,” he says.

So far the separatist South Yemenis have resorted to peaceful means in their quest for independence, including marches and protests. But al Muthana says, “if the regime keeps oppressing and killing our people, we will turn to arms.  We have no choice.”
That sentiment was echoed by many of the protesters. On Friday, Yemen’s interior ministry banned demonstrations in the south.

The problem in the south is not the only challenge for the Yemeni government.  Its forces have also been engaged in a military confrontation with Shiite rebels in the north.  The Yemeni government accuses the rebels of being loyal to Iran.

An unstable Yemen may spell disaster for the rest of the world.

Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility on several attacks in Yemen against tourists and U.S. interests, most notoriously the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 in the Red Sea port of Aden.

Yemen’s intelligence and military apparatus are busy with rebels in the north, as well as the separatists in the South, which makes it easier for Al Qaeda members to operate inside the country.

- Mohammad al-Kassim

Mohammad Al-Kassim is an associate producer at Worldfocus. He blogs here about the popularity of soccer in Egypt.

Football, or soccer as it’s called in the U.S., is considered to be one of the most popular sports in the world. Millions of people make time during the month-long World Cup — which takes place every four years — to watch the matches.

I grew up playing football as a kid in Kuwait and Jerusalem. We kids played on any vacant lot we could find, in our neighborhood or our school’s dusty field. I have many scars and a few broken bones from playing the game. Football is a game without any class separation. For me and my friends, football was and still is the cheapest game out there.

My best childhood memories are those spent with my father — who was an avid football fan himself — watching the game. It was the only time he would set aside his worries and be transformed into a kid again.

Most nations around the world (with the possible exception of the U.S.) take the game very seriously.

In 1969, following the second North American qualifying round for the 1970 FIFA World Cup, Honduras and El Salvador engaged in a brief war following their intense soccer match. It wasn’t the only reason — but the tensions surrounding the game didn’t help. 

Egyptians are no exception; it is no secret to how much Egyptians love their local football teams, especially the Ahli, and Zamalek. But their passion and devotion to their national team borders on insanity.

The Egyptian national football team’s win in the African Cup last year sent thousands of flag waving Egyptians into the streets hugging and kissing each other.

Football brings a lot of emotions out in people — emotions that they themselves may not have known they had. It’s about national pride and identity. It’s when small countries show off their muscles, playing the “bully” big countries.

Currently, Egypt is hosting the FIFA U-20 World Cup, where its team is playing in the tournament. The regular World Cup, which will be held in South Africa,  is still a year away — so passionate football fans, especially the Egyptians, are getting their football fix by watching the under-20 tournament.

This story from Al Arabiya TV caught my eye.  It’s about a wedding that almost didn’t happen because it was scheduled for the same night Egypt was playing in that under-20 tournament.  The bride and groom found a novel solution.

I’ve translated it from Arabic.

Please view the original post to see the video.

Worldfocus producer Mohammad Al-Kassim blogs about Friday’s revelations on Iran.

The news that Iran was building a “semi-industrial enrichment fuel facility” dominated the international headlines today. Here is how the news was covered in some Middle Eastern media outlets.

Iran’s Press TV, a government-funded news channel, broke into its regularly scheduled programming to feature the press conference held by U.S. President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The 24-hour channel, which is based in Tehran and broadcasts in English, targets viewers outside Iran.

As she was talking to a correspondent in Vienna, Press TV anchor Nargess Moballeghi noted British PM Gordon Brown’s comment that “the most urgent challenge in the world we face today is Iran.” Ms. Moballeghi told her colleague that this statement was completely opposite a statement made by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who said that it was “climate change.”

On Alalam Web site, a government-funded 24-hour news channel airing in Arabic from Tehran, the top story was same as its sister channel, Press TV. The news article on Alalam was short, quoting Iran’s top nuclear program official who said there is nothing secret about Iran’s nuclear site and that the IAEA is aware of its existence, adding that Iran has the right to have a peaceful nuclear program.

On Al Arabiya, the all-news channel based in Dubai, the news of Iran’s secret nuclear sites overshadowed the rest of the day’s news. Al Arabiya has been very critical in its coverage of Iran’s presidential election.

In general, the channel — which is funded by Saudi money — is critical of Iran’s influence in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia feels that Iran is treading on its territory as the natural leader in the Muslim world.

Al Jazeera Arabic also joined in the coverage of the breaking news with the press conference from Pittsburg, PA. The headline of the story on its Web site read, “World powers pressure Iran,” and the story reported the views of both sides, adding the position of Russia and China. The news article also quoted the Iranian student’s news agency for Iran’s official statement.

Al Jazeera is funded by the government of Qatar and is generally viewed by the Iranian government as relatively biased against Iran.

People in the West assume that because Iran is a Muslim country, it must be friends with many counties in the region. On the contrary, Iran’s neighbors are equally opposed to it obtaining a nuclear program and weapons as the West is. The so-called moderate Arab states –Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan — are quietly calling to disarm Iran nuclear program. Watching these media outlets, one cannot help but notice that the coverage is a reflection of this position.

- Mohammad Al-Kassim

Ben Piven describes Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech on Wednesday, and the atmosphere at the U.N.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks before the United Nations General Assembly.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a wide-ranging speech to the U.N.’s General Assembly on Wednesday, emphasizing the ideological contrast between his Islamic values and Western materialism, which he blamed for the global economic downturn.

He strongly condemned Israel’s invasion of Gaza and also derided Jewish global influence. “The international community is calling the occupiers ‘peace-lovers’ and the victims ‘terrorists,’” said Ahmadinejad. But he didn’t repeat inflammatory comments about wiping Israel off the map or denying the Holocaust. Some commentators took this as a sign of Ahmadinejad’s newfound conciliatory attitude.

Even though the Iranian leader expressed some openness to American diplomatic gestures, his speech received mixed reactions from the audience at the U.N. Most Western delegations walked out of the General Assembly chamber after Ahmadinejad took the podium, but there was no heckling by visitors.

“Our nation has successfully gone through a glorious and fully-democratic election,” said Ahmadinejad, who also called for the “elimination of all nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.” Positioning himself as a third world populist, Ahmadinejad declared, “The hegemony and domination of a few governments is over.”

Throngs of pro-democracy protesters clamored for attention outside the world body’s New York headquarters. Many wore green, the color adopted by supporters of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi in June’s disputed elections.

Watch: Protesters outside United Nations headquarters.

Mohammad Al-Kassim describes how Ahmadinejad’s speech was portrayed in the Iranian press:

It’s true that he who has control of the flow of information has power over people.

For this reason alone, during the general assembly meetings each year, many governments dispatch an army of journalists to accompany their official delegates. It’s extremely important for high-ranking officials to be viewed in a certain way — to appear respected, intelligent and important in their countries.

That was evident during this year’s meeting, where presidents, prime ministers and high-ranking officials were surrounded by official media from their countries, who were carefully filming, writing and selectively editing their packages.

As part of my job at Worldfocus, every morning, I closely follow many news media outlets from the Middle East. What caught my eyes while scanning Iranian news outlets was how Ahmadinejad’s speech was covered by the Iranian media.

For example, Press TV — which is a government-funded English news channel — aired this broadcast report:

The package included footage of the Iranian president delivering his speech, and the camera cut to footage of an almost-full General Assembly hall — though from where I was seated, the hall looked mostly empty.

None of the Iranian media outlets that I checked mentioned any of the large number of vocal Iranian protesters outside the U.N. building. An article on the speech appeared on the Iranian government-funded Alalam news Web site, but it didn’t mention the walk outs or the demonstrations.