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Hey folks. Check out my feature on Women’s eNews on Muslim ladies using the Internet to find love.

I don’t think I’ve ever written a stranger headline than the one for this blog post. But it’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a bizarre and disturbing story.

In standard Al Jazeera style, the news network ran a May 5 story on Gazans having to burn baby chicks due to power shortages. The Israeli blockade has the whole area constantly teetering on the edge of a power catastrophe. Apparently, there is not enough energy to power the incubators to keep the chicks warm.

The solution is to “incinerate them,” as Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna tactfully reports. Why they couldn’t let the chicks just run free is unclear. Perhaps chickens running around would have added to the chaotic state of life in Gaza.

Al Jazeera’s stories are far less tame than the standard American fare. The network doesn’t mince words or pictures. It often shows the blood and gore that American news networks veer away from. This is a feature that has drawn the ire of America’s politicians, most notably former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and President George W. Bush.

Be forewarned: This is not a video for the faint of heart.

PHOTO: The Israel Knesset (parliament) in Jerusalem, Francisco Martins, flickr. 

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has threatened to “wipe Israel off the map.” Israeli leaders have nuclear weapons all but aimed at Iran and have spoken menacingly about their dislike of the country’s leadership.

This is the kind of political environment in which Iranian Jews exist.

The Iranian Jewish leader in Israel spoke out on Monday saying his community would not celebrate the 60th anniversary of Israel’s creation. “We are in complete disagreement with the behavior of Israel,” Siamak Morsadegh, the incoming Jewish member of the Parliament said.

He criticized recent Palestinian deaths in Gaza as the reason for his speaking out.

Iranian Jews, he said, face “no specific problems” in Israel. His comments, however, will most certainly make other more hardline Jewish leaders in the Parliament cringe, at the very least.

Iran has the largest community of Jews in the Middle East outside of Israel. Like other Jews across the world, many of them immigrated to Israel after the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.

PHOTO: Internet Cafe in Cairo. Paul Nendick, flickr. 

Facebook could be an Arab leader’s worst nightmare. An open forum for discussion, networking and planning that’s not easily controlled? The prospect would make the most ruthless dictator shudder.

That’s what Egyptian officials did recently when they detained Esraa Abdel-Fattah, a Facebook user and founder of the site’s group “6 April: A Nationwide Strike”. The goal of the group was to organize a peaceful strike to protest rising food prices. At the heart of the matter is bread, a staple in the Egyptian diet. Wheat prices have rapidly increased this year and the Egyptian government has spent an extra $850 million to cover the costs of government subsidized bread.

Abdel-Fattah, 23, was detained for 16 days and has been reluctant to speak about her detention. Others, however, have not been so quiet. In an ironic twist sure to delight the Egyptian government, a Facebook group called “Free Esraa and her Companions!” demanded the release of Abdel-Fattah and other bloggers or online rabble-rousers who are still being pestered by authorities.

PHOTO: Palestinian hip hop group DAM performs at a party. From left to right, Tamer Naffar, Mahmoud Jreiri. Agnes Varnum, flickr.

Hip hop blasts and booms from the clubs young Americans frequent on weekends. Besides for dancing, however, hip hop and its cousin, rap, have served as ways to transmit political, cultural and societal commentary.

The Chicago Palestine Film Festival at the Gene Siskel Film Center is showing the documentary Slingshot Hip Hop, a film that was screened at the Sundance Film Festival and offers a deep look at the lives of young Palestinian rappers. These guys and girls rap about the booms and blasts they experience on a regular basis.

The movie follows Palestinian rappers in the West Bank, Israel and Gaza. Although they are miles apart, they have never met each other and got to know each other via the Internet. The stark differences in their lives, even though they are all Palestinian, are fascinating.

The rappers in Gaza have to deal with the electricity going out in the middle of a recording session. DAM, a group from Lod in North Israel, struggles to get paid by their music producers. One girl rapper has had threats from family to cut it out, or else.

 The next screening is on May 3 at 8:00 p.m.

Click here for a short YouTube clip from the movie.

PHOTO: Stray dog in Saqqara, Egypt, Matt Handy, flickr 

SPARE, the Society of Protecting Animal Rights in Egypt, protects animals that are often the targets of poison and killing campaigns to reduce their numbers. The site arranges adoptions of rescued pets, usually to Europeans who take the animals home with them.

Some of the animals are abused to get rid of them, others for entertainment’s sake.

One thing not readily addressed on the site as far as I can tell is how Islam views animals. If people followed Islamic guides on treating animals, it seems the animals and animal rights activists would be happy.

The Qur’an and the Prophet Muhammad set out guidelines for how to treat animals. Among other things, Muslims are instructed to not overwork animals and make sure they are well-fed and cared for.

While dogs are considered unclean, a hadith notes that the prophet forgave a prostitute because she had brought water to a thirsty dog milling around a well.

There are directions that animals for food should be slaughtered with a sharp knife to minimize suffering and away from progeny. Animals should also not be killed without a purpose.

PHOTO: Nof Zion, an Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem, Franz Elzenbaumer, flickr

Israeli President Ehud Olmert just gave the OK for 750 housing units to be built in the West Bank settlement of Givat Ze’ev.

Olmert has barred ministries from approving new settlements without his approval, but this expansion will not likely go over well with Palestinians. Settlements are a key issue in the Arab-Israeli conflict because Palestinians want the West Bank in its entirety as part of a future Palestinian state.

The approval came days after a Jewish seminary was targeted by a Palestinian bomber, killing several students.

Housing minister Zeev Boim released a statement saying “The addition of hundreds of housing units is part of a policy aimed at meeting demand and keeping prices level, while addressing the demographic needs of Jerusalem.”

Condoleezza Rice made a trip to rally Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas back to the negotiating table after Israel’s recent offensive in Gaza that killed more than 120 Palestinians, many of them civilians.

The Bush administration has done little to allay the turbulent Arab-Israeli conflict, but what about the current candidates? Hillary Clinton already has some experience in that area of the world, but New York Times blogger Nicholas Kristof takes a look at what Obama might offer. Will any of the candidates make bold moves to change the status quo?

PHOTO: Abu Ghraib torture stencil, Duncan C, flickr 

Abu Ghraib sticks out as one of the most shocking moments of the Iraq War. When pictures of the torture and humiliation that took place at the prison were released in 2004, the world was dumbfounded.

A new film by American filmmaker Errol Morris revisits the incident in a film he has called “non-fiction horror”. The film won the Silver Bear trophy at the Berlin International Film Festival.

In the Al Ahram interview (which was strangely conducted by a former researcher and intern for the film. Slight conflict of interest, perhaps?) Morris recounts how it felt to interview both Americans who were involved in the torture at Abu Ghraib and Iraqis who were subjected to it. There are reenactments spliced into the film and the photographs that first brought the scandal to light are also included.

 The film is set to be released in April 2008 in the U.S.

PHOTO: Hamas supporters, eremi, flickr

Hamas’ current control of Gaza made the Bush administration extremely unhappy. When the group wrenched power from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a coup last year in the summer, sanctions were imposed on Gazans, supplies were stopped, funding from nations across the world stopped flowing in and the tiny territory was sealed off from the world for its choice in electing Hamas.

None of these events seem to be in line with the Bush administration’s loathing of Hamas, but an expose by Vanity Fair reveals that Hamas’ recent rise to power is because the Bush administration made some shockingly sloppy and perhaps senseless moves behind the scene.

Palestinians in Gaza voted in favor of Hamas in 2006 because they saw Fatah’s government as corrupt and ineffective. Having surreptitiously armed Fatah’s Muhammad Dahlan’s security forces to wield against Hamas, it appears the Bush administration just increased support for the group.

The whole scheme has backfired in the Bush administration’s face, not to mention created a lot more turbulence in an area that doesn’t look like it can take much more.

PHOTO: Cairo at sunset, Selva Morales, flickr 

The issue of homosexuality in the Middle East is a very sensitive one. It is widely considered taboo and sinful, to say the least, and is therefore not discussed. A crackdown in Egypt on men suspected to have HIV and assumed to be homosexuals has forced people in the Middle East to notice the issue whether they like it or not. 

Egyptian authorities have been focusing more efforts toward stopping homosexual activity and using tactics that have made human rights advocates cry foul. They have conducted forced anal examinations to confirm homosexual activity, imprisoned men accused of it and also contacted their acquaintances in the process. This follows previous attempts to clamp down on the issue.

The issue has prompted discussion from political, religious and human rights leaders.

Being gay is socially and religiously unacceptable by most accounts in this part of the world. Nevertheless, a timid discussion, on the airwaves and in the papers at least, has been brewing the last few years, especially following the release of the movie The Yacoubian Building, which addresses the issue as part of its storyline on corruption.