Freya Petersen

Born in New York City and raised in Australia, Petersen has worked as a journalist in Asia, Europe and the United States. Before taking up the post of deputy editor at GlobalPost, she lived for...

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Freya Petersen's Notebook:

June 20, 2009 12:07 ET

Chaotic Tehran protests continue despite warnings

Saturday in Tehran turned into another day of public protest, despite Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s announcement on Friday that the authorities would crack down on any unauthorized gatherings.

This report from ITN shows purported footage of the clashes in the streets Saturday. Riot police reportedly used tear gas and water cannon. There was also an unsubstantiated report of a suicide bomber, according to the report.

Notably, defeated presidential candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi were absent from a much-anticipated Guardian Council session, called to allow candidates to put forward their complaints about the election results. Mohsen Rezaei, another failed candidate, attended.

According to Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, the Council’s spokesman 10 percent of the ballot boxes would be re-counted.

 

March 13, 2009 21:13 ET

Women in Lebanon hail new, all-female taxi service

Driving a taxi in Lebanon is basically a man's job. Old men ply the streets in beat-up old Mercedes cars, the interiors smelling of old cigarettes and exhaust.

Although not common, I've heard female friends complain about male taxi drivers making unwanted advances. It seems to happen more to foreign women.

But now women in Lebanon, be they Lebanese or foreign, will have new, all-female taxi service to call on.

Called "Taxi Banet," or "Taxi for Women," the company incorporates a fleet of pink Peugeot taxis, and its all female driving team sports a pink uniform.

It's not the first time "female only" taxis have been used in the Arab world. The United Arab Emirates also employs them.

"Initially, I thought I would have a rough time finding female taxi drivers given that in Lebanon this is a man's job," Nawal Yaghi Fakhri, owner of "Taxi Banet" told Agence France-Presse. "But to my surprise I got about 40 requests."

The service is intended to cater to "wealthy female tourists from conservative Muslim countries in the Gulf region," AFP reported.

Gulf tourists flock to Lebanon's mountain villages and resorts during the summer months. It is not culturally acceptable in some countries for a woman to be in a vehicle with a man who is not her relative. In Saudi Arabia, it is prohibited by law.

In Lebanon, the new taxi service has sparked debate in some Lebanese internet chat rooms.

"This is shocking, preposterous, I can't find the words for something like that," said a chat room member named Jade. "This is pure segregation, sexism, and a way to show that women are different than men. Very, very, very, very bad step for Lebanon."

"I didn't see anything wrong with it" shot back another chatterer. "A lot of women will use their service. They will surely feel more comfortable and safe if the driver is a women."

February 16, 2009 21:21 ET | Updated: March 25, 2009 11:49 ET

Experts discuss the prospects for Mideast peace after the 2009 Gaza conflict

On Wednesday, Feb, 11, 2009, a forum took place on Gaza at Harvard Kennedy School's John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum, moderated by Nicholas Burns, formerly the highest-ranking career diplomat at the U.S. State Department, Shai Feldman, who has been deeply involved in "track two" dialogues between Israelis and Palestinians, and Rashid Khalidi, director of the Middle East Institute of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs.

R. Nicholas Burns is the Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Rockefeller Brother Fund, the Atlantic Council, the Center for the Study of Presidency and Congress and the Appeal of the Conscience Foundation. In summer 2008, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C.  Burns served in the United States Foreign Service for 27 years until his retirement in April 2008. He was Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 2005 to 2008, the nation's highest-ranking career diplomat. In this position, he led negotiations on Iran, India, Kosovo, and many other issues and oversaw U.S. diplomatic efforts in each region of the world.  Prior to that, he was United States Ambassador to NATO from 2001 to 2005 and Ambassador to Greece from 1997 to 2001. During his career in the State Department, Burns was State Department Spokesman for Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher (1995-1997). He also served for five years (1990-1995) at the White House during the collapse of the Soviet Union where he was Special Assistant to the President for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia Affairs and a member of the National Security Council staff. Burns also served in the American Consulate General in Jerusalem in 1985-87, when he coordinated U.S. economic assistance to the Palestinian people in the West Bank, and the American Embassies in Egypt and Mauritania. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Order of Saint John, and Red Sox Nation. Burns has a BA in History from Boston College (1978) where he graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He has an MA from the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (1980). He also earned the Certificate Pratique de Langue Francaise at the Sorbonne in 1977.

Shai Feldman is the director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. From 1997-2005, he served as Head of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. He also serves on the council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London and as a member of the Board of Directors of Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. From 2001-2003, he served as a member of the UN Secretary General's Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters. Feldman was a Senior Research Associate at the Jaffee Center since its establishment in late 1977. From 1984-1987, he was director of the Jaffee Center's Project on U.S. Foreign and Defense Policies in the Middle East and, from 1989-1994, he directed the Center's Project on Regional Security and Arms Control in the Middle East. In 1994, Feldman was a Visiting Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (BCSIA) at Harvard Univeristy's John F. Kennedy School of Government (1995-1997). Educated at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Feldman was awarded his Ph.D. by the University of California at Berkeley in 1980. Feldman is the author of numerous publications. These include: Israeli Nuclear Deterrence: A Strategy for the 1980s (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982); The Future of U.S.-Israel Strategic Cooperation (Washington D.C.: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1996); Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control in the Middle East (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997); Bridging the Gap: A Future Security Architecture for the Middle East (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997 with Abdullah Toukan (Jordan); and, Track-II Diplomacy: Lessons from the Middle East (Cambridge, MA. MIT Press, 2003).

Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies in the Department of History at Columbia University. He received his B.A. from Yale University in 1970, and his Ph.D from Oxford University in 1974. He has taught at the Lebanese University, the American University of Beirut, and Georgetown University. He taught at the University of Chicago for 16 years. He is past President of the Middle East Studies Association, and was an advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid and Washington Arab-Israeli peace negotiations from October 1991 until June 1993. He is editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies.

Khalidi is the author of Sowing Crisis: American Dominance and the Cold War in the Middle East (2009); The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood (2006), which has been translated into French; Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East (2004), which has been translated in French, Italian and Spanish; Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (1997). co-winner of the Middle East Studies Association's Albert Hourani Prize as best book of 1997, which has been translated into French and Italian; Under Siege: PLO Decision-making during the 1982 War (1986), which has been translated into Arabic and Hebrew; and British Policy towards Syria and Palestine, 1906-1914 (1980); and is co-editor of Palestine and the Gulf (1982) and The Origins of Arab Nationalism (1991). He has written over ninety scholarly articles on aspects of Middle East history and politics, as well as op-ed pieces in The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune and The Nation. Dr. Khalidi has been a guest on numerous radio and TV shows including All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, Morning Edition, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer and Nightline, and on the BBC, Radio France Inter, the CBC and the Voice of America.

February 13, 2009 08:55 ET | Updated: March 25, 2009 11:49 ET

Despite Afghanistan, Obama must focus elsewhere, Arab analysts say

As strife in Afghanistan diverts world attention to U.S. involvement in that region, leading Arab analysts have warned that Barack Obama risks losing his current popularity in the Arab world by delaying action on the Palestinian issue, Iraq and political reform elsewhere in the Middle East.

In a timely reminder of the task at hand, a female suicide bomber blew herself up in a crowd of Shiite pilgrims in the southern Iraqi city of Kerbala on Friday, killing 32 people and wounding 84 others south of Baghdad during one of the holiest events of the Shiite calendar, Reuters reported.

Leading Arab analysts and writers, in a report commissioned by the Carnegie Middle East Center, write that the Obama administration to focus immediately on the Palestinian issue, using its influence with Israel to halt settlement activity and acting as an honest broker in peace negotiation.

Failure to do so, they say, risks reviving regional anti-American hostility.

According to the analysts, Gamal al-Ghitany, Khaled al-Hroub, Salah ad-Din al-Jourchi, and Mustapha al-Khalfi — prominent journalists, academics, and activists — the widespread belief that the United States is an ally of regional dictators and an unquestioning supporter of Israel colors Arab perceptions of every American move in the region.

They argue that pressuring Israel to fulfill its commitments vis-à-vis the Palestinians is the only way to rebuild U.S.–Arab relations and rehabilitate the United States’ image in the Middle East.

Carnegie’s Amr Hamzawy and Marina Ottaway, who compiled the commentaries, conclude in the report:

“Obama’s election was a public diplomacy triumph for the United States, the first real success the United States has won in the Arab world in a long time, and probably the most important one since President Eisenhower backed Egypt’s efforts to regain control of the Suez Canal in 1956. Yet the success could prove short-lived: Arabs were reacting to concrete change, not to words, and are likely to revert to the old hostility unless Obama’s words are backed by concrete changes in U.S. Middle East policies.”

Meanwhile, Obama's new envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan met key ministers in the Afghan capital on Friday, two days after triple Taliban attacks in the city killed 26 people.

Wednesday's attacks on government buildings show how hard it is for the Afghan government and its Western backers to ensure security, even with dozens of police checkpoints in Kabul and armed guards at the entrance of every state office.

The attack in Iraq, on the pilgrimage route in Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of the capital, came a day after a bomb killed eight in the Shiite holy city of Kerbala, to which hundreds of thousands if not millions were headed to mark Arbain.

January 30, 2009 08:42 ET

All hail Erdogan: Hero's return after Davos storm-out

After his dramatic walk-out at the Davos World Economic Forum, as reported Thursday by GlobalPost's Turkey correspondent Nichole Sobecki, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has returned to Istanbul to a hero's welcome.

Erdogan, on-stage at Davos with Israeli President Shimon Peres, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and Arab League chief Amr Moussa during a heated debate over the recent conflict in Gaza, had accused Israel of "knowing very well how to kill" during a heated debate.

The outburst was in response to Peres's defense of his country's offensive in Gaza. With a raised voice and pointed finger, he had questioned what Erdogan would do if rockets were fired at Istanbul every night.

"When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill," Erdogan responded.

Turkey, a predominantly Muslim but secular country that historically has had good ties with Israel and the Arab world, sought a role in brokering an end to the Gaza conflict by lobbying the Islamist Hamas group to declare a cease-fire. But Turkey's relationships with its neighbors have been complicated by the Gaza conflict, and more broadly by its own inner struggles to reconcile its identities as both a predominantly Muslim population and an avowedly secular nation. This has also colored its recent dealings with Western nations, notably the United States, whose presence in Iraq and cooperation in fighting the PKK are issues of vital importance to Turks.

Its hoped-for accession to the European Union as a member state has likewise recently thrust Ankara — and Erdogan, particularly — into the spotlight, particularly with regard to Turkey's economic, political and religious compatibility with the 27-member bloc.

So it looks like Erdogan — who political opponents charge is, along with his Islamist-rooted AK Party, a threat to Turkey's secular traditions — ends the week on a high note, at home anyway.

On Friday, thousands of people gathered at Istanbul's Ataturk airport to greet Erdogan when he returned from Davos, waving Turkish and Palestinian flags and chanting "Turkey is proud of you."

"Our people would have expected the same reaction from any Turkish prime minister," he told a news conference at Ataturk airport, according to Reuters.

"This was a matter of the esteem and prestige of my country. Hence, my reaction had to be clear. I could not have allowed anyone to poison the prestige and in particular the honor of my country," he said.

Erdogan said Turkey's reproaches were not against the Israeli people or Jews but against the Israeli administration.