The case of a 37-year old mother-of-three, arrested by religious police for being in the presence of an unrelated male at a Starbucks coffee shop in the Saudi capital, continues to make waves.

Sources close to the story tell CNN the woman in question is of Palestinian origin and holds a U.S. passport. She lives in the coastal city of Jeddah and travels on business to the more conservative capital, Riyadh, once a week.

Sources tell CNN the woman was taken away fromt the Starbucks, threatened with violence, left incommunicado for hours, forced to sign a confession and was strip searched in prison.

Sources add that the man she was with at the Starbucks, a Syrian national, is actually the woman's employee. He has indicated that he is unwilling to speak out for fear of being deported from Saudi Arabia.

The woman, whose first name is Yara, was detained for several hours before being released to her husband. They are now both back in Jeddah.

-- Producer Mohammed Jamjoom contributed to this update.

Masked gunmen are thought to have torched the school's buses a few weeks ago. Camerman David Hawley films what is left of them under an awning close to the school.

Kids playing with David's camera at the American International School. (February 2008)

-- By CNN's Ben Wedeman

I'm stuck at the Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza. The reason? Apparently my bullet proof jacket has suspicious particles on it. The security personnel here at the israeli terminal couldn't tell me more than that.





In the meantime I've been asked for my cellphone number- I initially refused but relented when it began to look like I would be here forever. Then a beefy security man sat down and asked me about Gaza. Who I worked with, how long I've known them, where I stayed in Gaza, whether I stayed by myself in my room at the hotel (what was he insinuating? I told him Gaza is not Tel Aviv, Israel's sin city). Then he left me to sit for an hour in the passport control area.

The Israeli terminal at the Erez crossing is infamous. Colleagues have been detained for hours, strip searched, interrogated. Israelis of course have reason to be security conscious, and the army and police are on high alert after the suicide bombing in Dimona Monday, which left one Israeli dead.

Nonetheless it is frustrating when you know you're being held back by mistake. Before leaving CNN's Jerusalem bureau Wednesday, I grabbed a flack jacket on a pile in the back of the office. I never wore the thing on this trip to gaza, since we were doing a story on the American International School there. (More on that later). The children at the school would hardly fit into the category of bloodthirsty fanatics.

Another thing I find puzzling. A year and a half ago cameraman Adil Bradlow and I went to a workshop where militants were making rockets to fire into Israel. The cramped rooms where they worked reaked of chemicals which had spilled all over the floor. But when we passed through all the israeli controls, the x-rays, the particle detectors and the like, nothing showed up.

Go figure.

So I'm still sitting here, passing the time writing for Hala's blog. Apart from the frustration of waiting, I can't complain too loudly. I've been given a cup of coffee, offered food (I'm not hungry) and entertained with such questions as "what was your grandfather's name? What is your email address and what is your home phone number?" No, I haven't been strip searched (yet), or worse.

And I'd love to include pictures for the blog but here photography is forbidden.

Update: After two and a half hours waiting, a nice woman in civilian clothing gave me my passport with a smile and off I went. Needless to say next time I go to Gaza I'll leave my flack jacket there. The problem is that one of the most dangerous areas in Gaza is the Erez Crossing. I guess that means everytime I go to Gaza, I will have to leave a flack jacket behind. This could start proving costly.

Filming outside a school in Amman, Jordan last October. Jordan ranked among the best performing education systems in the World Bank report.

The report goes on to say that the education system is not tailored to the job market and does not do enough to hone students' analytical skills.

In other words: going to school in the Middle East doesn't help you find employment and does little to help you understand the world better.

This reminds me of another rather discouraging statistic in the Middle East: According to a 2002 Arab Human Development, the entire Arab world translates about 330 books a year. To put it in perspective, that is one fifth the number of books that Greece translates in the same time period.

Find the full World Bank report here.

What do you think needs to be done to improve the education system in the Middle East? Send us an email at mideast@cnn.com or add a comment below.

--Posted by Hala Gorani

A married mother-of-three found herself on the wrong side of the Saudi vice police in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, when she was taken into custody for having coffee with a male business colleague at a local Starbucks.

From today's Arab News website:


According to the article, the man Yara met with, a Syrian national, was also taken into custody and remains in detention.

Check out the full story here.

-- By CNN's Atika Shubert

We've set up our live shot location just meters away from where the suicide bomber detonated. It's a grisly scene. There is a large splatter of blood on one of the walls and body parts are strewn across the road. We had to step carefully to avoid a torn finger. We pointed it out to the police who bagged it for evidence and scooped up another small body part stuck under our equipment.

It seems like the whole town has come out to watch. Teens, parents toting babies, shopkeepers and bank employees. They climb onto rooftops to get a better view. As they gawk at the gory scene, they speculate about the attackers.




"Terrorists from Gaza!" Screams one woman in the crowd. Other residents shout back in agreement. Dimona is a small town relatively close to the Egypt border. Residents here fear Palestinian militants slipped across the Gaza-Egypt border when it was blown open last month. Then travelled through the desert across the Egypt-Israel border.

But police say they don't know who carried out the attack yet. They are still combing the scene on their hands and knees. They still need to gather the evidence - and the body parts.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees has just released its latest report on Iraqi refugees in Syria.