All Blog Posts from World Watch

The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded in Oslo, Norway on Friday at 11 a.m. local time – that's 5 a.m. in New York – and while there is no clear frontrunner, a few names have emerged as the top contenders.

Among them are two Chinese dissidents, Hu Kia and Wei Jingsheng, whose victory would likely draw vocal protests from the Chinese government. Hu, as the Wall Street Journal reports, is a human rights and AIDS activist who went to prison for three-and-a-half years for "subversion," while Wei spent 17 years in prison and eventually moved to the United States.

Such an award would have particular resonance as 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, as well as 60 years since the the People's Republic of China was created. But there are reports that the Nobel committee is wary of challenging a major power such as China or Russia; some speculate that Hu and Wei, along with other activists like Gao Zhisheng, could thus lose out, as they did last year.

The leading candidate according to the oddsmakers at paddypower.com is an Afghan: Human rights activist Seema Samar, who is listed at 9/2. A medical doctor, Samar has seen her husband arrested, had to flee the country for her safety, and has been threatened with death for questioning sharia law. The U.N. special envoy to Darfur in Africa, Samar has been an outspoken advocate for women's rights.

Another top candidate is Colombian senator Piedad Cordoba, tapped by CNN as the frontrunner; Cordoba, the head of Colombians for Peace, has tried to end the conflict between her country's government and the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. She has secured the release of 16 hostages and was kidnapped herself in 1999; critics have complained, however, that she is too close to rebels.

Among the most familiar names on the list is Morgan Tsvangirai (pictured at top), the Zimbabwean opposition leader and prime minister who has faced arrest and intimidation at the hands of President Robert Mugabe; Tsvangirai worked out a tenuous power-sharing agreement with Mugabe following the disputed 2008 election.

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On Tuesday, Muntazer al-Zaidi – better known as the shoe thrower – is expected to be released from a Baghdad prison. (He was supposed to be released today, but the Associated Press reports there were delays in processing his paperwork.)

Al-Zaidi, of course, is the journalist who threw a pair of shoes, one at a time, at then-President George W. Bush last December. "This is your farewell kiss, you dog!," he yelled at a press conference. "This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq." The memorable video is at left.

The incident turned the previously unheralded reporter into a hero among many in the the Arab world, where Mr. Bush was exceedingly unpopular. His expected release from prison is now being widely celebrated.

According to the Telegraph, Al-Zaidi "has been offered cars, money, a penthouse apartment by the television station for which he worked, and presents ranging from the eccentric, such as a statue of a golden horse, to the traditional, such as a wife."

The Guardian, which says "Zaidi has won the adulation of millions, who believe his act of defiance did what their leaders had been too cowed to do," reports that "pictures of the president ducking have been etched onto walls across Baghdad, made into T-shirts in Egypt, and appeared in children's games in Turkey."

"After the event, we had callers from Palestine and many women asking to marry him, but we didn't take their names," Al-Zaidi's editor told the newspaper.

A Palestinian man said he was prepared to offer the journalist "a bride loaded with gold" – one of his daughters, along with a significant amount of money. One Bahraini businessman, the Gulf Daily News reported, offered to drive his Mercedes limousine to Baghdad and give it to Al-Zaidi.

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The families of the three American hikers apparently detained by Iranian authorities after mistakenly crossing the unmarked border from Iraqi Kurdistan into Iran have put out a statement calling for the hikers' release.

The three Americans – Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal – have now been missing for 12 days.

"As loving parents, nothing causes us more heartache than not knowing how our children are, and not being able to talk to them and learn when we will hold them in our arms again," the families write in the statement.

"Shane, Sarah and Josh are young travelers who share a great love of the world and a deep respect for different cultures, societies and religions," they write. "We believe that when the Iranian authorities speak to our children, they will realize that Shane, Sarah and Josh had no intention of entering Iran and will allow them to leave the country and reunite with their families."

"We continue to hope that this misunderstanding will be resolved as quickly as possible,” they add.

Bauer is a 27-year-old freelance journalist who has been living in Damascus, Syria with the 31-year-old Shourd, an English teacher who has been preparing for graduate school. Fattal, 27, is an environmentalist who teaches sustainable living skills in Oregon. (Pictured above: Dukan Resort near Sulaimaniyah, where the three hikers were last seen.)

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On Friday, July 31st, three American hikers disappeared while on a hiking vacation in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Iranian state television reported soon after that the three were detained by Iranian authorities upon crossing the border into Iran, though an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said yesterday he could not confirm whether the Americans had been detained.

Now the fourth member of the hiking party, Shon Meckfessel, has released a statement explaining how the Americans ended up in or near the Iranian border. Meckfessel, it appears, would have been with the missing group but came down with a cold and decided to stay behind.

According to the statement, links to which Meckfessel emailed to CBS News, the three hikers had no idea they were nearing Iranian territory. (Pictured above: Dukan Resort near Sulaimaniyah, where the three hikers were last seen.)

"In late July the four of us decided to travel from Damascus, Syria to Iraqi Kurdistan for a short vacation," Meckfessel writes. "Sarah [Shourd, one of the missing Americans] had to return to work in a week. While going there might seem strange to Americans, the Kurdish territory is actually very beautiful and quite safe. Since the Kurds gained autonomy in 1992, no American has ever been harmed there. The city of Sulaimania is increasingly popular with tourists, and a friend of ours told us it was the most beautiful area he'd ever seen."

(A note here: As you'll see on this page, the U.S. State Department "continues to warn U.S. citizens of the dangers inherent in travel to Iraq and recommends against all but essential travel in country given the fluid security situation.")

Meckfessel writes that the tourists asked numerous people where they should go to experience the area's mountainous terrain, and were told to visit a place called Ahmed Awa.

"Not one of these people mentioned that Ahmed Awa was anywhere near the Iranian border," he writes. "In fact, on the wall of our hotel there were three photos of tourists standing near the Ahmed Awa waterfall."

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Twenty years ago – before Twitter, before Facebook and even before the Internet was widely used at all – anti-government protests broke out in China. Though the grievance was different, the participants were similar: students, intellectuals and young people who took to the streets to demand reform. And in Beijing, as in Tehran, some of them ended up dead.

There are no clear numbers on how many died in the Tiananmen Square massacre, but it is believed to be in the thousands – far more than have been killed so far in Iran. Yet the government was essentially successful: The regime stayed in power, dissidents were arrested, and limits on free speech became even more deeply ingrained in the culture.

Could they have done the same today? The Iranian government has similarly tried to censor media coverage, yet the world has had access to an intimate and immediate accounting of the protests, the subsequent killings and the palpable anger in Tehran's streets. And while the situations are not identical, it's certainly notable that after initially backing the election results, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei changed course and said there would be an investigation.

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The first meeting between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu, as leaders of the United States and Israel, has resulted in one unspoken headline: There is hardly any chance that Israel will bomb Iran this year.

Netanyahu publicly thanked President Obama for keeping all "options on the table," the current euphemism for a possible military strike aimed at Iranian nuclear facilities. Mr. Obama, however, for the first time specified that he wants to talk to the Islamic Republic of Iran until the end of this year -- and then assess whether there has been any progress.

Israel's new government leaders have clearly stated they will not get in Mr. Obama's way in his desire to engage with Iran. The Israelis strongly doubt that such efforts will work -- and certainly clandestine activities by the Mossad will continue, as will planning by Israel's air force -- but it is an extremely important part of Israel's foreign and defense policies not to anger the President of the United States. So long as Mr. Obama is talking with Tehran (assuming that Iran agrees to start talks after that country's national election on June 12), he will not give the green light to an Israeli attack.

Dan Raviv is host of radio's CBS News Weekend Roundup and author of Friends In Deed: Inside the U.S.-Israel Alliance and other books.

A disturbing video that aired last month on ABC News depicting what appears to be the torture of an Afghan grain farmer by a member of Abu Dhabi's royal family may represent just one of many instances of torture involving Sheik Issa bin Zayed al-Nahayan, a brother of the crown prince.

The ABC report on the video is here. It shows a man identified as Sheik Issa "mercilessly torturing a man with whips, electric cattle prods and wooden planks with protruding nails." A man in a United Arab Emirates police uniform assists with the torture. The victim – reportedly an Afghan grain dealer – also has salt poured on his wounds and is run over with a Mercedes SUV.

In parts of the tape not aired, Sheik Issa reportedly pours lighter fuel on the victim's testicles and lights them on fire and inserts a cattle prod into the victim's anus.

Abu Dhabi is the capital of the UAE, one of the world's leading exporters of oil. The Nahayan's are its ruling family. The tape was reportedly made by the brother of Bassam Nabulsi, an American businessman and former partner of Sheik Issa who is now engaged in a lawsuit against him, at the request of the Sheik.

After the report aired, the UAE government said it would investigate the incident, with the Abu Dhabi Justice Department vowing to "conduct a comprehensive review of the matter immediately and make its findings public."

But the tape might just be the first piece of evidence in a wider scandal. The Guardian reported on Sunday that the lawyer for Nabulsi, Sheik Issa's former partner, claims to have "more than two hours of video footage showing Sheikh Issa's involvement in the torture of more than 25 people." According to the newspaper, police are believed to be seen participating in the attacks and some of the victims are thought to be Sudanese immigrants.

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