-- By CNN´s Atika Shubert

Monopoly, the world's best-selling board game, is going global. A simple idea, substituting the iconic properties of the original game with hallmark cities of the world.

Hasbro is letting people vote on its Web site for which cities to include in the new game.



In this celebration of capitalism, would-be moguls could buy up properties in cities such as Moscow, Russia; Tokyo, Japan and Jerusalem, Israel.

Wait. Nix that last one -- at least the Israel part.


Given the white-hot controversy over Israel -- the world's most fought-over piece of real estate -- should the board game refer to "Jerusalem, Israel" even though Palestinians say Jerusalem will be the capital of any future Palestinian state? Should it say "Jerusalem, Palestine?"


Instead of rolling the dice, parent company Hasbro is taking the middle ground.
The company is letting people vote on its Web site for which cities to include in the new game -- "Dublin, Ireland" for example. It recently removed "Israel" after "Jerusalem" and then eventually removed all of the country names.

Hasbro told The Associated Press that a mid-level employee decided on her own to take out "Israel" after pro-Palestinian groups and bloggers complained -- sparking even more protests from the other side.


"It was never our intention to print any countries on the final boards and any online tags were merely used as a geographic reference to help with city selection," Hasbro said in a written statement. "We would never want to enter into any political debate. We apologize for any upset this has caused our Monopoly fans."

Taking that stance may be Hasbro's "Get of jail free" card, allowing it to sidestep a sticky political situation that's anything but fun and games.


Sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, the Holy City has sparked wars since the crusades and beyond. It's no different today, even in the world of Monopoly.


An Israeli lobbying group, One Jerusalem, is driving an Internet campaign that pushed the city to 5th place in the Monopoly vote -- guaranteeing Jerusalem a spot on the board -- before Hasbro made the leaderboard a secret to add mystery to the final days of voting.


Internet voting on the top 20 cities ends Thursday, February 28. Two wild card cities will be added later on.

One Jerusalem's goal is to solidify Jewish claims on the city shared by three major religions.

"If it appears on the Monopoly board and everyone is buying and selling and renting and trading over Jerusalem," said the group's Yechiel Lieter. "Surely, that will enhance the consciousness of Israel's monopoly over Jerusalem."

The UAE's telecoms regulator (TRA) will soon ban sections of the networking sites Facebook and Myspace, according to local reports.

(Photo Associated Press)

From Arabianbusiness.com:


However, sections of social networking websites including Facebook and Myspace, which encouraged dating would be banned under the new policy."

Read the full article here.

You often hear people in the region say they will never live long enough to see peace in the Middle East.

--From AP:

The advice stemmed from the government's concern for the safety of Saudis who wish to travel abroad, according to SPA.

-- By CNN's Alphonso Van Marsh in Cairo

In Egypt, apparently membership has its privileges... and owning a Jeep vehicle is entrée into the "Jeep Club". The group is run by carmaker DaimlerChysler (owner of the Jeep brand) and holds monthly four-wheeling, off-road treks across the country.

CNN is following the story of Fawza Falih, currently detained in Quraiyat Prison, set to be executed for "witchcraft."

Reacting to the sentence, Human Rights Watch said in a media release:

"The religious police who arrested and interrogated Fawza Falih and the judges who tried her in the northern town of Quraiyat never gave her the opportunity to prove her innocence against absurd charges that have no basis in law."

Check out the letter HRW sent to Saudi King Abdullah here.

Watch CNN's report on the case here.

It was raining today in Beirut, and rival factions in Lebanon gathered on the streets of the country's capital to mourn their slain leaders.

In Martyr's Square, at the heart of the pristine, rebuilt center of Beirut, tens of thousands of March 14th supporters chanted and held up placards in honor of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, assassinated this day three years ago.

Meanwhile, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, there was a sea of umbrellas as Hezbollahs supporters showed their own strength in numbers on the day of the funeral of an accused terrorist mastermind who was killed in a car bomb in Damascus earlier this week.




There are many intertwined fault lines in Lebanon today.


One clash opposes the pro-Western, Siniora government against the pro-Syrian Shiite Hezbollah faction. This has has caused a seemingly intractable deadlock on the election of a Lebanese president and heightened sectarian tensions.

Another dangerous threat to Lebanon's stability: extremist Sunni forces, that came to the world's attention last June in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr El-Bared. They battled the Lebanese army for weeks and are suspected of planting roadside bombs targetting U.N. peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon.

And finally, the possibility of another Hezbollah-Israel war seems closer today than even a few days ago. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has vowed to avenge the death of Imad Mughniyeh and has blamed Israel for his killing. Israel denies any involvement.

Why the country has not yet descended into chaos may be down to the factional leaders, who are still in command of their followers. They may not see that it is in anyone's interest for another internicine conflict in Lebanon.

But what happens if the country's youth let their frustrations boil over?

What do you think of the events in Lebanon? Email us at mideast@cnn.com or add a comment below.

On this Valentine's Day Eve, here is reaction from Saudi Arabia on the religious police's ban of red roses - and all things red - on February 14th.

A flower retailer there tells CNN religious police sometimes try to "entrap" vendors by using foreign visitors :

“In one particular case, in a sweets store, the Religious Police went in ahead of time – they sent an expat in and tried to get the retailer to sell them a heart shaped box. The expat pleaded with the vendor – who had hidden away all the red and all the heart shaped boxes. The vendor felt bad for the expat and agreed to sell him a heart shaped box. Once that happened, the religious police arrested the vendor.”

-- Thanks to CNN's Mohammed Jamjoom for the update.

(CNN) -- Saudi Arabia has asked florists and gift shops to remove all red items until after Valentine's Day, calling the celebration of such a holiday a sin, local media reported Monday.

With a ban on red gift items over Valentine's Day in Saudi Arabia, a black market in red roses has flowered.

"As Muslims we shouldn't celebrate a non-Muslim celebration, especially this one that encourages immoral relations between unmarried men and women, " Sheikh Khaled Al-Dossari, a scholar in Islamic studies, told the Saudi Gazette, an English-language newspaper.

Every year, officials with the conservative Muslim kingdom's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice clamp down on shops a few days before February 14, instructing them to remove red roses, red wrapping paper, gift boxes and teddy bears. On the eve of the holiday, they raid stores and seize symbols of love.

The virtue and vice squad is a police force of several thousand charged with, among other things, enforcing dress codes and segregating the sexes. Saudi Arabia, which follows a strict interpretation of Islam called Wahhabism, punishes unrelated women and men who mingle in public.

Ahmed Al-Omran, a university student in Riyadh, told CNN that the government decision will give the international media another reason to make fun of the Saudis "but I think that we got used to that by now."

"I think what they are doing is ridiculous," said Al-Omran, who maintains the blog 'Saudi Jeans.' "What the conservatives in this country need to learn is something called 'tolerance.' If they don't see the permissibility of celebrating such an occasion, then fine -- they should not celebrate it. But they have to know they have no right to impose their point of view on others."

Because of the ban on red roses, a black market has flowered ahead of Valentine's Day. Roses that normally go for five Saudi riyal ($1.30) fetch up to 30 riyal ($8) on February 14, the Saudi Gazette said.

"Sometimes we deliver the bouquets in the middle of the night or early morning, to avoid suspicion," one florist told the paper.

CNN's Saeed Ahmed contributed to this report

From 1991 to 2003, the Iraqi flag looked very similar to the post invasion design, except that the Takbir was allegedly printed in Saddam Hussein's handwriting:

From 1963 to 1991, the Iraqi flag featured the same three colored stripes with three stars and no coranic script. The second longest lasting Iraqi flag looked like this:

Although the new emblem is still controversial, the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan raised the new flag today. "God is Great" (sans stars) is now hovering over the Kurdish Parliament, despite the fact that many Kurds wanted a different design, that included a yellow sun, symbolizing their ethnic minority.

There's been a lot of flag angst in Iraq, not least when in 2004, the US-controlled Iraqi Governing Council proposed this model, designed in London, and rejected en masse by Iraqis:





How long will the newest design last? Does it symbolize Iraqi unity?

The only people in Iraq who are 100% happy with the new emblem may just be the country's flagmakers.

-- Posted by Hala Gorani

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)