It could be a smoky space at times, with seemingly every man and woman holding a cigarette or a water pipe mouthpiece to their lips.

The live music, the cacophony of conversation and the clatter of men tossing dice onto backgammon boards could create an awful racket.  

But it was gorgeous, the floors covered with art deco tiles, the ceilings crafted ornately, the huge windows letting in crisscrossing beams of light that gave the place an otherworldly feel, like something out of an old movie. 

On Monday, a veritable Beirut institution -- the Gemmayzeh Cafe, often called the glass cafe, is to close its doors after some 80 years, having survived as a recreational refuge even during the country's 1975-1990 civil war.

Lebanon is bristling with nervous tension as it awaits the announcement that could spark a new round of civil strife or even another war with Israel, but disaster may not be as imminent as many fear.

It has been nearly two weeks since a prosecutor's office told reporters in the Hague, Netherlands, that the draft indictment in the investigation into the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri would be handed over to the pretrial judge, Daniel Franson, "very very soon." Hezbollah members are expected to be accused of complicity in that bombing, which killed 21 others as well.

The nation has braced for a confrontation between the government and the Shiite militia, which has dismissed the court as a politically charged sham and vowed to fight the charges and prevent any of its members from being taken into custody.

But experts estimate it will take another six to 10 weeks for the judge to review the merits of the case, and even if he confirms the indictment, he can rule to keep its contents confidential. That means the names of suspects -- unless somebody inside the court leaks the names to the media -- probably won't come out before mid-February, if they are made public at all.

 "At the moment that the prosecutor submits the indictments to the pretrial judge, there will be a substantive shift in the focus of the work of the [special tribunal for Lebanon], with the judicial taking the lead," Crispin Thorold, chief public affairs officer for the tribunal, told Babylon & Beyond.

Iran's former former minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who was abruptly fired last week while on a diplomatic mission to Senegal, is mad as hell and isn't gonna take it any more.

In an unusually harsh criticism of his former boss, Mottaki called his dismissal by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "insulting" and "anti-Islamic."

He was replaced by Ali Akbar Salehi, the former head of Iran's nuclear program, who was feted at a reception Saturday that was supposedly in Mottaki's honor.

Mottaki blew off the reception. Instead he sent a blistering text to Iranian media denying an Ahmadinejad aide's claim that he was aware that he was about to get canned.

"I was not informed about my replacement within 24 hours after I left for a trip and what is more ridiculous is the date set for the farewell and introduction ceremony," he said, according to numerous news agencies.

He called the manner of his dismissal "insulting and not according to diplomatic protocols."

It is as pricey as precious metals or illicit drugs, and in some kitchens it is increasingly becoming even more valued. Saffron, a spice that grows in Afghanistan, could be a solution for farmers who want to make ends meet without growing poppy flowers that can be turned into opium and heroin that enrich and empower drug barons.

But this week, the spokesman for the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan spoke of a "disturbing trend" in the western portion of the country: The Taliban is forcing farmers to stop growing the savory spice and switch to more nefarious crops. 

"Insurgents are pressuring Herat farmers to switch to growing poppy instead of saffron so they can use the money from drug sales to fund their operations," German army Gen. Josef Blotz told reporters Monday. "In areas north of Herat city, insurgents have destroyed fields planted with saffron, and last month they attacked two trucks carrying saffron bulbs for planting and killed the truckers who were delivering them."

A Taliban spokesman reached by telephone Wednesday denied the charge.

The Americans were confounded. Maksat Idenov (pictured), the Harvard Business School-educated head of Kazakhstan’s state-owned oil company, had abruptly booted Guy Hollingsworth, a Chevron Corp. executive, from a meeting and from talks over a potentially lucrative deal.

A month went by before they finally figured out what had gone wrong. The executive of the California-based energy giant had been spotted playing golf in the Kazakh capital, Astana, and sunning in Spain with Idenov’s predecessor and rival, according to a Feb. 14, 2008, dispatch from the U.S. Embassy in Astana released by WikiLeaks.

“Idenov amplified his anger with Hollingsworth by explaining that Hollingsworth does not understand how we are doing business now,” said the dispatch.

The confidential dispatches from Central Asia depict a slicked-back 21st century version of the Great Game, the 19th century battle between the Russian and British empires over Central Asia’s riches. In today’s great game, diplomats and jet-set corporate executives gather business intelligence to outsmart corrupt autocrats and navigate teetering bureaucracies and make fortunes in the energy business.

These are hard times for foreign journalists in Iran.

Two Western journalists have been arrested in Iran after allegedly interviewing the son of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the woman who was sentenced to be stoned for adultery.

A third longtime correspondent has also been given the boot, ordered to leave Iran within two weeks in part because of her paper's support for Ashtiani.

The head of the country’s judiciary announced the arrests Monday but said the first two were not properly accredited as journalists, an ominous suggestion that they could be charged with espionage.

Several people were injured in a pair of attacks Wednesday on another dangerous day for foreigners in the Arabian Peninsula nation of Yemen.

Arab media and diplomats reported that a shell or missile struck a vehicle carrying five British Embassy staff as it headed toward the embassy in Sana, Yemen’s capital, Wednesday morning. 

Separately, employees of the Austrian energy giant OMV were shot by a security guard at the company’s office near Sana. Agence France-Presse cited Yemeni security officials as saying one French national was killed in the attack, but Dow Jones cited OMV as saying two people were injured and no one killed.

A war of words over Iran's nuclear program has raised tensions in the Middle East between Tehran and its allies and the West and its partners. For years analysts have been worrying about a misunderstanding or mishap involving Iranian and U.S. warships in the waters of the Persian Gulf or a confrontation between American soldiers and Iranians along borders in Iraq or Afghanistan. 

So when the website of an Iranian newspaper (Persian link) said to be linked to the intelligence branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard reported on Sunday that Iran had captured seven American soldiers along its eastern border with Pakistan, everyone stopped in their tracks, remembering the crisis that ensued more than three years ago with the capture of British sailors in the gulf. 

"It has been heard that about seven American forces accompanied by two Iranians who wanted to enter the Iranian territories from the Kuhak border in Saravan region [Sistan-Baluchestan province] have been identified and arrested by the vigilant border guards," the report on the news website Javan Online said. "It is said that two Iranians who accompanied the American forces could escape." 

Within minutes the news had been picked up by Iranian and international news organizations, and within hours Javan took down the report and issued a retraction and an apology (Persian link) to readers. 

A Ramadan cease-fire in the long-brewing war between Turkey and Kurdish rebels may have come to an end Thursday morning.

Authorities say at least eight people were killed and three injured in  southeastern Turkey when an explosion from a bomb or land mine struck a civilian minibus, according to news reports. 

The semiofficial Anatolia News Agency cited a local official as saying the explosion took place near the city of Hakkari, among the centers of a 26-year Kurdish insurgency against the Turkish government. 

The privately owned CNN-Turk channel said the explosion was caused by a land mine. 

Political difficulties have recently dashed hopes for peace between the Ankara government and the militant Kurdistan Workers Party, known by the Turkish acronym PKK.

Kurds in the country's southeast largely heeded a call to boycott last weekend's nationwide referendum on changes to the constitution, underscoring the rift between the country's Turks and its largest ethnic minority.

-- Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Photo: In this picture taken  Aug 13, 2010, members of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, are seen in the Qandil mountain range of Iraq. Credit: AP Photo/Yahya Ahmed

It is a spectacular vision of a scarred but vibrant city full of odd and beautiful characters dancing and singing, and set to a catchy reggae song calling for "warlords," "corrupt politicians" and "militiamen" to go home and let Lebanon enjoy itself.

The song, "General Suleiman," by the Lebanese pop act Zeid and the Wings, was written a couple of years ago. But the video, directed by the Italian Gigi Roccati, was released about a month ago and uploaded to YouTube just a couple of weeks ago. 

"Foreign intelligence, go home!"  the song goes. "Neighbor influence, go home!"

The video has begun to go viral, especially after an Israeli news website featured it this week. 

Was there a hint of a dare in Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi's rejection Friday of allegations that Iran was working on a secret nuclear site?

Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, denied claims by an outlawed fringe group that the Islamic Republic had begun construction of a secret nuclear fuel enrichment facility northwest of Tehran. 

On Thursday the Mujahedin Khalq Organization, or MKO, a cult-like Iranian exile group with ties to neoconservative opponents of Iran’s nuclear program in Washington, presented satellite photos to reporters and referred to unspecified intelligence sources that it said showed Iran was creating a secret nuclear enrichment plant in the  village of Bahjatabad, near the city of Abeyk in Qazvin province.

Salehi denied the allegation. 

If there's a nuclear facility at the site, he said, prove it.

“There are no nuclear installations, or what can be technically defined as one, in Iran that the International Atomic Energy Agency is unaware of,” he told the semi-official Mehr News Agency. “We have no such installations where we enrich uranium. If they really are aware of such installations perhaps they would like to tell us about it so that we can thank them.” 

The leader of the proposed Manhattan Islamic cultural center near the site of the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attacks told a Persian Gulf newspaper that there was no conflict between Islam and America and dismissed the opponents of the Park51 project as being led by "very small, vociferous voices."

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's interview with the Abu Dhabi-based daily newspaper the National, which was published Monday, provided the first extensive comments he'd made about the controversy over the community center, which will include a prayer room, in the weeks since a New York City planning board gave it final approval.  

He's currently in the Middle East on a U.S. State Department-sponsored tour of Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, where he is speaking to groups of Muslims in an attempt to boost relations between America and Islam.