The telephone rang in my office at the Writers’ Union. “You don’t know who I am, the caller said, “but I’ve heard that you will be receiving the ruler of Sharjah Emirate Sheikh Sultan Bin Mohamed Al Qassimi at the Writers’ Union and I’d like to attend that party. “It’s not a party, I said. …

Modern Iran shows a variety of perplexing faces to the world: hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sophisticated academics, outspoken exiles. One young Iranian couple, determined not to leave their country’s public relations to others, is bicycling around the globe to spread a message of peace and environmental conservation. Somayeh Yousefi, 28, and Jafar Edrisi, 29, met …

Thirty years ago, Australian vessels, with the government’s blessing, killed sperm whales off the West Australian coast. Last month, Australia led international protests against Japan’s plan to kill 50 humpback whales. Japan, under mounting pressure, announced that it would suspend the plan for a year or two. The change in public opinion about whaling has …

BOULDER, Colorodo – This past year I have had to face the underbelly of my love of Zion. Like so many American Jews, I had been raised with the unquestioned narrative about Israel s righteousness, its humane practices, and the moral high ground upon which its policies are based. The painful deconstruction of these beliefs …

Kosovo’s march toward independence is gathering pace, with the leaders of Kosovo’s Albanians – Hashim Thaci and Agim Ceku – threatening to declare unilateral independence any day now. This is something that Serbia will undoubtedly reject, with the backing of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Much of the world seems to think that Serbia’s role in the …

The uncertainties about climate change are many and great. How much CO2 may join the atmosphere if nothing is done about it? How much global warming will it cause, and how will local climates, ecosystems, and vulnerable species be affected? What impact will such changes have on productivity, comfort, and health? And, of course, what …

Islam and feminism are not incompatible according to Moroccan doctor and writer Asma Lamrabet. In 2004, she founded a working group for women s issues and intercultural dialogue in Rabat. The initiative has now become well known throughout the Arab world as well as in some western countries. Lamrabet is a diplomat s wife from …

During the 2005 Presidential elections, President Hosni Mubarak pledged in his electoral platform to improve access to housing, drinking water and sanitation in the countryside. Two years later, on Feb. 8 2007, the Cairo-based Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) issued a report on the health condition in the country of 80 million. The Jan …

The United Nations-led climate change conference in Bali will be remembered less for the “road map that it eventually created than for a messy collision between the United States and much of the rest of the world that kept onlookers transfixed. Environmental campaigners vilified America for resisting European Union pressure to pre-commit to specific temperature …

The Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) closed with a big bang in 2007. The surge in activity buoyed by trading in stocks of the relatively large listed companies and trading contracts, enabled investors to recoup some of the losses sustained in 2006 (although 2005 remains the star year as far as the performance of the ASE …

In the Arab world as elsewhere, stock markets mirror the economy as a whole. When Wall Street falls, Americans feel poorer, often with serious implications for the rest of the economy; rising shares on the other hand make people feel richer. The rhythm of the markets is sometimes as significant as the direction of share …

For years Egyptians have been caught in the dilemma of choosing between their freedom or their daily bread, and whether they should sacrifice the former for the latter. This equation was the hallmark of the 1950s and 1960s when the regime promoted a “Bread First policy to achieve its illusive “economic development which, alas, turned …

Writing at home sometime ago, with Wimbledon on TV in the background, it occurred to me that just as Britain hosts the world’s top tennis tournament but never wins it, so we Europeans are in a similar situation with education. The world’s first university was Plato’s Academy in Athens, venerable old universities are scattered across …

For the last seven years the emirate of Dubai has been operating a domestic stock exchange, as part of wider attempts to create a vibrant, diversified economy that supports a range of non-oil related activities. Although it experienced a sluggish start and was exposed to a Gulf-wide crash, the original exchange would now seem to …

One of Palestine s many bittersweet economic achievements since the Oslo peace accords is the establishment of the Palestine Securities Exchange. Based in the troubled northern West Bank city of Nablus, the exchange shares the reality of a brutal military occupation alongside the never-ceding steadfastness and resilience of the Palestinian community s desire to build …

The violence in Congo is unspeakable. But, if the horror of Congo’s recent wars – which have killed more people than any war since World War II – is to end, the unspeakable must be spoken. Across the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo, government soldiers, members of renegade government military units, and …

Four young women from the Nablus neighborhood of Rafidiyeh went into a shop Wednesday near the clock square in the center of Nablus. Dressed in the trendiest jeans and blouses, they were looking for fashionable leather bags. Two minutes later they came out empty-handed, disappointed at not finding what they wanted. Just a few months …

With the rapid technological innovations appearing at an unprecedented rate, media regulation worldwide becomes essential; and with it comes a change in the media marketplace. Technological innovations have led to the appearance of new trends in the media sphere, such as digitalization, which brings new techniques that have led to the convergence of delivery channels, …

Politics isn t just about words and ideas; it has to be about action. The recently held Palestinian donors conference in Paris was a day when the international community collectively put its money where its mouth is and committed the funds which are desperately needed if the Palestinians are to rebuild their economy and take …

The United States, with its claims of exceptionalism, is usually thought of as free of historical analogies. But comparisons with the fate of earlier empires are becoming more common. I have recently been struck by an analogy from German history: the disaster of German leadership during World War I, epitomized by Kaiser Wilhelm II. Wilhelm …

Opinion polls indicate that one-third of Americans believe that China will “soon dominate the world, while nearly half view China’s emergence as a “threat to world peace. In turn, many Chinese fear that the United States will not accept their “peaceful rise. Americans and Chinese must avoid such exaggerated fears. Maintaining good US-China relations will …

I was overjoyed that no one in Egypt had paid any attention to the birthday anniversary of Arab singing legend, Star of the East, Um Kulthoum. It was only when my friend Dominique Baudis, president of the Paris-based L’Institut Du Monde Arab, expressed his desire to host a huge ceremony to mark the occasion next …

President Bush is expected to make his first state visit to Saudi Arabia on Jan. 14. Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam and home to its holiest places. It is also the home country of Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 September 11 terrorists. What Mr. Bush will find in Saudi Arabia …

Did you know the President is going to the United States in September? Could you arrange a meeting for him with American religious leaders? When my friend, Ali Akbar Rezaei, Director of the North and Central America Department of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Iran made this request on behalf of Iran’s President Ahmadinejad, …

In the summer of 2007, I began my fellowship with Abraham’s Vision (www.abrahamsvision.org), a “conflict transformation organization that explores group and individual identities through experiential and political education. Abraham’s Vision is a youth-based organization that examines the relationship between Jewish, Muslim, Israeli and Palestinian communities, and encourages fellows “to practice just alternatives to the status …

On Jan. 2, 2008 President Mubarak inspected hundreds of Egyptian troops ahead of their deployment in the war-torn Darfur region of neighboring Sudan to join a UN-African peacekeeping force in a move that calls to mind an interesting historical analogy. Close to 200 years ago, in the first quarter of the 19th century, under the …

It will be China’s year in 2008. The Olympic Games – no doubt perfectly organized, without a protester, homeless person, religious dissenter, or any other kind of spoilsport in sight – will probably bolster China’s global prestige. While the American economy gets dragged down further in a swamp of bad property debts, China will continue …

Former Syrian MP and political prisoner Mamoun Al-Homsi, Kurdish activist Djengizkhan Hasso of the Executive Council of the National Assembly of Kurdistan, and I recently met with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office. National Security Adviser Steven Hadley, Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, National Security Adviser to the Vice President John Hannah, …

The world will long remember Benazir Bhutto as a modern Muslim woman who served two terms as Pakistan’s first woman prime minister: bright, attractive, articulate, talented, courageous, charismatic, an astute politician and political leader who called for a secular democratic Pakistan. Benazir was all of these, but – like her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and …

Comparing the current socio-economic scene with its counterpart on the eve of the 1952 revolution is not too far-fetched, despite the vast difference in the nature of Egyptian society in terms of behavioral patterns in both eras. If we contemplate the two scenes, we would find a common denominator, despite the 55 years separating them. …