The Middle East articles from April 2002

The Middle East archives from April 2002

Cyberwars: the coming Arab E-Jihad; a second Arab-Israeli cyberwar may be on the horizon. Possible scenarios include hacker attacks on the databases of Western businesses and the release of viruses that could infect computer systems worldwide. (Current Affairs).
April 1, 2002... The Arab-Israeli conflict on the ground appears to be evolving as Palestinian militants shift to new guerrilla warfare tactics and Israel responds with increasingly severe military measures. With such innovation and escalation in military...

Saudi plan viewed with caution. (Current Affairs).(Israel/Arab League normalization)
April 1, 2002... A drastic increase in civilian casualties greeted the announcement of a Saudi Arabian peace proposal, offering normalisation with Israel by the Arab League in exchange for a withdrawal to 1967 borders. Despite widespread Arab support, including...

Intifada reaches critical mass. (Business & Finance).
April 1, 2002... Over recent weeks the Intifada has escalated to an unprecedented degree and may now be reaching critical mass. Several events have defined this phase of the 17 month-old uprising and illustrate how the Palestinians are broadening their...

Entering the second stage: President Bush is entering the second stage of his "war on terror" but is he starting in the right place? (Current Affairs).(George W. Bush)
April 1, 2002... At a ceremony to mark the six month anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, President George W Bush made an appeal to the world's nations to keep an unflagging commitment to the fight...

Marching to the beat of a different drum; from a special correspondent. (Current Affairs).(King Abdullah II of Jordan)
April 1, 2002... Positioned between a rock (Palestine) and a hard place (Iraq), the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is no newcomer to regional disputes. Nor is the country, led by 40 year old King Abdullah II, particularly adverse to scandal, albeit generally...

The Arafat interview: Palestinian authority chairman Yasser Arafat spoke exclusively to Mariam Shahin for The Middle East magazine. (Current Affairs).(Interview)
April 1, 2002... TME: You have called the Oslo Accords the "peace of the brave". What has happened to that peace? ARAFAT: The Saudi initiative has put Sharon's plan in the corner. Sharon's strategy is to continue the "military option" and not arrive...

Arab banks: tracing the funds for terror; the US has been putting great pressure on Arab banks to adopt stringent monitoring and reporting standards to track money used to finance terror groups. (Business & Finance).
April 1, 2002... The theory is nice: if you mandate banks to report all significant or suspicious financial transactions, you can track funds used to finance terror organisations. If you can track those funds, you can also block them. If you can block those...

Dubai: reality or mirage? (Business & Finance).(United Arab Emirates oil and economy)
April 1, 2002... Dubai is a ruthless self-promoter, and with good reason. Unlike its federal partner Abu Dhabi, the emirate has never had enough oil to live the rentier life, and has astutely developed its economy accordingly. In the 1950s and 1960s plenty of...

Enron in the Middle East. (Business & Finance).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... The press, business and government have treated the collapse of Enron as if it had been completely unforeseeable, like the iceberg that sank the Titanic. This may have been the case for those who chose to believe the endless sycophantic Enron...

IMF approves $12 billion for Turkey: Jon Gorvett reports from Istanbul on the loan package which made Turkey the IMF's largest debtor nation. (Business & Finance).(International Monetary Fund)
April 1, 2002... Almost exactly a year after a financial crisis sent the Turkish economy into meltdown on 4 February 2001, the board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved an extra US$12 billion loan package, making the country the Fund's biggest...

Can Lebanon balance the books? (Business & Finance).
April 1, 2002... In early 1999, Lebanon's then-Prime Minister Selim Hoss revealed plans for a five-year plan to help the Lebanese economy back on its feet. While optimism had been the key word during most of the early 1990s, the latter part of decade saw the...

Arab investors witness signs of revival; Moin Siddiqi reports on the position of Arab investors in the volatile global market, six months after 11 September. (Business & Finance).
April 1, 2002... The emergence of a `bear market' (sparked by heavy selling of technology, media and telecoms stocks) since the second-half of 2000 and the global economic downturn have had a profound impact on the private (offshore) wealth of investors in the...

Rebellion And Violence In Islamic Law.
April 1, 2002... By Khaled Abou El Fadl published by Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 79311 4 price 47.50 [pounds sterling] hardback Khaled Abou El Fadl's book represents the first systematic examination of the idea and treatment of political...

Arabia of the Bedouins.
April 1, 2002... By Marcel Kurpershoek published by Saqi Books ISBN 0 86356 809 2 price 19.95 [pounds sterling] hardback In 1986 Marcel Kurpershoek, a Dutch diplomat, was posted to Saudi Arabia. There, he started exploring the country's vast deserts and...

The Middle East Water Question: Hydropolitics and the Global Economy.
April 1, 2002... By JA Allan Published by IB TAURIS ISBN 1 86064 813 4 price 15.95 [pounds sterling] paperback Is there enough water on this planet for a future global population double its present size? The answer is controversial but is particularly...

The Rise and Fall of the Hashimite Kingdom of Arabia.
April 1, 2002... By Joshua Teitelbaum published by C Hurst & Co ISBN 1 85065 460 3 price 35.00 [pounds sterling] hardback The Hashimite Kingdom of Arabia was forged in the crucible of the Arab Revolt (of `Lawrence of Arabia' fame) in 1916, during the First...

Nationals and Expatriates: Population and Labour Dilemmas of the Gulf Cooperation Council States.
April 1, 2002... By Andrzej Kapiszewski published by Ithaca Press ISBN 0 86372 275 x price 35.00 [pounds sterling] hardback This book addresses some of the major problems related to population growth and to the development of the workforce in the member...

Haifa: Transformation of an Arab Society 1918-1939.
April 1, 2002... By May Seikaly published by IB TAURIS ISBN: 1 860645569 price 14.95 [pounds sterling] paperback Now available in paperback, May Seikaly's critically acclaimed book looks at the process by which the Arab community of Haifa was transformed...

Kurds, Arabs & Britons: The Memoir of Wallace Lyon in Iraq 1918-44.
April 1, 2002... Edited by DK Fieldhouse published by IB TAURIS ISBN 1 86064 613 1 price 35.00 [pounds sterling] hardback After World War I, with the acquisition of League of Nations' Mandates, Great Britain was territorially at its greatest. Yet this...

UAE: The Business Travellers Handbook.
April 1, 2002... By Richard Parry published by Gorilla Guides ISBN 1 903185 0 25 price 12.95 [pounds sterling] paperback Catering for the needs of the traveller with a job to do, this book will guide you from the first stages of preparation through to the...

Hero or traitor? Jon Gorvett reports from Istanbul on celebrations to mark the birth of Nazim Hikmet 100 years ago. Although few would deny his genius, the political controversy which surrounded him in life continues unabated. (Mosaic).
April 1, 2002... "Will my funeral start out from my courtyard? How will you get me down from the third floor? The coffin won't fit in the elevator, and the stairs are awfully narrow."... Nazim Hikmet, My Funeral, Moscow April 1963. A burial can be a...

Hebron: in the line of fire. (Mosaic).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... In the Israeli-controlled sector of town, soldiers of the Israeli Defence Force [IDF] keep watch from roof towers with their high-powered binoculars, others stand guard on street corners, while police and army vehicles snake their way through...

Turkish impresario scores London theatre hit. (Mosaic).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2002... It takes a visionary to turn a disused clothing factory into an exciting contemporary theatrical venue, and Turkish director Mehmet Ergen is exactly that, a visionary. His new theatre, called Arcola, has, in a very short space of time, become...

Every picture tells a story. (Mosaic).(Iranian cartoonist Marjane Satrapi)
April 1, 2002... Marjane Satrapi is no ordinary young woman, she is a full fledged princess. And not only a princess, but what some people might call a `Red princess'; born into a progressive family, she was reading cartoons about Marxism when other children...