The Middle East articles from December 2008

The Middle East archives from December 2008

Comment.(CURRENT AFFAIRS)
December 1, 2008... IT will be 20 January 2009 before Barack Obama officially becomes president of the United States of America but if ever a new leader was heralded as a conquering hero it has been this one. And not just by his fellow Americans, it seems that the...

The Russians are coming.(CURRENT AFFAIRS)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A squadron of the Russian Navy's Northern Fleet sailed into the Mediterranean Sea through the Strait of Gibraltar in October and entered the harbour at Tripoli, Libya's capital. The six-ship squadron was led by the...

Iraq: the writing on the wall: Milan Vesely reports from the United States.(CURRENT AFFAIRS)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WILL AN AGREEMENT be signed or won't it?--that is the dilemma bedevilling US military planners in the Pentagon. How concerned they are was evident when Admiral Mike Mullen, Chief of the United States Joint Chiefs of...

Reshuffling the cards: King Abdullah of Jordan and old adversary Hamas seek rapprochement as Fatah's power ebbs away.(CURRENT AFFAIRS)
December 1, 2008... IN AN UNUSUAL about-face that is sending political tremors across the Middle East, Jordan is having discussions with the fundamentalist Hamas, even though the Palestinian fundamentalist organisation remains outlawed in the Hashemite kingdom...

Playing by jungle rules: rampaging right-wing West Bank settlers turn on the army and liberal opponents, raising serious fears of civil strife in the Jewish state.(CURRENT AFFAIRS)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ISRAELI SETTLERS IN the West Bank, fearful they will be forced to evacuate their colonies under a peace deal, are increasingly turning to violence against the Palestinians, the Israeli Army and leftwing opponents....

The rise of the Jewish Taliban.(CURRENTS AFFAIRS)
December 1, 2008... IN OCTOBER, SOME of the worst racial rioting in Israel's history broke out when hundreds of Jewish and Arab gangs took to the streets of the mixed Israeli Arab town of Acre, stoned each other, vandalised cars and shops, attacked police and set...

Pulling in the same direction?(CURRENT AFFAIRS)(Conference notes)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE TIMING COULD not have been more appropriate. With global financial markets in turmoil and the American elections only a matter of hours away, a conference on Political Participation in a Changing World, the 20th...

Syria prepares to recover the Golan.(CURRENT AFFAIRS)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A CAREFULLY PLANNED SERIES of deft policy manoeuvres has propelled President Bashar Al Assad of Syria to centre-stage in Middle East politics, poised to emerge as a dominant force for peace. He has found a...

Change in America, change in the Middle East: Milan Vesely reports from the United States on how the policies of president-elect Barack Obama will impact on the Middle East.(CURRENT AFFAIRS)
December 1, 2008... ON THE NIGHT of his greatest triumph US president-elect, Barack Hussein Obama, told the crowd of 500,000 in Chicago's Grant Park: "Change has come to America, and change has come to the world." Gone was the Bush Republican dogma of pre-emptive...

Saudi Arabia to the rescue?(CURRENT AFFAIRS)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IT IS ASSUMED that when the credit crunch bites, there are no exceptions, or are there? As the world's largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia has experienced an economic boom in recent years due to soaring global oil...

Women in politics stand up & be counted!
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] There are a number of arbitrary measures taken by an outsider looking in on a foreign country to judge just what sort of a place it is. One of those measures is the number of women who succeed in politics and reach...

Getting to grips with antioxidants.(GOOD HEALTH AND GOOD LIVING)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Antioxidants are chemical compounds naturally found in food. They have a protective role in the body as defenders of our body cells against the damaging effects of oxidation by free radicals. Through the normal...

Lebanese luxury.
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Chocolate is by many considered to be the food of the gods, its creation--like that of fine fragrances and fine wines--regarded as a work of art. For many years Europeans--particularly those from Switzerland and...

Saudi Arabia launches a new era of reform.
December 1, 2008... As part of his larger plan for modernisation in Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah has endorsed a project to build the largest women-only university in the world and, despite the fact that the kingdom is drawing its horns in in terms of domestic...

Top 100 companies.(Cover story)(Survey)(Company rankings)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Middle East magazine's 2008 survey of the Top 100 Companies in the Middle East and North Africa paints a familiar picture, with firms from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states dominating the rankings and...

The GCC must integrate: Dr Nasser Saidi, Chief Economist at the Dubai International Financial Centre Authority, talked to Pamela Ann Smith exclusively for The Middle East magazine.(BUSINESS AND FINANCE)(Interview)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] DESPITE HOPES the GCC states would escape the global financial woes of the past weeks and months, regional stock markets and banks, as well as some real estate sectors, have been negatively affected. In this...

Opec ministers: oil price needs to support investment.(BUSINESS AND FINANCE)
December 1, 2008... The price of crude oil, which hit a high of $147 in July, plummeted to less than $70 this autumn. Now some experts say it could go still lower, to $45 or $50 a barrel, next year, given the prospect of a global economic slowdown. While this has...

Will Russia join OPEC?(BUSINESS AND FINANCE)
December 1, 2008... Speculation is rising that the US, Europe and Japan--the world's main oil-consuming countries--could be facing tight oil supplies as well as much higher prices as a result of recent talks between Russia and OPEC, which accounts for 40% of the...

Gulf real estate: riding out the storm.(BUSINESS AND FINANCE)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WITH GLOBAL FINANCIAL markets under duress, the world property market has witnessed some dramatic downturns. What began in the United States in the summer, with the federal take over of the Fanny Mae/Freddie Mac...

The olive trail.(MOSAIC)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The olive--its growth, harvest and consumption--is inextricably linked to the lifestyle and culture of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Now UNESCO plans to develop a heritage site intended to heighten worldwide...

Soundes Blah and contemporary Tunisian Art.(MOSAIC)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] HALFWAY UP THE steep hill to Sidi Bou Said's summit, along a cobble-stoned street spilling over with leather bags, wooden curios and insistent salesmen, is the Sidi Bou Said art gallery. Sidi Bou Said has always...

Some good news from Gaza: Mel Frykberg reports from the Occupied Territories.(MOSAIC)
December 1, 2008... AN ENDLESS CYCLE of misery, violence and suffering dominate the headlines when it comes to news from Gaza. Now that the coastal territory is virtually hermetically sealed off by Israel from the outside world, most of its 1.5m inhabitants are...

The Middle East: The Cradle of Civilization Revealed.(Books in brief)
December 1, 2008... THE MIDDLE EAST: THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION REVEALED edited by Dr Stephen Bourke published by Thames & Hudson ISBN 99780500251478 price 29.95 [pounds sterling] hardback [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Middle East: The...

Mahdis and Millenarians.(Books in brief)
December 1, 2008... MAHDIS AND MILLENARIANS by William Tucker published by Cambridge University Press ISBN 978521883849 price 50.00 [pounds sterling] hardback [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Mahdis and Millenarians is a discussion of Shi'ite...

Collateral Damage.(Books in brief)
December 1, 2008... COLLATERAL DAMAGE by Chris Hedges and Laila Al Arian published by Nation Books ISBN 9781568583730 price 13.99 [pounds sterling] hardback [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In this expose of a military occupation gone awry, Chris...

The 2008 Annual Register: World Events.(Books in brief)
December 1, 2008... THE 2008 ANNUAL REGISTER: WORLD EVENTS edited by D.S. Lewis published by Pro-Quest ISBN 97816000300721 price $240.00 hardback [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] For this new edition, 84 specialists--historians, journalists,...

The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.(Books in brief)
December 1, 2008... THE PROSECUTION OF GEORGE W. BUSH FOR MURDER by Vincent Bugliosi published by Vanguard Press ISBN 9781593155285 price 12.99 [pounds sterling] hardback [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In The Prosecution of George W. Bush for...

The Minbar of Saladin: Reconstructing a Jewel of Islamic Art.(Books in brief)
December 1, 2008... THE MINBAR OF SALADIN: RECONSTRUCTING A JEWEL OF ISLAMIC ART edited by Lynette Singer published by Thames & Hudson ISBN 9780500238431 price: 29.95 [pounds sterling] hardback [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This is the...

The last word.
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] The 11th of November marked the 90th anniversary of the First World War in Europe. However, of the many millions who lost their lives during the 191448 conflict, not all were Europeans. More than 270,000 soldiers...