In The News

US Cannot Tune Out Its Iraq Crisis

Ghida Fakhry May 2, 2004
As the violence in Iraq continues, the Bush administration is faced with a more difficult challenge, says news anchor Ghida Fakhry of Al-Hayat/LBC television network. In addition to the war on the ground, America must also fight its negative media image in the Arab world, which grows by the day thanks to broadcasts by independent Arabic news channels. Stations such as Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya...

Learning From Europe

Nader Fergany April 30, 2004
In a time of tremendous scrutiny upon the Arab world, many interpreted the March collapse of the Arab League summit in Tunisia as a sign of Arab impotence. Nader Fergany, the director of Almishkat Centre for Research, and the lead author of the Arab Human Development Report, argues that rather than being discouraged by the failure of the summit, Arabs should push to reform the Arab League itself...

Militants in Europe Openly Call for Jihad and the Rule of Islam

Patrick E. Tyler April 26, 2004
As the situation in Iraq worsens, radical Muslims in Europe are stepping up their recruitment efforts. In the streets of countries such as England, France and Germany, more and more young Muslim Europeans are gathering to hear radical clerics' preaching on violence and martyrdom in the service of Islam. Ironically, it is often exactly the characters of the western societies that these...

Hit by Spanish Withdrawal Syndrome

Shada Islam April 21, 2004
After winning March elections that attracted tremendous international attention, newly-elected Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero forewarned a significant shift in Spanish foreign policy. He declared his disapproval of the previous Popular Party's government active support of the American invasion of Iraq, which many Spaniards felt provoked March's deadly terrorist...

Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Media: Anatomy of a Failure

Susan Moeller April 14, 2004
After the September 11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made the decision to present terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and Iraq as a linked triple threat. Susan Moeller, professor of media and international affairs at the University of Maryland, argues that in the “stultifying patriotic climate” that followed the attacks, most mainstream...

China's ‘Big Mamas' in a Quandary

Paul Mooney April 12, 2004
For quite some time now, the Chinese government and its net-surfing citizens have been involved in a series of serious net games. While the government seems bent on restricting the free flow of certain types of information into China that it fears will prove destabilizing – such as Taiwan, the Falun Gong – China's 80 million netizens (net citizens) appear equally determined to keep access to...

Kenya: Globalizing with Flowers

Jean-Pierre Lehmann April 9, 2004
Although Kenya has attracted some foreign dollars through tourism and export-based flower and tea industries, a majority of Kenyans remain mired in poverty. Jean-Pierre Lehmann, founding director of the Evian group, argues here that although its future could be bright, Kenya has not yet exploited its substantial political and economic assets in a way that will allow it to fully tap into...