Beyond the Facade: Political Reform in the Arab World.
Beyond the Facade: Political Reform in the Arab World, edited by Marina Ottaway and Julia Choucair-Vizoso. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2008. 295 pages. $22.95. Few topics engage academics, policy makers and development practitioners more than the puzzle of political reform in the Arab world. The quest...

Combating extremism: a brief overview of Saudi Arabia' s approach.
Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries where the fight against terrorism and extremism has yielded real success. This success cannot be explained only by the effectiveness of its security measures, but also by its softer approach in tackling radical ideologies. (1) Although religious fanaticism and extremism are...

President Bush on the road.
Byline: BETH DAY ROMULO IN the year he has left in office, (a new president will take over January 2009), President Bush has decided to hit the road, traveling, for the first time as president, to Israel, and then to the Left Bank, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the...

GCC foreign wealth rises to $2 trillion.
THE NET FOREIGN assets of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman are expected to rise by $200bn this year to $2 trillion, according to a new report by the Washington-based Institute for International Finance (IIF). By 2012, their total assets held abroad could reach...

Reform in the Middle East oil monarchies.
9780863723230 Reform in the Middle East oil monarchies. Ed. by Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Steven Wright. Ithaca Press 2008 309 pages $54.50 Hardcover DS63 Edited by Ehteshami (international relations, U. of Durham,...

Iran's Nuclear and Syria's Iraq Adventures.
The two parts of this article by Barry Rubin, director of Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA), focus on Iran and Syria, whom he describes as joined in a de facto alliance with Hamas and Hizbollah. Despite the four parties' many differences, Rubin maintains that they interact in ways...

Middle East investors coming here.
Byline: BERNIE CAHILES-MAGKILAT Officials from the oil-rich investment authorities of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar are coming in next week to firm up their interests in the areas of ecotourism, power and energy, property development, mining, retail and infrastructure where they can park their petro-dollars....

Middle East investors coming here.
Byline: BERNIE CAHILES-MAGKILAT Officials from the oil-rich investment authorities of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar are coming in next week to firm up their interests in the areas of ecotourism, power and energy, property development, mining, retail and infrastructure where they can park their petro-dollars....

ARAB AFFAIRS - Dec 3 - Iran Calls For Security Co-operation In Gulf.
Gulf states and Iran should work together toward establishing regional security and economic pacts free of "foreign influence", President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran told the Gulf Co-operation Council. Faced with increased international pressure over its uranium enrichment program, Iran is eager to improve ties with the GCC. Its summit...

ARAB AFFAIRS - Oct 31 - Iran Urged To Join Gulf Nuclear Deal.
Saudi Arabia is calling on Iran to respond to an Arab proposal for a joint uranium enrichment plant outside the Middle East, the first regional attempt to defuse Tehran's nuclear crisis. The FM of Saudi Arabia Prince Saud al-Faisal, revealed the proposal by Arab Gulf states allied to the...