Originally posted August 2010
This is the first of three volumes examining the internationalization of higher education and the Middle East. The 12 essays included in this volume explore some of the changes that are taking place and the challenges that lie ahead as Middle Eastern countries seek to build sustainable higher education systems and strengthen their economies. Within the dynamic global higher education landscape, is the Middle East a stagnant backwater or a center of creative initiative? What are, and should be the roles of foreign partners and providers?
The Middle East Institute is proud to host Justin Dargin, research fellow at the Dubai Initiative, for a discussion of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the Gulf and the pursuit of an effective carbon trading plan. Dargin will also examine the effect which this hot-button issue has upon the region's geopolitical relations, energy efficiency, natural gas utilization, renewable energy, and conservation of natural resources.
The Republic of Yemen occupies the southwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula. Unlike its oil-rich neighbors, Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world. Like other countries football (soccer) is Yemen’s most popular sport. Football has been played in parts of Yemen since before the turn of the 20th century, and since the 1970s, the game’s popularity has increased significantly.
Several months ago on a Tuesday afternoon, a local girls football team was practicing on a dirt field in Sidi Moumen, a notorious 350,000-person shantytown on the outskirts of Casablanca, Morocco. A crowd of boys had gathered along the fence. One of the boys began making comments. “Look at her touch on the ball,” he mumbled to his friend, “where did she learn to play football?” “My five-year old brother has better control,” shot back the other, slapping his friend’s hand and laughing.
Originally posted May 2010
Originally posted May 2010
The Middle East Institute is proud to host Sean Foley, author of The Arab States: Beyond Oil and Islam (Lynne Rienner, 2010), for a discussion about the politics of the Gulf states and their role in the global economy. In the book, Foley presents a fresh picture of these states as cosmopolitan and tolerant societies that face many of the same socio-economic problems that other states do – including those that lack oil.
Originally posted March 2010
It is estimated that over four million Iraqi refugees have fled to neighboring countries in the region since the 2003 war began. While migration continued after the war, the peak of this influx was witnessed particularly in and after 2006 due to the acceleration of violence in central and southern Iraq. More particularly, the majority of these refugees fled due to direct threats to their lives and their immediate families.
Originally posted April 2010
Originally posted March 2010
Dubai’s Burj Khalifa and Taiwan’s Taipei 101 tower, the world’s two tallest skyscrapers, differ in height by a stunning 1,076 feet, are separated by nearly 4,000 miles of ocean, and are situated in countries and regions which, linguistically and culturally, have little in common ― except business.
Originally posted March 2010
Literature, visual art, and photography not only serve an aesthetic purpose, but often act as mediums through which their creators explore deeply personal experiences and their broader social implications. In this, the fourth volume of MEI’s “The State of the Arts in the Middle East,” Najat Rahman considers the works of the Palestinian artists Emily Jacir and Eman Haram, and W. Scott Chahanovich (with Pauline Pannier) discusses the memoirs of the Moroccan-born writer Abdellah Taïa.
“In some areas of the Gulf, you can’t tell whether you are in an Arab Muslim country or in an Asian district.”
— Majeed al-Alawi, Bahrain Minister of Labor (October 2007)