Tarek Hoteit Notebook

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Labels: middle east

Posted by nick at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments

Posted by Tarek Hoteit at 2:09 AM | Permalink | Comments

Labels: middle east

Posted by nick at 8:25 PM | Permalink | Comments

Posted by nick at 8:14 PM | Permalink | Comments

Media is circulating around a photo + article on Wafah Dufour, a musician and model but interestingly the niece of Osama Bin Laden. US-born, she says she's an American and took her mother's name after the events of 9-11. She also says that she has nothing to do with the Bin Ladens family.

Click here for BBC's story on this.

Labels: middle east

Posted by Tarek Hoteit at 12:45 AM | Permalink | Comments

Saudi Arabia banned any Saudi SMS-messages to the Lebanese reality-tv show, Star Academy, after it's last year-issued Fatwa against the entire show.
More info on this at Al-Jazeera.

Labels: middle east

Posted by Tarek Hoteit at 7:40 AM | Permalink | Comments

11mn US adults cannot read English.
From www.aljazeera.net:
“An estimated one in 20 US adults is not literate in English, which means
11 million people lack the skills to perform everyday tasks, a federal
study shows. From 1992 to 2003, the nation's adults made no progress in
their ability to read a newspaper, a book or any other prose arranged in
sentences and paragraphs. They also showed no improvement in
comprehending documents such as bus schedules and prescription labels.”
Full Story

Regards,
Tarek Hoteit

Labels: middle east

Posted by Tarek Hoteit at 7:30 AM | Permalink | Comments

Excerpts from an article on the Doha Round, titled "With or Without Doha" by Charlene Barshefsky, reveal how the Middle East, "once the center of international commerce and intellectual 'globalization' now resembles a miniature version of the closed and fragmented world economy of the 1930s" (quoted from the article)
- Middle East share of global trade and investments dropped by around 75% between 1979 and 2000.
- (it) heavily if not only depends on oil for cash unlike Latin America and Southeast Asia move towards agricultural products and goods that created more jobs for its people.
- Middle East countries barely trade with one another
- per capita income dropped from $2300 to $1500 between 1980 and 2000
- Western trade regimes lack interest in the Middle East market, opening up its land for imports from African and Latin American countries but not the Middle East countries.

Posted by Tarek Hoteit at 7:38 AM | Permalink | Comments