Regional Issues

President Abbas and Prime Minister Netanyahu may soon embark on yet another round of peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis. Each leader, in his own way, faces daunting challenges, in part because he must answer to ideological constituencies which are vehemently opposed to the concessions which are part and parcel of the peace process. Netanyahu, [...]

Karin meets Prince Hassan of Jordan at a water security conference in Switzerland last week.
It was a meeting of minds, water minds. Water consultants, ambassadors who’ve built water treaties, and government specialists and negotiators from around the Middle East

Today I am happy, as an Iranian, as a human. Today Abdolmalek Rigi, an Iranian Sunni rebel was arrested by Iranian Ministry of Intelligence.
Abdolmalek Rigi, militant leader of the Jundallah (Soldiers of God) which had claimed a series of attacks against civilians and soldiers in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan Province from bases in Pakistan, [...]

Anti-semitism is a horrible thing. That’s exactly why, in the interest of a scholarly defense of the truth, we cannot allow ourselves to throw that accusation around too liberally.

The Afghan people are trapped in a limbo between two styles of governance that do not fit in with their society: a Western-style democracy and a Wahhabist Taleban emirate. They believe in the ideals of freedom, equality, and national pride, but they need to be empowered to build a system that embodies these ideas in a uniquely Afghan way.

A number of websites and videos are presenting evidence that the lifestyle of Ayatollah Khamenei is not as simple as he pretends. Check out two of the most interesting ones here:

10 years ago today, Middle East Youth would have probably been backing up all their information on paper with the fear of the Y2K lingering. As we dawned on the Y2K era we were scared – very scared. We thought that if computers could survive it, then we’ll live happily ever after.
Looking back at the [...]

Climate change has long-since ceased to be a scientific curiosity, and is no longer just one of many environmental and regulatory concerns. As the United Nations Secretary General has said, it is the major, overriding environmental issue of our time, and the single greatest challenge facing environmental regulators. It is a growing crisis with economic, [...]

December 3, 2009 passes, just another day among 365 days of the year. But no day here is boring. I videotape at length (mostly for another project) but put a tiny bit on YouTube to give you a visual to accompany this description since I am still experimenting with video productions but hopefully will get [...]

Peace in the Middle East is still only a dream, but the actual terms of a final peace agreement between Palestinians, at least in the West Bank, and Israelis, are not all that difficult to imagine.
Security: Israel would prefer for the new Palestinian state to be demilitarized. Palestinians in the West Bank, however, do not [...]