· January, 2008

Stories about West Asia & North Africa from January, 2008

Tunisia: Obama's Religion

“Should I worry about the way Islam is made out to sound like a plague that everyone wants to distance themselves from? Should I be wondering what the religion of...

30 January 2008

MENA: Little Interest in US Elections

The Lounsbury says there isn't much interest in the Middle East and North Africa in the US elections at this stage. He further adds: “This being said, operationally or ‘conversationally’...

30 January 2008

Bahrain: Are Gulf Arabs Lazy?

Earlier this week the Bahraini Labour Minister Majid Al Alawi was interviewed in the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, and in the interview he said that the Gulf was facing an 'Asian tsunami' because Gulf nationals are 'lazy' and 'spoilt' and depend on imported labour to do even simple tasks. He said that that the nearly 17 million foreign workers in the Gulf, mostly Asian, represented 'a danger worse than the atomic bomb or an Israeli attack'. What do Bahraini bloggers think?

29 January 2008

Egypt: 40th Cairo International Book Fair

Eman AbdElRahman is in love with January, all the more because a world-class book fair is just outside her doorsteps. In this post, she shares with us the excitement of other Egyptian bloggers with the event, as well as their complaints, and the cultural extravaganza on its sidelines.

29 January 2008

UAE: Investing in Employees

“Dear Readers: What are your thoughts about why UAE employers invest so little in their employees? Or is it just a myth that they don't?” writes John Chilton.

29 January 2008

Iran:”Women Magazine” was banned

Razeno informs [Fa] us that “Women Magazine” after being published for 16 years,was banned by Iranian government today,on 28th of January.The blogger says that this magazine published an article about...

28 January 2008

Morocco: The Big Cities

Morocco is well-known for lots of things: mint tea, couscous, a film mostly unrelated to the country...And of course, its big cities, several of which were the topic of posts in the blogoma this week, writes Jillian York, who takes us to Fez, Tangier, Marrakesh and Meknes.

28 January 2008

Egypt: Abu Tarika

Sports and politics? Eman Abd Al Rahman sheds light on how an Egyptian football player manages to make his voice count on the soccer field.

28 January 2008

Qatar: Strange Lights Over Doha

Qatar's bloggers are looking at the night's skies trying to understand what the strange bouncing lights a blogger captured with her camera phone are all about. Is it a UFO, an aircraft, a meteor or Spiderman?

28 January 2008

Israel: Gaza's Electricity Consumption

From Jerusalem, Gideon Lichfield writes about how much electricity Gaza consumes.”Assuming 1.4m people live in Gaza (some say 1.5m), and that its peak wintertime electricity consumption — ie, when Israel...

28 January 2008

About our West Asia & North Africa coverage

Walid El Houri
Walid El Houri is the West Asia and North Africa Editor. Email him story ideas or volunteer to write.


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