Habari Post

Foreign journalists have been largely censored from covering protests in Iran over the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Twitter has emerged as the primary communication tool, both for protesters to organize, and for outside news organizations to gain insight into what's happening in Tehran.

This is an interview with Clay Shirky about the role Twitter has played organizing election protests in Iran.

There is also a video of the professor speaking about trends in social media and mobile technology in the role of elections:
http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make_history.html

Bahrain has long been a weekend escape for men living in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait looking for a place to enjoy drinking gambling and sex. Despite minor oil reserves, Bahrain's economy is booming, in part due to a healthy stream of tourists from neighboring countries.

Legislators in Dubai, one of the seven emirates and the most populous city of the United Arab Emirates, have drafted a law that would make it a crime for media to damage the country’s reputation or economy, punishable by fines of up to 1 million dirhams (about $272,000).

Kurmanbek Bakiyev, president of the Kyrgyz Republic announced that he plans to close the U.S. air base in his country. The base had been a major site of NATO forces launching assaults into Afghanistan.

Reporter Tagheed El-Khodary, NY Times correspondent in Gaza, responds to questions posted by readers. One question in particular sparked quite a bit of controversy and discussion. The topic pertained to whether Hamas was deliberately firing rockets into Israel from civilian areas of Gaza. Ms.

A slide show of day-to-day life in Gaza since the ceasefire. The title "Gaza Ebbs Toward Normalcy" seems incredibly overstated.

The four living U.S. presidents (Jimmy Carter, George Bush, Sr., Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush) met with Barack Obama this week at the White House and passed the torch of the ever elusive pursuit for peace in the Middle East.

The New York Times put together a great interactive timeline that begins with the truce between Israel and a number of Arab countries who simultaneously declared war on the newly formed state in 1948. The Gaza strip was ceded to Egypt as part of a pact between the countries in 1949.

Kazakh nationalism is on the rise in Kazakhstan.

Leaders of Muslim organizations and countries in the Middle East agree that the election of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States signifies a new direction of the country's policies in the Middle East.

This week's Economist includes two articles that are well worth reading.

Kazakhstan has announced it will lift the ban on grain exports it imposed in April to control domestic food prices. Russia, Kazakhstan and the Ukraine are all expecting increases in production this year, according to an article in the Financial Times.

In 1978, President Carter's foreign policy team was primarily occupied with signing a treaty between Egypt and Israel in an effort to bring peace in Palestine and Israel. His senior advisers paid little attention the the weakening position of the Shah in Iran and the rise of support for then exiled Ayatollah Khomeini (Ayatollah is a high ranking title in structure of Shiite Islam).

After 16 years with the World Bank, William Easterly writes about the failures and shortcomings of development policy and practices by Western dominated organizations like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, USAID and the United Nations.