Jordan Business Magazine is yet aiming to identify the 30 most influential people in Jordan (apart from the Royal Family) and for this purpose have designed a good voting system. The results should apear in the July edition. Here is my own list of the most influential 30 persons. The list should be divided by three categories, with 10 names in each. In my humble opinion, the second category of... [read more]

I would like to share with you this fascinating speech by Dr Ismail Serageldin, the Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the former vice president of the World Bank for Water and Environment. Dr Serageldin is a phenomenal person with an encyclopedic knowledge on science, culture, development and politics in one holistic humanist package. This speech is about his selection of the ten books that... [read more]

In my last post, I wrote about a statement by John McCain's political advisor of foreign Affairs (Robert Kagan) during a "lecture" he is supposed to have given in New York University saying that Jordan should be the alternative country for the Palestinians. The source of the news was Ammon News portal, a Jordanian tabliod news that is very popular. I wrote about the same issue in my daily column as... [read more]

Update on June 18th: Most likely we have been fooled with this fabricated news. Check http://www.jordanwatch.net/archive/2008/6/598062.html   Two news items have struck me this morning as they include dangerous signs and strange antagonism. According to Ammon news Republican candidate John McCain will consider Jordan to be THE Palestinian state, bringing back into life the Jordanian option... [read more]

Tomorrow I will be flying to the beautiful Alexandria to participate and act as a rapporteur in a debate conference entitled "Future of Sustainability in the Arab World" which will jointly organized by IUCN and Bibliotheca Alexandrina. This will be a great chance for me to be back to the massive scientific and cultural icon of Bibliotheca Alexandrina and get another dose of firm belief of the... [read more]

Despite the great importance attached by the Jordanian society to education, which is reflected by the willingness of Jordanian families to spend a large proportion of its budget on education of sons and daughters in universities, the recent transformations in the Jordanian economy have made education a minor element in the process of wealth creation in Jordan.    It is true that education still... [read more]