Word: arabia
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...Iraq is the attitude of the country's neighbors as U.S. soldiers depart. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq has become a major battleground in the regional power struggle between Iran and Syria on the one hand and the U.S. and its Arab allies such as Saudi Arabia on the other. Right now, engagement remains the order of the day as the White House attempts to restart regional peace talks and holds open the possibility of a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear program. But should U.S.-Iranian tensions escalate, the region's powers will no doubt once again...
Bruder started EFE's first program in Jordan in 2006, but he quickly expanded to Morocco, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, plus Gaza and the West Bank. EFE's graduates number only in the dozens in the West Bank, but more classes are about to begin in Hebron and Ramallah. "We can expand pretty rapidly," he said, "if there are jobs for the people we graduate...
Other countries in the gulf are spinning the same line: cherry-picking the best of Dubai while avoiding the worst. Saudi Arabia, the region's behemoth, has ambitious plans for new development, and Riyadh, its capital and biggest city, is bound to host the central bank for a proposed future gulf single currency. But for all its shopping malls and skyscrapers, Riyadh will never be the region's financial center so long as there is no place for investment bankers to celebrate their deals by popping champagne corks. Most global professionals don't want to live in a country where...
Kuwait may be less conservative than Saudi Arabia, but its ban on alcohol is also a major stumbling block to becoming a tourism and professional services hub. Bahrain - another of Dubai's challengers in financial services - has a thriving banking industry and the most ethnically and religiously diverse local population in the gulf. But its tolerant feel is threatened by tensions between the élite Sunni minority and the less powerful Shi'ite majority, as well as Islamist political parties that have benefited from the kingdom's tentative experiments with democratic elections. (See 10 Things to Do in Dubai...
...choice but to listen to its foreign creditors and stakeholders. And wealthy as they are, the leaders of the gulf countries also know their societies have to eventually change too, says economist Sfakianakis. Oil generates wealth, but the oil industry doesn't generate many jobs. Even in rich Saudi Arabia, unemployment is officially 11.6% - and that's among men only. Some 65% of the population in the broader Middle East is younger than 30. For the region's governments to create jobs for all those young people, they will have to continue opening up to the private sector, foreign investment...