Habari Post

From a story in this week's Economist: "The monarchy of Bahrain regards itself as a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. It was the first in the Gulf to give all its citizens the vote, setting up a partially elected parliament, albeit with limited powers, in 2002.

As the number of soldiers killed in Iraq passed four thousand, the New York Times published a statistical analysis of American military losses.

The over 40 leaders from Muslim countries meeting in Dakar, Senegal wrapped a two-day summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) last Friday.

The presidents of Sudan and Chad agreed to seek peace in the presence of the European Union, the United States, France, the United Nations and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) during the 11th summit of the OIC in Senegal. The agreement has been called the Dakar Agreement.

The pentagon released a report by the Institute for Defense Analyses titled "Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents" that concluded the following with respect to Saddam Hussein and terrorism:

Heads of state and representatives of over 40 Muslim nations gathered today in Dakar, Senegal for the Eleventh Session of the Islamic Summit Conference.

Many cite an increase in American soldiers in Baghdad as the reason for a decrease in violence in the city.

Terry Gross from NPR interviewed two individuals last night who used to fight against each other and who are now trying to end the violence between Israel and Palestine by bringing together people who, like themselves, used to fight each other.

Some of our contributors from the Middle East have been asking for an explanation of the presidential election in the U.S. The following are a few suggested resources as a starting point. Feel free to add additional resources in comments following this story.

The Economist is running a story on some of the challenges with finding solutions to Middle East conflicts. The problems are tightly interlinked - the flare-up in Gaza made it more difficult to resolve a constitutional crisis in Lebanon, for example.