• Nagdat Anzour
• Khalil Arouni
• Chaker Ayadi
• Elie Aoun
• Fatema Laya Bayat
• Sausan Ghosheh
• Dr. Khalid Hajji
• Rana Husseini

• Bushra Jamil
• Riad Kahwaji
• Dr. Theodore Karasik
• Zaid Mohseni
• Ahmed Nassef
• Senad Pecanin
• Mahmood N. Al Yousif

This distinguished Syrian director first made a name for himself with historical serials that blended fact with fiction. He is the son of Ismail Anzour, the director who made Taht sama´a Dimashq (Under Damascus Skies), Syria´s first silent film, in 1932. Nagdat Anzour´s hallmark features are camera work that reveals the psychology of his characters, as well as the use of lavish costumes and stage–sets.

Anzour is perhaps best known today for his blockbuster serial Al–Hur Al–´Ayn, which takes on the issue of terrorism. It begins with an attack on a housing compound that claims the lives of over 140 members of different Arabic communities. The serial goes on to explore the underlying issues of radical recruitment and indoctrination as well as providing sensitive portraits of the families of perpetrators and victims.

Anzour’s work also includes “They Killed Jasmin” which is filmed in different locations around the world. In this series, Anzour wanted to drive home the message that Islam is a religion of tolerance and dialogue, not violence, as it depicts terrorism as a global threat that hurts Muslims as well as non–Muslims.

Khalil Arouni serves as the Regional Research Director for Universal Media. He graduated with an MBA in Project Management from University of Dundee, Scotland in 1991. Shortly thereafter Mr. Arouni started his career at Public–Graphics Corporation in early 1992. In 1993 he moved to REACH MASS to serve as a Research Executive, and then as General Manager.

Mr. Arouni has over 16 years experience in Media and consumer research in the Middle East and North Africa. Managed research projects in 26 countries. He has worked both on the supplier and the agency side, across different product categories, and key clients (including General Motors, Sheraton, Master Foods, Nestle, McDonald´s, British Airways, Honda, and Riyadh Bank.) He also serves as a member of the Media Agencies Council Technical committee, as well as CASTOR– the Circulation audit Steering Committee. In his free time Mr. Arouni enjoys playing chess, tennis and traveling.

Upon finishing his high school diploma with honors, Chaker Ayadi received a scholarship to study in the United States. He enrolled at the University of Illinois in Urbana–Champaign. Upon graduation with a Master´s Degree in Cinema Studies in 1994 he moved to Vancouver, Canada. Chaker Ayadi won a prestigious Exploration Grant to develop and write a screenplay. He made his first feature film, “Next Station”, in 1998, produced by the National Film Board of Canada. In the meantime Chaker wrote movie and book reviews in French and English Vancouver papers. He also worked as assistant director on a number of music videos and short films.

Chaker moved to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates to be a member of the faculty of Media Studies in the Higher Colleges of Technology. In 2006 Chaker produced and directed a feature documentary called “Nahr El–Barid Refugee Camp” about the daily life in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. The documentary was screened in the Carthage Film Festival in Tunisia and the Emirates Film Competition in Abu Dhabi, UAE. He also produced “Adolescent Colors” (2005), commissioned by CAWTAR (the Center for Arab Women Training and Research), about female adolescents in the UAE.

Elie Aoun, a Lebanese citizen, is the Managing Director of IPSOS STAT in the UAE and the Regional Director of IPSOS STAT in the Middle East. He joined IPSOS in Lebanon 14 years ago, immediately after graduating from the University, where he studied Advertising and Public Relations. For the past 14 years he has been responsible for handling and developing the media business at IPSOS in the Middle East. IPSO is today a leading company in media research and media monitoring in the region.

Mrs. Fatema Laya Bayat was born in Afghanistan and moved to the United States with her family in 1979. She received her Bachelors Degree in English Literature and Education and her Masters Degree in Special Education, and is certified to teach elementary school and special education. After teaching in the United States for several years, Mrs. Bayat returned to Afghanistan to join her husband, Ehsan Bayat, in his efforts to rebuild the country. She is currently Senior Vice President of Ariana Television, and is also co–chair of the Bayat Foundation.

Mrs. Bayat has a strong desire to help make a difference in the lives of those living in poverty conditions in Afghanistan and is trying to bring more attention from the international community to the plight of the Afghan people.

Sausan Ghosheh currently works as the United Nations Development Program Communication Officer for the Arab States. In this role she provide communications and media support to the Regional Bureau for Arab States and the network of country offices throughout the region. Currently she also serve as the main focal point for the United Nation´s Millennium Development Goals.

Sausan has a dual Bachelors degree in Government and Politics and Radio, Television and Film from the University of Maryland, College Park. She received her Masters Degree from Georgetown University in Arab Studies.

Prior to her work at the U.N., Sausan was working as CNN´s Senior´s Producer in the Middle East, responsible for the news and feature stories coming out of the West Bank and Gaza from 1995–2005. During this time she covered Israeli politics on a daily basis. She also served as on–site producer for all major events in the Middle East. During this time, she was also responsible for organizing CNN Middle East coverage of summits and special events both technically and editorially.

During per respective roles Sausan has conducted interviews of several major world leaders. She has reported live, on air, during breaking news in the West Bank and Gaza and provided analysis and updates on latest developments. She also has extensive experience working in dangerous environments, covering wars, uprisings, shootouts, bombings and clashes. Finally, Sausan has travel extensively throughout the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and the US on assignments and produced both in the field and on the news desk.

Dr. Khalid Hajji was born in 1964, in Oujda, Morocco. He holds a B.A. in English Literature from Mohamed 1st University, Faculty of the Humanities, in Oujda, Morocco. (B.A. Monograph: “Lemchaheb: A Socio–Cultural Phenomenon”. The research dealt with a group of Moroccan traditional song–makers). Additionally he holds a M.A. in English Literature, from the University of Sorbonne, in Paris. (M.A. Monograph: Linguistic Mechanisms and Emotional Message in Thomas Hardy´s Poetry). Dr. Hajji´s Ph.D. is in Anglo–American studies, his thesis covered Thomas Edward Lawrence and the Experience of the Desert.

Dr. Hajji speaks Arabic, French, English, German. From 1990 to 1994, he taught French, Arabic and English at the Volkshochschule, in Heppenhein, Germany. From 1995 to 2006, he taught Anglo–American poetics, and American Civilization at the English Department, at Mohamed 1st University, Faculty of the Humanities, Oujda, Morocco.

Dr. Hajji is a founding Member of “Science and Culture Group of Study,” a group of interdisciplinary researchers at Mohamed 1st University, Oujda, Morocco. Additionally he is a founding Member and Member of the board of “Circle of Wisdom for Thinkers and Researchers”, Rabat, Morocco– a circle that set as one of its missions the widening of the conceptual framework as a means to outgrow the divide between “self” and “other”...)

Currently Dr. Hajji serves as co–Editor of Almunaataf: a quarterly Moroccan magazine, which is known for its new approaches to themes such as: “the issue of women today”, “Development”, and “Renaissance.” He is a founding member of A.M.E.C.L.U.F. (Association Marocaine des Enseignants Chercheurs Laureats des Universites Francaises), and Secretary General of Oujda Bureau of the Association. He works as a researcher in Aljazeera Centre for Studies, and has completed over one hundred lectures in Morocco, Europe and the rest of the Arab world, in Arabic, English and French.

Articles:

• Khalid Hajji. The Dialectics of Outside and inside. Grounding a World: Essays on the work of Kenneth White (Glasgow: Alba Editions, 2005)
• Khalid Hajji. “What it Means to be a Cosmopoet in the New Millennium”. Postcolonialisms/Political Correctness (http://www.thecore.nus.edu.sg)
• “Dialogue of Civilizations: from anathema to recognition”, a paper presented in “The First Meeting of Civilizations in Hatay-Antioch”, in Turkey, from September 25th to 29th, 2005.

Books:

• Khalid Hajji. Lawrence d´Arabie ou l´Arabie de Lawrence: geographie, politique, poetique, sagesse. (Paris: L´Harmattan, 2001)
• Khalid Hajji. Min maddaiiq al–Hadatha ila Fadai al–Ibdaa al–Islami wa al–Arabi. (From the Narrowness of Modernity towards a New Space of Islamo–Arabic Creativity) Arabic. (Beirut, Casablanca: Arab Cultural Institution, 2005)
• Assabil wa Al–Hadara. (The Road and Civilization: History of Landscapes and Mindscapes)
• Abderrahman wa al–Bahr: Novel in Arabic. Translated in German.

Ms. Husseini is a journalist with The Jordan Times. Her investigate reporting has focused on social issues with special emphasis on crimes of violence against women, including the so–called honor crimes. Her reporting on this issue is credited with having helped raise national awareness on the topic, inspiring a debate that led to legal changes providing improved justice for victims. It also led to the establishment of a grass roots group, the Jordanian Committee to Eliminate so–called Crimes of Honor.

Rana Husseini has earned six international awards for her reporting. She has been featured in various international media including CNN, ABC, BBC and the Chicago Tribune, as well as Jordanian and other Arab media outlets. She has been a lecturer at several local and international conferences regarding the issue.

Ms. Husseini has also conducted several consultancies on women´s issues with NGOs and international organizations. She has served as special advisor to Freedom House on women´s issues and press freedom in Jordan.

She has worked as a regional coordinator for the United Nation´s Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) campaign to eliminate violence against women in five Arab countries.

Board Membership & Activities:

• Member of the Jordan Press Association since 2005
• Member of the board – Jordanian National Committee for Demining and Rehabilitation since 2003
• Member of the board of the Jordan Basketball Federation 2003 – 2004
• Member of the board – Forefront Organization (USA) since 1999
• Member of the “Jordanian National Committee to Eliminate so–called Honor Crimes” since 1999
• Member of judges panel – Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism 2001
• Team captain of the Jordanian Women´s National Basketball team from 1995 to 2000. Member of the national team since 1983.

Bushra Jamil was born and raised in Iraq. She joined the women´s movement in the seventies and worked actively with progressive secular students at Baghdad University. Despite her distinctive achievement as a student in the college of Sciences/Biology department, she was denied the chance to work at the university or to finish her post–graduate studies because of her refusal to join Baath Party. She worked as a secondary school teacher during the eighties and became vice principal in 1985, but again she was forced to resign for her refusal to become a Baathist. In 1990 Bushra finished her Masters in Plant Physiology in Baghdad then left the country after the Gulf war to reside in Canada. After five years of working in the environmental field, Bushra decided to change her career. She studied Business Management and became project coordinator with the Immigrant and Multicultural Service Society.

After 2003 Bushra came back to work in Iraq and she has been working closely with civil society organizations and the women´s movement since. She supported a variety of civil society activities before establishing Al Mahaba Radio Station, the only independent secular women´s radio station in the region. One of her particular areas of focus is the reporting of human rights issues through monitoring and reporting on human rights violations nationwide.

Riad Kahwaji is the founder and Chief Executive Office of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis (INEGMA). He is also the Middle East Bureau Chief for Defense News, a leading international defense publication based in Virginia, USA. He worked for Jane´s Defense Weekly as Middle East Correspondent from 1999 to 2001. He also contributed on regular basis to various Jane's publications like Jane´s Intelligence Review and Jane's Sentinel and Jane´s Islamic Affairs Analyst. In his career as a professional journalist that started in 1988, Riad has worked at various regional and international news organizations like the Associated Press, the BBC World Service, and the Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC).

Over the past five years, Riad has become more involved in security and defense analysis and research as well as conferencing. He was the lead Organizer and Master of Ceremony at three major international Defense conferences: The Middle East Special Operations Commanders, in Amman, in April 2004; The Middle East Air Chiefs´ Conference in Dubai in 2003; and Special Operations Conference in Amman, 2002. He was speaker and moderator at various regional and international conferences on Middle East affairs. He is also Editor of INEGMA´s quarterly Political and Security Brief. Riad Kahwaji has an MA degree in War Studies from King´s College, the University of London, UK, and a BA in Mass Communication from Phillips University, Oklahoma, USA. He has a dual nationality, Lebanese and British. He is married and has two daughters.

He published many defense analysis articles in Al–Hayat newspaper and professional periodicals. His published work:

• Riad Kahwaji and Michael Kraig (ed.), Alternative Frameworks for Gulf Security (Arabic), (Dubai: INEGMA 2004)
• Riad Kahwaji, “The Israeli Military and Security Establishments,” in Kamil Mansour and Fawzi Abdul Hadi, eds. Israel: A General Survey 2004 (Arabic), (Beirut: Institute for Palestinian Studies, 2004), pp: 497–561
• Riad Kahwaji: “Gulf Cooperation Council Threat Perceptions and Deterrence Objectives,” Comparative Strategy, Vol. 22, No. 5, 2003, pp: 515–520
• Riad Kahwaji: “US–Arab Cooperation in the Gulf,” Middle East Policy Journal, Vol. XI, No. 3, (Fall 2004), PP: 52–62

Dr. Karasik is a Senior Political Scientist in the International Policy and Security Group at RAND. From 2002´2003, he served as Director of Research for the RAND Center for Middle East Public Policy. He has worked on tribal and clan politics of Central Asia and the Arabian Peninsula for 12 years and has conducted specific mapping exercises of both regions. He is also involved in understanding the evolution and impact of globalization on traditional societies and effects on media. Dr. Karasik is a frequently traveler to the Persian Gulf, Turkey, and Russia.

Dr. Karasik´s key RAND publications released to the public are “Beyond al–Qaeda: The Global Jihadist Movement” (2006 co–author), “Beyond al–Qaeda: The Outer Rings of the Terrorist Universe,” (2006 co–author), “War and Escalation in South Asia,” (2006, co–author), “The Muslim World After 9/11” (2004; co–author) and “Toxic Warfare” (2002). His other publications include “Chechnya: A Glimpse of Future Conflict?,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, July–September 1999 with John Arquilla.

Dr. Karasik is a Subject Matter Expert on Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia for the U.S. Library of Congress. He served as a Committee Member on IREX’s Contemporary Issues Fellowship Program for Azerbaijani applicants. Dr. Karasik worked for 18 months with internists in Santa Monica, CA to develop a software package to track human systems and pharmaceutical use.

Dr. Karasik received his Ph.D in History from the University of California, Los Angeles. He wrote his dissertation on military and humanitarian operations during the Russian civil war.

Zaid Mohseni is a director and shareholder of Moby Media Group (MMG).

He graduated in law and economics from Monash University, Melbourne, in 1992 and worked for 12 years as a lawyer, eventually becoming department head and partner of the Melbourne law firm, Wilmoth Field Warne. He left it in 2004 to join MMG full time. It is a media group established by the Mohseni family in late 2002 after the demise of the Taliban.

MMG owns and operates a number of media entities in Afghanistan, including: ARMAN FM, Afghanistan´s first commercial radio network which has FM transmitters in 12 cities in Afghanistan; Tolo TV, Afghanistan´s most popular TV station with free to air transmission in 12 cities in Afghanistan and satellite coverage in Central Asia; Lemar TV, Afghanistan´s most popular Pashto language TV station with free to air coverage in eight cities and satellite coverage in Central Asia; Afghan Scene Magazine, an English language news color magazine serving the expatriate community; Barbud Music, a music recording company based in Kabul; plus various other media interests, including Aria Production, involved in feature and documentary films, serials, dubbing, music video clips and commercial advertising production.

Mr. Nassef attended the University of California at Berkeley where he received his bachelor´s degree in Middle Eastern Studies and also completed graduate work in Islamic Studies.

In January 2003, he created the web site“Muslim Wake Up!” as a new forum. “I saw a glaring vacuum in terms of representation of the Muslim community. There are many extreme groups out there, but we need more opportunities to reflect the voice of Muslim–Americans which is vastly different from these radical groups,” he explains.

“Muslim Wake Up!” includes essays, articles and forums for discussion and comments. Essay and article contributions (both fictional and non–fictional) are voluntarily submitted and come from a wide variety of individuals of all ages and ethnicities. Contributors include students, freelance journalists, academic scholars, religious leaders, business people and musicians. The majority of the contributions come from North America.

Article and essay topics range from art, humor and politics to gender issues, poetry and discussion of religious issues, such as observing Ramadan. “Muslim Wake Up!” also recently profiled a punk rock band made up of young Muslim-Americans. The web site gets 60,000 new hits a month and caters mostly to North American audiences.

Currently, Mr. Nassef is the managing director of the web portal Maktoub.com.

Mr. Senad Pecanin is director of the independent magazine “Dani”, published in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina since 2002. He is the founder and owner of this influential and opinion shaping weekly.

He has over twenty years of experience in journalism. Before starting Dani, he was editor in chief of the magazines “Naši dani,” and “Sandžak”. He started his journalism career in 1987, working for Radio Sarajevo, a cult radio station of the youth of Sarajevo. Soon, he was hired by TV Sarajevo, The Third Channel, where he worked as a news anchor and journalist. Senad was born in Bijelo Polje, Montenegro in 1966. He graduated with a degree in law from the University of Sarajevo in 2000. Completing his postgraduate studies at the University of Sarajevo and University of Bologna in 2002, he defended his master´s thesis “Democratization and Human Rights in South Eastern Europe.” Receiving a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, he next studied human rights and international relations.

Mr. Pecanin has been honored with The Olaf Palme Prize(1995), the Stockholm and Open Society Foundation Award(1998) and the BiH Award for Best Editor (1995). He is a member of the working group of the Young European Leaders of the Carnegie Endowment for Democracy and Aspen Institute Berlin, and founder of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is the author of the book “Ethnicity as the Source of the Political Legitimacy” (Published by Bologna University Press in September 2004).

DANI Magazine

The magazine DANI was established as a news magazine by a group of journalists and editors in September 1992. Today it is a weekly magazine, whose readership is the urban population in the major cities of Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to their own media research, they are regularly read in all major government institutions, international organizations, diplomatic representative offices, cultural institutions and by the opinion leaders of the country. Readers range from secondary school students to pensioners.

Dani has been a leading force in uncovering some of the toughest and most controversial issues of BiH society. They were among the first to publish stories on the war crimes committed by the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and after the war, they uncovered some of the darkest sides of the BiH government, such as connections to the mafia nd misuses of power and position. We are working hard to develop investigative journalism.

As a result, Dani and its staff have repeatedly been pressured.

The magazine´s circulation is currently 30,000. A survey showed that each copy is read by 4,6 individuals. There is an online edition which is one of the most visited sites in BiH. Dani has received numerous awards, including the Association of Journalists of BiH Award of 1993 and the Olaf Palme Foundation Award of 1998.

Dani is produced by a multi–national, multi–ethnic staff of 32 employees.

The editorial policy of Dani is based on the following principles: independence from any political influence, equal distance from those who are in power and those in the opposition, deep respect towards multiculturalism, support the development of democratic institutions, promotion of religious, national and gender equality and above all, respect for human rights and freedom of speech.

My achievements so far include being a husband of 16 years, father of two girls and a boy. Have two stupid dogs, 3 cars one of which is up for sale. I’m my own boss. I own and operate a company that attempts to make life easier for creative professionals to tell their stories better and faster, so they can produce more. At this moment I’m enjoying moderate success, but put in another place I could do a lot more. I´m certainly not as financially stable as I want to be.

I have always excelled in my studies and enjoyed maths and science most.

I´ve had many hobbies through my life and still participate in most I started a long time ago, the format might have changed, but the enjoyment is still there. I have always been fascinated by the visual arts having a father who is one of the founders of the contemporary art movement in this area of the world is bound to rub off on you.

At school I started the first ever photography club. I have entered just one photography exhibition in Bahrain, and won 2^nd prize. I should do more and participate in these exhibitions more often.

I´ve also am fascinated by computers and their potential. Especially communication and how that marriage can bring disparate peoples together. I started one of the first BBS (bulletin board service) in the Gulf in ´86. Called it Stray Cats BBS and proceeded to commandeer my wife’s monthly salary to pay the telephone company! I put a stop to that in ‘91 I think much to my wife´s happiness!

I became an aircraft avionics maintenance engineer, did that for 10 years, realized that I wasn´t going anywhere fast so I went to the States and came back 3 months later with a commercial pilot´s license. The 2nd Gulf War started soon after my return, so employment opportunities for pilots disappeared.

Started my company and left the airline industry behind.

Now I try to dispel the image that Muslims and Arabs suffer from – mostly by our own doing I have to say - in the rest of the world. I am no missionary and don’t want to be. I run several internet web sites that are geared to do just that, create a better understanding that we’re not all nuts hell-bent on world destruction.

I hope that I will be judged that I made a small difference.