Dear friends,

We would like to wish our Muslim friends a peaceful and blessed Ramadan. This is a time of year when work slows down in Egypt, but it is also a period in which many personal contacts are fostered.

Firstly, I would like to thank the many people who have sent me their best wishes during my recent period of ill health, which was a repeat of the health issues I faced in 2000. Three weeks ago I was diagnosed as having blood clots (which could have resulted in a stroke or lung embolism) and as a result I have spent a week in hospital, a week of 100% bed rest at home, and now my activities are very limited until it is all under control.

The doctors have attributed this to many reasons, which include long working hours and the stresses of trying to press forward with many initiatives in the challenging bureaucratic environment here in Egypt.

I would also like to publicly thank my wife Sawsan and the entire team at CIDT / Arab West Report for their commitment and support during this difficult period. They do a fantastic job and are highly motivated in their work � without their efforts everything would have come to a stand still over the past 3 weeks.

Earlier in September, several of our interns accompanied me to hear HRH Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan deliver a lecture entitled, �The Dialogue of Cultures: Toward an Arab Perspective,� hosted by the Faculty of Economics and Political Science at Cairo University. I also had the privilege of interviewing Prince Hassan for Christianity Today during his recent visit to Egypt, and we hope to see this in print in the near future. All of us at CIDT and Arab West Report were greatly encouraged by Prince Hassan's compliments about our work.

The European Institute for the Mediterranean invited us to write an article explaining why opposing media distortions is so important for intercultural dialogue. The article provides examples of media distortions that have led to serious tensions [AWR, 2007, 14, 2].

As a result of previous discussions with HRH Prince Hassan, we were invited to speak about our work at the Arab Thought Forum in Jordan on March 28. Our presentation was entitled, �Media Distortions: Presenting a New Media-Watch Project.� [AWR, 2007, 14, 3]. An Arabic translation of the text was published by the Arab Thought Forum in their magazine.

Development of the Electronic Documentation Center

We continue to make good progress on developing the EDC (our electronic archive of over 15,000 articles published since 1997). The 'who-is-who' feature is almost completed, thereby enabling users to access an overview of someone�s background as they read an article. An Arabic version of the search interface is completed and we are currently working on cross matching our index with the Dewey classification system to provide better access for academic libraries in our network of partners.

We welcome your feedback on our work and invite you to visit the Arab West Report Web site, log in (username: promotion password: promotion) and search the EDC, both for subjects and names of people. Promotional use is valid for one month.

The ENAWU Project

Following several months of negotiations, we are delighted to have been awarded funding by the Anna Lindh Foundation for the first stages of developing the Electronic Network for Arab-West Understanding. This project will eventually link the electronic libraries / archives of academic institutions in the region and internationally to widen the amount of relevant information available and to provide wider access to research and media on the subject of Arab-West understanding and intercultural dialogue.

We are grateful to the Program for Civilization Studies and Dialogue of Cultures at Cairo University for giving us the opportunity to present our plans for the network to over 20 different organizations, including university departments, the Arab League, the Council for Foreign Affairs, Islam-on-Line, and many others.

We already have partner organizations in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The Netherlands, Germany and the Czech Republic. It is our aim that this network gains prominence in the academic world and we welcome inquiries from organizations who may like to join (and share their electronic archives) or who are interested in obtaining access to the network for research purposes. For more details and to download information please visit www.enawu.com.

People Changes

Our strong relationship with the Danish-Egyptian Dialogue Institute continues and is enabling us to continue writing biographies of prominent individuals in the sphere of Arab-West dialogue. Salma Anwar (now on staff) and Ane Skov Birk interned during January to August and Mads Holm and Baher Dokhan have just joined us from the DEDI program. We have had eight other (self-funded) interns during the period, researching a variety of topics, and providing valuable contributions to our work. Marie Lunddhal (Denmark), Katrin Koehler (Germany), Christian Fastenrath (Germany), Nushin Atmaca (Germany), Maria Rezzonico (Italy), Clare Turner (UK), Dimitri Niklas (USA) and David Grant (USA). These internships provide a great opportunity for students to absorb and experience the Egyptian culture and to work in a truly multicultural environment.

Nick Truscott (UK) has joined our team to coordinate the ENAWU project develop our marketing / promotional efforts. Dietrich Mueller (Germany) is providing invaluable technical IT advice and consulting on data management related to all aspects of our work - we are looking forward to welcoming Dietrich and his wife to Egypt during October.

Mohamed Saleh, an Arabic language instructor at AUC, has joined our team as Senior Translator and Arabic Editor to further develop the Arabic version of Arab West Report. His team consists of Salma Anwar, Inas Hussein, Hanaa Eshak, and Viola Shafik.

We also welcome the very well known Dr. Tarek Heggy to our board of advisors.

Subscribers

Our work could not continue here without the faithful support of individual subscribers and donor organizations. In the coming months we hope to greatly develop our subscriber base through a highly focused promotional campaign and to restructure the categories of subscribers to AWR and the EDC to make it more available to a wider public.

Invoices have been sent out for 2007 but not all have paid yet. Please stay with us, your subscription is not only giving you access to the weekly issues of AWR but now also to the EDC for the period you have subscribed. Your subscription not only pays for our day to day expenses, but also helps us to further develop our work.

If you are an existing subscriber we encourage you to pass on this newsletter to friends and colleagues you think may be interested in our work, so that they can consider a subscription. If you do not already have a subscription, please subscribe on http://www.arabwestreport.info/
sub_info.php.

European Lectures � December 2007

I have been invited to lecture on �Christian activists' contributions to Christian migration from the Arab world; can Christianity survive in the Arab world?,� on December 4 in Antwerpen during an UCSIA international workshop on Christian and Muslim minorities in transition in Europe and the Middle East. Click here for a synopis of the lecture.

IVOC, Radboud University of Nijmegen invited me to lecture, as part of a course on Eastern Christianity, on December 12 and 13. Anyone interested needs to sign up with IVOC. The number of places is limited. More information can be obtained from their Web site at www.ru.nl/ivoc/agenda/agenda/

Ayad Mossad of the Stichting Arab-West Understanding is coordinating my program while I am in The Netherlands in December. Please contact him if you would like me to give a lecture on Muslim-Christian and/or Arab-West relations, media reporting on this subject, etc. He can be contacted in The Netherlands at 036-5337418 or write him at [email protected]

Center for Arab West Understanding (CAWU)

As we have previously reported, the Council of State decided to recognize the Center for Arab-West Understanding as an NGO in February of this year. However, the decision has still not been finalized by the appropriate authorities. Our lawyer assures us that there are no reasons to believe this will not be completed but we are certainly dealing with a lot of bureaucracy. We greatly appreciate the many congratulations and good wishes that we have received but we regret that CAWU cannot yet start working as an NGO.

Changes on the internet

Finally, regular visitors to our websites will have noticed some changes. I would like to invite you to visit them to find out more about the entire range of activities we are involved in:

• www.arabwestreport.com is the online home of the Arab West Report and gateway to the Electronic Documentation Center.

• www.enawu.com is home of the Electronic Network for Arab West Understanding, linking academic libraries, archives and documentation centers around the world.

• www.cidtegypt.com reflects the proper legal status of CIDT in Egypt and we hope to develop our work for clients in Egypt and around the world.

• www.holyfamilyegypt.com is a great opportunity to discover a little known part of Egypt's great culture.

Calendar

We are thinking of making a calendar to make our work and websites known to a larger public and would like to know who could help us distribute the calendar to people you expect to have an interest in the work we do.

As always, thank you for your interest in our work and please do not hesitate to contact us for further information.

Yours sincerely
Kees Hulsman & Sawsan Gabra