• Nile River in Sudan and Egypt

Thanks to dense cultivation, irrigation, and the use of fertilizers and modern planting techniques, Egyptian farmland yields rank among the highest in the world. Most of the country’s arable land lies along the banks of the Nile and in the delta region.

• King Faruk 1936-1952 (British Rule)
• Nasser 1952-1970 
• Pan-Arabism Wars against Israel in 1956 and 1967
• Sadat 1970-1981
• War Against Israel 1973
• Peace with Israel 1977-1979
• Assasinated in 1981
• Mubarak 1981- present

• Capital: Cairo
• Overcrowding
• City of the Dead
• Garbage Dump
• Roofs
• Rich versus poor

Because of housing shortages and poverty, about 500,000 Cairenes live in these tombs and mausoleums of the deceased. Although this situation is not officially sanctioned, it has become somewhat formalized over time, and the city now provides electricity and water service to those living in the cemeteries

• piece of land which is totally enclosed within a foreign territory

• when another country has sovereigny over an enclave

The Libyan government began construction on an ambitious underground water pipeline network in 1984 and opened it in 1991. The so-called Great Man-Made River is designed to convey water from underground aquifers beneath the Sahara through hundreds of miles of 4-m- (13-ft-) wide pipes to the farms and cities of northern Libya.

High technology industry, computers and biotech.

See the book Start-Up Nation for an answer to the following question:

“How is it that Israel - a country of 7.1 million people, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies, in a constant state of war since its founding, with no natural resources - produces more start up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, and the UK?

Why does it have more companies on the NASDAQ than those from all of Europe, Korea, Japan, Singapore, China, and India combined?

• 30 million population
• Growing at 2.6% per year and will double in 27 years
• Almost all desert, some additional rainfall in Asir Highlands in the West
• Oil in in the East
• Put together bu Abdul Aziz bin Saud in the 1920s
• Mecca, Medina holy cities

Strict religious requirements while in public: conservative dress for men and women, segregation of the sexes, mandatory daily prayers for Muslim men, and the closing of offices and businesses during the five daily prayer times. A government agency called the Committee to Prevent Vice and Promote Virtue sends out official enforcers called mutawwa’in to ensure observance of these rules. Punishments for transgressions can be summary and harsh, including public flogging.

• Women are not allowed to drive
• Jews and Christians are not allowed to build their religious buildings
• More women than men in Universities, but only a small part of the labor force 

a residential, leisure and tourist resort being built near the south tip of the Kingdom of Bahrain. The BHD 452.4 million (US$ 1.2 billion) project will be a series of 13 man-made islands covering an area of 20 million square meters (215.3 million square feet). It will comprise of six atolls (coral lagoon islands), five petal islands (fish-shaped), a crescent-shaped island, five-star hotels, a 18-hole golf course, 12 bridges, and a marina.

Abu Dhabi is the largest of the emirates, but Dubai is becoming the Hong Kong of the Arabian Peninsula 

Mustafa Kemal 

(Ataturk)

• Persia
• Indo-European heritage
• Plateau surrounded by mountains and deserts
• 74 million
• 67% urbanized
• Nomadism
• Tehran (8.2 M)
• Ruled by Shah from 1951 until overthrown by Khomeini in 1979

• Area was taken by czars in 1700s and 1800s
• Then became part of the USSR

• Soviets tried to suppress Islam
• Islam is in a resurgence througout this area
• Russia continues to hold significant influence in this part of their "near abroad"

• Northern sections were heavily Russified 
• 16 million people
  • Kazakh 46%, Russian 35%, Uzbek 2%
  • 100+ ethnic groups
  • 43% Muslim
  • Kazakhs are of Mongolian descent, adopted Sunni Islam, and speak a Turkic language
  • Oil and Gas by Caspian Sea

• Capital moves from Almaty to Astana (1997), a forward capital

Karakalpakstan

• Qoraqalpogh Autonomous Republic (also known as Qoraqalpoghiston, or Karakalpakstan) occupies 37 percent of Uzbekistan’s territory in the western portion of the country. Was an ASSR within Kazakhstan SSR under USSR

• Other minorities, some of whom had been forcibly transferred to Uzbekistan by Stalin, have left

• Anthrax laced letters slow business and government services, 5 people die

• Suicide bomber kills 30 Passover celebrants at a hotel in Netanya Hamas

• Natural gas truck is detonated at the oldest synagogue in Africa killing 21 al-Qaeda

• Pair of bombs kills 202, mostly Austrailians on vacation and local staff Jemaah Islamiah

• Full Moscow theather is taken hostage and 130 are killed in a bungled rescue attempt Chechen separatists

• Suicide bomber kills 13 at a Mombasa Hotel and a Surface-to-Air Missle barely misses an Israel plane al-Qaeda