Board meeting 7-8 -Pacific Concourse A
Business Meeting: Nov. 17: 8- 9:30 pm (Seacliff D)
Current Events Session 2001- on Nov. 18th: 8-10 pm (Seacliff C)
AEDSAW Current Events Session 2001 Organized by Gloria Saliba
The speakers in this panel will discuss the crucial topics
dealing with
environment and development in different parts of the Arab
world. These
topics include public health concerns and policies, environmental
challenges
and environmental activism, gentrification and socioeconomic
change, in
addition to discussing the development in technological
applications, the
environmental, socioeconomic and political impact of water
conflicts and land
reclamation projects.
Chair: Sandy Sufian, Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis
Discussant: Gloria Saliba, UCLA
"Food Safety and Health in the Middle East” Osman Galal,
UCLA
Food safety as a public health issue in the Middle East will be
discussed
in the present paper, which will focus on food safety in its
broadest sense.
In addition to freedom from microbiological hazards, the secure
availability
of food and its nutritional quality are included. The paper will
also include
attention to non-nutrient food substances that have a direct
impact on health
and disease by promoting or preventing degenerative diseases as
cancer and
cardiovascular ailments. The present paper will discuss the
standards
followed to ensure food safety, and the main challenges in this
area that
face public health in the Middle East. The importance of raising
the
nutrition literacy among Middle East populations will be
projected as an
important public health education issue to ensure food safety as
an important
element of food security.
"Water Conflicts and Environmental Impact of the New Mega-Projects in
Egypt” Günter Meyer, University of Mainz
President Hosni Mubarak's "mega-projects for the millennium”,
which aim to reclaim hundreds of thousands of hectares of land from
the desert, are truly on a Pharaonic scale. Inside 20 years it is
planned that the “Northern Sinai Development Project" and the
"Southern Egypt Development Project" (Toshka Project) will provide new
towns as well as employment for at least three million people. Based
on the author's fieldwork in these regions the paper will give an
overview about the present state of development and analyse the
various environmental and economic problems resulting from both
projects. The international implications on the sharing of Nile water
between the neighboring states and the chances for saving water
through the improvement of the present system of water distribution in
the old agricultural land of the Egyptian Nile valley and Delta will
also be discussed.
"Creating Digital Books-Womens' Oral History And The Humor Of Civil
Strife" Barre Ludvigsen , Høgskolen i Østfold / American
University of Beirut
This presentation will illustrate some of the potential for
recording, preservation and distribution of rich cultural material
from the Arab world with two current projects under development out of
Beirut. One is an innovative "digital book" based on oral history as
related by Palestinian women in displacement in greater Palestine. It
is created in very simple format of oral history and images. The
material has been collected and edited by Rosemary Sayigh and is
authored in collaboration with Barre Ludvigsen. The second project is
an equally simple recording and publication of a series of radio
programs made by Ziad el Rahbani and JeanChamoun during the Lebanese
civil war. The presentation illustrates and discusses the very simple
and easy methods and readily available resources used to record,
preserve and publish the material. It also addresses some of the
common difficulties and misapprehensions associated with such projects
that prevent material from being published.
(http://almashriq.hiof.no/)
