A conference of Arab businessmen that opened in Beirut yesterday warned of the serious consequences of the rising unemployment rate in the Arab world, which has reached 14%.
The conference, organized by the Arab Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, is being attended by 500 Arab and foreign participants from 21 countries. The chair of the conference, who is president of the Chambers of Commerce, Adnan al-Qassar, said in his opening statement that unemployment in the Arab world has become a chronic phenomenon despite the tremendous increase in oil revenues.
I don't know if Hamas, PLO, Hizballah, Mahdi, Badr etc representatives were invited to attend the event, but they should have been present. If you give people arms, train them to make explosives, and encourage them to blow themselves up does not mean you take care of your own.
The Arab League also drew attention to the fact that while the Arab world has vast areas of arable land, it still imports 50% of its grains and two-thirds of its food products at a cost of $30 billion annually.
These are the real problems that need to be addressed. Politicians invent the rest [ killing the infidels, Zionists, imperialists etc] and use human rights issues, religious sentiment and freedom ideals to cover their dirty work.
