They're talking to Iran about their nuclear programme. It's about productive as a meeting of smack addicts talking to a dealer who wants to try out coaine dealing, trying to tak him out of it.
Javier Solana, the European Union's most senior diplomat, has formally offered Iran a list of incentives that the major powers hope will be enough to persuade it to stop enriching uranium.The Iranians of course had this to say:
The deal was presented today in a two-hour meeting with Ali Larjani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, at the Supreme National Security Council headquarters in central Tehran. An official close to the talks said afterwards: "Larijani said Iran will study the package, clause by clause, and respond."
Mr Solana arrived in Tehran last night last night as the messenger to convey a deal agreed in talks among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany, in Vienna last Friday. The former Nato chief told reporters at Tehran airport that the West wanted "a new relationship" with Iran and that the package would "allow us to engage in negotiations based on trust, respect and confidence".
Details of the proposals, drawn up by Britain, France and Germany and backed by the United States, Russia and China, have been kept secret, but an early draft suggests that if Iran agrees to stop enriching uranium, the major powers would offer it help in building nuclear reactors and guarantee a supply of nuclear fuel.
The offer contains the implicit threat of UN Security Council sanctions if Iran continues to insist on enriching uranium - a process that can produce fuel for generating electricity or material for making nuclear bombs.
But with both China and Russia keen to avoid any more explicit threats against Tehran, the major powers have focused on incentives to draw Iran back into the fold. The package is thought to include the offer of European Airbus aircraft. The United States, which offered last week to enter direct talks with Iran for the first time since the Islamic revolution of 1979, has reportedly sweetened the offer by saying that it would lift some bilateral sanctions, including a ban on the sale of Boeing passenger aircraft and spare parts.
Iran has so far insisted that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty it is entitled to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. But the world is suspicious of its nuclear plans because it concealed significant aspects of its programme for many years.
"The proposals contain a number of positive aspects, but some issues need clarification," an Iranian television channel quoted Ali Larijani as saying.This is going to drag on.
The European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, Tuesday handed over to Iran a package of incentives drafted by the Iran-6 negotiators aimed at persuading the Islamic Republic to halt its controversial uranium-enrichment program.
Larijani said Iran would return to the negotiating table after studying the proposals.
"We need to study the propositions carefully, and after that we will resume negotiations to achieve a reasonable result," he said, adding that Tuesday's meeting with Solana had been positive.
Hey, You're Still Arabs, Though...
Some folks who have had enough of stereotypes have decided to everse them in order to help self-esteem of their kids. It's as dicey an issue as they come.
Set to be released in September, "Al-Quraysh" is a strategy game that tells the story of the first 100 years of Islam's history from the viewpoint of four different nations - Bedouins, Arabs, Persians, and Romans.I can understand the kind of angst that comes out of copping Western prejudices about the Arab world. It's just one of those things where the Arab World is function as 'the other' in a post-modern First World struggling to get a fix on any reference they can hang a hat on.
One can choose to command any of the armies of the four nations or lead the army of the main character, Khaled Ibn Waleed, a Muslim warrior who defeated the Roman and Persian empires and never lost a battle. Or one can play the role of the Bedouin sheikh, who must earn the respect of his tribe. The player has the task of building and protecting trade routes and water sources, building armies, conducting battles, and freeing slaves.
It's just one of several new games produced in the Middle East with the idea that video games, like other media, play a role in shaping young minds and impacting self-esteem. The makers hope "Al-Quraysh," named after the prophet Muhammad's tribe, will help to correct the image of Islam, alleviate tensions with the West, and stoke pride among young Muslims.
"Al-Quraysh is going to help people in the West better understand the people who are living in the East," says Radwan Kasmiya, an avid gamer and the executive manager of Afkar Media. "We want to show that this civilization was a sort of practical and almost heavenly civilization."
The game also holds lessons for Muslims, says Mr. Kasmiya.
"I get very embarrassed by the way we are showing our civilization," says Kasmiya. "There were rational laws that were governing Muslims at that time. This allowed this civilization to last for a long time and to accept the other civilizations that they came in touch with. It was not a conservative or sectarian civilization. But people have stopped taking the ideas behind the laws, and are taking the laws themselves. They do not understand the essence of the laws."
Afkar Media has already produced two games, both dealing with the plight of the Palestinian people. One game released last year, "Under Siege," was born out of frustration with the prevalance of Arabs and Muslims portrayed as terrorists in Western video games. The creators of the game say the story line counteracts the biases in some Western games by showing the Palestinian struggle from an Arab vantage point and creating Arab and Muslim characters who are fighting in self-defense.
In the first scene of "Under Siege," Baruch Goldstein, the Israeli settler who killed 27 worshipers in a Hebron mosque in 1994, snickers as he sneaks up to the mosque where two boys, Maen and Ahmed, are among those praying inside. Goldstein enters the mosque and starts shooting into the prostrated crowd.
As chaos ensues, Ahmed must disarm Goldstein and turn to fight Israeli soldiers. Killing civilians - Israeli or Arab - will make him lose his stamina. Maen is armed with a slingshot and must help the ambulance, which is being blocked by Israeli forces, reach the mosque.
Critics say the game merely inverts stereotypes - replacing extremist caricatures of Muslims with extremist caricatures of Jews, like that of Baruch Goldstein, and using the violent "shooter" format common to many video games.
But by giving young Muslims and Arabs the chance to see themselves in "the good guy" roles, Kasmiya hopes the games will bolster self-esteem among the region's children.
"Most video games on the market are anti-Arab and anti-Islam," says Kasmiya. "Arab gamers are playing games that attack their culture, their beliefs, and their way of life. The youth who are playing the foreign games are feeling guilt. On the outside they look like they don't care, but inside they do care. But we also don't want to do something about Arabs killing Westerners."
Both "Al-Quraysh" and "Under Siege," which cost roughly $100,000 to make, have been funded and released by Dar al-Fiqr, a publishing house that distributes a wide range of conservative to liberal voices on topics related to Islam. An estimated 100,000 copies of "Under Siege" have been distributed around the Arab world.
Hasan Salem, a director at Dar al-Fiqr, hopes "Al-Quraysh" will promote a more "modern" Islam.
"People believe that only their heritage will help this nation," says Mr. Salem. "We believe that this nation needs a new vision, new people, new blood to study, read, and then think about Islam. We believe in this line, not the old line that only reads old books and believes in the past."
But Dar al-Fiqr and Afkar Media's toughest challenge may be getting serious gamers to play.
Weak copyright laws in the region limit a company's ability to profit from such games, which sell for about $10 a copy.
And games like "Al-Quraysh" must compete with the sophisticated graphics and game plots of a multibillion-dollar gaming industry.
Mohamad Hamzeh, a 26-year-old gamer, says he bought "Under Siege," but that he would not play it instead of other popular games like "World of Warcraft" or "Counterstrike" because he says the plot lines are not convincing.
"We do want to put Arabs in games and show that we have a civilization, we respect other people, and that we are not aggressors," says Mr. Hamzeh, who develops video games himself. "But it's hard to really get into a game like 'Under Siege.' When you are in 2005 and you find a game that was released in 1995 that was much more advanced, it is not good. You must feel the challenge in the game. They are paying so much attention to the political and religious part, they are not concentrating on the technical parts of the game."
However, I'm really not convinced making computer games to suit your own crappy prejudices is the best way to go about making a more enlightened world. True, it might feel better to have their kids blasting Europeans and Jewish badguys as Arabs instead of playing Europeans and Jews killing Arab bad guys; but maybe those kids should just be reading books instead of playing computer games. Nobody has ever convincingly shown that computer games have increased cultural acceptance or awareness to any great depth.
Besides, at the end of the day, you'd still be just a sad little Arab complaining about their lot in the world's great kicking order. I'm orry too; it's just the way it is and no computer game is going to change that fact.
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