Author: Amy Kellogg

There is a mixture of sympathy and horror here in Great Britain for the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, whose financial situation, in her own words, “is under stress.”  She was caught on camera by an undercover reporter for the News of the World offering to sell access to her ex-husband, Prince Andrew, for £500,000, which would be approximately $750,000.   The reporter who did the sting posed as a businessman.

Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, has a lot of business connections.  He is the UK’s Special Representative for Trade and Investment.  He travels the world meeting royalty, heads of state and businessmen, greasing the wheels for business deals to be done by British companies all over the world, and courting investment here.  We followed Prince Andrew on one such trip to North Africa.  His position as a member of the royal family does afford him incredible access, which he uses, not for his own enrichment, but to help British business.  It is a job, from what we could tell from our contact with the Duke, he takes very seriously.

So this scandal is about Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, trying to make money off the connections Prince Andrew makes.  In the exchange filmed by the undercover reporter, Ferguson goes out of her way to explain that the Prince knew nothing of her plans.  That he is totally clean and above board in his work at the UK’s trade ambassador.  And his spokespeople have insisted he was completely unaware of this.  A lot of people will believe that here.  But others will be skeptical, as Prince Andrew has been called “Air Miles Andy” in the past by the tabloid media here for his liberal use of air travel, which is not connected to this at all, but is one example of some of the bad press he has gotten here over the years.

But for now, Ferguson is the one caught trying to cash in on royal connections, officially severed after her divorce from Prince Andrew, but still very real in terms of her close relationship to Prince Andrew.   She has been said to have commented that they are “the happiest divorced couple.”

Ferguson and Prince Andrew still vacation together with their two daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie.  And she lives on his royal estate, as she has had serious financial problems.

And that is why she said she tried to cash in on connections.  Despite the fact that she at one point had a lucrative contract with Weight Watchers and has taken on numerous projects and speaking engagements over the years, she has been in and out of debt.

Said to be extremely generous with friends, she is also seen to live beyond her means.      Sarah Ferguson has done a lot of work for charities.   Many here believe her heart is in the right place.  But her judgment skills are not—even the Duchess herself admitted “a serious lapse in judgment.”

The visit to Iran of the mothers of the three American hikers, Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer, and Josh Fattal, held captive in Tehran, was one of the top stories in the Iranian blogosphere on Thursday.

One comment, posted in Persian from someone in Iran, after seeing photos of the mothers embracing their children, was “It burns your heart.  If torturing Iranian mothers was not enough, now this.”

There was an outpouring of sympathy on this website for the mothers, Nora Shourd, Cindy Hickey and Laura Fattal, clad in severe black chadors, as they were granted visitation with their sons and daughter, held for ten months in jail in Iran, accused of espionage.  They do not know when they will get to see their children next.

Another comment from a Persian website: “how awful they must feel right now?  Only God knows.”

When word the women would be granted visas to visit Iran and see their children, opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, in a meeting with relatives of Iranian political prisoners, applauded this.  But he also asked why Iranian mothers, whose children are in prison for their role in the pro-democracy demonstrations in Iran, are not given access to their children.  By law in Iran, family members are supposed to have that right.  But according to reports, many have had to wait months before getting to see their children.

According to The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, there are 4-500 people in detention as a result of the protests following last June’s disputed elections.  The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran also says often family members of prisoners are threatened, harmed, or visitation rights are withheld, as a way to pressure prisoners into confessions.

Most airports in the UK and Ireland have been closed or experienced disruptions in the past 24 hours due to another volcanic ash cloud.
At the time of this writing, most airspace had re-opened, except over the Shetland and Orkney Islands.

Since the initial ash cloud occurrence in the middle of last month, there have been sporadic airspace closures across Europe.

This is likely to continue, experts say, for months.

Here in the UK, the disruptions due to this latest cloud, are likely to last into tomorrow.

The British Transport Secretary said that there are talks about raising the threshold for airspace closures and making airplane engine inspections more intensive.

Obviously, safety is the biggest priority for everyone, but the airline industry, which lost an estimated $1.7 billion in last month’s chaos is agitating.

The British Airways chief executive called this round of closures a “gross over-reaction” and Virgin Atlantic’s Richard Branson was quoted as saying that they are “beyond a joke”.

The trouble with these clouds is that the particles get into planes’ engines and they turn into a glass-like substance when they come into contact with the heat.

That causes engines to shut down, planes drop, and they normally recover and re-start engines at lower altitudes, but it is a dangerous scenario. So the criteria for deciding when to close airports has much to do with how much engines can handle.

But people are worried about a possible summer of disruption. The volcano in Iceland may keep erupting for months, spewing ash into the sky, ash that then gets carried one way or another, depending on the wind.

The British public has been quite stoic, and at times philosophical about the disruptions. Apparently a wartime Lancaster bomber that had been scheduled to fly over the city yesterday was grounded by the cloud. An airport spokesman was quoted in the Telegraph newspaper as saying, “Unfortunately it seems the ash cloud has managed what the Luftwaffe failed to achieve and kept this marvelous plan out of the sky.”

Tonight’s debate, some say, could have a dramatic effect on British politics.

This is the first election period in the United Kingdom with televised debates between the leaders of the main parties.

One debate down.  Two to go.  But already people are saying that the first debate alone has managed to shake up the campaign, to energize it, and has led to the wholly unexpected rise of the leader of the perennially third party.

Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, previously the outsider, was seen as the winner of the first debate.  His relaxed style went down well with the audience.  The Brits are fed up with politics and politicians.  Or so they say.  Many feel their leaders lie to them.  The recent expenses scandal, in which Members of Parliament’s expense accounts have been leaked, scrutinized and deemed by many UK taxpayers to be excessive, has angered a lot of people.  The scandal centered on the ruling Labor Party and the Conservatives.

The pundits say Clegg really felt like the breath of fresh air an angry electorate is hankering for.  That said, being an outsider and never viewed as a possible Prime Minister, his policies have not been scrutinized. The incumbent Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Conservative Party Leader David Cameron’s have been time and again.  Their performance in the debate was perceived by viewers as more restrained, more guarded.  They clearly had more to lose.  It’s not that they made any major gaffes.  The perception among viewers was that Clegg seemed more like the man for change.

Today the papers, particularly conservative ones, have been full of stories slamming Nick Clegg.  They involved party donations that allegedly went in to his personal account a few years back, but were actually used to pay a staffer.  Clegg denies anything unethical.  Also, a comment he made back in 2002 has been cited, and come back to bite.  Then he told a newspaper that the UK has “a more insidious cross to bear than Germany over the Second World War”, a reference to the British suffering delusions of grandeur over having defeated the horrors of Nazism.

Just last week, Clegg’s popularity was compared to that of Winston Churchill after his success in last week’s debate, said today “I must be the only politician who has, in a week, gone from Churchill to a Nazi.”

The British system is different from the American one.  The Brits vote for Members of Parliament.  If a party wins more than half the seats in Parliament, its leader forms a government, and becomes Prime Minister.  If no party gets more than half the seats, it’s called a hung Parliament, which is highly unusual and which either means a coalition is formed among parties or a new election is called.

Before the debate, the Conservatives were favored to win the requisite chunk of votes to be the part of power.  The Nick Clegg phenomenon has made the prospect of a hung Parliament seem more real.  No one expects the Liberal Democrats to win the election.  But their success after the first debate has changed the picture.  The latest YOUGOV poll puts Conservatives at 33 percent, Liberal Democrats at 31 percent and Labour at 27 percent.

People are saying it’s the first time in a generation the outcome of a British election is so uncertain.

There was no let up in the traffic around the Presidential Palace in Warsaw today.

People lined up for an entire city block to sign a condolence book.

They came out again, to light candles and lay flowers.

An elderly woman, holding one white rose and one red, the colors of the Polish flag, told me she had to do this, because it was a national tragedy. And not only had President Lech Kaczynski served his country, but his mother Jadwiga, now ill and reportedly in the hospital, had been active in the Warsaw Uprising during World War II.  Another patriot.

Down the line, the rabbi of a progressive congregation here, a native New Yorker named Burt Schuman, said he didn’t care how long he had to stay in line.  He was going to write in the condolence book.

He praised President Kaczynski’s efforts to promote reconciliation between Poles and Jews, efforts which really began under the late Polish Pope John Paul II.  He said he believes there are 20,000-30,000 Poles of Jewish ancestry here.  Schuman claims they are increasingly comfortable asserting their identity.  And increasingly diverse and young.

U.S. Ambassador to Poland Lee Feinstein spoke of Kaczynski having been a good friend of the United States.  American and Polish troops, he said, have fought side by side in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I just saw President Kaczynski last week. President Kaczynski invited General David Petraeus to come to Warsaw to receive a medal, because the Polish and American troops have fought side by side in Iraq and Afghanistan and President Kaczynski was gracious enough to award a medal to General Petraeus,” he said. ” President Kaczynski to my wife and I, and the First Lady Mrs. Kaczynska, had been so gracious.  They are freedom fighters, they were great friends of the United States, they were promoters of strong trans-Atlantic ties, and also promoters of tolerance, and were real models for the United States.”

Life has not gone back to normal.  A Polish friend in Krakow teaches classes on Mondays and Tuesdays.  She had intended to continue on this week but decided at the last minute to cancel.  She took her students to the Katyn cross in town.

“Only death can make people closer to people,” she said. “Suffering is like a fire burning inside.  It burns out and prepares a place for something good, love.” 

Meantime, Rabbi Schuman said it’s doubly tragic that this catastrophe happened just 20 years after democracy was established here.

“Democratic life, free enterprise, all the benefits of liberal democracy were beginning to flourish in this country, and to lose such a leadership at such a tender stage in Poland’s development is a very, very sad thing.”

Schuman said that he is optimistic about Poland’s future.  He believes the young generation is the most educated anywhere, and that they are capable of taking Poland forward, to great places.

People here say much of Poland is still in shock about the tragedy that killed the country’s President, and the delegation accompanying him to a solemn ceremony in Katyn Forest.  The President and delegates had intended to commemorate the 70^th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre, in which more than 22,000 Polish officers, intelligentsia and others were killed by the Soviets, in an act that Moscow blamed the Nazis for, until the last decade of the last century.

The streets leading to the Presidential Palace are jammed with traffic, uncharacteristic for a Sunday, as people move to seek news and share grief.  The area outside the Palace is a sea of people, lighting candles, laying flowers, writing notes.  It is difficult to physically maneuver anywhere near the Palace. 

People carry flags.  There is a sense of a nation seeking unity and the comfort of others at a time of intense national loss.

The country observed two minutes of silence in honor of the dead, at midday.  The Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Acting President Bronislaw Komorowski and other government officials marked the silence outside the Parliament building.

Seeing the photographs of the dead lined up outside the Parliament is moving.  They are mostly official portraits of those who died, some smiling, some looking powerful, some hopeful, others just looking straight out., towards the lens. Men and women.  Young and old.  Looking at each individual picture really registers the magnitude of the catastrophe, and humanizes it.

I spoke with Waldemar Strzalkowski, an aide to the Acting President.  He organized the delegation from the Parliament that traveled on the tragic flight to Smolensk, Russia, near Katyn.

He describe his sorrow and the great loss to Poland, as so many  millions of people had cast votes for those who died.  He called the Poles a spiritual people, and said he expected them to come together now, and during the upcoming elections, brought forward by the tragedy.

More than one person here has said that Russia’s response to the catastrophe has been admirable, including Prime Minister Putin’s expressions of shared grief.  There was some speculation that the fact that the plane crashed in Russia, near a place where Soviets massacred Poles 70 years ago, would spark suspicions or reverse some of the work toward reconciliation that had been done.  That appears to have not happened at all.  Someone even said Polish-Russian relations were always shaped by the Katyn Massacre, in a very negative way.  This tragedy at Katyn and the Russian response to it may, in some way, shape Polish-Russian relations going forward, in a positive light, as two countries together share sorrow.

It is difficult to know exactly how to assess the declarations made on Iran’s National Day of Nuclear Technology.

The most significant seems to be the unveiling of a third generation centrifuge, which Iran claims can enrich uranium at six times the speed of the older models currently in place.  Those centrifuges are currently referred to as the P-1 model, as they were based on a design obtained from Pakistani nuclear black marketer, AQ Khan.

David Albright, nuclear expert and author of the book “Peddling Peril” about the secret nuclear trade told Fox News, “I think the goal of Iran is to get a more reliable centrifuge.  And what they are trying to present today is that somehow they’ve accomplished that.  But what is missing is any evidence that they have accomplished that.”

From the pictures he saw of the event, Albright said it was hard to judge whether the centrifuge unveiled was real or a model.  But he did say that when Iran announces something publicly, it tends to be authentic.

His take on the more efficient centrifuges: “It’s a significant leap for Iran in the sense that if they can get a machine that works reliably and is more powerful than the P-1, then they don’t need to build as many and that’s the main thing.” 

This could be important to Iran, says Albright, because while the Islamic Republic makes its own centrifuges, it does need to import a lot of materials to do this.  With sanctions on Iran, this becomes harder and harder.

Albright says, “They may need 6000 P-1’s with all the reliability problems to get enough for a bomb, when in fact, they need only 2000, 1500 of the more advanced ones to get enough for a bomb.  You don’t need to smuggle as much as you would for the P-1.”

Albright talked a bit about the problems with the P-1.

“The machines are coming on and off all the time.  It doesn’t mean the machine stops, but it stops enriching uranium and it’s a little bit like a Christmas tree and the lights on a Christmas tree.  You’d like the lights to be on all the time and glowing a nice bright color, but what you often have, it looks like a blinking Christmas tree.”

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today said that Iran is on a nuclear path from which it will not retreat.  He also said again that Iran is not after a bomb.  But the international community remains as sceptical about this as ever and is meeting again to discuss further sanctions.

As navies from all over the world beef up patrols in the Gulf of Aden and the northern Somali coastline, pirates are operating further south in the Indian Ocean.

The five suspected pirates and three skiffs picked up by the U.S.S. Nicholas were captured Thursday several hundred nautical miles west of the Seychelles.  Gunfire was exchanged but no one was injured.

“CTF 151 (the international anti-piracy task force) had knowledge of three suspected pirate vessels and were able to transfer that information to the U.S.S. Nicholas, and the U.S.S. Nicholas was able to conduct an intercept of the suspected vessels.  It was fantastic coordination between coalition and U.S. Maritime Forces,” said Navy Lieutenant Patrick Foughty of the U.S. Naval Forces Africa.

The five suspected pirates are being held aboard the U.S.S. Nicholas until a determination can be made as to what to do with them.  There is an agreement with Kenya, in which pirates can be tried there (as Somalia’s government is poorly functioning).  If there is enough evidence on the pirates, they will likely be turned over to the Kenyan courts.

If not, they may be set free.

The battle against piracy has been ongoing.  It has brought about an unprecedented level of coordination between navies, joined up for the good of sailors of all nationalities at sea.

There are currently 24 nations represented in the Combined Maritime Forces, based out of the US Navy Fifth Fleet Headquarters in Bahrain.  That is the biggest number of nations ever represented in the CMF.

Currently, there are 8 vessels being held by Somali pirates, and 165 hostages.

Officials with the Combined Maritime Forces say that though pirate attacks are up, successful attacks are down.  That is because ships are doing more to protect themselves, including hiring, in some cases, armed security personnel to take on board to ensure the safety of the sailors.  And international navies are operating more intensively in the Gulf of Aden and along the Somali coast.

Though Libya renounced its weapons of mass destruction program back in 2003, a U.S. Embassy didn’t open in Tripoli until late 2008.  That was after Libya paid compensation for the families of the victims of Pan Am flight 103. 

The Embassy is now in a residential neighborhood of the Libyan capital, located in a compound of villas, until the U.S. finds property for a more permanent place.  It is committed to stick around and build its ties here.

Despite the normalization of relations, there is much historic baggage weighing on the new relationship, including painful memories of the 1988 Pan Am 103 incident, and for the Libyans, the bombing of Leader Moammar Gaddafi’s home by the Americans in 1986.

When a Scottish court released the man convicted in the Pan Am 103 bombing, Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi, on compassionate grounds, as doctors determined he had just three months left to live, many Americans reacted angrily, as it brought back painful memories.  U.S. Ambassador Gene Cretz acknowledges that.

“There’s no doubt  that the impact of that picture of Mr. Megrahi being greeted here struck at the very heart of American sensitivities not only in Washington but throughout our country, because it was a reminder of a very very painful past and a present that continues to be painful for the families who lost relatives and friends in that incident and others.”

I asked Seif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, the son of the Libyan leader about the release of Megrahi, who is still alive seven months after his release.

“Americans shouldn’t be angry because this man is innocent.  I believe he is innocent.  Second, it was not a Libyan decision to release him.  They should go to the UK and discuss the issue with the UK not Libya.  The third issue, he’s very sick.  This is a fact.  that he is still live you should ask God.”

Many Libyans make the distinction between Libya’s “accepting responsibility” for the bombing, and actually being guilty of the atrocity, considering Megrahi the fall guy.  Yet a Scottish court convicted Megrahi and that fact has not changed.

Cretz said even though it was a Scottish court that released him, that act caused some damage to U.S.-Libya relations.

“It was a setback no doubt it did impact on relations and this is one of the reasons that we are trying to brick by brick , day by day, discussion by discussion, lay down a path of normalization with this country. So that after 30 years of estrangement and hostility we are able to begin to find a language to talk to each other and to also make each other aware of our cultural and political imperatives and sensitivities.”

Cretz says that Libya has provided helpful counter-terrorism cooperation with the United States, and Washington deems relations with Libya to be ultimately in the interests of U.S. national security.  Libya sits in a region with an Al Qaeda presence.  Not everyone is convinced that Libya is doing all it can to fight terror, it is playing a part, and its most notorious militant group, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, has recently renounced violence and disbanded, as part of a reconciliation and rehabilitation process.  That move could potentially weaken other groups in the region.

The U.S. Ambassador sees business opportunities here for American companies, though he admits the path is not an easy one.

But there was a good relationship with Libya before relations before ties were cut off.  Many Libyans had studied in America.  Libyan troops at one time even trained in the U.S. decades ago.  The Ambassador said that memory provides positive baggage.

“Because of the past history we have had with Libya and because of the past very very strong  affection that I thing a large majority of the Libyan peple have towards us. Its low hanging fruit for us these are people who like us, they like our ideas, they like our culture ,they like our education, they like our commercial products. So its an area that I think is quite open for a strong American presence.  And it certainly is in our national interest.”

Libya is going through a development boom, and European, Korean and other countries have been jumping into the fray.  According to Cretz,

“I would say that American companies are a bit late in entering the game here but they are coming now and I think this has been a matter of education, and a matter of seeing that there is some success on the part of several companies  and the fact that we have a fully functioning Embassy here that can advocate in their interests if needed.”

The U.S. company AECOM is overseeing some large infrastructure projects.  And an American trade delegation recently visted Libya.   The Ambassador said,

“We are committed as I said on the trade promotion side that if we can get companies here and we can directly influence the creation of jobs back in America that’s a win-win situation for everybody.”

Ambassador Cretz said this is an economy that relies heavily on personal relationships, and so doing business takes a significant time commitments.  And Libya is going through many changes.

But in this economy, virgin markets are appealing, at least for consideration.

In the last 24 hours, Libya has released 214 prisoners, most of them Islamic radicals, employing a new tactic in its fight against terrorism.

Seif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, Libyan Leader Moammar al-Gaddafi’s son, and, many believe, heir apparent, says he thinks reconciliation is the best way to deal with the problem of radicalism.  The experiment, as he calls it, has been going on for three years.

“Actually the Libyans are worried from the idea that those people go first to Iraq they get trained and they come back and start doing the troubles here, and it happened, so the Government is trying all the time to stop young people going to Iraq because today you fight in Iraq and tomorrow you fight in Libya.”

Seif Gaddafi claims to hope good deeds are rewarded.  And he thinks releasing these people and re-integrating them into society is the right thing to do, adding that Libya needs all its citizens on board the project of bringing the country forward—he says he wants the help of these men to build, not destroy, Libya.

The main militant group here is the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) plotted to overthrow the Gaddafi regime.  165 Libyan security guards were reportedly killed over the years by members of the LIFG.  It has also sent fighters to Iraq and Afghanistan.  Many members fought in the Afghan War in the 1980’s shoulder-to-shoulder with Usama Bin Laden.

LIFG has been closely linked with Al Qaeda ever since.  Libyan fighters also traveled to Iraq in significant numbers, though that flow appears to have been stemmed in recent years.

The LIFG has renounced violence after religious re-education and orientation in Libyan prisons.  Much credit is given in this effort to Sheikh Ali Salabi, who worked closely with the militant prisoners to get them to denounce violence, by looking at issues from an Islamic perspective.

The three top leaders of the group were released from jail yesterday.

Though members of the group have been unequivocal about surrendering arms against Libya, they are less clear about global jihad, which concerned some of the international counter-terrorism experts invited to Libya to evaluate the program.

Seif Gaddafi believes, however, that these reformed fighters will have no incentive to enter foreign conflicts.

“Three or four years ago it was very acceptable and logical for young people to go and fight in Iraq, because the situation there was so terrible, and there was an occupation and violation of all the human rights there and Abu Ghraib. I mean all of those atrocities.

Now we have a different situation, a new adminstration, a new President, and Americans are getting out from Iraq, withdrawing their troops and they’re handing back the country to the Iraqis.  So we have a different picture.”

Robert Pape, author of “Dying to Win: the Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism” was positive about the prospects for this program, in the big picture of global terrorism.

“Here we have an unusual opportunity which is we have a chance to actually use this release to morally condemn Bin  Laden and other terrorist groups that kill civilians and actually drive wedges between them and there supporters on this moral issue. This group being a terrorist group many of the leaders spent time with Bin Laden, know him personally and have interreacted with him for years, the fact that this group is publically condeming killing civilians is really quite important and is something that could really improve our security in the future.”

But Al Qaeda expert Jarrett Brachman saw things in a slightly different light.

“The big challenge is that most of Al Qaidas senior leadership now is made up of Libyans, so the question is are they a compelling magnet for these young guys who are radicalized, many of them still hold the same views they may have just disregarded violence for now. But if they come out and don’t find a job, don’t find the kind of opportunities that there hoping, theres a chance that they could slip back into it. So that’s a big concern I have”

Brachman cites two Libyans in currently in Al Qaeda, outside of Libya,–Abu Yahya al-Libi and Attiyah Abdulrahman.  Others have been killed.

Meanwhile, we spoke to Seif Qaddafi on a range of other issues.  I asked if he was satisfied that Libya’s renunciation of its weapons of mass destruction program and the subsequent normalization of relations with the West and particularly the United States had paid dividends for the country.

He said,  “For me personally, I think I’m quite happy and I think Libya did benefit a lot from that initiative.  But also, again, if the people are trying to help you, you have to help them and show them how to help you, so sometimes if we are not doing the right things in Libya, it’s going to be difficult for others to help us.”

Tensions between Libya and Switzerland escalated over two incidents—the arrest of one of Moammar Gaddafi’s sons, charged with mistreating domestic help in Switzerland, and Switzerland’s ban on minarets, which led to the Libyan Leader Moammar Gaddafi calling for jihad against the Swiss.  As a result citizens of all countries from the travel-free Shengin zone in Europe have been banned from traveling to Libya.  That includes those with the intention, for example, of doing business in Libya.  Seif Gaddafi downplayed the gravity of the incident and predicts it will soon be resolved.

For many years, there has been speculation about Seif being the heir apparent to his father.  In some periods, his star is considered higher and brighter than at others.  There is reportedly a tug-of-war between Seif and some of the more old-school or revolutionary elements of the regime.  Seif’s profile is high at the moment.  I asked him where he stands now.

“It’s true that Libya is an enigma.  It’s, you know, not very transparent, which is bad, I agree.  but hopefully one day the whole issue will be very transparent, but the only thing I can say is that the Libyan train is heading toward the right station.”

I asked him about Abdelbaset Ali Al-Megrahi, the man convicted in the Pan Am 103 atrocity, in which 270 were killed, when the flight blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.  The Scottish Judiciary released Megrahi in August on compassionate grounds, as doctors gave him just three months to live.  Seven months later he is still alive.  Gaddafi said, “The Americans shouldn’t be angry because this man is innocent, I believe he is innocent.  Second, it was not a Libyan decision to release him.  They should go to the UK and discuss the issue with the UK and not Libya.  And the third issue–he is very sick.  This is a fact.  But he is still alive.  You should ask God about that.”

Seif Gaddafi says that in the meantime, Americans are involved in business here, particularly in overseeing the massive infrastructure rehaul Libya is carrying out.  Gaddafi son sees modernization as a priority, and claims he also expects Libya to be investing much of its $65 billion sovereign wealth fund in the United States at some point soon.

So while the road to full reconciliation and engagement has been at times a rocky one, at least from the power centers in Tripoli, there is optimism that there will further opportunities to build on that as part of Libya’s plan to develop.

While Syria’s press is controlled, its entertainment sector is pushing boundaries few Arab countries dare touch, tackling issues like the treatment of women in Muslim countries, and the hot-potato topic of terrorism.

One of Syria’s foremost directors, Najdat Anzour, said, “I feel as a Syrian or as a Muslim I have to tell the truth to the people. I have to tell the generation what is right and what is wrong through drama because Syrian drama is very successful. It’s the No. 1 everywhere in the Arab world. I think the message will deliver in a proper way through Syrian drama.”

Anzour is working on a series for Ramadan, the Muslim holy month which for television networks is the equivalent of “Sweeps Week” in the United States, when ratings count more than ever.

It is a month when audiences are home and families gather together to watch television. It is also the time when lots of directors go for a bit of shock value, to get people and governments thinking and talking about sensitive topics.

“The drama is very important. Drama is the best way because it enters to every house every day, free of charge, so they can have a lesson every day for one hour, imagine that!”

Anzour’s series dramatizes forced marriage and other vivid examples of mistreatment of women. He invited us on set, and to his office. Anzour showed us previous series, one about the bombing of a residential compound in Saudi Arabia, which exposed the killers for what they really were. It vilified terrorism.

Meantime, there is a lighter note here too, and we went to the set of a wildly popular soap opera called “Bab al Hara” which hearkens back to a kinder, gentler time, when people in a neighborhood had their ups and downs and fights and dramas, but generally looked out for one another. It’s about Damascene life in the early part of the last century. But it is actually an MBC series, run on the Saudi-owned Middle East Broadcasting Company.

Syrian heartthrob Wael Sharaf plays the neighborhood tough guy, the protector. He talks about why people have such nostalgia for the olden days.

Sharaf says, “They all loved each other. You know what’s happened now in Iraq. I don’t like to say it, Sunni, Shi’ite…there wasn’t Sunni, there wasn’t Shia. Nobody asked.”

Sharaf takes us around the set, which, like movie lots in Los Angeles, is a tourist attraction. He is mobbed by Saudis and other visiting Arabs, asked to pose for pictures. I have heard that when Bab al Hara is on the air, the streets in Saudi go quiet, so popular is the drama.

Sharaf, who had actually gone to Ukraine to study as a doctor before heading home to what turned out to be his real calling, acting, is working on another series now, about corruption in the 80’s.

Back to Najdat Anzour, who is working feverishly for his upcoming series which will be rolled out this summer. He is curious what the reaction will be to his drama, which, while examining the treatment of women in Muslim societies, also cuts to their heart: religion.

“In the last three years I concentrate on religious subjects because of its effect on society and nobody can talk about it openly, in an open discussion. Everybody is scared to touch this, it’s a taboo. So I decided this year to open all the windows and all the doors. We don’t know the effect yet.”

What is clear is that there are many Syrian directors and movie stars who are anxious to make a big effect, a splash, this coming Ramadan.

Damascus is abuzz with activity, from international investors carrying out due diligence on business opportunities and infrastructure projects, to diplomats passing through to see if Syria can’t help unblock the peace process.

Syria remains on the US list of states that sponsor terrorism.  It has been there since 1979.  Syria is under a slew of US sanctions.  This is something Damascus would like to see change.

Syrians complain of a list of things they can’t get from the United States-from Boeing replacement parts for their national fleet of planes, to American education books.

“Who has that effected?  It’s effected ordinary Syrians.  It’s effected young people, depriving them of safe travel, safe education.  They have been a complete failure in serving any of America’s interests.  Having said that, once they become embedded into US law, it becomes very difficult to do away with them.  We know it becomes very difficult to do away with them,” said Sami Moubayed, the editor of Forward Magazine.

Syria is in the midst of trying to open up and reform its economy.

Just last year they opened a stock exchange.

“The stock exchange of Damascus is small, the number of companies listed is very limited, the number of investors is very small, but one has to understand that when we made the decision, it means our move toward a market economy is irreversible,” said Syria’s Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, Abdullah Dardari.

Saker Aslan of the Damascus Securities Exchange expanded, “We only trade stocks and bonds.  We are starting the exchange.  We don’t have derivatives, we don’t have short selling, we don’t have margin trading, for example.”

Syria’s economists are in the process of raising public awareness about stocks and bonds in a country where even simple banking had been relatively rare until recently.

Like much of what is going on in Syria, they look to other countries for technology.

Abdullah Dardari said, “Some of the best engineering companies in the world are American and they are not party to this great journey we are going through.  And I always ask myself, why not the Americans?  It is the US Administration and the US Congress which is stopping US Companies from benefiting, from taking part in this exciting adventure.”

Exciting maybe, but not without challenges.  Corruption is a widely acknowledged issue which Dardari claims to be fighting, but in a country where salaries are low and the minimum wage is $80 a month, it will take time to get living standards to a point where incentives for corruption drop away.

Still, Syria thinks the US should consider helping Syria along its journey toward a more open, transparent economy, from a centralized to a market economy.

Said Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Dardari, “This is a global economy we live in.  It’s amazing that the people who have been pushing for an proposing trade globalization i.e. the United States, are now trying to block Syria from being part of the global economy, by for example, putting a veto on our membership in the WTO.”

Meantime, Syria is projecting 50 billion US dollars in infrastructure investment in the next 5-10 years.  A lot of it will be foreign.  The Syrians say they need the overseas expertise for projects of a very complex nature—from building toll roads to airports.  Much of the world will be watching the development of these ambitious plans.

On a Friday morning in Maaloula, Syria, at the St. Thakla Convent, a busload of Iranian Shi’ites pulls up to visit.  Some, no doubt, seeking cures, some feeding their curiousity about this place where miracles are said to happen.

Mother Superior Pelagia Sayyaf said, “Many Muslims come, and the Muslims are so close to God.  They make their prayers to God.  This convent opens its doors to everyone regardless of their faith.”

St. Thakla was one of the original Christian martyrs….the story goes she was being chased, persecuted for her religion, when a crack opened up in a mountain, miraculously giving her shelter from those who wanted to kill her.

Crutches left behind at the convent tell stories of the injured walking out of the convent. 

Maaloula, a city of beige and pale blue structures clinging to a mountain, is one of the only places left in the world where people still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ.Residents fight to keep it alive. 

Mother Pelagia said, “Aramaic is so important but I am afraid it is dying so that is why I felt I should do something about it so a few years ago we set up an institute for teaching Aramaic.”

Syria is a secular country.  Religious political groups are banned from operating in the system.  However, Damascus does support Hamas and Hezbollah.  It considers that support political rather than religious.  And worries about Islamic fundamentalism taking root.

The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus is one of the most important mosques in Islam.  The mosque used to be a cathedral and a Roman temple was on the grounds before then.  The tomb of St. John the Baptist is right in the middle of the mosque.  And on a Friday after prayers, some of the Muslim faithful will pay respects at its bright green windows.

One of the minarets at the Umayyad Mosque is called the Jesus Minaret because many here believe that Jesus will return, and his point of arrival will be Damascus.

Islamic scholar Dr. Mohammad Al Habash said, “We believe Jesus Christ is a messenger of God, and a prophet of God, and we believe him as a word of God and we believe him as a spirit of God.”

Dr. Habash said that the religious tolerance that exists in Syria has to do with the region being the spiritual heartland of the world. 

“We believe in Islam that God is one, but his names are many.  Spirituality is one but the religions are many.  The love is one but hearts are many.  So we believe in this life to struggle against monopoly of salvation.”

A common concern about the spread of Islamic fundamentalism is something the United States and Syria share.

Magazine editor Sami Moubayed said, “We do have a problem with groups that use the name of Islam, who pervert Islam, groups like Al Qaeda or Fateh el Islam, and this is one of the things we have plenty of common ground with the United States and a lot can be done in counter-terrorism, particularly in Iraq.”

One of the issues the two countries are discussing most energetically is bilateral cooperation on is counter-terrorism. It’s widely seen as a potential break-through area for getting US-Syria relations on more solid footing.

They call it the shouting valley because families are separated by a fence, so they literally shout back and forth to one another with megaphones. 

Syria occupied the Golan Heights in 1967, and Israelis have moved into most of the territory.  But there are five villages—little enclaves—where Syrians still live.  They are restricted going in or out except to go to college or to get married.  And crossing the fence for marriage amounts to a one-way ticket.  So families are divided, because some managed to leave those villages and others stayed back.

People from the Golan tend to keep close ties with extended members of the family—so they say they say big events like weddings and holidays are difficult.

Renua Shaalan lives in Damascus.  Two of her sisters married men in the one of the villages Israel controls, Ayn Kynia. 

“Part of the family is here and the other part is there.  Part of your property is here and the other there.  So you are living in two places at the same time and you also have to divide your emotions in two halves.”

The Golan Heights is green, fertile and a source of drinking water.   It has always been called a strategic land.  But in the age of satellites, this last issue has become moot, many say.

Syria demands the whole Golan back before peace can be made with Israel.

Sami Moubayed, editor of Forward Magazine said, “I can assure you that once the Golan issue is given top priority by the Obama administration, you will find a real strong and sincere thawing of relations unprecedented between the Syrians and the United States.”

Syria and Israel came close to coming to an agreement about land and borders.  Some point out this goes to show how quickly things could be resolved if political will is there.  The talks, which were conducted via the Turks, broke down in 2008 after the Israeli incursion into Gaza, its reponse to Hamas’ firing of rockets into Israel.

Syria won back a third of the Golan Heights in the 1973 war.  The regional capital Quneitra remains a museum to war—with buildings in ruins.  Not much has been rebuilt.  Syria claims Israel destroyed Quneitra when it pulled out.  Israel claims it was destroyed in war.  It was a deliberate decision on the part of the Syrian government to leave Quneitra this way, until the land is returned.  But some wonder why, if the land is so precious, Syria is not developing it in the meantime.  

Attachment to the land is palpable, as you visit Quneitra, and see families picnicking amidst the rubble, walking around, enjoying the land in whatever condition it’s in.

Does Mideast Peace Run Through Damascus?

Long isolated by Washington, shunned for its support of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, the Obama administration now appears to be courting Syria as a possible solution to the problems of the Middle East. 

Syria has been using its influence over groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, traditionally viewed as “spoilers,” to drive the peace process, something that Washington appears to be using to its advantage. 

Recently, a U.S. ambassador was named after a five-year absence. And in the space of the past month, Syria has been visited by American counter-terrorism experts –but also by the Iranian president. 

It’s all a very delicate game of chess, says Damascus-based Peter Harling of the International Crisis Group.

“You have a lot of re-alignments going on, but not simply between good and bad, between being pro-U.S. or anti-U.S., it’s much more subtle than that,” said Harling.

Syrian political analyst Dr. Samir Altaqi said Syria has historically been in a sensitive and strategic position and is accustomed to navigating the turbulent waters that flow between competing interests.

“This is the case since more than 5000 years.  Syria was always a political state,” said Altaqi.

“It was always a political entity between two big powers—the Romans and the Persians, Egyptians and Mesopotamia etc, which shows that it is in a strategic position, and to survive it has to work on culture and politics.  We are a mercantile nation,” Altaqi.

But the worldview from Damascus can be quite different from that inside the U.S.

For example, I met praise for Iran’s nuclear program at a karaoke evening, in part of the old city.

“I say, “Good for them.”  I envy them.  We wish we were doing what they are doing right now,” said one man.

This man saw it as a brave act of defiance of the West, and a counterbalance to Israel. 

In the meantime, Syria views Hamas and Hezbollah through a different prism than the United States government does.

Syria’s Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Dardari said: “The question of negative and positive is a relative matter.  It’s again how you view things.  Hamas and other resistance movements are a consequence of the basic problem in the region, i.e. the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan, and parts of Lebanon,” said Dardari. “When this occupation is over, through a comprehensive peace process, why would there be such resistance movements?”

Dardari is hopeful about the ratcheted-up engagement between the United States and Syria, and the delineation of points of divergence and convergence of views and interests.

“The discussion that has already started between the two countries is moving toward that point.  It’s much better to understand each other and disagree on some points than not to understand each other in which case we disagree on everything,” Dardari said.

There are a lot of similarities between Syrians and Americans.  But also differences.  Probably the real common ground at this point, is the apparent goodwill on both sides to explore ways to rebuild the relationship and make it fruitful to both parties, and the region.