Brookings
Institution to open branch in Qatar
AFP
DOHA
Petroleumworld.com
02 22 06
A renowned American think-tank, the Brookings Institution, plans
to open a branch in Qatar which has been seeking to attract top
tier US academic institutes.
The decision was announced late Monday at the end of a three-day
US-Islamic forum in Doha attended by public figures and academics
from both the Islamic world and the United States.
Further
US-Islamic conferences would be held, one in Europe and the other
in Southeast Asia, to debate such issues as "security, Islamophobia
and globalization", a final statement said.
It said the Brookings Institution would open an office in Doha,
which "will be the first branch ... to open outside of the
United States and introduce the international model of independent
think-tanks to the region".
It did not specify when the branch of the Washington-based institute
would open.
The US think-tank Rand already operates in Doha as the Rand-Q
Policy Institute, and a number of prestigious US colleges have
opened branches at an Education City launched in October 2003.
Striking a claim as the Gulf's learning hub, gas-rich Qatar is
pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into drawing an array
of the world's best centers of excellence to Education City, built
in the desert on the edge of Doha.
The city hosts Virginia Commonwealth University, Texas A and M
University, and Weill Cornell Medical College, a branch of the
renowned New York school.
The US-Islamic forum, jointly organized by the Qatari foreign
ministry and Brookings, was held to the backdrop of Islamic anger
against the West over the publication in the European press of
Prophet Mohammed cartoons and the broadcast of new images of US
prisoner abuse in Iraq.
AFP
02 21 06
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