Mubarak absence mars Arab summit

[bemildred]

Source: al jazeera

The absence of nine leaders including Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, from an Arab League summit in Qatar aimed at forging unity on challenges facing the Middle East has highlighted divisions within the group.

Foreign ministers have been gathering in Doha, the capital of Qatar, to set the agenda for the talks, which begin on Monday.

But the nine members of the 22-strong League have said they will not attend the two-day summit aimed at burying differences highlighted by Arab nations' responses to Israel's war on the Gaza Strip in December, in which more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed.

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Cairo and Saudi Arabia are staunch supporters of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, while Damascus and Doha back Hamas, which forced Abbas's Fatah loyalists from Gaza amid factional fighting in June 2007.

Read more: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/03/200932812533946652.html

[Idealism]

1. Qatar perplexes me

The emirate has pretty liberal laws (standard health care, education, universal suffrage), yet they support Hamas and are against the ICC issuing a warrant for Al-Bashir.