Othman al-Sheikh is running away from the shadows of his past life in a small dusty village in the Libyan Desert. Tripoli, meanwhile, is a city in the process of transformation, moulded to the will of its Italian colonisers. Its decadent entertainments and extravagant riches conceal an underbelly of abject poverty and ruthless plotting. Othman falls for the city and its temptations. With a natural instinct for survival, he tries his luck in the capital, swept along by chance and opportunity.
Over-reliance on oil challenges the long-term sustainability of an economy. The UAE’s government has placed considerable focus on a comprehensive strategic planning exercise to transform the country’s economic structure from relying heavily on hydrocarbon resources to becoming a knowledge-based economy. Non-oil is to account for 80% of the country’s economy by 2021. From Oil to Knowledge examines the role of this major powerhouse of the Arab World to transform itself into a leader in the adoption of science, technology and innovation to drive economic success on the international stage.In this first book to present and critically evaluate the extent of the UAE’s success in diversifying its economy and implementing the principles and approaches of a Knowledge Economy, the authors identify the achievements of the government to date and the areas of further development. From Oil to Knowledge will be utilized as a guide by policymakers and senior managers to enhance their ability to think strategically towards implementing the pillars of a Knowledge Economy within their own organisations and nation states.
Over-reliance on oil challenges the long-term sustainability of an economy. The UAE’s government has placed considerable focus on a comprehensive strategic planning exercise to transform the country’s economic structure from relying heavily on hydrocarbon resources to becoming a knowledge-based economy. Non-oil is to account for 80% of the country’s economy by 2021. From Oil to Knowledge examines the role of this major powerhouse of the Arab World to transform itself into a leader in the adoption of science, technology and innovation to drive economic success on the international stage.In this first book to present and critically evaluate the extent of the UAE’s success in diversifying its economy and implementing the principles and approaches of a Knowledge Economy, the authors identify the achievements of the government to date and the areas of further development. From Oil to Knowledge will be utilized as a guide by policymakers and senior managers to enhance their ability to think strategically towards implementing the pillars of a Knowledge Economy within their own organisations and nation states.
An organisation's most important asset is its people. And critical to an organisation's success is the extent to which its people interact effectively – both with each other as team members and with the wider organisation. This is why managing teams has become a key area for a growing number of organisations around the world. While many organisations are world-class at managing their materials and machinery, they fall short in managing the human side of their activities.This book outlines the challenges faced by both team leaders and team members in 21st-century workplaces. It proposes 13 key performance or "team health" indicators for highly effective teams based on research data collected from a large range of industry sectors, team sizes and organisations in the UK. It contributes to the understanding of the nature and functioning of team cohesiveness by describing teamwork as a multi-component variable and identifying the factors that impact on teams and the implications of teamwork for organisations.The book sets out to aid organisations by introducing a Team Performance Diagnostic (TPD) tool. The TPD enables organisations to gain an accurate and detailed insight into the real-time performance of their teams, helps team managers to understand the underlying 'people' issues within the team and how to reach higher levels of team performance quickly. The TPD has been widely used in major multinationals and the UK public sector to pinpoint hard-to-find opportunities to achieve rapid improvements.The research suggests that the use of TPD contributes to more free-flowing feedback both within the team and in the organisation as a whole, and that successful teams are indicative of a healthy organisational culture.This book is an essential guide for senior managers and policy-makers dealing with team effectiveness, and will be highly useful for students of business and management.
Since the Second World War, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt faced periods of extensive state repression, between 1948-1951 and 1954-1970 and again after 2013. These mihan or “ordeals”, as members call them, were characterised by a shift from overt political activity to clandestine organising, and despite their importance have remained little studied. This book uses extensive archival research to uncover what took place when the organisation was forced unground and how and why it survived. It combines social theory with a vast array of primary source material such as autobiographical accounts produced by members, Egyptian court documents accounts by members of the Egyptian military or intelligence officers, and reports by British and American diplomats and intelligence officers. The result is a new bottom-up perspective on the Brotherhood's structure that goes beyond the role of leaders such as Sayyid Qutb to reveal it as both an overt political organisation and a secretive one able to withstand extended and harsh periods of persecution.
Years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, a loosely organized insurgency continues to target American and Coalition soldiers, as well as Iraqi security forces and civilians, with devastating results. In this sobering account of the ongoing violence, Ahmed Hashim, a specialist on Middle Eastern strategic issues and on irregular warfare, reveals the insurgents behind the widespread revolt, their motives, and their tactics. The insurgency, he shows, is not a united movement directed by a leadership with a single ideological vision. Instead, it involves former regime loyalists, Iraqis resentful of foreign occupation, foreign and domestic Islamist extremists, and elements of organized crime. These groups have cooperated with one another in the past and coordinated their attacks; but the alliance between nationalist Iraqi insurgents on the one hand and religious extremists has frayed considerably. The U.S.-led offensive to retake Fallujah in November 2004 and the success of the elections for the Iraqi National Assembly in January 2005 have led more "mainstream" insurgent groups to begin thinking of reinforcing the political arm of their opposition movement and to seek political guarantees for the Sunni Arab community in the new Iraq.Hashim begins by placing the Iraqi revolt in its historical context. He next profiles the various insurgent groups, detailing their origins, aims, and operational and tactical modi operandi. He concludes with an unusually candid assessment of the successes and failures of the Coalition's counter-insurgency campaign. Looking ahead, Hashim warns that ethnic and sectarian groups may soon be pitted against one another in what will be a fiercely contested fight over who gets what in the new Iraq. Evidence that such a conflict is already developing does not augur well for Iraq's future stability. Both Iraq and the United States must work hard to ensure that slow but steady success over the insurgency is not overshadowed by growing ethno-sectarian animosities as various groups fight one another for the biggest slice of the political and economic pie. In place of sensational headlines, official triumphalism, and hand-wringing, Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq offers a clear-eyed analysis of the increasingly complex violence that threatens the very future of Iraq.
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