We lead the way in full carrier service solutions

By land, sea or air, our extensive network across Africa has all your wholesale bandwidth needs covered.

Our sub-sea and terrestrial solutions mean our network is powered by SEACOM, EASSy and SAT-3 and we’ll connect to WACS when it’s launched in 2011. On top of that, we have over 50 satellite transponders and 24 dedicated teleports, delivering the best service in and out of Africa.

To see how our wholesale bandwidth can benefit your business, just get in touch. Call us: Cameroon +237 7599 0968 Ghana +233 30 701 0015 Kenya +254 20 271 4815 Mozambique +258 21 313 936 Nigeria +234 1 461 0700 South Africa +27 11 797 3300 United Kingdom +44 20 7173 1700

Visit:

www.gatewaycomms.com TheMiddleEast

CONTENTS 4 The View 6 Comment 8 Compass CURRENT AFFAIRS 10 US withdrawal from Iraq: leaving it all behind? 14 Iran’s growing influence in Latin

America 18 Sarkozy’s war on Al Qaeda 22 Kuwaiti meter still running on Iraq’s

1990s war debt 25 Special Report: Top 100 Banks 33 Bank Saderat: Exclusive interview with

CEO Seyed Mohammad Jahromi BUSINESS & FINANCE 37 WEF focus on MENA states 40 Lebanon: can the prosperity last? 42 Investors look to MENA’s frontier markets 44 Ras Al Khaimah bids for world trade 46 The Middle East exclusive interview: Shashank Srivastava, Acting CEO,

Qatar Financial Centre 50 International interest in Middle East telecoms DETAILS 53 The World: a luxury city at sea MOSAIC 57 The Iftar experience 59 In the beginning there was the word 62 Film: Frontier Blues 64 Books 66 The Last Word

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ISSUE 415 October 2010

October 2010 The Middle East  3