With this seminar Thomas Birringer and his team at KAS-Regional- Program Gulf-States is continuing their successful media work. On October 17th, eight German KAS-Scholars of the arrived in Abu Dhabi together with their trainers Jochen Markett, Tina Bettels and Marc Röhlig. There they will meet 9 Emirati journalists and Arabic speaking trainer Dr. Abbas Sadig from Abu Dhabi TV to form a bi-national team for the coming 10 days.

The participants will research in bi-national teams of two, which future development the United Arab Emirates (UAE) might take. The journalists will touch upon many topics and issues including the political development after the most recent elections to the Federal National Council last September. The role of women in politics and in the business world will be another focus of their research as well as the question of national identity in the run-up to the 40th anniversary of the UAE.

The end product of the course will be a German-Arabic webpage, which combines all elements of a modern multimedia site: Articles, photos, audio material, videos, slideshows etc. The seminar will run until October, 27th. The internet page will be going life shortly after.