Scenes from the World Economic Forum at the Dead Sea:

Some sessions took place simultaneously, like the one on women, which of course I attended. My colleague George Semaan and I sat in the first row, between Queen Rania of Jordan and the actor Richard Gere. A calm discussion took place and our colleague Mona Abu Suleiman made some elegant remarks and was followed by our friend Rami Khouri, who spoke objectively. Then my colleague Raghida Dergham spoke enthusiastically about how Arab women's rights have been swallowed up, and how she personally fought George and me until she was able to secure her right to write a weekly opinion column.

I answered her, but did not say that Raghida is the only female bureau chief at Al-Hayat with her own column. Instead I said that we all advocate rights for Arab women, but with Raghida Dergham, we are calling for securing our rights from her. Queen Rania laughed, while Richard Gere took Raghida's side, continuing his flagrant bias toward her since the Davos Conference. However, I took revenge on him because my colleague May Chidiac was with me and I concealed her from him, as he was distracted.

The strangest thing about saying Arab women don't have all their rights is the implicit assumption that Arab men enjoy all of theirs. The rights that governments leave for men are taken from them by women in the home.

The best thing about such conferences is that I get to see friends whom I only see once or twice a year otherwise. There was a huge dinner hosted by Professor Klaus Schwab, the head of the World Economic Forum. But my friend Aql Baltaji and I stayed away from the crowd and were joined by Mohammed Nassir and his wife, and the gathering took on a lovely social character. Our friends Sabih al-Masri and Zahi Khouri joined us, adding a heavyweight economist to the mix. Then Minister Bassem Awadallah and Sharif Mohammed Abdel-Hamid al-Haimaq arrived, giving the gathering a political dimension. And I can't forget our brother Mohammed Dahlan, who added the dimension of political struggle to the dinner.

Talk of democracy and reform was heard at several sessions, but I found this strange or objectionable coming from Arab governments, since most cling to power for decades. When they talk about reform they're talking about self-destruction, and condemning their own performance in power.

Libya's Saif al-Islam Qaddafi said they had been trying to fix the mess for 20 years, or something to that effect. Brother Qaddafi (his father) has been in power since the dawn of time, when the Dead Sea was still only sick. Fine, only 36 years, but he's responsible for all this mess. He was in power during Richard Nixon's first term in office.

Laura Bush was a First Lady in all senses of the word, reflecting affection and humanity in her remarks. I listened and wished that her husband were like her. During a special session, he was very affected by listening to the stories of children from various countries, especially a girl from Bir Zeit University in Palestine. When Laura Bush was confronted by demonstrations during her tour of the Holy Land, she said that such opposition was expected in a region where people's feelings are so intense, and the disputes are so deep.

However, Elizabeth Cheney is a poor ambassador for her country; she was confronted by Amr Moussa, the Secretary General of the Arab League. But everyone else has talked about Moussa's struggle on the shores of the Dead Sea, so I won't add anything.

I was happy to see Mohammed Rashid, whose resignation from the Palestinian Investment Fund was a great loss for Palestinians.

Reports by the firm Arthur Young show that Rashid took over on 1 January 2003 with $574 million and left on 31 March 2005 with the fund at $1.362 billion, or an increase of 170 percent.

The Fund's president is now Dr. Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Finance Minister and his deputy is businessman Sabih al-Masri, and both are above suspicion. The Fund honored Mohammed Rashid but the Palestinian Authority didn't even bother to write a thank you letter.

I thank him on behalf of everyone.

Finally, outside the scope of the conference, I went to Beirut and saw a concert by a good-looking singer of the music video generation. I don't understand why some people resent this new generation of singers who don't sing in the old "tarab" style. I suggest listening to Umm Kalthoum and seeing Haifa Wehbe, that way one can benefit in both cases.