Dear MEMRI Subscriber,
During this busy and important time, MEMRI has been working around the clock to monitor, translate, and analyze primary source material from the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey. MEMRI has also kept media, academia, legislatures, and governments in the West informed of ongoing developments. No other organization does the vital research that MEMRI does.
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As a reader of MEMRI, you are familiar with our continuing efforts to monitor more media sources in more countries, research more subjects, and translate into more languages. This includes access to our archives of over 3,700 reports from the Special Dispatch and Inquiry & Analysis series, as well as to the MEMRI TV Project archives, with nearly 17,000 minutes of translated video content. The MEMRI archives also include over 30,000 individual blog entries. MEMRI has the largest archives in the world of open-source research from the Middle East and beyond.
Headquartered in Washington, DC, MEMRI staffers are located around the world, translating every day from hundreds of Arabic, Farsi, Dari, Hindi, Urdu/Pashtu, and Turkish newspapers, magazines, television shows, and websites. The production and distribution of our materials, as well as the maintenance of our websites, is an increasingly costly undertaking.
Like many others, MEMRI has been hard hit by the economic crisis. We need your help now more than ever. Your renewed donation is of critical importance, and we are extremely grateful for your generous support in these difficult times. We are now asking our subscribers who have not yet donated to MEMRI to please consider making a contribution. At the same time, we thank those who have donated to us in the past and ask them if they could kindly renew their support, or even consider increasing it.
Please donate now at www.memri.org/donation
THE FOLLOWING PROJECTS NEED FUNDING
*TURKISH MEDIA PROJECT: Since the launch of the project in 2005, MEMRI research has been at the forefront of monitoring and analyzing political trends in Turkey, and the Islamist trend led by the AKP and its leaders Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul in particular. Turkey is currently at a crossroads of historic developments that will determine the future of the Turkish republic, its relations with its neighbors in the region, and its positioning vis-à-vis, or its alignment with, the E.U. and the U.S.
Two recent incidents have placed Turkey's regional and international status in a new light. The first was the clash between Turkey and Israel in the Gaza flotilla affair – a clash that came in the wake of the Turkish government's strong support for the flotilla, in an attempt to forcibly break the blockade. The second was the country's alignment, together with Brazil, with Iran, for the Tehran Declaration, in an attempt to establish a new regional and international axis challenging the existing world order led by the superpowers.
Under the AKP, Turkey is undergoing continuing and persistent Islamization, and is striving to renew its status in the Arab world. These developments are dangerous to the U.S. and to the West. Thus it is imperative that MEMRI be able to upgrade its Turkish Media Project, which is currently understaffed and underequipped to deal with the scope of developments.
*URDU-PASHTU MEDIA PROJECT: This project, launched in January 2008, is releasing an unprecedented amount of research on a daily basis. The most important information pertaining to the U.S. war effort is coming from the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where both Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are operating. Understanding Urdu and Pashtu-language primary sources is vital to the safety and success of the Western troops' mission, with 2010 on track to be the deadliest year for U.S. soldiers since the conflict began in 2001. In addition, militants based in this region are now stepping up their threats against targets on the U.S. mainland, making information provided by the Urdu-Pashtu Media Project more vital than ever. MEMRI supplies material to the U.S military and government, NATO, the United Nations, and others in the region on a daily basis.
*IRAN STUDIES PROJECT: The only research project in the world that monitors, translates, and analyzes content from the Iranian media on a daily basis. Headed by native-born Iranians, this project has produced hundreds of hours of translations from Iran's most important media outlets and websites, including over 40 newspapers and 16 TV channels, as well as hundreds of original analyses on issues of vital importance, such as Iran's pursuit of nuclear capability, the Iranian military's growth, speeches by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the increasing influence of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), political unrest in Iran, Friday sermons by Iranian leaders, and much more.
*REFORM PROJECT: This project, also known as the Democratization in the Arab & Muslim World Project, monitors advocates of reform in the Arab and Muslim world and the obstacles that they face in advancing their cause. Its goal is to provide reformists with a platform from which they can reach out to their societies and to religious, political, and education leaders, while also providing Western policy makers with a solid basis for long-term strategic plans aimed at supporting this effort.
*ANTISEMITISM DOCUMENTATION PROJECT: This project documents antisemitic themes in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu-Pashtu, and Turkish newspaper reports, editorials, and other media sources. This project maintains the largest archive in the world of translated material from the Middle East from the past decade. In April 2009, MEMRI renamed this project in honor of the late Congressman Tom Lantos, and in April 2010 released the first annual report of the Tom Lantos Archives on Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial at a Capitol Hill event attended by leading senators and congressmen, as well as officials from other U.S. government agencies and foreign diplomats.
*ARAB & IRANIAN TV MONITORING PROJECT: This project monitors 69 television stations in the Middle East and Iran, and has so far produced over 2,500 clips, totaling more than 17,000 minutes of footage – the largest archives in the world of such material. MEMRI TV is viewed in 197 countries around the world, and to date over 20 million visitors have accessed its website.
*JIHAD & TERRORISM STUDIES PROJECT: This project provides research about Islamist ideology and organizations that threaten the West. It also monitors groups that educate and preach jihad and martyrdom in mosques, school systems, and the media. Research from this project is provided to the U.S. federal government, Congress, and the U.S military on a daily basis.
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Sincerely,
Yigal Carmon
President
Steven Stalinsky
Executive Director
