Karzai, Hamid
Afghanistan

Hamid Karzai was sworn in as President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan on December 7, 2004. During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Karzai served as Director of Information, and then Deputy Director of the Political Office for the National Liberation Front led by Professor Sebghatullah Mujadidi. After the formation of the Mujahideen's transitional government in 1989, Karzai was appointed as Director of the Foreign Relations Unit in the Office of the President of the Interim Government. When the Mujahideen Government was established in Kabul in 1992, he was appointed as its Deputy Foreign Minister. Resigning from his post in 1994 amidst the chaos of the ensuing civil war, Karzai returned to Uruzgan province in October 2001 following the American-led invasion and worked to coordinate local efforts to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban and their supporters. On December 5, 2001, he was elected Chairman of the Interim Administration of Afghanistan by participants at the U.N.-sponsored Bonn Conference. He, along with the appointed cabinet, took the oath of office on December 22, 2001. His role as leader of the country was confirmed by members of the Emergency Loya Jirga when he was elected President of the Transitional Government on June 13, 2002. Karzai has been awarded many honors, among them a Honorary Knighthood from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth (2003), the Philadelphia Liberty Medal (2004), and the American Bar Association-Asia Rule of Law Award (2003). He received his M.A. in International Relations and Political Science from Simla University in India in 1983. He speaks fluent Pashtu, Dari, Urdu and English.

Go to top

Khaled, Amr
Egypt

Amr Khaled is a renowned Egyptian Muslim activist and preacher, and Chairman of Right Start Foundation International (RSFI), a charitable organization committed to building bridges between civilizations and nurturing constructive and positive co-existence between cultures, faiths, minority groups and host communities. Described by the New York Times Magazine as “the world’s most famous and influential Muslim televangelist,” and chosen by Time Magazine as the world’s 13th-most influential people, Khaled began preaching in mosques in 1990 while still working as an accountant. He is the host of TV’s “Call for Coexistence,” as well as past television shows “Life Makers,” “On the Path of the Beloved,” and “In They Name We Live.” He promotes community development in the Arab and wider Muslim world based on what he terms “Faith Based Development,” calling on people to develop their communities and countries with faith as their motivator and guide. Khaled received a B.A. in Accounting from Cairo University, and is currently studying for his Ph.D at the University of Wales.

Go to top

Khouri, Rami
Lebanon

Rami George Khouri is Editor-at-Large and former Executive Editor of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune. An internationally syndicated political columnist and book author, he is also the first Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. He spent the 2001-02 academic year as a Nieman Journalism Fellow at Harvard University and was appointed a member of the Brookings Institution Task Force on US Relations with the Islamic World. He is a Research Associate at the Program on the Analysis and Resolution of Conflict at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University, a Fellow of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs in Jerusalem and a member of the Leadership Council of the Harvard University Divinity School. He also serves on the board of the East-West Institute, the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University, and the Jordan National Museum. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Jordan Times for seven years and for 18 years he was general manager of Al Kutba Publishers in Amman, Jordan, where he also served as a consultant to the Jordanian Ministry of Tourism on biblical archaeological sites. He has hosted programs on archaeology, history and current public affairs on Jordan Television and Radio Jordan, and often comments on Mideast issues in the international media. He received a B.A. in Political Science and M.Sc. in Mass Communications from Syracuse University.

Go to top

Kohut, Andrew
United States

Andrew Kohut is president of the Pew Research Center in Washington, DC. He also acts as Director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press (formerly the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press) and the Pew Global Attitudes Project. Previously, Kohut was President of the Gallup Organization from 1979 to 1989. In 1989, he founded Princeton Survey Research Associates, an attitude and opinion research firm specialized in Media, politics and public policy studies. He has also been president of the National Council on Public Polls 2000-2001, a member of the Market Research Council, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Kohut is a press commentator for such media outlets as NPR and the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. He has written widely about public opinion for leading newspapers and magazines, as well as scholarly journals, and has co-authored four books including, America Against the World (Times Books) and The Diminishing Divide: Religion’s changing Role in American Politics, (Brookings Institution Press). Kohut received the first Innovators Award from American Association of Public Opinion Research for founding the Pew Research Center. He also was given the New York AAPOR Chapter award for Outstanding Contribution to Opinion Research. Most recently he was awarded the 2005 American Association of Public Opinion Research’s highest honor, the Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement. Kohurt received his B.A. from Seton Hall University in 1964 and studied graduate sociology at Rutgers from 1964 to 1966.

Go to top

Konaré, Alpha Oumar
Mali

Alpha Oumar Konaré currently serves as the Chairperson of the African Union Commission and was President of the Republic of Mali from 1992-2002. Previously, he was named Professor at the History and Geography Department at the École Normale Supérieure of Bamako. He has headed a number of professional organizations, including the Association of Historians and Geographers of Mali, the Association of West African Scientists, Partnership in Fighting Hunger and Poverty in Africa and the Union of West African Researchers. He has also served as an expert consultant to UNESCO, the African Cultural Institute, ACCT and UNDP and was a member of World Islamic Education Centre of Mecca in 1977. Konaré earned a Diploma at the Teachers’ Training School of Katibougou and received his M.A. in History and Geography from the École Normale Supérieure in Bamako and a Ph.D. in Archeology from the University of Warsaw.

Go to top

Krasner, Stephen D.
United States

Stephen D. Krasner is the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at Stanford, a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, and a Senior Fellow by courtesy at the Hoover Institution. From February 2005 to April 2007 he was Director of the Policy Planning Staff at the Department of State where he worked on a number of issues including foreign assistance reform and energy policy. In 2002 he served as Director for Governance and Development at the National Security Council where he played an important role in the development of the Millennium Challenge Account. In 2003 and 2004 he was s a member of the Board of Directors of the United States Institute of Peace. His writings have dealt primarily with the political determinants of international economic relations, American foreign policy, and sovereignty. He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (1987-88) and at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2000-2001). Professor Krasner is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He received his B.A. from Cornell in 1963, M.A. from Columbia in 1967, and Ph.D. from Harvard in 1972.

Go to top

Kull, Steven
USA

Steven Kull is editor of WorldPublicOpinion.org and director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) and the Center on Policy Attitudes (COPA). He directs the PIPA/Knowledge Networks poll of the U.S. public, plays a central role in the BBC World Service Poll of global opinion and the polls of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and is the principal investigator of a major study of social support of anti-American terrorist groups in Islamic countries. He regularly appears in the U.S.and international media, providing analysis of public opinion, and gives briefings to the U.S. Congress, the State Department, NATO, the United Nations and the European Commission. His articles have appeared in Political Science Quarterly, Foreign Policy, Public Opinion Quarterly, Harpers, and other publications. His most recent book, co-authored with I.M. Destler, is titled Misreading the Public: The Myth of a New Isolationism. He is a faculty member of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the World Association of Public Opinion Research.

Go to top