Vivian Salama is an award winning reporter, producer and blogger. She has reported for various publications from across the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Balkans, the United States and North and South Korea. She has also appeared as a commentator on the BBC, South African Broadcasting Corp., Iran's Press TV, NPR and as a reporter for Voice of America radio. A native of New York, Salama is currently based in Dubai where she reports for The National. Salama has an MA in Islamic Politics from Columbia University and she previously worked as a lecturer of international journalism at Rutgers University.

Saul Singer is Editorial Page Editor and author of the weekly column “Interesting Times” for the Jerusalem Post. He is the author of Confronting Jihad: Israel's Struggle and the World After 9/11. Before moving to Israel from the Washington area in 1994, Mr. Singer served for ten years as an advisor on the personal and committee staffs of the United States Congress, including the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Senate Banking Committee, and Senator Connie Mack.

Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist based in Lahore, was the Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review, for 22 years until the magazine was recently closed down. He presently writes for the Daily Telegraph in London, the International Herald Tribune, the New York Review of Books, BBC Online, The Nation, and academic and foreign affairs journals. He appears regularly on international TV and radio stations such as CNN and BBC World Service.