Then there\'s education: In 2002, 65 million adults, one of every four Arabs, were illiterate. One of out of every two Arab women couldn\'t read or write. And for the few Arab readers, there wasn\'t much choice. The entire region was translating just 330 books a year - one fifth the amount that Greece translates every year. All these statistics showed how the Arab world was worse off than everywhere except Sub-Saharan Africa. Now, what caught my attention this week, almost a decade later, is that much of the data in that report is unchanged or barely changed. On jobs, the region now suffers some of the highest unemployment rates in the world. And the raw number of Arabs who can\'t read or write has actually increased. Other indicators have worsened, too. Somalia is now suffering from a deadly famine. And the last decade, Sudan\'s Darfur region becomes the mass crimes against humanity - one could go on.