Raghida Dergham

Raghida Dergham is Columnist and Senior Diplomatic Correspondent and for the London-based Al Hayat, the leading independent Arabic daily, since 1989. She writes a regular weekly strategic column on International Political Affairs. Ms. Dergham is also a Political Analyst for NBC, MSNBC and the Arab satellite LBC. She is a Contributing Editor for L A Times Syndicate Global Viewpoint and has contributed to: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune and Newsweek Magazine. Ms. Dergham was featured in PBS Documentary "Caught in The Crossfire." She is quoted in several books in many languages. As one of the few women political commentators, Ms. Dergham has been a frequent guest PBS's "Charlie Rose" and "The News Hour", CNN, FOX, "ABC, CBS, Canada’s CBC, Al-Jazeera as well as a radio guest on NPR and the BBC. A Lebanese-born American Citizen, Ms. Dergham is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations. She was co-chair of the Council's 1997 conference: "In the National Interest: Does diversity make a difference?" She serves on the Board of the International Women's Media Foundation, and has served on the Advisory Council of Princeton University's Institute for Transregional Studies of the contemporary Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. She was also a member of the Women's Foreign Policy Group. Ms. Dergham is in SUNY's Hall of Fame as a Distinguished Alumna and has received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters in 2003. Dr. Dergham is a frequent participant in Policy conferences and is a regular participant in The World Economic Forum at Davos and WEF at the Dead Sea. She addressed UN General Assembly on the World Press Freedom Day when President of The United Nations Correspondents Association for 1997 and was appointed to the Task Force on the Reorientation of Public Information by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. She moderated a roundtable of 8 Presidents and Prime Ministers for UNCTAD at Bangkok in 1991. Ms Dergham served as Chairman of the Dag Hammarskjöld Fund Board in 2005. She also served as a Juror on the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies Novartis Prize for Excellence in International Journalism. In addition to covering the crucial American-Soviet Summits in the 80s and the 27th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, Ms Dergham has done exclusive Interviews with over 20 Statesmen including: Jordan's King Abdallah and the late King Hussein; Pakistan's President Parviz Musharref, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak; Palestinian Presidents Mahmoud Abbas and Yasser Arafat; Iraq's Jalal Talabani, Yemen's President Abdallah Saleh; Sudan's President Omar Al-Bashir; Russia's President Boris Yeltsin, and Lebanon's PM Fouad Siniora. Other Presidents and Prime Ministers include a variety of countries such as:, Turkey's Ozal, Indonesia's Soharto, France's D'Estang, Argentina's Minem, Cambodia's Sihanouk, India's Ghandi, Afghanistan's Najibullah, Iran's Bani Sadr, Sweden's Palme, Japan's Ohira, Philippines' Marcos. She conducted exclusive interviews with over 50 Foreign Ministers. Ms. Dergham has Interviewed US President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and her predecessor Colin Powell. Besides breaking major news stories, such as the Oslo secret talks, she was the only Journalist to interview Ramzi Youssef, the alleged mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing. Ms. Dergham is based at the United Nations. Her assignments have included: The Madrid Middle East Peace Conference; Islamic Summits; Nonaligned Summits; The Casablanca Economic Summit; The Denver Summit of Eight and the Extraordinary Amman Summit. She has accompanied UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on his tours of the Middle East. Ms. Dergham is a frequent lecturer at Universities, Think Tanks and Business Councils throughout the United States.