The capital of Jordan, long overshadowed by Beirut and Cairo, has been turning up the wattage. The title of 2002 Cultural Capital of the Arab World puts the city's artistic offerings in the spotlight.

In the fast-growing Internet radio scene are more than a few musical gems from the Middle East. Their pleasures transcend language—even though many offer websites in English. From Egyptian classics to Tunisian teenybop, flamenco to rai, sharqi, amazigh and archives of village songs, the journey is yours for the clicking.

From the northern province that won fame 5000 years ago for precious lapis lazuli, to the rubble-strewn streets of Kabul, Afghans are rebuilding homes, schools, roads and farms with help from 61 nations, 18 UN agencies and nearly 1000 NGOS, including the Aga Khan Development Network.

Rumors of a lost oasis named Zerzura—with buried treasure, of course—tugged hard at the imaginations of early 20th-century British adventurers. Those who set off looking for it in the unexplored Libyan desert found neither oasis nor gold, but knowledge that affected how World War II was fought in the region, how modern farming would develop in western Egypt and even the US space probes to Mars.

Despite a stream of top awards and rising critical acclaim, throughout the 1990's architect Zaha Hadid had only one finished building to show: a fire station in Germany. Now, more than half a dozen far more ambitious projects are well under way. As the Baghdad-born, London-based architect emerges as the field's first female superstar, it appears that the rest of the world may be at last catching up to her.