Arab brain drain: You don't have to be a genius to figure this out

Another news item from The Peninsular, Qatar's leading English-language daily:

Brain drain is the biggest challenge the Arab nations are facing today. From countries like Algeria and Tunisia, for instance, a large number of nurses and technical medical staff have migrated.

The irony is that despite having spent through the nose on education of these sons of the soil who have deserted their homeland for greener pastures, these countries have to spend additionally to import skilled manpower from elsewhere in the world to meet their own needs.

Now why would this be so? The Peninsula reports:

Surveys indicate that higher earnings are not a major consideration for most of the highly qualified Arabs to live in the West.

It is the social and political environment in their home countries which is keeping most of them away.