Mixed Reviews For State Department's Hi Magazine

The State Department's glossy Arabic-language magazine aimed at 18- to 35-year-olds is getting mixed reviews with its target audience. Hi Magazine which focuses on cultural and societal issues, is funded by more than $4 million of State Department money. So far 50,000 copies have been distributed from Morocco to Kuwait. U.S. officials hope to increase the circulation to 250,000. In Beirut, a 20-year-old Lara Hawi, a Lebanese design student, told NPR, "The name is attractive and we lack Arabic magazines that are not all full of interviews and stupid things." But Twenty-year-old Hassan Moustafa of Beruit wasn't impressed by Hi. "I would be more interested if the magazine talked about why Americans support Israel or why they did what they did in Iraq," he told NPR, adding that it's clear to him that Americans know nothing about Arabs.