For all its considerable merits and inspirational principles, the American system is based upon a continuous uninterrupted process of election campaigns, stretching out year after year. Lost in the perpetual scramble is any long-term vision.

I think there are many experts who say, in fact, the most powerful nations on earth are more vulnerable today than the weaker nations because they're the targets of so many of these groups that are trying to steal, to buy, to build nuclear weapons.

You can see that in people around the world who struggle to survive with little or nothing. Whether they've been inspired by faith or by loving relationships, or whether it's just something innate that gives them that ability to shine and inspire others.

Today, there is no excuse for any one of us to sit back and go, "Ugh! There's nothing I can do about it."Because there is always something that can be done.

The Noor Al-Hussein Foundation (Light of Al-Hussein) was created to complement my husband's efforts to advance development in the country.

I founded the King Hussein Foundation after my husband's death in 1999, to build on his humanitarian vision and legacy in the country and abroad, through programs promoting education and leadership, economic empowerment, tolerance, cross-cultural dialogue, and media that enhances mutual understanding and respect among different cultures across conflict lines.

When my father began to work with President John. F.Kennedy, we moved to Washington, D.C. I was fortunate in my pre-adolescent years, as my social and political consciousness was developing, to live at the epicentre of that dynamic, idealistic, and inspiring moment in U.S. political history, with its ethos of personal and civic responsibility, summed up so succinctly in his exhortation: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country."