Bahrain tables anti-Israeli law 26, October 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Bahrain, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.Tags: Arab Israeli conflict, Bahrain Israeli relations, Israel boycott
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Reports indicate that Bahrain is considering jailing people for substantial amounts of time if they have “any form of cooperation with the Israeli entity.” In addition to a mooted 3-5 year jail sentence there will be potential fines of up to $25,000 and an offenders may well have their labor license revoked for up tp 10 years.
This bill follows on the heels of a similar Kuwaiti measure last month. Both were introduced (I think I am right in saying) by the Shia members of Parliament. Both too are – obviously enough – purely symbolic gestures and will in no way, shape or form contribute meaningfully to the rectification or resolution of the Israel-Palestinian situation. Instead, such measures appease much of the local population as an anti-Israeli ticket perennially does in the Arab world. Indeed, it is the very definition of a circus in the bread and circuses analogy.
In Bahrain there is, however, an extra angle to it. For such a law, were it to be enacted, would curtail the powers of the government too. However, being as it is being introduced by the Parliament, this is clearly part of some kind of power-play to hamstring their ‘rival’ legislative center.
In terms of the Bahrain-US relationship, such a law would be very poorly received in Washington. However, with the US well ensconced in Manama and currently building/renovating extra port space to expand, Bahrain (or rather, forces within the country) can, crudely speaking, displease the US on points such as this with relatively little come-back: there is very little that America can do.
Lebanese reporter spared flogging in Saudi 26, October 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Saudi Arabia.Tags: Abdul Jawad, Lashes, LBC show, Lebanese reporter spared, Saudi Arabia, Saudi justice, Saudi man sexual exploits
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The Lebanese reporter for LBC sentenced to 60 lashes for hosting a show in which a Saudi man discussed his sexual exploits has been spared the lashes by Saudi King Abdullah. Abdul Jawad, a divorced father of four, was not so lucky and has been sentenced to 1000 lashes and four years in prison. This is, however, lenient by Saudi Wahhabi standards as he could have theoretically faced the death penalty.
The only thing that, as far as I see, these two are guilt of is crass and utter stupidity. Discussing premarital sexual exploits, showing off how easy he found it to get a woman using his phone and displaying (blurred out) sex toys and lubricants on a TV show shown in the Kingdom seems to me to be essentially ludicrous.
Plainly stupid: more room for fatties on planes 26, October 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Random.1 comment so far
There’s a reoccurring story over at Slate centered around whether fat people should have to pay more for services because they are fat. The simplest example of this is with health-care. In America if you are fat you will pay more for your health care. To me, in just about every way, this is a non-argument: if you are fat statistics unequivocally dictate that you’re going to need more healthcare. You are, therefore, simply paying more for more health care. I don’t see the problem.
The latest in this quasi-series is a simply staggering article, even by the usually curious standards of fat-logic. Using the analogy that tall can people pay for better legroom on a plane, this article is actually arguing that plane manufacturers should adapt plane designs and configurations to accommodate fat people.
Most of them [fat people] don’t need two seats side-by-side any more than we long-legged guys need two seats front-to-back. Like us, they just need a few extra inches. … If United can swap out a row of three normal coach seats for two wide ones, two fat people should be able to buy those seats for an extra 50 percent instead of an extra 100 percent. That’s the simplest nonbinary solution. But if the flight is full, or if swapping out a seat row is too difficult, here’s an alternative: Let other passengers sell part of their seat width to those who need it.
A few points to think about:
1) There are already seats with extra room in Business and First Class.
2) Yes, these seats are more expensive, but that is life. Is the author suggesting that because fat people have eaten themselves to a state where they can’t fit in a seat they should be rewarded and have the luxury of a larger seat at a what amounts to reduced rate? Would they get one and a half servings of food too?
3) At a time when aviation is struggling massively (pardon the pun) and American aviation more so, is it really a good idea to add more costs onto such business? For surely if the actual costs or reconfiguring/retro-fitting planes were to be recouped by the airlines/manufacturers they would essentially be charging Business class prices…
4) Another passenger should sell part of their seat width. Has this person ever been on a plane? Who could or would sell a few inches of their seat? Unless they’re a child or vastly anorexic this is just impossible.
5) A tall person is born tall, it is not (since the rack went out of fashion at least) something that a person can affect one way another. Fatness, on the other hand…
The Hummus Wars 26, October 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Lebanon.Tags: Hummos Wars, Hummus, Hummus Wars, Israel, Lebanon
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As if the Middle East was not replete with Iranian nuclear tensions, an at times simmering Sunni-Shia cleft, potentially catastrophic fallout from the bungled Iraq invasion and occupation, seismic demographic pressures, entrenched and visceral conflicts between moderates and hard-line Islamists not to mention the open sore at the heart of the region’s issues, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, now, to this panoply of ancient, modern but always passionate clashes can be added the Hummus Wars.
Israel and Lebanon both claim to be the founding, symbolic and real home of Hummus and Tabouleh. In recent months, there has been a steady escalation of articles and angry cooks from each claiming that Hummus is, clearly and obviously, an Israeli/Lebanese dish.
Only yesterday (25/10/09) the BBC ran a video clip of Lebanese chefs making that largest ever pot of Hummus. One of the proud organizers, against the backdrop of a “Hommos and Tabouleh are 100% Lebanese” sign affirmed that these tasty products are manifestly Lebanese. What makes this clip extra sweet (or tasty, one might be tempted to say) is that this largest pot of Hummus ever wrested the title away from the Israelis.
Well, clearly enraged by that, today I learned that Israel are not going to take such a slight lying down. Thankfully, rather than resorting to military means as is their usual wont(…), the Qnion announced that this time Israel has instead decided to launch a Hummus themed resort, proving once and for all that Hummus is in fact Israeli.
Your as ever intrepid war correspondent will keep you apprised of the latest fronts and battles. Watch this space…
A Turko-Islamic Empire 25, October 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Islam, Middle East.Tags: Ismalic Empire, strange maps, Turkish Empire, Turko-Islamic Empire
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…would – apparently and arguably – look something like this.
Hat tip: The ever interesting folks at Strange Maps
Jerusalem’s chastity squad 25, October 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Saudi Arabia.Tags: Conservative Jews, Jerusalem chastity squad, Saudi religious police
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The ever Angry Arab points to a recent article in an Israeli newspaper describing the growth of Jerusalem’s chastity squad. According to the author, this Jewish group has recently been ‘branching out’ into violent attacks. A divorcee and students suspected of watching licentious films were, allegedly, attacked by the group.
There are undoubted parallels between groups such as this and Saudi’s notorious religious police who frequently (though less in recent years) stop, harass, arrest or even attack people in the streets to assure that modesty and strict religious standards are enforced at all times. However, it must be made clear that Saudi’s religious police are state-sanctioned and an official run arm of the judiciary. Jerusalem’s equivalent – if that is not too an incendiary way to put it – have no such firm background.
Angry Arab’s point in highlighting this article is that such a story would no doubt have got more coverage if it were a Muslim ‘chastity squad’ that was accused of said crimes. Whilst obviously impossible to say, I think there may be more than a grain of truth in this statement. I’d be fascinated to see if any American media picked up on this story too. This analogy is – like the Saudi one – not perfect, but it is an interesting thought nonetheless.
Arabic issues: so near and yet… 25, October 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Random.Tags: Arabic language problems, Danish immigration service
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Anyone care to guess what exactly is wrong with this picture taken in the Danish Immigration Service? I suppose that you might need to know a bit of arabic…answers on a postcard.
Hat Tip: The genius that is Facebook’s Secret Treasures of Hans Wehr group
Where is Doha? 25, October 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in Qatar.Tags: Doha sport, Qatar, Qatar sport, Qatar tennis, Serena Williams, Song Ericsson tennis, Unknown Qatar, Where is Qatar
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…was Serena Williams’ tweet as she boarded a flight to Qatar to take part in the season finale Doha Sony Ericsson Women’s Tennis tournament. One must feel somewhat sorry for the little thumb-shaped country, jutting out of Saudi Arabia into the Persian Gulf. They have hosted staggering amounts of international sporting events, prestigious conferences and exhibitions; founded the in/famously iconoclastic Al Jazeera news network with their ‘and now live from Doha’ strapline; paid hundreds of millions of dollars in international aid to actors ranging from the victims of hurricane Katrina to Libya; contributed to solving international crises notably in Lebanon in 2008; created a world-spanning, world-beating airline in Qatar Airways; hosted thousands upon thousands of US troops and the command center for the war in Iraq; have surprisingly good relations with Israel, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and America; sell huge amounts of gas to the UK, Japan, India and South Korea; invest and prop up some of the Western world’s bluest of blue chip companies such as Barclay’s Bank and have, with a $10 billion endowment, set up, among other projects, several American Universities in their aspirational Education City.
Yet still Serena can’t quite place poor Qatar despite having played at this exact event in the past. On second thought, maybe the problem is not so much with Qatar but…
Kuwait’s labour problems and the US Embassy in Iraq 25, October 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in American ME Relations, Kuwait.Tags: Human rights abuse, Iraq embassy, Kuwait human rights, Migrant labor abuse, Migrant labour abuse, US embassy, US Embassy Baghdad
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One of the Foreign Policy blogs and now The Times of London have picked up on a story about the shoddy workmanship of a Kuwaiti firm hired to build parts of the behemoth US Embassy in Baghdad. Both articles lament that the poor construction means that the work will essentially have to be done again at great expense.
The $130 million repair bill is, for me, of little interest being from the UK where all projects run over budget and need large repair bills after the fact. Instead, the Foreign Policy blog – The Cable – discusses some of the working practices employed by the Kuwaiti firm in undertaking this project. It quotes the former American foreman of the project, John Owens, who quit the project after witnessing exactly what doing manual work for a Kuwaiti firm entails: i.e. “sub-human living conditions” and the workers having their passports taken away. “I’ve never seen a project more fucked up,” is how he eloquently sums it up.
There should be no surprise about this at all. There is a good reason that Kuwait is on the third and worst tier in the America ranking of human trafficking violators.* What this highlights, to me at least, is that if a Kuwaiti firm that gets such a prime, lucrative, important and prestigious contract as building America’s largest ever Embassy in such a critical location, and yet they still employ disgusting tactics of near-slave labor standards, what on earth does this say about the rest of the workers back in Kuwait? For those working out in Jahra, the ‘slummy’ bit of Kuwait, building a nondescript block of flats with no international intrigue or renown, how are their conditions?
* Don’t be fooled by Kuwait’s apparent improvement under Bush’s premiership: that was done as a political gesture and did not reflect any changes on the ground whatsoever. See the 2004 report where Kuwait and Saudi Arabia(!) were moved up to tier 2 (and not even the tier 2 watch list) in a truly appalling example of political interference and naked self-interest.
US-UAE nuclear deal to go through 25, October 2009
Posted by thegulfblog.com in American ME Relations, The Emirates.Tags: Abu Dhabi torture, civilian nuclear programme, Sheikh Issa torture, Torture video, UA UAE nuclear deal, UAE nuclear deal
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Several months ago a video of the half-brother of the ruler of Abu Dhabi emerged showing him videoing himself torturing an Afghan man for an extended period of time. This horribly graphic video clearly showed the work of a vicious and hateful sadist taking pleasure in egregiously inflicting pain – with the police in attendance – on a lowly Afghan grain dealer. It is truly a sickening video in every way, shape and form. On its release, the story was picked up by news media across America and caused a suitable level out (initial) outrage. Specifically, it was mooted that Congress would veto the nascent US-UAE cooperation on starting the Emirates’ civilian nuclear programme.
However, somewhat unsurprisingly, realpolitik has – as ever – won the day and the programme is back on the table as if nothing ever happened. To the best of my knowledge – having witnessed something of a profound lack of coverage of what seems to me to be an important story – Sheikh Issa is still under house arrest in one of his palatial palaces in the Emirates. Hardship indeed and I am sure that he has learned his lesson.
