Of arms and fat cats:

“There was a significant increase in arms shipments to the Middle East….The UAE is the third biggest importers of weapons in the world for 2008…..It imported about 6% of total weapons exported in the world, while India imported 7% and China imported 11%.....The UAE, (with a population of less than 3 million) imported twice as much weapons as Egypt (with a population of some 80 million)……” SIPRI
I like to think that fat sales commissions to fat potentates are probably not an important factor behind these transactions. Even with the notorious example of the BAES-alYamama case a few years ago.


Iran, Israel and Orange diplomacy:

“Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak said that Iran uses a chess strategy in managing her nuclear portfolio. He said the Iranians are not playing domino, but the game of chess, since they are the ones who invented this game. They play chess in a very complex and they play in a very programmed way....” Middle East Online
“Ahmadinejad had been distributing Israeli oranges to his supporters….”
“The oranges came into Iran through another country, probably China, where the county of origin was changed…..”
“This is one example of the duplicity of Iran towards Israel and the Palestinian cause…”
“Israel and Iran are two faces of the same coin…” “Maybe it is part of a new rapprochement with the Obama administration…Would that leave the Arabs again out in the cold?” Various Saudi media columnists.

Actually, maybe there is something to all this. First he says that he would support the two-state solution if the Palestinians agree to it, and now he promotes Israeli oranges. What will come next? Will he recant and agree publicly with what he knows privately: that the Holocaust actually did happen? Will he rent Schindler's List from his local Blockbuster or Netflix? But what if the oranges are really Palestinian, as grown by Palestinian workers in Israeli orchards? Maybe he knows that too. Will we be calling this the beginning of the era of "Orange Diplomacy" between Iran and Israel? Of course his losing the June election will put an end to all this speculation.

Of swine flu and kosher Salafis:
“Egypt is considering executing thousands of pigs. Gulf Cooperatin Council States (GCC) have declared they have taken the total readiness steps to face the danger of the Swine flu that may be brought in by foreign travelers. GCC and Yemen will meet in Doha Saturday to coordinate….” Alarabiya
Shouldn’t they also include all regional countries? Israel already has at least one case of the flu. Shouldn’t they also invite Israel, Iran, Turkey, and other Arab states? Does the flu know when it is outside the Gulf region? Swine flu in the Mideast is further proof that we are part of the world: imagine some pigs in the scenic state of Vera Cruz have managed to spread fear so far away. But it was discovered in Israel, so far: that could mean that they are not as kosher as we are, even though they have as many religious nuts in their government as we do in the Arab/Moslem world. Speaking of which: expect some fun-dementa-list shaikh to come out railing against the West for eating pork and therefore causing the swine flu.

Hillary visits a shrine in Beirut:
“Secretary of state Hillary Clinton came to Beirut and met only with the president, and the March 14 (Hariri camp). She did not meet with her Lebanese counterpart, foreign minister Fawzi Saloukh, who is part of the March 8 group (Hezbullah and its partners). She brought along former US ambassador Jeffrey Feltman (who in the past some in the opposition have erroneously called the real leader of the March 14 movement)…” Aafaq
Lebanese media on the Hariri side are ecstatic that she did not meet with the minister. Media of the Hezbullah allies seem resigned to it, since they did not expect her to meet with the minister during this period of political fog. During her two hours in Lebanon, she also managed to visit the shrine founded for assassinated former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, something the Hariris treat as a mini-version of Yad Vashim. Or perhaps as their very own mini-Karbala. A better comparison may be to the Lenin mausoleum in Moscow: except that old Hariri is not embalmed in a glass box.
But what if the opposition, i.e Hezbullah and its Shi’a, Sunni, and Christian allies get a majority in the June elections? Would that tilt the country more toward Shi’a fundamentalism rather than Wah...wah...wah....(was that a habi?) fundamentalism?

Citigroup, Apple, financial innovation, financial stupidity, and greed:
“Kuwait’s minister of finance has said that he expects to make profits from the deal whereby the country purchased shares of Citigroup a few years ago.....” Elaph
He was wise enough to add ‘Inshallah, God willing’, since I don’t expect him to see profits from the Citigroup investment in my lifetime, or in his lifetime even though I hope he lives long enough to see it. I know him: he is a really nice person and an improvement over the ministers before him. He is a simple man and hard working, not an empty dishdasha and bisht. But the Citigroup stake was probably bought at somewhere north of $25 a share, how much north I am not sure, could be north of $30 a share. It would take many many years to recoup that kind of a loss. At less than $3 a share, Citigroup is no Apple: it does not have innovators who can whip up desirable new products like Steve Jobs and his colleagues. Greed can be creative, but only up to a point. Financial stupidity disguised as innovation, of course, has no bounds, as we have found out in recent years. I still believe, firmly, that the guy in the KIA American Investments Dept responsible for that investment in Citi should be demoted to serving thick syrupy sweet tea and water.

Egypt, again:
“A new study from the Center to Combat Terrorism at West Point points out that the Egyptian government is encouraging the growth of extremist Salafi (Wahhabi) movements in order to block the increasing influence of the Muslim Brotherhood (the main Islamist opposition). The government has released many followers of the Salafis, who tend to be extremely intolerant of people of other faiths (like Coptic Christians and Shi’as).” Aljazeera TV

“Egyptian authorites have released a Saudi doctor who was arrested on charges of possessing a picture of Hezbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah in his apartment. The suspect was held for about a week.” Al-Quds Alarabi, Rasid.

Cheers

Mohammed

mhg6363@gmail.com