Tag Archives: Saudi Arabia

Replace The Lebanese National Dialogue Table With a Double Decker Bus

25 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by in LB Politics, Lebanon, Politics

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As I write this post, Lebanese leaders start their discussions at Baabda Palace in the second session of this round of Lebanese National Dialogue. This round started earlier this month with more than a year of stoppage. Subject of today? Hezbollah’s arms!

Looking at the format of the meeting and the faces of the 17 participants or whatever the number is, I laugh out loudly (that’s LOL!). So Agob Pakradounian, Jean Ogasapian, Farid Makari and others are going to be the people to convince Hezbollah to give up his arms?

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A Closer Iran to Egypt Against Saudi Arabia?

21 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by in Arab World, Other Arab issues

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Sadegh Kharrazi, Iran’s former ambassador to France, has made some startling comments on the regional foreign policy of Iran. It seems he represents some Iranian circles that have some ‘hope’ with the current regime changes in Egypt, believing they can strategically align Iran with Egypt against Saudi Arabia. Kharrazi believes Turkey would too be included in this alliance.

This actually sounds counter-intuitive when Egypt, past and present, looks closer to Saudi Arabia than Iran. But the interesting bit is the reasoning given by Kharrazi, which gives little importance of Egypt’s position on Israel (or United States.) Continue reading »

A foreign Saudi plot to expose foreign poverty in foreign Saudi

19 Wednesday Oct 2011

Posted by in Arab Spring, Arab World, Media Monitoring, Other Arab issues, Politics, Social Media

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You can call it the carrot and stick policy; Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah recently unveiled a public benefits package worth $37bn, and his authorities arrested three bloggers apparently for a ‘minor’ issue this week.

On the eve of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on Monday 17th October 2011, Khaled al-Rasheed, Firas Bughnah and Hosam al-Deraiwish were detained on Sunday after they produced a YouTube video about poverty in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. The video was part of a series they did called ‘Mal3ob3lena’ which means ‘fooling us’.

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Democracy is down, gender inequality is up [Chart]

28 Wednesday Sep 2011

Posted by in Arab World, MB Social, MicroBlogs, Other Arab issues, The rest of the world, World

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 I love these charts, especially when they tell you something you already know! or when they put something in a graphical systematic mathematical geeky way for something you vaguely know…

The relation in this chart is straightforward: when democracy is down, gender inequality is up. No wonder Middle East is at the bottom…oh, sorry, at the top on this chart.

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Caricature of the day: a Saudi offensive one

23 Friday Sep 2011

Posted by in Arab Spring, Arab World, Caricature of the day, Other Arab issues

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One of the outcomes of the Arab Spring (on the ‘soft side’ of things) is the increase of the national pride of the nations that experienced uprisings, especially where the revolutions were successful. Egypt’s revolution has been called ‘sexy’, and revolution in Tahrir Square (or Tahrir Roundabout) became a role model for almost anyone writing or planning a protest. Egyptians and Tunisians are proud of themselves and of the outcomes of their revolutions.

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The foreign policy cows

17 Friday Jun 2011

Posted by in Arab World, Other Arab issues, The rest of the world, World

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Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes one of them and gives it to your neighbor.

Communism: You have two cows. The government takes them both and provides you with milk.

Nazism: You have two cows. The government shoots you and takes the cows.

Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

Do you remember the above? I remember it very well; it was a famous political sarcasm that was widely circulated in 1990s (at my time) about the different political systems. It’s has an older origin though. Believe it or not, these jokes affected my political ‘evolutionist’ thinking then.
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Lebanon’s state of statelessness continues!

26 Thursday May 2011

Posted by in LB Politics, Lebanon

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And again, we get another tip on the irresponsibility of the Lebanese politicians. This time from Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nassrallah, who said yesterday that the previous government was formed after 5 months of waiting, only because the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdel Azziz intervened then to make it happen!
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Saudi Arabia: Freedom starts behind the wheel

12 Thursday May 2011

Posted by in Arab Spring, Arab World, Politics

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Freedom protests are sweeping through the entire Arab world these days, with exact demands differing from one country to another, according to the existing freedom threshold. In Saudi Arabia, freedom starts behind the wheel. Yes, behind the wheel, as women in Saudi Arabia are still not allowed to drive, yet alone have any other human rights.
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Wikileaks and the anti-Hezbollah militias

07 Saturday May 2011

Posted by in LB Politics, Lebanon, Politics, Wikileaks

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In my ‘Lebanon, the medieval Ottoman country’ post yesterday, I described 14March leaders as a bunch of sectarian warlords. I was not indicating only to their history during the Lebanese civil war, but rather to their current and recent history in peace time.

These leaders are currently advocating building a civil unarmed society in Lebanon (which is their main argument against Hezbollah), but in reality they do not mind getting armed to fight Hezbollah. I think they surely serve foreign interests in a way or another too, or at least they accept to be used. Let’s be practical here, we know how international politics is conducted, and politicians have to exploit international balances and political opportunities, and this is fine. But to ‘exploit’ opportunities to go back to civil war? I am not sure about that.
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