Middle East

[kennynah]

i see Muslim women too... that's good...

[winston]

At Least 18 Buildings Collapse in Turkish Quake: Report

ANKARA (Reuters) - At least 18 buildings, including two hotels, collapsed in eastern Turkey after a 5.7-magnitude quake struck just south of the city of Van near the Iranian border, Turkish state television reported.

http://www.newsmeat.com/news/meat.php?a ... &buid=3281

[winston]

Hmmm... let me think. Where else do they jail people for insulting the leaders ?

UAE sentences activists to jail for insulting leaders

ABU DHABI (Reuters) - Five political activists convicted on Sunday of insulting the leaders of the United Arab Emirates were sentenced to between two and three years in jail.

The five-month-long trial of the activists has been seen as a gauge of how the Gulf state -- the world's third biggest oil exporter, with no tradition of organized political protest -- responds to hints of political dissidence in the aftermath of the Arab Spring uprisings.

http://www.newsmeat.com/news/meat.php?a ... &buid=3281

[winston]

Who are they gonna whacked ? Syria ? Iran ? Or is it just to show off ?

Va. Army mortuary unit deploys to Middle East

PETERSBURG, Va. — More than 40 soldiers from Fort Lee are deploying to Kuwait and Afghanistan.

Officials at the Army base near Petersburg say the soldiers from the 111th Quartermaster Company left Wednesday for an at least six-month deployment.

The soldiers are part of one of the Army's only two active duty mortuary affairs units.


http://www.armytimes.com/news/2012/07/a ... ddle-east/

[winston]

Jordan's King tells AFP Israel disrupting nuclear plans by Ahmad Khatib

King Abdullah II on Wednesday accused Israel of disrupting Jordan's nuclear programme which is aimed at meeting its dire energy needs and powering water desalination plants, in an exclusive interview with AFP.

"Strong opposition to Jordan's nuclear energy programme is coming from Israel," the king said.

"When we started going down the road of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, we approached some highly responsible countries to work with us. And pretty soon we realised that Israel was putting pressure on those countries to disrupt any cooperation with us."

Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.

"A Jordanian delegation would approach a potential partner, and one week later an Israeli delegation would be there, asking our interlocutors not to support Jordan's nuclear energy bid," Abdullah said during the interview at his palace.

Jordan, which imports 95 percent of its energy needs, is struggling to find alternatives to unstable Egyptian gas supplies, which normally cover 80 percent of the kingdom's power production.

Since 2011, the pipeline supplying gas from Egypt to both Israel and Jordan has been attacked 14 times, with a consequent disruption of supplies.

http://www.newsmeat.com/news/meat.php?a ... &buid=3281

[winston]

This is Blowback

The YouTube video depicting Mohammed is nothing more than the straw that broke the camel’s back.

This kind of violent uprising against American power and interests in the region has been a long time in the making.

It is not just the continuation of drone strikes which often kill civilians in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan, either.

Nor is it the American invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nor is it the United States and the West’s support for various deeply unpopular regimes such as the monarchies in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia (and formerly Iran).

Nor is it that America has long favoured Israel over the Arab states, condemning, invading and fomenting revolution in Muslim nations for the pursuit of nuclear weapons while turning a blind eye to Israel’s nuclear weapons and its continued expansion into the West Bank.

http://azizonomics.com/2012/09/14/this-is-blowback/

[winston]

Falling Dominoes–King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia Clinically Dead by Stuart Wilde

I saw King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (pictured here) three times this week in visions. I didn’t know what it meant, then I read he is clinically dead on life support at a hospital in Riyadh. He wasn’t famous for being nice to people. Falling dominoes.

Then this morning I saw Bashar al-Assad of Syria, usually when I see people flick up in visions it means they are about to fall and then sometimes it takes six months. Assad is very cruel, we should have a national holiday on full pay and free cake when he falls over.

Bin Isa of Bahrain is on the list to topple, saw that some months ago. Maybe the Arab spring, a revolution of the commoners, will gain strength once more if the cruel sheiks and leaders fall.

http://www.stuartwilde.com/2012/11/fall ... ally-dead/

[winston]

The Mideast: Get Ready To Duck ! by Eric Margolis

The Mideast is stumbling into one of its most dangerous crisis in decades. I’m just back from the region – and as an old Mideast hand, I am very worried.

This region is always tense, but right now a series of separate conflicts are rapidly beginning to intersect. We see the Mideast, North Africa and the Sahara buffeted by revolutions and counter-revolutions.

Old colonial powers France and Britain, and the US, are trying to reassert their domination in the region. The jihadists are back.

http://lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis325.html

[winston]

WT Fish ..

20,000 U.S. M-16s Stolen from Unguarded Warehouse in Kuwait
April 11th, 2013

Part of the Syria op?

Kuwait has reported the theft of a massive amount of U.S. weapons. The Interior Ministry said thieves broke into a warehouse and stole a huge amount of firearms and ammunition. The ministry said 20,000 U.S.-origin M-16 assault rifles and 15,000 rounds for 9mm pistols were stolen.

“There were no guards during the break-in,” the ministry said on April 7.

Source: World Tribune

http://www.worldtribune.com/2013/04/09/ ... in-kuwait/

[winston]

Gulf stocks hit hard after OPEC maintains output quota

KUWAIT: Share prices in Gulf Arab states plunged Sunday on the first day of trading since OPEC decided to maintain oil output, sending crude prices to five-year lows, analysts said.

All the seven bourses of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states had been closed for the Friday-Saturday weekend after the OPEC decision late Thursday.

The Saudi Tadawul All-Shares Index, the largest in the Arab world, slumped more than 6.0 percent to below the 9,000-point mark. All shares and all sectors were trading lower.

Losses on the Dubai Financial Market deepened by mid session, trading down 6.5 percent at around 4,200 points. All stocks in the index were in the red.

The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange was down 1.0 percent at 4,753.0 points.

Kuwait Stock Exchange had dipped 3.0 percent to 6,776.50 points, while Muscat Stock market had lost 5.6 percent.

Qatar Exchange dived 4.4 percent below the 13,000-point mark less than five minutes after opening.

The OPEC oil cartel on Thursday maintained its output ceiling unchanged despite sliding crude prices.

"This is a direct impact of the OPEC decision and the fear from the low oil price consequences" on Gulf economies, said Ziad Chehab, vice-president of investment research at Kuwait's KAMCO investments.

"I think Gulf stock markets are expected to continue to bleed for some time to come," he said.

The OPEC decision was received positively by global stock markets because a drop in oil prices is expected to stimulate Gulf economies. On the contrary, a drop in oil prices would have reflected negatively on GCC budgets which generate about 90 percent of their revenues from oil.

Source: AFP