General Middle East & North Africa Thread

Egypt's military-backed government resigned Monday, adding new uncertainty to the nation's three years of upheaval.

An industrialist who rose to prominence during the Mubarak era was named as Egypt’s new prime minister on Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia banned on Monday the sale of energy drinks at government, health and education facilities and outlawed all forms of advertising for the drinks, including the sponsorship of any sporting, social or cultural events by energy drinks companies.

edited 3rd Mar '14 9:25:01 PM by DeviantBraeburn

Aren't energy drinks manna from heaven for college students? I feel bad for Saudi students...

edited 4th Mar '14 12:12:43 AM by FFShinra

I thought most brands of energy drink are actually bad for one's health, despite the seeming buzz of energy that you initially get. And honestly speaking as such a Saudi student with not-shabby record, I have never had to use them; I'm getting the impression that only the students who are doing horribly (largely due to slacking off on their studies in the first place) would resort to relying on energy drinks to get through cramming and such.

My old uni trick was coffee with every meal. I also found that mild intoxication actually improved my writing, something that led to no end of problems later on.

Oh I agree totally (like you, I never bothered with the stuff...still have never even tried one in fact). But I still pity the slackers.

edited 4th Mar '14 8:40:38 AM by FFShinra

Don't bother with the pity. From what my mom told me of what she gathered (she's a hemotologist with multiple contacts across many fields of medicine), it doesn't even have that spectacularly good effect on their performance — just keeps you awake past the point where you should and gives a false sense of alertness (caffeine is the main active ingredient, apparently), at the cost of actual attentiveness to whatever your doing (like studying). In other words, you'd accomplish more if you went to sleep once you feel tired and then continued afterwards. Not to mention the other negative effects on physical health.

They should have noticed that they're actually doing worse after using these supposed "miracle drinks", but somehow they don't.

edited 4th Mar '14 8:52:57 AM by MarqFJA

Energy drinks don't do what they're advertised as doing. They might keep you up past the point where normally you'd feel like you have to go to bed, but they don't keep you sufficiently awake as to work at the level you would if you were well rested. It's essentially the same as drinking coffee past 9 PM or so.

And yes, it's bad for your health.

&And grass is green, the sky is blue, and India will never win the World Cup.

Yeah, so back to Middle East and North Africa stuff.

The Saudi government very recently performed a test of Jeddah's siren system (probably alongside other cities). When I mentioned this here on the Ukrainian crisis thread, some people here said that it might be linked to worries about Iran's increasingly provocative/hostile behavior — as in, Riyadh wants to make sure that it's actually prepared for the worst-case scenario of Tehran doing the unthinkable by invading across the Gulf (step 1 being checking the siren systems' state of operatability).

Now I'll be honest: I've never heard a city-wide siren in real life before. Thought it would be... You know, much louder, or something. It definitely sounds different from those sirens that I've heard in movies and video games.

edited 4th Mar '14 9:28:28 AM by MarqFJA

The sirens you hear in movies are usually the British Carter-Gent system, because it's so iconic of the Blitz, or the US Civil Defense siren, because We All Live in America.

As for the why of the test? Could be anything. Maybe it was scheduled for months, who knows?

Well, here's the thing: The first and only time it was ever used was when Saddam Hussein started throwing his Scuds at Riyadh, Dammam, Jeddah, and other major Saudi cities. Heck times they were, I am told (my family and I were visiting Germany at the time; stayed there throughout the war).

Regarding the different siren sounds... This is the one I'm most familiar with.

edited 4th Mar '14 12:20:27 PM by MarqFJA

The siren I'm most familiar with is this one^note  The Broadmoor Siren. Tested 10:00 every Monday Morning.

edited 4th Mar '14 2:03:23 PM by Greenmantle

Saudi, Bahraini, and Emirati ambassadors have suddenly been recalled from Qatar, ostensibly because of the latters support for the Muslim Brotherhood.

My only question is: why now? Everyone's known about that for months if not years.

Persumably there were ongoing attempts to get it to "see the error of its ways" by under-the-table diplomacy. Either that, or something happened behind the scenes that proved too much for the three countries to overlook.

It's the possibility of "something" that piques my interest.

Connected to the Bahrain bombing, perhaps?

I don't follow.

Maybe the Muslim Brothers or their political allies had something to do with that - or the other states who recalled their ambassadors to Qatar think they do - and this is there way of getting back?

Here is are the reasons they are giving out publicly.

"Tensions within the group have worsened this year. Last month, the U.A.E. issued a letter of protest in response to criticism by Doha-based cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who has close ties with Qatari royals and expressed support for the Brotherhood. Egypt last month summoned the Qatari charge d’affairs to demand the handover of Islamists who they alleged fled to Doha."

I have to wonder how far this is from coming to blows. Removing one's ambassador is a pretty drastic step, diplomatically. I mean, violence is not imminent or anything, but one has to wonder how many options are left...

The Pakistanis will be looking veeeerry closely at the eventual outcome, for financial reasons.

Unlike what the Egyptian military regime's propaganda loves to repeat ad infinitum since Gamal Abdul-Nasser, the modern Muslim Brotherhood do not endorse terrorism. That does not, of course, stop overzealous/fanatical self-proclaimed members/allies of the Brotherhood from doing so regardless of what the actual Brotherhood members/leaders tell them, let alone engaging in terrorist acts.

edited 5th Mar '14 5:20:05 AM by MarqFJA

Ain't it those zealots people accuse Qatar of supporting, particularly in Syria?

Last I heard, people were accusing all the Gulf States of supporting Muslim zealot militias over more moderate and secular factions like the FSA.

Sure, but all the articles tended to call out Qatar in particular, sometimes with Saudi Arabia and sometimes as a rival of Saudi Arabia.

I'm wondering why.

edited 5th Mar '14 5:31:35 AM by FFShinra