Okay, every topic that has even remotely to do with the middle east keeps getting more general news put into it which removes focus from the original topic.
As such, I'm creating this thread as a general middle east and north africa topic. That means anything to do with the Arab Spring or Israel and Palestine should be kept to those threads and anything to do with more generic news (for example, new Saudi regulations on the number of foreign workers or the Lebanese elections next year, etc.) should be posted here.
I hope the mods will find this a clear enough statement of intent to open the thread.
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
Yeah, pretty much. And that's not mentioning the prices of real estate properties; rent expenses are surely going to skyrocket soon.
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Since we have so many very well-informed people on this thread, I'd like to ask whether or not is is plausible that the protests in Iran were initiated by conservative opponents of the current president, and have now gone out of control?
A procrastination in of itself
It’s always possible but it seems unlikely, the protests aren’t aimed at the president himself,t hey seem to be aimed for at the supremacy leader and the RG.
His conservative opponents have no reason to try and false flag protests, the current president is term limited I believe so they can just wait him out, the RG are carrying out a conservative foreign policy despite the president being more of a reformer.
"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran
For what it's worth, my local radio was quoting someone who said that the protests may have been started at the behest of conservative groups and then went out of their control.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Beware the Crazy Man.
So it seems the Dinner Jacket was arrested for incitement, related to the protests.
Now how's that for irony...
Final Fantasy, Foreign Policy, and Bollywood. Helluva combo, that...
United Earth
How do you mean?
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
Just found out that eleven Saudi princes have been arrested
for holding an "anti-austerity" protest (read: they're whining about the recent reforms including huge cuts to their allowances and obligating them to pay their utility bills) in one of the palaces in Riyadh.
Two words: Fuck them.
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
United Earth
Can't we all agree that arresting people for non-violently protesting government action is bad in general?
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Despite my bias against absolute monarchies, I agree, let them protest and be angry all they want, those special cuts aren't coming back either way.
Never Trust
x5 Dinner Jacket?
edited 6th Jan '18 3:30:43 PM by tricksterson
Trump delenda est
A procrastination in of itself
X6 Looks like the idea that this protests were initially started by conversatives might hold water, or the RG are using it as an excuse to settle an old score, I can’t remember if he was on good terms with them or not.
United Earth
Ahmadinejad.
Beware the Crazy Man.
Indeed.
Either way, I wonder if he'll be getting the Mir Hossein Mousavi treatment (indefinite house arrest) or something worse...
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
Besides, according to the reports, the protesting royals were given a chance to disperse on their own, and many of them did just that. It's those 11 princes who stubbornly refused to heed the warning.
edited 7th Jan '18 4:14:44 AM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Beware the Crazy Man.
I'm more interested in learning who those 11 were. Like if they were all from a particular branch or something.
Final Fantasy, Foreign Policy, and Bollywood. Helluva combo, that...
United Earth
What the fuck is this? What was it all for?
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
Hamid Karzai's personal fortunes, obviously.
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiot
United Earth
I feel... hatred, resentment, and outrage.
The War On Terror stigmatized me and those like me as suspects, terrorists, fanatics, monsters. For nearly two decades we've had to beg the world not to condemn us as a whole. One humiliation after another. Never mind all the blood, the destruction, the way the fanatics were energized and emboldened across the world.
And everything, from the very beginning, has been allowed, caused, and exacerbated, by US government incompetence, cowardice, hubris, and callous pretense of morality.
And after all this, the blood, the waste, the exhortations to hope and proclamations of "we're the good guys, we're here to help, trust us, really" they have the gall to lose? How dare they?
It is safer to be feared than to be loved, but, above all, avoid being hated.
Nice job.
No, seriously, what the Hell.
Y'all never even ensured your own safety. The Taliban are there, stronger than ever. What's to stop them from attempting another 9/11?
And why are their main backers, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, still getting away Scott Free while everyone else suffers?
edited 11th Jan '18 2:56:22 PM by TheHandle
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Because they're US allies and therefore pillars of stability in the Middle East.
edited 11th Jan '18 3:52:25 PM by DrunkenNordmann
Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.
Not that it particulary helped that the USA opened up a second "front" in Iraq and afterwards devoted most of its' ressources there instead of first trying to finish the job in Afghanistan.
Beware the Crazy Man.
So uhhh, I have concerns.
It seems Egypt and Sudan have started a tiff with one another, over a variety of issues.
The big one is the Great Ethiopia Renaissance Dam, which Cairo fears will choke off the Nile. They accuse Sudan of taking Ethiopia's side in this dispute (and not without evidence, as Addis Ababa and Khartoum have already signed deals for the former to sell the latter electricity that will be generated from the dam, and the Blue Nile becomes a whole lot more predictable as far as flooding goes). This has been souring relations between Egypt and Sudan for a long time....but slowly.
Another issue is Sudan is friendly to Qatar, while Egypt took Saudia's side during their dispute. As such, Riyadh and Qatar both are now giving back in kind by backing the Egypt and Sudan in their disputes against one another. In Saudia's case, this meant recognizing the Halaib Triangle as Egyptian land.
But the most recent issue is that Turkey has now signed a lease for an island next to Suakin, Sudan's second port, for a military base, in exchange that Ankara rebuilds the port. This has Egypt worried, and in response seem to have deployed troops into Eritrea, which in turn has Sudan worried with them deploying troops on the border...
Al Jazeera figures Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese dictator, wants to rachet up the tensions so as to distract the people from Sudan's issues. The same article figures Egypt won't want to this year, with presidential elections imminent.
But it is worrying.
Final Fantasy, Foreign Policy, and Bollywood. Helluva combo, that...
On whose side is Isaias Afwerki (the Eritrean president/dictator) on? Or rather, how open has he been towards the move by Egypt, and, in exchange for what?
edited 11th Jan '18 8:56:39 PM by Quag15
A procrastination in of itself
On top of all this don’t forget the ongoing territorial dispute that the two nations have.
Your small and medium sized entities will feel it, but the larger ones will just buy in bulk, shrug it off and pass down expenses onto consumers.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.