BFF Prince al-Waleed Bin Talal al-Saud claims that his new tower, Kingdom Tower, will be cheaper than the Burj Dubai (aka Burj Khalifa) by about US$ 270 million. The tower will also be bigger than the Dubai one, the biggest in the world. The Kingdom Tower will have a Four Seasons hotel, serviced apartments, luxury condominiums and offices, encompassing about half a million square meters. The project is being constructed by the Bin Laden company, yep that very same guy. Which makes me wonder: wtf is going on here between these potentates of our Gulf? All this comparison of tower sizes, and trying to outdo the others. Remember the Mecca clock tower that the Saudis want to surpass Big Ben? Is all this a subconscious attempt to make up for other more serious short-comings among some of these potentates? Is it an Arabian Freudian thing? Cheers
mhg
BFF
“The recruitment of housemaids from African countries is proceeding at a very slow pace as Saudi families still prefer workers from south Asian countries, according to the chairman of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (JCCI) recruitment committee. “Ethiopia is the most popular African country for Saudi families to import housemaids from, but the large number of requests and routine procedures in Ethiopia often delay the recruitment process,” Yahya Hassan Al-Maqbool told Arab News on Monday. Al-Maqbool said the decision of Indonesia to stop sending housemaids to Saudi Arabia was still in effect. He said Saudis show very little interest in recruiting maids from Kenya, especially in the western provinces, but said there was a small demand for them in the eastern and central parts of the country. Al-Maqbool played down warnings issued by the Kenyan government to their women citizens not to go work in Saudi Arabia and said the media usually blow up even the smallest of issues. He said compared to other countries, the number of Kenyan housemaids in the Kingdom is very small. A number of websites on Sunday published clips of a Kenyan documentary film on the working conditions of housemaids in Saudi Arabia. Warnings in Kenya against sending housemaids to the Kingdom increased following the recent murder of a Kenyan housemaid in Jeddah…….……..”
Indonesia stopped sending housemaids to Saudi Arabia because some of them have been beheaded over there and there are many others on death row waiting for their heads to be chopped off. There have also been cases of foreign housemaids being tortured and killed by their employees. Apparently the Saudis can’t do without foreign housemaids, even though local unemployment is in the double digits (and over 30% for young adults). The government is heavily involved in “regulating” the work conditions and the wages, in the sense of negotiating with exporting countries for lower wages and a continuation of inhumane work conditions. Their national motto seems to be borrowed from an old American campaign slogan: “Two cars and two maids in every house“. I predict that if all foreign countries refuse to send housemaids to Saudi Arabia to be abused, then the country will truly revolt. Only then will the Arab Spring reach the heartland of Nejd. So, the fate of the Saudi regime is in the hands of Indonesia, India, Philippines, and Sri Lanka. Cheers
mhg
BFF “By a media trick, Tehran proved its claim that closing the Strait of Hormuz is as “easy as drinking water,” debkafile reports. First thing Saturday morning, Saturday, Dec. 31, Iran’s state agencies “reported” long-range and other missiles had been test-fired as part of its ongoing naval drill around the Strait of Hormuz. Ahead of the test, Tehran closed its territorial waters. For five hours Saturday, not a single warship, merchant vessel or oil tanker ventured into the 30-mile wide Hormuz strait, waiting to hear from Tehran’ that the test was over. Instead, around 0900 local time, a senior Iranian navy commander Mahmoud Moussavi informed Iran’s English language Press TV that no missiles had been fired after all. “The exercise of launching missiles will be carried out in the coming days,” he said. For five hours therefore, world shipping obeyed Tehran’s warning and gave the narrow waterway through which one-fifth of the world’s oil passes, a wide berth. They stayed out of range of a test which, debkafile’s military sources report, aimed to demonstrate for the first time that Shahab-3 ballistic missiles which have a range of 1,600 kilometers and other missiles, such as the Nasr1cruise marine missile, are capable of reaching Hormuz from central Iran……..….”
If true, this was done by stealth, sort of. It was actually done by consent. I wouldn’t advice doing it by force, for the reaction may be different, will surely be different. The USS John Stennis is somewhere in the Indian Ocean, serving the Afghanistan operations. It is not staying away because of the Iranian warnings. As long as the Iranians understand this fact, understand the firepower we are talking about, there is no need for concern.
Saudi Arabia doesn’t allow cinemas (movie houses) to open. It goes against the Salafi Wahhbai doctrine of the country to have cinemas or theaters or dances. All types of performing arts and fine are either banned or seriously frowned upon. There is only one type of dancing that is allowed: that is when the al-Saud princes get together and swing plastic Chinese-made swords in the air as they “get down” to it. Then it is okay: they are filmed and photographed. They even once got George W Bush to join them in the ‘Ardha (he looked stiff, but then if it had been Tony Blair he would have looked dead). The Nabati Poets Diwaniyyia also allowed, but these guys don’t dance, although they do some acting. Another exception is the annual al-Janadriya festival which is not very festive.
There was one attempt in 2005 to start by showing only cartoons during holidays and only for children and women (apparently children and women are considered cerebrally equal by the Wahhbais although I know they are both much smarter than the men). More than two years ago (2009) there was another attempt by a prince to start the move toward opening cinemas. He started film screenings in two major towns. Rotana entertainment, a group owned by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, showed a film of its own production. That attempt was killed by a royal order (I think Prince Nayef issued the order), after the Commission for Promotion of Vice, the religious police (Haia) headed by Nayef, strongly objected.
Now there are new murmurings about Saudi cinema, or rather cinema in Saudi Arabia. In fact there is a Saudi fatwa against cinemas. It would be interesting how the Mufti and his shaikhs change that once they are ordered to do so by the ruling family. What can they say? That the king had a holy vision that it is okay now? That the crown prince dreamed of a conversation with Steven Spielberg or maybe Bugs Bunny that convinced him it is now kosher and halal? Sorry, forget Spielberg: Salafi muftis aren’t supposed o converse with Jewish film-makers, not even in dreams. Bugs Bunny, however, remains kosher, but only for men. Cheers
mhg
“She said that in the past she often bought the wrong underwear “because I was sensitive about explaining what I wanted to a man.” A royal decree issued by King Abdullah in June last year over the objections of top clerics gave lingerie shop owners six months to get rid of their male employees and staff their stores with women only. The ban on male staff is to be extended to cosmetics shops from July. “This is an order from the king,” Labour Minister Adel Faqih said. “All preparations are under way to fully implement this decision,” he said, adding that more than 7,300 retail outlets would be affected by the ban on male staff, creating job opportunities for more than 40,000 Saudi women. The labour ministry’s original proposal to allow women to work in lingerie stores sparked a storm of protest from the kingdom’s top clerics three years ago. They issued a fatwa, or religious decree, barring women from any such work………..”
With such ponderous weighty life-or-death national issues at stake, no wonder there is no time for such sully frivolous things like elections, eradicating corruption, and reform. Apparently the princes believe in reform from the bottom up (pun intended) and the real test will be if they allow ladies to sell the shmaghalongside Victoria’s Secret stuff. That would be a threshold. (Shmagh is the red and white Saudi head ghutra as opposed to the pure white that most true Gulfies wear or the many-colored that some Iraqis wear) . The motto ought to be: today the liberation of the lingerie, tomorrow the liberation of the shamgh. Would the regulation royal goatee (aka saksooka) come next? Cheers
mhg
“ANHRI condemns the ongoing severe deterioration of freedoms in Saudi Arabia, as well as the arbitrary detentions of citizens and expatriates. Most recently, the Saudi Morality Police detained an expatriate in Riyadh in the New Year’s Eve as he was walking on a street holding balloons on which it was written “happy new year 2012″. It is forbidden to celebrate this holiday in Saudi Arabia, and thus the Morality Police arrested him and handed him over to the competent authorities for investigation. The balloons have been seized. Severe restraints are imposed on freedoms in Saudi Arabia, as international organizations say that the authorities continue to detain dozens of people without a charge or trial. Torture and other forms of ill-treatment while in custody are widespread. Non-Muslims are still not allowed to practice their rituals publicly. Shiites are continuously suffering from discrimination. Expatriate workers and their families are deprived of their most basic rights. “Saudi Arabia is on top of the list of countries hostile to freedoms which use repression in the name of religion. The policy Saudi Arabia pursues is nothing but a desperate apparatus that will not work out, the same way it did not with other despotic regimes in the Arab world when the winds of change and freedom crossed over them. Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia apparently has not learned the lesson” said ANHRI……………”
You’d think New Year’s or Christmas are Shi’a (Shiite) religious holidays, the way the Wahhabi Salafi religious police crack down on them. Yet these are the main holidays of the allies of the Saudi princes, the ones with whom they share such cherished (at least by me if not by the current U.S. Congress) American values as freedom and justice and equality. I suspect if
Prince Whatishisface were not a Wahhabi Muslim, he’d be given a standing
ovation in the U.S. Congress for sharing American values. I mean after a
hustler and serial bull-shitter like Bibi Netanyahu was granted the
honor last year, who is left? That is not all: the baboons have also regularly raided private homes where “the wrong” people celebrate these occasions privately. “Wrong people” means people of little or no means and influence in the Kingdom without Magic (you can get beheaded for having anything to do with magic or maybe even Disney). Yet the religious cops of the Commission for the Propagation of Vice (affectionately called the Haia by the princes) turn a blind eye to “not-so-private” parties by the potentates where alcohol flows like water does outside the Arabian Peninsula, where alcohol is not the only thing flowing freely. In December, the country’s top Muslim cleric and mufti Shaikh Abdel-Aziz bin Abdullah Al Al Shaikh, aka Al, fatwad that all celebrations of the New Year, birthdays and marriage anniversary are un-Islamic (aka un-Wahhabi).He did not, however, fatwa against observing the King.s anniversary. Cheers
mhg
Rattlesnake Ridge 
BFF