Neck of the woods

“The BBC has been ordered by an American court to surrender unused footage filmed for a documentary about former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to American victims of suicide bombings in Israel. In a ruling which raises questions about the ability of the American justice system to seize material held by media organisations outside the United States, a judge in New York said the Corporation was obliged to hand over outtakes from interviews with two Palestinian fighters. It now has until 1 October to lodge a further appeal or produce the material along with a sworn statement from a BBC employee confirming its authenticity. The Corporation said yesterday it was still considering the ruling…………..”

WTF does a court in New York have to do with the death of Arafat, who lived in Tunisia then Jericho then Ramallah, before dying in Paris?
For that matter WTF do courts in New York have to do with affairs in the Middle East, outside Israel of course?
To be even more specific, WTF does a court in New York have to do with, oh I dunno, the conflict between Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Ahmadinejad?
And WTF does a court in New York care whether Prince Salman will ever become Saudi king and whether the next senior Saudi prince will die on schedule, right eight months after the last one departed and sixteen months after the one before the last one to die?
For that matter WTF does a court in New York have to do with whether the prime minister of Bahrain is more of a thief than a faithful husband or both equally?
And, a last shot (I promise), WTF does a court in New York have to do with such mundane things like whether Salafis shave their ‘private’ hair (they do but I can’t prove it yet) while letting their facial hair grow wild and free.
There, that sounded almost like some kind of catharsis, didn’t it?
Cheers
mhg
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