Category Archives: Bahrain

Bahrain, Culture, Economics, Jordan, Saudi Arabia

Jordanians Space out with Star Trek, about that Missing Humor…….

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“A Star Trek-themed attraction is set to boldly go ahead in Jordan, as US$1.5 billion of funding has been secured for a major tourism and theme park development. Construction work on the 74-hectare Red Sea Astrarium project in Aqaba, which will include four hotels and 17 entertainment developments, is expected to start early next year. The project is being funded by investors from the US and the Gulf, according to a partner in the project. The Amman company Rubicon Group Holding, which makes animated films, said in May it would design and produce the entertainment elements of the resort. The total investment in the project will be $1.5bn (Dh5.5bn), said Randa Ayoubi, the chief executive of Rubicon. “They have a group of investors. The main Jordanian investor is the King Abdullah Fund,” Ms Ayoubi said, in reference to the King Abdullah II Fund for Development (KAFD). “There are many American and investors from the Gulf [as well],” she added, without giving further details……..”

I guess there will be no more travel for the king and queen of Jordan. They may move the palace into the theme park. Not even another invitation to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress would lure the king away from Spock and Kirk and Uhura.
Fine and dandy, a good way to spend Gulf aid and investment money, but that still leaves out what Jordanians, including their king need the most: humor. The country, even with a funny Star Trek theme park will still lack the sense of humor necessary to make it a true first class tourist attraction like, say, Egypt. Maybe they can hire William Shatner (Captain Kirk) away from Priceline to work at the park?

On a more serious note: I don’t believe Jordan gets the massive volume of tourism that would make a Star Trek park profitable, especially not on the Red Sea where most Jordanians probably don’t go. It is just too far from the population centers. Unless they think they can lure a big chunk of the Saudi tourism that now prefers Lebanon, Dubai, Cairo, and Bahrain. Not clear when the hookers (les girls) will be back on the beat in Bahrain, with the uprising still in full swing: the Jordanians need to import some of those to Aqaba to attract enough of the Saudi male tourism. All this after Ramadan of course.
Cheers
mhg


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Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, Gulf states

Gulf King also Hailed by Current GCC Secretary and Former Retainer…….

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“GCC Secretary-General Hails HM King Hamad’s Keynote Address. Riyadh- GCC Secretary-General Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani today the keynote address of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa marking the submission of the National Consensus Dialogue results.”HM the King has affirmed that King of Bahrain would witness a new era on the road to development and construction”, he said, pointing out that the National Consensus Dialogue visions would open the door for more reforms and progress in all political, economic and social fields for Bahraini people’s aspirations and hopes to be achieved…….” Bahrain News Agency

Okay, the secretary general of the GCC is a member of a Bahrain family that is close to the al-Khalifa ruling family. In other words, a retainer of the royals who nominated him for the job. He is here praising the absolute king of Apartheid, mainly for nominating him to the even more absolute king of Saudi Arabia.
Cheer
mhg


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Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, ethnic cleansing, Torture

On My Gulf: a Small State of Thuggery and Fake Terrorism……..

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“Bahrain has sentenced eight leading political activists to life in prison on charges of conspiring to overthrow the Government in a move likely to intensify unrest and discredit a proposal by the king for a national dialogue. One of the 21 defendants – dressed in grey prison uniforms as they faced a military court – shouted: “We will continue our peaceful struggle,” while others shook their fists and cried: “Peaceful, peaceful.” They were forced out of the courtroom by police. Crowds blocked roads with heaps of sand and urged marches as news spread of the convictions of the group, which includes some of the island kingdom’s most popular leaders…….”

Media and human rights activists report that Matar Matar, a resigned Bahraini opposition parliamentarian, was beaten up severely today inside the courtroom while there to talk to his lawyer and family. A cyber-activist was also sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison for “cyber-activity”. Opposition and human rights leaders were sentenced yesterday to life in prison for calling for a constitutional monarchy, others were sentenced to death. Everybody who objects is arrested, most are tortured. Doctors, nurses, and teachers are arrested, beaten up, threatened with rape or raped, many are fired from their jobs. The regime is using al-Saud petroleum money to hire more mercenary thugs and goons from as far away as Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Jordan, and Syria. It is like a small state of thuggery being run by the al-Khalifa clan and their al-Saud masters and protectors. Sometimes I wonder who is calling the shots in Manama: is it the fucking king his fucking hardline relatives, or his fucking Saudi masters.
Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) leader Nabeel Rajab says that expressing one’s opinion is now considered an act of terrorism on the island.
Cheers
mhg


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Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, ethnic cleansing, Human Right

Bahrain Kangaroo Court Passes Saudi Sentences on the Opposition………

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“Bahrain sentenced 10 Shi’ite prominent activists and opposition leaders to life in prison on Wednesday on charges of plotting a coup during protests that rocked the Sunni-ruled Gulf island kingdom earlier this year. The sentencing could inflame already simmering tensions in the tiny Gulf Arab state, where small protests have erupted daily since emergency law was lifted on June 1 and may threaten a national dialogue planned to start next month. Among those who received life sentences were Shi’ite dissident Hassan Mushaimaa, leader of hardline opposition group Haq. His group joined two others in calling for the overthrow of Bahrain’s monarchy during mass protests in February and March. Ibrahim Sharif, the Sunni leader of the secular leftist Waad party, was sentenced to five years in prison. Waad and Bahrain’s largest Shi’ite opposition group Wefaq had called for a reform of the kingdom’s monarchy. The defendants were defiant after the verdict, vowing to continue “peaceful” opposition to the royal family……….”

First they arrested them en masse, looting their homes in the process, then they tortured them, then they sentenced some to death. Now the al-Khalifa military Kangaroo court has passed its life sentences against opposition leaders. It is as if they, and their al-Saud masters, want to completely destroy the opposition.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, Mercenaries, Occupied Bahrain, Persian-American Gulf

A Gulf of Mercenaries: Arab Potentates Discover the Joys of Hired Foreign Guns……….

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“Mercenaries from Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan are being recruited by officials in Bahrain to help restore security to the country, a Saudi scholar claimed. Bahrain is under increasing scrutiny for the response by the Sunni minority leadership to a Shiite uprising in the country. Doctors without Borders claimed that Bahraini security officials were using hospitals as torture chambers as part of a crackdown. Ali al-Ahmad, director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, told Radio Australia’s Contact Asia program that the royal family was recruiting mercenaries from Asia to help with its crackdown. Ahmad said there were no Shiites in the national security forces. Given the fact that Sunnis are in the minority, he said, the country has a “need to import mercenaries” from other places. He claimed “the majority of them” are coming from Pakistan, though he said he’s seen reports of some from countries such as Somalia, Malaysia and Indonesia……..” U P I News

The hired guns and killers are pouring into the Gulf region: it is a gold rush for the dogs of war, mangy or otherwise. Bahrain has been hiring foreign mercenaries for some years: Pakistani newspapers often have advertisements for interviews with Bahrain National Guard officials (some al-Khalifa or another). The ruling Bahraini clan is now expanding the field of mercenary recruitment. They used to focus on Pakistan and a few Arab countries. Now they are expanding it to Indonesia and Malaysia, more impoverished Islamic countries that already have expressed some support for the Saudi role in Bahrain in exchange for a consideration (truly a coalition of the hired and the paid). The United Arab Emirates is already forming a large mercenary force of foreigners from as far away as Colombia, South Africa, and Australia, among other places, to keep its people from thinking rebellion. All under the leadership of Blackwater veterans. I once recommended that the ruling al-Nahayan clan of Abu Dhabi ought o consider hiring their killers and thugs from among the extremely ruthless Mexican drug cartels. I was not kidding: once you have no morals, why pretend to have limits? A hired killer is a hired killer, as the al-Khalifa of Bahrain have discovered. Meanwhile, Western media report that the al-Saud are arranging for Pakistani, Malaysian, and possibly Indonesian forces to help the regime in case of a serious uprising. If this continue I may change the name of my Gulf: from the Persian-American Gulf to the Gulf of Mercenaries and Hired Thugs.
Okay, these potentates should be ashamed of themselves for hiring foreign mercenaries to suppress their people, but they are not. Especially those in occupied Bahrain who use foreign money to buy foreign protection.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Human Right

Case of Bahrain: Uprising or Reform, Poet Ayat on Television ……..

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The Bahrain regime of the al-Khalifa clan acts toward the people almost like a good Ba’athist regime (Iraqi or Syrian, they probably have hired thugs from both). It says it had already reformed and changed before the uprising. They also said that between 1975 and 2001 when they had stopped having elections, and after that when they started to pretend that they had free elections. Now the regime is saying that perhaps they can have talks on reform, hinting strongly through body language and extended middle fingers and other ways that these talks will not lead anywhere. Then there are the al-Saud overlords, who now have a veto power over any political “settlement”, which means no political settlement as long as Saudi forces are in the country.
They have, however, changed the name of one ministry to “Human Rights Ministry”. In this video here, shown today, they have the famous 20 year old female poet-student Ayat al-Qormezi, whom as arrested and tortured since last March, apologizing on state television, no doubt after another bout of torture. Very reminiscent of the Iraqi Ba’athist regime which used to torture people then display them confessing and/or apologizing on state television.
Cheers
mhg


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Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Human Right, Occupied Bahrain

1984 in Occupied Bahrain: a Ministry of Human Rights? Expatriates and Lackeys and Abe Lincoln and Bob Marley…………

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“You can fool some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time….” Abe Lincoln

“You can fool some people sometimes,

But you can’t fool all the people all the time.

So now we see the light,

We gonna stand up for our rights!…...” Bob Marley

“His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa today issued
decree 60 for 2011 renaming the Social Development Ministry as Human Rights and
Social Development Ministry. The Social Development Minister will also be known
as Human Rights and Social Development Minister. Under the same decree, the
ministry has been restructured to include an undersecretary for human rights, an
undersecretary for social affairs developments, a public and international
relations directorate and other affiliated departments. HM King Hamad also
issued decree 61 for 2011 appointing Osama Abdulla Al-Absi as Labour Market
Regulatory Authority Chief Executive Officer for a three-year term……” Bahrain “News” Agency

King of Bahrain has now changed the name of one ministry to a “Ministry of Human Rights”. This is like Hitler establishing a ministry for Jewish Welfare, or Stalin establishing a ministry for prisoner rights. Or the American Republican Tea Party advocating for labor unions. Some slick, but not smart enough, publicists/lobbyists in Britain or the United States must be behind this desperate attempt at a face-lift for the al-Khalifa ruling clan. Transparently Orwellian.
It started with a call for a so-called “national dialog” to be headed by al-Dhahrani, a semi-educated Salafi-connected head of the mostly appointed legislature, and an al-Khalifa lackey. Then they called to include the “expatriate”, largely South Asian laborers and housemaids, community in the national dialog. On the face of it an admirable call, but a publicity window dressing aimed partly at watering down the majority of the Bahrainis. If they cared for the expatriate community they would allow them access to public education and other benefits, which they do not.
Bahrain’s rulers had become masters at deceiving the West, especially willing American officials, with their public relations stunts, including fake and meaningless elections and a few very public appointments (including one ambassadorial). This time the Arab Spring has caught up with them.
Cheers
mhg


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Apartheid, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, GCC, Osama Bin Laden, Religion, Salafi, Saudi Arabia

Salafis of the Gulf: Saudi Paymasters, and a Kosher Homey in Abbottabad……..

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“Note that these villages are not engaging in any criminal activities. They are unarmed civilians who are being wantonly attacked by state security forces simply on the basis that the people are Shia and therefore deemed by the Sunni elite rulers to be supportive of anti-government (pro-democracy) movement, which in itself is not illegal and is supposedly a right that is permitted by Bahrain’s signatory to international laws, that is, the right to have political opinions. Note also that, according to my contacts, the security personnel are mainly Saudi or from Yemen, Syria, Jordan. These personnel are predominantly Sunni and loyal to the regime. That is why they have been recruited by the regime. The police and army personnel are extremely hostile to Shia people out of deep sectarian phobia. This is especially true of the Saudis who are typically Wahhabis, the kind of extreme Islamism that Saudi rulers and Al Qaeda espouses. Wahhabis see it almost as a religious duty to crush Shias. We saw the same phobia in Iraq where Shia mosques were mostly attacked by bombers. The effective consent that the West has given the Bahraini rulers to crackdown on their people means the West is colluding with some of the most repressive regimes in the Middle East to crush pro-democracy people in Bahrain……”

Salafis have been the strongest supporters of the campaign to crush the uprising for equality and democracy in Bahrain. They are strong supporters of any campaign by regimes in the Gulf GCC, or other countries, against any true democratic movement that supports free speech. Even as they themselves are often used by their Saudi paymasters to disrupt other regimes in their home Gulf countries, like in my own hometown, under the pretense of demanding more democracy. Salafis never ever believe in democracy and free speech: sometimes they use the others’ demands for freedom but only to serve their and their masters’ purposes.
Salafis all across the Gulf and indeed across the Middle East, are coreligionists and ideological mates of al-Qaeda. They consider the al-Qaeda people basically ‘kosher’ homeys who may have erred and gone astray against the ruling al-Saud dynasty (apparently no too astray: they still get all the money they need for their terrorist activities). Some of these Salafis in the Gulf, including in my hometown, have penned articles beseeching Bin Laden to return to the fold, come in from the cold, enjoy the joys of the absolute tribal monarchy which spawned him and his movement. That was before Abbottabad (for some reason Abbottabad always reminds me of Lou Costello).
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Bahrain, Occupied Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Syria, US Foreign Policy

Political Nirvana: Hillary Clinton Writes to the Saudi People about Freedom for Syrians…….

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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has penned a column for the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat (owned by Prince Salman Bin Abdulaziz al-Saud). Her topic is the Syrian uprising against the Assad regime and is titled “No return to the Status Quo Ante in Syria”.
She assures the Saudi people, and any other Arabs who might read that daily, that the Bahraini Saudi Syrian people deserve freedom and the right to choose their own government, that they deserve dignity and freedom from fear. She also said that Bahrain Syria deserves a government that respects the people and seeks a unified and democratic nation…..
Like Mr. Obama in his last speech, she neglected to mention Saudi Arabia and the people of the Arabian Peninsula. They both believe in the principle of selective non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations, and hence she did not mention Occupied Bahrain or Saudi Arabia or the UAE where many people are languishing in prison for expressing their opinion. Or maybe they believe that the peoples in these absolute tribal monarchies have already attained political Nirvana or, worse, they don’t believe these people deserve what the peoples of other Arab countries (and Iran) deserve.
It is true, not as many people have been killed in most the Gulf states than in Syria or Libya or Egypt. Except for Bahrain where proportionally as much if not more have been killed than in some of the others, given the small population of native Bahrainis and the 33 killed and dozens still “missing”.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Revolutions, Bahrain, Corruption, Economics, ethnic cleansing, GCC

On the Gulf : Robbers of Land, Thieves of Freedom…………

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“Built by Gulf Finance House, a listed investment company run by Bahraini businessman Esam Janahi, the towers have also come to embody the ruling al-Khalifa family’s fight to preserve its power and protect the vast wealth of the country’s economic elite. Land in the Gulf Arab region is largely controlled by a small number of ruling families who use it as a kind of currency, doling out plots to favored families and developers to forge political relationships and make money. For it to work, the system depends on businessmen like Janahi, merchants who ostensibly operate independently from the state but whose success rests, at least in part, on political connections………. Documents obtained by Reuters show that GFH, which has teetered on the brink of collapse for several months, also sometimes shifted investor money from one project to plug holes in another…….. In Bahrain, where the ruling family has been involved in several property developments over the past decade, it’s become a symbol to ordinary people — especially the poor Shiite majority — angry about a system that shuts them out and widens already gaping inequalities….…..”

Bahrain is just one example: it is the same story all along the shores of my Gulf. They steal the land, especially the choice beachfront property and convert it from public to their own private property. The ruling clans and their retainers and minions. The al-Saud do it, as do the Emirati rulers, and others, in the GCC. They add insult to injury by selling public tracts of land back to the public sector, then they add more insult by establishing new townships named after the robber princes. Even the streets are named after them. It is like the rest of the people are just tenants on the land, with the potentates being the landlords.
If I were rude and crude, I would re-interpret the GCC as the Gulf C——–n Council. But I am neither rude or crude, so I won’t say it.
Cheers
mhg


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