Tag Archives: Egypt

December 21, 2022 · 22:42

The question remains

I got news about 10 hours ago from Al Arabiya. There we are given ‘Saudi Arabia approves draft agreements on atomic energy, economic crime’ (at https://english.alarabiya.net/News/saudi-arabia/2022/12/21/Saudi-Arabia-approves-draft-agreements-on-atomic-energy-economic-crime)

The article gives us a few items that require the limelight, even as the western papers give it no attention, the event described here is one with a lit of impact.

  • members approved a framework agreement to cooperate with Morocco in “the field of peaceful uses of atomic energy”
  • a draft Memorandum of Understanding with Uzbekistan to help allow the countries to exchange of information “related to money laundering, terrorist financing and related crimes,”
  • a draft agreement with Greece, to foster cooperation in health between the countries, 
  • a draft agreement with Italy to help encourage direct investments between the countries, and a draft agreement with Ghana to develop non-oil exports between the states.

These are the four big ones, there are four more. And when you consider the map, we see that within a year the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will be the largest economic partner for the important parts of North Africa, Egypt, Morocco and as ties are stronger connected with Tel Aviv, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is now the powerhouse in the Mediterranean. Greece, Italy and soon better ties with Turkey. This was always going to happen, I predicted it, but my view was that this was 3-4 years away. It seems I missed the target by at least 2 years. 2023 will open the doors and I reckon that larger gains will be Made in 2024. Saudi Arabia is now in a setting where it will be able to drive commerce that is not oil based soon enough and stronger than ever before. 

And that is before you see the steps that China is opening up, but it also implies that China is a lot stronger to become the defence dealer of choice, billions and billions of dollars that are about to be lost to the EU and US. I warned them that this was coming and now the steps of making sure it happens will become a reality. It does not make me happy as I miss out on my 3.75% bonus check and on $27,800,000,000 that is a lofty loss. Such is life!

Now there is a second stage in play, the article does not bear it out, but I reckon that the Kingdom Holding Company will get a few other options going their way. I do not know how, but the Kingdom loves partners in this (I learned that at the Saudi Consulate several weeks ago). What is in play is that there are several options for Israeli growth. Not just the NSO group, but NICE with their CXone platform will set a larger stage of cloud centres for the Line and Neom. From there as they make their solution more Arabic, they will get a handle on several fields in several nations. And we all see the stages as they evolve, well that is if you read English Saudi News casts, the west seems to filter it away and when we see too much of this, it becomes a joke what the west is and has been the last decade. Filtering news information was never a good idea and you are about to see why. Saudi Arabia is active in growing business in Egypt, Morocco, Greece, Italy, Indonesia, and China. Consider the loss of revenue for the EU and the US? Is no one asking questions? And this is merely what can be seen for 2023. I reckon that several nations will go into crises mode in the next week, because some of them were moved from consideration column A to column C. Only a blind person ignores is and one with an oversized ego ignores it. When will we learn that we cater to the players who have it and the US doesn’t have it, and the EU has even less at present. There is every indication that by 2025 the Saudi Telecom Company will be the biggest player in North Africa and the Middle East. This will have larger implications when Indonesia is added to that network. It was a simple cascade stage and it is about to become a reality. From there there is every chance that the STC will enter Europe as a new player and one wielding a formidable bat. That is what I see as optional changes. So whilst we see the EU and US with contracting economies, we get to see another one grow and it is about to grow by a lot.

Have fun!

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December 12, 2022 · 10:44

Dopey and Grumpy, still dwarves

That is the setting and it is a strange setting, but it relates to ‘When it rains we call the kettle black’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/12/11/when-it-rains-we-call-the-kettle-black/) which I wrote two days ago. Yet I did not know there was more, and just now I come across ‘Saudi Arabia demanded defense firms set up in country by 2024. So far, most seem unmoved’ (at https://breakingdefense.com/2022/12/saudi-arabia-demanded-defense-firms-set-up-in-country-by-2024-so-far-most-seem-unmoved/), to be honest, I had heard some stuff in that direction, but I was unaware of how deep it went, and now I see “as long as it is related to the government contracts, they will have to have their regional headquarters here”, with the added “analysts said that the biggest players appear confident they can find workarounds — including the use of local partnerships and subsidiaries, as they’ve done in other countries — to keep the market open” and there the stupid factor comes into play. You see the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has had enough of fake allies, fake commitments and now China is ready to make commitments and as the KSA is moving towards the 2030 mark of 50% in country defence and China is willing to play nice, the US is set to lose a whole lot of revenue. So there is your workaround, greedy and stupid working in cahoots like Grumpy and Dopey, both sides of a currency that has no meaning where they are, it is the sales prospects that counts and they are giving it all to China. You can only be the biggest player if you sell and there were markers for sale events and now there is a clear understanding in strategic papers no less that China is moving into sales column A. So when we think through what Breaking Defense gave us on December 8th, the US better realise that the age of pretending to do something and doing something else as a workaround is ending and it is ending really quickly. So when we see the larger players like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, Northrop Grumman, Leonardo, Thales, and General Dynamics. What happens when the representative $27,000,000,000 goes to China? Twenty Seven Billion no longer to the US, the dollar will take another dive and more importantly, the design of their stealth planes required some Saudi Funds, when they go to the Chengdu J-20, the impact will be seen all over the US, EU and NATO. I made mention of these dangers as early as September 2021. The fact that some American Fat Cats were playing stupid with a customer paying billions is a little new, but there is no surpassing the union of stupid and ego, it makes for a nice package, one that China could be enjoying a lot more than they figured on. And there is a chance that the strategic union between Saudi Arabia and China will go that far. Not only will the US lose their Middle East stage, they will in that same action lose whatever benefits they had in Egypt as well. And just to remind you on a speculative side. If China buys in this deal 2 million barrels a day from the American stack, the US is in deep manure. It does make the grass grow in Texas, but that is pretty much all it does. 

As such the last week has given us all kinds of revelations via several media sources. But the larger news is that State secretary Pompeo gives us ‘Xi’s visit to Saudi Arabia a result of “bad American policy”’ and the bad news merely stacks. Yes Saudi Arabia is not squandering the connections with the US, their words and they are right. The US themselves are squandering it to China by playing chicken with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to appease their ego’s, and that is what is clearly in place and will shown over the next 13 months. You see, there will not be any 11th hour changes, if these regional HQ’s are not in place by December 2023 China will end up with a massive chunk of Saudi defence spending. China is happy with it, will the US be? I doubt it, but they catered to ego, so there you have it. It does not matter who Dopey and Grumpy are, in the end they were merely dwarves and as I see it, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is willing to make a large change and it will cost the US, it will cost them so much. I wonder how they will spin this loss, because at present that is exactly what it will become. A loss to their ally list, a loss to their economy and a loss of income. All handed to China for the mere satisfaction of ego. Government handed partnerships to players like Microsoft, Sony, Samsung and a few other players for the cumulative sum of a mere 1% of that, did you think the Saudi Government wasn’t keeping tabs? Silly bunnies!

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December 11, 2022 · 00:00

When it rains we call the kettle black

Yup an amalgamation of expressions and in this case it is a little more applicable than expected. You see a mere 11 hours ago I wrote in ‘Ruler of law goes metric’ “should the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia want it and limit the shipments of Crude Oil by an additional mere 1 million barrels a day, the US will explode in a stage of anarchy” (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/12/10/ruler-of-law-goes-metric/) and 7 hours ago we get from the ABC ‘China promises to buy more Middle East oil, urges Arab leaders to replace the dollar with yuan’ (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-10/china-xi-promises-to-buy-more-mideast-oil/101757852), it isn’t a victory when the nightmare scenario starts, but this is what the US was facing all along. Several world leaders learned the hard way what happens when you start wars on multiple fronts. People like Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler and Wilhelm 2 all learned that lesson the hard way. Now that the US has a stage with Russia, it had to play nice with Chine to some extent, but it was already too late. Huawei was fresh in China’s memory and the US did NEVER EVER produce clear reports of the dangers that Huawei was. They got tools to make similar claims and none of them produced evidence. Now China sees a way to get back at the US. You see, if China buys 2 million barrels a day the American goose will be cooked within 2 months in the middle of winter no less. This is part of the horrific result of giving Wall Street free rein and now there is no second stage, no escape. The US had clear options a year ago, now not that much and the few they have they are squandering on the wrong priorities. And it is a mere 42 minutes ago when China and Saudi Arabia signed a strategic deal, which now implies that Huawei would get free rein on technology adaption for the Line, that straight building that goes through Saudi Arabia and optionally a lot more in Neom. Did you really think I was out of my mind when I was willing to sell my 5G to Saudi Arabia? This is happening a year earlier than expected, but no one saw the Ukrainian war happen and even less saw it excelarate the way it did in the end. Now China has the option to make the impressions in Saudi Arabia and optionally soon in Egypt as well. I saw this coming and no one believed me, but there is a lot more to Neom than most see, because the US media kept on belittling it and now as the truth comes out we see knee jerk reactions and large claims of miscommunications, and that is not all, if the Yuan will be accepted as currency, the Yuan will get a tour of the Middle East and Africa giving a slam against the power of the Dollar. Now, that does not mean that the dollar ends, but there will be an impact and the dollar will take a hit. All this to a larger effect because certain people relied on ego and not on facts or true innovation. Feel free to read the article (at https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20221210-saudi-arabia-and-huawei-sign-strategic-deal/) with the added quote “The Saudi Press Agency (SPA) also reported that Chinese and Saudi companies had signed 34 investment agreements in clean energy, information technology, cloud computing services, transportation, construction and other sectors. The agency did not issue figures for the deals but confirmed earlier that the two countries would sign initial agreements worth $30 billion.” It seems to be a simple claim that might not go anywhere, yet the adaptation for net zero carbon data centre’s in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and optionally two additional places are now supporting that my initial IP had a lot more power in Saudi Arabia than even I suspected and this also elevates the options that the Kingdom Holding Company (KHC) has in several places. What was an optional annual revenue of $763 million could start with an 800% growth and leading to well over twice that amount in less than 5 years. Should these data centres become reality than there is a clear case that these centres will be bought by European players, they would not have a choice in the matter and the US claim of danger to national security will not go anywhere, they played that card already. So when it rains, it pours as well as the interaction of the pot calling the kettle black. Two players that were ready and the others were not. 

It is in the end merely that simple.

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November 30, 2022 · 23:07

Girdle your loins

Yes, it is time to commit to a promise, yet to do this you need to understand a few things. This all started two years ago when I had an idea, we all have ideas. Yet in my case, the idea was nice, but not ready to be acted on. The basic stage was to lower islamophobia and I believe that educating people does that. In this case it was staged as a game. The idea was sound, but I am not a programmer and places like Google and Amazon tend to be away from their desk when the return on investment is not clear. 

In the mean time the idea grew and grew. In march of this year a few demo’s were released containing the Unreal engine 5 and that was a game changer, the aspect and the population for my solution changed, moreover the application evolved massively.

Datapoints

Data is important and at that point the equation changed and I had to elaborate on data. As the application of a solution changed, so does the data requested for the new approach. 

As such I had the following data points

Turkey 84 million
Egypt 102 million
Pakistan 220 million
Bangla Dash 64 million
Indonesia 273 million
Iraq 40 million
Saudi Arabia 35

Which represent 914 million of the 1.9 billion Muslims. The Muslim population represents between 20 and 25 percent of the global population. In addition Islamophobia is more outspoken now than it was during the Crusades and at that point we were trying to kill each other. 

It was becoming clear that Muslims need a safe space and both Google and Amazon were seemingly not interested. Even the Kingdom Holding Company was not responding to the offer. The offer was a solution that will get 50,000,000 subscriptions, which is actually the easy part. But I will get to that soon. You see close to 50% of these Muslims will never go on the Hajj or a pilgrimage, most cannot afford it, some will never get the lottery. That is not anyones fault, the numbers of Muslims living outside of Saudi Arabia are just too big. So they will never see the splendour of the Grand Mosque in Riyadh, they will never see the Mosque in Medina where the Prophet himself taught. And this is where the Unreal engine version 5 becomes a game changer. 

Part one

Part one is the Islamic part. The two mosques in detail via the Unreal engine 5. You see, this becomes now no longer some video game, but a setting where you walk through a video of these places, true to perfection and when the times are there, you can hear the sermons. These sermons are already digital, they merely require plugging in. Now well over a billion will be able to see the majestic and greatness of these places and over time more Mosques could be added. The people who could never visit these places will be able to see them in more detail than ever before. Yes, you can see them on Youtube, but they are video’s of a person seeing what that person wanted to see. This is a place equally true to life, but now at any given moment you can look around 360 degrees, see the ceilings and see the place you could not visit, optionally not ever. 

Part two

Part two is the gaming side. People love games, all people do. And now a site would exist where Muslims could play, optionally play together and not be harassed all the time. The games are actually the easy part. Everyone is looking forward and create something they hope everyone will like. But when you look behind you, you will see hundreds of games created between 1985 and 1998 on Atari 800, Commodore 64, Atari ST and Commodore Amiga. Hundreds of games, many without any IP protection and yes, the graphics need upgrading, but in case of many games that is as much as is required, the rest tends to be simple as these games worked on 64Kb (512KB in the latter two cases). And that is before you start looking at adding Chess and Checkers games, board games and a whole lot more. It should be relatively easy to create 12-24 games a year. One alteration is an old game called Defender of the crown. In those days it was huge and awesome, but if you make it defender of the faith where the setting is not England, but Jerusalem, where the attacks are not a simple mouse click, but close to specific attack machines like they had in those days. Let the gamers see how hard it was in those days (see the movie Kingdom of Heaven for details). There are a few more of these alterations and you get a whole trove of games that will entice gamers from 12 to 81. And it might be possible to get twice as many games a year if you create 2-3 software houses. So many games forgotten could receive a second lease on life. After these exercises these software houses will be ready to create new and specific games for a Muslim population. 

Part three

Part three is the social media side. Not based on Facebook, but based on Google Plus or Cocoon. A closed system and it makes sense. Muslims have family, they have friends, friends from the mosque and they are not connected, some of these will be in all three. By setting these groups apart and taking out marketing we return to true social media and here others cannot harass you, if so those people get removed as this service comes at a price. There will be an option for Marketing, but. It can only offer it in certain places. It cannot splash everyones profile like Facebook does, it is the price of a free system. 

Part four

The last part is pricing. I envisioned a stage of $10 a month and $99 a year (two months free). That stage can easily get the controllers of this system 50 million subscriptions, I believe that 400 million subscriptions is possible, but initially not much higher and it would take two years to get there. I also believe that when the system has over 100 million people the price could be lowered from $10 a month to $7.50 a month or $75 a year. 

So that is why I was laughing out loud when we saw in ‘Repetition or Confirmation’ on November 13th 2022 “its Xbox Cloud Gaming program had attracted over 10 million players spread over 26 countries since opening its beta up a year prior.” My plan get me 50 million over 6 countries. My laughing out loud now makes sense, does it not? 

The plan takes on new life as a player like the Kingdom Holding Company could buy the Google Stadia from Google as they are dropping it, as long as it supports Unreal Engine 5. What starts at a nominal 5-6 billion could grow into a $40 billion system. Muslims are fed up with the harassment and American big-tech is not doing anything successful. As such I created a path towards safety. I offered it to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but they were not interested. So you tell me, am I delusional or did I see what no one else is seeing? 

And there is more, Amazon has distribution centres in three of these clusters, so adding a server park there would be relatively easy and with the 5G systems faltering having satellite locations is important, it sets the bottleneck to the local cluster. All simple constructions that Google and Amazon should have been ready for and they are not. 

As such I am making this now Public Domain and you can see how the big boys (Amazon and Google) were blind for the longest time, they are all contracting their workforce and when someone laces this system the others will ALL lose market share and this player will grow into a power player. So there!

What am I losing? Well, I was hoping for a Canadian Passport, a loaded debit card (or an envelope with cash for initial expenses) and $50 million post taxation in a Canadian bank and I would be able to retire. I had hoped for a second pay cycle of 5% of the revenue for 15 years, but that is no longer realistic. And I feel happier making it public domain than giving it to an idiot like Microsoft.

Good luck and good hunting!

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November 7, 2022 · 09:12

Start with the blabla

Yes, that is what it seems like. It feels like merely yesterday that we had COP26 and a young lady calling it a ‘bla bla’ moment. And with the actions of the exiting Brazilian president we might hope that the dangers to the Amazon are over, but I am not convinced. They were given until 2030 to fill there pockets and there is every chance that all but the final 1/3rd of the Amazon will be gone by November 2029. There is also other news COP27 will be held in Sharm-el-Sheikh. It is nice when these things are held in a place I know to some degree. I was there in 1982, there will be a lot of changes, but for some reason it clicks a lot more. The BBC gives us (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-63517078) ‘COP27: ‘Climate chaos’ warning as UN summit begins’ where we are told:

At last year’s summit in Glasgow a number of pledges were agreed:

  • to “phase down” the use of coal – one of the most polluting fossil fuels
  • to stop deforestation by 2030
  • to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030
  • to submit new climate action plans to the UN

Developing nations – which are at the forefront of climate change – are demanding that previous commitments to finance are upheld.

It is nice to stop deforestation, but Brazil saw that as a moment to increase deforestation by well over 20% at present, so we have that to deal with. In other news the Guardian gave us a list on November 2nd. This list (at https://green-alliance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Global-methane-pledge.pdf) offers “a series of low-cost measures, which it says could reduce methane emissions from their 2020 levels by 43%.” I would state that we do not give livestock Mexican food, but the document is a lot more serious and they give us “The feed additive Bovaer/3-NOP, manufactured by DSM, could cut methane emissions from dairy cows by at least 40 per cent, if it was approved by the Food Standards Agency. It must be fed to cows regularly, making it immediately suitable for dairy cows but less so for outdoor reared beef cattle and sheep.” The two issues I currently have with it is the question whether ‘Bovaer/3-NOP’ has been properly tested for long term issues in beef and milk. We made similar mistakes before, lets not do that again. On the other hand it seems that the stock of DSM will go the roof if this happens. To be honest, with all the issues at hand, I cannot say how useful this meeting will be. Call me a pessimist, but the events following COP26 in Brazil made me weary of progress here and lets be clear Brazil will be the first screaming for money, yet where exactly are these deforestation profits going? 

In other news

I woke up from a weird dream this morning. I was in some kind of marketing trailer. They were running a large screen (85”) and the image war sublime, it allowed for 4K where on the image of a salesperson, and whilst we walked and moved in the trailer the image was captured and placed on the TV, we were midgets walking all over the person on the screen and it was uncanny. The feet the stance were all instantly adjusted to the new stage based on the images captured in the trailer. The angle of the feet, the angle of us as we ascended or declined the salesperson laying on a couch. They called it Oracle Eloquent, and it gets weirder. I looked it up a minute ago and it exists. Or at least Oracle Eloquent exists. I was unaware, I have not talked about Oracle for at least a decade. I learned two things in the dream. Oracle Eloquent was free with the video equipment, it was (I think) a stage of new marketing and direct editing to make video and events in Meta, in addition to this a person had a work login, a deployment login and a third login (not sure what it was). It allowed for some kind of AI based deployment (read: deeper machine learning), it seems that some players are ready for the big players in Meta, what I saw was overwhelming and I think that something like this will appeal for the entire top tier of the Fortune 500. I partially recall seeing some Apple advert and it was amazing, but even now the dream is falling into the realm of shades and beyond my grasp. The trailer was set up for a team of 6, they would be Abel to interact and combine options to create new miracles in a setting that is mobile. As such the trailer could be moved to different Coca Cola locations. But that trailer could be placed in a specific place, linked to power and AC units. A locked setting to get the next Meta trend event to take place. It was all I saw but the thing that threw me the most was “Oracle Eloquent Model. Updating Blob directly using OracleEloquent.” I found it half an hour after the dream, so I am in the dark. I searched my history but for the last two years I have not looked at anything Oracle related. I might have seen something in a place like Verge, but I am unaware of it. The brain makes the weirdest jumps at times. As such I am willing to accept that I could see the name subconsciously, but the rest, I am drawing a blank.

So, that is enough bla bla from me for at least 10 hours.

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September 23, 2022 · 21:29

Dopey to some

Yes, Dopey, a name I cloak myself in frequently, that loveable dwarf not right in the mind and that is me to a fault. I just saw Matrix resurrections. I did not really like it, that is not the fault of the actors, they all played their hearts out and you can see that. The story was clever, really clever but the WOW factor was missing. I saw the first three as a complete story and I was fine with it. There was nothing missing. It had the elements of a Greek Tragedy, it had action (a lot of that) and several other sides. I was happy. So when the 4th movie came out, I was not really on par with my thoughts, and it had been close to 2 decades. I still remember the trailer that I saw in Chicago, it blew me away, I saw the movie 8 weeks later in Europe and I saw it more than once. Then the DVD came. I reckon that plenty of people got a DVD player just for this movie and that is saying something. There was a WOW factor that numbers 2 and 3 continued. It was missing here, but it made it not a bad movie, it merely made me less interested and I was not alone in this, but it does not matter. The storyteller in me woke up. I had my own movie considerations. It is called ‘How to assassinate a politician’ and the story was made for the Arab world (Egypt, UAE, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan) in this I personally believe it would be a hit, but that I my view. Then my mind created ‘Another Furlong’ after the whole 9 yards with Matthew Perry. Just now I saw the Hulu Trailer of Hellraiser, it might be a hit. Especially if they resurrect the Nightbreed franchise as well, in the comics there have been several interaction between these two and there would be enough materials for either movies of mini series. The mind does not sit still, so as I was contemplating ‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children’, more important the other books. Not sure if Tim Burton is considering to make the others into movies, but if he is not any of the streamers should consider it. There are so many options, but we get to see (for the most) a newly resurrected version of Death Wish, Robocop, Firestarter or Flatliners. I have nothing against any of these movies. Yet where is thee good stuff? Where is the original stuff? Now, lets be clear Matrix resurrections is original, based on a franchise, but an original story. Yet where are the titans? Another Lord or the Rings? OK, this is the prequel, the rings of power. I grant you that, but we are so about seeing more of the same that we merely endure repetition, this was one of the reasons why I came up with ‘How to assassinate a politician’, not the most important reason, but a reason none the less. I wonder what more I could make. I started to pencil season two on the grandson of Hades (still no title come to mind), I made one on the stage of the past with Kenos Diastima and Residuam Vitam. And past that a few small parts that require evolution. Perhaps it is a dopey thought, but is this what most of us have resorted to? Repetition? I am uncertain but overall I see less awesome movies. I reckon that Maverick is the most overwhelming movie I have seen this year and that is not a good thing. Consider, how many truly good movies have You seen in the last 6 month? If you need more than a minute to name 5, you will be able to see my point of view. With Netflix, Hulu, Disney we see so many more works, but the overall quality is falling down, that is not a good thing. You might have another idea regarding this and that I fine, but I worry what we will get in 2023, 2024 and 2025. That might just be me though.

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September 1, 2022 · 21:13

The other currency

This is one of these articles that had to be written. Some will take offence, I get that, but it is essential to speak truthful, to speak my mind. Some will agree, some will not. The bigger the issue, the larger the polarisation, that has always been the case. Yet in this case I need to say upfront that this is not an attack on the media, this is not an attack on the writers of the articles that I will oppose. This needs to be said upfront, not after the event. In addition, some will agree with the article, that is fine. Be not afraid to have a point of view, be not afraid to oppose me (or others), your point of view is not invalid, it is merely differs from some. 

The setting started with the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/01/shamima-begum-justin-trudeau-to-follow-up-canadian-spy-claim). There we see ‘Shamima Begum: Justin Trudeau to ‘follow up’ Canadian spy claim’ and in addition we see “Canada’s PM defends need for ‘flexible and creative’ intelligence work by CSIS after claim operative delivered 15-year-old to Islamic State” with the added “were met at Istanbul bus station for their onward journey to Syria by a man called Mohammed al-Rashed. Rashed was also an informant for Canadian intelligence, who told the Met police of their connection with him in March 2015” Here we see the first problem. We are ‘informed’ to focus on ‘were met at Istanbul bus station’, but there was a lot before that. The recruiter/lover-boy who initiated contact, The fact that the girls thought they were grown up by keeping silent to their family, the people around them. They ignored it all and they became TERRORISTS. Canada did the right thing, they kept quiet and documented as much as they could for as long as they could. The fact that these girls arrived in Istanbul unopposed, unquestioned and no red flags were raised until then. That opens a lot of questions on this issue right from the start and I see nothing of that. 

And now we get to the important bit “Her family’s lawyer, Tasnime Akunjee, argues that Begum was trafficked out of the country. The suggestion that a western intelligence asset may have been involved, including organising bus tickets for her, will reignite the debate over the removal of her British citizenship.” You see, as I personally see it, ‘trafficked’ implied ‘against their wishes, or optionally under false pretences. This was not the case. These girls KNEW that they would be going to Islamic State, more important. The stage of ‘a western intelligence asset’ was not the case until Istanbul, a little over 3000 Km. We do not get to see that either. There needs to be a price for assisting terrorists and now she is paying. 

You see you people need to learn that there is no option for terrorists. If you give them one you get to learn a very hard lesson, one with hundreds if not thousands of cadavers. There is a much larger issue. You see the bigger enemies of Islamic State are not the people you expect. It is Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Pakistan, Iran, Indonesia, Turkey, Egypt, Syria, United Arab Emirates, Islamic nations all. This is not some islamic debate, Islamic State is a collection of wannabe tyrants, all wanting their own nation where they rule with iron hand. So where is that land? It is in every nation and it was for some time a large chunk of Iraq. I reckon I will be around when I get to put the ‘protectors’ of Shamima Begum in the limelight as co-conspirators towards the dead that we will undoubtedly see. At that point they will all hide, they will all demand silence and they will all shun and the media will let them. It was unfortunate, but it happens. That is where we are heading and as far as I can tell, Canada and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) did whatever they needed to to keep Canada safe. These are not thieves, not bank-robbers and they were certainly not innocent. They are terrorists and that takes a whole different approach to keeping a nation and its citizens safe. And lets be clear, there are close to zero nations that condone Islamic State and we need to realise that if Islamic governments will not deal with them, how far have we strayed from the path by giving them leeway and listening to some crocodile tear approach? That path will lead to a lot of innocent deaths.

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August 11, 2022 · 19:49

Stirring the soup

Things are afoot in the Kay es Ah (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), but to see this we need to reflect on a few items. The first one is (at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-10/twitter-former-employee-convicted-of-spying-for-saudi-arabia/101318490) and gives us ‘Former Twitter employee convicted of spying for Saudi Arabia’, the simple setting is that this happens, If Jack Dorsey had played a few items over to the NSA, no one would hear if it, but when a non-American agency gets the key to the Twitter Data Kingdom, it becomes news. So when we see “Ahmad Abouammo, a US citizen and former media partnership manager for Twitter’s Middle East region, was charged in 2019 with acting as an agent of Saudi Arabia without registering with the US government.” And then someone slips, the text becomes “used their positions to access confidential Twitter data about users.” It is ‘their positions’ which is plural, so how many were caught? We get it with “This included their email addresses, phone numbers and IP addresses, the latter of which he used to identify a user’s location. A third man named in the complaint, Saudi citizen Ahmed Al-Mutairi, was alleged to have worked with the Saudi royal family as an intermediary.” So was the second man? We see that in the end when we get “The FBI still lists Ali Alzabarah and Ahmed Al-Mutairi as wanted.” Well, this is 3 years ago, so the other two are optionally celebrating their success in Riyadh. Espionage happens, it can happen where ever we see this much user data. The fact that this had gone on, and we do not see HOW LONG this had been going on should also be reflected on all this, it should see us accept the larger Elon Musk discount for data copied into other places. Transgressed data loses values and as stated “This included their email addresses, phone numbers and IP addresses, the latter of which he used to identify a user’s location.” And nowhere do we see for how long this was going on before the alleged culprit was arrested. I state alleged, because we do not know (or we are not told) what spy one did and what spy two did. The court-case might shed light on this, but he was acquitted of several points, so there.

Then it is time to add vegetables to the soup in the form of a story (at https://www.silkroadbriefing.com/news/2022/08/10/china-saudi-arabia-announce-massive-strategic-partnership-energy-agreement/) there we see ‘China, Saudi Arabia Announce Massive Strategic Partnership Energy Agreement’, it was what I said months ago, they might drill more but that does not mean it goes to the place we hope/expect/wish it will go and now we see this, a larger gain for China and the agreement between Aramco and Sinopec, which showed a fear I expected to come for almost two years, with “The two companies will join hands in renewing the vitality and scoring new progress of the Belt and Road Initiative and Saudi Vision 2030” we see a larger gain for Chinese construction and a loss for western ones. This was the setting I feared, because it means that there is no relief for western construction. The little tidbits thrown at them like scraps are the only ones they are likely to have. In a place that I about to invest well over $1,000,000,000,000 for new buildings in Neom, as well as the line, there is now a decent chance that the small hidden engineering texts will be Arabic/Chinese and not Arabic/English. A station that was always likely to happen, but now it seems it is becoming the passing of a fact. 

The third ingredient in any soup is the stock and water. That is given to us through an article (at https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/saudi-egyptian-investment-co-invests-13-bln-four-egyptian-firms-2022-08-10/) by Reuters. There we see ‘Saudi Arabia invests $1.3 bln in four Egyptian firms’. It is not the amount, when you invest 0.1% in companies after you set in motion  building bill, we see the appearance of dwarfism. It seems like a speck, but you would be wrong. This event will give larger rise to the final ingredient and here we see “The companies are Abu Qir Fertizilers and Chemical Industries (ABUK.CA), Misr Fertilizers Production Company (MFPC.CA), Alexandria Container and Cargo Handling (ALCN.CA), and payments firm E-Finance for Financial and Digital Investments (EFIH.CA).” And we see nothing weird here, not when you consider the larger building needs, this makes absolute sense and “Saudi Arabia has already provided billions in support since Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi came to power in 2014. The United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait this year all promised to increase their investments in Egypt” does not change that. But the water and stock are mere building blocks for the vegetables to connect to, it is the beef, the beef completes the picture. This is seen (at https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/mobily-signs-mou-with-telecom-egypt-to-build-submarine-cable-from-saudi-arabia-to-egypt/) and you might think that it does not make sense. How does ‘Mobily signs MoU with Telecom Egypt to build submarine cable from Saudi Arabia to Egypt’ imply beef? Well this started for me at least a little over three years ago, 3 years ago, before the Covid started hitting us that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had, with Neom an uncanny option to become the large (optionally largest) 5G powerhouse of the Middle East, stretching into Egypt and becoming the 5G powerhouse in the Mediterranean with larger options towards stretching into Europe. Now, I do not fear it, telecom powerhouses are often awesome, but this states that the larger players (like Vodafail) are seemingly asleep at the wheel and the KSA has nothing opposing Huawei, it is the foundation of Saudi 5G, so now the 100,000,000 Egyptians will fuel the 35,000,000 5G users all over the KSA and as Neom becomes a 5G hub for Europe, the Middle East and Asia, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia becomes the one powerhouse no one saw coming, and those who did were awfully quiet about it. 

A stage that I saw coming 3 years ago is now gaining momentum and optionally they will get a lot more over the next 2-3 years. And Europe with their promises will go nowhere, as someone ones said, a promise and an empty sack are worth the empty sack and with the beef giving fragrance and texture to the soup. 

I will offer you the position of the fifth element in an image, it is the soul of tastebuds and it matters, because the place and ownership of the fifth element are not a given, not even how they will become part of the equation, but they are there, not in the tall grass, but out in the open. Someone has a double role to play and I honestly do not know who, where or what they represents, but when you make soup, you can add your own ideal mix, or rely on people to grab the fifth element, and that is what I did. I added little of the spices, so the consumer of soup will add it themselves opening the field for player number five.

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July 7, 2022 · 19:44

Interestingly unknown

It was the BBC that got me here. Their article ‘Arabs believe economy is weak under democracy’ (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-62001426) has a few debatable sides, but these debates come from a preset mind that did not have access to all the evidence (read: raw data). Yes, that would be my mind, but the setting is interesting. And the mental race get tarted with “Michael Robbins, director of Arab Barometer, a research network based at Princeton University which worked with universities and polling organisations in the Middle East and North Africa to conduct the survey between late 2021 and Spring 2022, says there has been a regional shift in views on democracy since the last survey in 2018/19.” And when we get to ‘Rise in people who agree the economy is weak under a democracy’ we see that nearly all of them went up, only Morocco remains under 50%, the rest is higher and Iraq gets up to nearly 75%. It is interesting that a question ‘This country needs a leader who can bend the rules to get things done’ There too Morocco is in a doubt, but so are the Palestinian territories, the rest is largely in favour of that statement. In most cases, the economic challenges are on most minds and that makes sense. Only in Tunisia, Iraq and Libya is corruption a much larger fish than other nations. It is when we get to the question ‘More than one in three people ran out of money to buy more food’, the question seems trivial, but the fact that it is 68% in Egypt seems OK, it is the fact that the same question scores below 50% in Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, and Palestinian Territories when we see the News from all kinds of sources the fact that food prices and hunger is not on the forefront in at least 2 nations comes across as weird to me, yet as I stated. I never saw the raw data and these results should be scrutinised. The lack of an N is several charts give rise to debate, Also, it seems nice to see percentages, but if Jordan has an N of 3500 and Libya has an N of 12500, the setting becomes slightly warped and weighting data is dangerous, especially when you compare different groups. There is a lot more, but that is not up for discussion without seeing the raw data and the complete report. But I am speaking too soon, you see at the end we see “The project interviewed 22,765 people face-to-face in nine countries and the Palestinian territories” yet the one thing I do not see it that the cultural stage towards government changes per region. You see Tunisia, I see Kibili, Sfax and Kef. And we can do that for each of the nations. Now it is possible that the Arab Barometer took all that in account, but I cannot tell at present and lets be clear. I am not attacking the article, or the results. I like the setting, but at all times I keep a skeptical mind awake. The setting that clearly shows the desire for strong leaders is nothing against a democracy, it is that democratic nations have largely shown nothing more than indecisiveness and ‘corporate corruption’ to coin a phrase. There is a lot more going on and the fact that the media is part of the problem is also a debatable setting in all this and the Arab nations have seen too much of that too, but that too is a debatable side in all this. In the end, the article is good reading and it does refer to sources and methodology. If only the BBC had thought a few matters through and added a few more parts, but as I stated, these thoughts are debatable, so I am putting myself under similar scrutiny, because I would hate to judge anyone on items that seem incomplete. And it is one of the final parts “It is of Arab world opinion, so does not include Iran, Israel or Turkey, though it does include the Palestinian territories. Most countries in the region are included but several Gulf governments refused full and fair access to the survey. The Kuwait and Algeria results came in too late to include in the BBC Arabic coverage. Syria could not be included due to the difficulty of access.” So the question is raised with “several Gulf governments refused full and fair access to the survey” Did that include Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen? Yemen might be excluded for a few natural reasons, but the others? 

A setting that requires scrutiny, because the Arab voice with 6 missing voices? It does not make the other views invalid, merely debatable and optionally one sided as the UAE, Oman and Saudi Arabia are Monarchies, but that is merely my view on the matter.

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June 26, 2022 · 23:55

What happens when colours do not mix?

That is a weird question, it is actually a conundrum and as such we leave it out in the grass. A few hours ago the middle easters eye gives us ‘Saudi Arabia lifts unofficial trade embargo off Turkiye’, a stage and a half as I would think. There we see “That boycott was primarily due to the clash of foreign policy goals between Riyadh and Ankara in the region, with the two backing opposing sides in Libya and disagreeing over the legitimacy of the government in Egypt installed after the 2013 military coup. Turkiye was also pushing to bring to justice those responsible for the murder of exiled Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018, in which it maintained that the Saudi government and Crown Prince were involved.” Which was what was expected. Whether it is dialogue, party lines or something else, the language is not a surprise. What was interesting is the article a month ago called ‘Did Turkey bow down to Saudi Arabia?’ (At https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220509-did-turkey-bow-down-to-saudi-arabia/). There we are given “Bilateral relations were also badly strained after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by a Saudi hit squad at the Kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul in 2018. At the time, Erdogan accused the “highest levels” of the Saudi leadership of ordering the murder, but did not name any official”, as well as “Khashoggi’s murder triggered a global outcry against the Kingdom and Bin Salman, who is its de facto ruler. Turkey insisted on seeking justice in Khashoggi’s case and commenced legal proceedings; the CIA accused Bin Salman of ordering the murder. However, no country or international body has taken even a small punitive measure against Saudi Arabia.” Yet this is not quite correct is it? In the first we see “the CIA accused Bin Salman of ordering the murder” which they never did, they stated that it was highly likely (which does not constitute evidence), The UN report is out in the open, so you can check it for yourself. Then we get “no country or international body has taken even a small punitive measure against Saudi Arabia” and there lies the rub. You see if you had properly examined the UN report you would see that there was no evidence and the number one piece of evidence was that the report NEVER gave a proper digital report that the voice was confirmed and without doubt the voice of Jamal Khashoggi. We saw spin after spin, but no one properly digitally examined and tested the tapes. There is even an issue with the full tape, no report gives us any understanding that a tape even existed, merely bytes of audio and those were not properly forensically tested to ascertain the identity of the voices. When you see these two elements in a United Nations report no less, you will start to see what I saw within an hour of that UN report being made public. A hack job and a bad one at that. So after the blunders that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan committed, first with the EU, then with US, then Russia (S-400 missiles) it comes over that he need all the friends he can get and he will do whatever he can to not go under and he does not have that much options or any credibility as I personally see it. So when we see “Erdogan was enthusiastic about the meeting because he sees trade with Saudi Arabia as an important requirement for the revival of Turkey’s economy, and regards Riyadh’s political and diplomatic support as vital ahead of next year’s presidential election. He also knows that the catalyst for his country’s estrangement with the Saudis, the Arab Spring, has ended in all but name.” We need to realise that the only other option is China and China would want assurances, something Turkey has no option or intention to give. Commitment is not high on their calendar. And they need something now, it is not about “the revival of Turkey’s economy” it is about having a longer stand against whatever comes next. And now that Iran overstepped its options in Turkey, Turkey will see Saudi Arabia as the only option and they are not wrong. How this will play out? I cannot tell, it makes sense for Saudi Arabia to allows for trade with Turkey, it makes more sense for them to see all connections that nations have with Iran fade away. 

The media is to some degree monitoring what is happening here, but not to the degree I expected. You see there are a few options opening up for Saudi Arabia, and Turkey has to commit now, or learn that being alone with neighbours they sold short one way or another is not the way to go. For Saudi Arabia and the STC, Turkey is another option to get a true 5G middle east network up and going, optionally 2-3 years ahead of Europe and the US. As such STC could have surprisingly profitable franchises in Egypt and Turkey in the near future, it could set a new premise. It would also be the first time in history where the STC (and Saudi Arabia through it) would reach North Africa and optionally Southern Europe as well. Something that they never did before and that opens up more than Nokia, it speculatively opens up new options for Huawei as well. It is too early for predictions, but the idea that they grow by 50% before 2024 is not out of the question, especially if their foothold in Egypt and Turkey continues. A thought that people would have ridiculed in 2017 is now on the borders of reality. So when do colours not mix? When you never had the right colours in the first place, that is when. A stage we negated for too long a time and now with Turkey it comes to the forefront rather quickly.

613 seconds until Monday morning, enjoy!

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