Tag Archives: Saudi Arabia

September 12, 2019 · 11:25

Predictive Analytics or crystal ball?

We all have these moments, we all have that limelight moment that is all about the lights and not the lime; or better stated, in this world where about 23 people pointed at me, making me sound like an evangelist who is casting the bones, calling me tainted by the Afreet. They all stated that delusion was my middle name, to them today I say; ‘Hah!‘

The Arab News about an hour ago (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/1553251/saudi-arabia) gives us ‘Saudi Arabia’s SAMI, Navantia in SR3.7bn military deal‘, which represents a few coins less than a billion dollars in green US pieces of paper, now gives us that “SAMI Navantia Naval Industries (SAMI-Navantia) signed a SR3.7 billion ($986 million) contract with Spanish shipbuilder Navantia to collaborate on combat system integration (CSI) on the Avante 2200 corvettes for the Saudi navy“, whilst on September 1st (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/09/01/change-is-coming/) where I wrote “SAMI has the option of building space well over 5 times the combined spaces that Damen, Spanish Navantia and Dearsan combined have. It changes the equation a fair bit“, in response to “As the links with Navantia matures, we see the option to cater to the needs of coast guards on several national levels and these are not the small players. Some might have noticed the small mention of ‘Offshore Patrol Vessels Market 2024: New Business Opportunities for Manufactures to Upsurge in Coming Years‘, yet Navantia and therefor SAMI are in the thick of that part of the equation“, 11 days later I would be proven correctly and this is just the start for SAMI. I understand that some might unite under the expression of ‘one Swallow does not a summer make‘, but the setting of preparation was too large, too much effort had been made in several directions by Saudi Arabia and a few foreign interested parties. More importantly, the EU gravy train decision makers have been taken out of the equation. As I see it, it is merely the first of several new ventures that we will see happen and each success is an almost guaranteed stage towards the follow up job which will be substantially larger than the previous one. It is here where we see what Walid Abukhaled, Chief Strategy Officer at SAMI, as well as Dr. Andreas Schwer, CEO of SAMI are capable of when two visionaries unite in a view that has a similar direction. One would consider that it feels really good being His Excellency Ahmed Al-Khateeb this week in light of these successes, yet they are not merely successes, they are the beginning of milestones that thrust the abilities and capabilities of SAMI forward. The data was decently clear on that. It was not merely their ability, it was the hindrance that Heckler and Koch, Farbique Nationale Herstal as well as BAE Systems are finding operating under EU procedures, all whilst the procedures are nothing short of hypocrisy in the first place; a stage of what some call holier than thee ideology. I get it, there is nothing wrong with something like Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), yet it can only work if it is balanced and it is not, so now they merely achieved in losing commerce for the UK (and parts of the EU). There is nothing wrong with ideology, but if it is not dipped in some level of realism, they will do more harm than good. You cannot act in one direction and after that refuse to hold Iran to account who has been visibly ignoring and shunning agreements, and these pressures are also being applied by Turkey on other fronts, all these pressure points result in turmoil and stress and the market will respond to the needs of other governments requiring the hardware to do something about it, the SAMI deal might merely be the first deal for the Saudi Navy, but there are two parts there, first the Saudi Navy is growing, second is that once the knowledge is implemented other orders can be completed as well and it is that second part that will matter even more, as the governments require additional value out of their vessels, Navantia, if SAMI delivers could get a lot more value out of their Life Support services department and these overhauls add a lot of value, which works for SAMI as a facilitator as well. In this Navantia will get the stage of upgrading and give additional services to the preventive maintenance and remote technical assistance divisions of their yard. And it is more than facilitation for Saudi Arabia, as its knowledge of logistics is applied. Whilst we think that there is no news under the sun when it comes to predictive models to support strategic purchases, and optionally scripted and tested Machine Learning techniques to expenditure control and collaborative development with suppliers through common digital platforms most do not realise that in shipping it is very different from other industries. There are external inhibitors (weather) there are operational inhibitors (idle time) and logistical inhibitors (active manpower/resources), all stages on 2-3 levels that other industries never had. It is like Google being baffled by their answer of ‘What is Standard Deviation‘, whilst the answer does not compute with the customer who knows it to be: “the angular difference between magnetic North and the compass needle due to nearby sources of interference such as magnetically permeable bodies, or other magnetic fields within the field of influence“, it is there and the fact that the answer differs on the other side of the equation where we see a mismatch of standards and concepts. Whilst we laugh away the difference, some might realise that 2 miscommunications is enough to lose out on a billion dollars and then the life aquatic is no longer a simple comedy with Bill Murray, the stage of global maritime needs has changed and changed differently from most other industries. Navantia and a few other players have remained on top of it (as well as a few other serious players), it is here where we also see larger failings. We might see growth in a report like: “LNG Bunkering will register a 65.2% CAGR in terms of revenue, reach US$ 24400 million by 2023, from US$ 1200 million in 2017“, and that report might be completely correct, and now, even whilst I have not looked into that report (as it is not important to this article), how does that growth and equation impact idle time? Anyone who ignores idle time also ignores any captain confronted by it. when we consider “new mega-vessel, more capacity and a tremendous effort to improve competitiveness and efficiency are now hand to hand with a new collaborative mind-set, involving new technology to enhance connectivity that leas the seaport supply industry to the future” we accept a growing industry, yet the premise of “Idle time at waterside (arrival and departure), constitute 38 per cent of the total port stay for a container ship, which cost billions of USD per year to the shipping lines“, we get this from Ruben F, in his thesis ‘Identification And Measurement Of Idle Times Port Visit Of Container Ships Through An Explorative And Simulation Study: The Case Of Algeciras’s Terminal‘, his advisor was Jalal Ashayeri, PhD. It is in this document where we see: “The latest news is that in 2019 NYK line will test a crewless container ship from Japan to North America (BloombergTechnology, 2017) . This is not the only carrier working in this new technological model for container ship, however the future for in this industry is still being unwritten“; there is nothing wrong with the quote, yet everyone forgets that every harbour has one darling limit, the amount of berthing space available and when we consider that dangerous cargo is a second limitation we see a larger windfall for SAMI, because weapons (specifically ammunition) is a Class One dangerous cargo, which now also means that whenever a government upgrades its navy there is a shift in what is available, and therefor pushed idle time by a lot, consider ANY harbour and consider that due to government upgrades two berthing spaces are lost due to naval upgrades. Not every navy has its own long term harbour space at times; now consider the impact on idle time and having the software to manage that more efficiently, that is where Spain and Saudi Arabia get the larger windfall down the road, not merely implementing, but managing logistics and operational options through consultants and remote servers. What some saw last month is the ‘claim’ of cyber warfare capabilities was shy of one element. The element of cyber logistics and cyber upgrading as a facility becomes more and more important, especially when you realise that those in that field have little to no experience with naval logistics and what makes naval logistics a lot more different (as well as complex and difficult) from other logistics. Most of them have no experience with idle time algorithms. That oversight might make some people run to books and learn, but unless you have the knowledge of a harbour master with added quarter of a century experience you lose out, plain and simple, Navantia has that (as do some others) yet the larger group is absent that knowledge and this is where SAMI gets the added benefits down the road.

And that makes sense how?

Well, for that we need to realise that several sources mentioned almost a month ago that in the EU (Spain was separately mentioned as well) that there is a ban on double trucks and that these trucks are given the limit of double tractor-trailers to 63.5 tons or less. It gives a larger rise to capacity problems in harbours, even as some hide behind safety issues like in “There is insufficient rail capacity, and “we would have to bet on the growth” of rail if double tractor-trailers disappeared, according to the proposal, which suggests that weight reduction would improve safety“, to me it seems that there is a larger growing capacity problem and the speed that the lack of capacity is growing at is also worrying, the ships have grown a lot bigger and whilst harbours were deepened in many parts, the amount of berthing spaces (as well as cranes, and its capacity) have not improved in a decade, this now implies that ships are docked longer, it pushes idle time by a fair bit and in all this, ships require upgrades. So when Navantia gets the added SAMI capacity to do things faster, optionally having access to Saudi berthing locations, the two together will make for additional growth options for SAMI, that part was already clear on September 1^st to me. My undergrad was in ships engineering and even as I never worked in that industry (IT was too appealing) I do know what impacts there are and I do see where SAMI could be heading. There are over a dozen governments all wanting to upgrade their navy, whilst the resources and skills are almost universally lacking. I think that this Union with Navantia and SAMI will spell a lot more options than anyone realised.

The fact that the US was eager to add Australian BCT to its resources shows just how short the supply is, it is not merely cyber defence, electronic warfare, technology, and intelligence. There is in the naval sense a lack of ICT solutions to a much larger degree, it is the combination that is hard to find and some solutions are antiquated to say the least. Most IT people always thought of naval cyber needs to be too mundane or too unappealing which resulted in a maritime applicable shortage in several nations. Navantia recognised that weakness for the Spanish navy two decades ago and it resulted in a Combat Management System (CMS) called SCOMBA, now that SCOMBA is highly sought after in many places and there we see the applicability that goes beyond the Spanish navy, as the links with SAMI deepens we see that Navantia has a product that has appeal to several allied players and Navantia via SAMI gets to upgrade the facilitation that it internationally has without losing ownership of its IP, which in this day and age seems a lot more important than it was a decade ago.

Should you doubt this, you could always try the $12.99 solution (at https://www.amazon.com/Amlong-Crystal-Including-Golden-Package/dp/B005DK1AQU) and see how fast you could unload one container with 21500 kg of IMCO 5.1 at Singapore harbour, I wish you a lot of luck and fair weather handing that information over to the captain of whatever SS Minnow he is in charge, I dare you to end that conversation: ‘Get it done today, or else‘, I will be selling popcorn with a big smile and a loud laugh at that event.

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Tagged as Ahmed Al-Khateeb, Arab News, Australia, BAE Systems, BCT, Bloomberg Technology, CAAT, Campaign Against Arms Trade, CMS, Combat Management System, Dr. Andreas Schwer, Eu, Farbique Nationale Herstal, Heckler and Koch, Jalal Ashayeri, Life Support services, Navantia, SAMI, Saudi Arabia, SCOMBA, Singapore harbour, Spain, UK, Walid Abukhaled

September 10, 2019 · 11:31

The die is cast

it started Yesterday (well, it started earlier), the Guardian gives us ‘British-Iranian relations strained as oil tanker is seen off Syria‘, with the by-line “Adrian Darya, previously called Grace 1, photographed near Russian navy facility“. the starting quote “Britain is seeking to establish whether Iran has sold oil to Syria in breach of written undertakings given by Tehran to authorities in Gibraltar“, we can go with the speculative ‘yes’ on that answer, but it is not a given at present. The quote “Since leaving Gibraltar the ship had taken a peripatetic route towards Syria, but was last photographed off the Russian navy port of Tartus in Syria. TankerTrackers, a firm that monitors oil tankers, has seen no evidence that its 2.1m barrels of oil have been discharged” is no guarantee that it is not happening, or that it will not happen.

The issue is not the oil, the issue is what Al Jazeera reports (at https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/saudi-arabia-enrich-uranium-190909144444127.html), I tend to be in favour of ‘Saudi Arabia wants to enrich uranium but the US may not like that‘, I support the setting as the EU and the US no longer have any balls in dealing with Iran and Saudi Arabia has no choice but to be ready to deal with Iran. It is the consequences of inaction. We see the quote: “Saudi Arabia wants to enrich uranium for its nuclear power programme, the kingdom’s new energy minister said on Monday, potentially complicating talks with Washington about an atomic pact and the role United States companies might play in the arrangement.” We might think that this is the barricade that works, but you would be wrong, both Russia and China are chomping at the bits to deliver high technology power plants that can work with enriched Uranium, this is a billion per place and Saudi Arabia would need 4 straight off the bat. Two power plants to power the growing power needs of Neom City and One for Riyadh power needs and one for other power needs. Do you think that in this age where American and European abilities are downgraded time after time that both Russia and China do not stand a chance? The fact that in both the EU and US larger discrimination and anti-Saudi needs have been fuelled for almost two years, the Saudi government needs to find a solution that is best for Saudi Arabia, not a solution that makes them seem the nicest. That time has gone, that time was 2017, the actions of media since have shown that the anti-Saudi rhetoric is slightly too strong and the Saudi government knows that. In light of all information available, it is the Chinese government that has the strongest position of the three (when we include the US) giving them another benefit. The US has downplayed several parts and now that we see that the Chinese government is ready to step in, we also take notice of an earlier stage in October 2018 where the SCMP gave us ‘China may seek to boost ties with Saudi Arabia but it ‘can’t fill US arms sales gap’‘, I was never certain that it was ever completely true. I believe that China needed time to set things in motion, I also believe that in the gap between July 2018 and August 2019 they have been able to set that stage to a much larger degree and within a year that gap can completely be filled. One issue that was resolved was the Chengdu J-20, the Chinese answer to the F-35. the rumour is that the three weaknesses Canopy, fuselage and engines have been resolved, there was still some questions on the stealth coating, yet that would not prevent them from starting, there would merely be an upgrade of a delay in fulfilment of foreign orders.

With that larger issue out of the way, China is seemingly ready to hand out larger contracts, they might be in the running to aid Saudi Arabia in getting them on the road to keep the 50% promise of making SAMI products export ready, the question is which arms are the most viable ones at present. With the growing concerns and the fact that Saudi Arabia is ready to deliver gives a much larger concern that the US has been playing the wrong game for well over 2 years at present. Even now, less than a day ago, CNBC gave us ‘US wants energy dominance regardless of what happens to oil prices, deputy energy secretary says‘, a quote and a claim that is both flaccid and exaggerated. As such the quote: “The U.S. deputy energy secretary told CNBC Monday that America wants to achieve energy dominance regardless of what happens to oil prices” falls short on a few levels. It falls short not merely because of the additional “It just simply means that we are going to produce as much energy as we can, as cleanly as we can and as affordably as we can“, there is seemingly a line that goes from the US to all other nations, that is besides the issue that ‘clean‘ and ‘affordable‘ tend to be opposite in scope, clean power is not cheap and affordable power tends to be not clean. In there the balance is already out of whack when they want power creation dominance and if China is affirmative to the 4 nuclear power plants, the need for US power will fall to some degree, so the option of dominance goes out of the window. Not dealing with matters is what got the US in this stage, not dealing with Greece (via Wall Street), not dealing with Brexit (through arrogance), not dealing with Iran (through indecision) and not standing strong with their claimed ally (Saudi Arabia) has pushed them on a sliding scale of mind over matter. It is becoming more and more clear that nobody minds because the US no longer matters. As the EU and the US are downplaying the impact and chances of the next recession, or as the recession is used to create Brexit fear, we see a population that has had enough. That is the setting the US is facing and all the non-evidentiary stance on Jamal Khashoggi was not helping, that journalist’s missing cadaver has been milked for anti-Saudi media coverage for far too long.

In this stage, as we realise the factors we look at the stage where we see: ““We are proceeding with it cautiously … we are experimenting with two nuclear reactors,” Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said, referring to a plan to issue a tender for the Gulf Arab state’s first two nuclear power reactors. Ultimately, the kingdom wanted to go ahead with the full cycle of the nuclear programme, including the production and enrichment of uranium for atomic fuel, bin Salman told an energy conference in Abu Dhabi.” and his royal highness has to, he has little choice, it is not only because of the power requirements of the kingdom, Iran is still a threat and that threat can only be countered by having equal solutions at the kingdom’s disposal and in all this, the total lack of actual actions against Iran by both the EU and the US do not help matters. In this, when we consider “The tender is expected in 2020, with US, Russian, South Korean, Chinese and French firms involved in preliminary talks about the multibillion-dollar project” we need to realise that the US and the EU nations now have a disadvantage to this tender. So whoever wins the multi-billion dollar tender, the losers are going to get confronted on how their tender fell flat due to inaction. It also made me wonder on some of the processes and I know that the World Nuclear Association is the best source.

So I had a look at some of the information, and the stage is set at: “Uranium-235 and U-238 are chemically identical, but differ in their physical properties, notably their mass. The nucleus of the U-235 atom contains 92 protons and 143 neutrons, giving an atomic mass of 235 units. The U-238 nucleus also has 92 protons but has 146 neutrons – three more than U-235 – and therefore has a mass of 238 units“. With the centrifuge principle of “The counter current flow set up by a thermal gradient enables enriched product to be drawn off axially, heavier molecules at one end and lighter ones at the other” and when you consider the image I wonder if it is the most efficient path. I wonder what happens, when we consider “heavier molecules at one end” it seems to me that the outer part (heavier molecules) when it is siphoned off, more uranium could be processed making the process faster. It was just a thought I was having, I remain in a creative stage. There is equally the option to see other solutions when we consider the Roman bath houses and 2 phase compressors. They did not get to their destination in one step, the compressor goes from zero to 5 atmosphere, the second stage takes 5 atmosphere and pushed it to 25 atmosphere, in the old days it was a lot more effective, even now we see the path where the centrifuge at its speed can do it in one go, yet consider a centrifuge park with 50% more units, yet creating enriched Uranium at twice the speed. I am not sure if it works, but I do know that we need to upgrade the technologies to make the Iranian technology obsolete, making the Iranians stop their intended steps, or being able to take the steps to end their actions altogether. People might not like that approach, but the stages we now see involving the Syrian delivery, the Houthi arms and drone supplies, it is clear that Iran has no peaceful intent in any direction. It is our responsibility to choose, either we support Saudi Arabia, or we move out of the Middle East altogether. Either way

This matters, because if we are to stop Iran, we need processes that are more advanced to give the clear signal that the actions of Iran should no longer be tolerated. There are two options in any war approaching disagreement, either you overwhelm them or make their solution obsolete. We have seen that advancing stronger gives the option for a peaceful edge and that should always be embraced, that is as long as you are willing to use that advantage effectively, the EU and US have shown that they are unwilling to do that. So another option is required. That path is seen in the Al Jazeera article with “Reuters has reported that progress on the discussions has been difficult because Saudi Arabia does not want to sign a deal that would rule out the possibility of enriching uranium or reprocessing spent fuel – both potential paths to creating a nuclear bomb“, whilst the intent might sound noble, it isn’t. This solution will not work because no one has a handle on Iran and no one is willing to deal with Iran and that is where the problem lies. As long as Iran is around the problem remains that much has been shown several times in several direction, only the arrogant and delusional political players in the EU and the US are still of the mind that a nice solution can be found, the problem is that Iran has been most effective in tailoring to those ego’s and it is time to give light to those tools and find a way to stop Iran, we have to because their willingness to transgress on nuclear limits has now been shown three times over. That is seen as the New York Post gives us less than a day ago: “The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog confirmed Monday that Iran has installed advanced centrifuges and is moving toward enriching uranium levels — another violation of the 2015 nuclear deal brokered by world powers”. I believe that the best solution now is to make sure that Saudi Arabia gets to the Iranian destination faster, or we allow an open war with Iran, what would you chose? I believe that war is a last resort, yet I am willing to go there if needed, which makes me a better and more ample decider than either the EU or the US, indecision is the only agenda point they procrastinate on, a stage that is too dangerous for anyone at present.

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Tagged as Abdulaziz bin Salman, Al Jazeera, Brexit, Chengdu J-20, CNBC, Eu, Greece, Houthi, Iran, KSA, Neom city, Nuclear accords, SAMI, Saudi Arabia, SCMP, United Nation, US, watchdog

September 6, 2019 · 12:09

Focal points

I am in a slightly darker stage, I got there myself and I will get myself from it as well. The first issue is the United Nations,

The Yemeni Jam

I never considered that I would one day be ashamed of the existence of the United Nations. The article (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/05/australia-may-be-complicit-in-war-crimes-if-it-supports-saudi-led-coalition-in-yemen-un) gives us: “a Saudi-led coalition that has starved civilians, bombed hospitals and blocked humanitarian aid as tactics of war, may be complicit in war crimes“, I will not go any deeper into it, as I reported on this in my article: ‘Unemployed or UN employed?‘, (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/09/04/unemployed-or-un-employed/), so doing that again is just doubling up (there is more in the article as well). The media has not released that report yet and I will dig into that one deep the moment I can. Part of this problem was given to the people by the Human Rights Watch in an article giving us: “The May 2019 report of an independent investigation by a Guatemalan diplomat, Gert Rosenthal, raised serious concerns about the UN’s handling of the human rights crisis in Myanmar. The secretary-general should promptly carry out reforms to prevent what the report called the recurrence of the “systematic” failures and “obvious dysfunctional performance” and to ensure individual accountability for those failures“, the problem is larger, even as the articles are all about showing just how exposed the allies of Saudi Arabia are, the word ‘Iran’ is only seen twice in the entire article. There are a multitude of acts that Iran is involved in and they do not reach the media to the largest extent, the unmentioned actions by Hezbollah in Yemen are cause for further worry in all this. Even as we get ‘The UN leadership has taken an important step to learn from its failures in Myanmar‘, we see only a part; the failure of the UN is seen all over the Middle East. Yemen, Syria, Jordan are only three of the places where UN actions fall short, or better stated they fall far too short.

Let’s also see the larger issue, the UN needs more resources and it needs the ability to act, both are presently in short supply. It is important to see that the entire matter is larger than presented, there are more issues. This does not absolve the connected parties, but the accusations become one-sided. There was enough doubt on some of the accusations against Saudi Arabia, but not all accusations are without merit, they need to be looked into, yet in that same setting there is an abundance of issues on the opposing sides to the Saudi coalition, less than 10 hours ago houthi forces fired a ballistic missile into Saudi Arabia, it never got that far and crashed in the al-Safraa region, as well as in Saada (both Yemeni), yet that is a part that does not make the news, in addition, the established fact that houthi forces have no options to create the ballistic missiles imply that Iran is still delivering them and a lot of that had not been mentioned by the media, and as such I want to get my fingers on that UN Report (especially after seeing that essay from Agnès Callamard).

The Conveyance of GGGGG

We see that the US s still playing its trade war game and it found a new tool. That tool is named Poland. Now, let’s be fair, any nation can use whomever or whatever they desire, need or demand to get their business done and there is nothing out there that Huawei is the only player, because they are not.

So why did I call them a tool?

That part is seen in a news article that gives us: “It was signed by U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, who’s visiting Warsaw for a ceremony commemorating the 80th anniversary of World War II, and Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. “We believe that all countries must ensure that only trusted and reliable suppliers participate in our networks to protect them from unauthorized access or interference,” according to the declaration, which doesn’t single out China or any companies“, you do not send the Vice President to Poland to implement a 5G solution, you do not send that man to introduce new technology; this was done. The article is all about implied and accusation towards Huawei on “prevent the Chinese Communist Party from using subsidiaries like Huawei to gather intelligence“, which still has not been proven after a few years and the one issue from 2011 was settled and adjusted for. In addition to all this, Mike Pence comes across as an absolute hypocrite when we see “using subsidiaries like Huawei to gather intelligence“, whilst places like Facebook have been spreading data like a prostitute with an STD to anyone willing to listen and store data (Cambridge Analytics anyone?)

The issue becomes even more hilarious when we consider the source FierceWireless. There we get ““Polish counterintelligence have detected certain actions, which might have been an espionage nature”“, a quote given by Poland’s president Andrej Duda, Apart from Polish counterintelligence being too stupid, I meant untrained to shut down the FSB/entrepreneur silver acquirers in Gdynia being one example and those individuals have been active since before 2002. I am basically stating the speculative situation where Polish intelligence could not find a clue unless it was spoon-fed and is it my speculative view that Mike Pence fed the Polish president some CIA reports of a highly dubious nature. so whilst we see the operative ‘which might have been‘, there is a 87.332% likelihood (roughly) that Polish Intelligence can too often not differentiate between FSB, Chinese MSS, Polish Students and Russian Entrepreneurs (Russian Mafia is such an overused term). I have to admit that I have not bothered to look into Polish abilities after 2003, yet in those days SIGINT in Warsaw really did not add up to anywhere near the needed level they needed to be.

The problem for the US is not that they have 5G equipment; the issue is that it is too inferior at present. It is the price of iterative technology versus innovative technology (a fact I highlighted on numerous occasions) and Huawei has been the innovator for several years now. In this setting we see the accusations of US being nothing but a bully going up against a tech giant that has at present shipped over 200,000 base stations and the delay that some governments are creating (because they know not what they do) will hinder them as per 2021 a lot more than they realise. There is now an additional shift happening. There are early indicators that the Huawei offices in Saudi Arabia have been part of a larger group that are making progress on getting Pakistan on 5G using Huawei, even as the sources are unconfirmed (read: not super reliable), the stage that India now has it that the 3 year delay because of the Huawei issues would give them additional set-backs as well. Not to mention that certain new 5G IP that is openly for sale will also foster additional speed for Huawei in other ways. Huawei now has the created stage to directly instigate advancements to a global community of over 400 million small businesses whilst these players all get to have a larger stage on their own creation of awareness, visibility and marketing. That power directly to the business will leapfrog business in places like India faster and faster (the largest beneficiary when they get it), when that door opens places like IBM and Google will see a loss of revenue growth and a dip in their data soon thereafter, with the Princeton Digital Group (PDG) now in the stage of building their data centres in China and Singapore, more options will open up outside of the US, more important the connections that the joint venture has created with 21Vianet will change a lot more heads in the coming year. I doubt that the centre will be ready before the end of 2020, but there are larger clusters now being made ready outside of the US and Huawei will benefit a lot more than anyone else at present. In addition to that the Colocation Saudi Arabia Data Centres (19) as well as the Google Data Centre (upcoming) changes the cloud even further, with the US losing the monopoly it once had we see a shift and the consideration that data becomes a currency. That seems outlandish, but it is not, it is merely the next step and 5G is essential to that part of the racetrack, a racetrack that the US tried to grease, making it a slippery place to be and the consumer market is waking up to that danger. These elements are visible out there via a whole range of openly visible sources and published agreements.

In the end the conveyance of 5G is starting to get an additional pool of players that are openly out there growing business ventures and those ventures are not in the US. That what the US feared the most is now slowly becoming reality.

The larger concern is not merely these focal points, it is how they take resources away from places where focus needs to be, the actual and proven transgressions by Iran, even as it is removing more and more limits on their nuclear programme, we see Forbes giving us the part that matters to the US, or better to US corporations. the headline ‘War With Iran Would Be Disastrous And Enormously Costly‘ is true on both sides and even as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton are all for military actions (to some degree), we need to see two parts. The first is that corporations want a peaceful settlement and the media is not mentioning large issues with Iran on several levels, the second is that with a debt of well over $22 trillion ($22,500,000,000,000,000) there is no money for a costly war. The US is playing the paper tiger and the slowdown that they are creating in the US-China trade war is having a much larger issue, so the US is depending on tools to do the work for them and even as Poland is on their side, Greece is ready to embrace Huawei with 5G because of the economic momentum they gain. These are merely two of a much larger pool of issues, basically the US needs to fight a war on two fronts (China and Iran) whilst they are out of money, options and technology, a setting that seemingly implies a war but without soldiers and without weapons. It is funny, but this reminds me of a Star Trek episode from 1967 called A Taste of Armageddon.

There the two players have decided on a virtual war to keep their cultural heritage safe. The problem is that both need to agree on the rules, so we see in the translated reality a UN SC versus UNIFIL setting. The United States Security Council intervenes when two parties agree (MFO), the United Nations intervene when two parties disagree (UNIFIL). I personally was in the first force in 1982 (Sinai). In this game we see the US trying to play a virtual game, whilst the evidence is not there, so they rely on tools. In addition this virtual game is not played because China and Iran both disagree on matters and the US cannot afford to send troops and wage a super expensive war.

All elements come to blow in the two given focal points, so until the other players are willing to deal with Iran, there will be no action leaving the pressure on Saudi Arabia, the UAE with Yemen in the middle. Until the US gives actual and factual evidence the 5G stage is moving towards China (Huawei) more and more and all those who support the US will see a slowdown on their future economies and it making more governments reconsidering the Huawei solution. It is optionally seen as a war on two fronts (US vs Iran and China) as well as two dimensions (economy and technology) whilst at present it is almost a given that the US will lose both of them.

The second part was given by the South China Morning Post in July when they reported ‘Nearly 60 per cent of Huawei’s 50 5G contracts are from Europe‘, 28 out of 50 chose Huawei. All in all there is a tactical problem in the US and it is getting worse, the moment that they act against Iran too late is the day that whomever is in the Oval office will have to publicly admit that they would decide to signing an economic trade agreement with Iran. I wonder how Israel and Saudi Arabia will react that day, because it will redefine a lot of global lines that day.

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September 4, 2019 · 11:26

Unemployed or UN employed?

I got hit by the news last night and I had to sit down to settle a little. Now, I already had plenty of issues with the UN, the first one is Eggnog Calamari (aka Agnès Callamard) with her essay, several parts of that being debatable (as I personally see it) and too much on speculation and what might have been. OK, besides that point there are plenty of other issues, yet the news yesterday takes the cake. The news (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/09/france-britain-complicit-yemen-war-crimes-190903103122355.html) giving the headline ‘US, France, Britain may be complicit in Yemen war crimes: UN‘ makes the UN now come across as a joke. Even as we get the same approach with their ‘secret list’ the quote: “The United States, United Kingdom and France may be complicit in war crimes in Yemen by arming and providing intelligence and logistics support to a Saudi-led coalition that starves civilians as a war tactic“, it is the ‘as a war tactic‘ that is the part that bothers me. There has been enough news and enough mentions that Houthi forces took food from the people. In addition there is enough evidence that Houthi forces stopped the flow of food and medicine. There is equal sources (unconfirmed) that Hezbollah set that stage, in addition the Iranian part in all this remains unmentioned. Apparently the report also gives us: “The Houthis for their part have shelled cities, deployed child soldiers and used “siege-like warfare”” yet no mention of the famine actions that have been reported on a few occasions instigated and pushed through by Houthi forces. I am clearly not stating that Saudi Arabia and the UAE did the same tactics, the acts that the report accuses them of. I am not aware of this part and I am not saying that this is not so, yet there is now allegedly (because the Al Jazeera article is the source) more than one piece of evidence missing, as such the UN can no longer be trusted at present. The intentional absence of Iranian actions, the absence of Hezbollah mentions, as well as the fact that UN volunteers earlier this year reported that Houthi force claimed and blocked food supplies is a large issue and as it is unmentioned now gives rise to the UN becoming a questionable presence.

The quote “Its appendix lists the names of more than 160 “main actors” among Saudi, Emirati and Yemeni top brass as well as the Houthi movement, although it did not specify whether any of these names also figured in its list of potential suspects” is equally debatable. By trying to steer clear through: “it did not specify whether any of these names” implying that Houthi forces are less guilty. Still the actions of Iran supplying arms, drones and missiles are seemingly not mentioned. And if there is truth to the quote: “the information in these reports is absolutely crucial to build cases in the future“, the absence of Iran and Hezbollah become even more interesting. The question with me is whether the person behind that report is UN employed, or should that person become unemployed immediately.

When I take a helicopter rise (or a magic carpet ride) I can agree that there are no real innocent sides, all sides will transgress, make mistakes and so on. Did Saudi forces refuse to feed people, or were the food supplies already seized by Houthi forces? It is not a case of bias; it is active strategies on a theatre of war that was active. The fact that Houthi forces were mostly unmentioned is a much larger issue; the absence of Iran makes the entire Al Jazeera article optionally worthless. I will wait for the actual report to come out and nit-pick that report to death. Yet the article in France 24 gives us: “US, Britain, France, Iran and others that they “may be held responsible for providing aid or assistance for the commission of international law violations if the conditions for complicity are fulfilled.”” gives an optional first stage where the bulk the question is larger, Al Jazeera voiced it as: “while also highlighting the role Western countries have played as key backers of the Arab states and Iran has played in support of the Houthis“, yet it is the only mention of Iran and no mention of the acts of Hezbollah at all, which is still an issue on several levels.

There is one additional failing in the article, and optionally in the report as well. the quote: “it found that a Joint Incidents Assessment Team set up by Saudi Arabia to review alleged coalition violations had failed to hold anyone accountable for any strike killing civilians, raising “concerns as to the impartiality of its investigations”“, the quote shows a larger failing in the train of thought here. It is the task of a Joint Incidents Assessment Team to see of proper procedures were adhered to, that is not an impartial task, that is a clear task whether military protocols were ignored. The Human Right Watch (at https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/08/24/hiding-behind-coalition/failure-credibly-investigate-and-provide-redress-unlawful) gives us a few parts, but the quote: “JIAT originally consisted of 14 individuals from the main coalition members. It has a mandate to investigate the facts, collect evidence, and produce reports and recommendations on “claims and accidents” during coalition operations in Yemen” is seemingly accurate. The task is to initially investigate whether proper military procedures were adhered to. This is important as this sets-up the investigation through the chain of command. At that point SIGINT can determine whether communications were passed on correctly, it is there where I believe that one additional independent member would be required to investigate ALL the raw data. It is a time consuming job, but that is the path to find out what happened. And anyone thinking that this is simple, think again any event could take months to investigate if ALL the data is available. Yes, I agree it might seem partial, but it optionally is not. If anyone accuses this JIAT to be partial, than there might be a case for that, but it is still edged on the need for the Saudi Government to investigate whether they did something wrong. A defence attorney is not impartial, he or she opposes the prosecution to find all the evidence and applies the law to show innocence (or better stated an absence of guilt); it is a military approach, a Judge Advocate General (JAG) job to investigate. They apply the law and at present I have not seen any evidence clearing or properly accusing Saudi Arabia and the UAE from being actually guilty. Yet the other HRW parties are eager to ignore Iran’s part in all that. In addition, as the HRW gave rise 6 months ago with ‘Yemen: Houthi Landmines Kill Civilians, Block Aid‘ (at https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/04/22/yemen-houthi-landmines-kill-civilians-block-aid) where we see: “Mines have also prevented aid groups from bringing food and health care to increasingly hungry and ill Yemeni civilians“, gives a larger truth. The article in Al Jazeera (and France 24) give no rise to that given, Houthi involvement was minimalized and that is a much larger crime (as I personally see it) giving rise to my premise that this person behind the report should not be UN employed, that person should be unemployed.

That took less than 20 minutes to figure out, I wonder why Al Jazeera made no clear mention of that failure, where is their head at and where is their media allegiance at?

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September 2, 2019 · 11:23

Funny Money, Amusing Thickheads

There are two issues and they do not link, but they are supportive of one another. I made notice of this situation 5 months ago in my article (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/04/27/then-the-hard/) called ‘Then the hard‘, in the article I give “Now we get to the part where the €2.5 trillion mark matters, as the ECB is trying to find new ways to convince others that the continued provision of stimulus to the economy matters“, as I see it the stimulus protects banks, makes them more powerful, it allows for political stupidity, yet the economy has not been saved (not in the two attempts), it has not been jump started, and it has not been a positive impact for its citizens, merely the industrial executives and the rich CEO’s (OK, that was a more biased view from yours truly, the writer).

As Bloomberg gave us on Saturday (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-31/more-ecb-officials-pile-into-stimulus-debate-as-economy-wilts) ‘More ECB Officials Pile Into Stimulus Debate as Economy Wilts‘, and when we see: “the ECB should keep all options on the table to reinvigorate inflation and growth, including a relaunch of quantitative easing“, it is at that point that the EU citizens are getting screwed (again), more debt (again) and no resolution because the ECB is about the gravy train and not about resolutions. Yes that same article gives opposing voices, yet I would not be surprised that (by a narrow margin) the stimulus people win. This is why Brexit was so important!

In the end the retirees get hammered for those debts, the ECB officials have too fat wallets to care. At this point the debts have surpassed €3,000,000,000,000 and it seems that the end is nowhere near, yet the stage of bankruptcy is there. Even at 0.1% (no debt interest is ever that low) implies that the interest is €3 billion a year. A payment that is way beyond the budgets of any of the EU nations, payment due every year whilst the bulk of them have overextended themselves with budgets that should have been shrunk by well over 5%, so pretty much all the EU nations are running an economic deficit whilst the Mario Draghi Posse is handing out more money, printed money, for a lack of a better term funny money.

What the ECB is not telling anyone that most stimulus options fall flat when the UK officially leaves the EU that is the despair there. Their options melt away when the UK is out and that is why everyone is suddenly in a panic, that is why we get these moronic acts and even UK Labour is all about remain now. And with that part we move to the second part of this.

Now we get to the Chief of Grief, the Duke of Fluke, the one and only real loser in history (as I personally see it) Jeremy Corbyn. When we see headlines like ‘No-deal Brexit: Jeremy Corbyn vows to ‘pull Britain back from the brink’‘, or ‘Final sovereignty on Brexit must rest with the people‘ we see the idiot he is. There was a referendum, there was a voice and Brexit won, the issues with the ECB shows us that we are a lot better outside then inside that mess. There is no brink of Brexit, there is an economic mess and we will enter a stage of recession, anyone telling you that it can be presented is lying to you, or they are wielding massive amounts of money, amounts that no one has. This has been shown by people more intelligent than me and by people with actual economic degrees; they all are on the ‘remain’ fence, merely because it butters their bread. It gets worse when we see that the Hysterical Remain groups that have become violent, abusive and out of control, more important, to a larger degree the media isn’t even covering it. How is that for balanced information?

I have heard one or two actual ‘remainers’ who made a really good case, yet in the end, they have no control over the ECB and the ECB is in Europe at present the great evil. What they claim is good for Europe is to a much larger extent merely good for big business. When we look at those companies leaving the UK, these are all companies hiding behind taxation options, or facilitating to really large players and to some degree that is fine, but the ECB forgot that the well over 150 million small business owners see nothing of any of that and more important, they will see the impact of the 3 trillion euro of debt that the ECB created, things are that much out of whack and I do not get why people accept the presented BS that people like Jeremy Corbyn have been presenting to the masses. I am aware and I also believe that Brexit had its own waves of BS presenters. I made up my own mind and for the most I was leaning towards Remain, Mark Carney (the Marky Mark of the British bank) and especially his speech to the House of Lords was the setting of that stage. Yet he too had one flaw (if you want to call it that), there was no controlling the ECB and they are out again making some lame excuse on the essential economic need for more stimulus, whilst we already know now that it will not save the economy and they are willing to wager another trillion euro and spend it up front.

These people are not held accountable in any way and I say: ‘Enough is enough!‘ The UK is better off by itself steering the economic waters as it had done for centuries. Oh, I almost forgot the second part on sovereignty, sovereignty does not rest with the people, it rests in Buckingham Palace with HRH Queen Elisabeth II. There was a referendum and the Brexit group with a little over 51% won. And to those people still in doubt, you only have yourself to blame with the mess you are creating. There were 46 million votes, representing a 72% group, so 28% did not even bother to vote! Those 13 million votes were invalid straight of the bat, with only 25,000 invalid or blank votes we see no real impact, it they were all remain voted it would not have mattered. When you consider all this and you see the hooligan masses being remain people, we see two parts, the first is that they are moronic (worthy of UK Labour), yet the larger issue is that a lot are in anger because they are not getting properly informed. Stories like: ‘UK government officials told the food industry that supplies of liquid egg could run out in a no-deal Brexit‘, yet the operative word is ‘could‘ we just do not know, and not knowing is adamant in a lot of this, yet the people have faced two years of fear mongering, all large consortiums that see a danger to their margins, not the margins of the shop, the margins to executives and their bonuses, and the people are eating the fear hook, line and sinker. There will be actual issues, but the foundation of all this is that this has never happened before and the EU and the ECB did this to themselves. We all forget how this started, this all started when Greece in 2009 had misrepresented itself and we saw issue after issue, debt after debt and the politicians that caused it merely walked away. Then we were told stories on how Greece might be evicted from the EU, the news was all over that yet the truth was that we were misled (or is that made Miss Led?) The Guardian (in 2015) gave us: “As Athens will be unable to satisfy its financial obligations after a default, many hardliners expect Greece to leave the Eurozone, and printing as much neo-drachma as necessary. Some see this as the only solution to the Greek crisis: it would allow Greece to devalue its new currency, supposedly making the country competitive and resulting in economic growth and the ability to repay its debt“, in addition we get: “while only article 50 of the EU treaty regulates how a state can leave the union. And a mechanism for leaving only the Eurozone or for expulsion even has not been provided for at all“, basically the stupidity of the EU was that they stated that every member will always be up front and do what must be done, which was deceptive in its own rights. So a group that is merely inclusive and under stringent rules can they leave, yet in addition other sources gave us that NO MEMBER can be expelled. This is called a Corporatocracy, not a democracy. Corporations decide on what happens and that is what we basically see at present. The problem here is that any Corporatocracy will limit its actions towards enablers and consumers; the rest is pretty much screwed. In a monarchy all citizens matter and the people do not seem to be able to grasp that, the UK (and the Netherlands, as well as Sweden, Belgium and so on are monarchies within a Corporatocracy and that is a very different setting, that stage can only be made profitable where debts are soaring and the banks not the government decide where you can be at, a situation we see all over Europe. this is not new, I did not invent it, other voices going back to 2014 say pretty much the same thing, I merely have a lot more data available at present. The media relies on advertisement money from any Corporatocracy, so you cannot expect them to actually inform you, it is a double edged blade and both sides are pointed at YOUR guts, it is that detrimental a situation.

So as Greece made a few issues clear in the wrong way, people like Nigel Farage went with the notion of ‘Better Out than in‘, I agree with him, yet I remained on the fence for the longest of times. It was the second ECB stimulus who would put us so much deeper in debt that got me across. The first stimulus was fine, it was an option and even as it did not work out, it gave Europe time, yet the second one the best we could hope for was time and that is where the problem started and now as stimulus 3 is on the table the setting is too unacceptable, the UK needs to get out and fast, deal or not.

Let’s not make a fairy tale, this will not be a nice time and things will get worse for a little while, anyone telling you different is lying to you. The issue is that with the ropes cut the EU cannot force debts on the UK to the degree it is doing now, more important the UK gets to make a few other choices and it will down the road (3-4 years) turn the economy in something stronger. It will result in an actual better quality of life over time, but it will not be immediate. This is why the ties and economic options with players like Huawei (5G), nations like Saudi Arabia (all kinds of goods) and a few other players become important (optionally India with generic medication). Anyone with the misguided notion that Human Rights are the optimal route better stay at home. If Human Rights were an actual power there would be no age discrimination, there would be actual better (and more) housing and there would be a better social security. All missing and mostly because in a Corporatocracy, corporations are largely tax exempt, exactly what we see today. In that stage we now see the rumblings, even as players like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and others are all making noises on leaving, they do so at the risk of losing 69 million consumers. Facebook is truly global, so is Google to the largest extent, yet for Apple we get Huawei, ASUS and HP, Amazon leaving would give the people a slimmer HMV and optionally small businesses come back (my preferred solution), and even as corporations are shouting, screaming, streaming and threatening, they all realise that you cannot walk away from 69 million consumers. Not when they need to share the smaller EU pool with 3-4 competitors at every corner. That is the part we all forgot, consumer power is actually power and we listened to the likes of Jeremy Corbyn for far too long. To be honest, I never thought that it would be possible to be more dim than Nick Clegg (LIBDEMS), yet I was wrong, Jeremy Corbyn pulled it off nicely. I am not stating that Boris Johnson is without flaws (his barber being the obvious one). I am stating that the UK has been in a dangerous position for far too long and as long as the ECB does the way it does it, the danger stays, getting away from that danger is an immediate need at present.

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September 1, 2019 · 13:55

Change is coming

Well, actually change is always coming, some in the form we know, some innovative new and sometimes change is of a very different variety. We already knew that the Americans weren’t too bright when it comes to trade wars, and the one that is getting fuelled here is definitely a wrong one. Yet it is not about that trade war and it is not in the billions of impact that the war will have on consumers. There is a second war brewing. One that Europe and America were not ready for, one they did not prepare for. It is a new armistice race, they were not prepared because it is not the high technology they usually deal with, it came from the lower regions. Yet let that not underestimate the stage. Two players in that stage are Fabrique Nationale Herstal, established in 1889. Less than a 60 years later They would produce the FN FAL, a rifle used in over 90 countries, in that same year the final push was made for the FN MAG, use in over 80 countries. These weapons are even today lethal and can go up against the most modern side arms. One factory created two behemoth successes, merely two of dozens of weapons that are regarded as a top quality arms. Yet, it is not about FN Herstal. It is neither about the long term number one Heckler and Koch was founded after WW2 and soon became a success story in several fields surpassing FN Herstal, yet these two are not facing a new competitor. Both FN and HK face a rather troublesome future. You see, they are stopped by all these political Human rights laws and whilst we get the need for Human Rights, the people in there seem to have a view so altruistic that it also kills commerce.

Number three is delighted, SAMI, or in its full name the Saudi Arabian Military Industries, is about to equal and surpass in less than half the time that the previous two required to get established. All the data on patents, technology and deals with Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and General Dynamics, as well as partnerships with Thales and CMI Defence opens new doors, doors the other two were barred from. SAMI is now in a position to surpass both and become bigger then the two earlier mentioned combined. In 2017 SAMI got Andreas Schwer (former boss of Rheinmetall AG) and the man has not been sitting still. At the same steps we see Neom growing, we see the mandate of SAMI to create 40,000 jobs by 2030 and it seems that SAMI is ahead of that curve too. With all the issues playing in Asia, Africa and Latin America SAMI has created the stage where they can outbid and surpass all expectations from the buying companies. It goes beyond the assembly of 150 Lockheed Martin Blackhawk helicopters. With the partnership with Navantia less than a year ago, we see the additional growth sectors in Latin America pop up, yes, it is all new, it is all change, but not the change you would hope for. We might see shunning of arms in America, but it remains a large export business, one that is now getting pushed to the side by the Saudi Arabian Military Industry, and it is not stopping. As the links with Navantia matures, we see the option to cater to the needs of coast guards on several national levels and these are not the small players. Some might have noticed the small mention of ‘Offshore Patrol Vessels Market 2024: New Business Opportunities for Manufactures to Upsurge in Coming Years‘, yet Navantia and therefor SAMI are in the thick of that part of the equation, growing faster than anyone took notice of. We might look towards the Dutch Damen, Australian Austal and Turkish Dearsan, yet they all have the same flaw ‘each player can deliver few numbers of OPV‘, Neom city changes that premise as it has a massive chunk of red sea at their disposal, basically SAMI has the option of building space well over 5 times the combined spaces that Damen, Spanish Navantia and Dearsan combined have. It changes the equation a fair bit. It sets a different market premise; it took slow growth of 130 years for FN Herstal to get where they are now. It takes SAMI 12-15 years to get that same stage, more important it seems that tall the contracts and memorandums out there gives SAMI a much larger option to grow and more important a lot more industry to bring home through export, another promise made by Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud delivered in advance of the date he wanted it to be. CEO’s and goal driven executives all set in a stage to exceed expectations. It might be fuelled by oil, but more important it is fuelled to success whilst the EU is making more and more issues on exporting all kinds of goods and the US – China trade wars are not helping. In addition the news quotes like “Europe must develop a much stronger common approach to the new 5G technology to make itself less vulnerable to security risks“, which sounds nice, but I already saw two elements they overlooked and my IP pushed a solution, a solution they are not ready for and seemingly Google is less and less ready for making Huawei the only remaining player and Saudi Arabia has a lovely deal in place. You see, that premise of 5G with ‘to make itself less vulnerable to security risks‘ requires 5G to be firmly in place and whilst we see delay after delay Saudi Arabia keeps pushing communication and other solutions forward implying that they are setting a much larger stage creating new technologies for other regions and in that the other players forgot one interesting side effect. Any stage of armistice and war requires communications to be upgraded and Saudi Arabia can deliver that too. It is there where we see a larger change and a larger group of options for Saudi Arabia. Walid Abukhaled, CEO of global defense and aerospace corporation Northrop Grumman has created a stage that is approaching a global one all from the comfort of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and whilst the rest is bickering over scraps of food form the European table we see an entire industry growing silently day by day to almost exponential proportions. An interesting part that can be verified on several levels and the news and the European media remain oblivious to that part.

The Arab News states that he ‘aims to export weapons‘, I believe that SAMI has progressed a lot further, as I see it they are almost ready to implement defense solutions on a global scale, and this includes defense systems to several nations that Europe refuses to talk to for whatever reason. This goes beyond what we see in the Arab News (at https://www.arabnews.com/node/1547956), it goes beyond ‘electronic warfare and cybersecurity‘; it goes beyond the mere operational stage, beyond the educational and implementation stage. Together with General Authority for Military Industries (GAMI) they have created a new wave on a much larger scale than we have seen before.

Good business is where you find it and it seems that Walid Abukhaled is currently finding it everywhere.

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Tagged as 5G, Andreas Schwer, Arab News, Austal, Boeing, CMI Defence, Cybersecurity, Damen, Dearsan, electronic warfare, Fabrique National Herstal, FN, GAMI, General Dynamics, google, Heckler & Koch, HK, Huawei, Lockheed Martin, Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud, Navantia, Northrop-Grumman, Raytheon, Rheinmetall AG, SAMI, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabian Military Industries, Thales, Walid Abukhaled

August 31, 2019 · 11:06

When in doubt

It started 5 days ago when I wrote ‘Bitches on parade‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2019/08/26/bitches-on-parade/). The premise from my point of view is that you cannot heckle a country based on a lack of evidence (read: CEO Jamie Dimon), so whilst he pulled out of the Saudi Conference, he was eager and willing to take a chunk of a $2,000,000,000,000 pie at the drop of a hat (any hat). The man has no principles when it comes to money, which is fine. Yet now the entire event is exploding in several directions as the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/29/political-uncertainty-puts-london-listing-in-doubt-for-saudi-aramco) informs us that “state oil company may rule out the London Stock Exchange amid Britain’s rising political uncertainty“, in one word brilliant! Two years of whining and lack of decision is not about to hit the British MP field in a massive way. It gets to be even better when we consider the impact for the EU as a larger field, the current favourite according to insiders will be the Japan’s Tokyo stock exchange. If that happens, I get to smile whilst a whole range of bonuses will not arrive with Wall Street, the ECB or London (I am least happy about London missing out). There is a price, there is a cost to doing business and it seems that this week Saudi Arabia is making the tally to that event.

And now we see that the field changes. With quote: “Saudi energy minister, Khalid al-Falih, reignited plans for the float earlier this summer after announcing that officials were working to list the company within the next two years. Aramco announced earlier this month, in its first investor call, that it is ready for the listing whenever its shareholders agreed market conditions were “optimal”” It is here that we need to see the profit, the sudden option for Tokyo, who was not in the race at all also implies the added risk that Tokyo says ‘yes’ (read: Hai!) too eager giving the Saudi Aramco executives a much larger bonus than they expected, making the wave on the market gives rise that there will be two waves and these executives get to enjoy the windfall of both waves. I reckon that Lürssen Yachts (optionally Damen Yachts and CRN) will get to look forward to at least 5 additional commissions for yachts over 90 meters before the end of the year.

There is a much larger issue; it is not merely who gets what, and where we buy in. Bloomberg gave us on Thursday: “It’s been a good week for those seeking to pare bets on a market that brokers including Morgan Stanley say has become too expensive, given weakening fundamentals. MSCI on Tuesday wrapped up the second phase of including Saudi shares in its developing nations index, prompting billions of dollars in inflows from passive funds. Some active managers took advantage of the increased liquidity to reduce their holdings“, there is no way for me to comment on the issue as stocks are not my trade EVER! Yet consider the quote ‘brokers including Morgan Stanley say has become too expensive‘, yet they too are rallying to get their fingers on Aramco. Business is hard and I am fine with the directness that the market needs to be. Yet Aramco is different, everyone wants in and as such Saudi Arabia gets to elect the offerings and as such some players are about to enter the new field, they are optionally becoming the next Ricky Fuld, who was the only person not offered a deal in 2008 whilst the others got one. I am not sure on how to see that, The Wall Street Journal gives us ‘Branded a Villain, Lehman’s Dick Fuld Chases Redemption‘, these people walked away with massive amounts whilst almost one in two households got foreclosed in the end, that is a massive amount of anger to deal with and I personally believe that the Saudi’s will do business with everyone, just a certain group of people will have to be willing to cut their margins by a fair bit. Certain actions have impact and will have a considerable impact of the option to do business, Saudi Arabia could afford to wait, of those people had only decided to wait factual evidence, that would have been nice, not?

I believe that their hypocrisy on Jamal Khashoggi now has a price (to some degree); in addition the economic turmoil gives Saudi Arabia the option to select the host, who will gain a lot. I never considered Japan before today on this, but the choice makes sense.

We could go with the option: ‘When in doubt select the ally that seems more sincere‘ or we can go with ‘Be careful who you wake up with presented and insincere morals‘ I reckon that Wall Street and Especially the ECB need to learn from the second option. No matter how things unfold, pretty much everyone will be keeping 100% attention on the Tokyo exchange, something that has not happened in a long time and Aramco made it happen. And all whilst this is going on, the UK is still in all kinds of childish banter, especially by opposition parties. So when we get the Jeremy Corbyn quote “avoiding a No Deal Brexit” my (absolutely less than diplomatic) response would be “If you weren’t such a stupid dick, you could have done something 2 years ago, but you all played the ‘it will blow over’ tactic ignoring the democracy when they majority decided to Brexit!“, and now the mess is becoming even larger as London lost the option for hosting the Aramco deal. We even see Dutch issues with: “Dutch Foreign Minister Stephen Blok said on Thursday that “serious talks” on Brexit had taken place in Brussels this week, but warned the two sides “are not there yet” on a deal“, there was never going to be a deal, all delays were set to try and overthrow Brexit, now you see that there will be a much larger impact and there will be trade deals in the end no company will walk away from the option to tap into a 69 million consumer base.

That was a clear setting from the very beginning, anyone ignoring that part is delusional. Let’s not forget that the need to exceed shareholder expectations also automatically imply that the EU customer base representing half a billion people also means that 13.5% of them will not ever be shunned, someone else will walk in and take over.

For some, the entire Aramco was icing on the cake and now that this falls away and falls away from Europe also means that the EU will have several grim numbers to report in January 2020, plenty of people are already scared whit less and ready to retire as soon as the October 2019 numbers are released.

When in doubt, never trust Status Quo to actually remain. It is the deadliest of traps and it just sprung.

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Tagged as Aramco, bloomberg, CRN, Damen Yachts, ECB, Eu, Jamie Dimon, Jeremy Corbyn, Khalid Al-Falih, Lürssen Yachts, Lehman, London Stock Exchange, Morgan Stanley, MSCI, Richard Fuld, Saudi Arabia, Tokyo Stock Exchange, UK, Wall Street, Wall Street Journal

August 28, 2019 · 11:41

Corrosion or corruption in media?

We see more and more evidence that the media is by their own hand corroded, the word which comes the Latin word ‘corrodere‘, means ‘gnaw through‘. I have given the limelight to several events where Houthi forces attack with drones into Saudi Arabian civilian targets. We can argue on the validity of the attack, yet the part that is not in dispute is that the Western media is not giving any light to the attacks at all. Despite the clear evidence that someone is supplying Houthi forces with military drones. One of the missiles was headed to Khamis Mushayt, whilst the destination of the third was not the same, but Saudi forces have been speculating that the target was al-Jawf, a city in northern Saudi Arabia and as far as I could tell at best a civilian target with no military or strategic economic targets. The issue here is not the target, it is that the Houthi forces are trying to show that it could hit a target 1400 Km away, which is already a challenge for high end drones with a well-trained pilot. It shows that the ante is up and it limits the optional source to only one, Iran. The western media was extremely able to not report on any of that.

Colonel Turki Al-Maliki was able to tell that one of them was fired from Sanaa. I reported earlier this week on “On Sunday, coalition forces also destroyed a drone and intercepted six ballistic missiles targeting Jazan in Saudi Arabia’s southern border with Yemen“, the Arab News gave another mention of that, yet the western press is clearly of the mind that this does not need to be reported. The problem in all this is that Houthi forces do not have any infrastructure to create this; neither do they have the technical expertise to make them. This is all via Iran who either delivers directly or uses Hezbollah to deliver. There is also additional shallow evidence that Houthi forces do not have the ability and expertise to fly these drones with such precision. To illustrate this consider your child (if you have one) a nine year old and let that kid fly a predator drone over Europe, no automatic pilot and let it fly into the Eifel tower. There is one guarantee, that drone will crash, it will fly into something, just not the Eifel tower that is the stage we are in. Even as we are given from other sources “A Houthi supporter wears a headband praising the Houthi movement for making drone aircraft as he attends a pro-Houthi rally in Sanaa“, showing us merely a push for fabricated marketing. There is no way that Houthi forces can make them. Even now, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq have drones, but they mostly come from places like China. When we look at drone builders we see: Israel, Turkey, United States, United Kingdom and Iran. These are the makers of drones, Yemen and Houthi forces are not creating them and the media is not looking into it. The fact that the media ignores this is also an indication that the media is no longer corroded, it should be considered to have become a corrupt vessel for whatever facilitators need. Most likely to appease their own governments that need some Iranian deal, or needs to adhere to American policy so that they can push an Iranian deal. Even the Hill (not the most neutral player) is giving us: ‘EU still hasn’t stopped trying to appease Iran‘, all playing their game and they are willing to keep quiet on drones attacking Saudi Arabia to the largest degree. Is it not weird that the last two attacks within a week were not covered at all?

This is not about G7 coverage; this is about the option of meeting after the G7 with Iran, the most likely perpetrator in delivering drones to Yemen (Houthi forces).

the Washington Post gave us: ‘Saudi Arabia, UAE vow to back Yemen war effort amid cracks‘ three days ago, yet nothing on drones, the BBC gave us ‘Wingsuit scientist dies in Saudi Arabia base jump‘ a week ago and nothing on drones, the Guardian gave us ‘Walking through a war zone: Ethiopians heading for Saudi – in pictures‘ 13 hours ago and nothing on drones, the list goes on and on and it is time for us to recognise that the western news has degraded to nothing more than a media outlet facilitating to others, not informing the people of what is actually happening. Why is that?

Forbes gave us different news (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellenrwald/2019/08/26/saudi-arabias-100-billion-tourism-pipe-dream/#4dd68b561367), but they are Forbes, their focus is different. There we see: “Now the government is touting its plans for a new tourism industry with an announcement alongside the CEO of Six Flags and an exclusive for CNBC. The kingdom released a grand vision, but with no substance and a disappointing look at unrealistic goals“, I believe that the choice made was a partial mistake.

There is nothing wrong with 6 flags, yet when you consider the excellence and amazing rides that the Dutch Efteling offers, there is also Universal Studios Hollywood, both offer a range of rides that will take the breath of people away. The issue with 6 flags is that they are all about rides, yet a theme park needs to be about a lot more to keep interest high, the Efteling figured that out decades ago and they achieved just that, whilst also creating the Python (a really intense ride) in 1981, the interest in that ride never faded and was upgraded and renewed in 2005 (trains) and tracks in 2017. Yet I believe that his is only the start. The Efteling had from the very beginning stories from 1001 Arabian Nights in their fairy tale land, I personally believe that if Saudi Arabia wants to become international they cannot merely have another version of existing rides; they would need to get a creative team and create their own.

There is the story of the Jinn (Afreet), we all remember Aladdin. Yet how many remember or even know about ‘the Sage and his three sons‘? What if that story is presented not unlike the Efteling ride ‘Haunted Castle‘? Part of the story we walk through and the second part is a show, there are many options for Saudi Arabia to consider the way they grow their theme parks (plural), I merely hope it will be a lot more than merely another 6 flags. Yet it must be said that Forbes also raises valid points, with: “much of Saudi Arabia is prohibitively hot in the summer months, with average high temperatures of about 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Florida is part of the U.S. and thus an easy destination for over 300 million Americans. Florida allows alcohol. Florida has gambling through American Indian casinos. Florida allows men and women to dress and interact freely. Florida allows churches, synagogues and general freedom of religion“, as well as “in 2017, total tourism spending in Florida was only $88.6 billion“, what it does not mention (optionally a mere oversight, with no accusation towards Forbes) is the small fact that in 2015 an estimated 1.8 billion or about 24.1% of the world population is Muslim. That does not mean that they all want to go to Saudi Arabia, yet in combination with the Hajj, there is a larger interest in Saudi Arabia and that too needs to be accepted. If only 1% visits Saudi Arabia we see that this represents 18 million tourists, in light of all the anti-Muslim minded nations, these people might really like the consideration of a large theme park that is mostly visited by Muslims, all kinds of food worries would fall away, all kinds of direct Muslim needs would be attended to, and that is merely the tip of the iceberg.

Yet all this was limited to Forbes, many others have taken documents towards Neom City (like the Wall Street Journal) where from one source we get: “While construction has started on Neom, there are concerns that not all of its technology (which Neom chief executive Nadhmi al Nasr told WSJ “is cutting edge and beyond — and in some cases still in development and maybe theoretical”) can ever make it out of science fiction” is a view that comes across as trivialisation. Interesting that the Wall Street Journal as one source was willing to go into that direction whilst well over $500 billion has been made available for the creation of Neom city, as I personally see it, there is a clear larger need to know and illustrate on Wall Street. The end will be more and there had always been a clear path towards high tech future. so whilst the Wall Street Journal gives us: ‘Flying Cars, Robot Dinosaurs and a Giant Artificial Moon‘, we see an utter lack of the planned intertwining of 5G, from the very beginning it will be 5G and faster, so why is the Wall Street Journal trivialising a planned path that will surpass most construction feats over the last century alone?

Is this corrosion or corruption? I cannot tell and it is likely to be a combination. The fact that Neom is to be well over 20 times the size of New York and will include a bridge connecting Saudi Arabia to Africa is another matter not covered to the degree it should.

There is a lot wrong and it merely shows us that the media can no longer be trusted; whatever they claim comes with a side story a business connection and more often political policy in the making. And this matter stretches far beyond the topic of Saudi Arabia. If we look at the word news and accept in part ‘newly received or noteworthy information, especially about recent events‘, yet when we start looking for ‘age discrimination in Australia‘ we get very little, there is an abundance of evidence especially as close to 20% of Australian workers is over 55, we see very little of them in Apple, Google and a whole host of other players. In a test the same application from the same person got immediately hired in Greece and Portugal, yet bounced for the same position well over 75 times in Australia. Yet the media is shunning it to a much larger degree, I speculate that these publications rely on Apple and google advertisement to some degree and it is not merely them, the problem is a lot larger, but the media can no longer be trusted to give light to this. So if the media is super corrosive on national issues, what chance does a place like Saudi Arabia have to get a fair shake from the media?

It is funny, but Women’s Agenda had the same idea I had 22 hours ago, there we see ‘This government wants to blame ‘choices’ over discrimination‘ and “In “Towards 2025”, the word discrimination appears just four times, one time in reference to age discrimination and three times in the footnotes in reference to other documents where discrimination appears in the title“, from my point of view it implies that a non-youthful lady doesn’t have a chance in hell to get a job, how is that NOT discrimination? When we demand that all the large corporations give a top line report for all non-board members and non-senior management staff to present a staff review of age and gender hires with age brackets ‘up to 25′, ’26-49′ and ’50+’. When this is part of their tax audit we might end up getting an actual clear view. The results will be more likely than not scary be slightly too read and governments (not just the current local Australian one) will have a lot more to explain that they are willing to do at present; their anti-discrimination acts all failing and visibly no action taken for a much longer time. In all this the failing is a much larger one and the media is, as I personally see it, a direct player in not showing the people what is going on.

Corrosion is already a dangerous path, but when there is a much larger implied level of corruption in place (they won’t call it that), we see that the news has become a much larger problem that before, they will trivialise it towards time, space to publish and they will steer clear from directives that include shareholders, stake holders and advertisers. Yet that is the larger truth as I personally see it. more and more of the media can no longer be trusted to give us what is actually going on, we merely get what they consider is the news that 70% of us wants to learn about, there was a lack of resources. We accept that in the printed word, yet in the digital age where space is never a shortage of, we see publications willing to filter diligently what they are willing to show us. And there is still the worry of all the matters that we are not being informed on, it should worry you too.

Yet there is a larger play for Australia as well. That is seen when we consider the news that “On Wednesday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced we would join the US-led mission to protect shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow sea strip that serves as one of the region’s most important choke points”, now consider that Houthi forces have attacked Saudi tankers in the Persian Gulf (May 2019), Iran Backed Houthi forces made the attack, so already the Australians are left in the dark on these attacks and we are sending a frigate, surveillance aircraft and troops. All optionally relatives of ours and the news decided not to inform us on the drone attacks. Do you still think that I am exaggerating on the danger that the media now represents by keeping us all in the dark?

This game is a lot larger than we realise, and it is larger than we know it is because the media has seemingly decided that informing on plenty of issues us was not essential.

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Tagged as age discrimination, al-Jawf, Australia, Efteling, Eifel tower, Florida, Forbes, Hajj, Houthi, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jazan, Jordan, Khamis Mushayt, Muslim, Netherlands, Sanaa, Saudi Arabia, Scott Morrison, The Hill, Turkey, Turki al-Maliki, UAE, United Kingdom, United States, Yemen

August 26, 2019 · 10:42

Bitches on parade

Yes, the time is now nearing. Bloomberg gives us (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-25/bankers-head-to-saudi-arabia-to-compete-for-world-s-biggest-ipo), and as it starts with “Global banks will this week start making their case on why they should be hired for what’s set to be the world’s biggest initial public offering“, we see an interesting shift. It is the initial public offering (IPO) towards Aramco and all the bankers are dressing up like they are the bitches on the Easter parade. The question is how will these American bankers be seen? Those who were eager to exploit their options; events emphasized via media friends these so called events of Jamal Khashoggi. Should they be allowed to make a bid? As Bloomberg informs us on “The oil producer was originally working with Evercore Inc. and Moelis, as well as HSBC Holdings Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley“.

Now let’s walk a little time line, Morgan Stanley chairman and chief executive James Gorman gave the people on January 24^th 2019 (several sources) ““The murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul was utterly unacceptable,” Gorman said as he responded to questions on a panel“, yet actual and factual evidence was never presented, was it? Merely speculation on events and evidence that remains debatable. OK, I feel certain that Khashoggi is unlikely to be alive, but there is nothing pointing at ACTUAL evidence and the essay by Agnes Calamari never changed my position. Perhaps merely wrongly chosen words by James Gorman, which now implies he should not be part of this $100 billion+ windfall (I’ll take his place). Then we get to J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, he pulled out of the conference on October 2018, so he should be disregarded as well (I’ll fill in for him too). Now, HSBC Holdings Plc held their ground, in light of innuendo, the active use of implied events that remained unproved, HSBC Holdings Plc kept a straight wave; this was business, not emotion, so I say welcome HSBC (if I had a say in the matter).

And the story on Evercore Inc. and Moelis is simple, they blew their chanced way before July 2019, as such it seems that they are out of the picture too. I am of course willing (for a modest fee) to take any of those three seats, business is business. I have no idea what I would be doing, yet uniting with HSBC whilst we share 50% and I get a really nice retirement bonus to unload my part to them is not out of the question. This is a market worth well over 100 billion, I’ll be really willing to take a 7.5% part and hand the rest over to HSBC, I reckon that I am the first person in their history to hand them close to $40 billion for them being supportive to my needs, the average hooker gets $50 at best, so there! Oh, and I do realise that there are Chinese banks eager to take place, so it might end up being a three way split.

And a man like me has dreams, with that amount a nice house in belle air and a super yacht becomes an actual reality (yes, I am typing this whilst I am not awake at present). The stage for me is simple and clear.

For the other players the case is less nice. I believe that those being sanctimonious and hypocrite need to be held to account. There is a consequence to play certain games and resetting the ledger so that they can courtesan themselves into a market worth will over 100 billion is not that acceptable to me and it should not be acceptable to you either.

The entrepreneur gave us yesterday ‘Why Saudi Arabia Is Being Increasingly Seen As The Place To Be To Start A Business In The Middle East‘ (at https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/338516), they are right, but they need to see the thorns that the roses bring. the article starts so nice with: “Alper Celen’s decision to trade his cushy job at the prestigious global management consulting firm’s Scandinavian offices for a move to Saudi Arabia to grow a start-up there didn’t make much sense to his colleagues“, yet these players need to realise that this is an Islamic nation, under Islamic law and etiquette. It is a lot more rigid than France is and I have seen a 6 figure Euro deal fall away because the salesperson accidentally used ‘pour toi‘ (informal) instead of ‘pour vous‘ (formal), the buyer walked away and went straight to the competitor. When it’s merely €100K most ‘big players’ will shrug, yet now the game comes in suitcases set to the billion dollar plus that game becomes a whole new dimension. The problem is that those you talk to are indifferent to the billions, it is their bread and butter for you it optionally is not. Those players in dime sized poker games are all willing to bluff like the cardinal for the large games, but a bluff is still a bluff, when you are found out, or seen as unworthy, you will lose a lot, you will lose it all and you might not have the means to get back from where you came.

Yes, you can win big, but the whole game is larger and there is every indication that the Saudi families have kept score on those rallying behind a journalist no one cared about, with a larger lack of evidence of any kind. Soon we see their move and their idea of the Easter Parade flaunting their dresses on Takhassusi St hoping that they are still regarded to be in the game and perhaps they are. I merely wonder if they should be allowed to be in there (HSBC excluded from this consideration).

Now that Vision 2030 is off to the races they all want in (as would I), yet in all this, after all they did and all that they connected to, should they be allowed to? We have to pick certain fights and that is fine, we have certain values which make us jump in certain directions and that is fine too, but to make a 180 degree turn when it is about the money, should we accept such a party in that event when there are hundreds who want to take a slice of that cake? I do not think so.

The events regarding the Saudi conference were larger, there was a distinct impact and as such those play that game should not be allowed to play when the large trophies become available. I lost my option to an apartment in Rotterdam because I did not have the right ‘friends’, OK, fine, but you cannot rely on me giving you a pass when you come knocking. It is then a tits for dad situation at that point and now that there are really serious gains, those people should always be disregarded.

I suddenly remember a quote from Age of Ultron; there we hear: “Keep your friends rich, your enemies rich and wait to see which is which“, well Saudi Arabia found that out, after they discovered that, they have no real need to keep the charade up, so as I personally see it, goodbye Evercore Inc. and Moelis, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley, it was nice knowing you. The nice part is that when they are evicted from the offer, they will have to reconsider the game they played, the media they embraced and the values that they gave to fattening the cow whilst ownership remained in the air. I actually love it when people get to learn a lesson by losing billions, it feels like that for one moment, one tiny moment the playing field was level for all of us.

The Aramco train is now officially on the road and we will hear a lot more in the coming month, I for the most will be most interested to see how much the Chinese banks end up with. And yes, I have woken up and I know that any chance for any of those billions were delusional at this point. Yet there is always tomorrow.

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In light of all this, Al Jazeera reported less than two hour ago ‘Houthis ‘fire 10 ballistic missiles’ at Saudi airport‘, at this moment, I see Arab News, Saudi Gazette and two more all having a version of that, yet nothing on the BBC, not the Guardian, not the Washington Post, not the LA Times and not Reuters. I got the news before all them and I have nowhere near their tools. So, are you still convinced that some people should be allowed at certain tables to fill their pockets whilst they shun the people whose money they want? And as we realise the quote “The rebels fired 10 Badr-1 ballistic missiles at Jizan airport, killing and wounding dozens, the group’s military spokesperson said in a statement on Sunday“, a quote made by Colonel Turki al-Malki, we need to see that US corporations are playing a convoluted game. Consider the impact that some have, do you think that when the newsgroups get wind that something really matters to the heads of these banks that they go to bed and sleep, not with 100 billion for grabs. The world media is all about fairness and then jinxes the game by taking balance away. From my point of view it is increasingly important that those players are denied a seat at the table (any table for that matter). Saudi Arabia needs to take a hard look at who they consider their friends. In light of all the unreported news of events by Houthi forces I feel more and more inclined to think that the US is turning into a player that no one should ever consider an ally, their only allegiance is to currency, I hope that the people who need actual allies realise that part before it is too late.

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Tagged as Al Jazeera, Alper Celen, Aramco, BBC, bloomberg, Colonel Turki al-Malki, Entrepreneur.com, Evercore Inc. and Moelis, Houthi, HSBC Holdings Plc, Islamic Law, James Gorman, Jamie Dimon, Jizan airport, JPMorgan Chase & Co., LA Times, Morgan Stanley, reuters, Saudi Arabia, the Guardian, Washington Post

August 25, 2019 · 13:36

Famine issue solved

Yes, isn’t that a good way to start Sunday? The world solved the famine issue. It took no trouble at all, the media merely needed to stop writing about it. There is so much other stuff to write about. All the things that Saudi Arabia are accused of, some sources state that an Iranian oil tanker is now ‘under terrorist command‘ (no real evidence has been presented though), and the UK is sending another ship (the third) to reinforce the anti-Iran armada. All news, there is no more famine, famine has been resolved.

How come?

Well that is the question; it is only the Independent (according to some now partially owned by Saudi players) that gives us (at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/yemen-war-civil-independence-south-mahra-aden-saudi-arabia-iran-a9076546.html) the headline ‘The war to start all wars: Inside Yemen’s troubled south‘, an article by Bel Trew, a true Belle gives us the harsh reality of what we are trying not to see. Yet there is disagreement of what I read. As I am introduced to “They talk of a war within a war within another war in a nation already in the grips of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, where 13 million people are currently on the brink of famine“, I see the same words again and again for many months. I believe that the situation is worse, the quote ‘where 13 million people are currently on the brink of famine‘ should actually be ‘hundreds of thousands of Yemeni, mostly children are in and beyond a stage of famine‘, my point of view is supported by data intelligence, signal intelligence and trade craft intelligence. The amount of food getting into Yemen is nowhere near the amount that should be going into Yemen and there are still Houthi clusters taking possession of food and water supplies (or destroying them). It is a lot worse and the media is looking elsewhere for optional debatable facts to publish.

In an age of these transgressions, in a stage where I see that there are no true innocent players, not on the Saudi side, not on their opposing sides, the effort that the UN needed to make is a joke (and a bad one at that). I am not placing blame on Saudi Arabia, I am merely noticing that they cannot be innocent, it is not the same. The initial option for Saudi Arabia would be to set up a refugee camp near Thabhloten. There is a tactical reason. It is 225 Km away from Yemen, there is not strategic goal there and any attack by Houthi forces would be seen as a direct reason for UN forces to open fire on attacking forces. I myself would be willing to brand an Accuracy International .338 and cull the attacking herd myself at that point. It should be a refugee camp, for children and women only; a camp to give medicine and sustenance trying to oppose the famine numbers and get the immediate help going.

It seems like a little, but let us accept no mistake here; that camp would be temporary and would settle close to 700,000 people in the shortest time, a camp offering real help and real relief to a larger part of those in the famine group. Something needs to be done, yet the media is to some extent hiding behind ‘on the brink of famine‘, as I personally see it that point was passed will over three months ago, it is worse and the media looks away for whatever reason. We cannot settle the Yemeni and Syrian issue, but the worst of the two, the Yemeni one can get relief to some extent. I have some degree of certainty that Saudi Arabia would want to be seen as the actual caretaker here, the question becomes do the Yemeni feel the same. I look at this from a Christian point of view, whilst I accept that there is an Islamic view, and it takes precedence here. In that respect the UNHCR gives us:

And if anyone of the disbelievers seeks your protection, then grant him protection so that he may hear the word of Allah, and then escort him to where he will be secure. (Surah 9:6)

I believe that if this applies to disbelievers, that it equally applies to believers and the goodwill that Saudi Arabia offers in this way is not to be underestimated. When the famine lessens these people would most likely want to get back to Yemen and rebuild their lives, there too Saudi Arabia could steer these people to a better tomorrow, these people have to determine for one’s self what the better stage is, yet I believe that any stage is better than the one they face now, especially as the media is no longer interested in keeping a non-stop view of just how bad the situation is there.

That same paper (at https://www.unhcr.org/en-au/protection/hcdialogue%20/50ab90399/islam-refugees.html) refers to the hijrah, which was a new word for me. It means migration and this is where I am given: “Muhammad’s popularity was seen as threatening by the people in power in Mecca, and Muhammad took his followers on a journey from Mecca to Medina in 622. This journey is called the Hijrah and the event was seen as so important for Islam that 622 is the year in which the Islamic calendar begins“, if this is true than Yemen might start a new Hijrah, a journey for the children and women to travel (transport) from Yemen to Thabhloten, a stop, or perhaps better stated an oasis on the journey to where they end up going. We need to find an actual solution to save as many Yemeni as we can and we need to start with the women and children. We would love it to be in Yemen, yet the Houthi forces as well as the escalations make that no longer an option. The delays and obstructions are too large, the benefit is that other parties can then participate and open fire on anyone firing at these refugees. Houthi forces (the most likely transgressors) would find themselves in a stage of open war against troops that are ready and willing to protect the refugees. Thabhloten cannot be the end destination for that journey, but could allow for actual action against the famine that is now getting more and more ignored. In all this the civil war that is now sprouting in Yemen makes any other option impossible. With UN reports on Cholera outbreaks we need to do more and we need to set the stage where players like doctors without borders have a better stage to do something without getting into direct danger, or ending up in the firing line.

And matters are getting worse. The quote: “But for Elisabeth Kendall, a Yemen expert at Pembroke College Oxford University who travels frequently to the south, the training of separatist groups had “unleashed a force” the UAE may not be able to control” gives us more. You see it is not about the separatists, it is about who is training the separatists. Even as the UAE was preparing the separatists fighting the Houthi forces, we see a stage where old grievances are now a much larger issue, the old issue of north and south Yemen is returning, not a good thing. If these forces are truly in a path to a better Yemen (or better north and south Yemen) than getting the famine out of the equation would be an accepted first for both sides.

Is that actually true?

Well, it is something that I cannot prove, yet the UNHCR gives me: “In Islamic law, all individuals, including non-Muslims, have the right to flee persecution and seek protection in an Islamic community. The provision of refugee assistance is obligatory to people who flee from “injustice, intolerance, physical persecution, disease, or financial insecurity”“, if that is true than all parties would be willing to participate in the dissolution of famine, to set a stage where these people could be treated and protected.

I am merely trying to find an actual solution that would do something for the people in famine, which makes me already a much better person than any media who has been turning away from these events. I am not trying to set blame to any party, merely trying to find a solution where disease and famine might be defeated, it is not a Samaritan choice, it is not a Christian choice, it is a human choice and we are all human, no matter which faith drives us. I learned this lesson in my lifetime, and that makes me (for now) a better person than many others, no matter how much or how little life is left in me.

I always tried to steer a decent course, I stayed true to my nature, I remained creative, humane and a force for the good of others. So whether it is our heavenly father or Allah facing me where I end up being next, I will stand proudly accepting whatever judgment comes for me, I was a decent person. I wonder how many others can truly and honestly make that claim.

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Tagged as Accuracy International, Bel Trew, cholera, Doctors without Borders, Elisabeth Kendall, Houthi, Islam, Islamic Law, Muhammad, Samaritan, Saudi Arabia, Surah, Thabhloten, The Independent, UAE, UK, UNHCR, Yemen

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