Tag Archives: Saudi Arabia

August 24, 2018 · 12:52

When drought sets in

That is the moment that is feared, it happens all over the world. The drought in Australia had been close to legendary, and then there is New Mexico, Texas, small parts in Oklahoma, as well as Missouri. Europe is also facing issues of drought with crop failures and loads of farmers now facing bankruptcy. Countries like Spain, Greece, even parts of Southern Sweden now having more than just a dry spell. After a summer of record wildfires that burned roughly 250,000 hectares of forest, we see that the Swedes are slamming down on the change of lifestyle that has squarely hit them in this green jewel called Sweden, they record the worst drought in 74 years.

Drought is a way of life in some cases and depending on the situation you bank, drought becomes a game changer. So when we are introduced to ‘Hezbollah turns to charity amid economic woes‘, we see that it is not merely a dry spell. We are faced with the quote “Iranian excess wealth, which has funded the group with hundreds of millions of dollars a year, appears now to be drying up“, it is in line with “Hezbollah officials have been scrambling to put a lid on the aforementioned “crisis” as its coffers have been depleted in the wake of its large outlays on fighting in Syria and from the increasing squeeze of U.S sanctions on its patron Iran“. Yes there we have it, when we see ‘its patron Iran‘, we see the setting of Hezbollah, the ‘bitch’ of Iran, a tool to be used and discarded when the situation requires and it seems that Hezbollah is a tool that can no longer be afforded and now we see “resorted to the more traditional means of fundraising through its Islamic Resistance Support Organization and Imdad Committee for Islamic Charity“. It seems that those opposing Hezbollah and Iran are making gains in this path, as Hezbollah is now in an economic crises, they might consider that for every missile fired on Saudi Arabia, a thousand people need to abandon a week of food for a thousand persons. Consider that 165 missiles have been fired, where does that leave Hezbollah? OK, that was a wrongful setting, because the missiles are seemingly coming from Iran. We see more and more evidence that this is the case, yet how exactly has remained in the shadows of speculation for now. The biggest issue is not the fact that they rely on charity, it is “Nasrallah seems to understand the severity of the problem, telling members of the group’s Education Unit, which provides scholarships and operates schools, that the crisis would “endure as long as U.S President Donald Trump is in office,” sources told Annahar“. I would think that their involvement in Yemen, being one of the main causes of the absence of humanitarian aid would be a much bigger issue. In this, the National gives us “Saudi Arabia’s ambassador in Washington has set out evidence of Hezbollah’s deep involvement in the war in Yemen, including footage of commanders directing training for Houthi rebels“. In this, I personally do not think that the fact that they are a mere Iranian tool matters, their involvement is a key part in the extensive hardship on the Yemeni citizens. That part is shown in several sources giving us: “Because terrorists use human shields to protect themselves or cause civilian casualties “without facing consequences,” it is imperative that “terrorists and their sponsoring regimes must be held accountable for their brutal practice of using civilians as human shields,” argued two experts in an op-ed published Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal“. In this Hamas and Hezbollah seem to take the same approach. When we are introduced to the Hamas side with: “they exploited “the bodies of our women and children,” in the words of Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, to protect its fighters as they attempted to infiltrate Israel. Though Salah Bawdawil, another official of the terrorist group. later admitted that most of those killed by Israel were indeed members of Hamas, Dubowitz and Kittrie observed, “the television images had already done the intended damage to Israel’s reputation.”“, so tell me, what happens when the drought of human shields sets in and the lack of children cadavers becomes overly visible? What remains at that point?

This is the setting and whilst Hezbollah is seeing its drought into new requirements for other tactics, we must ask ourselves, why was the entire Iranian-Hezbollah link allowed to continue in the first place. You see, when we are ‘treated’ to “the television images had already done the intended damage to Israel’s reputation“, we are not told that the media will not correct for the exclamatory statements that they make, they will not correct for the howling negligence or incompetence towards the true setting, because the emotional feed is too useful, as they merely focus on the needs of the shareholders, the stake holders and the advertisers.

That jump makes sense in a moment. As we were given (from various sources) “Over 1.4 million people have fled their homes in Yemen and are now struggling to find food and water. There are additional food shortages because farmers are unable to pump water to their fields“. In all this, with all the shortages we see that the Yemeni’s have to make very different decisions. When we see this pristine child, clean clothed, looking not hungry or thirsty, whilst in opposition we see levels of severe malnutrition, we need to reconsider what drought actually means.

You see the dictionary gives us “a prolonged period of abnormally low rainfall, leading to a shortage of water“, yet it also gives us, the version we forget about. With: “a prolonged absence of something specified“. That is the version we need to focus on. As I stated it a few days ago, we might see the setting of those clean kids, new clothes, shiny rifles and a cameraman, but in that setting, in a prolonged absence, we see that they are the most vulnerable, the easiest form of extremism, kill and you do not go hungry (for a while at least).

It is a setting that Hezbollah has used over time again and again. I will say that there is no evidence that this is a specific Hezbollah setting. They might be on the sidelines using whatever tools handed to them and these kids, optionally for the first time in years with new clothes, a proper feed, we see the setting that radicalisation is getting too easy for the players and that is also why Humanitarian help is essential. When we dig deeper, we see the amount of sources, photographs and videos pile up, a proxy war that seemingly has children on both sides, where will it end?

So as we get back to Hezbollah and its patron needs; when we consider: “the party has attempted to implement de facto austerity measures, cutting certain social programs it provides to large segments of Lebanon’s Shiite community yet preserving the payments to the families of dead and injured fighters“. When the issue becomes ‘payments to the families of dead and injured fighters‘, it is their choice, yet in a stage of a drought of basic needs as we see that “its donations have maintained funding to around 40 percent of its needs“. Perhaps setting different priorities like for example, stop being the tool for Iran is a first step in all this. Especially when we see that the funds are drying up. the idea of Iran having to step in and actually do the fighting themselves is a first step to recognising that Iran is no longer in a proxy war, but in an actual war theatre where they are clearly seen as the warring party that they are. I wonder how many European nations would be willing to continue the setting of “The European Commission unveiled Thursday a first tranche of 18 million euros ($21 million) — 8 million for the private sector, 8 million to cope with environmental problems and 2 million for drug abuse“, in some misguided Iran aid deal whilst we see that the involvement of Iran in Yemen is basically part of the children dying through proxy wars and barred humanitarian aid, as this benefits Iran to a much larger degree. So whilst we have seen all kinds of attachments to laws, Is there any clear attachment to the ‘50-million-euro effort to help Iran cope with economic and social challenges‘, with the setting that its involvement in Yemen, once proven will slice funding by 90%, or were the big business people of Europe unable to concede to the idea that there should be some level of morale in all this? This setting is important, because if the Iranian funds are going dry, it equally means that Iran is out of options and in that light we need to consider that Europe had more options to get a much stronger humanitarian based agreement, yet these steps are not done, is that not equally strange?

In all this, whilst the clear diminishing funds are shown, we are also treated (two weeks ago) to the ‘Hezbollah’s Ababil drone on display in Mleeta‘, as well as the misdirection of “the Pentagon estimates that each UAV can cost as little as $200 and will be used by Hezbollah in other combat fields“, It is my personal view that this is clear misdirection as the systems contain at least $300 in metal and $500 in optical parts, the electronic are close to another $1500. So someone at the Pentagon seems to be buttering someone’s sandwich in all this.

Yet the story is clear, it seems that Hezbollah is another player where hunger is inferior towards its hatred of Israel and its facilitating displeasure of Saudi Arabia through Iran, and we must recognise that in all this the US is equally guilty to some degree. Instead of the statement from John Bolton: ‘Hezbollah forces in Syria must go back to Lebanon‘, he should have clearly stated: ‘Hezbollah forces in Syria and Yemen must go back to Lebanon‘. It would have been a first step is setting the stage that Iran would be left with less and less options, by not addressing this we are faced with a Hezbollah who is now eagerly awaiting charity funding to prolong the Yemeni situation (among other options), a situation that needs to get cut short and right quick.

In the end, when the drought does set in and you are still all about a continuing war that was not about you in the first place, at that time when you rely on charity and donations, merely to pay the ammunition and drone bill, isn’t it time that a harsh look at ones priorities becomes more and more essential?

#59HoursUntilMondayMorning

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Filed under Finance, Media, Military, Politics

Tagged as Ababil drone, Annahar, Dubowitz, EUROPEAN COMMISSION, Hamas, Hezbollah, Imdad Committee for Islamic Charity, Iran, Islamic Resistance Support Organization, John Bolton, Kittrie, Lebanon, Mleeta, Nasrallah, Salah Bawdawil, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, the Wall Street Journal, Yahya Sinwar, Yemen

August 23, 2018 · 12:35

Liberalism overboard

We can agree that there is in many places a setting of ‘freedom of speech’. For the most, I have always supported that, and even though I know that there is an overwhelming amount of exercise in the ‘art of free speech’ for the mere setting to do harm and to inflict insult onto others, the largest portion of people are about merely voicing personal opinion, or in some cases to evangelize their version, or better stated their interpretation of events through free speech. I do still believe that freedom of speech is a much larger advocate of good then evil. The question becomes, what happens when the intent is a malicious one?

In America one of the most famous cases of free speech is still Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988). From the New York Times at the time we get “the Court held that the First Amendment gives speakers immunity from sanction with respect to their speech concerning public figures unless their speech is both false and made with “actual malice”, i.e., with knowledge of its falsehood or with reckless disregard for the truth of the statement“, that is the important setting in this case, and even if this is regarding a setting in different nations, it gives a clear view on where most of us are, or should be. So when I was confronted with “a Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest organized by anti-Islam PVV leader Geert Wilders“, a person who has a visible anti-Islam view, when we are clear and in the know that images of the prophet Mohammed are a massive taboo in the entire global Islamic population, why can we allow a political party leader to set a stage of mental duress to Islamic people of all ages? The fact that this competition is to be held in a closed part of Parliament closed or not reflects even worse on the Dutch government.

If I was an emotional person (which I am not), I would plead with the United Muslims of Australia (UMA) as well as a few Muslim governments on the idea of a fantasy story, the topic would be ‘How to assassinate a politician‘, it is partially important that the people realise that I am a Catholic, not a Muslim. It would be open to all Muslims from 14 to 20 years old and the story needs to surpass 8000 words. We will ask a prominent member of Muslim society to consider being the judge of all those stories.

I am as rich as a church mouse (read: therefor the opposite of rich), so I cannot make a price available, so we need sponsor willing to host the artistic exercise and the winner should get a decent award and we will send all the submissions in PDF form to the Dutch Parliament as a statement of objection on what PVV Leader Geert Wilders had set in motion.

You see, the steps are important for the mere setting that there must be a dialogue with people that is not set on hatred and in equal measure, people fuelling the fires of hatred should no longer be allowed in politics. The fact that we were offered: “In 2015 Wilders attended a Mohammed cartoon contest in Texas. He left just before jihadists tried to commit an attack“, it was a clear message (apart from the one in France). So the Dutch politician was in attendance at this event on Dutch Memorial Day (regarding WW2), when we are treated to: “Two gunmen who opened fire outside a competition for the best cartoon depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad near Dallas in the United States on Sunday. PVV leader Geert Wilders was the keynote speaker at the event. The police shot and killed both gunmen. A security officer was injured“. It was at an American event, in America that called for, and knowingly invited for an action of extremism. A hate group hiding behind “He told the audience that most terrorists are Muslims and “the less Islam the better”. “We are here in defiance of Islam to stand for our rights and freedom of speech,” he said during his speech. “That is our duty.”“. the two sides is that we do not deny a freedom of speech, yet when you use that freedom to knowingly and intentionally inflict harm to others, how does that go over with you?

In this it is the current nightmare for Stef Blok who is currently heading the foreign office. It is a nightmare, because not only is it a setting where a politician is intentionally insulting a religion, not only is this a set stage, it is one that is ALLOWED to be done in Dutch Parliament.

No matter how good most of the Dutch are, no matter how dedicated they are to excellence. when we consider the business model (at https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business/local/dutch-model-attracts-uae-firms), when we see that the setting of “Twenty-seven of the 60 projects come from the UAE“, when the attached “Currently, we have 60 investment projects from the Mena region together investing more than 1.1 billion euros and creating more than 2,000 jobs“, when that falls away due to the insult of their national religion, when the people in the UAE are made aware of the insults that PVV Leader Geert Wilders is allowed to get away with. How long until the funds stop and the jobs go to the UK, France and perhaps Australia? When we get Jeroen C.M. Nijland, commissioner of the Ministry of Economic Affairs at the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency (NFIA), now having to state that economic times have taken a step back due to ‘abused freedom of expression’ in a stage of intentional malignant acts against Muslim nations on a global scale. When these 2,000 jobs fall away? What will be the excuse Dutch officials will announce in line to the ‘Due to uncontrollable elements, the Dutch deficit will rise from 1.1% to an expected 1.9%‘, or perhaps “The economy will grow by 3.3% in 2017 and a projected 1.3% in 2018“. When one party represents close to 50% of the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency, getting the scope of alienating economic partners correct tends to become extremely important.

In that regard, when the President of the United Arab Emirates, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan learns that Dutch parliament was allowed to be used for such an event. How do you expect that he is likely to react? When Saudi Arabia learns of this, a nation now ready to give reign to around one trillion dollars in projects for the next 7 years (the new Neom city included as well as other Saudi projects), in that light, just how stupid was the setting of facilitating to Geert Wilders in all this?

A setting where the technological growth, especially in 5G projects will be the largest in the history of the world (for now that is), when these projects could feed corporations for close to two generations, getting ‘political correctness’ a little better under control is close to everything. So, I do remain a ‘champion’ of free speech, but we should learn to see accountability equally important, especially when there is as what I personally see as clear intentional malice in play. In that regard it was never about ‘freedom of expression‘, was it? So, if we accept fair play, then the Dutch economy should rely on business partners that are not fundamentally Muslim and perhaps they can get the same amount of projects and revenue in Asia, or Africa, or perhaps America. Was America not that nation that has such a booming economy? You see, plenty of other nations to get the 27+ replacement contracts.

I think that this should be the impact of Liberalism when it goes overboard. When we dig deeper and we consider the Society of Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), we see “findings confirm that conservatives, liberals, the religious and the nonreligious are each prejudiced against those with opposing views. But surprisingly, each group is about equally prejudiced. While liberals might like to think of themselves as more open-minded, they are no more tolerant of people unlike them than their conservative counterparts are” (source: Politico.com). Mark Brandt, Geoffrey Wetherell and Christine Reyna created the paper ‘Discrimination Across the Ideological Divide. The Role of Value Violations and Abstract Values in Discrimination by Liberals and Conservatives‘ (2013). Here we see “conservatives were more discriminatory than liberals toward liberal groups, and liberals were more discriminatory than conservatives toward conservative groups. Conservatives’ discrimination was driven by their higher traditionalism and by liberal groups’ apparent violation of their values. Liberals’ discrimination was driven by their lower traditionalism and by conservative groups’ apparent violation of their values. Complicating matters, conservatives highly valued self-reliance, which weakened their discrimination toward liberal groups, perhaps because self-reliance is associated with the freedom to believe or do what one wants. And liberals highly valued universalism, which weakened their discrimination toward conservative groups, likely because universalism espouses acceptance of all“. Yet the foundation is not the setting of prejudice that we all will have to some degree, what happens when this prejudice is coated in intentional malice? What happens when malice is the cornerstone of the politician and the spokesperson on an agenda that is drenched in self-interest and in that knowingly sets the stage of ‘absence for consideration‘ towards the economic setting that is part of a governing parliament, a parliament that Geert Wilders is a part of? When we see that the economic partners walk away, is that prejudice or the cost of doing business? When we accept certain cultural business partners, should we accept that a level of accountability is to be expected when the ‘freedom of expression‘ is set towards the stage of intentional malice?

You see, for me the exposure would be merely business. I can, to some degree take the slack of these 27 projects and claim my 3.75% of 1.1 billion euros and assist in getting the UAE the quality replacements that do take a level of political correctness in their stride, especially the political players that are unwilling to play fast and loose with a billion euro’s by not allowing parliament to be used for intentional malicious anti-Islam events.

So am I suddenly anti-Dutch? Am I suddenly anti freedom of speech, or anti freedom of expression? No, I am not. I merely state that ‘intent of malice’ should not be allowed, especially not in any house of parliament. I do also accept that the Charlie Hebdo case is a sensitive one, yet in that this was acting within France, in a total satirical case and it was not merely Islam. The setting was also anti Catholic and anti-Judean. One could argue that the magazine treated all religion, as well as politics and culture to a larger degree with contempt. I do not accept that the act against the Charlie Hebdo on 7 January 2015 was an acceptable one. For the most also for the driving reason that they were not singling the Muslim religion out as a target for their satire. In their setting it was about freedom of expression against all they viewed, not just one religion. There was a debatable absence of malice here.

This does get me on a slippery slope and I admit to that. You see, when we set that stage, is there intent or absence of malice? Is satire an intention of malice? No, when it is done over the top and in the staged setting of a cartoon, I remain in line of the Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell stage. It is cartoon, over the top expression of ridicule, like the two Hebdo images. And as a Catholic, I can look onto that setting and giggle. We never had the absence of icons and images towards religious Christian figures. It changes the field completely.

When liberalism allows for, and to the larger stage supports intent of malice, that is when we need to sit down and wonder just how far over the top have we gone? It is a discussion that the Dutch need to have in the very near future. That pressure will grow when it is no longer merely Pakistan formally complaining, but when Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Turkey and Indonesia follow suit and stand with Pakistan. At that point it might be too late for the Netherlands to merely do this away with some political statement. At that point it will require much larger efforts by the ambassadors in those nations to go into damage control mode and fix the mess that Geert Wilders was allowed to make in the first place.

It suck to be Mr Laurens Westhoff, Mr Joost Reintjes, Dr Bahia Tahzib-Lie, Mrs Laetitia van Asch and Rob Swartbol in the coming weeks. I have no doubt that in these places there will be a lot of outrage on the matter (and a few other places too).

The fact that this started in June and was not the front page setting in many papers was to some degree an issue, the fact that Pakistan made a formal complaint about the setting and the fact that the newspapers are ignoring the issue over the past 48 hours is also an issue, especially when we are confronted with the setting “Mazari said the actions of Wilders, who heads the Dutch Freedom Party, was a clear violation of human rights of Muslims in Europe as well as a violation of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedom“, so we see Human rights issues in almost every paper, yet when it is Pakistan minister Shireen Mazari, the papers set it aside? Will it all become an outspoken stage on the Pakistan blasphemy law that still attracts the death penalty? In this stage and those settings, we need to accept that there is a much larger hypocrisy in play, so when I limelight the issue, partially so that I can fly in with an option towards 3.75% of One billion Euro, I feel perfectly justified in my actions, at least I was always willing to state out the settings, even when I was wrong (the Jeremy Corbyn stage of a funeral in Tunesia), I had no issue about correcting the stage as to what it truly was (to the degree that I was able to validate).

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Tagged as Australia, Charlie Hebdo, Christine Reyna, Dr Bahia Tahzib-Lie, Egypt, European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedom, France, Geert Wilders, Geoffrey Wetherell, Hustler Magazine Inc. v. Falwell, Indonesia, Jeremy Corbyn, Jeroen C.M. Nijland, Khaleej Times, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Mark Brandt, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Mr Joost Reintjes, Mr Laurens Westhoff, Mrs Laetitia van Asch, Neom city, Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency, NFIA, Oman, Pakistan, President of the United Arab Emirates, PVV, Qatar, Rob Swartbol, Saudi Arabia, Shireen Mazari, Society of Personality and Social Psychology, SPSP, the United Arab Emirates, Tunesia, Turkey, UAE, UK, UMA, United Kingdom, United Muslims of Australia

August 20, 2018 · 13:19

Lying through truth

It is a sad day, it is sad for several reasons. The first is because the Press is now intentionally misleading the public. The second is that the press now decides the scope of information that the people are allowed to have, by spoon feeding us part of the information. It is about emotional impact at the expense of the truth, truth through omission whenever needed.

That is at the centre of all this and I cannot comprehend why this is continuing in this way. The articles part of this are ‘US supplied bomb that killed 40 children on Yemen school bus‘, the article (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/19/us-supplied-bomb-that-killed-40-children-school-bus-yemen), in addition it links to an article called ‘Yemen school bus bombing ‘one of 50 strikes on civilian vehicles this year’‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/16/yemen-school-bus-bombing-one-of-50-strikes-on-civilian-vehicles-this-year). In all this you are deceived by Julian Borger in Washington and Saeed Kamali Dehghan in London. Now, before I continue is that the part “The bomb dropped on a school bus in Yemen by a Saudi-led coalition warplane was sold to Riyadh by the US, according to reports based on analysis of the debris” is not a lie in itself, it is a lie, but that is what we will look at in a moment.

You see, the more complete truth (as I personally see it) is: “Saudi-led coalition forces attacked a Houthi stronghold; the bomb either directly or indirectly hit a bus, which later turned out being a school bus with children on board. As far as the information gives us the warplane was sold to Riyadh by the US, according to reports based on analysis of the debris“. This difference matters because the attack, from several sources was a Houthi stronghold. The photo that I discussed on August 13th in my article ”Is it mere wording” (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/08/13/is-it-mere-wording/),we see the ABC article gives us the footage where we see a non-scourged bus, implying that the bus was indirectly hit. The white paint of the bus was still intact. We admit there is total devastation, but this is the first part of the deception by Julian Borger in Washington and Saeed Kamali Dehghan in London. The second part is the fact in what I would regard as intentional omission. In addition, Al Jazeera gives us: “a Saudi-Emirati coalition air strike has killed dozens of children in a Houthi stronghold“, an unconfirmed part (apart from Al Jazeera) and in all this there is no mention of that part in there?

As for the setting of “US supplied bomb“, we have to realise that “As of April 2016, Saudi Arabia’s 2016 defence budget has decreased only by a relatively small amount from 2015 levels, as the government appears determined to support the economy and focus on economic diversification. Military and security still comprise 25 percent of the total budget, representing a sizable opportunity for U.S. aerospace and defence companies“, so this is a spending and investment that has been going on for years, hence the chance was great that it was American equipment that would be used. I think it is slightly hypocrite that the papers (dozens of them) on where the missile came from whilst the US economy has been barely surviving and with those dozens of billions a year the US would have stopped some time ago. In addition, if you want to go for the source, ask the people in London how they feel about the French Exocet missile, it took out the HMS Sheffield. These things happen and the fact that there was a bus full of children that was most likely indirectly hit is still really sad, no one denies that. Yet what were they doing in a Houthi Stronghold? No one really has that answer, do they? The Houthi’s have taken on board the Hezbollah and Iranian advice to hide within the population, that is a setting where plenty of innocents will get hit and the fact that this is done whilst even now we see that last Friday missiles were fired, aimed at the population of the city of Najran is not mentioned. Now, I accept that this is not part of the bus news, but several other parts were. The fact that Houthi’s have launched 176 ballistic missiles towards the kingdom so far is also a fact that is part of all this (not of the news article though). Yet the Saudi-led coalition will act in reprisal, who will get hit next? The Deutsche Welle also gives us: “arms researcher Pieter Wezeman told DW the missiles were likely not in Yemen before the war“, I am personally decently certain that they came from Iran, but how is still a mystery.

We also see important news that is clearly given by the Guardian where we see: “according to an analysis by Human Rights Watch (HRW), out of 75 incidents where civilian casualties were reported, JIAT has admitted Saudi rules of engagement may have been broken in only two“, I am willing to go as far as stating “2 out of 75, is still two too many“. The problem is how preventable were the two issues, was the bus incident avoidable? When I inspect the image again I see the white bus frame totally non burned, a direct hit would have set it on fire and there would have been no white paint left, that gives indication that the bus was indirectly hit (but still got slammed massively), I also (personal speculation) surmise that a direct hit and fire would have ended the life of the left rear tires, which is not the case. In this, there are a lot more questions in all this and the focus on the dead children is understandable, yet what were they doing in a Houthi stronghold? I equally oppose to some degree Jim Carrey’s setting. Now, the man is entitled to his opinion, and it is not a wrong thought to have, but was it the correct setting? When we see “The United States actor and artist Jim Carrey blasted on Aug. 17 the deadly airstrike in Yemen last week that reportedly killed 40 children on a school bus, calling the incident “Our crime.”” I cannot agree. You see several nations sell defence solutions. The US a lot more than most others, but the US, China and Russia all sell their governmental goods. Just like I will not blame France for selling the exocet missile to Argentina (the USS Sheffield incident), I cannot blame those three when the buying governments use them as actionable goods, for good or for bad. In this, I have always lived with the setting that bullets do not kill people, people kill people. So yes, there is a setting where the Saudi government should consider the investigation. Perhaps they do not have all the answers; equally it might never be resolved in a satisfactory way. The Houthi’s also have the setting to deal with that in a warzone children should have been clearly directed on safer roads. You cannot fire 176 ballistic missiles and expect this not to be answered. Like in any warzone, mistakes will be made, sometimes they are misguided setting of what was a valid target, sometimes it is mere technology that is off by 15 meters (whilst flying 160Km an hour, or faster, over a valid target) and sometimes it is the choice of blatant stupidity. Yet I can give you now that there is no way to prove which of the three options the case here was. We can only speculate and let’s be honest no one wants to admit to a mistake of this size.

We were also informed on “The Bellingcat report cautioned that the bomb fragments had not been photographed where they had fallen, but had been gathered together, leaving open the possibility that they had been planted“, yet that is still an option, but somehow the parts were still acquired, how is unlikely to be proven.

Even though the Guardian is one of the better newspapers, I have to question “Statistics collated by an independent monitoring group, the Yemen Data Project, suggest that the targeting of the school bus was part of a wider pattern. According to its records, there have been 55 airstrikes against civilian vehicles and buses in the first seven months of this year – a higher rate than in 2017“, the issue is that it is important to see where those buses and vehicles were. You see, a bus is not merely a vehicle; it is also a decently effective shield against missiles. We get to the setting that the bus might not have been as important as knowing what building it was parked in front of. As that data is not available, we might accept the top line event of number of buses hit, but until we know more of the vehicles surrounding there is no way to tell on what the target was.

I equally object to the statement “Andrew Smith of the Campaign Against Arms Trade said “the complicit silence from No 10 is a clear case of arms company profits being put above human rights and Yemeni lives“, They are separate issues, yet people like Andrew Smith will never see it that way. Yemeni lives have been declared null and void when Iran began its proxy war, but we see little of that part of the equation.

In all this there is another part, a part that is not exposed. The source (at https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1364036/exclusive-houthis-exploit-poverty-struck-children-cannon-fodder) is questionable; I will be honest about that. Yet the article has images, images that are debatable as the kids are all wearing really clean clothes. Even as we see that the images are from Reuters. The text ‘Child soldiers with Houthis hold weapons during a demonstration in Sanaa on March 13, 2015. Reuters‘ is illustrative, and also questionable. The clothes are too clean, the weapons too shiny and there is a cameraman on the car. I have an issue with the picture. Yet the article is all about ‘Houthis Exploit Poverty-Struck Children as Cannon Fodder‘, an accusation that has been seen in more than one place. So was the bus with children a military target at that moment? It is unlikely to be ever proven. When we see: “Rehabilitating child soldiers has proven to be the most difficult challenge faced by the internationally-recognized Yemeni government headed by Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. “The rehabilitation of children recruited and participating in the war costs over $200,000 for 80 children in one month,” government sources said. The Hadi administration is already trying to balance a depreciating national currency in hopes of improving one of the worst economic crises ever known to the war-torn country” should cry for anger. Yes, we need rehabilitation of children, yet the Houthi’s are using children in their war and that should stop all support to the Houthi’s as well as stop whatever consideration you had for Iran as they are part of this proxy war. So when we see (at https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/05/12/yemen-houthis-send-children-battle), the same image as Asharq Al-Awsat had, we need to re-assess a few things. For example the statement of Andrew Smith, who is playing stupid, but he is not stupid. You know what I am saying? There seems to be clear evidence that this was going on since 2015, which means that in all this, from multiple sources the intelligence on non-adult combatants has been ignored from several sources. There is an abundance of images available all over the place and it seems that this was left from consideration, in some cases they are children holding weapons that are way too big for them (an AK-47), ‘his’ weapon is well over 50% the size of the child. Information that is kept from the readers, so when we are confronted with ‘US supplied bomb that killed 40 children on Yemen school bus‘ and not ‘40 child soldiers were killed in an airstrike‘ is equally an issue and the fact that we are not confronted with the complete setting here is a much larger problem. The fact that Reuters, Asharq Al-Awsat and the Human Rights Watch had this makes it a lot more debatable on why the people seem to be misdirected and misinformed on events.

In equal parts, there is no evidence that these 40 children were ‘soldiers’ for the Houthi’s and I accept that, as well as the fact that I am not willing to call them that until there is a lot more evidence. Yet I will inform you on those elements, giving additional questions on how the Saudi’s can find their valid targets. Yet in all this, we see the lack of completeness of the information (to some extent) and that is equally a worry, because it all boils down to setting public opinion, emotional setting to shape policy whilst misinforming the audience, so how is that going over with you?

This now gets us a little away from the story and gets us the UN setting, where we were treated in 2017 to ‘Confidential U.N. Report Accuses Saudi Coalition of Killing Hundreds of Yemeni Kids. Top U.N. advisor to recommend coalition should be put on the black list of countries that kill and maim children in war‘, a United nations setting where we see the consideration: “The current standoff has its roots in the 2001 adoption of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1379, which mandated a senior U.N. official to produce a report each year documenting attacks against children in armed conflicts, including an annex that serves as a blacklist of governments, terrorists and armed groups that kill and maim kids. But it has proven highly controversial among states, who resent being publicly singled out and placed on a list that includes some of the world’s most notorious terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda, Boko Haram, and the Islamic State“, that whilst in this we see that the information of children used in battle by the Houthi forces was already established for two years. I am the first to admit that this does not excuse the deaths of well over “600 children were killed and 1,150 injured in Yemen between March 2016 and March 2017, according to UNICEF“, that is appalling and no one denies it. Yet the information was incomplete and that is not merely the setting of the stage, it is filtering the information giving a sleight of hand view of what was going on. The mere part that Houthi’s and Hezbollah were using the population as a human shield is equally missing here. So how is there a proper setting of information?

That whilst last month was reported “Hodeida: The Iranian-backed Al Houthi militia, yesterday, bombed two schools in Al Tuhayat district in Yemen’s Hodeida Governorate“, which was not the first time it happened, so there is additional settings of the stage where we see that some parts are not even due to the Saudi Coalition. It does not make them innocent, merely that there is a lot more blame to go around and those seeking the limelight are conveniently forgetting certain established facts. We see even more debatable sides in the staging that we see (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhdZbszAekU). The start all ‘happy’, it seems genuine, but there is a part that calls into question certain other parts. Let’s be clear. I did this with the naked eye; I did not scoop this through professional equipment. In this the chairs seemed a little too dark, which could be shadows versus sunlight. In addition the outside of the bus is remarkable white. A fire would not have left it in that way. I am not stating that there was no hit, merely that it is more and more unlikely that it was a direct hit. Also the load of Unicef bags at 00:49 give additional rise to a few more questions, especially when you see that there is an utter lack of that blue in the first 21 seconds, mere staging for emotion through misdirection.

In all this we need to go back to the statement by Pieter Wezeman in the Deutsche Welle, where we see: “The missiles which have been used appear to be a type that was not previously known to be in the arsenals of Yemen before the current conflict broke out“. It is more important than you think. You see, if that can be part of the evidence that the missiles come from Iran, we need to accept that there is no nuclear deal with Iran and anyone trying to save that deal must accept the fact that they have blood on their hands, optionally the blood of Yemeni children. I wonder how many European politicians will be willing to accept that part of the equation. You see my reasoning in this is that when we accept ‘Iran Mulls ‘Solutions’ to Sell Oil Bypassing US Sanctions‘ we must also consider that part of these proceeds will fund the next shipment of missiles towards Yemen, which can then be fired on the Saudi civil population. At that point, how do you expect the Saudi government to react?

I believe that there is a much larger setting of pushing international policies by lying through partial truths and what is even worse, that the number of players is not large, it is basically a lot larger than most are willing to consider or accept, making the issue larger in some ways and unacceptable in other ways. I get it that people like Andrew Smith have a narrow vision, a vision of focus and basically his only setting is the ‘Campaign Against Arms Trade‘, it makes him an ideologist, which is not essentially bad, yet in all this the missed part are part of the true scope and in this Julian Borger and Saeed Kamali Dehghan made the wrong call by leaving out certain parts. In addition, stating ”The bombing of a bus full of schoolchildren last week was just one of more than 50 airstrikes against civilian vehicles by the Saudi-led coalition” whilst hiding behind “according to new data” is increasingly deceptive, especially when there is no way to tell whether the vehicle or the building or the street was the target, especially the ‘civilian vehicles‘ part. When we consider that an armed Houthi vehicle could have been part of this and as we saw that they tend to be armed, there are enough images of Houthi Toyota’s with a .50 on it, so ‘what a feeling‘ that gives is basically depending on whether you are the driver or the gunner. In one case, the one I show here, it is able to counter a lot more, so you tell me on how ‘according to new data‘ should be seen, as I am bound to find a decent amount of glitches in that new data. Yet that will not be questioned, or the initial quote by the reporters, which should have been a first.

With the subtext on the photo stating “A military source said in a statement to “Al-Akhbar news” that the army’s national army repulsed an attack launched by the Huthi militia coup on positions in the outskirts of the Directorate of Khadir, southeast of Taiz province” (source: al-ain.com), I will not state the validity or deny it, basically the fact that this is in all setting likely to be seen as a civilian vehicle. So how accurate is the data if the AA-gun had been removed after it was hit (which would be a first requirement even if it was merely needed for spare parts)?

#ATruckIsAHummerWithoutHorsepower

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Tagged as ABC, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, Al Jazeera, Al Tuhayat district, Al-Qaeda, Andrew Smith, Asharq Al-Awsat, Bellingcat report, Boko Haram, Deutsche Welle, Exocet, France, French Exocet missile, Hezbollah, HMS Sheffield, Hodeida Governorate, Houthi Stronghold, HRW, Human Rights watch, Iran, Islamic State, Jim Carrey, Julian Borger, Najran, Nuclear deal, Pieter Wezeman, reuters, Saeed Kamali Dehghan, Sanaa, Saudi Arabia, Taiz province, the Campaign Against Arms Trade, the Guardian, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1379, U.S. aerospace and defence companies, UK, Yemen, Yemen Data Project

August 18, 2018 · 12:17

A new danger

There is a setting of dangers, the dangers are not merely setting, and for the US it is inequal discussion on how many allies they have left in the near future. It is not a new danger; the actions have been under scrutiny for some time. Yet last night something changed. We understand that electing the 45th president, a ‘former’ greed driven billionaire would always have consequences, yet the amount of consequences shown is now escalating.

The Washington Post gave uis 90 minutes ago ‘GOP fundraiser Broidy under investigation for alleged effort to sell government influence, people familiar with probe say‘, the article (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-fundraiser-broidy-under-investigation-for-alleged-effort-to-sell-government-influence-people-familiar-with-probe-say/2018/08/17/c9e55792-a185-11e8-8e87-c869fe70a721_story.html?utm_term=.774c7a3358da) a different setting. We always knew that there are two sides and the ‘less progressive’ republican side was always a little of a hot potato to some. Yet with “The Justice Department is investigating whether longtime Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy sought to sell his influence with the Trump administration by offering to deliver U.S. government actions for foreign officials in exchange for tens of millions of dollars“, that hot potato has now turned into a handgranate. With the quote “As part of their efforts, prosecutors have subpoenaed casino magnate Steve Wynn, the former RNC finance chairman and longtime Trump friend, for copies of records and communications related to Broidy” we see that there is a much larger net being used. It is not merely about Broidy, with names like Steve Wynn we see that there are several names involved, all people with almost direct access to the President of the United States, and with names like Jho Low and Guo Wengui we see another side of ‘entrepreneurship’ hitting the limelight.

Yet how real is the setting?

Part of it is seen in the Wall Street Journal, and with “through June and into July, Mr. Low had been living freely in China, a person aware of his travels said”, as well as “Mr. Low had a close relationship with former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who in turn was courted by China. Malaysia’s new government suspects Mr. Low helped arrange infrastructure projects, financed by China, from which funds were diverted to cover debts”, the second part now giving us that America as well as other players wanted access to Mr. Low, yet that in itself is not evidence against Elliott Broidy. What it does tell us that multiple players want access to this billionaire, all for their own reasons and with the US with a debt surpassing 21 trillion, we can only wonder what some people want Mr. Low for. The additional part is that Malaysia is now pulling all the plugs. This is seen as Channel NewsAsia is reprting that “The Bombardier Global 5000 aircraft, estimated to cost US$35 million was allegedly bought with money belonging to 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB)” (at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/malaysia-to-prove-jho-low-private-jet-bought-stolen-money-1mdb-10621726). It seems so flaky and weird to merely focus on one plane. The amounts are massively larger then the $35 million, so in that case, if that evidence falls over, will the case on that side against Jho Low collapse? When we look in that direction and look at Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, we see that hsi platform is set upon anti-Chinese activities and when we see the accusation “critic on Chinese ventures in his home country for being too expensive and has suspended three China-backed projects worth around $22 billion that were signed under the previous administration”, we see that there might be case in that part, yet why focus on $35 million in a $22,000 million setting? We also see an additional stage in “Explaining his decision at a news conference last month, the veteran politician said the contract and loan terms behind the deals were unfair, noting that the interest rates on China’s loans were much higher than the 3 percent figure at which the government normally borrowed, the Associate Press reported“, is this all about the money, or merely a way to set the stage for re-negotiation. In that setting, the sound strategy becomes that Elliott Broidy was setting the stage for the United States to poach the finance deals away from China and in that setting, getting Jho Low to give the goods would help the US pretty decent. In addition, when we look at the education of Jho Low, we see that he is an alumni of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the same school that has President Trump, as well as the bulk of CEO’s that at one stage were the captains of the Fortune 500 lists, it includes dozens of airline CEO’s, so in that setting the Malaysian government goes looking for a $35 million plane?

So what is exactly the danger?

It is not on merely the setting of Elliott Broidy in all this, it is the setting where we all need to realise that there is a cost to doing business and it has transgressed borders for the longest of times that, whilst we accepted that in Europe to some degree, Americans never accepted or comprehended that. The media players used that part in all kinds of election setting and fear mongering for the longest of times. From my point of view (optionally a wrong one), we see how people like John Brennan is a danger to that setting. People dedicated to the protection of that their nation will not accept the global cost of doing business; they are in line with monarchists and devoted workers to their nations like we see in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, as well as Canada. In republics, republicans are in a setting that this time is gone; it is the age of the corporate setting of common sense towards pragmatism. The problem as I see it is that those of no use to the needs of such a republic lose value overnight, that whilst the monarchist setting is to embrace all the citizens and protect them all. It is done at a cost, one that those people tend to accept. Yet in the republican view, these costs are counterproductive to corporate profit, the non-consumers are a cancer, needed to be cut out. When globalisation sets in to the business degree that will be a lot easier and that is where we see the stage. So when we see “In the 48 hours since President Trump revoked the security clearance of former CIA director John Brennan, over 70 former intelligence officers and leaders have come forward denouncing the president’s decision to revoke or threaten to take away security clearances from former government officials, including a list of 60 former CIA officers who signed a statement today, obtained by Axios“, we also see that America (or is that Wall Street) are confronted with a change no one was ready for, so the economy becomes a stagnant danger to them, one where they do not make profit.

When we see names like:

Jeremy Bash, former CIA and DoD chief of staff
Bob Flores, former CIA chief technology officer
Kent Harrington, former national intelligence officer for East Asia and CIA director of public affairs
George Little, former chief spokesman, CIA and DoD
Phillip Mudd, former CIA analyst
John Nixon, former CIA analyst
Greg Vogel, former CIA deputy director for operations

We see that the USA is in an upcoming setting of polarisation and that is just within the republican side of government and its administration. There is a change coming and the outcome is hoped for (on both sides) but the outcry gives us that this is a round that Wall Street is likely to lose this battle and that changes the game. In addition, when we see the required application of intelligence data and who gets access to it sets a new border, the fact that others (like France and UK) need to realise that shared intelligence data is no longer safe, because the data shared within corporations while used to set a very different stage of what is regarded as needed for security. The corporate side is already countering the advantage that a national intelligence system has. We see this in part when we look at Business Wire (at https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180806005526/en/Global-Database-Valuable-Italian-Business-Intelligence-Data), where we see ‘Global Database Makes Valuable Italian Business Intelligence Data Available – Completely Free‘, before you dismiss this, also consider that “Any registered user can now access key information about 7,564.575 registered companies in Italy“, registration is free and that is merely one of close to a dozen places where this is happening. All connected, it is an optional setting of open source intelligence that is merely a foundation pillar. You merely have to add LinkedIn and Facebook to have a dataset that will allow you to extrapolate data that will make plenty of intelligence groups envious. You see, this is not about finding the criminal, or the terrorist. They are either known or not an issue. This is the setting of finding economic opportunities, the setting to see who is connected and interacting with the alumni of places like the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. A group of people with connection and access to funds totaling well over 157 trillion Euro, so whilst we wonder on the fear of where is the terrorist (whilst the danger of getting run over in the street is 20 times more likely, we forgot that our futures, any future is set in the stage where there is economic viability and availability.

That is the part that we see to forget, or even worse actively avoid contemplating. In the time when we are led to believe that there is economic upturn everywhere, we seem to forget that as the river of economy changes, we will either be in a place of plenty, or we are set into the next stage of drought and it will be the one view we have until the end of our lives. It is about ability to live with a level of expected comfort which is likely no longer set to national boundaries, it will be set to the boundary of the corporation or business group that we work for and facilitate for, it will be as cold as that, and until we get past this greying generation, which is optional until 2035, that is how it will be for those in this era. The man behind the Global Database, namely Nicolae Buldumac has figured parts of that out, so that is why he and 30 others in London are doing this. When we look at the article (at https://medium.com/@buldumak/cookie-audience-vs-data-audience-which-is-better-44971ad12ee4), we also see ‘Cookie Audience Vs Data Audience: Which is Better?‘, he found a way to not create the best of both worlds, he found out how he can make both work for him and that is where he created more than economic opportunity. He has found the stage where he can optionally get the facilitators work for him and that seems to be exactly what he is doing. When he is done he will have a similar setting for France, Germany, the UK and Spain. So basically the 5 largest European economies are opportunities where he has the keys and data to.

So when we get to look at the US again, do you think that this will be about Elliott Broidy or people like him in an outdated setting? No, they are the garnishing of economic times that surpassed them and it is the data makers and facilitators like Nicolae Buldumac where the republican mindset of corporations will rely on next, they are the future and their path for enablement is what sets the stage for Europe. This is not clever technology (well in a way it is), it is about the quality of data and what it allows for and that is where we see that the moment that data hits a critical point, it will equal the value of Facebook or more. Some will argue that most of that is all in any Chamber of Commerce and they would be right, but those entities do not talk to each other, they are founded on borders of a national level or lower and in the entire euro setting they for the most never aligned, so someone did it for them and on their own dime, optionally replacing them, or better stated, reducing those previous players to mere data entry points. Governments had to realign their data dimensionality a decade ago, but everyone was so busy keeping their own pond clean that they forgot that the pond is only important to the land surrounding it, when that floods, the ponds become merely crevices of a lake, Lake Europa, that is where Nicolae Buldumac it taking them, so soon others (like Asia and America) they will look at the parts of Lake Europa and see where fishing is the best, those land borders no longer matter and that is the stage we find ourselves in. A changing setting of what sets the identity.

Am I the first?

Hell no! This was all done before. Forbes in 2013 gave us an article by George Bradt. The article called ‘How Army Intelligence Techniques Apply to Business Leads‘. Here we see “Marketing may have a bias to giving sales people a large number of leads, while sales people seek potential customers they can engage with. The answer is to move from big, unstructured data sets to “finding that guy” that really cares. This was Mishor’s ah-ha moment, realizing that army intelligence techniques could be applied to business“, yet it goes further, when you consider one, and the other, you should also realise that the parameters are bidirectional with the proper data flags. So when we see the two streams lead to the same insight. “On the one hand, Mishor is creating value with a systemic, scalable way to connect seemingly unconnected data to identify the most valuable target customers. On the other hand, Mishor built his business by connecting seemingly unconnected hopes and needs of his prospects” we see the solution at both ends, and in addition we see that we can define the need much more precise. From my point of view we can see a third direction. That part is not easily seen, so I will give an alternative example.

In factor analyses we go from many to one. We get the setting that the numbers equate to a factor, it is basic statistics. When we go into the other direction we see the foundation of a discriminant analyses. The third part is seen in that the data setting when something is proven in a factor analyses, it should almost always fail as a discriminant analyses and vice versa. I tend to use humour on that and state ‘It is sarcasm, when it backfires it is merely irony‘. The intelligence data was always on finding the person, yet in a stage of lacking resources, being able to safely remove a person as a threat is equally valuable. If you cannot find that one person, reducing the 5,000,000 stack to a mere 5,000 with 99% certainty is just as valuable, because the one final link could reduce that to 50 whilst not having to revisit the previous 4,995,000 considerations. As I see it in this day and age, not only is the stage of military intelligence and business intelligence not mutually exclusive, they are more and more overlapping. The overlapping field becomes an insightful pool of data where it will no longer be about the one person, it will be more and more about a setting where the value of Analysis of covariance will be important.

In the intelligence it could be seen that it is not merely about the terrorist and its connections. It will be about the moneyman and who else links, both optionally to the mastermind. In business intelligence that setting is not merely see as to where a person studied. It is more and more important on where the patents are and who has them as well as the people creating those patents. In this economy the economic value of a patent over overwhelmingly important. That part is seen when we get back to the 5G race, we saw that last march when we were confronted with “U.S. President Donald Trump has blocked microchip maker Broadcom Ltd’s (AVGO.O) $117 billion takeover of rival Qualcomm (QCOM.O) amid concerns that it would give China the upper hand in the next generation of mobile communications, or 5G“, in addition Forbes gives us within the article ‘Ericsson Vs Huawei: Who’s Winning The 5G Race?‘ Yet there we see two parts. The first is “However, two of particularly significant scale and market presence are Ericsson and Huawei. Will one conquer overall?“, as well as “Financial strength matters. Ericsson will have to turn the ship towards profitability and growth waters, in order to continue the required investment in product development”, which relies on “Ericsson recently announced what seems on the surface to be an impressive 5G patent application. Calling it an “end-to-end” submission, the filing combines the work of 130 Ericsson inventors and promises to include everything needed to build a complete 5G network“, the ability to set 600 million will give the optional 60 billion in return and it will in addition set the stage for European growth to a recently unprecedented (or was that non-presidential?) scale and America wants slices of that pie, if not the whole pie. The stage of corporate setting versus national setting in direct exposure of what is to come and the 5G battle theatre will be a big one, because the winners there will be the next kingmakers and everyone will want parts of it; that was never in doubt. The evidence is all over the place.

Forbes also gives us the new danger setting with the question ‘Does a global geographic footprint matter?‘ It is close to everything in this game, if only that the global footprint lets corporations walk all over government. Amazon, Apple, IBM and Microsoft have been doing that for the longest of times.

There is one part with Forbes that I do not agree with. They state “I would give Ericsson the edge here, considering its global presence includes North America“, I believe that Europe is the much larger powerhouse. You see, America is a mere 325 million, whilst the EU represents 512 million with direct access to India, China and Russia. All stages that America denied itself; if the setting of data (amounts and quality) determines their value; which players and where would they be able to grow this path the fastest and longer? The fact that Ericsson is not merely in the US, but they are showboating in Saudi Arabia is also a sign that they realise that stronger growth everywhere matters, the presented quote “Saudi telecom operator Mobily and Ericsson held a 5G demo at the Mall of Arabia in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, showcasing the functionalities of the next-generation mobile technology. Ericsson supplied Mobily with a standalone 5G system, including a prototype 3.5GHz radio, baseband, and prototype UE device for the 5G demo, which showcased 5G throughput, targeting speeds of up to 1Gbps. The demo is part of Mobily’s plan to highlight expected 5G benefits consumers and industries across Saudi Arabia“, is merely one of many.

The question now becomes: ‘is exponential growth, growing too fast in all directions not a danger all on itself?’

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Tagged as 1Malaysia Development Berhad, 45th president, Amnon Mishor, Axios, Bob Flores, Bombardier Global 5000, Broadcom Ltd, Canada, China, CIA, Denmark, Elliott Broidy, Ericsson, Forbes, Fortune 500, France, George Bradt, George Little, Germany, Greg Vogel, Guo Wengui, Huawei, India, Israel, Jeddah, Jeremy Bash, Jho Low, John Brennan, John Nixon, Kent Harrington, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, Nicolae Buldumac, Phillip Mudd, Qualcomm, Riyadh, RNC finance chairman, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Steve Wynn, Sweden, the Global Database, the Netherlands, the UK, the United Kingdom, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

August 13, 2018 · 12:24

Is it mere wording?

That is where I am at. The issues are still escalating in Yemen, the issues are a given escalation and no one is proclaiming that either side, Yemen and Saudi Arabia are both innocent. Both made choices, both decided on choices that also clearly indicate that errors were made. Some will call them judgment errors, some will call for perspectives. I tend to call for facts and evidence. Yet we can all agree that no matter how right and just your setting is, in any war, in any act of war, things go pear shaped. Errors will be part of that and the instigator of that error will have to live with that.

It all started Friday morning, when ABC (one amongst many) gives us (at http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-10/yemen-air-strike-dozens-killed-including-children-on-a-bus/10104136) the simple setting: ‘Yemen: Children on a bus among dozens killed in Saudi-led air strikes, Red Cross says‘. We might get angry on this; we might get the feeling that children should always be avoided at all cost. Yet the ABC does not give the people the issue that is at the centre of it, besides the mention of: “It accused the Houthis of using children as human shields and said the strikes were carried out in accordance with international humanitarian law“, and let’s forget the setting of ‘strikes’ and ‘in accordance with international humanitarian law‘ for a moment, I just can’t laugh at his now (mainly because I was at the dentist this morning). You see, Al Jazeera (at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/08/didnt-find-remains-yemens-survivors-deadly-bus-attack-180812062952530.html) gives us the additional part. The missing part is “a Saudi-Emirati coalition air strike has killed dozens of children in a Houthi stronghold.” Now the fact that Al Jazeera had the news 18 hours ago and ABC gave it on Friday morning, I partially pass for ABC, because information might have been missing, which tends to be the case in the first hours. Yet the setting: ‘dozens of children in a Houthi stronghold‘, so what the EFF were children doing in a Houthi stronghold? If that can be confirmed, it does not merely give rise to the human shield part, it might be evidence and that makes the setting a very different one.

In addition, the Canberra Times gives us 11 hours ago the setting (at https://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/act/saudi-bus-bombing-marks-a-new-low-in-yemen-20180810-p4zwsm.html) “The bus, which is reported to have been taking a group of children to summer camp, was travelling through the crowded Dahyan market in Sa’ada, the capital of Sada province. The region is the traditional homeland of the Houthi rebels who rose up against the Saudi-backed Yemeni government in 2014“, it sounds innocent enough. Yet in a war, taking a bus full of children THROUGH a Houthi Stronghold shows a massive lack of insight, does it not? The fact that several newspapers lack that information seems more deceptive conduct than journalism, which is merely my view point on all this. In addition, the Canberra Times, makes light of this with “bombing of a school bus in Yemen probably doesn’t qualify as a war crime because the Royal Saudi Air Force is so incompetent the odds are it just made a mistake“, so the Canberra Times hides behind ‘Credible commentators, including a leading German analyst‘ (no names though, odd is it not?) No, it becomes some ‘silly Arab not knowing how to use a bomber or fighter jet’ anecdote. Yet when we dig deeper, we see all kinds of information that require scrutiny, on both sides, mind you. Another comment here is “the Saudis, even with the active assistance of the Americans and the British, can’t differentiate between hospitals, schools, orphanages and school buses on one hand, and missile launching sites on the other“, this sloppy comment is all absent from a few facts, how were the missiles fired? In addition, the fact that the missiles were fired towards Riyadh and civilian targets is also brushed aside. In addition, the entire setting of how the missiles are fired into Saudi Arabia as well as the fact that both Iran and Hezbollah are part of those firing teams are just as easily brushed aside. So a terrorist organisation is firing missiles at Riyadh and we seem to focus on the most emotional part in the aftermath. I personally call that really bad journalism, I call that emotion creation on a false premise, and now that Fairfax is part of Channel Nine, not that big a surprise, is it?

The fact that this article does not have a name and is merely from ‘the Canberra Times‘ is equally a worry, is it not? The end of the article giving us “are some innocents more equal than others?” is an interesting side, especially in the trivialisation of Iran as well as the absence of Hezbollah, the utter absence of missiles being launched towards the Saudi Capital is also worth noting. In all this, what has the Canberra Times shown other than its sliding regard for journalism?

If we dig, we see that Gulf News gave last Thursday: “165 rebel missiles launched since 2015, according to the coalition“, that is a lot of damage fired, whether they made it or not does not matter, they were fired. The Deutsche Welle gave us last December (at https://www.dw.com/en/how-did-yemens-houthis-obtain-ballistic-missiles/a-41873594), a few niceties. With “The missiles which have been used appear to be a type that was not previously known to be in the arsenals of Yemen before the current conflict broke out. It is known that the previous Yemeni government had invested in different types of ballistic missiles. For example, some were delivered from North Korea, some 15 years ago or so. But it’s not those missiles that appear to have been used right now. The images and information we have shows that this is a different type of missile“, so the Houthis are clearly supplied in some way. A few sources state the ‘evidence’ from the US that the missiles are from Iran. It is indeed most likely, yet not unlike the Deutsche Welle, there is no clear independent confirmation and that is equally important. We can accept that we know (from several sources) that Iran and Hezbollah joined the Houthi ranks, but that does not give rise to the evidence regarding the missile, until an actual missile is independently tested. Several sources show that the Houthis are firing the Burkan 2-H, it is shown to be Iranian (or Yemeni), but no evidence can be shown ruling out (or in) the direct involvement of Iran shipping the missiles in all this. It is more likely than not, yet still unproven.

Now we get to the good part. You see, to fire one of them bad boys, you need a decent launch pad. the more stable the setting, the better the result. We need to realise that a static launch setting is not possible for the firing party, so they need to have something really sturdy, something decently large and metallic. I have not specific details, and as it is based on the Qiam-1, an 11 meter long missile, the setting of a bus being used as a launch platform is not the silliest idea. In addition, there are some issues with the entire smuggling setting, in this Jane’s Intelligence review stated: “it would be difficult to ship entire ballistic missiles to Yemen, suggesting the Burkan-2 is a Scud modified in Yemen for longer range“, that is certainly one setting. The other version (my version) is that it was shipped in 2-3 parts and assembled in Yemen by parties unknown. There is some intelligence that this is why Iran is there, equally reasonable is that engineers are there to teach both Houthi and Hezbollah troops to do these actions, giving them a better bang for the buck (as well as the fact that Houthi forces need to shell out a hell of a lot more towards Iran in the end), all optional settings that have evidentiary support, but not enough to state it as a fact or as a given truth.

All issues linked in all this and all missed by the former Fairfax outlet. In addition, several other sources, merely skated over the facts and the stopped the icing at ‘children dead’. We all agree that this is not a good thing, but the answer on what those kids were doing in a Houthi stronghold is equally important and avoided. That all reeks like Hezbollah and what they have been doing for the longest time (as well as Hamas), Israel has plenty of evidence on that matter.

In this, we also need to set the stage against Al Jazeera in all this. Especially when we see: “Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow reports from neighbouring Djibouti on what has been described as the worst attack on Yemen’s children“. In this I question the voice of Mohammed Adow in this. I do not doubt his view, but when he stated ‘the worst attack on Yemen’s children‘. Were children the target? That part lacks evidence as they were, by his own admission ‘in a Houthi stronghold’; one does not mix with the other, does it? When I see: “It targeted a bus carrying children“, was that the case? I am assuming that optionally the bus was the target, yet the wreck shown is that it was right next to a building, it was in a setting where (a little unlikely) missiles were fired from, it was a Houthi stronghold, all parts shown from more than one source. I did state ‘a little unlikely’, for the mere reasons that all missile launches, the ones that made it to YouTube and likewise sources were fired from the open area setting. That does not mean that they all were, but until evidence is given, I am not merely accepting that the bus was a launch platform, merely that a bus could optionally be one, which is not the same. And I am making that distinction, as it matters as a distinction.

Even as several sources are stating that the missiles have too many Iranian ‘Characteristics’, we need to realise that Industrial espionage is not a non-option. (it is extremely unlikely), the fact that none of the parties involved has been able to give enough evidence (real physical one) that these are Iranian missiles, and in this regard I mean independent evidence, the setting is a twofold one and even as we say that when it walks, quacks and swims like a duck, there is still some regard whether it could optionally be a small goose. I know, it is far-fetched in a few ways, but evidence of this nature needs to be beyond all reasonable doubt, making it a lot harder, yet equally more essential. A setting that the press has been skating around for the longest of times and with certain ownership of certain papers changing, that setting will not change any day soon.

From my point of view the setting has changed where we need to distill the truths form several sources, not from one source, it seems that there is enough evidence that one source will in the end intentional or not, not inform you at all. Not even ABC, for whom I have had a much higher regard then most other news media providers. Yemen shows that there is a larger issue in all this and the media seems to cater to the need of emotional imprinting at the cost of the quality of journalism, but that too is merely my own personal view on the matter and I personally do not believe that I am the most impartial source in all this, I will admit to that too.

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Tagged as ABC, Al Jazeera, Burkan-2, Channel Nine, Dahyan market, Deutsche Welle, Djibouti, Fairfax, Gulf News, Hezbollah, Houthi, Iran, Mohammed Adow, Qiam-1, Red Cross, Riyadh, Royal Saudi air force, Sa'ada, Saudi Arabia, the Canberra Times, Yemen

August 1, 2018 · 10:39

Sleeping with the enemy

We have heard the expression; most will remember the movie with Julia Roberts and Patrick Bergin. The expression is slightly harsh and a little over the top for the setting that I find myself presently in with PwC. You see, some people are playing a dangerous game. So when I see ‘UK firm PwC criticised over bid for major Saudi Arabia contract‘ (at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/31/uk-firm-pwc-criticised-over-bid-for-major-saudi-arabia-contract), I find myself on the side of PwC supporting them. The article is an issue on a few levels. I touched on a few two days ago with: ‘Oman’s neighbour‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/07/30/omans-neighbour/), so this setting is actually most informative when we consider the issues seen here. I objected to the setting that Amnesty International gave a consequence, yet the original setting that started it was missing, in all this, the fact that the Houthi forces are firing missiles into Saudi Arabia, as is Hezbollah and Iran is the puppet master behind all this, so when I see “Peter Frankental, Amnesty International UK’s economic affairs programme director, urged PwC to explain what due diligence it had undertaken before pitching for the work“, I wonder if Peter Frankental has done its due diligence into the situation where a terrorist organisation (with evidence from several sources) is operation on Yemeni soil with full backing of Yemeni officials, who are also extremely aware that they are facilitating for Iran. That part is missing from the charade that Amnesty International states is ‘the humanitarian nightmare‘. We agree that too many Yemeni are in the middle of this, no one denies that, yet the actions by Iran via Hezbollah and the Houthi’s are an issue and in this they merely ignore the founding factors.

In addition, the UK, with a desperate need to improve the economy has options and opportunities in Saudi Arabia, creating a dialogue, helping Saudi Arabia move forward. We admit that it will not be fast, it might raise obstacles, which is a fact of life. So when Peter Frankental sets ‘due diligence‘, I am of the mind that he clearly did not proceed with that duly noted diligence to a rather large extent.

So when I see “The United Nations guiding principles on business and human rights make it clear that a company may be viewed as complicit if they are seen to benefit from abuses committed by another party“, in that view, Frank please explain to me how you will prosecute Northrop Grumman, Palantir, Blackberry, Dell, Pelican and Apple? I would really like to know that at present. I am going to grasp back at an expression that we get from Robocop, it was spoken by Kurtwood Smith: ‘Good business is where you find it!‘ and Saudi Arabia has business settings for up to £825 billion, so PwC is getting vetted for a chunk of business that could optionally keep thousands employed, grow optional new businesses and industries. In addition, when exactly did Peter Frankental set the stage for a similar attack on Virgin? Are they not setting up the first Hyperloop there? So where is Frankie boy in all that? Now, it is not my intent to slam out at Frank, he seems to have his heart in the right place. Especially when we look at a paper by the House of Lords called: ‘Any of our business? Human Rights and the UK private sector‘, it seems that he has forever focussed on this, the paper (Attached) is from 2009, where we see on page 15 “In particular, we contend that the UK state could and should play a greater role in the governance of corporations so as to contribute to the protection of human rights from corporate abuse, whether the abuse occurs in the UK or abroad“, that is fair enough, yet he is setting now the acts of an attacked government into a corporate right, in that same setting all exports to the US should in that light be equally questioned and regarded as illegal, you basically can’t have it both ways Frank!

So when we grasp at: “In particular, we do support the idea of some kind of international instrument for corporate accountability within the UN system, but we agree with Professor Ruggie that such an instrument would not exist to monitor the activities of tens of thousands of transnational corporations, that would be unfeasible, but it would exist to reinforce the will of states to hold companies to account within their jurisdiction” and set the dimensionality of a flaccid UN when it comes to the events in Syria, there is such overwhelming evidence of inaction (through Veto or not), which gives us that in the faced setting PwC should not even be a blip on his radar. Not when we compare it to “the US contractors are mostly focused on supporting the 2,000 US troops in Syria by delivering hot meals, gasoline and other supplies. More than 30% of them support logistics and maintenance, according to the quarterly Pentagon report, and another 27% help with support and construction of US military outposts in the region” (source: Al-Monitor, April 2018). So how much visibility did Frank give here? In all this, he does not get to hide behind the ‘It is not linked to the UK‘ you just cannot become a ‘local’ party towards a global event when you decide it is. It just does not work that way.

In this, we also see: “PwC already has a presence in Saudi Arabia, but it is the company’s UK operation that is behind the defence project“, which is true, because I applied and they were not taking any non-UK citizens. Darn!

In addition, with: “PwC has launched a “call for resources” – asking specialists and consultants in London whether they would be interested in moving to Riyadh to start the work – because, it has said, it is “currently finalising the deal”“, we see that PwC has the setting to move people to Saudi Arabia, more employment and in addition a sector growth that could lead to 10 figure long term deals, but fear not! Peter Frankental will be there to try and undo the economic boom that will benefit the UK (was that overly simplified?)

So with the upcoming opportunity and the subsequent quote “focus on how to reshape recruitment, resourcing, performance management and strategic workforce planning, and how to manage and communicate change“, it actually goes further than that, even as a lot more performance management is likely to be shown, it will also be about what is the hierarchy and what is not. In light of work safety and preparedness (yes, even in the military), the setting of ‘Own the challenge‘ is a lot harder to scribe into the soul of the person. To set ‘solving’ the issue as the forefront of ‘that what is my actual responsibility‘ tend to be a challenge even within the most flexible workers, so I predict that there is a shift that will soon be shown in places like Saudi Arabia as well. I will admit that having never worked there, that this setting is more speculative than anything else.

So when I see Frankie give us: “As any accountancy firm involved in work for the Saudi ministry of defence must know, the Royal Saudi air force has an appalling record in Yemen, with the Saudi-led military coalition having indiscriminately bombed Yemeni homes, hospitals, funeral halls, schools and factories. Thousands of Yemeni civilians have been killed and injured“, the equal question on how many missiles that Iran enabled the Houthi and Hezbollah forces allowed to be shot into Saudi Arabia, and there is the drone strike issues in the UAE to consider as well. In addition, it is called ‘Saudi Ministry of defence‘, not the Hezbollah missile strike team. It might be nit-picking on my side, but then, I was always willing to go for broke.

Then there is the setting of “the UK “should be focusing on trying to stop this terrible conflict, not assisting the Saudi government.”“, yes it is an interesting setting by Anna Macdonald (younger sister of Ronald). When we go to the site (at https://controlarms.org/meet-the-team/), we see Anna Macdonald, Raluca Muresan, Zoya Craig and half a dozen volunteers. Yet, lets also congratulate on the bang up (or is that blow up) job they did in Syria, as well as a few other places. So when I see: “a global coalition working for international arms control“, which is a good goal to have, the flow of missiles and arms from Iran into a few places was not really stopped was it? Iran has exported small arms and ammunition to Sudan and Syria, anti-tank missiles to Syria, Sudan and Somalia; rocket exports to Syria, Sudan, Libya as well as shipments to Hezbollah and Iraqi insurgents. So in that list, and the goal Anna Macdonald envisions is a noble one, no one denies that, in all that, with at least two dozen of export mentions excluded, I think that PwC should not be on her list either. Especially, as the Saudi Arabian civil population is still under threat of missiles from a terrorist organisation. No one denies that the Yemeni people caught in the middle are in a really unbearable place, but all these actions means that no actual actions are taken against Iran. So as we were given ‘the European Commission has moved to add Iran to the investment mandate of the European Investment Bank (EIB)‘ a mere 18 hours ago, it seems to me that in all this Anna Macdonald and Peter Frankental should be setting their focus in a different direction, or perhaps that will merely not give them the limelight that they so desperately need (for all the right reasons mind you).

In all this, the defence from Saudi Arabia in the person of the foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir was reduced to a mere: “Judeir blamed the Houthi rebels for blocking aid and contributing to the humanitarian crisis“, is that not interesting too? The actual blockers of humanitarian aid was set into a mere footnote, a mere 14 words, so in all this, where is Peter Frankental at this point?

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Tagged as Adel al-Jubeir, Anna Macdonald, Any of our business, Apple, Blackberry, Dell, Hezbollah, House of lords, Iran, Iraqi insurgents, Julia Roberts, Kurtwood Smith, Northrop-Grumman, Palantir, Patrick Bergin, Pelican, Peter Frankental, Professor Ruggie, PwC, Raluca Muresan, Royal Saudi air force, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, UN, US contractors, Virgin, Yemen, Zoya Craig

July 30, 2018 · 14:30

Oman’s neighbour

You might remember the state of Oman, capital Muscat. There are several reasons to remember Oman, the fact that they got into the news last March with: “The Central Bank of Iran has allowed lenders to issue guarantees for Iranian businesses planning to invest in Oman or those who seek to take out loans from Omani banks” is merely one reason. The fact that they are next to Yemen is the actual reason to mention them. You see, when you look at Amnesty International, you see (at https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/09/yemen-the-forgotten-war/) the quote “On 25 March 2015, an international coalition led by Saudi Arabia launched air strikes against the Huthi armed group in Yemen sparking a full-blown armed conflict. Over the following three years, the conflict in Yemen is showing no real signs of abating. Horrific human rights abuses, as well as war crimes, are being committed throughout the country by all parties to the conflict, causing unbearable suffering for civilians” is the issue. Now, let’s be clear, Amnesty International is not lying to you, but the setting that led to it is equally important. The missing part is: “Houthi forces controlling the capital Sana’a and allied with forces loyal to the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh have clashed with forces loyal to the government of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, based in Aden“, the setting is ‘former president Ali Abdullah Saleh‘ versus ‘deposed president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi‘, deposed by the Houthi’s who had instigated a Coup d’état. I will admit that it is more complex than that (or better stated there are additional unmentioned facts here), yet the forced deposing of the then president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi is still an issue; he went for help towards his allies.

That part is an important part that is missing. After that things went from bad to worse with on the frontlines Iran using Hezbollah enabling the deniable launching of missiles on Saudi Arabia, that is a clear setting and this escalation has no sign of letting up or slowing down.

Now we get the setting that Bloomberg is giving us. the setting (at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-26/yemen-rebels-say-they-attacked-abu-dhabi-airport-with-drones), with the headline ‘Yemen Rebels Say They Attacked Abu Dhabi Airport With Drones‘, the issue is not merely that they have access to drones, the setting of the Iranian missiles and the fact that the Houthi’s are attacking both Saudi Arabia and the UAE (which is denied by the UAE) gives rise to other parts. with the quote “The source confirmed that the drone, Sammad 3, begun its operations by targeting Abu Dhabi International Airport with several raids, in response to the UAE crimes against Yemen” gives rise to the setting that this is no longer merely a Houthi versus the world setting, the entire premise that not only was there a new Drone developed, the Sammad 3 is also actively attacking the UAE, the question becomes is this done via Saudi Arabia, or via Oman, not merely transgressing on their sovereign land, but is it done whilst some in either government was aware? The direct path via Saudi Arabia makes more sense as there is a whole lot of nothing in that region. The second question becomes: why strategically deploy in this way? We might accept that whatever the Yemeni have is nowhere near what the US has, so it will be less than $12M per drone, but how much less is it?

In addition, what is the operational ability of the Sammad 3 (the speculated drone in question)? When you look into the timeline that one announcement comes after the announcement of the Sammad 2, whilst increasing the operational support 10 fold is also suspicious on a few levels. You see, every system increases as becomes better, but 1000% increase is a little much by any standard. Even as we accept that some strategies are better than others, Middle East Eye gives us: “Since the Saudi-led coalition launched its war in Yemen in March 2015, the UAE has been a key player. Yet, while Riyadh’s goal has been to restore President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi to power and crush the Houthi uprising, Abu Dhabi has focused more on the south, training security forces to secure its own geopolitical ambitions“, in this we might question some actions, and they are to some extent, yet the overbearing issue is that there is an Iranian finger in this pie. Only 14 weeks ago we were treated to: “The Yemeni government says that Iran supplied the Houthi rebels with drones used to attack Saudi Arabia. On Wednesday, Riyadh said it shot down two drones in the south of the country and intercepted ballistic missiles launched by the Houthi forces in Yemen. The drones are “made in Iran”, said Yemen’s internationally-recognised government on Saturday. It added that the country’s military did not possess such aircraft and it was “impossible to manufacture them locally””, this not directly contradicts the Bloomberg news by Mohammed Hatem. You cannot erect a drone solution in this short a time span, not even if you had all the Viagra in the world, so the tool erected setting of Iran trying new tools in the political and escalating statement arena regarding ‘drone strikes’ is more than an issue. When we see the news given from Almasirah Media Network with ‘Air Force Unveils New Drone, Sammad 3‘, are they the tool or, was the statement by The National who by their own words are ‘committed to serving the local UAE community‘ misled and they are misleading the UAE community? You see one of the two is true, not both. No matter which path is the real one, it is my personal opinion that none of this existed without Iran, they are in the middle of this and the other media sources are trying to steer clear as some are trying to ‘save’ an illusionary deal with Iran that was never a real prospect to begin with. No matter which one is true, the Yemeni population remains in the middle of it all. there is a second side to this, the events in the red Sea where a tanker was hit is now stopping transfer of oil via the Bab el-Mandeb strait, potentially upping oil prices. It is a clear intentional push for the US to get involved, especially after we were told “A huge tanker with a shipment of oil from Saudi Arabia bound for Egypt was damaged by a missile attack from the northern Bab el-Mandeb strait in the Red Sea. The Houthi rebels in Yemen, armed and financed by Iran, were responsible for the attack. It happened in the wake of the renewed exchange of threats between the United States and Iran, which could also hurt the oil market” (source: Haaretz), in addition we got “Iran’s Quds force chief Qassem Soleimani said on Thursday that the Red Sea was not secure with the presence of American troops in the area”, so there is a much louder setting that Iran is willing to escalate towards direct outspoken war. I reckon that as Europe is becoming meaningless, the direct involvement of Iran will turn defeat to victory. That is not only not given, there is every chance that the UAE and Saudi Arabia will make a united front, in addition, the naval actions could be bad times for Egypt, so there would be additional support for Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The questions will soon become, where does Qatar stand in all this and what are their options. They have their own worries as accusations more and more ridiculous are hitting the media. It seems that the Sydney Morning Herald is becoming the joke of independent journalism, whilst merely parroting that idiot Martin Ivens (as I personally see him in all this) on “In article published by The Sunday Times alleges the Qatar bid team used a PR agency and former CIA operatives to disseminate fake propaganda about its main competitors, the United States and Australia“, whilst the Sunday Times still has not given the people the millions of documents he stated he had with the previous accusations, so we can all optionally agree that Nine Networks is now wearing the pants in the new merger. That matters, because some are not merely tailoring to the needs of places like (censored name of sponsor), they are setting the stage for unsolicited change and through these events they are adding needlessly to pressures in the Middle East.

Pressures that need avoidance because the expression ‘If you have to fight, fight like a cornered cat‘ is a role that Qatar could be pushed into. I actually prefer the Dutch version of that expression which is ‘A cornered cat can move very unpredictable‘, that is more worrying, because the unsubstantiated accusation are an actual issue on a few levels now. so when we see “the alleged smear campaign included paying a professor $US 9,000 to write a damning report on the economic cost of a US World Cup, recruiting journalists and bloggers to promote negative stories in the US, Australian and international media, and organising grassroots protests at rugby matches in Australia“, we demand to see that report, as well as all other evidence; we need to be shown clearly where the lies in that report were as well as the other evidence. Is that not simple? Show us the ACTUAL evidence!

All these settings are important. We can vocally set the stage against Iran (like I am doing with both evidence as well as a comic look at the two images earlier), and I can look at the presented and i am using the published details available to me with all the settings that are open to the audience at large. I never proclaim to have all the wisdom in the world, yet hiding behind ‘unnamed sources’ and ‘unpublished evidence’ like the Sunday Times, whilst I regard them because of that as nothing more than a mere courtesan to sponsors, that is how I see their actions, when the need to investigate FIFA was there, these media buffs were all about the hooker in the bookcase, the entire setting of the media had become questionable. The setting of the Garcia report, whilst the newspapers and media failed to hammer down on Hans-Joachim Eckert, so when we got the ‘refused to publish on various legal grounds‘, who went after Hans-Joachim Eckert? the entire matter also involved the Qatar 2022 cup bids, so as it stands, we need to make sure that places like the Sunday Times and the SMH are now also optionally the spreaders of Fake News, but that is apparently not the case when they have their unnamed sources.

Even as I spoke out in the end against Qatar 2022, it is only because of the stage that Qatar found itself in. It is not up to me who got them there, some was all their own doing, but a larger part was the act of smear campaigns that we see now. Almost four years of smear campaigns. If we are to actually do something about it, then EVERY newspaper is to offer the 350-page report of Michael J. Garcia from September 2014 on their website with a full page 3 summary of the report. That is the first moment that we can start taking journalists serious again (possibly with the Sun as the one exception). It is my view that anyone who was part of misleading regarding Qatar, or in the other direction supporting in falsehood the Qatar bid should be barred for life from every official sport event. It is the only way and that is merely the one side-track that the Yemen situation now calls for. With Iran upping the stakes in Yemen and with alleged drone strikes on UAE and actual attacks on Saudi Arabia, how long until one of them sees a reason to lash out against Qatar? You see, the plot is also thickening when we see the Iran increasing non-oil trade with Oman by 136% in the last quarter alone. That is half a billion in value, now we can agree that every nation has and needs trade, so I would be the last one to state against it, yet there is every indication that Iran is trying to set the mood fir additional change. Some will remember the setting last year when we were offered “Bank Melli Iran and Bank Saderat Iran will resume their operations in the Omani capital Muscat which had halted during the sanctions that cut off Iran from the international financial network“, this is now seen against the news from March when we saw ‘Iran, Oman resolute to grow banking relations’ with the additional quote “Drafting an operational and practical program with opening joint accounts based on the national currencies of Iran and Oman, independent from foreign currencies, should be considered as one of the requirements of developing banking relations“, so what happens, when the setting of the national currencies becomes the foundation of a credit swap where oil is the determined value? It is merely one step away and the US crying for cheap oil is that one element that could make it happen. The US not acting against Oman, whilst knowingly allowing for the swapping of Iranian originated oil based CDO’s is not that far stretched, is it?

Now we have billions in funds, an operational drone team and additional Hezbollah populists trying to set the stage in Yemen. there is support for that view (to the smallest extent), Arab News two weeks ago gave us: “Yemen’s foreign minister has called on Lebanon’s caretaker government to “rein in” Hezbollah and its aggressive tactics in support of the Iranian-backed Houthi militia“, whilst in addition, whilst the National gave us last week: “The UAE Embassy in Beirut has denied claims made by Lebanon’s pro-Hezbollah Al Akhbar newspaper regarding an “Emirates Leaks” report that says Abu Dhabi is applying pressure on Muscat over the Qatar crisis. The embassy has called the leaked diplomatic correspondence from the UAE Embassy in Muscat “false” and said that it was aimed at creating tension with Oman“. We need to realise that the two are unrelated articles are merely that. One has apples, the other pears and the fact that they both represent pieces of fruit is no evidence, changing one of them into oranges does not behold additional truth that should be clear. Yet the stage where Iran decided to increase trade by 136% is a shown fact and Iran has been doing something similar with Turkey which has not given Turkey an additional amount close to $5 billion in the last 6 months alone. Iran is setting a trade stage where in the end, in light of their devaluation and monetary value can soon (or already) only be honoured with oil, how quaint!

It is not merely the plans in place, it is the funding that these projects require, that is where it seems to make sense, but it is not a given that those are the only paths that are being trodden. You see, there is still the Uranium enrichment program that is worked on. With those in the works, we see the need for serious amounts of cash, skills and equipment, all that from a setting where the infrastructure was no longer able to meet the financial needs and the commitment from Iran towards Yemen by the Iranian commander in chief shows that the next step is not that far away, they will need resources and there is now at least a partial setting in place where the facilitation is close to complete. From my point of view, lowering the pressures on Qatar allows Qatar to walk away from Iran as far as possible limiting the options that Iran has, and that is an essential requirement at present.

Even as we see several sources give us lines like: ‘Oman and Kuwait has taken a neutral position in the dispute involving Qatar‘, I am actually less and less convinced that Oman is completely neutral in all this. Is the trade merely growing sympathy in Oman, or is news from places like Sarfayt and Dhalkut changing the sentiment that the people in Oman have? I actually do not know, but something seems to be stirring in Oman, perhaps it is not a pro-Iran feeling, merely a lessened anti-Iran sentiment, they are not the same. What does matter is that all this is escalating giving Iran more options in Yemen, to counter that outside of a full scale event in Yemen is to take away the available fuel that Iran has and I think that removing pressure from Qatar is a first step in all this. Should this be successful, we might see a setting where Oman feels less comfortable having strong ties with Iran, which seems to serve everyone’s purpose (except Iran of course).

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Tagged as Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, Abu Dhabi, Al Akhbar newspaper, Ali Abdullah Saleh, Almasirah Media Network, Amnesty International, Arab News, Bab el-Mandeb strait, Bank Melli Iran, Bank Saderat Iran, bloomberg, CDO, Dhalkut, Emirates Leaks, FIFA, Haaretz, Hans-Joachim Eckert, Hezbollah, Houthi, Iran, Lebanon, Martin Ivens, Michael J. Garcia, Mohammed Hatem, Muscat, Oman, Qassem Soleimani, Qatar, Qatar 2022, Riyadh, Sammad 3, Sarfayt, Saudi Arabia, Sydney Morning Herald, the National, The Sunday Times, Turkey, UAE, Yemen

July 22, 2018 · 14:27

Chivalry vs Rivalry

The news is still hanging onto several things that are playing. This is not a bad thing; this is the setting as news moves forward and remains news. Even when we consider the events in Saudi Arabia, where we get the Guardian quote: “Saudi Arabia has rushed to boost oil production under pressure from US President Donald Trump – only to discover that global markets might not need it yet, according to some financial experts“, we see that certain players do not tend to use a presidency as a tool, so the quote might be correct, but there is a game in play, played between Donald Trump and Wall Street. So far it works, because everyone thinks he is an idiot, that is the popular story, but I am not convinced. This is direct and it is with purpose, so something else will rear its ugly head soon enough. Yet this is not about that. You see, when it comes down to chivalry versus rivalry, we see that chivalry is dead, it has no place anymore. Even as Saudi Arabia wanted to come to the aid of America, we see the news that “the Saudis are struggling to sell as much extra oil as they’d hoped and are privately fretting that they may have opened the taps too quickly, according to people briefed by Riyadh in the last few days“, it this merely an American ply to keep the reserves maxed so the President can haul away a cheap political victory as heating prices remain low this coming winter?

Even as the Independent offers: “Societe Generale’s Mr Wittner, said: “We have hardly started to see a reduction in flows from Iran. Though there’s a lot of crude coming out from Saudi Arabia now, spare capacity is really going to be the big issue going forward. And spare capacity is getting very tight very quickly.”“, I am not convinced that this is about Iran; this is about keeping prices down over the next 8 months. The flow fall of Iran is merely a nice bonus. Even as we start on oil, we now see that a similar fight is going on in entertainment, the actual issue. In the light of Netflix against the world, we see a few changes that are now more adamant and also impacting us all. The Guardian starts the event with: “Below-par subscriber numbers last week were bad news for a service that must keep growing to survive. How will it respond?“, yet the story is not there. You see, from my point of view, 100 million subscribers is nothing to sneer at and the saturation makes new members a much harder setting, it is by no means the setting for a down draft. Even last week, when I wrote ‘Pushers of media value‘ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2018/07/17/pushers-of-media-value/), I was confronted with several responses, that I was crazy, that there was no saturation. Yet now we see in the Guardian: ““Netflix’s big challenge is maintaining growth worldwide while its customer base saturates in core western markets,” says Richard Broughton, analyst at Ampere. “Netflix is having to work ever harder to gain new subscribers.” The low-cost nature of the streaming service – a premium subscription costs £9.99 per month in the UK and $13.99 in the US – means that it needs inexorable growth to pay for its content“, so apparently with ‘while its customer base saturates in core western markets‘ my setting shows to be the correct one. Now that we have that out of the way, and for now I ignore the one market that Netflix ignored in the UK and a few other places, worth close to an additional £15 million a month, we see that Netflix is for now all about the “it costs a lot of money to attract a Hollywood star such as Will Smith to a sci-fi film like Bright – and in recent years it has been raised by about $1bn annually. Netflix is stuck in a costly and precarious cycle“, Netflix has chosen a short term solution that will go nowhere in about 3 years.

It is the setting of the man who makes a deal with the devil, to bring 10 souls a day to stay out of hell, and accepting a 20% annual increase, as a sales director he accepts it, because he knows it can be done, yet souls are not revenue and in 3 years he needs to have accumulated 12,230 souls. After 6 years it is up to 34,200. A setting that started with 10 souls has now been increased to 25 a day, no option to fail. Greed is like that, it has no problems, because in the end the house wins or collapses, until the second happens, all serving the house are in a spiral of servitude with sliding morals. You see, the first 10 years seems fine, but after 10 years the daily soul quota has gone up to 51 a day and after that it gets interesting with decennial party where 319 souls a day will be required. That is the game everyone forgets about, steps absent of long term vision with in the end the executive having to hand over his soul, no matter what. The house of greed always wins!

Netflix is now in that downward spiral, not when it comes to members, but the setting to gain followers, set against the tides of resources, that is the war they cannot win, not until they resist temptation and take it to a very different level. They have the option and the means, but will they be willing to take the plunge?

Rivalry

This is the setting of greed, rivalry is everything, because now that Netflix has shown the value, now that the others are seeing that the setting is not merely revenue, it is massive profit for the one holding the data, that is the setting that we now get with: “Netflix was able to get hold of the rights to TV shows and films on the cheap. Rights owners and future rivals had not identified the global potential of subscription video-on-demand rights, and Netflix prospered. The value of those rights has now spiralled, which has pushed up Netflix’s content budgets and fuelled its drive to produce its own content“, there are solutions and the nice part is that both the UK and Australia have a leg up in all this, they have an advantage if the proper person gets the parties working together, but can they realise the potential that is still out in the open for the next person to grab?

I am certain that the issue is there, but sees it? I am not giving away the plot here, because there are three aces up for grabs, the question is whoever holds the fourth ace is in the running to get the clean sweep. Yet, the second party is Netflix, are they up to the task to get set up for the chop? That is the game, it is not merely winner takes all, failure is at this stage slightly too dangerous. It took me a day to realise the opportunity, because even as an IP master, I had to wonder how far it could be stretched, yet it can in the Commonwealth and as far as I can tell in the US as well, so this gives Netflix the option, however, to get this up and running, they need to truly focus. It cannot be half baked!

The next pitfall

With “Youth-targeted shows such as Stranger Things and Thirteen Reasons Why have been major hits, but Netflix faces some of the same pressures caused by the rapid generational shift in viewing habits“, that is true, but in that same setting, we see that in some cases everything old is new again, so there is space and place to grow and to do that, a first step is needed, but are the shareholders willing to play the longer game, a game that could potentially grow value by 400%? The long game is not something that shareholders are good at. They believe in short term gratification (not just on 42^nd street mind you), so the game is optionally out of the hands of the Americans, giving the UK and Australia now a partial advantage over America on the entertainment business and there is plenty of famous entertainers here, beyond the Australian King and Queen (Geoffrey Rush & Cate Blanchett). This gets us to the final part in all this. The quote “Netflix’s long-term strategy is that it has to increase its revenue from subscribers; it needs to move into those content genres to replicate the journey of traditional pay-TV companies,” says Mulligan. “You need a full suite of content if you want to be a real substitute, not just an additive service.”” we see here is a dangerous one. I do not completely agree with Tim Mulligan, analyst at MIDiA Research. You see, he relates Netflix back to TV, yet we all forget that Netflix is not merely new, it is in a position to become more than: ‘the large new kid on the block‘, yet what Tim fails to see is that Netflix is optionally the new cornerstone of entirely different block, Netflix has been setting new grounds, but the inconceivable still exists, Netflix and rivals have the option to become the rulers of Tinsel town II, a setting that scares Hollywood and the large players in cinematography. They know that this is still a reality that they face and it makes every analyst take a 90 degree turn, but the reality is that short sighted on what makes for any Tinsel town is the opportunity that hands Netflix the goods. Whilst the realisation of avoiding ‘value of those rights has now spiralled, which has pushed up Netflix’s content budgets and fuelled its drive to produce its own content‘ is clearly there, the fact that no one sees the options available is equally disturbing, are they not seeing it, or are they too scared and pushing away FROM it, two very different realities. and one is a steal to own if you see beyond the 4 lines that makes the square that some analysts put you in, realising that lines on a map mean nothing to the map itself, only then can you embrace the new course where those talking the leap have an option (if ALL the conditions are right) to become the new rulers of a market no one saw coming in the first place.

That is what separates the visionaries from the second rate followers.

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Tagged as Bright, Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, MIDiA Research, Mr Wittner, Netflix, Richard Broughton, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the Guardian, The Independent, Tim Mulligan, US President Donald Trump, Wall Street, Will Smith

July 18, 2018 · 13:46

They did what?

Newsweek is bringing out the news, news that had me rattled. The story (at https://www.newsweek.com/saudi-arabia-bans-47-popular-video-games-general-commission-audio-visual-1028013) gives us ‘Saudi Arabia bans 47 popular video games including ‘Assassins Creed,’ ‘Deadpool’ And ‘Final Fantasy’‘. For a moment I could not fathom why video games would be banned. Now, even as Deadpool is unlikely to be my choice of game ever. It does have a ‘tongue-in-cheek’ approach to gaming, which gives it a positive flair. Yet overall, even as I loved the movies, I never read the comic books, so there is a gap there and I reckon that the comic book fans are most likely the ones who would want the game.

So, I was intrigued to learn what the reasons were. The article merely gives me “The kingdom’s General Commission for Audio-Visual Media said Monday that 47 games will be banned for violating rules and regulations“, pretty much all the media gives the same setting some of them give other titles, even though as far as I could tell, none gave the full list. All of them set the stage that the game ‘Blue Whale Challenge‘ is the starting point for the decision involved. Now, I do get the fact that censorship remains strong in Saudi Arabia, the fact that this is the first year that the cinemas are open, the movies are still all to be screened before allowed in the cinema.

The National (at https://www.thenational.ae/world/gcc/after-suicide-in-saudi-arabia-parents-urged-to-do-more-to-curb-gaming-effects-1.746328) had another side in all this. Here we see one of the Saudi fathers in question giving us: “A Saudi father has blamed the suicide of his 12-year-old son on an online game that he said “broke the spirit” of his child. But therapists and gaming experts say the onus is on parents to step in“, I feel sorry for the loss of that father and the other parents. Yet in this part, even as a gamer and gaming expert for decades, I do not agree with the response. Yes, parents need to step in at time, yet the setting given against that father is unrealistic. You see, for a large portion of the world, gaming is life. Let me explain that, so that you do not get the wrong idea. Our lives are bettered through social interaction, at times we also need our own space to unwind, to relax and let the brain work things out. Gaming allows for all that. The multiplayer games allow friends and schoolmates to compete and sometimes cooperate in games like Fortnite and online RPG’s. By ourselves we can escape our place for a little while and seek comfort elsewhere. I myself can lose myself for hours in Minecraft by myself and feel really awesome after an hour or so, games have that ability. The nice part of Minecraft is that you can play it at times without even thinking, a version of virtual Lego that allows you to create, explore as well as destroy spiders and skeletons. Now with the ocean world addition the game just become more than twice the size it already was. It is great to game at times. All these games are positive reinforcements, no matter what the game is. You might be scared of every corner in Bloodborne; you might see the cliffs and not know the next move like a Tomb Raider should, or sneak through the corridors removing the henchmen of the Arkham Knight. None of them are negative against you and for the most they are positive parts. Even in Assassins Creed where you are correcting great injustice through killing mind you. You are one against an army! It is a challenge and at times even more. The cultural references and the additional scenes in Assassins Creed Origin were overwhelming, making it a learning experience as well.

In the darkness there are monsters

Yes, there are monsters too; in this case it is one person. It is Philipp Budeikin. The information on him is sketchy to an extent. He is a former psychology student who was expelled from his university for reasons I have not found yet. According to his own claims he invented the game in 2013. In more than one source we (BBC was one of them) he gives it to the press that his intention was to cleanse society by pushing persons to suicide whom he deemed as having no value, they were he referred to as “biological waste”. This is new; this is the first time where someone with psychological skills was out to make children destroy their own life. The game known as the ‘Blue Whale Challenge‘, the game allegedly instructs challengers to participate in a series of strange and disturbing challenges. These can include live streaming self-harm and staying up late to watch horror movies (source: The New Arab). The challenges are stated to grow increasingly extreme, until they are reportedly instructed to kill themselves as part of the 50th and final challenge. Apart from any person doing that, or being willing to do that. The fact that someone is willing to go this path (I refer to the game maker) is just weird and insane. In addition, the fact that this person was intentionally and knowingly targeting vulnerable people and the fact he is merely facing 3 years in jail is equally an issue. I will be the first one to sign any petition to ban this game for life on a global scale. This is not about the freedom of expression; this is not about freedom of speech. This is about protecting children! I have seen weird games in my lifetime. The most offensive game I saw was on the Commodore-64 in the late 80’s. It was a game called ‘Paki bang’, an offensive game where you have to shoot Pakistani’s. You got 1 point for every Pakistani you shot and -1000 for every Caucasian. It was offensive and I walked away within a minute, a game with absolutely no redeeming values, little did I know how bad could turn to worse. In my life, the setting where children are intentionally targeted by someone with psychological skills is just too unnatural; the setting clearly makes Philipp Budeikin “biological waste”, as he states the value himself. I do like and agree with the response that we see in The National. With “Omar Sharif, owner of Geeky Lizard, a gaming community and store in Dubai states: “But it’s the job of parents to make sure that kids are engaging in healthy online habits”“, I believe that to be a truth, online has many positive sides, but it has negative sides too. Parents need to be aware what their children are up to, it might not make sense at times to parents, but there is a difference between kids shouting at their friends in competition and collaboration in a game, against the setting that they are given a challenge to physically and emotionally harming themselves. We can argue that children do not always realise this, but the setting of protecting ourselves form harm is coded in our DNA, we tend to not act in self harm, the fact that ‘Blue Whale Challenge‘ is stripping away these defences is an issue and the ‘defence’ given by some with “But therapists and gaming experts say the onus is on parents to step in” is not one that I can agree with. The fact that this ‘Blue Whale Challenge‘ is not hunted down on every server by government and hackers alike is much larger issue. This setting is so unnatural that parents would not have been ready. We all should have stepped up and made sure that any server having this software got hacked and all its data removed any way possible.

In the end, the Saudi government will need to make another ruling here, it might not be immediate, but in the long run it is perhaps essential to consider the reason for any games banned other than ‘Blue Whale Challenge‘. In the end, we need to realise that Saudi Arabia has strict rules on what is allowed and the event that caused the death of two children was the one step that caused a clamp down on certain matters. Saudi Arabia has a sovereign right here. Gamers might not like it, but it is a reality. Even as we might not agree with the verdict on nearly all but one game getting the “Saudi Arabia today banned dozens of video games that it says lead children to harm themselves” label of non-approval.

Time will tell on how things evolve, in the end, we need to realise that it is a list of 47, whilst most consoles have hundreds of titles that were not banned, let’s make sure that we do not forget that part of the equation either.

In other gaming news

The predictions I have given in the past regarding Butterfingers Microsoft versus Eagerly Innovating Nintendo is taking a stronger turn, unofficial numbers (and not from a reliable source I must add) have implied the setting that Nintendo has now approached the 2/3rd marker. It is about to pass (or has just passed) the line where since the release of the Nintendo Switch (March 2017) now equaled two thirds of all the Microsoft Xbox One sold in its life cycle (since November 2013). In less than 18 months it has reached the speculated 2/3rd marker (It is hard to be precise as Microsoft is no longer releasing total consoles sold). It might be because the ‘most powerful console in the world‘ is getting surpassed by the weakest one, but that would be speculation on my side. I see it as the price for being short sighted and narrow minded, not to mention the inability to listen to their customers. 3 elements that became the alleged cause on a lessened revenue path for ‘the most powerful console in the world’.

That moment is still important, it is the clear message that it is all about playing the game and Microsoft has not been doing that. Even as Forbes gave us merely 4 days ago “Microsoft continues to surprise us with strong support for backwards compatibility and an equally remarkable offering with its subscription Xbox Games Pass as it quickly becomes the Netflix of video games” (at https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2018/07/14/xbox-one-vs-ps4-vs-nintendo-switch-the-state-of-the-console-wars-in-2018/#21fbe2571a8e), yet it is interesting that Forbes seems to be so protective of Microsoft, ignoring that the ‘the Netflix of video games‘ does so with a massively inferior storage system. It talks hard against Sony (validly I might add), and acknowledges the ‘Nintendo has had a remarkable resurgence‘ with the added ‘but investors are still spooked about the system‘, is that not interesting on how soft Forbes is on Microsoft? so as we get ‘will investors ever give Nintendo a break?‘, which might be a valid statement, yet it is not properly set in the dimension against the Microsoft failures (four times over), as well as ‘and will Sony stop being such sore winners?‘, which is a fair call, yet the question is how many are truly hurt by no cross playing? In the past it was never an option and we all wanted it, Sony might not be ready on a few levels, but the Sony remark is still valid, correct and acceptable, so why be so soft on Microsoft, because they are getting a beating from Nintendo? I do not recall such sentimental considerations when Microsoft Word took WordPerfect to an abattoir and gutted it completely. It was not about consideration then, so why is it now?

I am still uncertain whether Nintendo Switch will surpass Microsoft before New Year’s evening this year. The delay of 2-3 big titles are largely the cause of that, yet in light of the amount of games released, there is good cause for joy around Christmas time for Nintendo. At that point it does not really matter whether the Xbox One life cycle sales gets surpassed no sooner than Q1 2019. What matters is that gamers get to play games, perhaps it will wake up the board of directors of Microsoft to rethink their choices on all the times that they fumbled the ball, because one fumble was enough to end a console in the past (with the exception of the Sega Dreamcast, they lost because Sony was willing to be the marketeer with deadly intent). Or perhaps the fact that Microsoft advertises in Forbes? I might be speculating on the three steps on a certain Wi-Fi enabled print ad, but that does not take away the setting that we see the valid existence of ‘its subscription Xbox Games Pass‘. For me that setting comes across as someone telling a leprechaun to go screw an elephant, to which the leprechaun responds: ‘with what?‘

Having a small drive tends to be not so memorable. #PunIntended

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Tagged as Arkham Knight, Assassins Creed, Assassins Creed Origin, Bloodborne, Blue Whale Challenge, Dubai, Forbes, Geeky Lizard, Microsoft, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Xbox One, Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, Omar Sharif, Philipp Budeikin, Saudi Arabia, Sega Dreamcast, Switch, the National, The New Arab, Tomb Raider, Wordperfect, Xbox Games Pass, Xbox One

July 16, 2018 · 11:22

The Qatarian debacle

There is no denying it, we sometimes take the most stupid steps, even though it was for the best intentions. Yet when we are confronted with the reality, it becomes a different thing, especially when corruption and corporations intervene. First we were confronted with the prospect of Qatar 2022, I was actually pretty happy about it. To bring the enthousiasm of Soccer into the Middle East is a good thing, it opens all kinds of dialogues between Middle Eastern nations and as Europe has one universal event in common, soccer could have become the bridge between the nations in Europe and the Middle East. That’s how I naively saw it. But it took merely a week or two until suddenly the accusations of corruption came out of the woodwork. More and more news outlets have become the ‘whores’ of shareholders and stake holders, all in fear because it wasn’t merely about Qatar, it was the fact that it would be held in winter overlapping the normal soccer season, leaving us with the clear set that clubs could not play with their stars representing the national teams. With all that advertisement opportunity gone, they are all screaming like bitches. The biggest of them (Martin Ivens) is part of this (at https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/plot-to-buy-the-world-cup-lvxdg2v7l7w), and when we see “revealed for the first time this weekend in a bombshell cache of millions of documents leaked to The Sunday Times“, the editorial has a clear duty to inform the public showing the evidence. The fact that ‘millions of documents‘ were parsed is close to impossible, but that’s going to be another story. Yet since June 1st 2014, we keep in getting more and more speculations, yet no evidence was presented. In the end, the FIFA corruption was merely parsed aside, no clear imprisonment, merely ‘a six-year ban from participating in FIFA activities‘, the corruption and the facilitation to the stake holders and shareholders have gone that far, yet no one presented clear evidence at any level to the public, partially my setting for demanding Martin Ivens that he gets the hell out of journalism.

In all this, Qatar has remained the battered victim (in this instance) and I thought it was good for those shareholders and stakeholders to feel the consequences of diminished value for a change. Yet that is not happening. Still, we see is some olive branch towards soccer by setting the news as we saw it in the Washington Post with ‘FIFA could expand World Cup to 48 teams in 2022, ahead of schedule‘, either it is a 50% bigger strain for Qatar to keep up with the changes or it collapses and the torch quickly gets handed over to another soccer nation pleasing all stake holders involved.

Yet the issue is now escalating and not in a good way, it is also not on the soccer side that things are becoming a mess. In this case it is not about the article (at https://www.thenational.ae/world/britain-warned-over-qatar-s-london-intelligence-network-1.749819), where we see the quote “A group of Arab countries demanded action from the British government to restrict an expansion of Qatar’s intelligence activities in London, including surveillance operations as well as political and propaganda activity“, I am not sure if this is actually happening, but it is one part that increases the pressures going on. The actual dangers are coming from two siders, the first is seen in Haaretz (at https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/how-qatar-is-warming-ties-with-both-trump-and-iran-at-the-same-time-1.6247714), where we get ‘How Qatar Is Warming Ties with Both Trump and Iran – at the Same Time‘, it is the Iran side that is a worry. We might take notice of an old fact given in “Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt severed ties with Qatar in June 2017, accusing it of fomenting regional unrest, supporting terrorism and getting too close to Iran, all of which Doha denies“, yet that is not the danger (at present). In addition we see the actions (the clever actions) from Qatar with “A review on Monday of Foreign Agent Registration Act records show that since May 31, six U.S. companies or individuals have registered new Qatari lobbying contracts with the Department of Justice. That number includes the major firms Ogilvy (which is being paid $10,000 per month) and Portland PR ($20,000 per month)“, in addition, Ogilvy gives them full access to the Commonwealth, so London (as mentioned earlier), Canada and Australia are part of the setting to change public opinion, a task Ogilvy is very good at. The second part is different, when we look (at https://en.mehrnews.com/news/135396/Iran-1st-quarter-export-to-Qatar-quadrupled-year-on-year), we see something that seems harmless enough, yet the fact that “In the first quarter of the current year of 1397 (March 21, 2018- June 21, 2018), 74 million and 61 thousand dollars of goods were shipped from Iran to Qatar, which has increased by 214 percent year-on-year“, seems innocent enough, yet it also gives us that with over $300 million of trade goods before the end of the year, a large amount of people go back and forth, which also optionally offers military advisors as well as people of the Hezbollah persuasion opportunities and now it becomes a very different game, now we have a setting that allows for the settling of units and their sole reason for playing possum the next three years is to go out with a bang in November 2022. Consider this setting against the Washington Post of April (at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/hacked-messages-show-qatar-appearing-to-pay-hundreds-of-millions-to-free-hostages/2018/04/27/46759ce2-3f41-11e8-974f-aacd97698cef_story.html) where we see ‘Hacked messages show Qatar appearing to pay hundreds of millions to free hostages’, the operative word is ‘appearing’. When we see both: “with a half-dozen militias and foreign governments jostling to squeeze cash from the wealthy Persian Gulf state. “The Syrians, Hezbollah-Lebanon, Kata’ib Hezbollah, Iraq — all want money, and this is their chance,” Zayed bin Saeed al-Khayareen, Qatar’s ambassador to Iraq and chief negotiator in the hostage affair, wrote in the message. “All of them are thieves.” And yet, the Qataris were willing to pay, and pay they did, confidential documents confirm“, as well as “they appear to consent to payments totalling at least $275 million to free nine members of the royal family and 16 other Qatari nationals kidnapped during a hunting trip in southern Iraq“, there are issues that do not add up. Now consider that such a large group of dignitaries was too unprotected as well as the fact that this event did not become world news on every level!

Now we have a series of players like Kata’ib Hezbollah and Hezbollah-Lebanon ready for the next event. This they will play really clever, with $150 million ready, they have the time to prepare and truly make the beginning of Qatar 2022 go badaboom (big badaboom); Qatar gets to play the wounded victim and whatever happens will be in the news for years to come after that. The fact that this threat is actually growing and no longer unrealistic is also part of the issue now for considering the relocation of Qatar 2022 to somewhere else. That setting was not there in 2014, or not as far as I would be able to tell. What is now a given is that not only is there an actual danger here, the fact that this setting exists, is an additional threat to Saudi Arabia, if they will be able to attack the stadium as well as fire missiles on Riyadh, the stage changes as Riyadh is now a mere 449.23 Km, very much within range of several missile solutions. Tactically speaking they would come into Qatar into parts, like as spare parts for engineering equipment, most could be hidden in several ways and with $300 million in goods, the chance of finding even one part is close to impossible. They will have 3 years to assemble it all. Saudi Arabia is not alone, as this situation unfolds, we need to realise that the UAE and Abu Dhabi is a mere 200 Km away, an equally appealing target for Iran. You might think that it is not an option, yet the ‘goodwill’ that Iran bought with missiles for Hezbollah is exactly why it is an optional reality to face; it is the cost of doing business.

So, as we consider the cost of doing business we can only hope for the places like Ogilvy that if this happens that they have all the right paperwork ready for their presentations on what they facilitated for. It’s not like it might actually impact its parent company WPP plc, is it? We can only watch (and smile) from the sidelines when its £55.56 billion value starts fading like snowflakes in the summer sunshine. Should you think that I am kidding and my view is far-fetched? Consider what happens when 200 countries filled with an estimated 3.5 billion devoted soccer fans go berserk. I will be selling tickets and popcorn to that event and make a killing (figuratively speaking).

The Qatarian debacle was poorly set from the very start, it was a non-issue and whilst people filled their pockets we saw close to no concise actions against FIFA for decades. Now that the world stage, especially in the Middle East is polarising and escalating on several fields, we see that the allowed setting is becoming more than merely ‘optionally hazardous‘. The actions on several sides give a clear danger that no matter how you slice it Qatar 2022 is a clear tactical target, not only for the players, but the amount of dignitaries attending are now are set in a stage where the tiger gets offered a pound of flesh and everyone on the sidelines is considering that the tiger might be a vegetarian whilst it all gets aired in prime-time to every part of the world, you tell me who the short sighted player in that stage is.

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Tagged as Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Doha, Egypt, FIFA, Haaretz, Hezbollah-Lebanon, Kata’ib Hezbollah, Martin Ivens, Ogilvy, Qatar, Qatar 2022, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the National, The Sunday Times, The Times, the United Arab Emirates, UAE, Washington Post, WPP plc, Zayed bin Saeed al-Khayareen

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