Tag Archives: Turkey

Is it merely political?

That was the thought I had. It came from Politico, as such I would believe that it was political. Yet the larger premise is on the setting of circumstance. This sounds weirdly spooky, but it is the best I can offer. The story (at https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-war-economy-pain-saudi-arabia-sink-global-oil-prices-energy-russia-opec/) starts with ‘Putin’s war economy faces pain if Saudis sink global oil prices’ which is a partial truth, but it goes further then that. We are given “A Saudi move to grab market share will squeeze the Kremlin’s finances, experts argue” which is only a partial truth. The entire part is followed by “Riyadh is increasingly frustrated with other petrostates’ failure to coordinate on cutting supply to raise oil prices to about $100 per barrel — up from the current $70. Oil traders say Saudi Arabia is now set to respond by flexing its muscles and turning the tables on smaller producers, exporting more oil itself to grab market share and profits, even as prices fall.” We are also given “The Financial Times reported last week that Saudi Arabia could abandon its long-held ambitions to limit the crude supply to push prices to around $100 a barrel. Oil market experts have little doubt that Saudi Arabia has the enormous production and export capacity to change tactics and gun for market domination through volume instead.” In this view I need to align a few positions. What is missing is that America (the United Kingdom also) are depending in keeping oil cheap. So that is missing. Hanging it on the Russian needs is a bit dorky. Yes, they both matter, but the US an EU need for cheap oil missing as a pre-made need, is just dorky (I can’t find a better word for this). You see when there is a lack of a commodity prices go up and now this fails? The world requires (at present) that 2.4 million barrels per day pumped more than now and that is not done. I actually speculated this a year ago when I stated that we can pump 4 barrels at $3, or 3 barrels at $4. The amount gained is still the same but at 25% less oil. It is a simple equation (and an incorrect version) but the the premise remains. I went through to the next stage that Saudi Arabia could pump 2 barrels as the price goes up to $6, still the same revenue but now at half the oil delivered. This is how commerce works on commodities. I still doubt the statement that the $100 per barrel cannot be reached, I merely believe that certain stakeholders want the premise to keep their pockets lined. How? I cannot tell, I am not an oil person, I merely use it through various means. So what gives? 

When we get to ““The global economy is fairly sluggish and oil demand is not as high as the Saudis would want,” said Ajay Parmar, director of oil markets analytics at commodities intelligence firm ICIS.” I have issues here. You see, this means that the Russia delivers all oil. There is not a lack of demand, some people are playing a high end game to keep their pockets lined. If I had it my way (pretend that I am the new CEO of Aramco, a very fake one) I would stop 5.5 million barrels a day from reaching the US, EU and UK, in the combination 3,2 and .5 it would take less than 90 days for it all to implode. As Tesla is more and more lacking is quality, the other nations will need 2-3 years to overcome their downfall and in that time China is the new superpower with America stumbling over the edge of the abyss. That is clear in my (optionally wrong) point of view. The setting that Politico gives is too partial and slightly too flawed. 

Yes Russia has a problem and they are welcome to the problems they get to harvest now. A second problem is “Russia’s fossil fuel profits have also risen by 41 percent in the first half of this year alone, according to Moscow’s finance ministry, despite Western sanctions imposed over the war in Ukraine.” I don’t doubt these numbers, but who paid for that oil? I doubt is was merely China, North Korea and India. Although these countries were involved. I saw last year that India was buying some of the oil, China is a definite and I guess that North Korea had to pay for their weapons and it seems like a logical choice for them to accept oil as payment. So who more? 

Politico should have stated “Russia’s fossil fuel profits have also risen by 41 percent (from 1M barrels to 1.41M barrels)” but they didn’t if Russia only sold 50,000 barrels it will not be an issue, but that is not the case, is it?

Now if you doubt my reasoning. That is fine. But we have seen plenty of issues where prices go up the moment that commodities has a higher demand. Yet the article does not give us that does it? And who is Ajay Parmar? This article leaves me with plenty of questions and no answers. So in all this, Is Russia in actual trouble? To some degree, but I see this as an alternative way for Saudi Arabia to give in to the west requiring cheap oil. I personally believe that Politico missed their mark and as such loses credibility as such. The one part that I do see is “A loophole allows middlemen in countries like Turkey, China and India to refine Russian oil in petrol and diesel before selling it elsewhere — exempt from sanctions. According to a report first seen by POLITICO, Western countries spent $2 billion on this rebranded fuel in the first half of 2024” As such that should be the story and the story is that more and more nations are fuelling Russian revenue through refining Russian oil and filling their pockets. As such there is a momentum being built, one that is not addressed and one that is trivialised as such I expect that plenty of newspapers will fuel their revenue by posting this story. The 41% is now shown to be big business, especially when we see Turkey and India and how they are short on cash pretty much all of the time.

So we are seeing a larger stage. In the first on where is Russian oil going to and in the second what countries are fuelling their demands for cheap oil? A nice spreadsheet would have been nice, but that was a part that Politico oversaw (I guess).

Still as we see one part, we also see the part that some want us to see, appointed awareness. A combination of social awareness and the influence of appointing. A formal arrangement to create a designed social awareness. The ability to understand a situation as the offical parties would like others to see them. But as I see it, this will be at the expense of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Is that fair all whilst Russia is handed loophole after loophole, as long as the west gets its oil cheap. How is this not exploitation? 

Consider what is being done and at what expense? The question is simple enough. 

Enjoy the Sunday you have left to you.

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Accepted doubt

This is on my, or better stated my view on matters. In this case it is the Reuters article ‘Exclusive:  Kushner has discussed U.S.-Saudi diplomacy with Saudi crown prince’ (at https://www.reuters.com/world/kushner-has-discussed-us-saudi-diplomacy-with-saudi-crown-prince-2024-10-04/) which was released less than 30 minutes ago. I have had serious doubt on the media on a near global stage and at this moment Reuters has gained several points towards doubt. Yet, in this case I am willing to put doubt on my ability to see things clearly. 

So, lets take a look.

The news that Kushner and Saudi Arabia’s de-facto leader discussed a peace accord”, here we see the statement “de-facto leader”, we know that Saudi Arabia still has a king, but what stops Reuters to state “The news that Kushner and Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud discussed a peace accord”, both are in principle correct. Yet the Reuters statement comes across as Saudi bashing. ‘To put a person in its place’ might be the interpretation as many would see it, especially in the Middle East. Then we get “renew questions about whether Kushner’s financial ties with Riyadh could influence U.S. policy under his father-in-law”, so what is the issue here? It is a serious question because the article does not give us a complete report on what those ties are, we get a link to the Hill, there we see ““crossed the line of ethics” by accepting a $2 billion investment from the Saudi government in his private investment firm six months after he left the White House” my question in this is were laws broken? You see, the investment was done AFTER he left the White House. So were laws broken, or were they not. 

Then we get “To encourage Saudi Arabia to recognise Israel, the Biden administration has offered Riyadh security guarantees, assistance with a civilian nuclear program and a renewed push for a Palestinian state. The deal could reshape the Middle East by uniting two long-time foes and binding the world’s biggest oil exporter to Washington at a time when China is making inroads in the region” How come that China is diminished with “when China is making inroads in the region” and what is this about “assistance with a civilian nuclear program”. My issue is that China has been making inroads for the better part of two years. As such making inroads, comes across as a joke, massively inaccurate. So why was the civilian nuclear program added? Could be true, could be anything. But the media at present has a massive credibility issue and whilst space on a webpage is nearly free, Reuters is a little stingy on using it.

Last we get to “The Saudi relationship with Trump was notably close. Trump’s first foreign trip as president in 2017 was to Riyadh, accompanied by Kushner. After Saudi expatriate opposition journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Trump stood by the crown prince in spite of a U.S. intelligence assessment that he had authorised the killing. MbS denied involvement.” Is filled with inaccuracies. No clear evidence has been produced that Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Turkey, there was an assumption and the setting that “U.S. intelligence assessment that he had authorised the killing” is even more inaccurate. The document A/HRC/41/CRP.1 which was given to the world by the Human Rights Council does not give us that either. In that report U.S. Intelligence is mentioned twice. In one case we are given “The Directive states that if a U.S. intelligence agency “acquires credible and specific information indicating an impending threat of intentional killing, serious bodily injury, or kidnapping,” that agency has a duty to warn the intended victim.” No mention of authorisation or anything regarding an order by Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud. I am adding that document at the bottom. As such I have issues with the Reuters article. 

There is more but read the article yourself. The article hands us a pice of evidence that Reuters is losing credibility. 

I am not a Trump fan, but at present there is a larger stage and the Biden administration of fumbling the ball, and as issues go at present, China will be a large bigger inroad in the Middle East (Saud Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) in 2025 and I have to wonder how much inroad they will make in Egypt in 2025.

But I hope that the message comes across. And in the second stage, what laws did Kushner break? Because in the end that is what matters. 

Have a great day

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Where to spend it?

I saw a report on the CNN site a few days ago (at https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/23/politics/senators-trudeau-letter-defense-spending/index.html) Now, I get it, every nation needs to get their defence correctly. However with the message ‘US senators write to Canada’s Trudeau asking him to meet 2% GDP defense spending commitment’ and the 23 senators may have a point, we all have to carry our weight. But I believe that the US is expecting Canada to hand that money to south of the border. I am not on that horse. I think that Canada, if spending anything that is essential will turn to the UK and Australia first for their needs. The question isn’t merely what not had been bought. They question becomes “What needed to be bought?” I don’t have those answers. And Canada does not stand alone. In all this Spain, Turkey and the Netherlands are on the same horse and the pie of revenue is dwindling down, it means that there are more hungry mouths to feed. This means that there are options is both the Commonwealth and the EU. I wonder when these 23 senators start realising that their defense revenue might be in jeopardy. In this age of economic stress, just handing it over to the US might not be the wise choice. If possible Canada should consider the UK for initial choices. The US sets up the 2% clause hoping that it will come to them, but that is not a given. No matter how this works out. These nations need to set a stronger manifest on what is needed and on what is required. Now, this is hard because defense elements aren’t really public information, but the fact that 23 senators give a letter with the underlying “they believe Canada — unlike other nations — does not appear to have a plan in place to hit the target, a congressional aide explained.” I have to ask what evidence is there? And the fact that a US congressional aide comes forth with this is secondary. So how did this get ‘leaked’ to CNN? Do Canadians know how their defense systems fare? Just a few questions that come to mind and I wonder what plans are set to those F-35 Canada ordered earlier. 

It is not enough to consider that 2% needs to be spend, the question becomes where to spend it and on what.

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Son of Kristallnacht

This happens, things happen again. Things are reprised and even the stupid parts are redone over and over again. I never understood the act of book burning. It does not matter what is burned. The acts of November 9th 1938 were short sighted and stupid and they reminded me of the events that led to the Bonfires of the Vanities. This event was on February 7th 1497 instigated by Girolamo Savonarola. Two events started by stupid christians (Savonarola and Hitler) as such it is a setting of a stupid event that led to the burning of Qurans. The second event was covered by the BBC (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66052670) here we learn “Salwan Momika, said to be an Iraqi living in Sweden, set fire to a copy of Islam’s holy book outside Stockholm’s central mosque on Wednesday. The Quran burning was condemned by many Muslim-majority countries.” This set of a few thoughts in my mind. The first was ‘who on earth is Salman Momika?’ You see, Iraq has up to 10% that is not Muslim. This happens in many nations that has a muslim majority. So why would this person to set fire to a Quran? I am not trying to decipher it, but the irony is that the Iraqi people overtaking a Swedish Embassy whilst it was one of their own civilians to set fire to it in the first place is pretty ironic. There is a second setting that is less impressive. This is the second event that Sweden has and now if Turkey obstructs NATO entry, that is all on Sweden. They have the option to prosecute those who knowingly burn religious texts (any religious texts), they have the option to make Salwan Momika persona non grata, sending that person BACK to Iraq. At that moment Salwan’s goose is cooked, thoroughly. Something needs to be done. This is not about freedom of expression, this is about intentionally causing grief. I know that the matter is more pressing and more complex. Yet the larger station is that this was intentional, this is about someone pushing the buttons of Salwan Momika, the question is who and why. Is it Russia trying to set delays, it is a third party to create chaos? So many directions to go into and so many options to consider. The fact that someone OK’ed this is also an issue. They knew what would happen, there is no way that they did not. In the meantime Deutsche Welle informs us “Morocco has withdrawn its ambassador in protest”, which is not entirely unexpected. Sweden should expect a few more Muslim nations to be upset about the actions that were cause of them. This is not about freedom of expression, this is about creating mayhem and Sweden is letting this all happen threatening their ascendancy into NATO. There is no other way to see this. How this evolves is beyond me but Sweden is in for a few hard months and perhaps even more. But there is a larger station here and until we see a much more clear picture whatever I see is based on mostly speculation. 

On the upside, my mind came up with another game and another piece of IP, too early to tell where either will go, but the mind is firing on most thrusters.

Enjoy the weekend.

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Simple curiosity

It all started with one word. I was browsing the Middle East Monitor (at https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230322-saudi-arabia-is-retelling-the-hijrah-and-shaping-a-new-narrative-through-art/) and the word retelling. Now in media the word retelling has a negative connection, especially when the word narrative is in that sentence, as such the title ‘Saudi Arabia is retelling the Hijrah and shaping a new narrative through art’ drew my attention. Now, I had no idea what Hijrah was, so I had to look it up. Hijrah gave me “the Prophet Muhammad’s migration (622 ce) from Mecca to Yathrib (Medina) upon invitation in order to escape persecution”, as a non-Muslim I had no idea of that, as such I was interested to learn more. It must have been quite the trip as it is about 450Km. Which on camel implies about 3 days travel. But back to the article. There we are given “The exhibition “Hijrah: In the Footsteps of the Prophet” and the documentary “In the Footsteps of the Beloved” are embracing historical and scientific evidence, signalling a change in Saudi Arabia. There is a long sequence in the movie where a Saudi archaeologist, very thin and emaciated, is walking up a mountain in the desert. A black man is bravely holding an umbrella sheltering him from the sun, and going up the hill with him. It’s a long sequence, that seems almost to stress the suffering of the two men. The archaeologist in the film is actually Dr Abdullah Alkadi, a scholar who — according to a guide at the King Abdulaziz Centre for World Culture (Ithra) — travelled in the footsteps of Prophet Muhammad more than fifty times in order to retrace the Prophet’s 8-day journey from Makkah to Madinah in 622, known as the Hijrah.” Now that is a worthy side for anyone to see and as Dr Alkadi is focussing on historical evidence, aided by science and modern technology we get to see the a side of Islam that anyone would, or should be interested in seeing. And then the jackpot comes from Idries Trevathan, curator of Ithra. He gives us “bringing scientific evidence through the medium of art allowed us a bit more freedom of exploration” that is one art show I should try to visit (well, when it comes to Sydney), perhaps it never comes to Sydney and we would have to visit it in Saudi Arabia. Scientific views through art is a noble endeavour, no matter what the narrative tends to be. No matter how I see it, this is something all non-Muslims need to take notice off and I feel certain if this movie makes it to BluRay I will seek it out. With my extremely limited knowledge of Islam, I had nothing more than the movie ‘How to assassinate a politician’, I wonder what people with actual knowledge of Islam can create and the title ‘In the footsteps of the prophet’ seems a lot more worthy. Even as it is seen a more arthouse and lacking action, it gives a larger population an insight towards the prophet. Anyone who wanted to learn more about Islam should be on the first line of a place that sells the movie after its cinema release. I reckon that sales numbers will go through the roof in Bangla Dash, Egypt, Indonesia and Turkey as well. 

And I did not seek this out, one word drew me into the article and I learned a whole lot more that hour than merely something about a narrative. There are times when simple curiosity pays off in the most unexpected ways. 

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The weird class

Yup, although I wanted to write about something different, this stuck with me. It was a nightmare of sorts and Google was in the middle of it (of sorts). There were 2-3 settings. 

Astronomy
In the first setting I was in some kind of school, a high-school I reckon. It was an open assignment given on the spot in Astronomy, We were to ascertain where we were. We were given facts, just outside of a large city, there was Mars who was in ascendance and a second planet that was in ascendance. The question was ‘Where were we?’ I saw all the other students go into calculus mode, creating tables and so forth. I merely asked Google (Google was not of any assistance). I entered the coordinates as they were given to me, but the answer did not come back. From what I  gathered the answer was in Turkey, no idea where more important, the dream kept on telling me that it was a very specific tree, and the teacher had some hidden reason for the question, but I could not figure it out.

Then I sort of woke up, or better stated, I was pushed into a new situation.

Photo mode
I got a ‘notification’ that my picture was old, really old (I don’t like to take pictures of me) and I was invited to some Google treasure hunt. The treasure hunt had Mario features and looked like a top bottom view. I was running (just like in any other game) and at some point I made a turn and a hidden path opened up as one piece of wall vanished for a mere second. I was suddenly in a dimmer corridor that opened up in a hall and there were the diamonds and in no time I had a completely filled bag with diamonds. I got out of the hall and the game ended and I looked up. I was in some kind of common room. I started to talk to a young man and started to explain why I did not like to ‘upgrade’ my image. The background setting was too unrealistic, it was too flat ad it made me look unnaturally 2D. He talked to a woman for a moment and she tapped on her tablet the interface looked like nothing I ever saw and the interface had the google colours. In that it was a different kind of Gmail. She asked if someone could push a single user copy to my account for 2 months (it did show my account) of something called ‘SEST’ or ‘SEEST’ so that I could experiment with it. She told me that this might give me much better results and she ended the conversation.

This was the moment I woke up and wondered what on earth was going on. That was a little over 30 minutes ago. I have no idea what it was all about, but my head kept saying that it has relevance in some way. Is it something new, is it merely the idea and parts of something I have been working on? I cannot tell, but that is as flaky as my head works today. It cannot have been the food, I merely had a salad for lunch. 

It was the astronomy that weirded me out the most. I never took Astronomy and even as I understood what was being said (the limited mathematician in me) I had no idea what I was doing, the tables looked surreal to me, so I turned to my trusty android and Google, but neither was any help. Now that I am awake, I took another look and found ‘AstroCartoGraphy – Mars Ascendant Line Stories’, that wasn’t exactly what my mind was seeking, but there were things that seemed connected. I think I was looking for a Google map that could be overlaid with two line settings (like the one I had) and when we add a date (which we knew from the assignment) two sets of lines appeared on the map and when we take the specifics of the lines a location comes on the map. That is what I think it was (I am NOT an astronomer). But why I had the thoughts and why the dream is telling me it is about a specific dream beats me, but perhaps I get some clarity in a few days, I merely typed it now before the brain forgets I had the dream, it will, this always happens over 2-3 days. The more disturbing the dream, the quicker it fades from my mind.

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Narrative

We all heard it, we all see it. There is a narrative, it is supplied by stakeholders and it does not matter whether it is an academic, a greed hoarder or what should be regarded as a traitor. It does not matter whether this was for Russia or for China. The narrative has overwhelmed their senses and others took that time to make a rather large consideration, all whilst we are pushed into the  narrative of greed driven players.  We saw the noise that people like Mike Burgess made and that illuminated the second tier of problems Australia has, the UK and other commonwealth nations have taken notice. But because the people who were supposed to do their jobs did not, other things were missed. Things that seem irrelevant, trivial, yet they are not. You see, I alerted readers to a few issues over the last 3-5 years. They weren’t simple settings and for the longest time I had no idea there was a much larger plan. There still is debate whether the larger plan is merely conspiracy theory and those claiming that it is would not be opposed too strongly. So whilst we see one thing happen, the clever tactician will see that there are a lot more elements happening. Almost like individual cogs that are one cog separated from one another. As cogs are united with missing cogs, we see a much larger machine in play, but it is one without identity.

Last May we were give via Arab news “Etihad Etisalat Co., known as Mobily, has signed an initial agreement with Telecom Egypt to build the first submarine cable system to directly connect Saudi Arabia to Egypt.” This is nothing new, this happens all the time, but there are a whole range of arrangements that Egypt has been making with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is where the money is. I myself have offered at least one IP to both the Saudi government and Kingdom Holdings, as such these steps make sense, but there is more. You see Egypt with its 100 million Muslims also lead to Turkey and Greece, extending one cable is relatively simple and that gives Saudi Arabia a first handhold into the EU and its optional hundreds of millions of customers. That is the setting and the impact is ignored. The stakeholders were not paying attention and their ignorance is what some were banking on. Is it ignorance? I make one claim, but neither can be supported. The larger stage (also why I offered one IP part to Saudi Arabia) is that Saudi Arabia is about to become the largest 5G player in the middle East, together with whomever in India becomes the power player, they will optionally unite with China and now we have a much larger ballgame, the EU becomes trivialised in 5G, no matter what games and what unsupported accusations the EU unite against. Huawei had the larger game in mind and now we see optional unison between Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia and they link to China. Half a billion people and that is before Bangla Desh joins the equation, now as others join the Saudi 5G circle the EU will have a new stage, one where they are the smaller player and the telecom companies have no idea how to proceed, the narrative overwhelmed their senses and they weren’t watching what entered the corner of the room.

Is it real or is it fake. You merely have to seek out the articles I wrote and how they were ignored by others. Before the end of 2024 Saudi Arabia is in the market to be the largest 5G supplier in the Middle East with options all over Europe. Saudi Arabia and Huawei got it there and the claims and accusations will not hold up. Is it the media? I cannot say for certain because the stakeholders did their job well, too well. Yet I noticed the line all over the Middle East and Africa and most of you could have too, but that is on you. So when you consider “The GCC region is expected to have 62 million 5G mobile subscribers by 2026 and they will account for nearly 73 percent of all mobile subscriptions in the region, according to a report released last year by the Swedish company Ericsson” which was given to us 3 months after the intent of the submarine cables. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are merely one part. The 100 million people in Egypt as well as the the 200 million in Indonesia are seemingly ignored. I reckon that the 62 million mark will be surpassed before the end of 2024 and when we suddenly hear alarm bells, it will be because the stakeholders will look beyond their greed, but it will already be too late. There was a larger stage and there was a larger plan, the plan goes a lot further than what I can see, but that is because I am not in the loop. I took notice as it benefitted MY IP and as such I saw that 1+1+1 made 4 (one for me), as such I took notice and I adjusted my IP accordingly. Now we have a setting that is close to advancement. Where it ends I do not know, but it is clear that Saudi Arabia had a much larger plan for their needs and they are getting closer to fulfilling it. And the US games did not matter, China was there to fill up the space and now the US with no options left are about to be trivialised by their own narrative makers. That is merely how I see it, but I let you consider the narrative for yourself, make up your own mind.

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One issue, more to come

The first issue is known. I wrote about it on January 23rd (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/01/23/a-national-consequence/) it was ‘A national consequence’ where we see the events unfold between Turkey and Sweden. I want to side with Sweden, but this time they broke their own windows and now we see (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-64457233) ‘Swedish flag burnt in Jakarta amid Turkey Nato row’ it took a few days but now the anti-Sweden issues start rising and that is before Egypt and Pakistan wake up to the issues that Sweden allowed to be mainstream issues. As I personally see it Rasmus Paludan started this and is not only cause to Sweden being halted from entering NATO, Swedish tourists will do well to stay out of Islamic nations for a while. You all it freedom of expression, most others will call it targeted racism, but the Swedes will get all time to ponder that stage. As we get “Other anti-Sweden protests have also taken place in Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Lebanon this month.” We see that Pakistan is awake, not sure about Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but that cannot be far away. Even as we are given “We urge the Indonesian government to not just condemn this, but to also join in boycotting everything Swedish,” said one protester in Jakarta, Wati Salam. What they [the Swedes] did was an insult to our holy scripture,” said another, Junaedi Abdilla.” We recognise the Swedish defence with “the burning does not reflect the government’s opinion” which came from their embassy in Djakarta, but the truth is that they allowed the extremist to start the fire and now it is an international problem. Rasmus Paludan played you and you let it escalate. For me it does not matter, at some point one of the Arabic nations will consider my script ‘How to assassinate a politician’ and that works well or me. It was designed with the Dutch politician Geert Wilders in mind, but it can be easily reset to Denmark (or Sweden) with Rasmus Paludan being the target. There is a consequence of insulting Islam and we need to accept that these consequences have far reaching consequences. Drawing the image of Muhammad, burning Qurans. These are mere two events and the far right keeps on going to these two places. They have been doing it for years and at some point something will have to give. So what happens when Iran and Saudi Arabia stops delivering oil? Will Europe pay premium for American oil, or will they consider Venezuela as a supplier? Something has to give and in this day and age, the available options are not out there in numbers. You did realise that, did you not?

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A national consequence

I saw the news earlier, but I had to consider a few things, one of them not so really pro-Turkey, another set to the stage of me wondering what was going on. It all started with the BBC article (at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64360528) where we are given ‘Turkey condemns ‘vile’ Sweden Quran-burning protest’, and as I was wondering what was going on I saw “Rasmus Paludan, a politician from the far-right Stram Kurs”, it made me wonder what was needed. And then it occurred to me, why was Turkey the only one protesting? What if Egypt, the UAE, Iraq, optionally Iran, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Turkey all combined their protest? What if the EU had to deal with retributions from the OPEC nations closing the oil tap a little (500K barrels a day less for the EU), the other nations stopping import of Danish and Swedish goods? Would that wake them up? We might think that a person like Rasmus Paludan can insult islam again and again, but why allow it? We have rules and laws on religious prosecution, religious discrimination and should it end there? What if we make anti religious protests that continue to insult a religion (like burning a Quran) as well. Perhaps we need to state that they need to burn bibles as well, how does that go over?

I cannot claim that I have any solution here, but the levels of inactions that I see against Rasmus Paludan are getting out of hand. As such I think inaction becomes a larger issue and there is actually no real option, so what happens when the EU gets a 10% fuel rise, does that wake them up? I do not care what religion you like, and what religion you hate, but if you go as far as openly insulting that religion things get out of hand and it becomes time to act, inaction is no longer acceptable. If you allow a chaos and hatred seeder like Rasmus Paludan to continue, I reckon you get whatever is coming to you. I personally believe that when civility goes missing to this degree nations have failed on several levels. That whilst we need to realise that Sweden has 5%-10% Muslims, that is up to a million, Denmark has roughly the same percentage size, in numbers it is about half that size, but the population of Denmark is about 50% smaller. When you go out to insult that size of a population there needs to be consequences and even as people like Rasmus Paludan think that it is merely up to 10%, so that they can easily win such fights, they need to consider that there is a larger consequence and that needs to be shown to that kind of people and I reckon that Turkey alone cannot do that, it might block NATO access for Sweden, but a larger lesson needs to be taught and that is where OPEC comes in, where the bulk of its population is Muslim, so what happens when the tap is closed even just a little? For Sweden with its shortages it might become disastrous quickly, I am not sure about Denmark at present. 

Do we need to act? Yes, we all need to act. We cannot let people like Rasmus Paludan to spread hatred to the degree they do, the consequences are too dire to consider, as such I reckon it is time to fight such hatred by letting these nations be overwhelmed by shortages and make sure that everyone knows WHY this was done. You see if you hate muslims THAT much, you can get the oil from Russia or Venezuela or America. But that gets you into other deep waters, does it not? No matter how it plays out, we are too far beyond the levels of inaction we see now and consider that OPEC could close the tap by 1 million barrels of oil a day, or more. What does that give you? Not much and until summer that impact might end up being disastrous.

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The question remains

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have fun!

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