Promises and Betrayals in the Middle East

Documentary on how British double-dealing during the First World War ignited the conflict between Arab and Jew in the Middle East.
This is a story of intrigue among rival empires; of misguided strategies; and of how conflicting promises to Arab and Jew created a legacy of bloodshed which determined the fate of the Middle East.

Why do Arab men hate women?

Why do they hate us? With these five words in a controversial magazine article, Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy shot to fame, unleashing a devastating critique of womens rights in the Arab world.In the season premiere of Head to Head , Mehdi Hasan challenges Eltahawy on her views regarding the status of women in Arab states.Are Arab or Muslim societies inherently patriarchal? And how does the narrative of Islam as sexist play into geo-politics and Western stereotypes of the Middle East?

See the "About" on YouTube

Inside the Saudi Kingdom

Lionel Mill's film has unique access to Prince Saud bin Abdul Mohsen, one of the rulers of the rich, powerful and secretive Saudi royal family. This is a fascinating insight into the conflicts between tradition and modernity in one of the world's most conservative and autocratic countries.

LearningChanneI

'Racism in their DNA': Israeli fan fury

A group of the Jerusalem-based Beitar fans have lashed out at the club's boss's decision to bring two Muslims from the Russian Chechen republic into the squad

Read more on RT

Lebanese protest anal exams on suspected homosexuals

Dozens of people demonstrated outside the law courts in the Lebanese capital on Saturday to protest the use of anal "tests" on men suspected of homosexuality, which is a criminal offence in the Arab country. The rally followed a July 28 police raid on a gay venue in a working class district of Beirut when 36 men were taken into custody and forced to undergo the examinations, reportedly to determine their sexual orientation.

Lebanon-based HELEM, considered the Arab world's leading lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights group, called for the rally under the slogan: "Stand up against the tests of shame, vaginal or anal." It also voiced solidarity with women subjected to so-called "virginity tests."

"We’re here because we want a clear statement from the ministry of justice that these kind of tests should be completely abolished and punished by the law," said participant George Azzi. "The syndicate of doctors has declared these tests are irrelevant scientifically and it’s illegal for doctors to do these tests, but that doesn't mean police can't still request it," he said.

Ynetnews

United Arab Emirates seeks to recruit 3000 Colombian soldiers

The United Arab Emirates is seeking to enlist 3,000 Colombian soldiers in the oil-rich Arab country's armed forces, weekly Semana reported Sunday. According to the weekly, 842 Colombian soldiers and retired soldiers have already joined the UAE army which is paying salaries up to ten times what the Colombian state pays the members of its armed forces.

The transfer of soldiers to the foreign army is causing unease among Colombia's military commanders because the military fears the higher salaries abroad are draining the army of its best men and women. "They have recruited soldiers with a lot of combat experience, valuable men with years of service in which the Army invested a lot in terms of training," an anonymous general told Semana. "Without a doubt, this is a loss for the army, but there isn't much we can do because it is by no means illegal," the military official added.

According to the weekly, the Colombians are making in between $2,800 and $18,000 in the UAE depending on the rank. In Colombia, a soldier earns $530 a month on average. The New York Times reported in May 2011 that the UAE hired Colombian soldiers as mercenaries through a company led by Erik Prince, the founder of controversial private security company Blackwater.

Colombia Reports

Saudi Arabia to execute 25 Indonesian maids for alleged crimes

The Saudi Arabian regime has ruled to execute 25 Indonesian maids working in the kingdom over alleged crimes, a report says.

According to a report published by Lebanese Ad-Diyar Arabic daily on Sunday, 22 other Indonesian maids have been acquitted and deported from the kingdom.
Meanwhile, the Indonesian government plans to send a delegation to Riyadh for negotiations over the death sentences. Indonesian Embassy officials in Riyadh say six of the maids sentenced to death worked in the capital. About 1,700 Indonesian nationals are in prison in Saudi Arabia, the Indonesian Embassy says.

PressTV

Second protester shot dead in Saudi Arabia

Saudi security forces shot one person dead and injured three others during what the country's state news agency described as "clashes" in the oil-producing Eastern Province. Activists and witnesses said Friday's casualties came when security forces opened fire on an anti-government demonstration in the Qatif district.

"While security men were following up on an illegal gathering in the town of Awwamiya in Qatif on Friday they were attacked by gunfire," a police statement on the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said on Friday. "They dealt with the situation by firing back, which resulted with the death of one." The SPA also said a protester was killed and three others were wounded in clashes on Thursday.

Activists and witnesses said that security forces opened fire when a Shia procession marking the birthday of the Prophet Mohammad - a celebration forbidden in ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia - turned into a demonstration for reform and the release of detainees.

Al Jazeera English

Sacrilegious Saudi writer arrested in Malaysia

Malaysian authorities arrested a Saudi newspaper writer wanted by the Gulf kingdom for offending Islam and Prophet Mohammed and local reports said he could face death.

Hamza Kashgari was seized as he arrived in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday following his escape from Saudi Arabia on news that King Abdullah has ordered him arrested and prosecuted for religious insults in his articles on Twitter.

“The Malaysian authorities are coordinating with Saudi Arabia to hand Kashgari over,” the Saudi Arabic language daily 'Al Youm' said. In a separate report, newspapers quoted a statement by the kingdom’s Islamic Fatwa Committee calling for punishing Kashgari in line with Islamic law, which means he could be executed.

Emirates 24/7

And what did he do?

Last week, just before the anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad’s birth, Hamza Kashgari, a 23-year-old Saudi writer in Jidda, took to his Twitter feed to reflect on the occasion.

“On your birthday, I will say that I have loved the rebel in you, that you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me, and that I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you,” he wrote in one tweet.

“On your birthday, I find you wherever I turn. I will say that I have loved aspects of you, hated others, and could not understand many more,” he wrote in a second.

“On your birthday, I shall not bow to you. I shall not kiss your hand. Rather, I shall shake it as equals do, and smile at you as you smile at me. I shall speak to you as a friend, no more,” he concluded in a third.

The Daily Beast

Sheikh Nasser Al Omar pleads to the king that Saudi writer Hamza Kashgari gets executed for supposedly writings "shameful" comments about prophet Mohammed on Twitter.

Dutch Queen Visits and Praises Two Arab Dictators

Last week, Queen Beatrix visited Sultan Qaboos of Oman and Emir Hadad of Qatar. During a conversation with the Dutch journalists who accompanied her, she expressed her appreciation for these two dictators. She praised the vision of the Emir and the wisdom of Sultan Qaboos. Both countries are ranked by Freedom House as non-free countries, the lowest of its three categories. [The other two are free and partly free.]

Bad News from the Netherlands - Pictures of the visit here

Israeli Checkpoint Cruelty

"Animals. Animals. Like the Discovery Channel. All of Ramallah is a jungle. There are monkeys, dogs, gorillas. The problem is that the animals are locked they can't come out. We're humans. They're animals. They aren't humans we are." - Israeli border police (you can find at 5:03 of this video)

Allowing women to drive would mean no more virgins

Allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia would mean no more virgins and an increase in homosexuality, according to academics at Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council, Majlis al-Ifta' al-A'ala, it has been reported in the Telegraph.

More pornography would be used if women were allowed on the roads and rates of prostitution and divorce would alo rise, the report stated. Produced in conjunction with Kamal Subhi, a former professor at the King Fahd University, the study into repealing the ban predicted that there would be no more virgins left in the Arab kingdom in 10 years.

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world which bans women from driving.

Huffington Post

See: The Saudi woman who took to the driver's seat (video)

Iran Plotted With Mexican Drug Cartel to Assassinate Saudi Ambassador to U.S.

The United States has accused Iran of plotting to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States and bomb the Saudi embassy in Washington, according to the embattled U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Holder and the Justice Department claim the plot was hatched in Mexico last May. Two Iranians, Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri, were accused of the attack in court documents, according to the New York Times.

The Justice Department claims Iran and Mexican drug cartels worked together on the plot. Holder said there is “no basis to believe that any other co-conspirators are present in the U.S.” He said the two men are connected to Quds Force, a division of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. (Infowars)

Is an attack on Iran in the works? - Victor Kotsev (Jun 7, 2011)

Saudi’s want urgent, safe transport solution for women

Amid the high costs to Saudi families that employ drivers, the suffering of female employees due to the lack of means of transportation to their jobs and regulations barring women from driving, suggestions have been put forward to develop safe means of transport that are similar to those in foreign countries.

Experts said there is a serious need to address the matter because some families are forced to pay thousands of riyals to drivers, which can cause a financial burden on the families. Some drivers demand higher salaries, which can make it unbearable for families in need of their services. Taking taxis every day adds up to a considerable expense and male family members are often unavailable.

Al Arabiya - More on Saudi Gazette

Also see: Saudi woman driver detained by police on Nothing To Do With Arbroath

Saudi terror law 'would strangle protest'

A secret new anti-terror law being drawn up by the Saudi authorities would "strangle peaceful protest", Amnesty International has said.

The BBC has been shown a classified copy of the draft law showing a number of measures Amnesty said would severely restrict human rights. These include lengthy detention without trial, restricted legal access and increased use of the death penalty. But a Saudi official said it was directed at terrorists, not dissidents.

The Saudi government has so far declined to comment, but the senior official, who did not want to be named, confirmed the existence of the draft law and did not dispute the clauses contained in it.

Amnesty International's Middle East press officer James Lynch told the BBC the draft law - a copy of which was leaked to the human rights group - "seeks to entrench some of the most repressive practices that Amnesty has been documenting for years". Among the measures proposed is a broadening of the definition of a terrorist crime to include any action deemed to be "harming the reputation of the state" or "endangering national unity".

More on BBC News

Women drivers arrested in Saudi Arabia

Saudi authorities detained six women for driving cars in the capital in defiance of laws allowing only male motorists on the conservative kingdom's roads.

Saudi Arabia has no formal ban on women driving. But as citizens must use only Saudi-issued licences in the country, and as these are issued only to men, women drivers are anathema. Outcry at the segregation, which contributes to the general cloistering of Saudi women, has been fuelled by social media interest in two would-be female motorists arrested last month.

TV NZ

UK training Saudi forces used to crush Arab spring

Britain is training Saudi Arabia's national guard – the elite security force deployed during the recent protests in Bahrain – in public order enforcement measures and the use of sniper rifles. The revelation has outraged human rights groups, which point out that the Foreign Office recognises that the kingdom's human rights record is "a major concern".

In response to questions made under the Freedom of Information Act, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed that British personnel regularly run courses for the national guard in "weapons, fieldcraft and general military skills training, as well as incident handling, bomb disposal, search, public order and sniper training". The courses are organised through the British Military Mission to the Saudi Arabian National Guard, an obscure unit that consists of 11 British army personnel under the command of a brigadier.

More on The Observer

Bahrain sentences protesters to death

A Bahraini military court has sentenced four Shia protesters to death and three to life jail terms for the killing of two policemen during demonstrations last month, state media has reported. Thursday's verdicts are the first related to the uprising against the Gulf kingdom's ruling family, which began in February. The seven defendants were tried behind closed doors on charges of premeditated murder of government employees, which their lawyers have denied.

A Shia opposition official named those sentenced to death as Ali Abdullah Hasan, Qasim Hassan Mattar, Saeed Abdul Jalil Saeed, and Abdul Aziz Abdullah Ibrahim. He told the AFP news agency that Issa Abdullah Kazem, Sadiq Ali Mahdi, and Hussein Jaafar Abdul Karim were sentenced to life in prison. Sheikh Ali Salman,  president of Bahrain's Al Wefaq, the largest Shia political group in the country, told Al Jazeera that the punishments did not fit the crime. "I believe that these sentences should be revised and the international community must intervene to stop this," he said.

Al Jazeera

Establishment Control Of The US Media Cracks For A Moment

Every once in a while, establishment control of the mainstream media cracks for a moment.  In an effort to achieve higher ratings, mainstream news programs will invite guests on that promise to be "interesting", but then they will say something that is not part of the script and the entire system will go into a state of chaos for a moment. One example of this happened recently when two CNN "infobabes" interviewed former CIA officer Michael Scheuer about the situation on the ground in Libya. They asked Scheuer some questions regarding the role of the CIA in Libya, but the interview rapidly moved in some directions that the "infobabes" were not anticipating.  Instead of sticking to the "Republican" or the "Democrat" script, Scheuer ripped both parties and he detailed many of the reasons why we should have never gone into Libya at all.

Full article on The American Dream website

Another incident…

Ed Schulz defended the President saying "We have a situation now to bring justice to a terrorist that has killed Americans. That's why I support this policy. That's why I support this move". "You are taking sides in a civil war. What you are advocating is going to lead to more American deaths and hundreds of millions of dollars. It has already cost us 400 million dollars" replied Jeremy and pointed out that Obama has already backed out of many of his earlier promises" "He didn't close Guantanamo. He has doubled down on some of the worst policies of the Bush administration".

More here

Saudi Women Vote Ban Remains In Place During Municipal Elections

Women in Saudi Arabia will not be allowed to vote in the long-delayed municipal elections to be held in September, the election commission said on Monday. Saudi Arabia announced last week it will hold the elections, in the first political concession since protests sweeping the region reached the kingdom.

The Gulf Arab state is a monarchy ruled by the al-Saud family in alliance with clerics from the strict Wahhabi school of Islam. Women must be covered from head to toe in public and are not allowed to drive. Saudi women are also subject to a male "guardianship" system which requires they show permission from their guardian -- father, brother or husband -- to travel or, sometimes, work. Religious police patrol the streets regularly to ensure gender segregation and that women are dressed modestly.

Reuters - More on Huffington Post