The US president-elect, Donald Trump, has admitted that he likes to keep people guessing. He’s a master manipulator as his book The Art of the Deal proudly portrays. “You tell a lie three times, they will believe anything. You tell people what they want to hear, play to their fantasies and then you close the deal,” he wrote. It worked like a dream during the campaign. Continue reading
The military junta may have officially been dissolved and free and fair elections held, but Myanmar’s government either supports the army’s ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims, or is too fearful to stand up for the democratic values its leader Aung San Suu Kyi has always espoused. Continue reading
The past is usually considered a predictor of the future. However, it appears that mass disenchantment with the status quo, built up over decades, is poised to rattle Western political norms. No politician or pollster or think tank can predict with any confidence what challenges await us next week let alone next year. There are too many unknowns, too many variables, but what can be said with certainty is that 2017 will witness great change. Continue reading
Our world is on the cusp of a new era. Traditional taboos are being smashed. Respect has become an old-fashioned word. Nothing is too low or too dirty to be ignored, overlooked or even applauded by some. Continue reading
In order to understand why Egypt’s economic temperature has cooled it should be understood that this once stable country, with a healthy investment climate, was rocked by a mass public uprising resulting in its overthrow that was met with prolonged Brotherhood violence and the emergence of a terrorist group in northern Sinai. Continue reading
Neither presidential candidate is fit to be the leader of the so-called free world. Both have skeletons falling out from multiple closets and are just about the most unpopular candidates in US history. Rather than debate serious issues of concern to voters, they focus on slandering the other while their respective campaigns are shoveling up as much factual and fabricated dirt as they can unearth. Sheer disgust is the overriding emotion of many observers on the outside looking in. Continue reading
It’s a pity President Barack Obama’s pivot away from the Middle East failed to manifest. Anywhere but here! Despite his sincere-sounding reach out to the Arab world during his early days of presidency when he pledged his commitment to work for a Palestinian state and facilitate an atmosphere of mutual respect, wherever his hand has touched is worse off now than ever before. Continue reading
Say what you will about Libya so-called ‘renegade general,’ Khalifa Haftar, he’s a patriot who’s been effective in battling Islamist radicals. Just days ago, his ‘Libyan National Army’ forces have bloodlessly persuaded armed groups to hand over control of the country’s idle coastal oil terminals which were immediately handed to the National Oil Corporation (NOC). Oil tankers have docked at two of the ports for the first time in three years and the NOC believes exports will be tripled by year’s end. Continue reading
Wading through the British newspapers on Friday, I did a double-take. A headline in the Daily Mail read: ‘Police force is planning to let Muslim officers wear full burqas.’ Must be a joke, was my initial reaction. I relayed the news to my better half. “Don’t be silly,” he snapped. Turns out it’s nothing to laugh about. Continue reading
It is about time that the US got off its high horse on human rights and understood that taking other nations to task on their human rights record is akin to throwing stones in glass houses. The latest recipient of the seemingly obligatory lecture is China. Continue reading
Donald Trump has accused President Obama and Hillary Clinton of being the “co-founders of Daesh” on three separate occasions eliciting questions about his sanity. He has since backtracked saying he was being sarcastic, an excuse he has offered many times when faced with a backlash over some of his most ridiculous statements. Continue reading
Nothing much surprises me these days. It really is a mad, mad world where norms existing for decades, if not centuries, are being overturned, and taboos breached. But I must admit to doing a double take when I read that the UK Home Office is actually inviting senior Muslim Brotherhood members, activists and their propagandists masquerading as journalists to apply for asylum. Continue reading
I have the feeling that many throughout the Arab world will be muttering, “Come back Obama, all is forgiven” next January when his replacement is inaugurated into office. Obama failed to live up to his promise, or should I say promises, to build bridges with predominately Muslim countries and to work hard for a Palestinian state. Continue reading
If there is one word to characterize the buildup to this US election it is “disrespect.” No low is too low. Their private lives are up for grabs, even those of their closest relatives. Continue reading
Without doubt many who were celebrating democracy’s victory last week are having second thoughts. The Turkish president’s “gift from God” has turned his fist into iron. The coup that wasn’t gives him a blank cheque to purge the military, the judiciary, state institutions, universities and schools of all opposition with echoes of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s 1950s witch hunt for Americans suspected of harbouring Communist sympathies. Continue reading
There’ve been violent clashes between whites and African Americans over the decades, but the idea that black America would rise-up en masse is a preposterous proposition in most people’s minds. Absolutely unthinkable! Continue reading
All knives may be pointing at former British prime minister Tony Blair for dragging Britain into an unnecessary war with catastrophic consequences, but he was by no means its mastermind—and neither was the UK the chief protagonist. Continue reading
Even if Donald Trump doesn’t manage to lord it over the White House, Trump-ism is certainly alive and well in Ohio. A respectable 41-year-old Emirati businessman, Ahmed Al-Manhali, wearing national dress, was recently physically assaulted, insulted and humiliated by police officers outside the Fairfield Inn and Suites in Avon purely because someone objected to his Arab attire. Continue reading
Anyone who imagines Benjamin Netanyahu genuinely believes that direct talks with Palestinian leaders can result in a deal is deluding themselves. Why? The Israeli prime minister has never had any intention of relinquishing an inch of occupied Palestinian land for peace; on the contrary, his goal is expansionism. Else why would be sanction the creep of Jewish settlements and the eviction of Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem from their homes? Continue reading
Ever since the disappearance of the EgyptAir Airbus A320 en route to Cairo from Paris last Thursday, which we now know crashed into the Mediterranean, the media has been rolling out expert after expert, each with his own theory, and more often than not they are contradictory. Continue reading
Former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, a political ally of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and a close friend of George Galloway, has got himself in hot water for exposing a regularly buried historical truth concerning the Nazis collaboration with Zionists to ease the transfer of German Jews to Palestine. He has now been branded “a Nazi apologist” and “an anti-Semite.” Continue reading
This just has to be the worst line-up for the presidency in living history. The race for the White House has evolved into an undignified slanging match especially within the Republican camp. Trump refers to the Democratic front-runner as “Crooked Clinton” and his closest rival Ted Cruz “Canada Ted,” “an anchor baby” and “a liar.” Yet when compared to former House Speaker John Boehner’s description of Cruz as “Lucifer in the flesh,” Trump’s insults sound mild. Continue reading
All of a sudden, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants the international community to recognise Syria’s Golan Heights, captured by Israel during the 1967 War, as belonging to Israel. Continue reading
The refugee problem in Europe has been bundled-up and dumped like an unwanted baby left on a doorstep. Humanitarian considerations have been binned. The media has conveniently placed this never-ending crisis on the backburner. Continue reading
American-Cuban relations are thawing but remain frosty. Despite the fanfare surrounding the historic visit of a United States president for the first time in 88 years, the embargo remains in place due to the intransigence of a mean-spirited Congress. Cuba defied the might of the giant next door and is still being made to pay the price for refusing to transform into a Hispanic clone of Sweden overnight. Continue reading
Donald Trump has transitioned from being a joke to a nightmare. His popularity isn’t in doubt. His growing following is enslaved by his winning “I’ll make America great again” personality. For them his racist insults are like honey. They’ve no problem at all with his ridiculing of the disabled, his failure to disavow the backing of the Ku Klux Klan, his pledge to close the door to Muslims and to reintroduce torture. And when he orders hecklers at his rallies to get out with the words “I’d like to punch him in the face,” they are often roughed-up by the glassy-eyed faithful. Continue reading
Legislation branding the Muslim Brotherhood a foreign terrorist organisation in the United States has been green-lighted by the Republican-dominated House Judiciary Committee with a 17-10 vote. The bill, obliging the US Secretary of State to take action unless he comes up with justifications not to do so, will now go before the House and will require rubber-stamping by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Continue reading
There was a time when the prime role of television news was to report hard facts leaving viewers to form their own opinions. Today, every reporter, anchor, professor, activist and member of an obscure think tank are political, geopolitical and strategic pundits. Moreover, almost every network has its own agenda when it comes to certain issues. News is cherry-picked or exaggerated or glossed over to suit its core editorial policies. Continue reading
Julian Assange says he’s been vindicated. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has pronounced that the Wikileaks editor, sought by the United States for publishing thousands of embarrassing documents and wanted for questioning by Swedish prosecutors in connection with rape allegations, has found in his favour. Continue reading
Daesh is losing ground and income from sales of oil in both Syria and Iraq. Foreign fighters have had their wages cut by half. Under pressure from US-led coalition, Russian and Syrian regime bombs and renewed resistance from local populations, the group is eying the area around the oil-rich Libyan city of Sirte as its new “capital.” Continue reading
A summary of the UK’s two-year-long probe into the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood has finally seen daylight after a long delay in publication. The fact that the organisation isn’t being banned as extremist is perplexing given the prime minister’s admission that “parts of the Muslim Brotherhood have a highly ambiguous relationship with violent extremism” and its views and activities are to be kept ‘under review.’ Continue reading
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Israel’s tantrum shows its scorn for international law
Posted on January 6, 2017 by Linda S. Heard
The recent United Nations Security Council Resolution reaffirming the illegality of Jewish colonies on the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem has buoyed Palestinians. For the first time, the administration of United States President Barack Obama refrained from using its veto to quash any condemnation of Israel. However, given the lateness in the day, Obama’s stance amounts to a token, a move taken to distance him from his successor’s raft of pro-Israel proposals—the relocation of the US embassy to occupied Jerusalem and his nomination of an ambassador that makes Netanyahu look like a peacenik by comparison. Continue reading →