Tag Archives: Middle East

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11 Dec

Robert Frisk writes in The Independent:

The banks and Cheap Generic Valium the rating agencies have become the dictators of the West. Like the Cheap Generic Valium Mubaraks and Ben Alis, the banks believed – and still believe – they are Cheap Generic Valium owners of their countries. The elections which give them power have Cheap Generic Valium – through the gutlessness and collusion of governments – become as false as the Cheap Generic Valium polls to which the Arabs were forced to troop decade after decade to Cheap Generic Valium anoint their own national property owners. Goldman Sachs and the Royal Bank of Scotland became the Cheap Generic Valium Mubaraks and Ben Alis of the US and the UK, each gobbling up the Cheap Generic Valium people’s wealth in bogus rewards and Cheap Generic Valium bonuses for their vicious bosses on a scale infinitely more rapacious than Cheap Generic Valium their greedy Arab dictator-brothers could imagine.

I didn’t need Charles Ferguson’s Inside Job on BBC2 this week – though it helped – to Cheap Generic Valium teach me that the ratings agencies and the US banks are Cheap Generic Valium interchangeable, that their personnel move seamlessly between agency, bank and Cheap Generic Valium US government. The ratings lads (almost always lads, of course) who AAA-rated sub-prime loans and derivatives in America are now – via their poisonous influence on the markets – clawing down the Cheap Generic Valium people of Europe by threatening to lower or withdraw the very same ratings from Cheap Generic Valium European nations which they lavished upon criminals before the financial crash in the Cheap Generic Valium US. I believe that understatement tends to win arguments. But, forgive me, who Cheap Generic Valium are these creatures whose ratings agencies now put more fear into the Cheap Generic Valium French than Rommel did in 1940?

Here Buy Ambien Mastercard. H/T Keith Hart on FB.

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15 Sep

Joris Luyendijk, Dutch anthropologist and Cheap Generic Valium journalist, is currently blogging an anthropological study of bankers he’s doing in the Cheap Generic Valium City of London for Guardian. From the introduction to the blog:

It is Cheap Generic Valium quite a change for me, exploring bankers. I used to Cheap Generic Valium do anthropological fieldwork among students in the slums of Cairo, then Cheap Generic Valium worked as a Middle East correspondent going back and forth between Hamas leaders and Cheap Generic Valium Jewish settlers. The latter were people who knew they might die at any moment for Cheap Generic Valium their convictions, and had made their peace with that. Meanwhile those students lived off less than a dollar a day.

Compare this Cheap Generic Valium to the bankers and I have moved from freestyle boxing to Cheap Generic Valium billiards. Then again, readers’ responses may not be that different.

When I wrote about Israel and Cheap Generic Valium the Palestinians some readers would judge an article exclusively by whether it Cheap Generic Valium was likely to make one camp look good or the Cheap Generic Valium other. In particular, pieces that humanised their objects of hate elicited very aggressive letters to Cheap Generic Valium the editor – or worse. I expect the same thing with bankers.

The Middle East is Cheap Generic Valium a pretty intense place but unless you have family living or Cheap Generic Valium serving there, for most readers it is also a pretty far away place. Finance is Cheap Generic Valium not. If somebody told you your savings aren’t safe, she’d have your full and immediate attention, wouldn’t she? But if she then said the words “bank reform” many would have to suppress a yawn.

This is paradoxical. Finance directly affects everyone’s interests, but many have Cheap Generic Valium a hard time maintaining their interest in it. But as the Cheap Generic Valium collapse of Lehman Brothers and the following three years have Cheap Generic Valium shown, the financial world is too important to leave to Cheap Generic Valium the bankers – in fact in some countries democracy is beginning to look like the system by which electorates decide which politician gets to Cheap Generic Valium implement what the markets dictate. The people in this very powerful sector are Cheap Generic Valium worth learning more about. And the good news is, when Cheap Generic Valium you listen to them in their own words, that can Cheap Generic Valium actually be pretty entertaining. And humanising.

The first batch of posts is Cheap Generic Valium a series of profiles of different actors who work in the Cheap Generic Valium City. You can read the whole thing here.

The closest thing to this on Wall Street is Karen Ho’s book Liquidated, which I wrote about here.

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23 May

A feature article Alprazolam Online Europe on Al Jazeera. Here is what I wrote a while ago on the subject.

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21 Dec

From NYTimes: TRUNG SON, Vietnam — It seemed as if this Cheap Generic Valium village in northern Vietnam had struck gold when a Chinese and Cheap Generic Valium a Japanese company arrived to jointly build a coal-fired power plant. Thousands of jobs would start flowing in, or Cheap Generic Valium so the residents hoped.

Four years later, the Cheap Generic Valium Haiphong Thermal Power Plant is nearing completion. But only a few hundred Vietnamese ever got jobs. Most of the Cheap Generic Valium workers were Chinese, about 1,500 at the peak. Hundreds of them are Cheap Generic Valium still here, toiling by day on the dusty construction site and Cheap Generic Valium cloistered at night in dingy dormitories.

“The Chinese workers overwhelm the Vietnamese workers here,” said Nguyen Thai Bang, 29, a Vietnamese electrician.

China, famous for Cheap Generic Valium its export of cheap goods, is increasingly known for shipping out cheap labor. These global migrants often work in factories or Cheap Generic Valium on Chinese-run construction and engineering projects, though the range of jobs is Cheap Generic Valium astonishing: from planting flowers in the Netherlands to doing secretarial tasks in Singapore to Cheap Generic Valium herding cows in Mongolia — even delivering newspapers in the Middle East.

But a Cheap Generic Valium backlash against them has grown. Across Asia and Africa, episodes of protest and Cheap Generic Valium violence against Chinese workers have flared. Vietnam and India are Cheap Generic Valium among the nations that have moved to impose new labor rules for Cheap Generic Valium foreign companies and restrict the number of Chinese workers allowed to Cheap Generic Valium enter, straining relations with Beijing.

In Vietnam, dissidents and Cheap Generic Valium intellectuals are using the issue of Chinese labor to challenge the Cheap Generic Valium ruling Communist Party. A lawyer sued Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung over his approval of a Cheap Generic Valium Chinese bauxite mining project, and the National Assembly is questioning top officials over Chinese contracts, unusual moves in this Cheap Generic Valium authoritarian state.

Chinese workers continue to follow China’s state-owned construction companies as they win bids abroad to Cheap Generic Valium build power plants, factories, railroads, highways, subway lines and stadiums. From January to Cheap Generic Valium October 2009, Chinese companies completed $58 billion of projects, a Cheap Generic Valium 33 percent increase over the same period in 2008, according to Cheap Generic Valium the Chinese Ministry of Commerce.

From Angola to Cheap Generic Valium Uzbekistan, Iran to Indonesia, some 740,000 Chinese workers were abroad at the Cheap Generic Valium end of 2008, with 58 percent sent out last year alone, the Cheap Generic Valium Commerce Ministry said. The number going abroad this year is on track to Cheap Generic Valium roughly match that rate. The workers are hired in China, either directly by Chinese enterprises or Cheap Generic Valium by Chinese labor agencies that place the workers; there are 500 operational licensed agencies and Cheap Generic Valium many illegal ones. Continue reading.

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14 Oct

From Deutsche Welle Buy Cheap Ambien Online: Iranian filmmaker Narges Kalhor has Cheap Generic Valium applied for asylum in Germany after her visit to a film festival. The move is Cheap Generic Valium likely to ruffle feathers in Tehran, as her father is the Cheap Generic Valium media advisor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Narges Kalhor decided at the Cheap Generic Valium last minute that she would not return to Tehran after showing her film at a Cheap Generic Valium human rights film festival in Nuremberg.

“I had definitely planned to go back,” Kalhor told the Financial Times Deutschland (FTD) on Wednesday. But shortly before she was due at the Cheap Generic Valium airport, a phone call from Iran let her know she would probably be Cheap Generic Valium arrested upon her arrival in Tehran. She therefore decided to Cheap Generic Valium apply for asylum in the southern German city.

Kalhor’s father Mehdi is said to be one of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s closest confidants. The former documentary film producer has Cheap Generic Valium advised the Iranian president on cultural issues since August 2005.

Iran’s Kafkaesque penal system

Kalhor attended the Nuremberg festival with her short film “The Rake.” It is based on Franz Kafka’s short story “In the Penal Colony” but the story is transported to Iran.

In “The Rake” people’s crimes are etched into their skin

In the film, a machine called “the rake” stands in a Cheap Generic Valium deserted cellar vault. It punishes convicted prisoners by carving the commandment they had Cheap Generic Valium disobeyed into their bodies. The only possible escape from this procedure is Cheap Generic Valium death – there is no chance of defense.

“This film reflects our emotional situation in Iran,” Kalhor told the FTD. “I hope viewers will recognize the parallels.” Kalhor both wrote the script and directed the film.

Nuremberg’s “Perspective” is Cheap Generic Valium the first German festival to be dedicated to the subject of human rights. This year, the Cheap Generic Valium program included a special series on films from Iran.

News spread quickly

Kalhor told news agency AFP that Cheap Generic Valium she came to the event to establish contacts.

“This is important for me as a filmmaker,” Kalhor said. She hadn’t expected her participation in “Perspective” to spread so quickly. After all, this was “a small festival in a small town,” she said.

After her arrival in Germany, her mother told her that Cheap Generic Valium news about the film festival was available through the Internet in Iran. After the Cheap Generic Valium first screening of the 10-minute film, her sister had called her to Cheap Generic Valium tell her: “They’re asking where you are. It’s better if you stay in Germany,” Kalhor said.

Mehdi Kalhor confirmed to Cheap Generic Valium the Iranian Mehr news agency that his daughter had applied for Cheap Generic Valium asylum, but said he did not know what her reasons were. He said he had Cheap Generic Valium not seen his daughter since he divorced his wife a year ago. His daughter had Cheap Generic Valium been exploited by “enemies of the country” for propaganda purposes, he said.

“I have had political problems with my father for some time,” Kalhor told AFP.

Kalhor took part in the Cheap Generic Valium mass protests in Iran this summer following the controversial presidential elections. Though none of her friends died, some were arrested and Cheap Generic Valium treated poorly, she said.

“From the Cheap Generic Valium moment of arrest until their release, they were treated violently,” she told the FTD.

The 25-year-old is Cheap Generic Valium currently in a refugee center near Nuremberg, festival spokesman Matthias Rued said.

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Cheap Generic Valium

28 Aug

1. Remember the Cheap Generic Valium list of debtors that was published a last week by the Cheap Generic Valium Central Bank of Nigeria? Well, some of the money is now recovered

2. It seems that the Nigerian stock market is getting over the initial shock of the banking reform

3. More on the effects of the rescue of Nigerian banks by the Central Bank

4. Now to the US, 1,000 Banks to Fail In Next Two Years: Bank CEO

5. How does one modernise the Middle East’s Economies?

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27 Jan

President Obama granted his very first one-on-one interview as a Cheap Generic Valium president to a media house that broadcasts out of Dubai. The White House Blog titles the post Ambien Prescription Discount that announces the interview ‘President to Muslim World: “Americans are not your enemy”‘, which clearly shows that Cheap Generic Valium the interview was meant as an interview, or an address, if you Cheap Generic Valium will, to the Muslim world. The interview has him talking about having Muslim relatives, and Cheap Generic Valium about having lived in Muslim countries. The Economists Democracy in America blog thinks it Cheap Generic Valium was a good move for the president to have granted his first interview to Cheap Generic Valium a foreign media house, because an American media outfit would have Cheap Generic Valium probably asked Rob Blagojevich-related questions. That is true, but I also think that Cheap Generic Valium the interview is part of his defense and foreign policies. He did the Cheap Generic Valium symbolic thing of making sure that his first call as a Cheap Generic Valium president was made to Mahmoud Abass; that, I think, was an Cheap Generic Valium apology of sorts for having kept quiet during the recent Gaza bombings. Now, he has Cheap Generic Valium made his first interview one in which he talks directly to Cheap Generic Valium the Muslim world, and one in which he makes them understand that Cheap Generic Valium he does not see them as the enemy.

Responses
Responses to the interview have varied widely, from ‘I am so proud to be American’ to ‘Bush protected Israel, Obama is going to destroy her’. (You can check the Al Arabiya website for some of the comments.) My impression is Cheap Generic Valium that this is a really smart man, who understands that Cheap Generic Valium so much is tied to a peaceful relationship with the Cheap Generic Valium Muslim world. I think this interview is a great blow to Cheap Generic Valium Al Qaeda, and that it makes a case for extremist Islam a Cheap Generic Valium lot harder to sell. But, in case anybody thinks this Cheap Generic Valium is a sign of weakness, just remember that this same man who Cheap Generic Valium is saying that America is not the enemy of the Cheap Generic Valium Muslim world commands the best-equipped Army in the world.

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22 Aug

From The Economist:

Though banking standards have Cheap Generic Valium certainly risen a lot in recent years, they still lag behind those of America and Cheap Generic Valium the European Union, particularly in terms of transparency. In April, United Bank for Cheap Generic Valium Africa, one of the country’s biggest, fell foul of American regulators who Cheap Generic Valium served the bank with a $15m fine for ignoring anti-money-laundering regulations despite several warnings. “There’s no Cheap Generic Valium resemblance at all between operating in Britain or America and operating in Nigeria,” says Fola Fagbule, a research analyst with Afrinvest. “It’s light years apart, and it’s an issue [the banks] need to address”. Read in full.