Some amazing old photos of Kuwait, mostly from the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, courtesy of Kuwait Oil Company. Most of the pictures are of Kuwait City, including some from the time when mud walls still circled the city (the walls ran along what is now traffic jam-filled Al Soor Street), but there are a few … Continue reading »
Not many people on Emirates Air Line these days
… the Emirates Air Line cable car in London that is, not the actual Emirates airline. The cable car runs from Royal Docks on the north side of the Thames across to Greenwich Peninsula, close to the O2 (formally the Millennium Dome), taking about five minutes each way and is, in theory, a regular part … Continue reading »
Here’s an odd thing: profits at Syrian banks grew last year
This seems strange. Syria’s economy is failing badly, yet the country’s banks increased their profits in 2011, according to their results filed with the Damascus stock exchange. Here’s a chart showing total pre-tax profits at the 12 banks listed on the stock market for the past three years (the figures are in Syrian pounds): There … Continue reading »
Qatar is just too cold for some
Under the headline “Drunkards Shouldn’t Apply”, a fresh portrait of Qatar emerges in today’s issue of the Times of Swaziland, as a place that locals might find too cold and too dry for comfort. The two governments signed a deal earlier in May designed to make it easier for people from the small, poor African … Continue reading »
Culture v politics
With the US pulling its $80m funding from UNESCO because the Palestinians have been given a seat at the table, it seems like a good opportunity to revisit the sort of places that might suffer, so here’s some of my photos of World Heritage sites from around the Middle East. Of course the US can … Continue reading »
Staying power
So with Gaddafi dead and gone, there is now a new longest-standing dictator in the Middle East. Step forward Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said who has been in charge of Oman since he seized power from his father, Said bin Taimur, in July 1970. There have been some protests in Oman this year and, … Continue reading »
Lebanon would be better…
There’s a lot of graffiti around the Hamra part of Beirut – most of it rubbish – but the odd interesting bit does show up on walls… For a few more Lebanon photos click here
For a few barrels of oil…
So here’s the full rundown of nefarious deeds by various Middle East embassies and diplomats in London last year. The Foreign Office put out the numbers yesterday. As of 7 May this year, Iraq owed £19,533 for outstanding domestic rates bills, which covers things like street cleaning, lighting, fire services and the like. Tunisia owed … Continue reading »
Their man in London
An update on a topic from last year – just how badly behaved are the Middle East’s diplomats in the UK? London’s Evening Standard has managed to get more data from the Met Police about what foreign diplomats get arrested for in London. The figures cover all diplomats arrested between April 2008 and March 2011. … Continue reading »
Refugees in, dissidents out
The Middle East and North Africa is home to around 1 in every 3 refugees in the world – and that was before the revolutions, uprisings and brutal repressions of this year. It’s not such fertile ground for asylum seekers though. According to a UNHCR report published yesterday to mark World Refugee Day, there were … Continue reading »
Rulers running out of time? The Dictator Charts
This time a month ago a North African dictator who’d been in office for decades was clinging on to power despite the cries of his people to get lost. It’s much the same now; just the names and tactics are different. Then it was Hosni Mubarak in Egypt sending camels and tear gas into the … Continue reading »
Protest rap in North Africa
There’s an interesting mini-trend of rappers releasing protest songs in some of the North Africa countries to coincide with the street protests. El General (real name Hamada Ben Amor) in Tunisia became the most prominent when he released President, Your People Are Dying in the final days of the Ben Ali regime. There are others … Continue reading »
The Dictator Charts pt 2
Here’s the rest of the ignominious group (following on from yesterday’s post) with some impressively long-lasting figures. 11 11 years, 10 months in power Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa King of Bahrain An emirate wasn’t enough for Hamad al Khalifa, who designated his country a kingdom in 1999. The country has struggled for many years … Continue reading »
The Dictator Charts
One down in Tunis, another teetering on the brink in Cairo, but there are plenty more unelected (or unfairly elected) dictators sitting in palaces around the Middle East. In fact there’s 22 of them. So here’s a countdown of them all, starting with the most recent arrival. I’ll post the second half (those who’ve been … Continue reading »
Egypt’s lessons for dictators and protestors
Right now it’s impossible to know which side will win in Egypt. Mubarak may hang on, though he’ll be weakened if he does and it now seems impossible that his son Gamal could stand for the presidency in September. The protesters might prevail too, although the nature of the regime that would follow is just … Continue reading »
When it’s good to be wrong
Just two months ago I was putting together a crystal ball-gazing article about the main political themes for the Middle East in 2011. I spoke to political analysts and civil society activists around the region and everyone had the same, rather depressing views of the potential for any political change in the region. “You see … Continue reading »
Some people worth watching in Tunisia
Despite the dozens of killings in recent days, Tunisia’s president Ben Ali may well survive until his current presidential term ends in 2014, although that’s starting to look less likely. He says he won’t stand for election again, but he once said he wouldn’t serve more than two terms and he’s now on his fifth, … Continue reading »
Electioneering in Egypt
Just back from a visit to Egypt. In many parts of Cairo you wouldn’t know they were about to elect a new parliament in just a couple of days, but in the poorer parts of town the posters are everywhere. Of course it’s the faces of National Democratic Party candidates that line the walls – … Continue reading »
One morning in Covent Garden
Slight change of pace here. A few days ago I was invited in by the lovely people at The Ballet Bag to take some photos of four principal dancers at the Royal Ballet in Covent Garden. All four are taking turns with the role of Onegin in the ballet of the same name by John … Continue reading »
Now and when? Iran’s contentious new UK embassy
In an expensive corner of southwest London sits an unsightly if well-used car park, whose redevelopment is causing far more problems than it should. Iran would like to build a new embassy on the corner of Queen’s Gate and Harrington Road in South Kensington, but the locals aren’t convinced it’s such a good idea. Their … Continue reading »
To give or not to give
Saudi Arabia is now the biggest donor to Pakistan as the country struggles to deal with the devastating floods, donating around $100m earlier this week. It has long been the most generous Middle East country when it comes to giving aid, but others in the region have a far less enviable record. According to the … Continue reading »
Man of the moment: Julian Assange of Wikileaks
Julian Assange is an interesting character. The founder and face of Wikileaks is in London promoting the Afghan War Diary – a safer place for him than the US, where he’s been advised he could get arrested or detained as a material witness. He’s smart and self-confident (as you’d expect), but he has some wit … Continue reading »
Bouncing behind bars
Another Briton has been thrown in jail in Dubai for what looks like a simple case of a bounced cheque or two, albeit rather large ones worth around £50m. Not the sort of thing that usually gets you a prison sentence in the UK, but every expat I’ve ever met there is well aware of … Continue reading »
What’s Sultan Qaboos ever done for Oman? 40 years in power and counting
40 years ago today, on 23 July 1970, Qaboos bin Said Al Said seized power from his father, Said bin Taimur, in what was then the Sultanate of Muscat & Oman. He hasn’t let go since. He later shyly referred to it as “the event” in an interview he gave to Foreign Affairs magazine in … Continue reading »
Spot the difference: UK cuts and pastes it’s way through Gulf diplomacy
It’s not a great surprise to find that joint statements from the governments of two friendly countries often follow similar lines, but it’s getting ridiculous. The platitudes on display after the meeting of the Omani and UK foreign ministers issued today were almost a carbon copy of those expressed by UK Prime Minister David Cameron … Continue reading »
Poor Emiratis? Poverty in the Middle East and beyond
There could be a bit of embarrassment among UAE authorities when they discover their people are almost as poor as the Palestinians. According to a new global survey of poverty released today, the UAE is ranked 98th poorest in the world, just two places behind the Occupied Palestinian Territories, with Kazakhstan dividing them. Jordan won’t … Continue reading »
Worse than North Korea: the Middle East’s image problem
So Iran is viewed more negatively in the UK than North Korea, according to a new survey. It’s not surprising to find a country like Iran has an image problem – it generally only makes the news in the UK for its desire to stone people to death or to build a nuclear bomb – … Continue reading »
The sorry tale of Harrods Buenos Aires
The new Qatari owners of Harrods are talking about opening branches of the London department store overseas, possibly in China. Here’s what became of the retailer’s last attempt at an international land grab: In 1914 Harrods opened its first and so far only foreign offshoot, on Avenida Florida in downtown Buenos Aires, Argentina. It divorced … Continue reading »
A potted history of Twitter in Middle East politics pt 1
Last year, during all the hoopla about Iran’s Twitter Revolution, a friend of mine in Tehran found himself talking to the opposition leader at the centre of all the protests, Mir-Hossein Moussavi. Because my friend spends a lot of time in the West, Moussavi turned towards him and said: “You understand these things. What is … Continue reading »
An example to us all – what Middle East diplomats get up to in London
If there’s one thing you can be sure of, it’s that some Saudi diplomat will get pulled over by the police in London for drink driving this year. It’s happened every year for the last five years, according to figures released in the House of Commons yesterday. We don’t know who they are because they … Continue reading »
A victory against interfering royals
Justice Vos ruled today in the High Court that Qatari Diar did breach its contract with CPC over the development of the Chelesea Barracks site – an expensive plot of land in a pricey part of town. Here’s a copy of the summary judgement issued on 25 June The case hinged on why exactly the … Continue reading »
The quiet streets of France and Uruguay
As it’s the start of the World Cup today, and as France are playing Uruguay in the evening kick-off, a couple of photos of what they look like when everyone’s inside watching the telly and there’s no-one around on the streets:
Write about now
Things I’m writing about at the moment include… private equity in Central and Eastern Europe … German-Saudi relations … whether a Gulf single currency will ever happen … how well Sultan Qaboos of Oman has fared in his first 40 years in office … and following in the footsteps of Graham Greene in Paraguay.
Santos v Mockus
It hasn’t featured much in the UK media, but the Colombia presidential election campaign is nearing its end – it’s down to two candidates: Juan Manuel Santos, a former defence minister standing for Partido de la U, and the Green Party’s Antanas Mockus. It’s odds on that Santos wins in the run-off election on 20 … Continue reading »
