"How can we negotiate with a state that wants to kill us?"

While the US is having its current drama about events that may or may not have happened at a high school party 30+ years ago, an actual important drama is brewing and being ignored.

“We’re accumulating risk in the Middle East by not getting at Iran’s proliferation,” [Brian Hook, the State Department's special representative for Iran] said. “There is something brazen about this missile behaviour, they’re not even hiding it. This sort of escalation is deeply concerning..."

"The Iranians have to decide are they a nation state or a revolution,” [The Saudi foreign minister] said, underlining that Iran had diverted virtually all its additional revenues from the removal of sanctions into its regional agenda, including support for the Houthi rebellion.

“If a missile is launched at Saudi Arabia and UAE what will be reaction be and how will we be defended?” said UAE Ambassador to the US Yousef Al Otaiba.

Maybe we could ask if the government can spend a few minutes considering this when they get done with their he-said, she-said partisan argument?

UAE ambassador asks how allies will defend country from Iran's missiles

Continuing Medical Education in UAE – Fraud Alert

Please be aware and make your employees aware of dramatic increase in illegal CME Accreditations flipping throughout the Arabic Gulf countries. The scam involves hospitals and medical establishments posing as “International CME Accreditations” – offering purchase Seal of Accreditation from USA. The scam is most prevalent in new hospitals and high-end medical establishments, particularly in UAE and Saudi Arabia by American Academy of Continuing Medical Education (AACME).

Read More...

The Cable-Cutter Mystery: Spies, lies, and "conspiracy theories" – what's behind the Middle East internet outage.

By Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com

[...Yet theories that this incident prefigures a US attack on Iran don't comport with the facts: Iran, far from being isolated by the cuts, may have enjoyed better connectivity as a result of the events. The areas hardest hit were Kuwait, Egypt, and especially Pakistan – this last being a likelier target for isolation than Iran, and certainly more current ....
Another, and far more plausible, theory is that the seemingly coordinated cuts resulted from efforts to tap into the cables – a spying operation. Go here for an exhaustive and very convincing case for viewing this as "special warfare.".........]

More here.

Another interesting post from the Galloping Beaver blog:

[....What does this have to do with anything? Well, first of all, the sheets and pages of information on USS Jimmy Carter's multi-mission capabilities have all disappeared off the US Navy's sites. Even the commissioning announcement at
Commander Submarine Group Two is gone.

So, at the risk of perpetrating a conspiracy theory, I will state that I am highly suspicious and until someone can point at USS Jimmy Carter snuggly alongside at its berth in Bangor, Washington, the Bush administration becomes as strong a suspect as any other possible perpetrator. There is also the fact that USS Jimmy Carter was due to become operational this year....]

More here.

I don't personally subscribe to conspiracy theories. But it's always interesting to analyze and speculate over this stuff. : )

UConn-Dubai planned shelved

Following up on "State lawmaker questions UConn's Dubai plan" from January, today's Gulf News reports that UConn has now "shelved" its plan to open a campus in Dubai.

Interestingly, this newspaper in Connecticut reported that the plan was shelved back in February, so I'm not sure why it is being reported only now here. For that matter, a search of the Gulf News archives seems to indicate that it never reported on the original plan to open the campus either.

The article quotes some UAE academics who blame the move on ignorance and "double standards ... 'motivated by anti-Arab racism'". (Another Gulf News article today quotes James Zogby to similar effect.) The double standards charge seems fair to me. Whether racism is the motivation for it is a matter of opinion, but it may be so.

However, I don't understand the ignorance charge, since the objections that the opponents of the plan raised do not seem to be in dispute. (e.g. Israelis not being allowed to enter the UAE.)

no FTA for you

"WASHINGTON: The United States said Friday that free trade talks with the United Arab Emirates would not be completed by an end-of-month deadline.

The United States, however, remains committed to wrapping up an agreement and expects to resume negotiations at a later point, said Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative. It was unclear when talks would resume.

Last month, negotiators made some progress on issues including the environment, e-commerce and copyrights, the Emirates Ministry of Finance and Industry said.

But major sticking points include Washington's insistence on improvement of laborers' rights and the country's overall human rights record."

-- more HERE

State lawmaker questions UConn's Dubai plan

I hadn't heard that the University of Connecticut was planning on opening a Dubai campus, but this plan isn't getting a warm reception from Rep. Andrew M. Fleischmann, the co-chair of the state General Assembly's Education Committee:

"[I]t's always important to understand whom you are partnering with...

"There are major questions that have been raised about human rights in Dubai... [A] critical first step would be for Dubai and the rest of the United Arab Emirates to agree to start living by certain basic standards of human rights and worker rights that appear to be neglected there now.

"There are people living in Dubai right now ... who are, functionally, little more than indentured servants."

The story also sites the Human Rights Watch report from last December.

American Muslim Congressman to be sworn in

... on Thomas Jefferson's Koran.

Thomas Jefferson, though, did have some issues with Arab corsairs on the Barbary coast.

Ironically, Morocco was the first country to officially recognize the independence of the United States of America.

Americans have mixed emotions for 2007

Many on the internet have noticed,

Yahoo News: Americans optimistic

Yahooo News: Americans full of gloom and doom