Reporting from Baghdad, Iraq yesterday, NBC’s Tom Brokaw said the Saudi Arabian monarchy is “so unhappy with the Obama administration for the way it pushed out President Mubarak of Egypt” that it has sent senior officials to the Peoples' Republic of China and Russia to seek expanded business opportunities with those countries.
By The Bourse Theorist
Understanding The Hypocrisy Of The West
People around the world remain confused and amazed at America's and Europe's differing policies towards different countries regarding the ethics of war. People question why, for the past generations, did the U.S. and its allies not intervene in the many massacres in sub-Saharan Africa? Why did it not care about uprisings in Thailand last year or the dictatorial regime currently in Myanmar? Why did it intervene in Libya, but not in Bahrain? When things don't make sense, often we need to make assumptions to fit the equation. By making the assumption that the West - and in reality any developed nation in its modern form - is a hostage of the world's oil supply, logic starts to come together.
By The Bourse Theorist
We had recently returned from our third trip to the lively city of Kuala Lumpur in the nation of Malaysia. Its our third trip because we genuinely enjoy the liveliness of the capital. With such a rich and diverse set of cultures, this country is one of the most genuinely open countries to people of all race and religions. Citizens of many countries that usually require visas to travel to western worlds are openly welcome to this country. In the heart of the capital, we had met and mingled with Malays, Hindus, Chinese, Arabs and Japanese. Its "One Malaysia" policy of integrating ethnicities fairly into its society is just one example of the elevated social mood of Malaysia. The big brother of Singapore - which Singaporeans would liken Malaysia as an uncouth and lazy big brother - looks to be getting its act together.
Rebel-held eastern Libya is at risk of running out of currency within weeks, the head of the opposition’s central bank has warned.
International pressure is mounting on Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down following a bloody 24 hours that culminated in the deaths of a further five people in Sanaa on Tuesday.
At least two sons of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi are proposing a resolution to the Libyan conflict that would entail pushing their father aside to make way for a transition to a constitutional democracy under the direction of his son Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, a diplomat and a Libyan official briefed on the plan said Sunday.
The price of oil reached its highest price since September 2008 in morning trading, boosted by strong jobs numbers from the US at the end of last week and the ongoing fighting in Libya.
Arab Banking Corp., the lender part- owned by the Central Bank of Libya, used a New York branch to get 73 loans from the U.S. Federal Reserve in the 18 months after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s two-year fight to shield crisis-squeezed banks from the stigma of revealing their public loans protected a lender to local governments in Belgium, a Japanese fishing-cooperative financier and a company part-owned by the Central Bank of Libya.
Even if you think as I do that squirmishing in Libya was the right move, it is prudent to consider how it could go wrong. Here are some thoughts about that from "C," a career intelligence expert specializing in Middle Eastern affairs. They are particularly helpful at a time when we are told that the Obama administration is covertly arming the Libyan rebels. Consider this a checklist of what not to do if arming the rebels fails to do the trick.
