Part of it distribution. Trains can carry goods all the way to Tajikistan, but there is no rail beyond that and the trucking logistics difficult.  Sometimes the Afghan embassy in Dushanbe will just sell the donations there. Officially the money is meant to help programs in Afghanistan, but…

As one customs official said in a friendly chat “we don’t want goods. Goods a re goods, and mostly go to their destination. Money, however, can be assigned to buy goods, and from those deals seven out of eight dollars make it into the pockets of people along the way.”

Oh well, at least some of it gets to the intended beneficiary. At least one policeman in Kabul reports that he is making less than half what the Germans brag police are paid to prevent corruption, and that he has yet to be paid that much - the police chief assures him that after six months service he will get what he is owed. In the mean time he has his gun and his position to get what he can where.

Happy Women’s Day Russia! Originally part of International Women’s Day, a day meant to celebrate and promote women’s rights, Women’s Day in Russia morphed into a day more like Motehrs’ Day and Valentine’s Day rolled into one, when women of all sorts are given flowers and become the subject of may toasts. Last Women’s Day, I was returning home late with an armful of tulips when I had what I thought was going to be my last adventure. In my old apartment, the entrance was in the back, in the courtyard/garden/children’s play area.

A courtyard like this, only darker and scarier

The concierge locked the front door after midnight which meant that when I got there it was dark, late and I had to sort through my many keys to find the right one.* As I did this, form the corner of my eye I saw three men come running at me from the dark recesses of the courtyard. I had nowhere to run, so gripped my keys to be ready to go down fighting. As they came upon me the leader jumped up their stairs almost on to me and drunkenly shouted “congratulations on your day!” It was my teenage neighbor drinking beer in the courtyard with his two friends, the three of whom were drunk enough that when they saw a woman in the distance they thought it was a good idea to rush me to offer congratulations.I have two white hairs directly resulting from this.

Oh well, its karma paying me back for the time after the Opera Ball in Vienna my escort and I went around chasing women walking to work in the dark to give them flowers, scaring more than one in the process.

* Your mother is right - when walking alone in the dark get your keys out in advance. It avoids having to stop and search for them and you already have them out to use if you have to fight someone.

While in Moscow, a few times a week a gentleman parks on my side street and plays music (usually electronica) on his car stereo very loudly foe a few measures. A few minutes later someone comes out and gives the driver a bag. My boyfriend has seen the same guy on the street with the hood open and holding jumper cable likes he’s waiting for someone to come and jump him. I wonder what is really going on?

The guys next door are nice - all 20+ of them.  The apartment next to my is a larger, corner one, with three bedrooms. So a group of migrant workers from Tajikistan who work in the center pooled their resources and rented it to avoid long commute times. Individually they are very nice (and try very hard to remain that way so that I don’t report them. I wouldn’t but they don’t know that). Together it is a small challenge; a steady stream of unfamiliar visitors is always coming and going. I can’t report them; they might be deported or shaken down for bribes, but they wouldn’t all move out to spacious apartments, and I’m not trying to ruin their already-difficult lives. I am curious how they manage to stay there though. There are a lot of people to pay rent, but the building is nice(ish) in a nice area, so even with that many people contributing making rent would be a challenge for a group of people as focused on saving/remitting as much money as possible and migrants in Moscow, so I assume all of the foot traffic is related to another income source. I wonder what is going on.

These men are not my neighbors. But they could be.

In the US, I know what is going on. I live in an an area with a _very_ aggressive HOA, and the VP lives for being nasty and “powerful” to neighbors. So nasty that he tries to publicly humiliate them (out my neighbor for being late on monthly maintenance payments for example) or just cause fights (trying to refuse to pay for repairs that the HOA must pay for, for example). In his case I know exactly what is going on: he is a nasty, powerless man who really enjoys the petty thrills he gets wielding HOA rules against well-intentioned neighbors. When I stood up for outed-for-late-payments lady, he yelled at me and said “you are not on the condo board, you can’t speak.” This isn’t true, but he inspired me, so now I’m running on a platform of full financial transparency (something he dislikes) and good faith dealings with our neighbors. My only concern is all the travel and the bi-monthly meeting schedule. In Dubai my father solves this problem by sending his PA to board meetings and vendor reviews, but I don’t think this would fly in the US, and even if it did, I don’t have a PA. I guess I will have to learn what is going on.

Not to stop them, but rather to start them spying - for you.  A lot of cold-contact spying arrangement (like 80%) started with blackmail, or so I’m told. It would start with a request from the foreign “agent” for something innocuous, like an unclassified phone book. The target would get one, to be nice and helpful, and would be photographed handing it over. Two to three years later, other agents would show the target that photo, and threaten to turn it over to the target’s superiors. In the environment of the time, and without any proof that it was just a phone book or other innocuous document, the photo alone would be a career-ender at best and life-ruiner at worst, opening the target up to blackmail, or at least “discussions.”

Told to me by a US intelligence contractor. He said that that statistic is still used in US training to warn people to be alert to all potential threats, not just real ones.

The news today included this piece, that Canadian citizens not only lost the right to enter the UAE without a visa, but that they must now pay between 250 and 1,000 USD to get that visa.  This step is but the latest in an ongoing spat between the UAE and Canada over extended landing rights in Canada for the Dubai-based Emirates airline (Abu Dhabi-based Etihad also wants extended landing rights, but they are a smaller airline and the flights they want are less controversial). The Canadian government wanted to preserve those routes for Air Canada, but the UAE government insisted on giving them to Emirates.

This airplane would look especially good in Winnipeg

The new visa regulations are the UAE’s latest move to pressure Canada, as well as send a message to any other countries thinking about standing in Emirates’ way. It is not the first or most drastic step, however. In October, the UAE government ordered Canada to leave a covert military base used to support Canadian operations in Afghanistan (and add implicit support for the small UAE in a difficult region). Up until that point neither the UAE nor Canada officially acknowledged the base’s existence, but extended landing rights for Emirates in Canada was important enough to admit the base existed and kick the 2,900 soldiers there out.

Why does the UAE care so much about Emirates? As I mentioned above, supporting the airline against Canadian regulators also serves as a lesson to other countries dealing with other businesses that Emirati business interests should be taken seriously. In part, it is solely to help Emirates, a major UAE business. Perhaps another reason is the influence that its president is Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum.

In addition to being a noted toffee lover, Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum is the son of one Dubai ruler, brother to another, and uncle of the current ruler, Sheikh Mohmmad bin Rashid Al-Maktoum. In addition to running Emirates Ahmed Al-Maktoum is a government official himself. His most influential position is that of Deputy Chairman of the Dubai Executive Council, the body which formulates policies and strategies for the Emirate of Dubai. He is also runs a major investment organization and sits on teh boards of several key groups, councils and firms.

In short, he is an influential man and he wants his Canadian landing rights. Now. International politics, defense and security, attracting skilled expat labor to a place where nationals are only 17% of the population and even tourist [Canadian] dollars are less important.

To outside observers, ejecting a military base and raising visa fees may to exorbitant heights may seem like an overreaction, but at least there is something real worth fighting over; the millions of dollars to be earned from control of the landing rights in Canada. Qatar started a similar spat with Jordan due a dissagreement between their two queens!

Sheikha Moza and Queen Rania with Turkish First Lady Emine Erdogan a year ago at an event in support of Palestine (officially they made up by then, but…). Judging from this photo I’d say they are angry at each other because they both have the same plastic surgeon, and neither will give him up.

Queen Rania of Jordan and Sheikha Moza of Qatar are two of three Middle Eastern ruling women (the third is Asma Al-Assad, wife of Syria’s President) all vying for the position of leading “enlightened” Arab women (and international society glamor ratings too if possible). Queen Rania is the most famous of the three, mostly because she is also the best looking/most fashionable.  A few years ago Queen Rania and Sheikha Moza were at a conference in support of women and development in the region, where they had a falling out. I am not sure what the full details were, but it was a personal disagreement completely related to politics, diplomacy, or commerce.

The result? For two years getting a visa to Qatar became nearly impossible for Jordanians. no official law was passed, just visas were not available (regional consultates all received FYI-style warnings). One German company had to send representatives from their corporate HQ in Germany because their local office was in Jordan, and their Jordanian representatives could not get a visa no matter what they tried. in the end the German arrived three days into a five-day conference and missed multiple meetings.

So in that case, one powerful lady made another mad, and no one could travel for two years. This cost an unknown number of people great headaches and Qatar an unknown number of business opportunities.

Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al-Said:
Finding simple, clever ways to win his people’s support since at least 1970

I love Oman. In my experience, it is friendly, interesting and breathtakingly beautiful (gotta love the tropical fjords). The people of Oman seem to love their Sultan as well, and at the very least appreciate that their country is peaceful and the economy is growing. Society remains relatively conservative, but people don’t seem to mind that the unmarried Sultan Qaboos said to be gay. (Discussions on this topic can get quite hysterical, and I am inclined to disregard the less probable rumors as the result of hysteria surrounding such a sensational issue + the Internet. If nothing else, the man is clearly a clever politician skilled at attracting and keeping the support of those in power, and therefore generally behaves himself as such. One can achieve this and be a normal gay person, but one cannot be a nymphomaniac pedophile).

In contrast, the Bedouin generally don’t love anyone but each other, and even there the traditional of raiding other Bedouin is considered strong and glorious. This is in no small part due to historic reasons; governments never did much to help the Bedouin, they only sought their military assistance, their land, or their lives. In return, many Bedouin (living truly harsh lives), saw outsiders as fair game for raiding and even murder. Add internal cultural perceptions among the Bedouin that they were the strong, noble ones in contrast to the decadent, dishonest outsiders, and external perceptions that the Bedouin were uncivilized thieves, and you end up with a situation

This was the situation when Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al-Said seized power from his father in 1970. Fortunately for him, the oil embargo and technology combined forces to provide an answer in the form of modular solar panel set-ups. He had the idea to build solar panel towers in Bedouin technology, and include multiple outlets so that the Bedouin could run and charge their TVs, fans, etc. This small gesture went a long way to making the Bedouin’s lives easier, and was enough to win their support, or at least alleviate their opposition.

tumblrbot asked: WHERE WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO VISIT ON YOUR PLANET?

My next “new and exciting” planned trips are to Belize to swim with whale sharks with the bf (his Christmas present) and to Antarctica with a group of adventuresome friends and family (2010 was Kilimanjaro, so 2011 must be Antarctica!).  My next yet-unplanned trip that I hope to take is to Argentina to play polo and explore real estate options in Buenos Aires (really charming places are available for a song. Really, go Google “inmobiliaria Buenos Aires” and see for yourself!)

A Saudi man in the 1970s, explaining the two items that one must have to be “civilized.”

The latter, tissues (aka Kleenex) are ubiquitous, in the Middle East. They are used to blow one’s nose, but also as napkins (it is common to see several boxes laid out at a majlis) and displayed in the back of one’s car, ideally under a decorative cover.

This is a photo of Sheikh Zayed’s old majlis from Al-Ain. More here.

Back in 1967, Our Hero was a Sudanese student in Cairo. His interest in fighting Israel was limited, but when the war started, all the foreign students at his university were rounded up, informed that they were all volunteers, and were promptly walked outside to waiting troop transport trucks.

The “volunteers” were taken to an empty area in the Sinai Peninsula, where they were left with minimal supplies - no tents, little food or water and even very few weapons. The students asked when these supplies would arrive, and were told “tomorrow.” They were told the same thing the next day. And the next. After a few days, when no one had supplied or tried to contact them, they gave up, and just walked away. Our Hero got back to Cairo, collected his things, and went home to Sudan, walking a good part of the way.

This photo of Sudanese “volunteers”  is from an essay on the use of other nationalities for propaganda and military uses in an other Arab country; this time in Iraq during that country’s most recent war with Iran.

So -a guy I know- is in Afghanistan (I was too, back in the day, working on an infrastructure project). He is in the military.  His friend is also in the military doing public affairs, aka PR.  The friend also does media training for the Afghan Army. He decided to give them an example of professional TV production, so he assembled a five-minute montage of Afghan Army exercises and added a bed of Afghan music he pulled from a CD. He presented it to a room of soldiers today, and the room immediately exploded with laughter. The music apparently was the type associated with Masir-e-Sharif for underaged dancing boys.

As told by a guy I know in the US military, currently in Afghanistan.

Afghan children often want their pictures taken.