15 March, 2013

Syria, the revolution and the 3rd World War!

1st of all, and before starting to read, this is a disclaimer that what is written here are my personal opinions and observations. Based on a collection of information and a analysis by my self. A simple non-politician person.

Trying to link out observations & actions about what has been going around the middle east & Arab spring lately is making me more & more sure nowadays that what is going on currently in Syria , & all the hassle that is going to follow in the region is nothing but a 3rd world war! This time, the alliances are divided between Russia Vs. Qatar! (Yes its the west actually, but of course the west is just happy with the fact that qatar is put on front and dealing with everything, they are just intervening when its needed, and with minimal costs! remember, we are in a time of crisis!).. And this war is all about controlling the most active & modern resource nowadays, GAS, Natural Gas!

For those who don't know, natural gas is now the most demanded resource in the world, and will be during the soon coming future.. It's clean (burning it produces only CO2 & water),  efficient, perfect for factories & heating (hint: high demand in the heavy industrial northern part of the globe), & electricity generation, with the newly developed multi cycle gas generators.. All of this applies especially for the developing countries (no one is gonna burn coal or heavy fuel any more when considering a source of energy for any of the above), & the industrially driven northern part of the planet, including Japan, China, & the whole European continent (which are becoming less and less dependent on nuclear energy after the focoshima explosion).

In case you don't know, Qatar & Russia are in control of this resource more and more world wide, how?
1. Huge gas reserves
2. Gas Exploration companies world wide. (Qatar has several oil and gas companies but is also a major player in international companies like Shell , but also in others)
3. The ability to cut the supply & control the price, And this is more applicable to Qatar , which has very huge storages of gas floating over very huge ships all over the oceans. But also Russia has almost half of Europe under control with a push of a button on its gas pipes. Let me clarify here that Qatar is not the largest producer, Iran, but also countries like Algeria, & KSA are publicly said to, have bigger reserves and production, but Qatar is actually controlling the storage & shipping facilities world wide. with the floating storages for gas all over the world qatar is actually able to limit the supply and change the world price anytime! (well, this is its objective actually.)
Check this: http://shipbuildinghistory.com/today/highvalueships/lngqatar.htm

Norway is also a big player in the industry, but it's having it's own "fixed-price" customers  (mainly the Scandinavian countries), and it's slightly loosing exploration sites outside Norway.

Mentioning Iran above, you should now that it was and still is Qatar's benefit to have Iran continuously out of the game lately with the sanctions applied on it. Iran cannot sell its gas now neither in US dollars nor in euros, and it cannot develop gas storage and shipping facilities by it self with these sanctions. So it's only major gas importer is ... Turkey! Which pays the gas price in GOLD! Though it's prefixed agreed on price, turkey wanted always to get independent from the Iranian gas by having a pipeline from Egypt (remember that this was a project performed in the days of mubarak).
And lets also not forget that iran is Russia's partner in the area. So weakening it is in benefit of qatar, and turkey will release its dependency on the iranian gas, with such a current bad position for iran economically, russia will be loosing yet another battle in the war!

Last but not least, the final fix-price gas supplier (other than iran and norway, and partially egypt with its supply of gas to israel), is Algeria, its main customers are the southern european countries, Spain, italy, and of course France. It actually has 2 pipelines ending in france, one from the west crossing maroco & spain (supplying spain partially with its needs , as the rest is supplied by Qatar), and one from the east crossing Tunisia and italy (italy again partially, as the rest is supplied by Qatar).


So after all those chunks of information now, lets go back to what is actually happening across the arab world at the moment, the so called arab spring... is it an organized chaos after all?! unfortunately, someone was wise enough in qatar to benefit from the need and thrust of the arabic nations for democracy and justice, and use the huge media tool that they have (aljazeera, but also other media channels and ways which qatar is partially financing) psychologically and emotionally pretending to be on the right side supporting the people, and do the needed change to remove the people that stand against their plan in controlling Gas resources across their biggest lost market (Europe) and smash russia's gas power in Europe.

Look at Tunisia, did the people get better conditions? are the country's resources being used for the benefit of the people and making their life better? what about freedom and democracy? are the people of the country really ruling it?
Look at egypt, again, are the country's resources being used for the benefit of the nation? arent the poor towns the lack even clean drinking water meters away from the multi swimming pools resources across egypt still have as bad conditions as before? even further more, isn't egypt now DROWNING IN DEBT! taking loans with billions of dollars every 3 months from the IMF and others? arent the protesters still being beaten in the street like before? isn't the country being ruled in exactly the same way, though the ruling president and parties have completely radically changed now alot of people will gonna start telling me how good is mursi and so, but look at the real situation on the ground.. maybe he is good, but he is definitely not the one ruling the country, maybe the outer policy of egypt now is way better than before... But think about it for a little bit.... emotions, again?!
Remember that Qatar, the fully emotional support for arab's rights in freedom in equality doesn't only arrest you if you are trying to say something against its regime, it actually kidnaps you! you simply disappear!

And the funny thing, that aljazeera actually shows the situation now in Egypt and Tunisia pretty rosy, while its not so at all! maybe in the past couple of weeks things in Tunisia and Egypt were exactly like 2 years ago, but the media coverage is simply ignoring that.

While libya, oh libya... if this country was ruled by 1 family gang, now its being ruled by hundreds of gangs .... we will return to libya in a moment.


So, why Tunisia, the country that surprised the west with its revolution! Yup! The west didnt believe at the beginning that qatar would actually do such a thing... It was a proof by Qatar that this can be done, a demonstration! in addition to opening the 1st path of algerian gas line towards europe... But wait, what happened to Algeria? wasnt there quite alot of demonstrations in there as well? I remember we saw alot of police on the streets as well beating the protesters....! out of a sudden after a visit for the emir of Qatar to algeria, & some "economical agreements" everything went quite! Algeria's gas in safe Qatari companies hands, and the Norwegian gas companies are being kicked out of algeria with a "terrorist act" against one of the gas plants they hold in algeria after the IN AMINAS attack, the Norwegian gas company withdrew all its operations from algeria, terrorists?! oh yeah! Made by ... "Imagine it yourself"

While the other line, via morocco... Well, Morocco hat things settled with the qataris in a short time, so the demonstrations didn't last, plus the king did enough reforms to make things according to people demands, lets note that morocco already had a parliamentary elected government, the only one in the arab world.

Ok, Egypt!
Egypt has been exporting gas for quite a while now mainly via ships at a fixed price, as well as a pipeline supplying israel with a fixed free cheap price to israel, was and still, even via ships before building the pipeline. Then came the big real project of egypts gas, the one that egypt would have benefited from since it had very limited abilities to export via ships, the project was making a pipeline to Turkey, via Jordan & Syria, with plans to be later connected to eastern europe & the rest of europe hopefully.
Europe? Turkey? thats Russia's market! Further more, russia's market that Qatar wants!
So actually ever since the pipeline was built and inaugurated, russia's partner in the region, syria, tried all possible ways to put impediments against having the flow of gas in that line to turkey, Russia was giving gas for free to syria, so if syria wanted gas from the pipeline, it wanted as much as possible for free as well! But egypt wants to sell! and to sell more for the bigger consumer turkey. so the actual agreed amounts of gas actually never got through the pipeline, not even to Jordan.

Solution, Qatar got the solution, It removes mubarak and his regime, rule the country in a similar old-regime way with different people closer to the people,i will let you be creative and google how many qatari investments were planned in egypt after the revolution, here is just ONE result. & then open a way for the pipeline by a revolution in.... Of Course, SYRIA!

But what about libya.. & whats with this dramatic end for Gadafi and his regime, & how did he accept all of this to happen around him in his great africa!
Well, thats the thing! Gadafi was an impediment! A person that talks too much! rumbles and rumbles, maybe in a stupid way, but true facts.. he is never afraid from saying facts. So he will definitely not agree on having Qatar controlling the gas resources in Algeria and the pipelines to europe, and definitely not agree having Qatar controlling the gas resources of Egypt, (because Qatar is not from Africa! Maybe ... he definitely didnt like Mubarak or Bin Ali).
& of course the west will not dare to deepen more into gold-rich african sahara, because he will just send the touarig over to kill their dreams. [hint: Mali as an example!]

Solution, eliminate him! not only eliminate him, but since you have already convinced the west about the applicability of the big-revolution theory, the west can get involved as well... & for free.. Qatar Pays!
Actually the west is just waiting the chance, not only to start getting use from resources, but also to prevent Gadafi's dream of building the world's first GOLD-BASED bank along with the gold-rich african countries! & later issue an african gold currency.... You can imagine that the dollar, euro and pound papers will all be grounded by a golden currency. So by this, they are removing the risk, and getting control over the gold. And after all, a total chaos in libya is just the key to take care of everything else around,,, one day the guys will have time for libya as well.

Actually, think about it a little bit, After the whole thing in libya was done, the guys over there already have cars and weapons, just send them over to mali trying to terror the people of the gold-rich northern mali, spend a year there erasing the entire history and signs of civilization in that part [which is purely islamic by the way (Check this and this)], then the savers will take over, the savers are france and slightly the US, the same exact people who helped Qatar in libya with the exact same percentages of intervention! a payback! sounds like.

Ah, lets not forget about Yemen, Qatar is still trying to gradually control Its gas resources [Amazingly they already have a good gas infrastructure with pipelines and supply ports, plus, Aden's port have a strategic position, but its importance got lost lately with the Somalian pirates, and earlier with the raise of Dubai as a hub instead].. Maybe Yemen, Bahrain and Kuwait or on the to do list for Qatar to actually hit its big neighboring competitor, Saudi Arabia ... who knows whats in their mind? but what is obvious at the moment is that the Qatari are not focusing on the gulf any more, ... They have SYRIA! Thats a headache, an important one.

So ... as the south western european plan is currently being formulated by taking control over the algerian gas and its supply lines. The turkish/eastern european plan is giving Qatar a headache with the syrian impediment. But giving russia a headache as well... So this is actually where both parts of the conflict are exposing all the dirty games that they have.... along with iran, who doesn't want to loose its arm in the region and its only remaining gas client.
Everyone is pushing their intelligence on the ground, media propaganda against each other, and weapons on the ground (Syrian Army Vs Free Syrian Army) that much that it became usual to see rebels in syria having ground and anti-plane artillery even more frequent that how it was in libya. while the russians are pushing tons and tons of weapons in syria, russian war ships and cargo planes are continuously supplying the syrian regime with weapons.
and who pays... the people, unfortunately... the innocents, who dont want Asad and those who do as well! they are all victims of this dirty micro war between the big guys. all for a sake of a ... GAS PIPE!

If its not so, whats the big secret then behind the insisting of having Asad leaving without discussions... Will the opposition people that might lead the country after him be better, I doubt so... They will suck the hell out of the country even a more corrupt regime. & whats this blind support for Asad and all his absurd actions by russia and iran (inc its lebanese little militia), they are all actually blind because they dont care about the poor people, they dont give a damn about its rights, they care only for their interests in having that line or preventing it.

If any of the 2 parties would have cared, they would have spent 20%, only 20% of the enurmous amounts of money they spent in injecting weapons in syria for the poor refugies in the countries around syria, isn't it easier for hezbullah to send people & money to aid syrians who refugeed to lebanon (who are mostly from damascus, regime supporters in a way or another} instead of injecting more fire into the conflict, and same applies to Qatar of course! to much dirt in this conflict.

I would rather end this post here, I think that i said enough above that can make a bit clearer vision of whats in my mind about all the mess happening around the middle east nowadays. stressing on the fact that I was never, and still not, a supporter of Asad or Mubarak or Gadafi, nor any of the newly brought leaders in the region ... because i honestly don't care or judge according to individuals, but rather their actions. and as far as i am seeing, actions are still the same, and the game is dirty!

15 November, 2009

JRFC Talents Gallery


The Jordanian Romanian Forum for Culture invites you to its “Talent's Gallery”. Opening this coming Wednesday, the 18th at 6 PM in Mecca Mall – New Extension, at the Ground Floor. The gallery will continue on Thursday and Friday,the 19th and 20th.


Va invita Forumul Cultural Iordaniano Roman la "Galeria De Talente". Deschiderea va fii Mercuri 18 noiembre la ora 18.00 la Mecca Mall - Etaj Parter. Galeria va continua joi si vineri 19 si 20.


يدعوكم المنتدى الأردني الروماني للثقافة لحضور "جاليري المواهب". و الذي سيفتتح يوم الأربعاء 18 نوفمبر \ تشرين الثاني - الساعة السادسة مساءً، و يستمر طيلة أيام الخميس و الجمعة ، 19 و 20 نوفمبر. و ذلك في مكة مول – التوسعة – الطابق الأرضي.

28 October, 2009

Radio Guide Update: Sawt Al-Madina on 93.3 FM in Irbid

Sawt Al-Madina started its test transmission in the nothern town of Irbid, on 93.3 FM for over a week now.

this is the 1st frequency for Sawt Al-Madina outside Amman, despite the fact that its transmission from the Ammani wave covers several towns around the capital.

07 September, 2009

RDS on Radio Jordan's stations

Radio Jordan Broadcasting Corporation has lunched by the end of August RDS service on several of its working radio services' frequencies on the FM waves.

Those who tune in to 90.0 FM and 106.7 FM in the greater Amman area can now have “Radio Jordan Main Program” appearing on their RDS radio screen, while those who tune in to 96.3 FM will have the statement “Radio Jordan Foreign Program” appearing on their radio screen.

The other radio stations that belong to Radio Jordan Broadcasting do not have RDS yet, nor was i certain about whether other working frequencies outside Amman for the 2 stations mentioned above have RDS working, or if they support RDS-AF (RDS Auto Frequency switching when you get out of a frequency's range and enter another one's range).

Radio Jordan might have been trying to evolve in the past couple of years, and i have discussed this several times on my blog in several occasions, and here is another step forward. As Radio Jordan's stations were almost the only ones that do not have RDS running.

Now technically speaking, Radio Jordan is still, despite the big possibilities the corporation holds, by the end of the list among Jordanian radio stations, mainly because of managerial issues. For example, several frequencies still suffer from Bad sound quality, while all the problem might be in setting an equalizer properly, Radio Jordan Foreign Service on 96.3 FM is a simple example (You can just observe the base's noise by the moment you switch to it), or a problem in the output cables like the same station's frequencies in Ajloun on 90.9 FM which still suffers from the same problem for several years now with its low echoish sound level problem. Or by not restricting the usage of low quality tracks , despite the availability of high quality originals, a problem mostly notable on the Main Program's Service. Or the simple unnecessary duplicity of service, which highers the costs, just like having 2 FM Frequencies for the main service covering the capital (90.0 and 106.7 FM) , and same for Amman FM (99.0 and 88.0 FM), while there are other areas that are not covered by transmission, or having null transmission, like irbid's local frequency on 95.4 FM.

Big evolutions were made in programming, mainly on The Main Service and Amman FM. And great efforts have been made on the role of the foreign service, but we still have some radio announcers performing on national radio's airwaves like if they are dealing with their car sound system! For example, Yes, we still hear Arabic music on the Foreign service.

The big problem is that all those issues are really minor issues for such a big corporation that can be handled and solved easily. But without them, Radio Jordan will not be able to go the next step in attracting back the trust of the people.

Maybe a proper example from my personal experience is Radio Romania, which is now very competitive in a very jammed market like the Romanian market, but is still having its weight by coverage 1st of all (covering the entire country with a wide range of FM frequencies with high transmission and sound quality along with RDS-AF), programming (Mainly news along with shows targeted for the nation and hot-AC quality Music, both Romanian and western), and appearance (Branding, events ... etc), along with a range of subsidiary local and nation-wide radio stations, among which some unique ones like Radio Romania Cultural, and Itsy-Bitsy FM (a children oriented radio station with very high ratings and listenership).

01 September, 2009

Spin Jordan, 1 Year of evolution in Jordan's CHR Radio

Today marks one year exactly since SPIN Jordan when on the Ammani airwaves on 94.1 FM , and at the same time, ever from the 1st day, in Irbid in the north and Ma'an in the south.

Ever since startup, Spin Jordan started with 3 frequencies, followed by a forth in Aqaba lately, being by that the only CHR Radio that dared to get out of the capital's borders. and gave a big hit in both irbid and aqaba.

Spin also started with a rich grid of shows less than 1 month since startup! something that other station spent YEARS to achieve, and some didnt yet though the have been on air over a year and a half and are still satisfied with 1 show that goes on vacations even. and this grid of shows didnt stop there, but went over richer during this year to have specialized music shows as well.

Talking about Music, Spin flipped over Jordanian CHR Radios playlists, and even played a role in having some bands being played for the 1st time on jordanian radios (Hint Hint: Kings of leon, The Script, and others). and we finally got to hear alternative hits and non-commercial hits played on the radio!

While when it comes to production, SPIN had a remarkable role in getting the radio quality standards in Jordan higher ... from basic concepts like "no moments of silence allowed on the airwaves" and "no talking over songs", to high quality productions and jingles ... as well as talking arabic on the airwaves of a CHR Radio, a big step forward, and one that never took place on jordanian CHR radios, from jingles like (دايماً الهتس أحلى عـ سبن) to ads in the streets and media, to actual talking on the radio.

Happy Anniversary Spin! we might have waited quite a while for you to come over on our airwaves, but this waiting worth it :)

30 August, 2009

Intercity Public Transportation in mess

Been a while since i have blogged about public transportation in jordan, and since i've blogged in general due to the fact that i was pretty busy lately, as well as out of the country.

Intercity public transportation has been in a mess lately across jordan, and i am not claiming it was perfect, but at least it was doing the job.

During this summer, things seemed to be going towards a mess in the sector due to several facts. and some of the solutions were causing problems in other parts of the sector, and so on.

Probably this mess was quite an effect on the public due to the fact that it happened on major lines connecting the capital Amman with the major jordanian cities around it. along with the general usual mess that occurred after petrol prices went high again, leaving the PTRC un-handling the case properly like before and causing a mess among the sector's operators and users.

Users of Major lines connecting the capital Amman to Irbid, Salt and Zarqa have been suffering lately. It all started when Irbid-Amman's big buses started a strike by the end of last june along with a strike for the Amman-Irbid white cabs asking for their fairs to be increased after the raise in gasoline prices.
The Big Buses drivers and owners had this strike for the 4th or 5th time, asking again & again to have their operations combined with the small coaster buses, which are, despite being individually owned, operating under a single-owned phantom line operator called "3aroos el Shamal Transport", a company that doesn't own a single bus! More about the coaster/big bus battle can be found here. The strike continued till several days before ramadan, after no solution was found by the PTRC.

On the other hand, 2 other Major lines, Zarqa-UJ-Sweileh and Salt-Raghadan, which are also licensed to big companies that, probably own buses, but sub-contract the operation to individuals driving them, without the needs to care about their maintenance and quality of operation [details available in this response of mine], have been facing trouble after most of their buses are not even willing to start and run any more. this forced the PTRC to find substitutes for operation on those 2 hot lines that work almost 24/7. and from where could those substitutes be but from other lines! on Salt-Raghadan line for example substitutes were some big Irbid-Amman buses (yup, those on strike, but only with a Wasta!), and big Jerash-Amman buses leaving the small town of jerash almost disconnected from the capital with only 2 small buses operating on this line!

While on the other hand, on the Zarqa line, the substitute were buses from the CMTC, which still has some of its lines in the capital Amman badly operated!

Anyway, the transportation between zarqa and Amman was enhanced, or tried to be, by a 60 years old 20km/h running train, operating during ramadan twice a day, by a trip from Zarqa towards Amman at 7.30 AM in the morning and a trip back at 3.30 PM. a nice idea after the death of the Amman-Zarqa light railway project, esp that as declared that the train carts are rehabilitated and air conditioned even. but unfortunately, the announcements of this service didnt exceed some short press releases in the newspapers, resulting in only 6 passengers at its 1st day of operation.

23 August, 2009

Radio Guide Update: Amen FM on 101.7 FM in Ma'an

Amen FM, the police dept radio station started broadcasting in Ma'an and Ras Al-Naqab area lately on 101.7 FM.

By this Amen FM is now covering most of the kingdom in 4 FM airwaves across the country

11 July, 2009

Radio Guide Update: Ayyam FM on 93.5 FM in Aqaba

Ayyam FM has also started its frequency in Aqaba Special Economic Zone on 93.5 FM.

Ayyam FM started broadcasting in aqaba with its sister communicorp radio station, Spin, earlier last week.

09 July, 2009

Radio Guide Update: Spin Jordan on 103.5 FM in Aqaba

Spin Jordan started broadcasting on 103.5 FM in the Jordanian sea port city of Aqaba and its surrounding areas.

Spin Jordan is currently the only english speaking jordanian radio station with 4 frequencies around the kingdom, after starting less than 1 year ago with 3 frequencies in Amman , Irbid and Maan. and is one of the very few with a frequency in Aqaba, where the only non state radio stations running there are Fann FM and Amen FM.

28 June, 2009

Radio Guide Update: Virgin Radio Jordan on 93.7 FM ... soon!

Yes, its finally official.

The station broadcasting on 93.7 FM in the Amman Greater Area is Virgin Radio Jordan.

After over 2 years of random music broadcasting without a station title on 93.7 FM but a random RDS name that goes by the name of "Nojoum FM".

and after witnessing a store in City Mall that now is almost finished but not equipped yet, and is obviously nothing but the station's studio [studio in the mall, how cool is that :) ]

Virgin Radio Jordan seems to be lunching just around the corner as , i expect, a CHR radio of another kind, one that would play both arabic and western contemporary hits! this is what i can see from what they are playing on 93.7 FM at the moment.

More soon! Hopefully!

UPDATE: No signal is available any more on 93.7 FM

UPDATE 08-Sep-2009: The test transmission has returned on 93.7 FM