X Marks The Spot : Identifying MIM-104 Patriot Batteries From Sentinel-1 SAR Multi-temporal Imagery
▻https://medium.com/@HarelDan/x-marks-the-spot-579cdb1f534b
Harel Dan montre comment on peut identifier des sites de défense anti-missile avec de l’imagerie satellite accessible à tout le monde.
Reza Aslan se montre on ne peut plus clair : l’Arabie séoudite a dépensé plus de 100 milliards de dollars sur les 20 ou 30 dernières années pour répandre le wahhabisme dans le monde, idéologie qu’il définit comme le virus à la source de Boko Haram, ISIS ou al Qaeda…
▻http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/reza-aslan-anyone-who-asks-why-muslims-have-not-condemned-terrorism-cant-u
“There’s no question that there has been a virus that has spread throughout the Muslim world, a virus of ultra-orthodox puritanism,” Aslan replied. “But there’s also no question what the source of this virus is — whether we’re talking about Boko Haram, or ISIS, or al Qaeda, or the Taliban.”
“All of them have as their source Wahhabism, or the state religion of Saudi Arabia,” he said. “And as we all know, Saudi Arabia has spent over $100 billion in the past 20 or 30 years spreading this ideology throughout the world.”
C’est au tout début de la vidéo :
▻http://mediamatters.org/video/2015/01/11/reza-aslan-anyone-who-asks-why-muslims-arent-de/202086
(Ça commence à vraiment vraiment se voir. Nos usuels affreux vont devoir lancer une grande campagne de dénonciation du Saudi bashing…)
Chiffre qui était déjà réapparu l’année dernière, par exemple ici : Jonathan Manthorpe : Saudi Arabia funding fuels jihadist terror
▻http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Jonathan+Manthorpe+Saudi+Arabia+funding+fuels+jihadist+terror/8445197/story.html
In 2003, a United States Senate committee on terrorism heard testimony that in the previous 20 years Saudi Arabia had spent $87 billion on promoting Wahhabism worldwide.
This included financing 210 Islamic centres, 1,500 mosques, 202 colleges and 2,000 madrassas (religious schools).
Various estimates put the amount the Saudi government spends on these missionary institutions as up to $3 billion a year.
This money smothers the voices of moderate Muslims and the poison flows into every Muslim community worldwide.
La source de ce dernier article est la déposition d’Alex Alexiev lors d’auditions du Sénat des États-Unis de 2003 : « Terrorism : Growing Wahhabi Influence in the United States », Testimony before the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, 26 June 2003
▻http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-108shrg91326/pdf/CHRG-108shrg91326.pdf
Mr. ALEXIEV. Now how could one explain the fact that such a hateful creed in fact has been able to take over much of the Islamic establishment worldwide and become its dominant idiom? The short answer, and there are also other things we can talk about—the short answer is money; lots of it. In the past 25 years or so, according to Saudi official information, Saudi Arabia has given over $70 billion of what they call development aid, which in fact they themselves confirm goes mostly for what they call Islamic activities.
Senator KYL. Over what period of time?
Mr. ALEXIEV. In the last 25 years roughly, from mid 1970’s to the end of last year; 281 billion Saudi riyals according to their official statements. This is nearly $2.5 billion per year. This makes it the largest sustained ideological campaign in history, in my view. I served as what was called a Sovietology for nearly two decades and the best estimates that we had on Soviet external propaganda spending was $1 billion a year. So you are talking about an absolutely astounding amount of money being spent for the specific purpose of promoting, preaching Wahhabi hatred.
C’est un document qu’il faut lire.
Merci beaucoup Nidal pour ces articles essentiels.
Après si des anglophones ou des « fluent » en anglais se dévouent pour faire une synthèse du rapport d’audition du Sénat américain de 2003, ils auront droit à ma reconnaissance éternelle : lire 60 pages en anglais ... il me faudrait beaucoup de temps libre. ;-)
Voici le texte. Tu peux tenter la traduction automatique, normalement Google s’en sort pas trop mal avec l’anglais.
Mr. ALEXIEV. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to appear here and talk about an issue that is of the utmost importance. I have submitted a written statement and instead of reading it, with your permission I would like to briefly summarize the issues in it.
The basic premise of my statement is that the phenomenon of violent Islamic extremism is the key problem we are facing today. Al Qaeda, murderous as it is, is but a symptom, in my view, of an underlying malignancy which is Islamic extremism and the entire edifice, if you will, of extremism that breeds terrorism. What I mean by that is even if we are successful to defeat al Qaeda totally, another al Qaeda will come by if we do not at the same time succeed in destroying the edifice of Islamic extremism.
This huge international infrastructure is sponsored ideologically and financially by Wahhabism, and that is to say, Saudi Arabia. I do not believe that we are likely to make much progress in the war on terrorism, lasting progress, until we eliminate this edifice of extremism.
Let me briefly talk about the ideology that drives Wahhabism. Wahhabism pretends to be Islam in its purest form. I submit to you, Mr. Chairman, that it is nothing of the kind. It is in fact an extremely reactionary, obscure sect whose teaching contradicts traditional Islamic doctrine. To that extent it is incorrect to refer to it as fundamentalist because it in fact transgresses against some of the fundamentals of Islamic teaching as given in the Koran. In fact Wahhabis teaching contradicts traditional tenets of the Koran to the point of falsifying them.
The give you just one example, Wahhabism teaches and has been doing so since the very beginning, since the big 18th century, that all Muslims that do not subscribe to Wahhabism are in fact apostates and heretics and violence against them is not only permissible but in fact obligatory. This continues to be the teaching that Wahhabis subscribe to to this day. As a result, Wahhabism is not only directed against infidels, non-Muslims, but is in fact directed against and threatens Muslims that do not subscribe to Wahhabism. That is a key point to understand.
As a result, this violent creed has become, in my view, the prototype ideology of all Islamic extremist and terrorist groups, and that includes those that violently oppose the House of Saud, such as bin Laden. In this respect it is very important for us to understand that Wahhabi activities are not a matter of religion, but in my view a matter of criminal sedition and ought to be treated as such.
1 Stephen Schwartz’s affiliation with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies ended in August 2003.
It is just as important to understand, as I mentioned, that they threaten not only our liberal democratic order but they threaten other Muslims such as Sunnis, the Shi’as, the different Sufi orders, the Barelvis in South Asia, the Bahai, the Ahmadis, et cetera. These other Muslims in fact are potential allies in the struggle against this extremist phenomenon.
Now how could one explain the fact that such a hateful creed in fact has been able to take over much of the Islamic establishment worldwide and become its dominant idiom? The short answer, and there are also other things we can talk about—the short answer is money; lots of it. In the past 25 years or so, according to Saudi official information, Saudi Arabia has given over $70 billion of what they call development aid, which in fact they themselves confirm goes mostly for what they call Islamic activities.
Senator KYL. Over what period of time?
Mr. ALEXIEV. In the last 25 years roughly, from mid 1970’s to the end of last year; 281 billion Saudi riyals according to their official statements. This is nearly $2.5 billion per year. This makes it the largest sustained ideological campaign in history, in my view. I served as what was called a Sovietology for nearly two decades and the best estimates that we had on Soviet external propaganda spending was $1 billion a year. So you are talking about an absolutely astounding amount of money being spent for the specific purpose of promoting, preaching Wahhabi hatred.
They have used this amount of money to take over mosques around the world, to establish Wahhabi control of Islamic institutions, subsidize extremist madrassas in South Asia and elsewhere, control Islamic publishing houses. They currently control probably four-fifths of all Islamic publishing houses. And spend money, a lot of it, on aggressive proselytizing, apart from direct support of terrorism.
What have they achieved for that money? I would submit to you that they have achieved quite a bit. To give you just one example, in Pakistan there are roughly 10,000 extremist madrassas that are run by Deobandi allies of the Wahhabis, and the Deobandis are very similar in their ideology to the Wahhabis. They currently teach, according to Pakistan sources, between one and 1.7 million children, essentially to hate. They do not get much schooling in any subject that is not related to Islamic activities.
It is important to know that of these at least 1 million children, 15 percent are foreigners. So it is not just Pakistan that is affected by the fact that tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of kids are taught how to hate, and graduate from these madrassas without any useful education that could be used in the marketplace, but perfectly prepared for a career in jihad and extremist activities. 16,000 of them, for instance, are Arabs that are taught in these schools.
As a result, Pakistan is very close to being a dysfunctional country. Two of its provinces, the Northwest frontier province and the Beluchistan in fact have governments that are openly extremist and there is a process of Talibanization of these provinces that is extremely disturbing. It is, again, not just Pakistan. It is all over. We do not have time to discuss that here but let me just mention that in Iraq, in the Kurdish areas of Iraq there are now over 40 mosques that are starting to be active there and we are going to hear from them. This does not augur well for our efforts to build democracy in Iraq unless we undercut these activities.
Now the money that the Saudis are spending are transferred to extremist organizations through a network of charities, front organizations. Contrary to Saudi official claims, which unfortunately quite often are uncritically accepted by many, none of them are either private or charitable. They are in fact government-controlled, government-sponsored, government-funded organizations, the main ones being the World Muslim League, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, the Al Haramain Foundation, and the International Islamic Relief Organizations. There are many, many others. There are a total of over 250 so-called charitable organizations in Saudi Arabia.
Most of the largest organizations, all four of the ones that I just mentioned, have been implicated in the support of terrorist activities by U.S. authorities. Let me be just mention here one additional factor that indicates that the government of Saudi Arabia knows very well what these organizations are doing is the fact that they passed a law way back in 1993 which prohibited any collection of donations, of zakat donations except under state supervision. So the idea that you very often hear from the Saudis themselves that somehow these are private non-government organization is, in my opinion, bogus.
There is, again, no indication at least to me that Riyadh is interested in stemming the flow of these monies to extremist organizations. In fact the opposite is still the case. The reason that they really cannot do that is because for them to come clean on the channels and the amount of money is simply to implicate themselves, to implicate a lot of Saudi officials and organizations in support of terrorism. While promising that they will do something about it, the reality of it is very different.
Let me give you just one quote here from last month, and that is from the official Saudi government channel, television channel. A Wahhabi cleric who gives a prayer on the state channel which deals with the so-called American tyrannical alliance and the situation of Iraq. He says, oh, God, destroy the aggressive tyrannical alliance. Oh, God, drown its soldiers in the seas and destroy them in the deserts. All Wahhabi clerics are employees of the Saudi state, and obviously the television channel also belongs to the Saudi state. So the idea that somehow they do not know what is going on is, again, in my view, a bogus one.
Let me just finish here by saying that the evidence of the Saudi Wahhabi sponsorship of extremist networks and activities is so overwhelming, in my view, that for us to continue to tolerate it guarantees that we are not going to be able to make meaningful and lasting progress in the war on terrorism for a long time to come.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Alexiev appears as a submission for the record.]
Senator KYL. Thank you, Mr. Alexiev. Stephen Schwartz.
Voilà ce que déclare A. Gresh..!!!! :
Il peut y avoir une discussion autour de la politique des monarchies du Golfe, et l’idée selon laquelle ils financeraient ou aideraient ISIS. Pour moi, ce n’est pas quelque chose de réel, je ne pense pas que cela soit forcément vrai. L’État islamique a très nettement indiqué que ces monarchies étaient aussi des ennemis, on l’a vu récemment avec les attaques en Arabie saoudite contre des postes frontières. Mais il est vrai qu’une partie de la rhétorique religieuse de ces pays peut alimenter ces groupes. Il est vrai aussi qu’il y a eu une mobilisation de ces États, mais aussi de leurs réseaux associatifs et religieux, au début de la révolution syrienne. Le Koweït a joué par exemple un rôle important dans l’aide apportée aux groupes islamistes qui se sont peu à peu radicalisés.
►http://www.middleeasteye.net/fr/analyses/attentats-de-paris-l-analyse-d-alain-gresh-266376078
Arabie Saoudite/Bourse : La 2ème plus importante introduction en bourse de 2014 a été faite par le royaume – WSJ
▻http://blogs.wsj.com/briefly/2014/11/06/why-the-second-largest-ipo-this-year-has-come-out-of-saudi-arabia-the-sho
The $6 billion initial public offering of Saudi Arabia’s National Commercial Bank (NCB) that ended earlier this week was oversubscribed as retail investors in the kingdom placed orders worth more than 23 times the shares offered, despite religious controversy that made some investors hesitant at the beginning. The IPO was the world’s second largest this year after Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s $25 billion IPO and the largest ever in the Middle East.
How big was this IPO?
About 1.25 million people ordered shares at a total value of 310.7 billion Saudi riyals ($82.8 billion) for the 300 million shares, or 15% of the bank’s stock, offered to retail investors. An additional 10% of the bank was allocated to the kingdom’s Public Pension Agency.
Why was this IPO heavily oversubscribed?
NCB is Saudi Arabia’s largest bank by assets. When the government announced earlier this year that it would sell some of its shares in the lender, investors were highly anticipating it as this was the country’s first IPO since 2008. The IPO was also attractively priced, at 45 Saudi riyals ($12) per share, as the oil-rich kingdom often uses such share sales in government-controlled companies to distribute wealth among its citizens.
Did international investors participate?
No, this share sale was limited to Saudi citizens as foreigners currently are only allowed to participate in the Saudi stock market indirectly through swaps. However, this will change because the government plans to open the country’s market, capitalized at $530 billion, to direct investment by international investors in the first half of 2015. It is expected to draw hundreds of millions of dollars in investment to the kingdom.
What’s behind the religious controversy surrounding the IPO?
NCB, like most banks around the world, takes interests on loans. This practice is forbidden in Islam. That’s why a number of Saudi senior clerics said it wasn’t permissible to take part in the IPO. A Sharia committee appointed by the bank later said it was fine to buy shares in the IPO because NCB plans to become a fully Islamic bank in the near future. Still, the controversy resulted in a slow start to the IPO, with 80% of the orders coming in the last day.
Débat sur la licéité :
Halal ? Réactions mitigées en Arabie Saoudite concernant l’introduction en bourse de 6 milliards de $ de la National Commercial Bank. Il s’agirait de la plus grande opération de ce type du monde arabe - WSJ
▻►http://blogs.wsj.com/middleeast/2014/10/14/ncbs-6-billion-ipo-plan-evokes-mixed-reactions-in-saudi-arabia
Several senior clerics expressed their disapproval of the $6 billion IPO because the bank takes interests on loans, a practice that is considered haram or forbidden in Islamic economic jurisprudence, while others saw the IPO as a test for the public’s trust in the government as it sells some of its shares.
Sur @OrientXXI Le Coran, le capitalisme et les musulmans - Rodinson ►http://orientxxi.info/lu-vu-entendu/le-coran-le-capitalisme-et-les,0568
Qaeda gunmen rob Yemeni post office, kill policeman
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/qaeda-gunmen-rob-yemeni-post-office-kill-policeman
Suspected #al-Qaeda militants attacked a post office in #Yemen's southeastern Hadramawt province, killing a policeman and making off with two million riyals (US $10,000), security officials said Wednesday. The policeman was guarding the post office in the town of Hura when attackers late Tuesday killed him and fled with the cash, the officials said. Robberies in Yemen by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) jihadists are common as the network attempts to finance itself. read more
#AQAP
Saudis Start Production at World’s Biggest Desalination Plant - Businessweek
▻http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-04-23/saudis-start-production-at-world-s-biggest-desalination-plant
Saudi Arabia, the Arab world’s biggest economy, has started producing purified water at the 27 billion-riyal ($7.2 billion) Ras al-Khair desalination plant on the Persian Gulf, the state-owned Saudi Press Agency said, citing Minister of Water and Electricity Abdullah Al-Hussayen.
The complex northwest of Jubail will be the world’s biggest seawater desalination facility with a production capacity of 1.025 million cubic meters (264 million gallons) of drinking water a day and 2,600 megawatts of electricity when fully built out after this first phase.
The Saudi government has allocated 16.6 billion riyals this year alone for desalination projects. The kingdom is expanding water works to supply the energy industry and a population that has quadrupled in 40 years to 30 million people. The desert country is the largest producer of desalinated water, attracting foreign investors including Veolia Environnement SA (VIE) and Suez Environnement Co.
Last year, the Saline Water Conversion Corp. said it planned to build a major desalination plant in Rabigh on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast that will have the capacity to make 600,000 cubic meters of potable water a day. That project is expected to be completed in four years.
Construction work at two new prisons in Riyadh and Jeddah is over 95% complete.
▻http://www.constructionweekonline.com/article-25766-new-prisons-in-saudi-arabia-are-95-complete
Director-General of Saudi Arabia’s Prisons Department Major General Ibrahim bin Mohammed al-Hamzi made the announcement adding that Riyadh has spent over 2bn Riyals ($533m) building the two jails.
He said the high number of prisoners jam-packed in the cells was the main reason behind the decision to build the new jails.
More than 40,000 political prisoners, mostly prisoners of conscience, are in jails across Saudi Arabia.
Saudi cleric jailed eight years for raping, killing five-year-old daughter
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/saudi-cleric-jailed-eight-years-raping-killing-five-year-old-daug
A Saudi court sentenced a preacher convicted of raping his five-year-old daughter and torturing her to death to eight years in prison and 800 lashes, a lawyer said Tuesday. In a case that drew widespread public condemnation in the kingdom and abroad, the court also ordered Fayhan al-Ghamdi to pay his ex-wife, the girl’s mother, one million riyals ($270,000) in “blood money,” lawyer Turki al-Rasheed told AFP. The girl’s mother had demanded 10 million riyals ($2.7 million). read (...)
Home construction lifts Saudi property sector in Q2Real Estate - Zawya
▻http://www.zawya.com/story/Saudi_sees_home_building_boom-ZAWYA20130924044505/?lok=044500130924&weeklynewsletter&zawyaemailmarketing
(je le sauvagarde en entier parce que après 10 j. c’est un paywall)
Home construction lifts Saudi property sector in Q2
Home construction lifts Saudi property sector in Q2 Photo Credit:Reuters/FAISAL NASSER
Attention shifted to construction contracts in the real estate sector in the second quarter of this year after the Saudi authorities pushed ahead to meet their ambitious target of providing 500,000 affordable housing units to Saudis.
Real estate contracts accounted for 39% of all new construction deals in Saudi Arabia in the second quarter - a very high figure compared to previous quarter.
“Furthermore, the real estate sector accounted for 30% of the value of awarded contracts during the first half of 2013,” said NCB Capital in its latest report on construction activity in the kingdom.
The recent rush in real estate activity is also driven by a new royal decree that allows the Ministry of Housing to grant developed lands and interest-free home loans to Saudi nationals.
During the quarter, the ministry awarded at least five contracts as it worked its way through its target of 500,000 affordable housing units. All the projects commissioned in the quarter are set to be completed by 2015 as the ministry pushes the construction industry hard.
Some of the key real estate projects this month included a SAR 13 billion contract awarded by the Ministry of Finance to Saudi Binladen Group to build the Abraj Kudai mixed-use real estate development.
Another major residential tower project in Jeddah was awarded to Dubai-based Drake & Scull by Lamar Investment and Real Estate Development Company.
IT’S ALL RELATIVE
Despite the surge in real estate construction contracts, overall activity is lower compared to last year. Construction contracts in the first half of the year stood at SAR 102.7 billion (USD 27.38 billion) in the first half of the year, compared to SAR 126.7 billion (USD 33.8 billion) during the same period in 2012 - a 19% decline.
NCB’s Construction Contract Index shows activity has fallen since the index peaked at a five-year high of 450 points in January 2012. It currently trends at around 250.53 points, below its 12-month average of 284.32 points.
“Nonetheless, the second half of 2013 is likely to be infused with a high number of mega projects across numerous sectors, which in turn will lessen the difference in the value of awarded contracts with 2012,” the NCB said.
Indeed, this is not a slowdown. Saudi construction activity has been on the boil for the past few years, as SAR 270.3 billion (USD 72 billion) worth of contracts were awarded in 2011 and another SAR 235 billion (USD 62.7 billion) last year.
Construction companies need to digest the staggering USD 134.7 billion worth of construction activities before they can start bidding on new projects.
“The strength of the Saudi construction market is manifested by the exerted pressure borne by government and private sectors to diversify expenditures across all sectors,” said NCB.
NON-OIL ECONOMY SURGING
While these periodic ebbs and flows may continue from one quarter to the next, the trajectory is pointing in only one direction: north.
The country’s non-oil economy has risen 4.5% this year as business sentiment remains high.
“Very high government spending remains the main stimulus to the real economy,” said Fahad Al Turki, economist at Jadwa Investment Bank. “Also, we expect oil revenues to remain sufficiently high to maintain and support business and investor confidence. We believe that progress on awarding contracts and project implementation has been stepped up compared to last year.”
The construction sector itself has risen 6.6% in the first half of the year, which is a particularly strong signal as it comes on the back of two solid years.
Cement production has also risen 8% this year, as Saudi Arabia addressed a key material bottleneck to ensure construction activity does not subside.
Overall, some estimates show Saudi Arabia could see construction awards of as much as USD 70 billion by the end of the year.
Apart from actively awarding construction contracts, the government is also ironing out policy bottlenecks to maintain steady growth.
“The government has also recently approved a new mechanism to step up project monitoring process to ensure their completion on time which should provide another boost to the sector,” Al Turki said.
ENERGY SECTOR ALSO UPBEAT
While the real estate sector stole the limelight this quarter, the kingdom’s traditional powerhouse was also busy.
Saudi Aramco awarded two major contracts with a combined value of roughly SAR 3.75 billion (USD 1.1 billion). Samsung Engineering secured a contract to boost a refinery in Riyadh, while Larsen & Toubro was commissioned to build the Midyan gas processing plant.
Petrochemicals activity also picked up as two contracts with a combined value of SAR 1.2 billion were commissioned. Consolidate Contractors Company (CCC) secured a deal with Sadara Chemical Company to build a hydrogen peroxide facility by the end of 2016.
Meanwhile, Germany-based ThyssenKrupp won a contract to build a polybutylene terephthalate (PBT) unit at the Jubail Petrochemicals complex by the end of 2014.
Market observers believe the next few quarters will see more robust activity as Saudi Arabia starts through its laundry list of projects to raise the level of the non-oil economy.
“The magnitude of construction activities in the real estate sector in particular, reflects the need for continual large-scale projects to accommodate growing demand,” said NCB.
“Furthermore, sectors such as petrochemical and industrial have yet to take off in 2013 but are expected to account for a respectable share of the value of awarded contracts for the remainder of 2013.”
© alifarabia.com 2013
The Market of Suicide Bombers, Saudi Arabia
►http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DuGhi-WlBEU
The video shows the father, abu-salah, attending the auction and offering his son Khaled as sacrifice.The father receives 1.5 million Riyals ($400,000) as future compensation for his son’s demise in Syria. At one point in the video, the father is elated at the high bids.
Cette étrange vidéo a été signalée par Al Manar :
►http://www4.almanar.com.lb/english/adetails.php?eid=57399&cid=23&fromval=1
qui elle-même donne la Press TV iranienne en source.
Je ne sais pas trop quoi en penser, mais je la note pour archive.