position:political science professor

  • Parliament, public against welfare cuts - Freedoms make austerity campaign tricky for govt - Kuwait Times | Kuwait Times
    http://news.kuwaittimes.net/website/parliament-public-welfare-cuts

    Billions of dollars are at stake; finance ministry undersecretary Khalifa Hamada told the al-Qabas newspaper at the end of last year that “rationalizing” subsidies would save the government KD 2.6 billion ($8.7 billion) over three years. Savings would be greater if the bloated public payroll could be reformed. The finance ministry projected in January that the government would run a budget deficit of KD 12.2 billion in the fiscal year starting on April 1, 2016, after state contributions to the sovereign wealth fund.

    Between 7,000 and 13,000 of around 18,000 Kuwaiti nationals in the oil sector took part in the strike in late April, union members estimated. Union membership is not compulsory and foreign workers are not permitted to strike. Workers were protesting a proposed overhaul of the public sector payroll system that would set uniform standards for salaries, bonuses and benefits. The Oil and Petrochemical Industries Workers Confederation fears the government will use the reform to freeze salaries of higher-paid employees.

    Ultimately, the union called off the strike “in honor of His Highness the Amir”, and the government insisted it made no concessions – an apparent victory for authorities. But the union has been talking to the government since the strike ended, so concessions could still be made. Kuwait’s oil output fell as low as 1.1 million barrels per day during the strike from the usual output of around 3 million bpd, tarnishing the country’s image as a reliable exporter.

    “The workers have achieved their main objective of getting their message across,” said Faisal Abu Sulaib, another political science professor at Kuwait University. Saif al-Qahtani, chairman of the oil workers’ union, said he could not speak for other unions but that some of them also opposed wage system reform. Some other union members and analysts said a string of strikes in Kuwait remained unlikely. An official at the headquarters of the Kuwait Trade Union Federation, which represents 15 unions in the energy and government sectors, said it had not been informed of any other planned walkouts.

    Nevertheless, in the wake of the oil strike, the government may move even more gradually and cautiously with reforms. While most of the current parliament has been relatively supportive of the idea of reform, legislative elections are due next year, and the government will not want the issue of austerity to cause the election of a more antagonistic parliament.

  • Hamas drags feet on choosing between Iran, Saudi Arabia - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/03/hamas-silence-gulf-decision-hezbollah-terrorist.html

    “Hamas is in a difficult situation and it cannot express a position," Abdel Sattar Qassem, a political science professor at An-Najah University in Nablus, told Al-Monitor. "It is puzzled and cannot take a stance regarding the Arab decisions against Hezbollah, although around 100 Hezbollah members have died while trying to smuggle weapons to Hamas in the past 10 years, and this is why it should support Hezbollah.

    "Of course, the party did not ask Hamas to take a position that would harm it regionally, but it will keep observing Hamas’ positions. Should it side with Saudi Arabia, Iran could take a firm stance to completely stop providing support for the movement.”

    On March 6, some media outlets reported that Hamas quietly sent a message of support to Hezbollah, refusing to consider it a terrorist organization. However, a senior Hamas leader based in Qatar told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that the reports were not true, saying, “Hamas expresses its positions through official statements and spokespersons, and those positions are published on the movement’s official website and distributed to the media by conventional means.”

    Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/03/hamas-silence-gulf-decision-hezbollah-terrorist.html#ixzz42YImKWlj

  • Ben Hubbard du New York Times : les saudileaks sont des pétards mouillés
    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/world/middleeast/cables-released-by-wikileaks-reveal-saudis-checkbook-diplomacy.html

    Some found the documents underwhelming, noting that similar activities are carried out by many countries, including the United States.

    “There is not really something shocking that compromises Saudi security,” said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a political science professor in the United Arab Emirates, who had read about 100 cables.

    Everyone knows that Saudi Arabia practices checkbook diplomacy, he said, adding that it now had to compete for clients with other rich states, like Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

    • Ben Hubbard on Saudi cables: My take versus the NYTimes
      http://angryarab.blogspot.fr/2015/06/ben-hubbard-on-saudi-cables-my-take.html

      There is so much wrong about the article by Ben Hubbard on Saudi cables.

      1) There is clearly an attempt by Western media to downplay those documents, and not to cover them extensively. Just compare the coverage to the coverage of silly emails by Syrian officials. They have inflamed Arab social media and this is even after the release of 60,000.

      2) It is not true that there are is no explosive information. There is much there about the close work of Saudi foreign ministry with the Saudi intelligence service and Ministries and interior and information.

      3) Saudi bureaucracy is weird as revealed: Saudi princes can spend millions and billions and not account for them, but civilians in the bureaucracy have to account for every penny and the purchase of new furniture for the Saudi embassy has to reach the King himself.

      4) The level of political corruption is staggering: Ben Hubbard does not tell the story of how the entire class of March 14 is revealed in the documents as nothing but paid puppets for Saudi Arabia. Lebanese MP Butrus Harb begs for money to form a new political party and then requests that the money not go through Sa‘d Hariri, whom he criticizes.

      5) One document talks about how the Saudi government should issue a statement on behalf of its own Mufti (without the Mufti knowing about) after he made a statement about the ban on churches in the peninsula.

      6) Al-Azhar is also revealed to be a mere tool for the Saudi government.

      6) Mr. Hubbard missed the most important point about the document: that they reveal clearly that anti-Shi‘ite hatred is an official policy and obsession by the Saudi regime.

      7) he cited the opinion of a UAE professor (Abdul-Khaliq ‘Abdullah, one of my closest friends at Georgetown and a former political comrade of mine) but he does not mention that ‘Abdul-Khaliq tweets praise for GCC royal family around the clock. He is hardly an objective observer in this.

      8) Why did he not mention the case of the brave former Reuters correspondent, Andrew Hammond? Andrew is mentioned and singled out because unlike most Western correspondents in the region has has been critical of the Saudi royal family, which pressured the management of Reuters to expel him from the kingdom, and he was. That is worth mentioning, Mr. Hubbard.

      9) There was the curious case of Egyptian journalist Mustafa Bakri and a proposal that he sought funding for, and which was studied by the government and his plan including an anti-Shi‘ite TV channel. This was also not of interest to Mr. Hubbard.

      10) Hubbard does not mention that the documents reveal two systems of payment to journalists, politicians and clerics: one price for silence and another price for praise. 10) He does not mention how monitoring of individuals is requested by embassy dispatches. That was not of interest either.

      11) He does not mention that Saudi and Qatari regime media are ignoring those documents. 12) He does not explain the Saudi official position: that they claim that “many documents” are forged and yet also say that they don’t contradict the policies of the kingdom.

      #saudileaks

  • Si Ashraf Rifi accepte de relâcher des islamistes détenus par ISIS et Nusra en échange des soldats capturés à Ersal, est-ce qu’on aura le droit de soutenir la théorie selon laquelle il devient ainsi responsable du développement d’ISIS au Liban ? (Ou bien ce genre de logique ne fonctionne qu’avec Bachar Assad ?)

    Islamic state : Stalemate in Lebanon over soldiers taken by Islamists
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/stalemate-in-lebanon-over-soldiers-taken-by-islamists-9716602.html

    According to Hilal Khashan, political science professor at the American University of Beirut, the government will have to acquiesce eventually. “Once all the rhetoric is consumed they will have to face reality,” he said, dismissing the feasibility of a military solution. Professor Khashan predicts that non-Lebanese prisoners will be released first, under the stipulation that they will return to their country of origin. “Although I don’t condone it,” he added, “it doesn’t seem that they have any other options.”

    A surprise visit to the protesters on the Tripoli road by Lebanon’s justice minister Ashraf Rifi yesterday indicates the professor might be right. Family members said they were promised in private that their loved ones would be released, and alluded to the militants’ demands being met to achieve this. “I feel better, more relaxed,” said Samir Moghait as the minister’s motorcade took off. “But the only thing I trust in is God, not the government.”

  • Stratfor : Inside the World of a Private CIA (Al Akhbar English)
    http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/stratfor-inside-world-private-cia

    Preliminary readings of these new emails gradually shed light on how the institution is structured, the process of bringing and building up sources, and an intriguing insight into how employees interact with each other. Notably, and contrary to the impression Stratfor tries to project, the emails reveal a corporation that has organizational issues, at times shockingly uninformed, and over-dependent on certain sources in manufacturing their predictions that are highly coveted. What is Stratfor? Stratfor was founded over a decade ago in Austin, Texas by George Friedman, a former political science professor. (...) Source: Al Akhbar English

  • Egypt : Gene Sharp Taught Us How To Revolt ! (Global Voices)
    http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/04/15/egypt-gene-sharp-taught-us-how-to-revolt

    Last February, Sheryl Stolberg of The New York Times wrote an article about the political science professor, Gene Sharp, whose ideas were credited by her as being an inspiration for the Egyptian revolution, as well as many other uprisings in the region.