January 2008

The Bad Stuff:

1. The Spice Girls
2. Colonialism
3. Mad Cow disease
4. David Beckham
5. America
6. George Galloway
7. Colonialism
8. Tony Blair
9. J.K. Rowling
10. Colonialism

The Good Stuff:

1. Ali G
2. The English Premiere League (as in football, not “soccer”)
3. Dido
4. Colonialism
5. The Beatles
6. America
7. Princess Diana
8. Mr. Bean
9. America
10. The English language

No surprise there. And it’s also no surprise that most Southern Sudanese are pro-US. Precisely because of things like this:

January 28, 2008 (WASHINGTON) — The US administration today affirmed its commitment to helping Sudan People Liberation Army (SPLA) transform into a modernized army.

Of course, many up North don’t like the idea but few know the following:

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the civil war in Sudan provides for two armies in the North and the South with joint units in certain areas such as oil fields.

The Sudanese government at the time refused to fund the Southern army from the federal budget so a compromise was reached that will allow the South to receive military assistance from abroad.

The Citizen Generated Campaign. Nice! I love the internet and clearly so do Obama supporters. They sure do know how to use it creatively.

Here they are. Look who’s number 3 and 7.

1. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud (Saudi Arabia): US$ 29.5 Billion
2. The Al Rajhi Family (Saudi Arabia): US$ 24 Billion
3. The Hariri Family (Lebanon): US$ 17.8 Billion
4. Nasser Al Kharafi (Kuwait): US$ 12 Billion
5. Maan Al Sanea (Saudi Arabia): US$ 10 Billion
6. Mohammad Al Amoudi (Saudi Arabia): US$ 9.2 Billion
7. The Bin Laden Family (Saudi Arabia): US$ 8.5 Billion
8. Abdulaziz Al Ghurair (United Arab Emirates): US$ 8 Billion
9. The Olayan Family (Saudi Arabia): US$ 7.2 Billion
10. The Sawiris Family (Egypt): US$ 6.2 Billion

What? What? What?. It might actually happen! Cool. So Rudy Giuliani who is Bushier than Bush seems ready to quit the race? Phew!

My ideal candidate would be the best of a McCain-Obama combination but too bad that imaginary candidate doesn’t exist. If Obama wasn’t supportive of withdrawing from Iraq, I think I would have picked him immediately. But he wants immediate withdrawal and I believe such a haste move will bring along grave consequences for Iraq, the region and even America.

Foreign policy towards Sudan is another aspect that concerns me of course. Donkey Bill Clinton bombed al-Shifa factory (supposedly a chemical weapons manufacturing facility) and applied harsh sanctions. Long story short, he did us no favors. Bush (regardless of how much you hate him for badly screwing up the Iraq war) took a different approach and the result was the peace agreement signed between the SPLM and Khartoum. It’s the best damn thing that ever happened to Sudan in a long time. These are reasons that make me lean towards an Elephant candidate who will continue that approach.

If only that ideal centrist candidate existed. It would have been more fun if Collin Powell was in this race.

For now, it’s increasingly looking like this: Hillary or Obama Vs McCain or Romney.

The news is more than a week old. AK has a simple, straight to the point analysis. Nice!

I regularly come across too many Sudanese and Muslims who aren’t comfortable talking about sex. To them I say, chill out and stop being so uptight. I can imagine them cursing me inside their heads right now. “How dare this idiotic retard put the ’s’ word near that other holy word!”

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Dear reader,

Let me guess. You found this post after searching “sudanese sex” most probably on either Yahoo or Google right?. It’s okay, don’t be shy. I’ve been getting many hits from people just like you over the past few months. They all arrive here with the same frame of mind expecting to find the same “freaky” things.

Surprise, you’re not alone! And yup, it’s true. Sorry to disappoint you. You won’t find any porn around here BUT… I may actually have something better.

Advice.

• Get a hobby
• Join a gym
• Go for a jog
• Smoke some shisha
• Plant a tree
• Cut your toe nails
• Or just do something useful damn it!

Cool? Now buzz off. This blog is a porn-free zone.

It disgusts me how the suffering of Gazans is being used as a political tool by different parties for their own competing agendas.

The situation is ugly (and complex). The shortage of electricity has the real potential to cause all kinds of inconveniences from disruptions at bakeries to the halting of hospitals and life-saving surgeries. We could very well witness a real crisis if this continues.

Once again, this is a perfect example of how Israel practices its lovely policies of collective punishment on the Palestinian people and as a result pushes further away that “impossible peace”.

On the other hand of course you’ve got wonderful Hamas getting exactly what it wants. Attention.

Long live the “resistance”.

On the 4th of August this year, China’s capital, Beijing, will witness the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics. The fact that activist groups - ones supportive of the struggles of the people of Tibet, Burma and Darfur - are calling for a boycott is old news. The question of whether they should be staunchly supported or not is what hangs onto my mind but before that…

I present to you the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games’ slogan: “One World One Dream”.

“One World One Dream” fully reflects the essence and the universal values of the Olympic spirit — Unity, Friendship, Progress, Harmony, Participation and Dream. It expresses the common wishes of people all over the world, inspired by the Olympic ideals, to strive for a bright future of Mankind.

Bla, bla, bla. Okay, we get it. It’s just so, ah, very deeply moving.

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Just like Andrew Heavens and Rob Crilly, Blake is also a freelance journalist who spends a lot of time in Khartoum. He’s got two interesting blog posts.

Israel and Sudan: No surprise there really. Her reaction is rather representative.

Men Mustn’t Cook: He sounds like the typical super traditionalist uptight Sudanese male. Yeah, did you hear that women? YOU do all the cooking and cleaning. Besides being a baby-making machine, that’s your purpose in life. Now stop reading this blog and go bake me some cookies.

Good news? I’m back on campus for my final sem. Bad news? My room still has no internet connection. Meanwhile I’m writing this from the computer lab. The problem should be resolved soon.

UPDATE: Problem solved. Yeehaw!

What the…

Omar — one of bin Laden’s 19 children — raised a tabloid storm last year when he married a 52-year-old British woman, Jane Felix-Browne, who took the name Zaina Alsabah.

… Omar lived with the al-Qaida leader in Sudan, then moved with him to Afghanistan in 1996.

There, Omar says he trained at an al-Qaida camp but in 2000 he decided there must be another way and he left his father, returning to his homeland of Saudi Arabia.

“I don’t want to be in that situation to just fight. I like to find another way and this other way may be like we do now, talking,” he said in English.

Erm, you mean dialogue. But it’s okay, doesn’t matter. So far so good.

… Omar doesn’t criticize his father and says Osama bin Laden is just trying to defend the Islamic world.

Raaaight!

… Omar is convinced a truce between the West and al-Qaida is possible.

Oh yeah? Good luck!