Saudi King's Month-Long Journey In Asia With Traveling Court Of 1,000

March 11, 2017

Mar 11: Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz's month-long journey through Asia has been eye-catching because of its scale. The world's most powerful royal is touring seven countries with a traveling court of more than 1,000 people, including 25 princes and 10 ministers.

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The entourage's total baggage weighs a reported 506 tons.

This week, Salman decided to extend his stay at a luxury resort on the scenic Indonesian island of Bali - perhaps an easy decision - ahead of stops in Japan and China. Salman began his trip in Malaysia, where he oversaw the inking of lucrative oil pacts and was apparently the subject of a foiled assassination attempt before he called on the sultan of Brunei.

The trip has huge implications, both for regional politics and for Washington. The Saudis are deeply aware of the need to diversify their economy, which is heavily dependent on oil exports, and are keen to attract investment from major Asian economies in addition to spreading their own largesse. They also see Southeast Asia, with its huge population of Sunni Muslims, as a realm where they can exert power.

At a time when uncertainty and political paralysis seems to be gripping the West, a pivot to Asia makes a great deal of sense. "There can also be no doubt that the not-too-subtle subtext of the king's tour is a signal that Saudi Arabia will preserve its flexibility when it comes to its dealings with the United States," wrote Gerald Feierstein in Foreign Affairs.

But one arena for Saudi expansion is perhaps surprising: the Maldives, which Salman will visit on the way back to Riyadh. The nation made of Indian Ocean islands may have a tiny population - about 400,000 people - but it is a vast ocean state, spanning some 1,000 kilometers across some of the world's most significant shipping routes. Controversy is swirling there about a reported Saudi plan to invest billions of dollars in Faafu atoll, which comprises 26 islands.

The Maldivian government, led by President Abdulla Yameen, has argued that the deal would lead to infrastructure investment and new housing in a country imperiled by rising sea levels. Critics insist the government is essentially handing a chunk of the country to foreign buyers in order to line its own pockets.

A government statement this week rejected such claims. "The administration categorically rebuts allegations that the atoll has been 'sold off' to a foreign entity," it read. But little has been revealed about the plans for the atoll or the nature of the investment deal.

"I find it very difficult to believe this is a straightforward commercial enterprise," said opposition leader Mohamed Nasheed during a trip to Washington. "Usually you have to have a proper, transparent bidding process, but President Yameen has chosen to do it in the dark."

Nasheed, who lives in exile in London, endured years of imprisonment as a political dissident before helping bring down a three-decade-long dictatorship. He won the Maldives' first free and fair democratic elections in 2008, but his rule was cut short by what most international observers characterized as a coup in 2012.

A tumultuous period followed, in which Nasheed won fresh elections, was thwarted by political opponents and eventually ended up in jail once more on trumped-up charges. The work of an international team of lawyers, including Amal Clooney, won him medical leave last year and led him to claim asylum in Britain.

But Nasheed has not given up the fight, and he said he worries about the corrosive influence the Saudis may have on his country. "It's one thing not to have democracy and freedom of expression, to have a dictator," Nasheed said. "But it's another thing to lose an atoll, to lose sovereignty. I am sure that the Maldivian people are very worried, and they may see how they want to push back these designs."

The disquiet extends beyond simply the Saudi role in the atoll deal. The Maldives is an almost-exclusively Sunni Muslim country. In recent years, a troubling religious radicalization has taken root in what was historically one of the most laissez-faire corners of the Muslim world. An estimated 200 to 300 Maldivians have gone to Syria to join jihadist groups, an astonishing statistic when you consider the size of the nation's population. (If Americans went to Syria in the same proportion, there would be just under 165,000 of them - at minimum.)

Nasheed lays this in part at the feet of the Saudis, who have spent decades spreading their stridently orthodox brand of Islam to other Muslim-majority nations. In Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, a network of Saudi-built schools, mosques and medical facilities has bred both goodwill toward the kingdom and a new generation of adherents to its uncompromising faith. "This very narrow version of Islam favors their authoritarian rule," Nasheed said of the Saudis. "It has been propagated in the Maldives for many years and has created a breeding ground for radical Islam."

The Saudis aren't the only outside power interested in the Maldives. China sees the Maldives as a key linchpin in its vision of a "new maritime Silk Route," threading Chinese energy and trade interests to the Middle East. Beijing has been steadily expanding its footprint in the Indian Ocean and deepening ties with Yameen's government.

Nasheed suggests Beijing may also have a role in the Saudi atoll project and may use its increasing leverage over the Maldives to shoulder aside its regional rival, India. The Maldivian government last year gave a Chinese state-run company a 50-year lease on an uninhabited island near the capital isle, Male.

"We do not want to sit in the middle of a Cold War in between countries," Nasheed said.

But when the mammoth entourage of the Saudi monarch eventually circles over the Maldives' turquoise lagoons, it will be hard not to see the start of a new Great Game in Asia.

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News Network
March 25,2024

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The Israeli military has attacked desperate Palestinians lining up for humanitarian aid in Gaza City, killing at least 19 people and injuring 23 others in a new massacre against aid seekers. 

The Government Media Office in Gaza said in a statement that the carnage took place on Saturday near the al-Kuwait roundabout, southeast of Gaza City.

“The occupation army and tanks opened fire with machine guns at the hungry people who were waiting for bags of flour and aid in a remote place that did not pose a threat to the occupation,” the statement said.

Mahmud Basal, spokesman for the Civil Defense Department in Gaza, said there had been “heavy shooting at civilians” looking for food to help their families and children.

“There were very serious injuries, some of whom were injured by shrapnel. The reality is tragic, difficult, and challenging,” he added, saying the victims were taken to the nearby al-Ahli Arab hospital.

Speaking to Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV network, Alaa al-Khudary, a witness at the scene, said that Israeli forces shot at the crowd, leaving “many dead” and injuring others while they tried to get “a bite to eat” for their children.

However, the Israeli army claimed that the reports of its troops firing on a Gaza aid queue are “incorrect.”

In recent weeks, Israeli soldiers have conducted several deadly attacks on crowds of aid seekers in the besieged Gaza.

In mid-March the Israeli military opened fire on Palestinian civilians who had gathered in Gaza to obtain humanitarian aid, targeting them with gunfire from helicopters, tanks, and drones near the Kuwait roundabout on the outskirts of Gaza City, killing over 60 people and injuring 160 others.

In what is known as the “flour massacre”, the occupation forces killed 118 people and wounded 760 others as they opened fire on hundreds of Palestinians waiting for aid trucks in Gaza City’s al-Rashid Street on February 29.

Earlier this month, the Government Media Office in Gaza said that a total of 400 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on aid seekers since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal aggression against the Palestinian territory.

Israel waged its US-backed war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out a historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 32,142 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 74,412 others.

Israel is intentionally starving the people in Gaza by blocking their access to food, a war crime under the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute.

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News Network
March 14,2024

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The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) says at least five people, including a staff member, were killed and 22 others wounded after Israeli forces targeted a food distribution centre in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini in a statement on Wednesday said that the strike hit one of the very few remaining UNRWA distribution centers in the eastern part of Rafah.

“Today’s attack on one of the very few remaining UNRWA distribution centers in the Gaza Strip comes as food supplies are running out, hunger is widespread and, in some areas, turning into famine,” Lazzarini said.

“Every day, we share the coordinates of all our facilities across the Gaza Strip with parties to the conflict," he continued.

He said the attack was carried out even though "the Israeli Army received the coordinates including of this facility yesterday."

Lazzarini further urged the protection of the UN, its staff, and its premises and called for an independent investigation.

Israel acknowledged an airstrike on a food aid distribution center in southern Gaza, which it claimed targeted and killed a high-ranking member of Hamas. 

Meanwhile, the statement by the UNRWA head added that since October 7, at least 165 team members have been killed while in the line of duty and more than 400 people sheltering in UN buildings also lost their lives due to Israel's attacks.

More than 150 of the agency’s facilities, including schools and shelters, have been hit in the war, with some destroyed, and UNRWA staff have reportedly been mistreated and humiliated while in Israeli detention centers, according to the UNRWA.

Six aid seekers killed in Israeli attack

Separately, the health ministry in the Gaza Strip said six people were killed in the latest attack on Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid at the Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza City.

The Wafa news agency said some 83 people who were wounded in the attack have been transferred to the al-Shifa Medical Complex in the city.

Over the past weeks, Israeli forces have increased their offensives on the Kuwait Roundabout, an area where large groups gather to wait for aid deliveries.

Israeli forces killed 11 people waiting for food aid at the roundabout on Monday night.

The Israeli military has restricted the delivery of humanitarian supplies to northern Gaza for weeks, and thousands of children are going without sufficient food and medication.

The prevention of aid convoys comes as humanitarian officials have already issued a dire warning, stating that unless a ceasefire is implemented and aid is significantly increased, the toll of malnutrition and disease is expected to rise, leading to an alarming loss of lives.

So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 31,272 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 73,024 others.

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News Network
March 26,2024

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There is no let-up in the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an “immediate ceasefire.”

Israel carried out air raids and artillery strikes on several parts of Gaza on Tuesday, hitting residential buildings and gatherings of displaced people, “killing and wounding hundreds of people”, the Palestinian Information Center said.

Among the victims are 15 people, including four women and children, who were killed in an attack on a house in the neighborhood of Mosbeh, north of Rafah.

Media reports also said that fighting on the ground continued unabated.

That’s while the UN Security Council on Monday adopted a resolution for an “immediate ceasefire” for the ongoing Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The resolution was put forward by the 10 non-permanent members of the UN Security Council. The US abstained and the 14 other council members all voted in favor of it.

After the vote, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote on social media platform X that failing to implement the resolution “would be unforgivable.”

Palestinian resistance movements have welcomed the resolution, but Israel’s minister for military affairs Yoav Gallant said Israel will not stop its attacks in Gaza. 

“We will operate against Hamas everywhere – including in places where we have not yet been,” Gallant said.

Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, also said in a post on X that the attacks will continue until all the captives taken by Hamas during its October 7 blitz are released.

Israel unleashed its war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the usurping entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed more than 32,300 Palestinians and injured over 74,000 others.

The Tel Aviv regime has also imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said Israel has committed acts of genocide in Gaza.

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