The geopolitics of the Middle East are so complicated. The other day I listened to a speech where the speaker maintained that the downfall of the region would be because of a lack of water.

 I don’t concur with this theory. Much of the Middle East has the best technology when it comes to augmenting water supply, mostly to generate desalinated water.

 The problem is that the Middle East has been divided into countries with no respect for tribal allegiances, or differences.

 hen looking up what may happen in the future in the region I came across this article in the journal: “The Cairo Review of Global Affairs”. To view the whole article go to: https://www.thecairoreview.com/essays/dark-geopolitics-of-the-middle-east/

 

The war in Yemen is often a forgotten war in the Middle East. The UN characterizes Yemen as the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world today.

I follow Yemen because I’ve travelled there. Yes, the group we were traveling with across the Wadi, from Haben to Aden, was kidnapped. Four of the party were shot dead. That was back in 1998.

I know the kidnappers were after Americans but the fact that people were of a different nationality didn’t matter. We were travelling with different tour groups.

This is what The Guardian newspaper said at the time.

“Three British tourists and one Australian were shot dead yesterday at their kidnappers' hide-out in Yemen when security forces stormed the site in a disastrous end to the country's worst hostage crisis.”

Real estate is a favoured asset by many private equity firms, companies more generally and individuals. Gaw Capital is no exception. This is its latest release on a deal it's just done buying 17 shopping centres.

Gaw Capital Partners completed the deal to acquire a retail portfolio comprising 17 shopping centres in Hong Kong from Link REIT

 Gaw Capital Partners today announced that the firm, through a fund under its management, and consortium partners, including Goldman Sachs, have completed the deal to acquire a retail portfolio comprising 17 shopping centres in Hong Kong from Link Real Estate Investment Trust at HK$ 23 billion according to the agreement signed on 28th November 2017.

 Following the deal completion, Gaw Capital Partners’ asset management team will be responsible for overseeing the operation of the 17 shopping malls and car parks from today. The firm will ensure a smooth handover to maintain the service quality.

 Goodwin Gaw, Chairman and Managing Principal of Gaw Capital Partners, said, “We are delighted to complete the deal today. We will utilise our experience and adopt a visionary and creative approach to operate the malls, delivering quality service and refreshing them into modern community hubs for local residents.”

What happens between Israel and Palestine always interests me- especially because I travelled from Palestine to Israel, through the Wall, on the West Bank and got a hard time from the Israelis. And I’m neither Israeli nor Arab.

 The B&B at which I stayed in Bethlehem had intermittent water and electricity. Both came from Israel.

 I always remember one man telling me- a person who had been part of the Peace negotiations at different times-that there will never be Peace between Israel and Palestine. It will always be better for Israel to retain the status quo. They will never give up any territory.

 The article below helps to explain why.

 From Israel Pulse

The Saudis in particular, and the Gulf Arabs in general, know about how to get their businesses thriving. These people are traders, wheelers and dealers, and they know how to get the most out of what they do. They do not think in the Western way, and they often have their own moral code with which Westerners often don’t agree. But their businesses do thrive.

 

With the intention of building 16 nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia, the key Saudis in the project have hired lawyers to push through the deal with the US government. The deal is explained below. (from the Brooking Institute).

 

 

NZ Super Fund returns 19.8% for 2017 calendar year

The New Zealand Super Fund has performed very well over the past few years and last year was no exception. This is in despite of the fact that the world economy has been slowing over this period. Here are the most recent results.

Comments by Catherine Savage, Chair, and Adrian Orr, Chief Executive of the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation, at the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee Catherine Savage, the Chair of the Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation, the Crown entity that manages the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, yesterday told the Finance and Expenditure Committee that the Fund's strong performance had continued, with a 19.8% return for the 12 months to December 2017 (after costs, before NZ tax). With the Government resuming contributions in December, the Fund stood at $37.9 billion. It has returned 10.5% p.a. (after costs, before NZ tax) since inception in 2003. In her update to the Committee Ms Savage said the Guardians was in good heart. "The Board is strongly committed to the Fund's long-term, growth-oriented investment strategies, and to its opportunistic approach to active investment." "We remain focused on identifying attractive active investments in New Zealand, with recent highlights including a $100m investment in New Zealand insurer Fidelity Life." "As is appropriate for a long-term investor with known cash flows, the Fund is heavily weighted towards growth assets, such as shares. While growth investments can be volatile over the short term, we can ride out and profit from any future market downturn." "Looking forward, the global economic outlook is better than it has been for several years. However, with many asset classes globally at or above full value, we do not expect annual returns in the teens and twenties to persist." "Returns are likely to normalise and over the long term we expect the Fund will deliver average returns of approximately 8% a year, based on current portfolio settings," said Ms Savage. Mr Orr said leading the Fund for the past 11 years had been a great privilege. "The Fund's successes as an investor can be linked to the anchoring of our investment strategies in our endowments and investment beliefs, and a disciplined approach to active management. Our independent governance, transparency and commitment to investing responsibly have also helped to establish the Guardians as a credible institution, and are acknowledged globally as sector-leading. I'm proud of the team's efforts and what we have achieved together."

I confess, I’ve thought about self-publishing, like many people no doubt. I’ve heard good and bad things. The latter is mostly to do with the time that the author must take to edit the manuscript and get it just right for the reader. I think that’s not a bad thing.

I don’t understand all the pros and cons of self publishing. I haven’t had to- yet- but I am learning. And the article below, from Salon magazine, (www.salon.com/2013/04/04/hugh_howey_self_publishing_is_the_future_and_great_for_writers/) explains the benefits and costs of self publishing well. It's by Hugh Howey, an American science fiction writer.

 Hugh Howey: Self-publishing is the future — and great for writers

Books have changed forever, and that’s good. Writers will find readers and make more money going it alone, like me

Contrary to recent reports, I am not the story of self-publishing.

It’s not always easy for a woman in Saudi Arabia, especially when it comes to doing things that require the approval of a male guardian- like working, or even setting up a business. I’ve set up a business in my country (New Zealand) with a female Saudi colleague for precisely this reason.

 According to the article in the UK’s Daily Mail that came out yesterday the rules are changing. Women will be able to establish their own businesses without requiring the permission of a male. This is well and good but many women will still depend on men, nonetheless.

 The aim, evidently, is to increase the percentage of women in the work force from 22 per cent now to one third by 2030.

 This reminds me of an occasion when I was in Riyadh for a conference and a man stood up and argued for more women in the workforce because “women are no less moral than men”.

 

With the mass shooting in the US of school children, again, I took a close look at what data and literature there was abour crime in the US, particularly gun crime. People talk about a link between gun ownership and mass shooting. Is there one?

It appears so, according to an article that appeared in the New York times in November. “Americans make up about 4.4 percent of the global population but own 42 percent of the world’s guns”, the article says. What a statistic!

The Interpreter, New York Times

What Explains U.S. Mass Shootings? International Comparisons Suggest an Answer

By Max Fisher and Josh Keller

I often wonder what graduates of journalism do. It’s not easy finding a job in any discipline but it is probably harder in journalism- because the landscape is changing all the time; too many people want to be investigative journalists (as if they exist any more), and the demand is for digital journalists or whizz-kids on social media.

 I was OK when I graduated from journalism school in the late 1980s. At least there were still traditional journalism jobs, in the UK anyway. And I specialised in finance and economics- since I had come from the Treasury.

 I was interested read this survey that was carried out in Spain. Unsurprisingly the demand is for digital journalists.

Where the jobs are for graduates in journalism"The new journalism specialties". The graphic shows that 56% of the Spanish journalists surveyed work in media that have community managers, and 30% employ data and traffic analysts. Click to enlarge the graphic.Where will the jobs be for graduates in journalism and communication? The results of a survey of journalists in Spain give some indication. The urgent demand is for people with digital media skills, but more on that in a minute. The Press Association of Madrid's (abbreviated to APM in Spanish) 2017 survey was sent to 13,500 professionals, and the overall response rate was a respectable 13%. A little more than a third were working in journalism while another third were working in other professions or were retired or semi-retired. The remaining 30 percent were working in communications, mainly advertising and public relations. (News articles about the survey are here, here, and here in Spanish. Disconnect in training The survey results show that the respondents to the survey are not the ones who are filling the new digital media jobs in their newsrooms. For example, 56% of the respondents said their publications had digital community managers--the people responsible for interacting with users in social networks and other channels--while only 13% of the respondents said they were working in those jobs. Versión en español This might suggest that media organizations are filling these positions with people who are coming from outside their own newsrooms. Another possible explanation is that the people being hired for these new digital media jobs are newcomers to the profession and thus not members of the professional organizations contacted for the survey. In any case, the same discrepancy shows up in several other digital specialties: 35% of the respondents' newsrooms have data visualization specialists, but only 3% of the respondents are working in those jobs. Similar discrepancies exist for data journalists (32% vs. 19%) and analysts of traffic and data (31% vs. 5%). This last one of traffic analyst is critical. It seems to indicate that newsrooms don't have people on board who know how to interpret the data about how the public is interacting with their content. Failure to understand the audience in today's highly competitive environment has fatal consequences. Still a popular major The APM's report, which runs to more than 100 pages, noted that there were 22,000 students enrolled in university programs of journalism and communication. In 2016, Spain's universities granted degrees in journalism to 3,400 students. Where will they find work? There were only 27,000 people working in radio, television, newspapers, and magazines, and many of these organizations have been ruthlessly cutting staff and salaries. That's the bad news. The good news is that traditional newsrooms are hiring more people with digital media skills, and the number of people working for digital-only media is growing. More than a third (36%) of the survey respondents were working in digital media or social media roles. For young people entering the communications professions, there are several career paths:in major media, they might replace laid-off veterans who either could not or would not assume new digital rolesthey can join up with digital media natives, which, unfortunately, have small newsrooms and lower salaries and benefitsthey can respond to a growing demand from small businesses for marketing and advertising specialists to create campaigns in digital media.Not all of this is great news, but the trends are working in favor of those who can fill the changing job descriptions.  For journalism professors and managers of media organizations, the message is the same or similar in every country. We have to ask ourselves if we are doing everything we can to prepare the next generation of communications professionals. We need a generation of professionals with the skills to provide the high-quality information and news necessary for a healthy democracy. In a time of rapid change and shrinking resources, we need to find ways to collaborate--the media, universities, and all the organizations and institutions that provide them with financial support--to guarantee a promising future for these communicators and the audiences they serve.

http://newsentrepreneurs.blogspot.co.nz/2018/02/where-jobs-are-for-graduates-in.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+NewsEntrepreneurs+(News+Entrepreneurs)

 Alternative energy is big in the Middle East and North Africa, by which I mean it is talked about a great deal. The first phase of world’s largest solar plant, Noor I, was switched on in Ouarzazate, Morocco , about two years ago. The German investment bank, Kfw, the European Investment Bank and the World Bank are backing the project for a total of $900 million. For more on what Morocco has planned go to https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/04/morocco-to-switch-on-first-phase-of-worlds-largest-solar-plant.

 One of the reasons alternative energy has never really taken off in the Middle East is that it, is for the most part, cheaper to use fossil fuels, usually oil, rather than put resources into alternative energy. Masdar City, in Abu Dhabi, is an exception. Masdar is a subsidiary of Mubadala Development Company, an investment company based in the same emirate, and the Government of Abu Dhabi is reported to have provided most of the seed capital. It’s fascinating to walk around Masdar- narrow loans, electric cars and wind mills. Nothing like the rest of the United Arab Emirates.

 With the emphasis on alternative energy, but largely without the commitment to fulfil it, I was fascinated to read this story in Al-Monitor and Palestine Pulse, about solar-powered mosques in Palestine. Maybe this would catch on in other parts of the Middle East?

 This is what was written. https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/02/palestine-west-bank-solar-energy-mosque.html?utm_campaign=20180209&utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Daily%20Newsletter

Solar-powered mosque answers prayers in West Bank

Entsar Abu Jahal February 6, 2018

The September 25th referendum on Kurdish independence was greeted with much enthusiam by Kurds in New Zealand. I was staying with one Kurdish family at the time. There was an expectation that a “yes” referendum would lead to independence for the Kurds. Little did they expect that Iraq, Iran and Turkey would all be opposed to it.

Turkey has launched a massive attack on the Kurds in Afrin, Syria, which is on the border with Turkey. I think Turkey hates the Kurds more than it does IS. The Turkish government, no matter who is in power, has always been against Kurdish independence. The latest attacks show this. No matter that the Kurdish are great fighters, and were instrumental in the fight against IS.

This article, that was published in Al –Monitor  explains why the Iraqi Kurds are moving closer to Iran

Iraqi Kurds maneuver to get closer to Iran

Fazel Hawramy

There’s been an almighty crash in the stock markets over the last couple of days with the Dow Jones Industrial Average index tumbling 1,175 points, or 4.6% to close down at 24,345.75 on Monday.

It regained 567 points by the end of the next day.

 Reportedly, this is because of the fear of an interest rate rise in the US and of a stronger global economy. This means that the economic stimulus that markets introduced during the financial crisis of 2008 will now be withdrawn, amid concern that such stimulus will overheat the economy.

 The rocky ride on the US stock market was followed by stock markets around the world- in the UK, the rest of Europe, Asia, Australia and even New Zealand to some extent, although it was closed on Tuesday because it was Waitangi Day.

But what has happened in the Middle East? While stock markets in that region showed some volatility the plunge was more limited. Dubai's stock market closed 1.5 per cent lower and Abu Dhabi's shed nearly 1 per cent in the region's third day of trading for the week. 

I receive newsletters all the time. Some are simple promotions with links while a few are editorial. Not many though. With these, the articles are summarised and the links made to it. This article below discusses what makes for a good editorial newsletter and how to measure success.

                               Four Ways Newsletter Publishers Can Hit Open Rates Between 50 and 60 Percent

Email newsletters, which seemed all but dead at the height of the social media revolution, have made a roaring comeback.

Traditional publishers like the New York Times, online specialists like Quartz and even newsletter-only publishers like TheSkimm are winning over droves of readers and creating new revenue streams at the same time with their email strategies. And there are as many newsletters as there are topics to write about. At Revue, we help tens of thousands of people, from big companies to individual writers, publish editorial newsletters that readers look forward to seeing in their inboxes.

Publishers of editorial newsletters have a laser focus on the right audience

The subject of refugees always evokes a mix of emotions. Some people believe that refugees detract from the local community; others that they enhance it and give back more than they take from society. I’m in the latter camp but that’s because I’ve undertaken research on the matter. (I’ve made a documentary on the subject.: “Stepping Up: NZ’s response to the refugee crisis. https://www.luciadore.com/blog/stepping-up-nz-s-response-to-the-refugee-crisis).

I continue to do research on the subject. Indeed, I’m undertaking ongoing research with the Canterbury Refugee Resettlement and Resource Centre (CRRRC) (http://www.canterburyrefugeecentre.org.nz/) where we’re looking at employment and health.

So this article that was published in the Brookings Brief was both timely and enlightening. What will New Zealand learn about the Global Compact for Refugees (GCR).

 

What the UN can learn from Turkey about refugees

Dominating news in the Middle East is Turkey’s assault on the Kurds. This is nothing new. The Turkish government has always hated the Kurds- Recep Erdogen anyway- and have done all it can to wipe them out.

 Much to the chagrin of Turkey, the US has backed and even armed the Kurds in the fight against Islamic State (IS). And the Kurds have won. They are great fighters and are certainly effective.

 But they are caught between a rock and a hard place. If they fight too well, the Turks will set out to destroy the Kurds; if they don’t fight, they will be destroyed anyway. And with the backing of the US, and many of the international community, the Kurds are better armed and equipped than they have been most of the time.

 I read the article in the UK’s The Guardian newspaper below with interest. It explains the ongoing battlefield between the Turks, the Kurds and the Arabs.

 Turkey to extend Syria campaign to Kurdish-controlled Manbij

I’ve thought long and hard about women driiving in Saudi Arabia. I’m a fan of women driving but what no news outlet has said that it will women driving is limited to people who at least 30 years. That’s my friend in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia says anyway. I thought that the article below was interesting.

 

Road To 2030: The Economic Impact Of Women Driving In Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia's decision to allow female drivers to drive has been hailed as a step forward for women's rights in the ultra-conservative kingdom, but it could also have a major economic impact. Driven heavily by the “Saudi Vision 2030,” Saudi Arabia is looking at a variety of changes that will make the country globally competitive and less oil-reliant in the future.

First, part of Saudi Vision 2030 is to grow and encourage more foreign direct investment (FDI) into the country. An immediate effect from allowing women to drive is the new market for women drivers. There are estimates that out of the country’s 30 million people, there are more than eight million women aged 15-54 in Saudi Arabia, with a combination of both Saudis and expats, who will be eligible to drive. This means that various automotive companies will potentially have a new massive market to sell their vehicles, as well as those in the auto supply chain.

Evidently, we've been doing it for years -  micro-learning that is. Flashcards is an example of micro-learning; they're analogue but of course it is now digital. Micro-learning is all about learning when we get the chance, maybe in 10 or 15 minute bursts. This article explains more about the concept.

What is Microlearning: The Education Tactic Stopping Student Burnout Syndrome

Short learning modules can help engage students and fight burnout.

by Meghan Bogardus Cortez Twitter

Meghan is an associate editor with EdTech: Focus on Higher Education. She enjoys coffee, cats and science fiction TV.

During the hajj of 2015, when more than two million Muslims make the pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, some 2,400 pilgrims were crushed or trampled to death in about 10 minutes. Why? The authorities claim that it was "God's will" but, according to an article in Vanity Fair, it was a result of arrogance and dishonesty of the Saudi regime. "The panic that broke out was the result and not the cause of the carnage", the author writes.

Here is the link to the article:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/01/the-mecca-stampede-that-made-history-hajj

Between 2010 and 2014 I sat through numerous debates about the exploitation of oil and gas in Lebanon. The oil and gas blocks were often talked about, and companies like Consolidated Contractors Company, (CCC), one of the largest construction firms in the Middle East, had put in a bid for a block.

Although there was much talk, the political process was slow and the ideal of being self sufficient in terms of energy never happened.

This article from Al Monitor is interesting because the author clearly believes that this time the Lebanese government will make the energy equation work. Great if it were to happen; I doubt that it will though. I’ve heard it all before.

Make up your own mind.

 Lebanon’s energy promise could be regional game changer