Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, 1st left, waves next to Sunni Islamic scholar Abdullatif al-Mahmood, middle, during a visit to Majlisss of Al-Mahmoods and in Hid City in Bahrain.

«They want to transform the Arab Spring into a «Shiite Spring», said Abdellatif al-Mahmud, a Sunni cleric in Bahrain, where a protest movement led by the Shiite majority was crushed in March – Faisal Baatout (AFP).

The Arab Spring, which has swept the region and toppled three autocratic leaders, «has whetted the appetite of Shiites in our region», Mahmud told AFP on the sidelines of a Doha seminar on the role of religious diversity in the Gulf.

Walid Tabtabai, a Kuwaiti Sunni, was even more virulent. «Since the Shiites are the majority, they are attacking Sunnis», he said, citing the case of Iran, as well as Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni regime in 2003. But Sheikh Ali Salman, the head of Bahrain’s leading Shiite opposition formation, Al-Wefaq, rejected «this inappropriate approach».

«The Arab Spring involves all faiths and all communities, including the Amazigh», or Libya’s Berbers, who helped to overthrow Moamer Kadhafi’s regime, he said. Bahrain’s crackdown on Shiite protests, carried out with the help of other Gulf monarchies, raised tensions in countries with Shiite minorities, including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, where four people were killed last month in clashes with security forces.

«The problem is political, and not confessional», said Ali Salman, whose group calls for democratic reforms to ensure equality and eliminate discrimination among Bahrainis. His analysis is shared by Kuwaiti intellectual Mohammed al-Rumaihi, said it is necessary «to promote the sense of citizenship” in order to get rid of religious and tribal communalism.

Fawzia Hani, a Saudi Shiite human rights activist, agreed. «A weak sense of citizenship promotes sectarianism and creates a gap between the state and people», she told the seminar. However, the proximity of predominantly Shiite Iran raises concerns and suspicion in its Arab neighbours who fear their own Shiite communities are being influenced by Tehran, which has clear ambitions to establish itself as a regional power.

Shiism was born as a result of theological differences about the succession of the Prophet Mohammed. The Sunni majority define themselves as the ones who maintain and apply the doctrines, standards, practices and traditions established by the prophet. «We must disconnect from this historical inheritance which blocks us all», said Said Hareb, an academic from the United Arab Emirates. «We cannot change the past, but we can help build the future».

But the reality on the ground is more difficult. «We do not know how things are going to end up next week in Qatif», in Saudi Arabi’s Eastern Province, during the Shiite Ashura commemoration, said Hani, referring to deadly clashes in late November.

Eastern Province is home to the majority of the conservative Sunni kingdom’s Shiite population of around two million, who represent around 10 percent of Saudis. The ceremony marks the killing of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed and third Imam of Shiism, by armies of the Umayyad caliph Yazid in 680 AD.

International Air Transport Association CEO Giovanni Bisignani speaks at the IATA Annual General Meeting

The meeting comes as the International Air Transport Association (IATA) revealed traffic figures showing a sharp fall in capacity growth from the Middle East carriers, reflecting the uncertain economic outlook.

“In the light of the many global economic challenges that we face, it is more important than ever for the industry to explore all possible ways of improving efficiency and customer service. IATA Aviation Days are well known across the world for their unique ability to bring together the industry to achieve an agenda for change. Our Middle East and North Africa Aviation Day has attracted some of the region’s most influential air transport leaders to debate issues around airspace and airport planning and design, steps to traffic growth sustainability, and opportunities to enhance efficiency and boost profitability,” said Dr. Majdi Sabri, IATA’s Regional Vice President for the Middle East and North Africa.

In his opening remarks, Mr. Hussein Dabbas, the President and CEO of Royal Jordanian commended IATA’s role in addressing member needs and priorities.

“IATA has always done a great job in bringing together key aviation stakeholders to discuss the industry needs and priorities and shed some light on possible solutions and improvements to our industry, especially during these very challenging times. IATA has launched many initiatives to help the industry to raise the safety bar, improve operational efficiency, and reduce cost…we in Royal Jordanian have supported these initiatives and benefitted from them tremendously and we need to keep on finding ways and means to generate more revenue and reduce cost,” he said.

Results

“It’s a tough year of crises and shocks for airlines in the Middle East and North Africa Region. September figures show that Middle Eastern airlines are rapidly adjusting capacity growth in response to economic uncertainty in the region and globally. International passenger traffic recorded at 9.1% above 2010 levels. Capacity growth was held to 8.5%. It was the only region where demand growth outstripped growth in supply,” explained Dr. Sabri.

“Tightening global economic conditions are resulting in declining profits. The $900 million profit returned by the Middle East carriers in 2010 is expected to fall to $800 million this year. For 2012 we see a further reduction to $700 million. That equates to an Earnings Before Interest and Taxes (EBIT) margin of just 2.9%. That this is second only to Latin American carriers who are expected to return a 3.1% EBIT margin indicates just how difficult the global situation is for airlines, ” said Sabri.

IATA Aviation Days

The agenda for the two-day event encompassed issues such as tackling airspace restrictions, improving airport planning, enhancing the IOSA and ISAGO safety audits, crisis management techniques, and working in partnership to drive cost efficiencies and fuel savings. IATA experts and airline speakers from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan were joined by guests from ICAO, AACO, CANSO, Dubai Airports Company, Airport International Group (AIG) and Jordan Civil Aviation Regulatory Commission (CARC).

“Jordan is the perfect place to hold such event. It is IATA’s home in MENA Region—the location of the IATA regional office which recently expanded its scope to serve IATA’s members and various aviation stakeholders in the region. But even more importantly, Jordan is a country with a great aviation tradition which has adopted a liberal aviation policy at an early stage and supported IATA activities and initiatives at the highest level,” said Sabri.

Media campaign to educate pilgrims about smooth Haj

The campaign is aimed at enlightening pilgrims and residents to be committed to the rules and regulations concerning the pilgrimage. A number of ministers and representatives of various government departments will be present during the launching ceremony.

In its fourth year, the campaign will underline the need for expatriates and citizens to obtain special Haj permits in order to be allowed to proceed to Makkah and the holy sites to do their Haj rituals.The governor, who is the chairman of the Central Haj Committee, will launch the campaign during a press conference at his office at the governorate building in Makkah.

He will be speaking about the latest preparations being made by the government and the private sector to make the Haj season a success. He will also talk about the development projects that have been implemented in Makkah and the expected role of the pilgrims themselves in making Haj a success.

Mobily Communications Company will sponsor the campaign in which a number of ministries, government departments and private establishments will participate. They include the ministries of Haj, Islamic Affairs, Culture and Information, Municipal and Rural Affairs, Education, Commerce and Industry, the Civil Defense, the General Presidency of the Affairs of the Two Holy Mosques, secretaries of municipalities, members of the Makkah municipal council, the Saudi Arabian Airlines Company, the Saudi Red Crescent, the Tawafa establishments and others.

Abdul Aziz Al-Khodairi, undersecretary of the governorate, said the campaign was aimed at enlightening both citizens and foreigners about the rules and the regulations that should be observed for the performance of the Haj.

He asked Saudis and expatriates not to proceed to Makkah before obtaining special Haj permits and urged pilgrims not to sleep on streets. Al-Khodairi recalled the decision banning entry of vehicles with capacity of less than 25 passengers to Makkah and asked pilgrims to preserve the cleanliness of the holy sites.

“The campaign will focus on enlightening people to keep away from all negative behavior that might impede the government’s efforts aimed at ensuring the safety and comfort of the guests of God,” he said. Under the rules, residents will be allowed to perform Haj once every five years and should join Haj campaigns organized by the Tawafa establishments. “Respecting rules is a religious duty and a national responsibility,” Al-Khodairi said.

Arabnews.com

Most of the jury members were also among the special guests to walk the red carpet, including Egyptian actress Laila Eloui, Iranian screen legend Fatemeh Simin Motamed-Arya, American actress, model and athlete Aimee Mullins and French actress Marianne Denicourt. Also among the night’s prominent guests were celebrated Mauritanian filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako (‘Life on Earth’, ‘Bamako’), one of the principal voices of world cinema and president of ADFF’s jury in 2008. Sissako will be holding one of the master classes on October 15, at 11.30am, at the Fairmont here.

The best of Gulf in the film and TV industry were present on the opening night of ADFF with actors, singers, filmmakers and celebrities such as Huda Al Khatib Janah, Dr Habib Ghuloom, Haifa Hussein, Mohammed Al Mansour, Haya Abdelsalam, Ali Al Ali, Moza Al Mazrouei, Khaled Ameen, Tarek Al Ali, Abdullah Boushahri, Mahmoud Boushahri, Ibrahim Al Hasawi, Ahmad Iraj, Ahmad Al Jasmi, Zyna Karam, Abdel Mohsen Nemer and Ghanem Al Sulaiti gracing the occasion. “This is a Middle Eastern and Arab film festival and for the opening night we are delighted to be welcoming a group of distinguished actors and directors from the region, including some of the best-known names from the Gulf,” said Eissa Saif Rashed Al Mazrouei, director of Special Projects for Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH).

With the red carpet over, it was time for the first movie of the night to roll. For the first time in the festival’s history, the screening took place outdoors, in a specially set up outdoors cinema on the beaches of Fairmont Hotel.

Outdoors movies will go on every night here for the duration of the festival. The hotel is planning to keep the beach front cinema open for several weeks after the closing of ADFF on October 22. Another good news about the Fairmont outdoors screening is that tickets are free, although they do need to be obtained from the box office at the hotel’s lobby.

Monsieur Lazhar by Canadian filmmaker Philippe Falardeau was a perfect choice as the opening movie for an Arabian film festival with worldwide ambitions. Canada’s official entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2012 Oscars, Monsieur Lazhar is the personal story of an Algerian immigrant teacher, who takes over as a substitute for a group of school children, whose previous teacher had been murdered — a story of grief, broken hearts, compassion and immigration status.

“We believe that we have succeeded to a large extent in placing ADFF as an important stop in the international film festivals map, by appealing to a large audience that was drawn by cinema productions presented by the festival each year, and taking in international experts that have artistic, cinematographic, and managerial skills,” said Mohammed Khalaf Al Mazrouei, vice chairman of ADFF, advisor for Cultural and Heritage at the Court of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince, and director general of ADACH.

“In this edition, we maintain our strategy that aims at empowering new talent in the UAE, and providing them with an opportunity to reach an international audience. We also seek to transform Abu Dhabi into a film industry hub. We aspire to consolidate the success of the already-launched diverse initiatives, such as the ‘New Horizons’ competition, and the SANAD Fund, as we keep up building community cooperation with different partners. We mention in this context our cooperation with Masdar to introduce the Award for Environmental Films. Event series include an initiative to honour a number of winners of the Noble Prize in Literature, open-air screenings, and Family Day. Debates on the future of cinema and the impact of recent regional developments will be organised and will feature leading filmmakers, and industry professionals,” he added.

More than 3,000 featured films and documentaries from 102 countries submitted their participation in this fifth edition of ADFF. Of this, 86 films from 35 countries have been selected for the different sections of the festival. In addition to this, 1,900 short films from 87 countries sought participation, of which 94 from 24 countries have been chosen. The Emirati Film Competition, which this year celebrates 10 years, drew 177 films produced in the Gulf, 46 of which have been now selected to be screened.

Khaleejtimes.com

Waldorf Astoria to debut on Dubai’s Palm

The first Waldorf Astoria resort is to open in Dubai following a deal between local conglomerate Al Habtoor Group and hospitality chain Hilton Worldwide.

The planned AED1bn ($272m) resort, which is being built by Al Habtoor, was suspended in the wake of the financial crisis that spurred the collapse of Dubai’s real estate market. But the Dubai developer said last month it would restart construction work on the 330-room hotel and announced Monday the property would be managed under Hilton’s Waldorf Astoria brand.

“[I am] committed to participating [in Dubai real estate] and meeting my commitments by adding more projects, which we are going to announce soon,” chairman Khalaf Al Habtoor told Arabian Business. “This is funded from our own cash flow; it is not funded by any banks.”

The launch will mean fresh competition for state-backed hotel resort Atlantis which, until recently, had benefited from being the Palm’s sole hotel since its opening three years ago.

More than 30 themed resorts had been planned for the iconic island before the onset of the global financial crash in late-2008, but were scaled back dramatically as project financing dried up. Kempinski confirmed in March this year that it was mothballing its 253-room Emerald Palace project on the Palm until at least 2013, citing oversupply in the market.

State-backed Jumeirah Group also said in May it would suspend the planned Jumeirah Al Fattan Palm Resort. Nakheel, the master developer behind the Palm, said it February it had scrapped plans to build the $2.9bn Trump International Hotel and Tower, which was to be located on the Palm’s trunk. Hotels still due to open include Rixos’ Palm property in December, Mövenpick’s Oceana Resort, the Sofitel Spa resort, the Habtoor Island Resort and Spa, and Hilton.

Branded properties One&Only The Palm and Jumeirah Zabeel Saray opened earlier this year. Monday’s announcement will also see Hilton Worldwide take over the management of two Beirut properties owned by Al Habtoor, marking the US chain’s first entry into the Lebanese market. The company will convert and manage the Habtoor Grand and Metropolitan Palace in Beirut. Both properties are expected to open in early 2012.

“Our partnership I hope will not be limited to these three hotels. Maybe someday somewhere else [we will work together],” said Al Habtoor. “One of the fastest growth rates we have in the world is in this region. Over the next few years we’ll double our presence in the region,’ said Christopher Nassetta, president of Hilton Worldwide.

“We’re very excited about what is happening in this part of the world. Dubai, the UAE and the broader Middle East has tremendous economic fundamentals in terms of what is going on in demand over the next 5-10, 15-20 years.” Hilton Worldwide has signed 18 new hotels in the Middle East and Africa this year, taking its total number of hotels in the development pipeline in the region to 40.

ArabianBusiness.com

Lebanese Minister of Culture visits Bait al Zubair Museum

Bait al Zubair Museum recently welcomed Gaby Layoun, the Lebanese Minister of Culture. The minister, who is visiting Oman for the first time, attended the grand opening of the Muscat Opera House.

He took time to visit Bait al Zubair Museum and enjoyed a detailed tour of the collections viewing displays of traditional Omani weaponry, jewellery, costume, household items and furniture, early maps and prints of the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa, photographs and coins.

At the end of the tour he commented… “a long history and nobility meet in this authentic place that reveals a distinctive heritage”.

Quatar

The international currency fund recognized Qatar as the richest country in the world in 2010. According to fund, gross national product per capita in Qatar makes 88 thousand 222 dollars On the second place Luxembourg gross national product per capita in which is estimated in 81 thousand 466 dollars has fallen.

Qatar almost has twice overtaken the USA, the country with the biggest economy where gross national product per capita made 46 thousand 860 dollars. According to IMF, by 2016 of gross national product per capita in Qatar can reach 111 thousand 963 dollars that will allow this country to remain still on the first place. “This combination of riches, growth and a population small amount,” – is considered by analysts.

Such high indicators Qatar could reach thanks to gas and oil on which the country, in a literal sense, lies. Small Qatar is the largest exporter сжиженного natural gas and asserts that it the third on size of nonassociated gas fields the world country.

Let’s remind, in 2022 Qatar will accept football tournament of World championship FIFA. It is expected that Qatar to tournament can spend for arrangement of a necessary infrastructure to 200 bn dollars.

While the exact techniques under consideration remain classified, the goal would have been to break through the firewalls of the Libyan government’s computer networks to sever military communications links and prevent the early-warning radars from gathering information and relaying it to missile batteries aiming at NATO warplanes.

But administration officials and even some military officers balked, fearing that it might set a precedent for other nations, in particular Russia or China, to carry out such offensives of their own, and questioning whether the attack could be mounted on such short notice. They were also unable to resolve whether the president had the power to proceed with such an attack without informing Congress.

In the end, American officials rejected cyberwarfare and used conventional aircraft, cruise missiles and drones to strike the Libyan air-defense missiles and radars used by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s government.

This previously undisclosed debate among a small circle of advisers demonstrates that cyberoffensives are a growing form of warfare. The question the United States faces is whether and when to cross the threshold into overt cyberattacks.

Last year, a Stuxnet computer worm apparently wiped out a part of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges and delayed its ability to produce nuclear fuel. Although no entity has acknowledged being the source of the poisonous code, some evidence suggests that the virus was an American-Israeli project. And the Pentagon and military contractors regularly repel attacks on their computer networks — many coming from China and Russia.

The Obama administration is revving up the nation’s digital capabilities, while publicly emphasizing only its efforts to defend vital government, military and public infrastructure networks.

“We don’t want to be the ones who break the glass on this new kind of warfare,” said James Andrew Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where he specializes in technology and national security.

That reluctance peaked during planning for the opening salvos of the Libya mission, and it was repeated on a smaller scale several weeks later, when military planners suggested a far narrower computer-network attack to prevent Pakistani radars from spotting helicopters carrying Navy Seal commandos on the raid that killed Osama bin Laden on May 2.

Again, officials decided against it. Instead, specially modified, radar-evading Black Hawk helicopters ferried the strike team, and a still-secret stealthy surveillance drone was deployed.

“These cybercapabilities are still like the Ferrari that you keep in the garage and only take out for the big race and not just for a run around town, unless nothing else can get you there,” said one Obama administration official briefed on the discussions.

The debate about a potential cyberattack against Libya was described by more than a half-dozen officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the classified planning.

In the days ahead of the American-led airstrikes to take down Libya’s integrated air-defense system, a more serious debate considered the military effectiveness — and potential legal complications — of using cyberattacks to blind Libyan radars and missiles.

“They were seriously considered because they could cripple Libya’s air defense and lower the risk to pilots, but it just didn’t pan out,” said a senior Defense Department official.

After a discussion described as thorough and never vituperative, the cyberwarfare proposals were rejected before they reached the senior political levels of the White House.

Gen. Carter F. Ham, the head of the military’s Africa Command, which led the two-week American air campaign against Libya until NATO assumed full control of the operation on March 31, would not comment on any proposed cyberattacks. In an interview, he said only that “no capability that I ever asked for was denied.”

Senior officials said one of the central reasons a cyberoffensive was rejected for Libya was that it might not have been ready for use in time, given that the rebel city of Benghazi was on the verge of being overrun by government forces.

While popular fiction and films depict cyberattacks as easy to mount — only a few computer keystrokes needed — in reality it takes significant digital snooping to identify potential entry points and susceptible nodes in a linked network of communications systems, radars and missiles like that operated by the Libyan government, and then to write and insert the proper poisonous codes.

“It’s the cyberequivalent of fumbling around in the dark until you find the doorknob,” Mr. Lewis said. “It takes time to find the vulnerabilities. Where is the thing that I can exploit to disrupt the network?”

Had the computer-network attack gone ahead, administration officials said they were confident it could have been confined to Libyan networks and offered high promise of disrupting the regime’s integrated air-defense system.

One unresolved concern was whether ordering a cyberattack on Libya might create domestic legal restrictions on war-making by the executive branch without Congressional permission. One question was whether the War Powers Resolution — which requires the executive to formally report to lawmakers when it has introduced forces into “hostilities” and sets a 60-day limit on such deployments if Congress does not authorize them to continue — would be required for an attack purely in cyberspace.

The War Powers Resolution, a Vietnam-era law enacted over President Richard M. Nixon’s veto, does not define “hostilities.” In describing its actions to Congress and the American people, the White House argued that its use of conventional forces in the Libyan intervention fell short of the level of hostilities requiring Congressional permission under either the Constitution or the resolution, citing the lack of ground forces and the supporting role the United States was playing in a multilateral effort to fulfill a United Nations resolution. Some officials also expressed concern about revealing American technological capabilities to potential enemies for what seemed like a relatively minor security threat to the United States.

In the end, Libya’s air-defense network was dangerous but not exceptionally robust. American surveillance identified its locations, and it was degraded through conventional attacks.

Charlie Savage