Bharat Rakshak

Chinmayanand wrote:Report: IAF helicopters unload equipment 'meant for attacking a Muslim state' at Saudi airport

Jun 26, 2010 - 06:46 -
WAM Dubai, 26th June 2010 (WAM) -- Minister of Economy Sultan Al Mansouri discussed today with Lokesh Mysore Kapanaiah, India's new ambassador to the UAE, investment incentives the UAE and India offer for attracting foreign capital.

Al Mansouri called on Indian companies to seize investment opportunities the UAE offers in infrastructure and clean energy (Nuclear?) and invited both Emirati and Indian businessmen to exchange visits to closely explore means of seizing these opportunities. There are more than 105 Indian companies investing in the UAE in addition to other hundreds of firms operating in the free zones.

The minister lauded the Indian community as a major contributor to the comprehensive development in the UAE, forming an important part of various vital segments in the UAE.

''The UAE wise leadership is always keen to secure a safe, attractive environment to the Indian community, allowing it to realise ambitions and successes,''he added.

Coming up at a cost of $20 million, the Guru Nanak Darbar at Jebel Ali, Dubai, will be the first official Sikh gurdwara in the entire Gulf, catering to religious needs of a 50,000-strong Sikh community. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Makhtoum, vice-president and prime minister of UAE and ruler of Dubai, who granted permission for building the gurdwara, has given 25,400 sq ft land free.

Surender Singh Kandhari, businessman and Captain of Emirates Golf Club in Dubai, had approached authorities with his dream project and though it took him some time to convince them about the concepts of sangat and langar, while even translating excerpts from the Guru Grant Sahib, it was approved.

"Sikhs don’t worship idols like in Islam and once authorities were convinced that setting up a gurdwara was not anti-Islamic, things quickly started falling in place. My dream is to make Guru Nanak Durbar the best, second only to the Golden Temple in Amritsar," adds Kandhari.

With a 1,25,000 sq ft built-up area, the shrine has three basements, a ground floor and terrace floor. The langar hall can serve more than 600 people at a time. There is a 54-m water body, inspired by the sarovar at the Golden Temple, and a cascade. The main prayer hall, on the top with Palki Sahib, has a 7.2 m-high ceiling and an 18-m diametre dome roof. The function hall can accommodate up to 900 people. "We are seeking funds from Sikhs all over the world," says Kandhari.

Dubai-based architect firm Holford Associates has designed the gurdwara and it is supported by Richard Adams from UK, who was involved with the Shri Guru Singh Sabha Gurdwara on Havelock Road in Southall, London.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 28, 2010, 10:10 AM (GMT+02:00)

Dubai hostage plan aborted
Some US intelligence circles are now suggesting that the high-ranking Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh who died by an unknown hand in Dubai last January was not targeted for death but for capture as a live hostage against the release of Gilead Shalit, the Israeli soldier whom Hamas kidnapped four years ago in a cross-border raid from Gaza and holds without contact with the outside world.
Sunday, June 27, his parents Noam and Aviva Shalit launched a 12-day march to Jerusalem, gathering in many of thousands of supporters to lobby the government for his freedom
World figures, including the French and Italian governments, have demanded Gilead Shalit's immediate release - or at least Red Cross access to Hamas's prisoner.
DEBKAfile cites US intelligence sources as speculating that Mahboub was to have been one of half a dozen high-value Hamas operatives Israel planned to grab in January in different parts of the Middle East as bargaining chips for the Israeli soldier.
As the man in charge of Iran's weapons supplies to Hamas, Mahboub was judged a key lever for obtaining the Israeli soldier's freedom.
Those US sources believe the plan to snatch him from a Dubai hotel went smoothly enough up until the last step. But then, the drugs administered to knock him out appeared to have killed him on the spot. He was meant to be doped enough to let himself be bundled out of the hotel on his two feet in the middle of the team of abductors without drawing attention. According to this theory, the team was to have driven him to Dubai port and put him aboard a waiting yacht, which was to sail off and rendezvous with an Israeli naval missile boat in the Red Sea.
After delivering him, the same team was to have proceeded to its next target.
But whether they gave Mahboub an overdose or whether his health was frailer than believed, he did not survive. The abduction team leader, lacking instructions for this exigency, decided to abort the
mission and leave the dead man in place. He told the would-be abductors to get out of Dubai fast and scatter. The rest of the high-risk, ambitious plan was scrapped.
Had it succeeded, say the US sources, it would have been Israel's biggest abduction operation ever, attesting to the extremely high importance Israel attaches to recovering its soldier from captivity.
The Israel Mossad's hand in the death of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh was widely alleged but never proved. Several governments, Britain, Ireland, Australia among them, expelled the security officials at Israeli embassies from their capitals to protest the use of forged passports.
The negotiations to swap almost a thousand jailed Palestinians for Gilead Shalit stalemated six months ago when the German mediator pulled out.

Turkey has barred an Israeli military flight from Turkish airspace, in apparent retaliation for Israel's raid on an aid convoy bound for Gaza.

Turkey's prime minister confirmed that a "ban" had been implemented following the 31 May raid, in which nine Turkish citizens on the flotilla were killed.

Military flight bans are now being considered on a case-by-case basis, Turkish officials said.

shyamd wrote:
Sounds like a decent enough plan. The chemical they injected caused cardiac arrest.

shyamd wrote:First 'official' gurdwara in Dubai

Coming up at a cost of $20 million, the Guru Nanak Darbar at Jebel Ali, Dubai, will be the first official Sikh gurdwara in the entire Gulf, catering to religious needs of a 50,000-strong Sikh community. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Makhtoum, vice-president and prime minister of UAE and ruler of Dubai, who granted permission for building the gurdwara, has given 25,400 sq ft land free.

Surender Singh Kandhari, businessman and Captain of Emirates Golf Club in Dubai, had approached authorities with his dream project and though it took him some time to convince them about the concepts of sangat and langar, while even translating excerpts from the Guru Grant Sahib, it was approved.

"Sikhs don’t worship idols like in Islam and once authorities were convinced that setting up a gurdwara was not anti-Islamic, things quickly started falling in place. My dream is to make Guru Nanak Durbar the best, second only to the Golden Temple in Amritsar," adds Kandhari.

With a 1,25,000 sq ft built-up area, the shrine has three basements, a ground floor and terrace floor. The langar hall can serve more than 600 people at a time. There is a 54-m water body, inspired by the sarovar at the Golden Temple, and a cascade. The main prayer hall, on the top with Palki Sahib, has a 7.2 m-high ceiling and an 18-m diametre dome roof. The function hall can accommodate up to 900 people. "We are seeking funds from Sikhs all over the world," says Kandhari.

Dubai-based architect firm Holford Associates has designed the gurdwara and it is supported by Richard Adams from UK, who was involved with the Shri Guru Singh Sabha Gurdwara on Havelock Road in Southall, London.

Jun 28, 2010 - 03:12 -
WAM Dubai, Jun 28th, 2010 (WAM)--His Highness Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai received at his court in Zaabel today morning Shuqing Guo chief executive of the second largest Chinese Construction Bank based in Beijing.

Sheikh Maktoum exchanged views with the visiting Chinese guest on the overall economic and financial conditions, as well as regional and international efforts to restore confidence in the financial markets and banking sector, which have begun to recover and restore the world's economy recovery.

The Chinese banker praised spectacular urban progress being witnessed by the UAE in general and Dubai in particular, compared to what he saw during his previous visit to the UAE three years ago, stressing the China's confidence at the level of the UAE economy and banking sector.

Guo expressed interest of his bank in the UAE market's booming, indicating that the bank will begin operational procedures for opening of a regional branch at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), particularly with existence of large number of Chinese companies operating in the UAE and are looking forward to providing services to China Construction Bank in the region as a whole.

For his part, Sheikh Maktoum welcomed the Chinese Banker and the delegation accompanying him, pointing out that the visit will usher in a new era of relations between the banking sectors in both countries.

He commended the location of China in the global economic map, stressing that the UAE in general and Dubai in particular are looking forward to furthering economic and financial cooperation with China in view of the fact that the People's Republic of China is the second largest trading partner of the UAE.

The meeting was attended by Mohammed Ibrahim Al Shaibani, director of the Office of His Highness the Ruler of Dubai, Ahmed Humaid Al Tayer, Governor of the DIFC and Chinese Consul General in Dubai Gao Yuchen.

shyamd wrote:
These moves are part of the UAE or Dubai's next move to embrace the next big leaders. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid calls it "the new world", i.e. India and China. Expect a huge improvement in relations between GCC and India, especially wrt UAE.

Rony wrote:"Sikhs don’t worship idols like in Islam and once authorities were convinced that setting up a gurdwara was not anti-Islamic, things quickly started falling in place.

Surender Singh Kandhari, businessman and Captain of Emirates Golf Club in Dubai, had approached authorities with his dream project and though it took him some time to convince them about the concepts of sangat and langar, while even translating excerpts from the Guru Grant Sahib, it was approved.Sikhs don’t worship idols like in Islam and once authorities were convinced that setting up a gurdwara was not anti-Islamic, things quickly started falling in place. My dream is to make Guru Nanak Durbar the best, second only to the Golden Temple in Amritsar," adds Kandhari.

Rony wrote:^^

Those words are from the sikh dude, not from the dubai govt.

abhishek_sharma wrote:The collapse of Israel’s 'Periphery Doctrine'

http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/ ... y_doctrine

Jordan insists on right to nuclear power
‘Energy-poor Jordan, which is in talks with the United States to sign a nuclear cooperation deal, said Monday it does not want to give up its right to peaceful atomic power under international treaties. "We are now in continuous negotiations with the United States, and the latest round was in Washington last week," Khaled Tukan, head of Jordan's Atomic Energy Commission, told AFP. "But I think we still don't have common ground. They started to understand our viewpoint, but still (there is) no common ground." Tukan said the Americans want their ally Jordan to sign a nuclear agreement similar to a deal they reached with the United Arab Emirates, which "has relinquished its rights under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)." "The United Arab Emirates has relinquished all its NPT rights to sensitive nuclear technology indefinitely," he said, adding: "Why should we give up our rights?" Tukan said Article Four of the NPT stipulates that "all countries have the right to full utilisation of peaceful nuclear energy, research and development." "We are sticking and adhering to the NPT, and (we want) full rights and privileges under the NPT," he said

Suppiah wrote:

abhishek_sharma wrote:The collapse of Israel’s 'Periphery Doctrine'

http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/ ... y_doctrine

Thanks for posting this...one of the cleverest and most sensible articles I have ever read. His reading of history is so important and relevant.

There is a lesson in this for India too....dont be under similar illusion of 'friendship' with some Islamic states, and mollycoddling the likes of KSA's Abdullah or Irans nut-job, in the hope of them one day helping us against TSP...or at least stay away...they will not. It will be like a professional hit man telling you 'sorry gotta shoot you, no personal offense meant'

Suppiah wrote:
I also agree that we are on the verge of witnessing end of oil era in our lifetimes, perhaps even in a decade or so. That is probably why US/West is acting so tough against its own oil giants. They would never have done this in an era when oil co's were practically extension counters of their foreign ministries / spy agencies.

They know something we don't- that some big breakthrough or series of smaller triumphs will kill oil.

Acharya wrote: Who is Bin Amir in Oman. He used to be commerce minister.

Also how big is the business group - ETA Star . etaascon.com

abhishek_sharma wrote:King Abdullah wants to wipe Israel and Iran off the map

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/201 ... ff_the_map

Rudradev wrote: Questions:

1. How likely is this scenario, partially analogous to pre WW1 Europe, to materialize?

2.Having materialized, how likely is it to lead to all out war possibly involving nukes (rather than a limited set of proxy conflicts?)

3. What are India's best options in this scenario? What are our biggest concerns and hopes? What are the options and viewpoints of other global powers?