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Postings to this blog may be fewer for the next two days but reporting will return to normal by Tuesday, March 1.

Thank you for your continued interest in this blog and for your understanding

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Pakistan caught in the middle as China’s OBOR becomes Saudi-Iranian-Indian battleground

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By James M. Dorsey Pakistani General Raheel Sharif walked into a hornet’s nest when he stepped off a private jet in Riyadh two weeks ago to take command of a Saudi-led, 41-nation military alliance. Things have gone from bad to worse since. General Shareef had barely landed when Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman dashed the Pakistani’s hopes to include Iran in the alliance that nominally was created to fight terrorism rather than confront Iran. The general’s hopes were designed to balance Pakistan’s close alliance with Saudia Arabia with the fact that it shares a volatile border with Iran and is home to the world’s second largest Shiite Muslim community. General Sharif’s ambition had already been rendered Mission Impossible before he landed with Saudi Arabia charging that Iran constitutes the world’s foremost terrorist threat . In a recent interview with the Saudi-owned Middle East Broadcasting television network, Prince Mohammed, who also serves a
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FIFA Uncovered: A discussion with filmmaker Miles Coleman about his new Netflix documentary

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  By James M. Dorsey To watch a video version of this story on YouTube please click  here. A podcast version is available on Soundcloud,   Itunes ,  Spotify ,  Spreaker , and   Podbean. The Qatar World Cup kicks off a week from now. It is the most controversial World Cup in the history of global soccer body FIFA and has been enveloped in controversy from the moment Qatar won its hosting rights in December 2010. The controversy is as much about rights – human rights, workers’ rights and LGBT rights – in Qatar as it is about the integrity of global sports governance. Qatar won its hosting rights at a moment in which FIFA was shaken to its core by the worst corruption scandal in its history. The controversy is also about the fact that the Qatar World Cup in many ways symbolizes the transition of soccer, the world’s most popular form of popular entertainment, from a people’s sport into big business. The hike in airfares because of the pandemic and the energy crisis sparked by
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Saudi religious diplomacy targets Jerusalem

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Credit: AladdinMiracleLamp By James M. Dorsey A United Arab Emirates-backed Saudi effort to wrest control from Jordan of Islam’s holy places in Jerusalem signals a sharper, more overt edge to Saudi religious diplomacy and the kingdom’s quest for regional hegemony that risks deepening divides in the Muslim world. The effort also serves to support Donald J. Trump’s plan for a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has split the Muslim world even before it has officially been made public and been clouded by the US president’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. At the very least, Saudi Arabia hopes at the risk of destabilizing Jordan , where Palestinians account for at least half of the country’s almost ten million people, to drop its resistance to the Trump initiative. Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s focus on Jerusalem has wider regional implications as they battle Turkey for ownership of the Jerusalem issue. The two countries tried to dow
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