Stay true to the dreams of thy youth

• Work starts on UAE-funded Seychelles wind farm - Energy - ArabianBusiness.com

  The wind farm project is the first major renewable energy project in the Seychelles and will generate 11 percent of electricity on the main island, and will cut down on fossil fuel imports and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

• Starving Iran Won’t Free It - NYTimes.com

  THERE’S an old saying, attributed to the British Foreign Office in colonial days: “Keep the Persians hungry, and the Arabs fat.” For the British — then the stewards of Persian destiny — that was the formula for maintaining calm; it still is for Saudi Arabian leaders, who simply distribute large amounts of cash to their citizens at the first sign of unrest at their doorstep.

• Middle East company to rescue German solar maker | SmartPlanet

  Microsol, a solar cell and panel supplier based in the United Arab Emirates, has made a binding offer to acquire bankrupt German solar manufacturer Solon, including Solon facilities in the United States.

• Israeli Troops Raid Two Palestinian TV Stations in Ramallah - NYTimes.com

  The Palestinian Authority replied that it had received no such warnings and that the stations were guilty of no violations. “We are an educational television station, which puts on ‘Sesame Street,’ antismoking programs and broadcasts to help integrate handicapped children into the community,” said Lucy Nusseibeh, director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al-Quds University, which operates the station. “We have all our licenses through the Palestinian Ministry of Communications and are in constant touch with them. I never heard anything about Israeli complaints or warnings.”

• Blast in Istanbul Injures 10 Police Officers - NYTimes.com

  Ten police officers were injured on Thursday when a booby-trapped motorcycle exploded in front of the headquarters of the Turkish governing party in Istanbul, officials said.

• Obama's Most Dangerous GOP Opponent: Netanyahu - The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Beast

  A global war which polarizes America and the world is exactly what Netanyahu wants. And it is exactly what the GOP needs to cut through Obama's foreign policy advantage in this election. Because it is only through war, crisis and polarization that extremists can mobilize the emotions that keep them in power. They need war to win. Here's a prediction. Netanyahu, in league and concert with Romney, Santorum and Gingrich, will make his move to get rid of Obama soon. And he will be more lethal to this president than any of his domestic foes.

• A boy's death exposes Israel's deliberate fiction - The National

  Only by pretending that children are terrorists can the Israelis justify an occupation that murders them. And if Israelis have to lie to themselves, the rest of the world takes even more convincing. A perpetual state of self-deception is essential to justify the brutality that takes place on a daily basis in the Occupied Territory. Through this prism of unaccountability, Israel permits itself to make the most unjustified of claims in the name of national security. This is not some chance misunderstanding. Israel's hasbara, or propaganda, ministry produces regular advertisements, some surprisingly clumsy: last year, one bizarre video clip compared Israel to an abused young woman.

• Republicans ill at ease with the world around them - The Washington Post

  Romney’s stabs at seeming a regular guy have provided the most painful moments of his campaign. How to come off as a car buff in Michigan? Mention your wife’s Cadillacs. How to be a good ol’ boy at Daytona? Say you’re friends with some of the race car owners. Not since Richard Nixon has a national political leader appeared so excruciatingly ill at ease with the simplest public encounters.

• Job creation is MENA's no 1 challenge, says E&Y - Industries - ArabianBusiness.com

  Over 15 million young people are expected to enter the workforce in the Middle East and North Africa in the next decade, Ernst & Young said in a report on Tuesday. Its quarterly Rapid-Growth Markets Forecast said the region's greatest challenge "will be to create employment and develop the non-oil economy".

• Enough of Rick Santorum’s sermons - The Washington Post

  Mullah Rick has spoken. He wants religion returned to “the public square,” is opposed to contraception, premarital sex and abortion under any circumstances, wants children educated in what amounts to little red schoolhouses and called President Obama a “snob” for extolling college or some other kind of post-high school education. This is not a political platform. It’s a fatwa.

• Aides: Yemen's Saleh to Seek Exile in Ethiopia - WSJ.com

  Aides to Ali Abdullah Saleh said Monday that the ousted Yemeni president plans to go into exile in Ethiopia, as pressures mounted on him to depart the country for fear of sparking new cycles of violence.

• Saudi billionaire eyes $3.4bn Ethiopia projects - Banking & Finance - ArabianBusiness.com

  Derba Group, an amalgam of three Ethiopian companies owned by Saudi billionaire Mohammed Al Amoudi, said it plans to invest 59bn birr ($3.4bn) in seven industrial projects over the next five years.

• Study to explore pan-Arab energy market - Energy - ArabianBusiness.com

  The Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development has commissioned a feasibility study for creating a single energy market from Morocco to Oman, the Italy-based consultancy who will conduct it said on Monday. CESI Middle East has been contracted by the Kuwait-based development fund to come up with a plan for integrating by 2030 the loosely connected electricity and natural gas networks of 20 Arab countries across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

• CEO of Bahrain's $9bn wealth fund resigns - ArabianBusiness.com

  The chief executive of Bahrain's $9bn sovereign wealth fund, Mumtalakat, told Reuters he has resigned to set up a new investment firm in the Gulf Arab island kingdom.

• Jeb Bush finds Republican debates ‘a little troubling’ - The Washington Post

  “I used to be a conservative and I watch these debates and I’m wondering, I don’t think I’ve changed, but it’s a little troubling sometimes when people are appealing to people’s fears and emotion rather than trying to get them to look over the horizon for a broader perspective and that’s kind of where we are,” former Florida governor Jeb Bush said in a Dallas speech Thursday

• Trial is adjourned after Americans fail to appear in Cairo court - CNN.com

  The trial of international aid workers -- including 16 Americans -- accused of fraud in Egypt got a brief start Sunday as intense behind-the-scenes diplomatic discussions simmered over the case. Out of the 43 defendants facing fraud charges, only 14 non-American workers showed up to court for a trial unfolding in the wake of the revolution that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak, and increasingly shaky relations with the United States.

• WikiLeaks begins disclosing intelligence firm's e-mails - CNN.com

  (CNN) -- The website WikiLeaks has begun releasing what it says are 5 million e-mails from the private intelligence company Stratfor, starting with a company "glossary" that features unflattering descriptions of U.S. government agencies.

• Selecting a Seatmate to Make Skies Friendlier - NYTimes.com

  ** Sounds like a terrible idea ** This month, the Dutch carrier KLM began testing a program it calls Meet and Seat, allowing ticket-holders to upload details from their Facebook or LinkedIn profiles and use the data to choose seatmates. The concept is a step beyond the not always successful efforts a few years ago by some airlines — including Air France, Virgin Atlantic and Lufthansa — to build “walled” social networks out of their existing frequent flier memberships.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.