There is genuine fear by each leader over each one's life and power grip over their country. Saudi Arabia perhaps did the best to avert its overthrow by passing the equivalent of a 10% of GDP stimulus, which served as the equivalent of a 1.4 Trillion dollar stimulus in US terms. See Saudi Arabia Stimulus Package below.
Now we begin the next phase, perhaps the economic turmoil that lies ahead will usher in the final leader of the world under a promise of peace and economic stability. The massive amounts of debt that the world has incurred over just the last two years since the economic crash of 2008 is almost impossible to be repaid.
So we begin....
Activists Say Syrian Troops Kill at Least 52
In this image posted on the Internet by Shaam News Network, showing what they purport to be a demonstration in the streets of the city of Homs, Syria, on Friday Aug. 5, 2011.
BEIRUT – Syrian forces intensified their crackdown on an eastern city Sunday as they try to keep the anti-government uprising from escalating during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The assault and similar operations in at least two other towns killed at least 52 people, according to human rights groups, and the toll looked likely to rise.
The worst violence was in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, where troops stepped up a siege that had already been going on for days. At least 42 people were killed in a raid on the city that began before dawn, said Abdul-Karim Rihawi, the Damascus-based chief of the Syrian Human Rights League and Ammar Qurabi, who heads the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria.
Amateur video posted online by activists showed what it said were parts of Deir el-Zour with the sound of heavy cracks of gunfire and prayers blaring from loudspeakers. Another video showed Syrian troops on a hill as they positioned an anti-aircraft gun. An activist in the city told The Associated Press the military attacked before dawn from four sides and took control of eight neighborhoods.
"Humanitarian conditions in the city are very bad because it has been under siege for nine days," the activist said on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. "There is lack of medicine, baby formula, food and gasoline. The city is totally paralyzed."
The attack on Deir el-Zour is part of the latest phase of the government crackdown that began a week ago, just before the start of Ramadan when many Muslims fast from dawn to dusk, then eat festive meals and gather in mosques for special nightly prayers. The government has been trying to prevent the large mosque gatherings from turning into a new wave of anti-government protests, like those that have been sweeping the country since mid-March.
The government's crackdown has left more than 1,700 dead, according to activists and human rights groups. President Bashar Assad's regime disputes the toll and blames a foreign conspiracy for the unrest.
Assad has defied the growing chorus of international condemnation and pressed on with lethal military force to suppress mostly peaceful, unarmed demonstrators. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon urged Assad in a phone conversation on Saturday to immediately stop the use of military force against civilians.
The central city of Hama had been the focus of the crackdown for most of the past week, though Deir el-Zour has also been under siege.
In Hama, an official at Hourani Hospital reported that eight newborns died in their incubators on Wednesday when electricity was cut in the city, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The group had no further details.
Authorities have imposed a media blackout on Hama and the reports could not be immediately confirmed. Electricity, Internet and phone lines have been cut for seven days, and residents have reported dwindling food and medical supplies amid frequent shelling and raids. Rights group say at least 100 people have been killed, while some estimates put the number as high as 250.
The military attacks also spread Sunday to the central town of Houleh in Homs province, about 30 miles south of Hama and 212 miles (340 kilometers) east of Deir el-Zour. Rihawi said at last 10 people were killed in Houleh while Qurabi said the toll was 17.
Both Houleh and Deir el-Zour have witnessed intense protests against Assad since the uprising began. Deir el-Zour is the capital of an oil-rich province by the same name, but the region is among the country's poorest and was hit by drought in the past years. It is inhabited by Arab tribes that extend into Iraq, and Syrian authorities have said they thwarted attempts by Iraqis to smuggle arms from Iraq into Syria.
Qurabi said security forces also shot and killed 10 people in the northwestern city of Idlib Sunday. He said those killed in Idlib were taking part in a funeral of eight protesters shot dead by security forces Saturday night in the city.
Rihawi had no figures from Idlib but the Local Coordination Committees, a key activist groups tracking the Syrian uprising, said at least four people were shot dead in Idlib when security forces opened fire at a funeral.
In Hama, state-run news agency SANA said troops removed all barriers and roadblocks in the main streets, but continued "to chase remains of terrorists" who took positions in two neighborhoods.
SANA claimed anti-regime gunmen in the city had killed 13 policemen whose bodies were removed Saturday from the Orontes River, which runs through Hama. An amateur video posted online by government supporters last week showed men throwing what it said were dead plainclothes policemen's bloody bodies from a bridge into the river, turning the water to a red stream.
Turkey, which borders Syria, said Sunday it would send its foreign minister to Damascus on Tuesday to deliver a strong message condemning the crackdown on the protesters. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country's patience was running thin and that Turkey could not remain a bystander to the violence.
Syria's reaction was quick. State-run TV quoted Assad's adviser, Buthaina Shaaban, as saying that Turkey's foreign minister "will hear stronger words because of Turkey's stance that did not condemn until now the brutal killings of civilians, members of military and police."
Gulf Arab countries broke their silence Saturday on the bloodshed, calling for an immediate end to the violence and for the implementation of "serious" reforms in Syria. In a statement posted on its website, the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council expressed deep concern and regret for "the escalating violence in Syria and use of excess force."
Syria's state-run TV quoted an unnamed official as saying the GCC statement was ignoring the sabotage that armed groups are conducting.
Assad again promised to pursue reforms, SANA reported, something he has promised before but failed to deliver.
We have become numb to large numbers in the U.S. with trillions thrown around by the Federal Reserve, and government - $300B bailouts to Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC) don't even bother our psyche anymore. Hence, the $36B "social program" announced yesterday by Saudi's King Abdullah doesn't sound like much to the typical American, but in relation to the GDP of the country that is roughly 10% of GDP! In U.S. terms that would be a $1.4 trillion stimulus plan.
Hence we have a dichotomy in the Middle East/Northern Africa as those without oil can't afford to pay off the people to continue government as it is now, whereas those with oil (except for that crazy in Libya) have quickly been handing out goodies to the people. For example last week, Kuwait passed out $3600 to each citizen, and will now pay for free food for 14 months. Now comes the Saudi package.... funny on the timing of all this 'benevolence' in the Middle East.
Via Bloomberg:
- As Saudi Arabia's 86-year-old monarch returned home from back surgery, his government tried to get ahead of potential unrest in the oil-rich country Wednesday by announcing an unprecedented economic package that will provide Saudis interest-free home loans, unemployment assistance and sweeping debt forgiveness.
- The total cost was estimated at 135 billion Saudi riyals ($36 billion), but this was not largesse. Saudi Arabia clearly wants no part of the revolts and bloodshed sweeping the already unsettled Arab world.
- Saudi officials are "pumping in huge amounts of money into areas where it will have an obvious trickle-down by addressing issues like housing shortages," said John Sfakianakis, chief economist for the Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-based Banque Saudi Fransi. "It has, really, a social welfare purpose to it."
- The most prominent step was the injection of 40 billion riyals ($10.7 billion) into a fund that provides interest-free loans for Saudis to buy or build homes. The move could help reduce an 18-year waiting list for Saudis to qualify for a loan, Sfakianakis said.
- Other measures included a 15 percent cost of living adjustment for government workers, a year of unemployment assistance for youth and nearly doubling to 15 individuals the size of families that are eligible for state aid. The government also will write off the debts of people who had borrowed from the development fund and later died.
- While Saudi Arabia has been mostly spared the unrest rippling through the Middle East, a robust protest movement has risen up in its tiny neighbor, Bahrain, which like others around the region is centered on calls for representative government and relief from poverty and unemployment.
- There are no government figures in Saudi Arabia that provide a national income breakdown, but analysts estimate that there are over 450,000 jobless in the country. Despite the stereotype of rich Saudis driving SUVs, large swaths of the population rely on government help and live in government-provided housing.
- King Abdullah returned to the situation Wednesday after spending three months in the United States and Morocco getting treatment for a bad back. The economic sweeteners were announced before his plane landed.
Much like the U.S. - it is the "circus and bread" routine I often mention, keep those struggling with just enough to keep them fed and entertained and they are content to sit home and not get into one of those inconvenient revolts. With 45M Americans on food stamps you can imagine what would happen within hours if that program would be repealed. Via the Globe & Mail:
- For economists, it’s all about incentives. Forget any deep seated human desire for things like freedom and dignity. The social unrest across the Arab world comes down to comfort: those who have nothing riot; those who can afford a decent meal will stay home rather than put themselves in front of batons and bullets.
- “The time tested way to dampen popular unrest is to provide food and entertainment to the masses,” Marc Chandler, head of global head of currency strategy at New York-based Brown Brothers Harriman, wrote in note Wednesday called “Bread and Circuses: Reform Saudi Style.” It said, in part, “In effect, the 86-year-old king is increasing the basket of goods citizens get in hope that it will help soften demands for political change.”
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