United Arab Emirates David Rosenberg (The Medi – Calling the United Arab Emirates (UAE) the world’s “least friendly” place for expatriates-well, those are fighting words. Certainly, they are in a place where non-citizens make up close to 90 percent of the population and are responsible for everything from running the national airline to cleaning up at construction sites.

But a fight is what Forbes magazine and one of its contributing writers, Beth Greenfield, got when they ran a piece putting the Gulf confederation of seven mini-states at the bottom of a list using criteria that hone in on social factors – the ability to befriend natives, fitting into local culture, learning the language and integrating into the community.

The article sparked a furious reaction, a dedicated Twitter hashtag #UAEFriendly and finally, according to local media spin, Forbes “took back” its words and conceded that Greenfield’s list was “non-scientific.” The American magazine also helped smooth ruffled feathers in a posting by Dan Bigman, its managing editor for business news, who called the UAE an “expat paradise.”

Giving advice to the businesspeople, diplomats and others living abroad is a big and important business. What with varying costs of living, standards of schools and housing, and the risk that today’s sleepy posting erupts into revolutionary cauldron, employees and employers alike need a way to compare and decide how much hardship pay one location deserves over another.

One of those measures is published by the expatriate financial-services unit of the British-based bank HSBC, and that was the starting-off point for the controversy.

The Expat Explorer Survey for 2011 survey ranks 31 countries for expat conditions based on a survey of 3,385 people in 100 countries taken last May-July (only 31 countries had enough respondents to make the sampling valid, HSBC says).

Weighing all the criteria HSBC uses – a long list of factors ranging from “nicer/bigger property” to children “spending less time playing video games” – the UAE ranked a respectable third. Last November, Mercer, a British firm that advises companies on compensation for their employees living abroad, ranked Dubai 74 and Abu Dhabi 78.

But Greenfield, citing the views of expat “coach” Heather Markel, isolated four factors from the HSBC survey she said make a place “friendly” for foreigners living and working there.

Suddenly, the UAE plummeted to the bottom of the list, along with much of the rest of the Gulf and India. Greenfield did not dwell much on the UAE’s misfortune: She made only two references to it and one of them refers to its attractions for expats as a place where people enjoy high incomes and good career prospects. Nevertheless, it didn’t take long to elicit a spirited defense of the UAE.

“Dear Forbes, Did you ever visited UAE?” asked AhmadTheFrozen. “We don’t realize how realize how friendly UAE is until we visit Europe,” commented Talib Al Hashimi. “I’ve developed a fantastic social circle and career in UAE. Who did Forbes survey? Not me!” said Brendan Ryan.

Tamim Al Kuttab asked: “If the UAE is unfriendly to expats — as Forbes says — then why are they staging their Global CEO Conference in Dubai in October?” (Good question: The Forbes Foundation, which publishes the magazine, is holding its 12th annual Global CEO Conference in the UAE’s Dubai next October.)

Annabel Kantaria. a journalist based in Dubai, wrote in a blog post for Britain’s Telegraph newspaper that if foreigners find the Emirates an unfriendly place, they have only themselves to blame.

“Is it the fault of the host country if the expats don’t have success learning the local language? Is it the fault of the host country if the expats fail to integrate themselves into the community, don’t manage to befriend locals or don’t find it easy to fit in?” she wrote. “Does that make the host country ‘unfriendly’? Or does it make the expat ‘inadaptable’? On whom does the onus lie?”

Greenfield herself did not respond at length to the complaints on the Forbes website, but a spokesman for the magazine speaking to The National downplayed the affair. “Given the UAE’s reputation as a crossroads for world commerce and culture, we were surprised by the results of HSBC’s survey,” an unnamed spokesman said in the local English-language daily. “The data is [sic], of course, non-scientific and intended only to spur discussion.”

Bigman, without making any apology, called the UAE – as well as Singapore and Hong Kong, two other tiny expat-heavy places – an “expat paradise,” friendlier to resident foreigners than his home country of America.

In fact, Khalid Al-Ameri, an Emirati, pointed out in an op-ed in The National the natives may not seem friendly because it is so hard to find one among the masses of foreigners.

Of the 8.26 million people living in the UAE in 2012, 7.31 million of them are expats, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. When the economy was booming before 2008, the expat population was even bigger, but even today, just one in 12 people are Emiratis and in expat-rich places like Dubai the ratio is even bigger.

“Because of the skewed demographics (about 10 percent of the population is Emirati), getting to know the ‘locals’ can be a tough task for any new expatriate. And in any country within a matter of days, an expatriate will find his or her countrymen, the familiar cuisine and hangout spot,” he wrote. “It is very easy for an expatriate to quickly fall into a comfort zone and go quite a while without actually interacting with an Emirati on a personal level.”

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Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Rob L. Wagner (The Media – Not content with oil, the kingdom wants to make cars as well; skeptics abound.

Two years ago, the Saudi Arabian government announced with great fanfare – and was met with some skepticism – plans to manufacture automobile parts by 2013 and assemble cars by 2021. King Saud University engineering students, who designed an economical sport utility vehicle called the Ghazel, bolstered those plans with a tangible vehicle ready for production.

Saudi economic analysts are optimistic that automobile manufacturing in the kingdom will help reduce the economy’s reliance on oil exports. Yet roadblocks persist. Already the goal to manufacture car parts next year is in jeopardy as infrastructure and a trained labor pool are not in place. It begs the question of whether Saudi Arabia can pull off a massive undertaking within its stated timetable or even come close to it.

“It’s not realistic,” Asaad Jawhar, an economics analyst and professor at Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz University, told The Media Line. Jawhar says manufacturing automobile parts is more likely to get underway within five years.

Saudis love their cars, purchasing an estimated 800,000 in 2011 with an expected 1 million cars to be bought annually by 2020. The Petroleum and Minerals Ministry and the Commerce and Industry Ministry are investing in research and development, design, vehicle assembly and infrastructure to create enough exports to help the kingdom wean itself from oil revenues.

The ministries initiated the National Industrial Clusters Development Program to help achieve those diversification goals by focusing on five industries: automobile manufacturing, solar energy, plastics, home appliances and minerals processing.

The most ambitious challenge is building cars.

Fayez Al-Sharef, chemical project director for Saudi Aramco, told Bloomberg News in October that he expects the nascent Saudi automotive industry to eventually create 100,000 jobs and produce a half-million cars every year.

If the vision of self-sufficiency through diversification sounds familiar, it’s because Saudi Arabia has been down that road before and failed.

Saudi Arabia has been looking since the 1970s for the magic export product that will minimize its dependency on oil. The government implemented an ambitious plan to develop its agricultural industry to become self-sustaining and provide every Saudi household with food grown within its borders.

Production of wheat and rice rose steadily, but so did the expensive proposition of building irrigation systems to bring groundwater to the crops. Between 1984 and 2000, Saudi Arabia spent an astronomical $83.6 billion to irrigate crops and build agricultural infrastructure. The project cost more than twice it would have to import foodstuff, according to the School of Oriental and African Studies at King’s College London.

However, the 1991 Gulf War put a severe strain on the Saudi budget and groundwater – its availability in the desert always an issue – was increasingly difficult to bring to the surface. Efforts to maintain irrigation of 1.12 million hectares, the level irrigated in 2000, is almost an impossible task. The project could not be sustained.

“The most important thing was not to rely heavily on oil, but to rely on agriculture and they (Saudi government) failed in agriculture,” Jawhar says. “And now they are trying to find another way of transforming technology.”

There are signs that creating an automotive industry could work. During the third quarter of 2011, non-oil exports rose by 34 percent, mostly in petrochemicals and plastics, according to the Saudi General Statistics Department. China was the biggest consumer of these products.

Didier J. Vigouroux, vice-president of the Automotive Cluster for the National Industrial Clusters Development Program, told The Media Line that a Saudi automotive industry is capable of matching petrochemicals and plastics as viable exports.

“No one is thinking of giving up oil and gas, but to diversify from oil and gas,” Vigouroux says. “And petrochemicals are a logical continuation. New industries like automobile manufacturing would target the success of petrochemicals and plastics as a goal.”

The brightening picture in exports lays the foundation for developing parts manufacturing plants and ultimately automotive assembly. Isuzu Motors Ltd. has an assembly plant in Dammam for medium- and heavy-duty trucks. The plant is expected to begin this year to produce about 25,000 vehicles annually for export to Asia.

Vigouroux says any timetable to bring other automobile assembly plants online is flexible.

“The only true assembly plant project in Saudi Arabia is the Isuzu plant, but as far as developing other plants we are still talking to certain companies,” he says.

Following its unveiling of the Ghazal sport utility vehicle, King Saud University inked an agreement with the South Korean engineering company Digm Automotive Technology to develop a car priced under $10,000. Saudi Arabia would export the car to neighboring Gulf countries and North Africa.

Jawhar says that producing inexpensive cars makes sense. “Saudi Arabia should approach this step-by-step like Hyundai. They can succeed if they model after Korea. Korea produced small and bad cars at first, but is now doing well,” he says. “By first producing [cheap] cars efficiently, they then build an institution.”

He notes, however, that exporting the Ghazal, or a similar inexpensive automobile, would not be competitive in foreign markets, but sell better domestically. “Perhaps there’s a market in Africa, but even there I’m not sure.”

However, a slow start to get the fledgling industry out of the gate may not only scuttle the 2021 timetable for automobile production but also doom Saudi Arabia’s diversification plans.

While the Saudi government is financing production and logistics facilities through 20-year loans in the remote regions of Najran and Tabuk, the question remains whether employers can find competent Saudi labor. The government’s Nitaqat program requires that companies with more than 3,000 employees must employ Saudis for 30 percent of its workforce.

A Saudi engineering consultant, who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak for his client, told The Media Line that it would be difficult to fill factory jobs with Saudis.

“With Nitaqat, assembly plants will have to fill unskilled labor positions with Saudis and I don’t see that happening,” he says. “Which brings us back to how we always do things, and that’s hiring cheap foreign labor.”

Jawhar says finding Saudis in the skilled labor market is another story. “The world doesn’t know that Saudis are learning fast,” he says. “Saudis between 20- and 25-years-old with engineering education will be producing great cars with high technology 20 years from now.”

Vigouroux agrees. “The right perspective to put on diversification is the significant desire to create employment for young Saudis coming out of universities,” he says. “This means creating new curriculum and the right kinds of training and work ethic.”

But Vigouroux acknowledged that for 2012 Saudi Arabia’s automotive manufacturing infrastructure is minimal, although the know-how for developing automotive zones is available. “We are addressing investment issues and there some impressive botanical parks in Yanbu and Jubail where there is already an expertise for mapping and running industrial cities.”

The key to overcoming infrastructure and labor issues is better cooperation between agencies. Jawhar observed that a successful automotive industry depends on two groups that historically have done a poor job developing marketable exports: the government and private business.

“If the government heads this they will fail and the private sector has not taken [automotive manufacturing] seriously,” Jawhar says. “It’s a matter of trust between the two sectors that determines the outcome.”

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The 2011 curtain on the ongoing political drama in Washington came down on Friday as President Barack Obama signed a bill extending payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits for two months, and urged Congress “to keep working without drama” to extend them through 2012 when it returns in January.

Citing the extension as “some good news, just in the nick of time for the holidays,” President Obama said, “This continues to be a make-or-break moment for the middle class in this country, and we’re going to have to roll up our sleeves together — Democrats and Republicans — to make sure that the economy is growing, and to make sure that more jobs are created.”

President Obama addressed journalists in the Brady press briefing room as helicopter engines could be heard revving on the South Lawn for the president as he left immediately for his holiday break in Hawaii.

Earlier the final chapter of the drama in Washington started when Republicans in the House of Representatives labeled the two-month extension a gimmick, after the Senate including Republicans had voted the bill with a thumping majority of 85 votes.

The Republican-controlled House voted 229-193 with no Democratic support to reject the two-month bipartisan Senate measure and called for a yearlong extension of the tax cut.

The House Republicans were forced to back down on their demands for a longer extension under pressure from the public and within their party when the Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky implored House Speaker John Boehner to accept the deal that McConnell had stuck last week with Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid.

The tensions of the drama fizzled out early Friday as first the Senate and then the House of Representatives rapidly approved a compromise to extend the tax cut for two months.

“Thank you, guys. Aloha,” Obama said as he left the briefing room to depart for Hawaii where his wife, Michelle Obama, and their daughters Malia and Sasha have been since last weekend, while he remained in Washington struggling with Congress over extending the payroll-tax cut.

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Tel Aviv, Israel David Rosenberg / The Med – Countries outside the Arab Spring and looking in have a lot to contribute to the region’s progress to democracy, but they should be aware of the limits of their ability to predict how it will all end, much less to steer events.

That was the message of four speakers addressing the issue “The New Middle East: A Dream or a Nightmare?” at the Globes Business conference in Tel Aviv on Sunday.

The turmoil that has swept through the region is driven principally by domestic forces and issues, but outside powers ranging from the West, to Israel and Turkey and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have a role to play in fostering democracy and economic development.

“The West has a moral and strategic role to play, but so does Israel,” said Ghanem Nuseiba, the founder and director of Cornerstone Global Associates, a London-based strategy and management consulting firm. He said the key for ensuring that the Arab Spring created democratic societies is by ensuring economic development.

Calls for freedom and democracy have captured the world’s attention, but the grievances that spurred rebellion in Egypt and elsewhere were rooted in poverty and unemployment. While the Arab world has a way to go to evolving high technology economies, it can learn from Israel’s experience. “The Arab world sees how Israel has used technology to develop its economy,” Nuseiba said.

The U.S. sees its mission in facing the challenges of the Arab Spring in both fostering economic growth and democracy, said Dan Shapiro, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, at the conference. He admitted that there was no certainty that the forces of democracy would prevail, but insisted that helping to bring down autocrats – even those who had been reliable allies of the West – is in America’s best interest.

The region’s dictators had justified their rule as a choice between the stability they imposed and progress. “Today the real choice is between reform and unrest,” Shapiro said.

“The bottom line is that change in the Middle East and North Africa contain within it both risks and opportunities,” he said. “If these changes lead to true democracy… they can very much be in America’s national interest. But political transitions can be unstable and volatile – and they can be hijacked.”

Nevertheless, the U.S. is undertaking direct economic assistance to Egypt and Tunisia, the two countries where regime transition is furthest along. The White House is working with Congress to create enterprise funds for new businesses and offer political risk insurance through the government’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation. It is encouraging international agencies like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to help, too, he said.

Shapiro said turned Nuseiba’s formula around, contending that democratic rule would not only create governments more favorable to the West and to Israel but foster economic development. “Democracies make for strong and stable partners, they trade more and they innovate more,” he said. “They channel people’s energy away from extremism and toward political and civic engagement.”

Shapiro reiterated Washington’s view that Islamic parties cannot be kept out of the democratic process, but they have to respect certain values – rejecting violence, respecting the rule of law, freedom of speech and the rights of women and minorities. “We will judge the political actors in these countries not by what they say but what they do,” he said.

“We must try to seize the opportunities, but we must undertake this with humility … the Arab future will be decided by the Arabs,” he said.

Turkey was redirecting its trade and diplomacy toward the Middle East even before the Arab Spring erupted, but Yasar Yakis, a former Turkish foreign minister, warned that Ankara’s ability to influence events is constrained by its history. It stood aloof from the Middle East for some 80 years, so it does not have the expertise and experience that the West has in the region, even if Turks themselves better understand the Arab “mentality.”

Moreover, the Arab world remembers Turkish rule from the Ottoman period “negatively” and is wary of any sign that Ankara is trying to wield too much influence. “Arab countries do not like interference from others in Arab affairs and Turkish interference is [regarded as] more sensitive than from other non-Arab countries,” Yakis said.

He acknowledged that the West faces a difficult dilemma of choosing between supporting old regimes that violate human rights and letting potentially hostile Islamist governments come to power through elections. But, Yakis said the West should come down on the side of change, agreeing with Shapiro that in the long run democracies are more likely to be stable, interfere less with their neighbors and, as open societies, become freer and more tolerant.

“If elections in the Arab Spring comply with the minimum standards of modern democracy, it would not be fair to ignore the results,” he said. “Ignoring them would harm the leverage of the international community over these countries.”

Israel Elad-Altman, a senior fellow at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at Israel’s Herzilya Interdisciplinary Center, discounted the influence Turkey has as a role model of a country that has remained democratic and become increasingly prosperous economically under the rule of the Islamist Justice and Development Party.

“Many people say the Arab countries should follow the Turkish example,” he said. “But their leading party isn’t really Islamist …Turkey has been secularizing for the last 80 years. Islam remains strong in the countryside, but secularism is strong, too. That hasn’t been the case in the Arab countries.”

Elad-Altman gave a more pessimistic outlook on the Arab Spring, saying that Islamist parties are unlikely to moderate their anti-Western and anti-Israel stances if they come to power. He said he foresees an ideological debate that pits those saying that the goals of decades of struggle should never be jettisoned against those who say the imperatives of consolidating rule and the economy demand compromises, such as encouraging Western tourism.

“It’s an open question which of these approaches will prevail, but I doubt we’ll see major ideological concessions,” he said.

On the positive side, he said, the Arab Spring has strengthened the GCC, which has shifted from a passive political role into taking an assertive stance that is counterbalancing the influence of Iran.

Another positive outcome is the weakening of Iran’s influence. The Shiite state had hoped to exploit the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq later this month to assert to its influence on its neighbor, creating a zone influence stretching across the region to President Bashar Al-Assad’s Syria and Hizbullah-dominated Lebanon and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

But the unrest in Syria, now in its ninth month and showing no signs of letting up, has forced Iran to moderate its ambitions as it tries to shore up its ally in Damascus. “The Arab Spring has deal a major blow to the axis of resistance,” Elad-Altman said.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – A federal judge’s decision this week to block part of a tough Alabama law against illegal immigration is casting doubt on whether the law will survive a court challenge.

A judge issued a temporary restraining order against part of the law that would prevent illegal aliens from obtaining home registrations on their mobile homes.

Thousands of Hispanic people were threatening to leave the state as soon as this weekend if the judge had ruled in favor of the state law.

The law that created the uproar is Alabama’s HB 56, which prohibits “business transactions” between the state and anyone unable to provide documentation of their citizenship or legal immigration status. It also allows police to check the immigration status of anyone stopped for a traffic violation.

Section 30 of the law requires mobile home owners to prove their lawful citizenship or residency status before they can renew their mobile home tags.

“This application of Alabama’s draconian anti-immigrant law threatens to throw families into the street,” said Mary Bauer, legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “It’s a flagrant violation of the Fair Housing Act and the United States Constitution.”

The temporary restraining order gives mobile home owners time to register their manufactured housing before the state’s Nov. 30 deadline.

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson based the order on his finding that the entire HB 56 law is likely to be overturned in a lawsuit filed against it by civil rights groups.

The ruling represented the second setback in less than a week for state efforts to keep out illegal immigrants.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit to block enforcement of Utah’s tough anti-immigrant law that authorizes local police to check the immigration status of anyone stopped for traffic offenses or as suspects in crimes. The police can arrest illegal immigrants.

The Utah law is modeled on an Arizona law that the Justice Department also is trying to overturn in federal court.

“A patchwork of immigration laws is not the answer and will only create further problems in our immigration system,” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement. “The federal government is the chief enforcer of immigration laws … it is clearly unconstitutional for a state to set its own immigration policy.”

Alabama Sen. Scott Beason and Rep. Micky Hammon, Republican co-sponsors of HB 56, said they were trying to drive illegal immigrants out of the state with HB 56. They denied it was a racist law targeted at Hispanics.

A provision in the law intended to avoid any image of racism forbids racial profiling when state officials refuse service to illegal immigrants.

“I would not have supported the bill if that language had not been there,” Hammon testified during the hearing this week on the temporary restraining order.

Other state lawmakers are having second thoughts about HB 56, even some who voted for it when it was approved in June. All but one of the state legislature’s Republicans voted for the law.

If Hispanic residents had fulfilled their threat to leave the state this weekend, they would have joined thousands of others who already left soon after the statute took effect in September.

Their exodus has caused a shortage of low-income workers for agricultural, cleaning and other jobs.

Some employers with state contracts have expressed concern they could be convicted of felonies if they inadvertently hire an illegal immigrant.

Six Alabama Republicans have suggested in the past week that the legislature revise HB 56. Even Gov. Robert Bentley, who was one of the law’s strongest supporters, told a group of business leaders this month that HB 56 is “very complicated” and needs to be simplified.

The law’s supporters suffered an embarrassment recently after an executive from German auto manufacturer Mercedes Benz was stopped for a routine traffic violation. He was visiting the company’s large plant, which has helped support the statewide economy and attracted other automakers to build in Alabama.

Because he was unable to prove his citizenship or legal residency, he was arrested until confusion over his right to be in the United States could be cleared up.

The incident helped to fuel rhetoric of civil rights groups trying to overturn HB 56 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

“Once again, Alabama’s anti-immigrant, anti-Latino law requires us to resort to the courts to force the state to respect the most basic of civil rights” said Justin Cox, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project. “Alabama should cut its losses now and repeal this hateful law.”

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United States (The Media Line) – Tender toward Israel, tough on Obama and toughest of all on Iran.

That was the tone of the Republican presidential debate over the weekend – the first one devoted to foreign policy – but analysts said no one should expect a revolution in Middle East policy at the White House if any of the eight candidates succeeds in beating Barack Obama in general elections a year from now.

“It’s safe to say that a Romney or Caine presidency will attack issues differently and will be more inclined to be hawkish on the Iranian issue and less inclined to pressure Israel on the Palestinian issue. But you can only say more or less inclined, because there are so many variables,” Jonathan Rynhold, who is writing a book on the Arab-Israel dispute in American political culture, told The Media Line.

With Obama’s prospects for re-election dimmed by American’s weak economy and high unemployment, the Republicans stand a good chance of capturing the White House in 2012. Over the last months, the Gallup Poll and others have found Obama losing to whoever the Republicans chose as their candidate in next year’s elections, an unusually poor standing for an incumbent president.

But even as GOP candidates attack the president for his stands toward Israel, Iran and the Arab Spring, opinion polls show that Americans broadly support the president on foreign policy issues. Another Gallup Poll released two days before the Republican debate showed 49% of Americans approve Obama’s handling of foreign affairs against 44% disapproving, giving him especially high markets for the war on terrorism and the withdrawal from Iraq.

But that didn’t stop the candidates from attacking the president on the two lightning-rod issues in the Middle East – Israel and the Palestinians and Iran’s nuclear program.

Michele Bachmann said developments in the Middle East are setting the stage for nuclear war against Israel. Iran is working with countries like Syria and groups like the Palestinian Hamas movement, the Minnesota congresswoman asserted, concluding that “the table is being set for worldwide nuclear war against Israel.”

On Iran, the candidates competed with one another to expressed disdain for Obama’s policies, calling for tougher sanctions against Iran and in some cases going so far as to urge regime change. Keeping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons would merit a military strike, preferably by Israel and, if not, then by the U.S.

“One thing you can know is if we elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. If you elect me as the next president, they will not have a nuclear weapon,” said

Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and the current front-runner for the Republican nomination.

Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the House of who has re-emerged as a serious contender after a downturn in the polls, declared he would launch covert operations against Iran. “There are a number of ways to be smart about Iran, and a few ways to be stupid. The [Obama] administration skipped all the ways to be smart.”

Running against the tide, Ron Paul, the Texas a congressman who has staked out a Quixotic position in the Republican race as an isolationist, reiterated his stance he wanted no part in a military strike. “It’s not worthwhile to go to war,” he said.

Seyed Mohammad Marandi, associate professor in North American Studies at the University of Tehran, expressed skepticism that much would change toward Iran in a Republican administration, noting that Obama had begun his term with what many Iranian perceived as a more conciliatory stance toward their country that gradually grew chillier.

“It really doesn’t matter who is in the White House when it come to Iran all that much. the Iranians believe that the U.S. in general is not a rational player and that when it comes to Iran and the Middle East at large the U.S. takes a very unreasonable position,” Marandi told The Media Line.

On Israel, the candidates were uniformly pro-Israel. Indeed, when Texas Governor Rick Perry sought to demonstrate his credentials as a fiscal hawk by saying he would insist that countries getting U.S. foreign aid would have to make their case for assistance, he was forced to make a post-debate “clarification” by e-mail.

Asked if the foreign aid test would include Israel, Perry answered “absolutely,” although he predicted that Israel would pass. But, seeking to extinguish any hint that Israel might be left with less than the $3 billion in annual military aid it now received, the e-mail elaborated: “Gov. Perry recognizes Israel as a unique and vital political and economic partner for the United States in the Middle East … My bet is that we would be funding them at some substantial level.”

On the Arab Spring – an issue that has created deep policy dilemma for the Obama White House as it tries to balance support for democracies in the region with U.S. economic and military interests – the Republican candidates had very little to say.

Rami G. Khouri, who writes a column for Beirut’s Daily Star newspaper, suggested in a commentary over the weekend that Americans are confused by developments in the region that have seen staunch American allies ousted from power by opposition leaders he said favor American values.

“The first level of American perplexity is how to respond to Arabs who are willing to risk their lives for freedom and democracy. There is no clear consensus on this across the U.S.,” he said. “Americans instinctively are attracted to support subjugated people who fight for their freedom, whether in Kosovo or Benghazi; on the other hand, free Arabs are likely to express views, make demands or adopt policies that go against prevailing U.S. positions.”

Rynhold, who is also a senior research at the Begin-Sadat Center at Israel’s Bar Ilan University, said the candidates’ emphatic and across-the-board support for Israel reflects the growing centrality of the Jewish state among Republicans, a trend he said went beyond Zionist Evangelical Christians and extended to much of the party’s base.

In the end, however, he said a Republican sitting in the White House with four years in front of him or her until the next elections would be influenced by policy advisers and changing conditions than by past campaign promises. He pointed to George W. Bush’s softening line on Iran after the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate determined that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program and to Obama’s warming toward Israel over the past year.

“They [Republican presidents] will look at every situation that comes up in a certain manner that is more hawkish,” he said. “It doesn’t mean they will come into office and fire off a missile the next day. They will look at things differently and assess them differently.”

Marandi of Tehran University said that the Middle East policy options for whoever occupies the White House from 2013 because the financial crisis in Europe and the Arab Spring “on the whole works to the disadvantage of the U.S. and therefore to the advantage of Iran,” he said. “The American position will be much weaker by the time a new president comes to office or Obama is re-elected.”

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London, England, United Kingdom (AHN) – British Prime Minister David Cameron was scheduled to announce on Monday the creation of thousands of new jobs to jump start the British economy, which is in danger of falling into a double dip recession.

The new jobs will come from more than 100 projects to be financed by $1.5 billion (₤1 billion) in public money. The spending is expected to be matched by the private sector, particularly those in the telecommunications, services, hospitality, electronics and automotive industries.

Among the infrastructure projects the joint government-private sector initiative is expected to launch is the super-fast broadband project for rural areas. The $450-million (₤300-million) project aims to make available fiber broadband to rural Britain by the end of 2014. The project would boost the number of British homes and offices with access to fiber broadband by the end of 2014 to 17 million from the current 6 million.

Other projects under the pipeline include the construction of two new power stations in Yorkshire which would create 1,000 new jobs and enough energy to light more than two million residences.

Over the weekend, 100 British economists asked the coalition government to have a Plan B to save jobs in the country.

The economists criticized Chancellor George Osborne for sticking to his austerity program, which they blame for the threat of a double dip inflation over Britain just three years after the 2008 global financial crisis from which the country has yet to recover.

The economists pushed for an end to spending cuts and sought another round of quantitative easing to finance a Green New Deal to create thousands of new jobs.

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Suwon, South Korea (AHN) – The brewing legal battle between Samsung Electronics and Apple worsened over the weekend as the South Korean firm filed lawsuits in Japan and Australia to prevent the sales of Apple’s iPhone 4S.

That is on top of an injunction sought by Samsung to prevent the sale of the iPad 2 and iPhone 4 in Japan over patent infringement claims. It is Samsung’s way to get back at Apple, which won injunctions against the launch of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia, Germany and other countries.

Samsung also filed suits in France and Italy to ban the sales of iPhone 4S in those countries.

Analysts observe the legal tussle between the erstwhile business partners is lasting longer and has become more extensive than original expectations, but believe the two tech giants will eventually settle.

Despite the issuance last week by Australian Federal Court Justice Annabelle Bennett of a temporary ban on the sale of the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Australians went around the ban by ordering the gadget online.

Among the online retailers that offer the device to Australians are eBay, MobiCity.com.au, Expansys, Technrific and dMavo. These firms order their stocks from Hong Kong and deliver the orders to Australians. Some even offer a 12-month Australian warranty.

A patent expert said that Bennett failed to take into consideration the global consumer economy so the injunction she issued against Samsung has no practical value, except for local retailers or resellers which have been threatened by Apple with lawsuits if they sell the Galaxy Tab 10.1 to locals.

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Athens, Greece (AHN) – Despite drastically cutting its national budgets for 2011 and 2012, Greece will still miss the targets set by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Greece, which adopted the 2012 draft budget on Sunday, blamed the failure to the worsening recession.

Greece’s economy shrank by 5.5 percent this year. It is higher than the May projection of 3.8 percent negative growth rate.

Athens projects its 2011 budget deficit to reach 8.5 percent of gross domestic product, down from 10.5 percent in 2010 but still short of the 7.6 percent IMF and EU target.

The country is waiting for a report from the IMF, EU and European Central Bank inspectors in Athens if Greece would qualify for another $10.9 billion (€8 billion) bailout for the embattled government to avoid going bankrupt and entering into a default.

To qualify for the bailout, the Greek government promised to fire more public workers as part of an $8.8 billion (€6.8 billion) austerity package. Despite such drastic measures expected to incur the ire of Greek public unions, the country would still cut its budget deficit to 6.8 percent of GDP, still slightly below the 6.5 percent target set by the IMF, EU and ECB.

Notwithstanding the shortfall, the inspectors from the three international agencies agreed to the 2012 Greek budget.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou said important decisions needed to be taken on a European level. He told ministers that Greece needs to prove to inspectors that it is dedicated to reach the goals set.

The cost-cutting measures, however, would need parliamentary approval, which would mean another battle to win for Papandreou. Once it gains parliamentary approval, Greece will announce by December who of the 30,000 public employees will suffer pay cuts, be forced to retire early or be laid-off.

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United States (AHN) – Emirates and Virgin America airlines has been found to give the best in-flight passenger experience among all global airline carriers today.

Emirates Airline topped the best overall passenger experience, based on an online survey conducted by the Airline Passenger Experience Association. Its’ 2011 Passenger Choice Awards awarded Emirates the top rank among airlines with a fleet of more than 50 planes outfitted with in-flight entertainment, while Virgin America led those with a fleet of less than 50 planes.

The awards survey had 14 categories, where both airlines lorded in most of them, including best in their respective regions and best in-flight video and ground experience for Virgin America.

V Australia, Virgin America’s sister airline, won for the best user interface in the skies, while Oman Air took the best in-flight connectivity award. Oman Air is the first global airline offering long-haul broadband.

For overall best cabin ambiance, American carrier JetBlue got the title, while the best single achievement in passenger experience went to Air New Zealand, for the fold-flat economy ‘Skycouch’ seats it introduced last year.

The awards were voted on only by the traveling public, in association with Nielsen.

The winners of the 2011 Passenger Choice Awards are:

• Best Overall Passenger Experience (Over 50 IFE EQUIPPED IN FLEET) – Emirates
• Best Overall Passenger Experience (Up to 50 IFE EQUIPPED IN FLEET) – Virgin America
• Best in Region: Africa – South African Airways
• Best in Region: Americas – Virgin America
• Best in Region: Asia and Australasia – V Australia
• Best in Region: Europe – Virgin Atlantic
• Best in Region: Middle East – Emirates
• Best Inflight Publication – Avianca
• Best IFE User Interface – V Australia
• Best Inflight Connectivity & Communications – Oman Air
• Best Inflight Video – Virgin America
• Best Cabin Ambiance – JetBlue
• Best Food & Beverage in conjunction with IFSA – V Australia
• Best Ground Experience – Virgin America

Meanwhile, Virgin America announced it will be introducing a new in-flight entertainment system, called Red, in late 2012. The airline will partner with Lufthansa Systems, whose BoardConnect platform will replace the traditional hard-wired arrangement with a WiFi-based network. Passengers will be able to access entertainment via a seat-back screen, at the same time an option to use their personal electronic devices.

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