September 14th, 2010 by Oman Views
Welcome to Oman Views – From A Foreigner’s Perspective.
They call me Miz J, as in “M” for Mysterious. I’m the culprit that this website came to be.
I have other accomplices – all foreigners in Oman. They would like to share with you different perspectives of their stay in the Sultanate of Oman.
September 17th, 2010 by Oman Views
Oman (pronounced /oʊˈmɑːn/ oh-MAHN; Arabic: عمان ʻUmān), officially the Sultanate of Oman (Arabic: سلطنة عمان Salṭanat ʻUmān), is an Arab country in southwest Asia on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It borders the United Arab Emirates on the northwest, Saudi Arabia on the west and Yemen on the southwest. The coast is formed by the Arabian Sea on the southeast and the Gulf of Oman on the northeast.
The country also contains Madha and Musandam, two exclaves on the Gulf of Oman, south of the Strait of Hormuz and surrounded by the United Arab Emirates on the land side. With its 2,800,000 inhabitants, 700,000 of which non-nationals, on an area of 310,000 km2, Oman has a very low population density of less than 10 inh/km2.
Its capital is Muscat, its currency the Rial. The Omanis’ Sultan is Qaboos bin Said Al Said, their Chancellor Fahad bin Mahmood Al Said. Oman drives on the right. The local time all-year round is UTC+4.
By Wikipedia
September 20th, 2010 by Oman Views
Qaboos bin Said Al Said (Arabic: قابوس بن سعيد آل سعيد; Qābūs ibn Sa’īd Āl Sa’īd; born 18 November 1940 in Salalah) is the Sultan of Oman, the first since the country gained independence. He rose to power after overthrowing his father, Sa‘id ibn Taymur, in a palace coup in 1970. He is the 14th descendant of the Al Bu Sa’idi dynasty.
Early Life
Sultan Qaboos ibn Sa‘id was born in Salalah in Dhofar on 18 November 1940. He is the only son of Sultan Said bin Taimur and princess Mazoon al-Mashani. He is one of the 8th generation of the Al Bu Sa‘idi dynasty. He received his primary and secondary education in Salalah and at Pune, in India, and was sent to a private educational establishment in England at age sixteen. At 20 he entered the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. After graduating from Sandhurst, he joined a British Infantry regiment, The Cameronians, and served in the 1st Battalion in Germany for one year. He also held a staff appointment with the British Army.
After his military service, Sultan Qaboos studied local government subjects in England and, after a world tour, returned home to Salalah where he studied Islam and the history of his country. Sultan Qaboos ibn Sa‘id is a Muslim of the Ibadi school of jurisprudence, which has traditionally ruled Oman. A religious liberal, he has financed the construction or maintenance of a number of mosques, notably the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, as well as the holy places of other religions.
In 1976 Qaboos ibn Sa‘id married his cousin, Kamila, née Sayyidah Nawwal bint Tariq (born 1951), daughter of HH Sayyid Tariq ibn Taymur, but the marriage soon ended in divorce.
Qaboos ibn Sa‘id is an avid fan and promoter of classical music. His 120-member orchestra has a high reputation in the Middle East. The orchestra consists entirely of young Omanis who, since 1986, audition as children and grow up as members of the symphonic ensemble. They play locally and travel abroad with the sultan. Argentine composer Lalo Schifrin was commissioned to compose a work entitled Symphonic Impressions of Oman and is particularly enthusiastic about the pipe organ.
The Sultan’s birthday, 18 November, is celebrated as Oman’s national holiday. The first day of his reign, 23 July, is celebrated as Renaissance Day.
By Wikipedia
February 23rd, 2012 by Oman Views
White House scoffs at Assad’s ‘laughable’ call for Syria referendum
The Obama administration has dismissed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s call for a constitutional referendum in late February as a bad joke.
“It’s actually quite laughable. It makes a mockery of the Syrian revolution,” Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, told reporters aboard Air Force One as President Barack Obama traveled to Wisconsin.
“Promises of reforms have usually been followed by an increase in brutality and have never been delivered upon by this regime since the beginning of the peaceful demonstrations in Syria,” Carney said.
“The fact of the matter is the Assad regime’s days are numbered.”
Assad ordered the referendum to reshape his strife-torn country from its current autocratic rule – Assad and his late father, Hafez al-Assad, have ruled it with an iron hand for four decades – into a multiparty system, news agencies reported earlier.
But Carney signaled no softening in the American line that Assad must go.
“Members of his regime, senior military and civilian leadership, are demonstrating their own lack of faith in the future of Assad by moving assets out of the country, by preparing to send their family out of the country, and it’s clear that Syria’s future will not include Assad,” Carney said. “It’s not a question of if; it’s just a question of when.”
“We are working in a very focused way with an array of international allies and partners who are friends of Syria, friends of the Syrian people, to add to the pressure being brought to bear on Assad, to isolate him further, and to help bring about a peaceful transition to democracy in Syria,” he added.
By Olivier Knox | The Ticket
Olivier Knox is the White House correspondent for Yahoo News.
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February 22nd, 2012 by Oman Views
Thai cops: Iran suspects cavorted with prostitutes
BANGKOK (AP) – The three Iranian men detained for allegedly plotting bomb attacks in Bangkok on Israeli diplomats had more than terror on their minds in Thailand. Police said Friday that they had also cavorted with prostitutes at a beach resort.
The news comes as Thai authorities announced they were searching for two more suspects in the botched bomb plot, including a possible explosives specialist who may have been training the Iranians.
The foiled plan was discovered Tuesday when explosives in the men’s rented house blew up by mistake, forcing them to flee. Two were detained in the Thai capital, and a third was captured Wednesday in neighboring Malaysia as he reportedly tried to return to Iran.
After flying into the southern city of Phuket on Feb. 8, the men moved to Pattaya and stayed there for at least two nights before heading to Bangkok.
Located 45 miles (70 kilometers) southeast of the Thai capital, Pattaya is particularly notorious for its sleazy sex industry and large contingent of prostitutes.
The Iranians hung out with several female sex workers during their stay there, and one of the women was brought to Bangkok to identify the suspects on Thursday, said Lt. Col. Noppon Kuldiloke, a senior immigration police investigator in southern Thailand.
A cellphone image taken by one of the women, published by the Bangkok Post with an article headlined “Suspects partied in Pattaya,” purportedly showed the three Iranians at a Middle Eastern bar or restaurant surrounded by hookah water-pipes, two of them cradling women in their arms.
The men posed for the photo around a low, drink-filled table on which there appeared to be at least one bottle of beer.
The woman who took the image said one of the now-detained suspects, Mohammad Kharzei, had asked her to escort him “because he was not good at speaking English,” according to the Bangkok Post.
By THANYARAT DOKSONE and TODD PITMAN | Associated Press
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February 22nd, 2012 by Oman Views
After Gaddafi, Libya Struggles to Control Armed Militias
As Libya marks the first anniversary of its revolution on Friday, the dozens of well-armed militia groups operating across the vast country have slipped well out of the control of the nascent government in Tripoli, making the country ever more fractured as well as dangerous to ordinary Libyans attempting to adjust to the end of Muammar Gaddafi’s 41-year dictatorship.
That assessment came on Thursday from Amnesty International, whose latest research on the country documents at least 12 Libyans who have died in militia custody since September, allegedly after being beaten, suspended upside down and given electric shocks.
In a chilling 38-page report published on the eve of the anniversary, Amnesty describes a wave of terror and widespread abuse by militia groups, whose members in recent months have dragged hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Libyans from their homes or from roadside checkpoints into makeshift jails on suspicion of being Gaddafi sympathizers or having fought alongside the regime’s forces during the civil war.
Libya should be preparing for wild celebrations on the anniversary of the revolution, which saw scrappy fighters crush one of the world’s longest-serving regimes in just eight months, after drawing NATO allies into the sole Western military intervention of the Arab Spring.
The revolution erupted Feb. 17, 2011, when hundreds of protesters in the eastern city of Benghazi stormed into the streets demanding the end of Gaddafi’s rule – an extraordinarily brave act at the time. The demonstrations spread rapidly, engulfing eastern Libya within weeks, then catapulting the country into all-out civil war once NATO began its bombing campaign in mid-March. The revolution ended in the stunning collapse of the dictatorship in August.
By VIVIENNE WALT | Time.com
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