December 31st, 2006
9:55 am
Jazar
Executing Saddam raised lots of questions in my mind and made me think about where is this region is heading.
Ruling Iraq is not easy, 40% of the population are blindly loyal to Iran the enemy while 20% are demanding independency in the north, Iraq is a multi-ethnic country and managing to control them all is a difficult thing to do, but did Saddam had the chance to rule Iraq in democracy and peace and he didn’t? As I don’t see this happening even after 3 years of the American occupation.
Saddam is accused of ‘crimes against humanity’ over decades during his time as president of Iraq but what he was actually found guilty in was Dujail incident where less than 200 people died, but taking into consideration the controversy around Saddam and the whole buzz around him is this everything? Are we happy that “justice” was implemented by those who are killing thousands of Iraqis?
Iraq achieved victory in the war against Iran, then occupied Kuwait which brought disasters on Iraq, starting with gulf war in 1990, the 13 years siege and ending with a bloody American/International occupation in 2003 which was led by a wrong-fully motive, the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, while on the other hand Iran has a declared nuclear program and yet is only punched with minor sanctions.
But if Iran is announcing the news that it has the Nuke while Iraq never did and never had any nuclear weapons, then why Iraq was target over those years? Does occupying Kuwait deserve the destruction happened to Iraq over 16 years and even more to come?
Dubai is constantly branding itself as the business hub of the Middle East with struggling attempts to gain a leading position globally through attracting major international players to invest in city and even move their business to Dubai. No doubt the city succeeded to position itself as the leading player in this region and to acquire international corporations and famous buildings in USA & Europe, but does this apply on the media?
One TV is an English-language entertainment TV station based in Dubai that is struggling to compete with MBC Group’s portfolio of English-language entertainment channels; MBC2 & MBC4. Leading TV stations are Saudi, Lebanese, Egyptian & Qatari owned and UAE is still unable to compete with those countries.
Qatar owns AlJazeera, Saudi Arabia owns MBC Group (MBC, AlArabiya, MBC2, MBC4 and MBC3) in addition to Rotana network of entertainment channels, while Lebanon owns two leading TV stations Future TV and LBC, and finally Egyptians with Melody network.
One TV strategy was to liaise itself with Dubai the city, “Dubai home of One” was introduce on the station more often to benefit of Dubai’s awareness among Arabs, and even more the station recently re-branded to “Dubai One”, but is this going to help One TV to enhance its position? Dubai official TV which was so awful re-branded and it’s much better but yet is not able to locate itself on top despite all shows and exclusive rights of major programs.
TV stations in “The Forbes Arabia Top 40 Arab Brands list.”
1. AlJazeera (Qatar)
4. AlArabiya (Saudi Arabia)
14. LBC (Lebanon)
16. Rotana (Saudi Arabia)
17. Future TV (Lebanon)
33. Melody (Egypt)
Creative Agency: DDB, Copenhagen Denmark
Creative Director: Poul Mikkelsen
Art Director/Copywriter/Photographer: Tim Ustrup, Mikkel Møller
Photo Retoucher: Morten Hagstrøm
Creative Agency: Team Y&R, Casablanca
Creative Director: Emmanuel Pagenel
Art Director: Vincent Ferreira
Copywriter: Emmanuel Pagenel
Photographer: Simo Rafai
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