There is something interesting happening in Saudi Arabia right now. They have instituted something called Saudization, to try to get more Saudis employed where expats (a person working or residing in a country that is not theirs) are now employed. Private companies have been classified into various categories depending upon the percent of Saudis employed. If the company is in an Excellent category, a high percentage of Saudis employed, there is no problem. But if the company is in a red or yellow category, low percentage, there are big problems. The iqamas (long term visa for a foreign national) for the red and yellow companies are not being renewed. All of these expats (thousands) have to be gone by July 3rd. Every day in the paper, businesses are complaining about what will they do without these expat workers (mostly Filipino, Indian and Bangladeshi, I think). Many building projects will have to be delayed because most of these types of workers are affected. Also, bus drivers, workers at date farms, etc, etc. These people have been standing in line for hours in the hot sun every day outside of official offices to get this sorted out so that they can stay. The airports are very congested because you have these expats having to leave in droves, you have the pilgrims coming to Mecca for Umrah and you have lots of Westerners leaving before Ramadan starts in mid-July. There is a countdown going on in the local paper, making it feel like Armageddon is coming.
On another note, I am a newspaper junkie and am enjoying the editorial cartoons, some of which I thought that I would share.
The first one it took me a little while to get. I knew who the character was, Ken knew the symbol on the ball and what he was doing.
It is President Assad pushing chemical weapons past multiple "red lines, Obama's term for unacceptable behavior.
The second one is obvious Obama wanting to reduce nuclear weapons stockpile, and Putin refusing.
This was after the Iranian election and suggesting that the ballot box let the genie out of the magic lamp.
This last one is what they think of the G8 (countries with the 8 largest economies) meeting last week.
I love editorial cartoons! :)
Those are pretty funny
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