The Weather Report #8

weather report 8 (30.10-06.11)

this week Baghdad is going to be rain all week. stay inside. not really! it’s going to be bright sunshine and 26C (77F) to 32C (90F). humidity is up to 31% in some places, which is positively tropical by desert standards. also if you’re popping into Baghdad and you fancy a meet-up why not head on over to GDG Baghdad! you’d be most welcome, you can check them out here. with over 1000 members and an event coming up soon, you’d be crazy not to drop on in on your way past!

GDG - in association with Human Auction. not really.

ASIA - AFGHANISTAN:
so, Afghanistan. been a while. probably wondering why, it isn’t like the place isn’t full of hilarious news. anyway, you know Kabul? the place we bombed back to the palaeolithic era over who got to keep the heroin? (if not, spoiler: we did). anyway, out of all the things that the Glorious West thought Kabul might need - and there are a few - someone, somewhere, who has never met a person who even does their own shopping, let alone anything remotely war-torn thought “why not rip-off a Mexican idea”? only we didn’t send a load of Afghanistan’s best artists - there must be someone left, surely? - to paint the houses. we sent a guy probably called Abdul (and before anyone gets too excited, it’s the most common name. we were surprised, we thought it would be one of various spellings for مُحَمَّد‎). anyway, Adbul or whatever isn’t very good at painting, and he has shitty paints, so instead of looking like this, which is awesome, it looks like this. everyone agreed though that it was a nice gesture for those “poor Afghan people”. and then they moved to ban WhatsApp. now it’s back to “those fucking Afghans” and business as usual. Abdul’s progress is for now, unknown. mainly because we don’t care anymore.

the locals weren’t convinced, but that didn’t stop Abdul

EUROPE - BRITAIN: you know when Theresa May was facing near-certain political assassination in Weather Report #4? well they obviously couldn’t even organise a bumming in a barracks over at tory HQ and now Darth Smarm has shown her true Sith form. she’s busy lining-up and shooting them in their political skulls. first, she did over the Whip. the Whip! that takes some manoeuvring. Chris Pincher was replaced by Gavin “Babyface Assassin” Williamson. next day Darth Smarm took out the Defence Secretary. Sir Michael vehemently denies the allegations, and you all know what that means. OH-HO! it was over a potential knee brushing, which is not ok, but the tories are known for pig-fucking, suspenders, amyl-nitrate and wearing young boys like gloves, so… anyway, guess who got his job? it’s almost like some assassin planned it. next, Damian Green, May's Deputy no less - who took one to the brain over extreme porn "left" on his commons computer. which if it were true would be sloppy at best. it isn’t though, but that won’t matter by the time anyone finds out. next up: Dan Poulter (bang) Daniel Kawczynski (bang) and Peter Crabb (and bang) - all dead in the water. the chief whip is now Julian Smith (Williamson’s deputy, of course) and his job has gone to Esther McVey, who lost her seat in 2015 and happened to be looking for a job anyway. which like everything else since the coughing debacle is bloody handy.

Reservoir Tories? Tory Dogs?

MIDDLE EAST - SAUDI ARABIA: Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman definitely didn’t (he totally did) kill Prince Mansour bin Muqrin - coincidentally son of former Crown Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz - and several officials in a move obviously completely removed from the arrests several hours later of 11 Princes, four ministers and “dozens” (details are hazy) of ex-ministers, including billionaire businessman Prince Alwaleed bin Talal this past week. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is calling it “anti-corruption” measures as he, at the head of his own investigation, removes what look suspiciously like barriers between him and complete autocratic control of the oil-rich nation, in an unprecedented definitely not consolidatory power-play. he also wants to generate funds for a sovereign wealth fund by partially privatising the state oil company, Saudi Aramco. who the buyers might be is still unclear, but chances are their name is going to be preceded by the title Crown Prince. the Donald is impressed though, stuck in an endless game of Jai Alai between "BECAUSE TERROR!" and "BECAUSE GUNMAN!" himself, it’s reassuring to see some dictators can still get the job done.

Saudi Arabia (above left) - looks nothing like ISIS (above right). unless you’re a Psychopath. or a Terrorist.

POOR PEOPLE - EVERYWHERE: 350 million people don’t exist. well, not officially. according to United Nations education agency, Unesco, the poorest people everywhere are beyond the reaches of any census or authority. and they’re all over the place. they include people who come from: remote villages, unregistered births, illegal migrants, sprawling slums, shifting & excluded populations, nomads, unwanted refugees, the homeless… literally the depths of human depravity and greed now leave way too many people outside any authority or official society. so who is responsible for people who don't even appear in national figures? and if no one is responsible for them, then whom are these people responsible to? Last month, UN agency, Unicef, reported “nearly zero progress" in the past decade on improving access to school in the poorest countries. and recently released Unesco figures peg the number (to the nearest million) of 264. million. children. without any access to primary or secondary school education. if you can’t go to school, is it your fault you are ignorant? mostly this kind of thing is ignored because, well, it isn’t a lot of fun. also, that’s how you control populations, especially if they have a load of cool stuff we like. rare earth minerals, diamonds, gold, drugs, that kind of thing. so, sorry kids, but we want instant access to the internet so you’re going to have to make do. but don’t go breaking laws you didn’t even know about - then you’ll exist. for as long as someone deems to punish you, then you’ll be back to not existing.

don’t like something?

ASIA - PAKISTAN:
Ex-PM Nawaz Sharif’s corruption trials (2 of them) were adjourned. he and his family stand accused of a range of colourful white-collar crimes relating to a string of London-based properties they aren’t officially supposed to have. They all deny any wrongdoing (there go the innocent with the strenuous denials again) insisting the charges are politically motivated. despite these baseless allegations, Sharif did resigned as prime minister in July. well kind of - the Supreme Court disqualified him over undeclared income. so he didn’t really have a choice. if we are to believe Mr Sharif, ALL these MANY allegations are politically motivated. these allegations stem from the 2016 panama papers, which showed three of Sharif’s children owned assets and offshore companies “omitted” from the family wealth statement. funds were transferred to these companies and used to buy property in Mayfair and along Park Lane - because everyone knows they are the two most valuable Monopoly squares. these Panama Paper documents seemed to point to his daughter, Maryam, being the owner/beneficiary. so to prove her honesty and good character she produced a document fingering her brother, but that turned out to be a fake. how did the authorities know? well, the font they used was calibri, and was released in 2007, whereas the corroborating document was dated 2006. Whoops! but even so, the Sharif’s are definitely telling the truth. odds-on they get away with it too.

Pakistan - where #1 is #1. what are you #1 at?

have a sunny week,
HA

@HUMANAUCTION