With less than a week until midterm elections, civil rights groups and voting advocacy organisations in several US states have sounded the alarm on what they call voter suppression.

Although allegations of voter suppression are often made during elections, the claims are now more widespread than normal.

During the upcoming midterm elections, voters will decide 39 state and territorial governorships, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in Senate, among others.

Since 2010, at least 24 US states have introduced new measures that place tight restrictions on voting protocol. Most of those states are controlled by Republicans.

In the last eight years, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, 13 states introduced or tightened restrictive voter ID laws, 11 have laws making it harder for citizens to register, seven cut back on early voting opportunities and three moved to make it more difficult to return voting rights to people with criminal convictions.

In most cases, the measures disproportionately affected voters of colour, who are generally considered more likely to vote Democrat than Republican.

Republican supporters of tightening voter restrictions claim that the measures are necessary to prevent voter fraud, but Democrats and other critics point to evidence that suggests voter fraud is rare in the US.

Al Jazeera examines some of the fears voting rights groups have as Americans head to the polls:

Voter applications stalled, rolls purged: Georgia 

In the southern state of Georgia, civil rights groups and advocates have issued a slew of voter suppression accusations.

The accusations are at the centre of the governor’s race, and voting rights advocates tell Al Jazeera that there are concerns over the election’s integrity.

Brian Kemp, Georgia’s secretary of state, is currently running for governor against Stacey Abrams, who hopes to become the nation’s first female African American governor.

As secretary of state, however, Kemp’s office is also in charge of processing voter applications. According to an Associated Press report, his office is stalling 53,000 voter applications, nearly 70 percent of which belong to African Americans.

On Tuesday, Abrams lashed out at Kemp on The View, a daytime talk show. “We know he has disproportionately purged voters of colour, stopped voters of colour, arrested voters of colour,” she said.

“Regardless of his intent, the result is that racial bias has been injected into our system, and that undermines confidence.”

The Brennan Center for Justice says the number of voters “purged” skyrocketed under Kemp, reaching an estimated 1.5 million between the 2012 and 2016 elections. That total is nearly twice the number purged between 2008 and 2012, the group said in a report.

“It doesn’t require a science fiction mind to see how this plays out,” Nse Ufot, executive director of the New Georgia Project, told Al Jazeera.

Ex-felons barred from voting: Florida, Kentucky, Iowa

In nearly every US state, convicted felons are not allowed to vote while in prison. Many also have restrictions on individuals on parole.

Voting rights groups estimate that this affects about six million people and disproportionately affects people of colour. 

Three states – Florida, Kentucky and Iowa – take the restrictions a step further by barring all citizens with a felony conviction from voting for life, unless the right is restored under a certain set of rules. Virginia also has similar rules, but the governor has promised to restore rights on a rolling basis, according to the Brennan Center. 

In Florida, an estimated 1.5 million people who were convicted of felonies will not be able to vote unless they receive a pardon from the state’s governor.

Of that total, it is estimated that roughly one-third are African Americans, leading advocacy groups to lodge allegations that the measure is racist.

The current system was introduced by Governor Rick Scott, who won two gubernatorial races by slim margins and is now running for Senate.

In February, a federal judge ruled that the process by which voting rights are restored violates the US Constitution. An appeals court is not considering the case.  

Meanwhile, Florida residents will have the chance to decide on the issue on November 6.

Among several measures on the ballot is an amendment that, if passed, would automatically restore voting rights for felons, except murderers and sex offenders, once they complete their sentence.

The most recent opinion polls show support for the measure, according to the Sun Sentinel newspaper. The paper notes, however, that a ballot measure requires approval from 60 percent of those who vote on the amendment.

With less than a week until Election Day, the Florida gubernatorial race has boiled down to a neck-and-neck face-off between Democrat Andrew Gillum, who could be Florida’s first black governor, and Republican Ron DeSantis.

Gillum supports the ballot measure on voting rights, while DeSantis opposes it. 

Limiting Native American votes: North Dakota 

In October, state officials introduced a new measure they say was designed to prevent voter fraud in North Dakota.

The new requirement stipulated that voters must have a valid residential address, which presented a problem for thousands of Native Americans living on reservations. Many Native Americans in North Dakota use post office boxes as their official address on the identification cards.

In the lead-up to Election Day, many Native American North Dakotans have scrambled to have their addresses changed on their identification cards in order to be eligible to vote.

In 2012, Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp won a narrow upset victory after drawing strong support from North Dakota’s Native American population.

Given that Heitkamp won by less than 3,000 votes and Native Americans are generally far more likely to vote Democrat, the new measure could have an impact on the upcoming midterm results in the state.

Heitkamp, who is running for election, is trailing her Republican challenger, Kevin Cramer.

On Thursday, a judge denied an emergency request that would have prevented the address requirement from applying to this year’s midterm election. 

The judge conceded that “the litany of problems identified in this new lawsuit were clearly predictable and certain to occur,” but he added that issuing a temporary restraining order was “unwarranted given the importance of avoiding further confusion and chaos on the eve of an election.”

Polling site moved or closed: Kansas 

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Kansas recently objected to the decision of the Ford County Clerk to move Dodge City’s polling site out of the city, which is home to about 13,000 people. 

According to the rights group, the new station is located about a half a mile outside the city limits and not accessible by pavement. There is also no public transportation to the location. 

On Thursday, a federal judge ruled that the city does not have to open an additional polling station before the midterm elections. 

“For the court to insert itself into this process on the eve of the election – by ordering the reopening of the Civic Center either as the only polling location or a second polling location – likely would create more voter confusion than it might cure,” Judge Daniel Crabtree ruled.

“The relief plaintiffs seek is not in the public’s interest.”

According to the ACLU, Kansas has lost more than 100 polling places over the past few years. This comes voter registration numbers grow. The rights group noted that there have been several other complaints of voter suppression in the state, including in Wyandotte County, where one polling site in a neighbourhood with a large Hispanic population, is located in the same building as a police station. 

Kansas is ranked among the worst states for voter rights, according to a number of studies. The state requires a valid government-issued photo id in order to vote. 

The law was championed by Kris Kobach, Kansas’s current secretary of state, and now a candidate in the gubernatorial race. His race against Democrat Laura Kelly is tight, with polls showing the pair in a dead heat. 

The company behind the all-electric Chevy Bolt car is releasing two electric bicycles next year.

General Motors announced Friday that its two commuter-friendly bikes will be “integrated and connected” and one will fold. The other is compact.

Full details on the bike’s motor, battery, frame, and more aren’t out yet, but speculation about the forthcoming electric-assist bicycles has been brewing for years.

Last year, two trademarks with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for “Merge” and “Maven Merge” tipped off eagle-eyed GM fans that an e-bicycle was in the works from the American car maker. 

Back in 2015, the Washington Post wrote about a GM exec hinting at an e-bike service — maybe something like Ford’s GoBike sharing service.

Now we know what those hints were about. But it’s for a consumer product, not a sharing service — though it’s easy to see how the bikes could fit into GM’s car-sharing platform, Maven, one day.

Hannah Parish, GM’s director of urban mobility solutions, said in a phone call this week that the bikes are all about “helping people move around cities in an easier way that fits seamlessly into their lives.”

She said the bikes are primarily about first- and last-mile commuting, hence the folding. You can take the train, fold up the bike, and then pull it out for the last portion of the ride to the office.

The bikes were designed by GM car designers, so they have a car-like feel. They also have rechargeable front and rear LED lights to help assuage worries about safety. Parish said the main reason people say they don’t bike is because they don’t want to get hit by a car. 

The second is getting sweaty while riding. That’s where the electric-assist helps with pedaling.

There’s just one thing missing: the brand name for GM’s new e-bike line. The Merge branding isn’t going to carry over when the bikes come out in 2019. The motor is GM, but the bikes are brandless. Cue GM’s super-promotional “E-Bike Brand Challenge.” 

The contest is seeking creative names for the bikes, with $10,000 going to the grand prize winner. And for nine runners-up, there’s $1,000 at play. GM hasn’t released the bicycles’ pricing yet — it only says the bikes are more affordable than a car — but that should cover some of the cost of an e-bike. The grand prize winner should (hopefully) be set for a new pair of electric wheels. 

The winning name (no Bikey McBikeface submissions, please) and cash-prize winners will be announced in early 2019 in time for the bikes’ release shortly thereafter.

Anyone with an idea can submit a name suggestion for the bikes through Nov. 26. At the very least, this can be a non-controversial conversation starter at the Thanksgiving table.

Vince Staples‘s new album, FM!, is out right now, as of Friday (November 2). As the brief but potent follow-up to 2017’s Big Fish Theory — the dude cranks 11 tracks out of only 22 minutes of material — FM! hits like one big blast of energy instead of a dozen individual songs.

Part of that comes from the loose concept hinted at by the album’s title, that the tracks are all radio discoveries: a theme executed by skits with “DJs” and “new songs” by Earl Sweatshirt and Tyga.

About halfway through, Vince and E-40 team up for the mischievous “FUN!,” a track that’s also the album’s first music video. In a quick, pulse-racing two minutes, Vince takes us on a tour of his Long Beach community via Google Maps, complete with grainy zooms and plenty of local background activity. E-40’s part is excised in favor of brevity, which seems to be the name of the game with all of FM!

The whole thing is amazing for what it crams into 138 seconds. In that span, we witness a fight, a robbery, an attempted arrest, and then… well, and then the ending turns the entire video around. No spoilers. But it’s worth it. It’ll make you think.

Watch the clip for “FUN!” above, then stream all of FM! — featuring additional appearances by Kehlani, Ty Dolla $ign, and more — below.

Americans are busy getting ready to go to the polls on November 6. But as you read up on the candidates and ballot measures and plan your voting day, know that there are millions who may not even get the opportunity to cast a ballot in the upcoming midterm elections — or the elections that will follow — because they have a disability. 

Research shows that people with disabilities face numerous barriers to voting. For instance, they report finding it difficult to vote at a polling place at much higher rates than voters without disabilities. One research paper found that 30 percent of voters with disabilities polled in a nationally representative survey said it was difficult to vote at a polling place in 2012. Only 8 percent of voters without disabilities said the same. 

While common barriers to voting can’t be removed from every polling place in a matter of days, there are steps that we all can take to help ensure that the 35 million Americans who have a disability and are eligible to vote are able to successfully cast their ballots. 

“One of the things we can do by the election is to raise awareness about the ways the disability community has been disenfranchised,” says Miriam Heyman, senior program officer at the Ruderman Family Foundation, an advocacy organization that focuses on disability inclusion. 

Heyman identified four critical barriers the disabled community faces, suggesting ways to help minimize or eliminate them: 

1) The polling site is inaccessible. 

Many polling places are located in churches or other religious organizations, which are exempt from the American with Disabilities Act. That federal legislation, passed decades ago, requires that places of public accommodation, commercial buildings, and state and local government facilities be accessible to people with disabilities. Some might take for granted that every polling site is accessible, but that’s not always the case. 

“A big sign sends a signal to all voters.”

While entrances can’t be redesigned before the midterms, Heyman says poll workers can make sure any accessible ramps or entrances aren’t physically blocked or locked. Moreover, they can place visible signage outside of a polling place indicating that it is accessible.

“A big sign sends a signal to all voters that the facility is at least making an effort,” says Heyman. 

2) The accessible machine isn’t working, or poll workers don’t know how to operate it. 

Polling sites are required by federal law to have at least one accessible voting machine for people with disabilities, including those who are blind or visually impaired. The machine has to guarantee the same access, privacy, and independence that other voters expect when they cast a ballot. Despite the federal law, accessible machines sometimes don’t work, are located in difficult-to-reach places, or aren’t private. Even if they are available for use, poll workers may not have received training on how to operate them. 

Heyman says election officials can remedy those problems in advance by ensuring that accessible machines function properly, are located in appropriate spots, and that poll workers are adequately trained to use them. 

3) Poll workers aren’t trained to interact with voters with disabilities. 

Poll workers often don’t understand why accessibility is important, or the various laws that protect the right to vote for people with disabilities. While they might see it as their duty or responsibility to complete someone’s ballot, a voter with a disability can ask for assistance but is guaranteed the right to vote independently. 

While some poll workers may have been poorly trained, others may hold negative stereotypes or beliefs about people with disabilities. Heyman says encountering stigma at a polling site is a key barrier for voters with disabilities. People with a developmental or psychiatric disability, in particular, report being discriminated against at polling sites.  

Hiring people with disabilities to work at polling sites would help reduce stigma and bias, says Heyman. In the meantime, elections officials and poll workers can review federal laws and reflect on their attitudes about disability. 

4) It’s hard or impossible to reach the polling site. 

The act of voting at a polling site requires an accessible means of transportation — and a site that provides parking or, in some circumstances, curbside voting. Though public transportation is required to be accessible by federal law, Heyman says it’s often difficult to access. Polling sites themselves may lack dedicated parking for people with disabilities, though elections officials can create temporary designated spots by using portable signs and cones.

Campaigns that help voters get to the polls should make provisions for people with disabilities, or at least make clear that transportation can be made accessible depending on the request. If volunteers are independently providing rides to their neighbors, they should be sure to think about accessibility needs.  

While these barriers to voting can’t be eliminated overnight, Heyman says even making incremental progress toward that goal is important. Any voter can contact their local elections officials or county registrar of voters’ office to ask about accessibility, emphasizing that it’s important to them, regardless of whether they have a disability. Heyman says it’s also critical that people who encounter problems voting file a complaint detailing the problem. For immediate assistance, people can call 866-OUR-VOTE, a hotline and website dedicated to helping people vote and ensuring their vote counts. 

“The disability community is one we could all be a part of — and we will all join the disability community at some point,” says Heyman. “This is a problem for all of us who care about democracy, civil rights, and social justice.” 

Turkey has lifted sanctions on two top Unites States officials, in a move that came minutes after Washington removed two Turkish ministers from its sanctions list.

The Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday the sanctions on Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, which included a travel ban into the country and freezing of assets in Turkey, had been lifted in response to the earlier US move.

The US had imposed sanctions on Turkey’s Minister of Justice Abdulhamit Gul and Minister of Interior Suleyman Soylu in August over the detention of pastor Andrew Brunson, who was released last month. 

The 50-year-old evangelical pastor was convicted of terror-related charges and sentenced to three years, one month and 15 days in jail by a Turkish court in October.

But Brunson was immediately freed, taking into account the time already served and good conduct during the trial.

Friction over Brunson’s case caused a crisis in relations between the two NATO allies.

With Washington slapping sanctions on Ankara, the crisis also sparked a crash in the Turkish lira in August that exposed Turkey’s economic fragility.

Officials from Turkey’s central bank also dramatically rose interest rates in September, which helped lift the Turkish currency.

These diffused tensions with Washington have also helped stabilise the lira, and by extension, the Turkish economy. 

Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Ankara, said Turkey had undergone a period “tough” period during which the lira lost “more than double” its value against the US dollar, but after Brunson’s release “we saw there was a softening” in US-Turkish relations which has “been welcomed by the markets”. 

SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies

Another season of Outlander — another leap into relocation to new political upheaval. 

After four years of this pattern, you’d think the gimmick would get old. But the time-traveling period drama might’ve actually found its most fascinating and fertile ground yet in the new frontier of Season 4’s colonial America.

The reunited Frasers landed on American shores after last season’s almost-fatal trek around the world. And as the couple now seeks to make a home in the Land of the Free, they come to discover that its citizen are a lot more backwards than the beautiful but dangerous woods they’re trying to tame.

It might be the bias of actually living in the country that Outlander is now set in. But by delving into the seedy underbelly of America’s ugly origins, the show has never felt more relevant than it does now in 2018. Slavery, Native American genocide, the dangers of being gay: Outlander Season 4 does not hesitate to entangle itself in the diciest territories of this country’s legacy.

Of course, Outlander never shied away from the discomfort of how history can collide with modern sensibilities. 

And it’s hard to say it always comes down on the right side of history, or fully reckons with the complex issues it raises. A particularly distressing episode finds Jamie visiting his Aunt Jocasta, a Southern plantation owner boasting about how well she treats her enslaved human beings.

All in all, though, this season feels like Outlander at its best.

The episode takes some bold risks in showing the most brutal truths about the impossible decisions slaves were forced to make in order to survive. Each character’s vastly different cultural and historical context — Claire is a woman from an America at the cusp of the civil rights movement, while Jamie experienced indentured servitude and genocide himself as a Highlander — adds layers of nuance that only Outlander could bring.

Through Claire, you watch this very personal confrontation with the roots of America’s horrific civil injustices and how they later shaped themselves into modern racism. 

But the discomfort of using the pain of slaves to create interesting moral quandaries for the show’s two white protagonists remains. And at times, the whole thing reads like the fantasy of believing, “I would have been one of the good white people if I lived back then.”

All in all, though, this season feels like Outlander at its best.

While Jamie and Claire’s relationship takes something of a backseat, having settled into the comforting routines of a long marriage, it never loses sight of the series’ fundamental intrigue. Which is seeing the macro of historical revolutions and turbulence, but through the micro of extremely human stories and empathetic characters.

If last season was all about traveling the globe to get back what you lost, then Season 4 questions how one lays down everlasting roots to ensure that can’t happen again. 

Outlander is back to proving how it can endlessly reinvent itself

The show does a beautiful job of attaching you to the same land that Jamie and Claire work so hard to make into a home. And so it’s equally as tense for viewers when the comforts of a crackling fire in their homestead is interrupted by the constant threats of having it ripped away.

Episode 1 and 2 kick off the season with a shaky start, bringing a whole lot of setup and unnecessary glut that weighs down its pacing.

But soon after, Outlander is back to proving how it can endlessly reinvent itself in more and more drastic ways, without moving too far from its basic foundation. This is a show that finds the joy in watching not only the world, but also the characters in it transform beyond recognition. In short, it lets us witness life and nature as it takes its course, which continues to be a difficult thing to pull off so successfully in a TV show.

This new phase of Outlander is much like Jamie and Claire’s new stage of marriage: Comfortingly familiar, yet with new and unforeseeable challenges always waiting around every corner.

A bus heading towards a monastery in northern Egypt has come under attack, according to local media, with reports of several people being killed and wounded.

The incident took place on Friday as the vehicle was heading towards a Coptic Christian monastery in Minya, a city about 270km south of the capital, Cairo.

The Archbishop of Minya told Reuters news agency that at least seven people were killed and 14 wounded in the attack.

Other news reports put the death toll at five.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

More soon …

In December of last year, two months after the Harvey Weinstein exposé, Matt Damon made the point that “one thing that’s not being talked about is there are a whole s—load of guys […] who don’t do this kind of thing and whose lives aren’t going to be affected.”

His comments were swiftly derided, because no one deserves a pat on the back simply for refraining from abusing someone.

Perhaps, though, in an odd sort of way, he did have a point. What about the guys “who don’t do this kind of thing” – all the well-meaning folks who are neither victim nor perpetrator? How are they part of this narrative? What role do they have to play?

Those bystanders are the focus of Will & Grace‘s latest episode, titled “Grace’s Secret.” In it, Grace explains to her father that decades ago, when she was 15 years old, his best friend Harry – her boss at the time – sexually assaulted her one day at work. 

But this isn’t really a plot about the horrors inflicted on young women. Sickening as it is, that narrative is familiar enough by this point that Grace’s reveal is not shocking in itself.

Instead, it’s a story about Grace and Martin – the caring father who genuinely had no idea this had happened – and about all the responsibility of men like him in stories like these. 

When Grace finally tells Martin what happened, he’s visibly horrified. He reacts as if it physically pains him to hear what she’s saying, yelling “stop” at one point when he can bear it no more. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he pleads afterward.

Rather than accept “I didn’t know” as an excuse and move on, Grace asks, “Why didn’t you see?”

The question is sincere. Yet from the perspective of the viewer, it’s completely obvious why.

In the moments leading up to that reveal, we’ve seen Martin flirt shamelessly with the waitress, telling Grace that “they love it.” We’ve heard him scoff that people are “so sensitive nowadays,” and complain that “men can’t be men anymore” because of #MeToo.

He’s described Harry as a “flirty guy,” a “good guy,” and a product of “a different time.” He’s told Grace to “calm down” when she angrily points out that that doesn’t make it okay.

“How could I?” she responds to his question. “What if you didn’t believe me? What if no one believed me?”

Indeed, Martin has given no indication whatsoever that he’d believe his own daughter’s account over his own impression of a now-dead man. Even before she launched into her full account, Martin was already trying to discredit it – suggesting that she was “misremembering” events, and protesting that he didn’t want to talk about it. 

This, too, is nothing new. It’s Jason Batman leaping to defend Jeffrey Tambor’s abuse of Jessica Walter on Arrested Development. It’s Michael Ian Black wondering how much more poor Louis C.K. must suffer. It’s Roman Polanski’s supporters insisting that things were just different back then. 

But Will & Grace isn’t done interrogating Martin’s role in all of this. Rather than accept “I didn’t know” as an excuse and move on, Grace asks, “Why didn’t you see?” The show points out the red flags he missed, and the opportunities he had to dig deeper.

Instead, it seems, he assumed that Grace meant Harry was simply “flirty” when she described him as “creepy.” He took at face value Harry’s side of the story, that Grace’s employment with him ended when she stole money from his office. (She had, but only after the assault, in order to get a cab home.) He knew Grace disliked Harry, but until this moment, never got around to figuring out why.

Ultimately, Martin agrees with Grace that he should’ve seen what was going on, and apologizes. That is the point of this storyline – not the information that Grace was sexually assaulted as a teenager.

Too often, the burden of noticing and reporting predatory behavior is put on the victims. It falls on them to share their traumas, to offer up their unhappy experiences so other people can take them to heart or pick them apart. There’s power in sharing these stories, and they can be effective tools for change; look at what #MeToo and Time’s Up have been able to accomplish by encouraging women to come forward.

This is between all of us – including, yes, all those “good guys who don’t do this kind of thing.”

But “Grace’s Secret” shifts some of that responsibility onto all the bystanders in those scenarios, poking holes into the plausible deniability that so many of them – so many of us – hide behind.

How often have we seen people shrug, in response to allegations against a colleague, that they never saw that business going on, and surely would’ve stopped it if they had? How frequently do we hear people try to minimize or excuse allegations by saying that, gee, that doesn’t sound like the good guy they know, so it must all be some kind of misunderstanding? 

It’s never going to be the case that all of us are magically able to suss out misdeeds when they happen. No matter how observant we are, some nasty secrets will be better hidden than others, and we’ll be taken by surprise from time to time.

But it’s not too much to ask that all of us – but especially men who think of themselves as the “good guys who don’t do this kind of thing” – be a little bit more aware. It’s not too much to ask that a father listen to his daughter, rather than leap to his friend’s defense. Or that he ask what it means when a man is described as “creepy.”

It’s not too much to ask that we, in our day-to-day lives, be conscious of the message we’re sending when we make thoughtlessly inappropriate jokes, or complain that others are just being too “sensitive.” It’s worth considering that someone you love might be listening, and deciding silently that you are not to be trusted.

And it’s not too late to try and do better, even if we’ve failed others in the past. Near the end of the episode, Grace goes to the cemetery to visit her mother – the only person she’d told about the incident before. 

“So I told him, Mom, but you were wrong. He did okay,” she says. “You know, I always thought that I needed an apology from Harry. But it turned out I really needed one from Daddy. I feel better.” 

It’s not just the predators who need to take a good hard look at what they’ve been doing. It’s not just the victims who should be seeing and calling out unacceptable behavior. It’s not just women who need to be vigilant about men’s behavior toward women. 

This is between all of us – including, yes, all those “good guys who don’t do this kind of thing.”

While experts and observers speculate on the impact of the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi on the career of 33-year-old Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (known as MBS), another crown prince, 25 years his senior, has been watching from a distance and must surely be feeling a tad uncomfortable.

Mohammed bin Zayed (known as MBZ), the crown prince of Abu Dhabi has entered into several foreign adventures with MBS, the two most notable being the Yemen war and the air, land and sea blockade of fellow Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member Qatar.

Both causes have not fared well: the war in Yemen, now dragging on for a fourth year, is stalemated with horrible consequences for the Yemeni people; and Qatar has ridden out a blockade which was supposed to bring the tiny state to its knees within days. If anything, the Qataris have emerged stronger than when the blockade was launched.

Still, for MBZ, either can be seen as moderately successful efforts. In Yemen, the Emiratis have allied themselves with secessionist forces in the south and have secured the key trading port of Aden for what could become the capital of a South Yemen nation independent of the north, but effectively a client state of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

As for the Qatar crisis, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have managed to resist pressure from the US State Department to end the blockade. 

In addition, MBZ has pushed for an increasing political and economic rapprochement with Saudi Arabia through an initiative launched in December of last year, which has garnered little attention. The “Strategy of Resolve” is a bilateral trade and defence agreement with the Saudis that the Abu Dhabi crown prince called “an historic opportunity”, adding “we are the two largest Arab economies, forming the two most modern armed forces.” 

It was a bold move, all the bolder as it was announced at a GCC summit in Kuwait City. The emir of Kuwait is the last living founder of the GCC (it was set up in 1981) and repairing the rupture with Qatar is a legacy issue for him. The Strategy of Resolve was a stake driven straight through any thought that the GCC would be revived.

Rather than having to deal with the often contrary and bumptious views of five other members, MBZ is now in the position of having to influence only one and the biggest of them all. 

He was quick to capitalise with an announcement in June of 44 strategic projects with the Saudis. The first meeting of what was called the Joint Coordination Council took place, not in the Saudi capital Riyadh, but in Abu Dhabi. It was co-chaired by MBZ and his young Saudi protege, MBS. 

Intriguingly, the senior Emiratis present were all from MBZ’s ruling family, the Al Nahyan.

Conspicuous by his absence was Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai and the vice president and prime minister of the UAE. (MBZ’s elder brother, the UAE president, was incapacitated by a stroke in 2014 and MBZ has been the de facto president ever since.) 

The inaugural meeting laid out a grand agenda that, in addition to military integration and cooperation, envisions a unified strategy for food security, a joint plan for medical stocks, a common security system and joint investment in oil, gas and petrochemicals – all to be achieved within five years.

In the business world, this is what is referred to as a reverse takeover. Abu Dhabi and its clever and hugely ambitious crown prince have, to steal a line from the president of the United States, done the deal of the century. Consider these figures (as of December, 2017): Saudi Arabia has a gross domestic product (GDP) of $678.5bn, the UAE barely more than half that; the Saudis have reserves of foreign exchange and gold of more than $500bn, the Emiratis less than $90bn; Saudi Arabia’s revenues stand at $171.6bn, the UAE’s is $83.4bn. 

While running his reverse takeover, MBZ has escaped much of the opprobrium that has fallen on the shoulders of MBS. Take the Yemen war. Though the Emiratis and their mercenary army stand accused of multiple human rights abuses in their theatre of operations in the south, it is the Saudis who take the global flak for the relentless bombing of civilian targets and non-military infrastructure.

It is the Saudis who are blamed for the blockade that is preventing food and medical supplies from getting to a population on the brink of the worst humanitarian disaster in the world. And it is the Saudis who are primarily stuck with trying to subdue the Houthis, a task which they have signally failed to achieve.

Now, in the wake of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, the Americans are putting maximum pressure on the Saudis to halt the bombing campaign. On October 31, Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on all participants in the Yemen civil war to agree to a ceasefire “in the next 30 days.” That’s a little more than a month after Pompeo had signalled continued support for the Saudis. 

For months, senators and congressmen from both parties have been pushing to halt America’s support for the war and, with the killing of Khashoggi in the run-up to the mid-terms, the White House has started to listen.

And when Donald Trump wanted to try and mend the Humpty Dumpty that the GCC has become, he put the pressure on MBS. In fact, when he thinks of the Gulf at all, he doesn’t really think of MBZ. That suits the Abu Dhabi crown prince just fine. He is happy to have the arrogant and attention-seeking MBS stride the world stage and do the big interviews. Mohammed bin Zayed does his best work in the shadows.

Now, however, with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, his protege is in a dangerous place. The brutality of the murder, the ineptness of the cover-up attempt, the fact that virtually everyone on the international scene that counts believes that the killing was at the direction of MBS, all of that has enormously weakened the position of the Saudi crown prince.

His uncle Ahmad Bin Abdulaziz, the younger brother of the king has arrived in Riyadh. There is some suggestion that he might replace MBS as crown prince. That is an unlikely scenario. Ahmad Bin Abdulaziz is in his mid-seventies and has spent most of the time since Mohammed Bin Salman came to prominence living in London. His role is likely to be that of an elder voice, there to contain the brash impulses of his nephew.

It is still much-debated whether Mohammed bin Salman will survive. My bet is that he will, but with a seriously diminished international reputation and a weakened domestic power base. For MBZ, that is worrying. He has invested a lot in Mohammed bin Salman who has, unwittingly, played the frontman for his ambitions in Yemen and in the Gulf. 

Now the frontman is linked to a vicious act that has caused global revulsion. It will be interesting to watch how MBZ plays his cards in the short term. Were he to cut MBS loose, it would be a signal that the Saudi crown prince is in serious trouble indeed.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Image: OMAR TORRES/AFP/Getty Images

Google has marked Day of the Dead, or El Día de los Muertos, with a colourful skull-themed doodle. 

Day of the Dead is a holiday observed in cities and towns throughout Mexico, which dates back thousands of years. Per National Geographic, the purpose is “to demonstrate love and respect for deceased family members.” To observe the holiday, “revellers don funky makeup and costumes, hold parades and parties, sing and dance, and make offerings to lost loved ones.”

In a blogpost explaining the doodle, Google described some of the ways families observe the tradition. 

“Families prepare for the celebration far in advance, cleaning the house and decorating it with fragrant marigold flowers and intricate tissue-paper cutouts,” reads the blog. “Playful calacas and calaveras (skeletons and skulls), are usually seen in festive attire, enjoying (after)life to the fullest.”

“Colourful ofrendas or altars are set up in many homes, surrounded by favourite food and drink, as well as photographs and cherished mementos, plus sweet Pan de Muertos and sugar skulls,” the blog continues. 

“Burning candles and incense is also customary to set the mood, evoke the spirit world, and serve as a reminder that death is just another part of life and that human connections will always endure.”

Today’s doodle has its own colourful “ofrenda” created using clay by artist Nate Swinehart.