Subject: First thoughts about countries

I just had my vacantion in Jordan two weeks ago.

Jordan:
Muslims, desert, Petra, hospitable people, refugee camps, only country in Middle East without war.

Only country in the Middle East without war? Historically it is untrue. Currently it is untrue. Otherwise it is true :)

Yeah.. it was more a first thought.. it almost look like its the only country without rumors in their region.
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This is interesting. Why have you visited Jordan? Have you seen some refugee camp?
I know only there is some beautiful queen.

wooow, would love to see ruins of petra.

I visited it as a tourist.
The country is safe to travel to. Even at the moment. I was visiting the world heritage site of Petra indeed. The Death Sea and the Red Sea, and some cities like Amman, Makaba, Jerash, Aqaba.
There are large refugees campsites. Our guide said in some camps lives around 120.000 people and they live there for already 40 years. These camps are already developed into kind of cities with houses of stone and everything that a normal city also has. I only travel through a campsite like this. We didn't visit the camps near the border with Syria, and I do understand that. It is not safe and not an advisertisement for the country at all offcourse.

And indeed King Abdullah II has a pretty palestinian wife as queen (Queen Rania)
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The city is called Madaba :p I've been to Jordan a few times and I visited one of the Syrian camps you talk about (Zaatari) in April which probably also is the one your guide talked about (the number of refugees there was already above 100.000 when I was there). If you want to get an insight into the tremendous challenges it is to establish such a camp it is worth going there. The staff will obviously not allow you in if they feel there is a safety risk.
I currently work in Ramallah and have been to Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria as well and their size and type varies a lot. E.g. Sabra and Shatilla is large, extremely crowded and pretty grim looking while e.g. Al Bass seems like a nice middle class urban neighborhood.

oh and really that rania is kinda... nice.
but still i prefer polish women :P

Where are all these refugees from? And will their status ever be changed? You say some of them have been living there for 40 years :O

Palestinian refugees. Some of them are refugees from the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, some from the Six-Day War in 1967. Whether their status will be changed is dependent on one of two things 1) if the Israelis and Palestinians can make a comprehensive peace treaty including settling the status of the refugees (who according to the Palestinians and the most of the World have a right to return), 2) the countries in which they reside in decide to change the status of the Palestinian refugees so they can apply for citizenship. However both things are politically very sensitive and will have a profound influence on the internal and external composition of the concerned countries which is partly why neither has happened. At the time being there are more than 5 million Palestinian refugees in the diaspora.

At the same time, some Palestinians fear that by becoming citizens of third countries will make it impossible for them to claim the right to return. Furthermore, UNRWA offers a lot of benefits to Palestinian refugees that make it less appealing to move out of the refugee camps. It must be mentioned though that the status of Palestinian refugees varies a lot, e.g. Jordan and Syria discriminate a lot less against Palestinians than e.g. Lebanon. In Jordan they are the majority of the population (*note that Jordan claimed the West Bank until 1988 which is when the Palestinians declared their independence)

Then there are Syrian and Iraqi refugees. In Jordan more than half a million Syrians have arrived since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in addition of a substantial number of Iraqis who came after 2003. Particularly the Syrians have had a profound and devastating effect on the Jordanian economy, which is why they call for the world society to support them.
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It was indeed the city Madaba. That was, in contrast to Amman, a more Christian city.

But wow!! I could not explain it better than you do it. You know a lot about it!!
At school we never learn about the history of these countries. So I thought it was super interesting to hear the history there and experience it.

What I've also been heard from my guide a little bit, the stories about the tensions that are growing between the Sunni and Shiite people.
It may so agree, that Islam itself is at fault with regard to various poverty. I think the conflict between Sunni and Shiite people is far from over.
Sometimes I get the feeling that some Arab leaders the insight came that all is not well with Islam. Most Arab leaders are increasingly anxious for Mulahs (a Muslim cleric). They are huge problem. They then release their absolute power.

Actually I had, before I made ​​my trip to Jordan, never studied this subject. Now, I would want to know all about it but it is for each country a complex and totally different situation.
But all this is not exactly something for this forum.

You guys both are admirable, I would have feel to visit such countries and therefore I know info only from tv.

History is so much more complex than you learn at school and in the media. But it is for good reasons, as you cannot have an introduction of half an hour when there is a conflict somewhere.

Where are all these refugees from? And will their status ever be changed? You say some of them have been living there for 40 years :O

www.imemc.org

almost 90% wrote: Georgia: War with Russia. :|

It was the 49'ers in 2008:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/18/content_9480185.htm

"The Danish team were protested by the Race Committee for sailing the medal race in a boat borrowed from the Croat crew, who were not competing in the medal race, after the mast on the Danish 49er snapped shortly before the start, according to the International Sailing Federation (ISAF).
[...]
"We're happy about how it turned out. Our mast broke 20 minutes before the competition and we thought we weren't going to make it. We were lucky in that we borrowed the Croatian's boat and got to the start line five seconds before the horn," said Jonas Warrer."


Yep, I know.

Pavle Kostov & Petar Cupać are the guys that gave their boat. I know Cupać, from sailing