[HN Gopher] Two Norwegian journalists arrested after interviewin...
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Two Norwegian journalists arrested after interviewing Qatar World
Cup Manager
Author : eisa01
Score : 127 points
Date : 2021-11-24 19:50 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nrk.no)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nrk.no)
| telesilla wrote:
| I've spent time in Qatar. It was weird, as a western woman I felt
| completely alien. Not just because of the desert dust and the
| stark stark glassy steel city that suddenly rises from it. Mostly
| we shuttled between a compound and fancy hotels, malls and yacht
| clubs. And my friends I was visiting were not even rich, just
| working regular expat jobs (in petro or gas of course, helicopter
| to work some days..). Those I know who stay there are going just
| a little mad. But slowly rich. Is it worth it?
| gerash wrote:
| Off topic but are expat and immigrant the same concept?
| windock wrote:
| Expat is a Western immigrant in non-Western country
| MaurizioPz wrote:
| From what I understand (not native speaker) yes but from
| different points of view. You are an expat out of a country.
| You are an immigrant into a country.
|
| So usually you are both.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Mad in which way? The people I've heard about (professionally)
| who went to continue their career in Dubai, I couldn't really
| respect anymore. It's hard to understand choosing to work in
| that place.
| chanc3e wrote:
| People I know who've done it:
|
| * getting a drink (alcohol) is a major pain. Either
| underground, or some elite venue where rules don't apply -
| and the jeopardy that goes with that. Really want to spill
| wine on a Prince? And there are a lot of princes.
|
| * feeling of underlying state level threat if you mess up
|
| * some workers are treated as literal slaves openly
|
| * getting your money home can be troublesome. Check out Dubai
| airport and abandoned super cars
|
| People who tend to fare better are very career focused and
| can ignore the above. Also if you or your partner are into
| the five star life.
|
| Edit: formatting
| biztos wrote:
| To be fair, wasn't the fancy-car abandonment thing just a
| result of people taking on crazy debt in a country that
| still has debtors prison, and then bailing out when they
| were predictably close to that jeopardy?
|
| Seems like rational behavior from both sides in the end.
| chanc3e wrote:
| For sure. With a healthy percentage of "I have PS100k and
| I can only bring PS10k before I need to declare tax and
| my employer canned the project and my visa. Allow the
| car"
| telesilla wrote:
| Mad in the way I imagine any colonialist ex-pat going mad, as
| empires threaten each other around you and you put on a white
| shirt and suffer through the heat. The same that happens and
| has happened since merchants and wealth-seekers have isolated
| themselves so much from reality (protected by the butlers and
| maids and drivers and security guards, never setting a foot
| in a local's house, neither a rich nor poor one) that finally
| they go all in and become regime apologetics.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Reminds me of Orwell's "Shooting An Elephant"
| ethbr0 wrote:
| This describes my time with expats in Venezuela pretty well
| (~2000?). At some point, you realize every place you visit is
| surrounded by 12' walls topped with razor wire. I guess you
| wilfully ignore the strangeness if you have to live there, but
| it was really disquieting to visit.
| m-s wrote:
| NRK also published a detailed timeline of the events in Norwegian
| (Google Translate should work just fine):
| https://www.nrk.no/sport/sendte-denne-sms-en-_-sa-startet-nr...
| emaginniss wrote:
| What a lovely place. We should let them host one of the most
| important international sporting events.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| Next year we'll also see the winter Olympics being hosted by a
| regime currently torturing Uyghurs in concentration camps.
| Which will allow only spectators who live in Mainland China.
| Great for the CCP, no pesky protesters when they're not even
| allowed in.
| [deleted]
| steve918 wrote:
| The title is inflammatory if the events in the article are true.
| They were arrested for willful trespassing and then released
| shortly after. Hardly news worthy.
| varjag wrote:
| They were arrested and released without explanation. The police
| PR dept then came up with trespassing story without any
| details.
| ipaddr wrote:
| They interviewed an important sports figure. They get arrested
| at the hotel questioned for 8 hours locked in different cells
| with 12 other inmates. They looked through all of their photos.
| Then they made up a trespassing charge but failed to mention
| where/when this happened.
|
| Title is not inflammatory enough.
| beervirus wrote:
| Yes the Qataris absolutely deserve the benefit of the doubt
| here!
| hvs wrote:
| "We interview the chairman at length after a ceremony, and
| return to our hotel at noon to fetch our equipment. We
| are then approached by 5 or 6 men who identify
| themselves as police and take us to the station," reporter
| Halvor Ekeland says. "We are questioned for eight hours in
| separate rooms, one at a time."
|
| Questioned 8 hours for trespassing? Right after the interview?
| allendoerfer wrote:
| The West is a joke. Germany and two other countries could easily
| team up and hold an alternative World Cup. We could just
| unilaterally do it, the original one would instantly lose the bit
| of legitimacy it has left. But we are not even doing that. How is
| the world supposed to take us serious, when we are not exercising
| power, where we actually have it?
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| Yeah, FIFA went so far this time. They went from ordinary
| everyday corruption to cartoonish super-corruption. If a few
| prominent teams held an alternative World Cup it could have
| broken FIFA forever. But instead, here we are...
| vadfa wrote:
| >from ordinary everyday corruption to cartoonish super-
| corruption
|
| Got that reference!
| sharken wrote:
| Well, just take a look at the Formula 1 calendar to see how the
| West is doing.
|
| Last three countries are: Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi.
| It's as if we're not even trying and just condoning the way
| human rights are treated.
|
| https://www.formula1.com/en/racing/2021.html
| [deleted]
| ethbr0 wrote:
| If you have money and want to buy a better global reputation
| without internal changes, I can't think of a better way than
| international sports.
| blocked_again wrote:
| West is no longer powerful. 21st century is the century of
| India, China and Asia.
| allendoerfer wrote:
| The last World Cup winners are:
|
| - 2018: France
|
| - 2014: Germany
|
| - 2010: Spain
|
| - 2006: Italy
| kzrdude wrote:
| World cup is entertainment, not a power allocation
| blocked_again wrote:
| Now go and look at where does the sponsorship money of the
| top clubs of these countries come from.
| harha wrote:
| The national teams usually from the tax payer. At the
| very least they manage the rights to the local
| tournaments, which has value in itself.
|
| The issue is that they often also have the same corrupt
| officials who gain legitimacy through this tournament,
| they wouldn't risk losing their status. Imagine they
| decide to have an alternative tournament, then FIFA
| owning many rights puts pressure on them, one draws back
| and the operation fails. Explain that to the fans.
| allendoerfer wrote:
| Mostly from Adidas and Nike. But I get your point. Still
| you cannot fully buy the _industry_. It is tied to
| passports.
| blocked_again wrote:
| You think Nike and Adidas spent more money on European
| football in last 5 - 10 years than Qatar sports
| investments group and City Football Group?
| fullshark wrote:
| I don't think OP was talking about Soccer ability
| toxik wrote:
| Indo-China is an interesting choice of terminology here.
| blocked_again wrote:
| I didn't realise IndoChina refers to countries unrelated to
| India and China. Corrected it.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| The west (to a lesser degree) is only not powerful because we
| really, really, really, don't like war anymore. If tomorrow
| Russia goes into Poland and The west is forced to act, we
| shall see just how powerful the west really is.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| This is a thread about soccer politics
| pennaMan wrote:
| Why is deciding what nation has the best ball kickers relevant
| to anything at all let alone be an exercise of power to hold
| said competition?
| hereforphone wrote:
| And it's not even their own ball kickers anymore. How can you
| get pride out of it when you're just paying to import folks
| from other nations?
| mtmail wrote:
| While a Bayern Munchen can have players of all
| nationalities the German national team consists of players
| with a German citizenship. At least that's my
| understanding.
| hiddencost wrote:
| It's been used as an indicator species: can your society
| support the infrastructure necessary to gather, train, and
| support a team; it's read as a marker of the health of the
| rest of the system.
| blocked_again wrote:
| Brazil and Argentina is more successful than Belgium,
| Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Canada, Norway, USA, Japan,
| Korea and Englad combined. What exactly is the takeaway
| here?
| botverse wrote:
| They perform better under heat?
| allendoerfer wrote:
| It is the most watched event of humankind. If you want to
| call the winner the world champion, it would really help, if
| there weren't some alternative tournament, which champion is
| better than yours.
|
| The simple fact, that Qatar bothered to buy the whole thing
| shows, that it is important.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Apparently it has something to do with sublimating the base
| human territorial-identity drive that would otherwise find
| expression in violent conflict, or some such. I don't get it
| either.
| Bombthecat wrote:
| Money talks.
| [deleted]
| davidhyde wrote:
| > "How is the world supposed to take us serious" They should at
| least take them cereal.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h05YfP_8UsU
| Y_Y wrote:
| Not to disagree with you, but I'd like to note FIFA is based in
| Switzerland.
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| As are the bank accounts of many of its member-countries'
| representatives.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Well that explains how all decisions are made based on money
| and not morals then.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| So you are saying, the swiss have no morals beside money?
|
| Sounds strange to me, given their history. Sure, they are
| engaged in banking, but also not in invading other
| countries, unlike most of the rest of the world. In either
| case, nationalistic stereotypes are seldom helpful for any
| debate.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Invading other countries in WWII wasn't necessary when
| all of the Nazi gold from the fillings would just come to
| them anyway.
|
| Then there is the "banking privacy" nonsense, which is
| just because they want to avoid disclosing the tax
| evasion and money laundering.
|
| And the crypto nonsense in Zug.
|
| It really goes on and on.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Selection process driven by suitcases of money ...
|
| ... what could go wrong?
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(page generated 2021-11-24 23:03 UTC)