Watch the US Presidential Elections 2008 in the Middle East (FULL NEWS CHANNELS TV GUIDE)

I wont be exaggerating at all if I say that the whole world will be watching carefully on the 4th of November 2008, wishing their favorite candidate win. The latest international polls have favored Barack Obama, and the USA polls gives him around a 12 to 13 points lead. But the race is not over, many factors play part here, McCain was down before and ended up winning the republican party nomination, then there is the Bradley Effect.

The Bradley Effect is where a white voter would say in polls he would vote to the African-American candidate but when voting in the voting booth he will end up voting for the other WHITE candidate, so basically racists being shy of their racism and lying to the pollsters. This happened in 1982 while electing California’s governor,  Tom Bradley lost the elections although he was ahead in some polls. I do not believe that the Bradley effect happened or will happen to Obama, we already saw in the primaries how he hold close to the polls even in some places thought to be heavily racist, areas that has a very bad reputation with race discrimination.

So where will those who live in the Middle East watch the elections? Well, there is the free-to-air channels and the Subscription (PAY TV) channels.

Lets start with the PAY TV Channels:
ORBIT: The best network to watch all the action, all year long ORBIT is actually the best place to watch the American politics on their channel “ORBIT NEWS”, shows from MSNBC, NBC, ABC, PBS and BBC. In the last week of the elections since the 27 of October 2008 Orbit launched another news channel “ORBIT NEWS 2″. “ORBIT NEWS 3″ will be launched on the election day.

It has been announced that “ORBIT NEWS 1″ will feature:

• Brian Williams from NBC Nightly News
• Charles Gibson from ABC’s World News
• Jim Lehrer from News Hour on PBS
• Tom Brokaw from NBC’s Meet the Press

While “ORBIT NEWS 2″ will feature famous political commentators from MSNBC:

• Keith Olbermann (Countdown)
• Rachel Maddow (The Rachel Maddow Show)
• Chris Mathews (Hardball)
• David Gregory (Race to the White House)

ORBIT NEWS 3 will starts on the Elections day and it will air a live feed from ABC channel. It will precisely launch at 1:00 AM KSA time.

ART [Firstnet - Pehla]: Not a great choice, as ART only has FOX NEWS and SKY NEWS. FOX NEWS has the worst reputation as the most biased name in news, although ironically their slogan is “Fair & Balanced”. SKY NEWS is not bad but I doubt their coverage would be as good as CNN and MSNBC.

Showtime Arabia: Showtime is by far the worst choice, as they only provide only SKY NEWS, I am not sure though if Bloomberg & CNBC would show any coverage of the elections, if they do then you might follow it on those to FINANCIAL channels.

FREE-TO-AIR Channels:
CNN: The best source in my opinion, great panel of analysts and they have the resources to produce an astonishing full day coverage of the elections. Were very good in covering the primaries.

MBC4: If they do stick with the CBS schedule they will be one of the best channels to watch too, CBS coverage will be interesting to watch, that is if MBC4 cancels their regular schedule and stick with CBS as they have the rights to CBS News.

Aljazeera English: Really Really unbiased, am not being sarcastic this is for real, they are unbiased so much that I get bored watching it, they even cover the other candidates such as Ralph Nader and Bob Barr !! While the American mainstream media shoved them aside.

Other choices in English language: BBC World News, EuroNews, France 24, DW-TV, Russia Today, Press TV, NDTV Arabia

Other choices in Arabic language: Aljazeera Arabic, Al Arabiya, BBC Arabic, Future News, Al Aan TV, Al Ekhbariya, France 24, Rusiya Al-Yaum (Russia Today), Al Hiwar TV, Alhurra (The Free One), Nile News, NBN, ANN, CNBC Arabia (NOT SURE)

WATCH ONLINE:
It is expected that either all or some of the following channels will be streaming their election day coverage for free online: CNN, MSNBC, FOX NEWS, ABC, and CBS.

You can also watch The following channels in a very good quality via Livestation: Aljazeera English, BBC World News, BBC Arabic, Bloomberg, C-Span, DW-TV, EuroNews, France 24, ITN, Russia Today (English), Rusiya Al-Yaum (Russia Today), BBC World Service (Radio), DW-Radio.

Livestation also includes many user added channels, you can simply either search by name or check the channel list available.

Bottom Line: 
We in the Middle East can’t vote, and the majority do not believe that the election is clean, seriously we all are set in thinking the US Elections is rigged, just like 2000. We do not believe that it is fair, especially that there is no equal coverage to other parties other than Democratic party and the Republican part. Most of us do not give a crap and most of us think it is just BS. But I am sure that most of people in the middle east, Arabs, Asians, Europeans, South American, Muslim and Christians will watch.

Some have watched the American elections since last year as if they are watching a reality TV show, a bit longer than American Idol I guess, and some watched it seriously following each and every article written about it. Some believe that it effects all of the world and some believe it will only affect Americans. I believe the whole world have hated the past 8 years, they hated Bush’s foreign policy and domestic policy, in the end all will watch and will wait to know who is the next president for USA hoping change come to Washington and we start seeing some difference in the way things work. Some might laugh and call it naivete, and some will call it hope.

4 comments October 30th, 2008

Tina Fey As Sarah Palin On Saturday Night Live [NBC] (VIDEO)

In my opinion Tina Fey amazingly played the role of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the accent, the voice and the style. I can bet that during the first few words no one could differentiate between them. Amy Poehler as usual played Hillary Clinton. The sketch was really funny, something I do not usually say about  SNL sketches. This was the opening sketch of the premiere of SNL’s new season.

1 comment September 15th, 2008

Barack Obama Chooses Joe Biden as Vice President

Expect at least couple of more weeks of slicing and dicing Joe Biden by the media. What’s really funny is they talk about basic basic known facts, so what are they trying to say? all what they are saying Obama already knows and have put in consideration, its good to state the facts for people who do not know, but acting as if Obama’s campaign did not know those facts already and acting as if its NEW that’s what I call MEDIA BS.

1 comment August 23rd, 2008

Olbermann’s Special Comment on McCain’s Criticism of NBC Election Coverage and Obama (Video)

As usual an amazing Special Comment by Keith Olbermann on John McCain’s criticism of the NBC elections coverage and Barack Obama. Keith amazingly gives it to McCain, its worth watching each and every second of this Special Comment. Olbermann always says what is on my mind that’s why am so addicted to watching Countdown.

Keith Olbermann explained this Special Comment in a post on the Daily Kos.

Add comment August 20th, 2008

RedLasso Suspends Service after Lawsuit Filed by NBC and FOX

Redlasso which allowed bloggers to search and clip footage aired from the major American networks like NBC, FOX, CBS and Cable Channels such as MSNBC, Comedy Central. so basically if I wanted to show a clip of a part of an episode of Countdown with Keith Olbermann, I can just go to Redlasso search by date and channel and keyword obviously and then edit the footage and create a clip where I can embed on my blog.

While most of the channels now do have most of their shows videos online, and embedable on any blog but its not editable, Redlasso gave control for you to crop the segment you want from any show. NBC and FOX have filed a lawsuit against Redlasso on the 23rd of July 2008, and on the 25th of July 2008 Redlasso suspended their service. You can read their Press Release for full details. Although they still say they will try to come to an agreement with the networks, I really don’t see that happening.

The thing that really confused me and I would be thankful to anyone out there who can explain this for me, they say that the clips created by paying customers will still be working fine, so isn’t that adding more risk on Redlasso showing that they are profiting from others copyrighted materials? I donno but does this have any other meaning?! please help and enlighten me.

I got my beta account on Redlasso back on March 2008, and only started using it for my blog on July 2008, and only for two of my posts, why? I HAD A FEELING THIS WILL HAPPEN

Add comment July 31st, 2008

U.S. TV Networks CBS, ABC and NBC only spend two minutes weekly for IRAQ War News Coverage, also Lara Logan on The Daily Show (VIDEO)

According to the New York Times only an average of two minutes is being spent by the American Networks such as CBS, ABC and NBC. Those networks are also not telling the public the number of Iraqis killed since the US invasion (which is around a million until now) or the number of Iraqis being displaced (which is around Five Millions until now). The Real News Network sums all this in one very informative video by their analyst Pepe Escobar. I think the part were Lara Logan speaks to Jon Stewart is just amazing.

Here is the FULL Lara Logan interview on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart:

Add comment June 26th, 2008

Richard Clarke on Countdown: McCain Should Fire Charlie Black (Video)

To those who do not know, Charlie Black who is John McCain’s chief advisor had said earlier that a terrorist attack on USA would create a big advantage for McCain. Richard Clarke appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann and said that Charlie Black’s comments are “politics of fear” and advised McCain to fire him immediately “Charlie Black ought to be gone tomorrow morning.”

Add comment June 24th, 2008

Barack Obama Launches website to FIGHT the SMEARS from the Right Wing

I do not know why is this site launching now, it should have been launched since January this year, but it seems they wanted it to be focused on smears coming from the republicans.

Obama and his wife have been heavily attacked from all sides, and most attacks are backed with lies lies lies. I am not saying that Barack Obama is perfect, nobody is perfect but at least when you want to attack your opponent try to back it with some facts.

Add comment June 14th, 2008

Breaking News: Tim Russert of NBC Dies after Heart Attack

The NBC journalist and host of “Meet the Press” Tim Russert has died today after noon after collapsing at NBC’s Washington news bureau. He was 58 years old.

Few minutes ago Tom Brokaw on NBC said “It is my sad duty to report that my friend and colleague, Tim Russert, the moderator of Meet the Press, collapsed and died earlier this afternoon. He will be missed, as he was loved, greatly…”

UPDATE: The funeral will be closed to the public.

[Via TVNewser]

Add comment June 14th, 2008

Countdown with Keith Olbermann Special Comment: Bush’s Unforgivable Interview

I don’t know what to say, this is THE BEST special comment I have ever heard from Keith Olbermann, day after day those special comments get bigger and better.

Olbermann denounces President Bush for suggesting that electing a Democrat as president means “another attack on the United States”, he also questioned his claim of giving up golf out of empathy for fallen U.S. soldiers.

For the the full transcript here.

Here is the video (Hosted on IKBIS):

2 comments May 16th, 2008