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.

Comments October 30th, 2008

Hillary Clinton Concedes, Suspends Campaign and Endorses Barack Obama

It looked like it will never happen, Hillary Clinton ends her campaign at last. Although she conceded and endorsed Barack Obama today in the National Building Museum in Washington DC, it sure looked as if she was doing it because of a gun being pointed at her head. She tried to look truthful and really meaning what she is saying, but I didn’t see her to be sincere.

In Regard to the dream ticket thing, I really really doubt Obama will be choosing her to be VP, I feel that it could be Richardson or anybody else but not her.

I think it will take some time until he announces who will be his Vice President. I just wish he doesn’t wait until August.

Watch the full speech:

Comments June 8th, 2008

Caroline and Ted Kennedy Endorses Barack Obama (Video)

Senator Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy, a leading icon in the democratic party and the brother of JFK the assassinated president, joined with his son Representative Patrick Kennedy, and niece Caroline Kennedy the daughter of the assassinated president endorsed Barack Obama for the party’s presidential nomination during a rally at the American University in Washington DC.

Sen. Ted Kennedy called Obama “an inspirational uniter”, and each one of the Kennedys linked Obama to John F. Kennedy the iconic Democratic leader who Obama usually is compared to. Sen. Ted Kennedy talked how he always was asked who he will endorse and the answer was that he was going to support the candidate who inspires him:

“Every time I’ve been asked over the past year who I would support in the Democratic primary, my answer has always been the same: I’ll support the candidate who inspires me, who inspires all of us, who can lift our vision and summon our hopes and renew our belief that our country’s best days are still to come. I’ve found that candidate.  And it looks to me like you have too.”

Here is the Video of Sen. Ted Kennedy endorsement:

Sen. Ted Kennedy answered all the points raised by the Clintons, point after point, remark after remark giving a neat summary of all the criticism that the Clintons have been shooting towards Obama since the start of the campaign. Specially since Barack Obama’s win in Iowa which shocked Hillary Clinton’s campaign and made her and her husband Bill Clinton on the offence. Bill Clinton who used to be a respectable and liked ex-president lately became the designated attacker of Obama, attack after attack after attack, in my opinion he is hurting his wife’s bid for the presidency.

The question here is will this endorsement really help Obama, it will help in some areas and especially with Hispanic voters, who Obama’s campaign have been lagging behind Hillary Clinton. Any candidate would love to be endorsed by Sen. Ted Kennedy, but will this help Obama in a huge scale, I do not believe so. Only one week left for the Super Tuesday anyway, we will wait and see, although I really wish to see Obama winning, but I believe those “Super” delegates Hillary Clinton has will save her in the end of the day and she will be the “Democratic Party Presidential Nominee”.

Comments January 29th, 2008

Barack Obama introduces Senate resolution on Iran

Democrat Barack Obama introduced a new resolution in the senate late Thursday saying that George Bush doesn’t have authority to use military force against Iran. He is basically trying to reverse the damage that was done when the Senate passed an amendment sponsored by Senators Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman. The amendment designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, and the only Senate Democrat running for president to support it was Hillary Clinton.

To read the full article Click Here.

Comments November 2nd, 2007