What do presidents do when no one else can hear them? The same thing the rest of us do: complain about other people! Like on Monday, when President Obama and his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy were caught on microphone bitching about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Obama and Sarkozy gave a press conference together at the G20 meeting in Cannes on Monday afternoon, heading to a another room afterwards to speak privately. Also heading with them: their mics, which were still on, allowing the first few minutes of their conversation to be overheard by reporters who still had the translation earpieces in their ears. And what a juicy conversation!
The conversation apparently began with President Obama criticizing Sarkozy for not having warned him that France would be voting in favor of the Palestinian membership bid in UNESCO despite Washington’s strong objection to the move.
The conversation then drifted to Netanyahu, at which time Sarkozy declared: “I cannot stand him. He is a liar.” According to the report, Obama replied: “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!”
The remark was naturally meant to be said in confidence, but the two leaders’ microphones were accidently left on, making the would-be private comment embarrassingly public.
The hot mic moment (which hasn’t been commented on by the White House) was first reported by Arret Sur Images, which also claims that the reporters who heard the complaints were asked to keep quiet about their content. (Le Monde writer Arnaud Leparmentier mentioned Obama and Sarkozy’s “private” discussion of their “difficult relationship” with Netanyahu.)
Of course, it’s not exactly a secret that Obama and Netanyahu have a tense relationship at best. (Ben Smith compares the gaffe to the Wikileaks “revelations”: “Things that are widely understood, but not supposed to be spoken aloud.”) But isn’t it so much more fun to hear directly?
“Untitled,” Asma Fayoumi
“Asma Fayoumi, has been a driver in the Arab art scene since the late 1960s. Born in Amman in 1943 she began her career amidst a mid-century school of Syrian Abstraction. She worked alongside Assad Arabi, Faek Dahdouh and others at a time when the Middle Eastern art scene was undergoing a critical transition into more contemporary forms of representation. The political climate at the time aslo prompted artist to take on call for social change.
In 1966, she had a solo show in Damascus that created a buzz and marked the start of a long series of solo and group exhibitions regionally and abroad, paving the way for subsequent generations of female painters in the Arab World. Her work is destinguished by expressionist representations of women and children; and by frantic and heavy brushtrokes and bewildered eyes peering out from underneath layers of paint. Her most recent works in “The Person Within” chronicles her work and displays her more recent fascination with the family as an insitution, especially in light of the current sociopolitical turmoil. She depicts mostly women as they seek to shield their children from troubled and uncertain environments.”(Source:http://yawmeyart.wordpress.com/)
Agnes Varda’s Plaisir d’amour en Iran (1976)
“Young man seated, playing an oud, while a young woman stands nearby, Tunisia” Dumas (1860-1900)
خالد جبران ~ مرسال المراسيل
