Hark, the Herald’s angle sings – mostly because it emphasises McCully’s thoughts on Saudi sheep deal

The NZ Herald perhaps has summed up the deal correctly with its headline. Or Stuff has done so.

But they can’t both be right – can they?

The Herald has gone for…

Saudi farm spend ‘an opportunity’

At Stuff you will be told...

Government’s $6 million investment into a Saudi farm ‘dodgy’

The differing attitudes depend on whose observations were given emphasis early in the story.

The angle taken by the reporter, in other words (or by the rewrite staff if it was rewritten).

Let’s start at Stuff.

Raising human rights stuff has a time and a place and The Boss is right to put trade matters first

And it seriously reduces the incidence of hitting the wrong target that you get from those bloody drones…

The Boss has his priorities right,

He has defended his upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia and said a free trade agreement with the Kingdom will allow the two parties to talk about a ‘range of issues’ including human rights abuses.

He’s the first Prime Minister to visit Saudi Arabia but there are some sad-sack grouchers in this country who reckon he shouldn’t go because of the country’s human rights abuses, including beheadings.

It so happens Alf does not regard a beheading as a human rights abuse. It’s simply a means of execution and there are some bastards who thoroughly deserve be dispatched from the land of the living.

Saudi Arabia’s illiberal views on liquor are a good reason for staying away from condolence ceremony

It looks likely to be a more effective deterrent than home detention.

Alf is somewhat bemused to learn the Governor-General will represent New Zealand at the funeral of the Saudi King Abdullah.

Frankly, he wouldn’t bother sending anybody if he was calling the shots.

But if somebody must go – well, he is pleased the job hasn’t been given to him.

Accordingly he is pleased that Sir Jerry Mateparae will travel to Saudi Arabia for the ceremony of condolences for King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who died on Friday, aged 90.

Some world leaders have already arrived there.

But what sort of place have they gone to and how many plaudits should be heaped on the late King?

 

Yemeni murderer and sodomist miscalculated, if he thought the Saudis had run out of swordsmen

Not too long ago the authorities in Saudi Arabia were considering dropping public beheadings as a method of execution (see here) because of a shortage of government swordsmen.

But they must have found someone to keep up the good work, as we learn today from the Daily Mail (see here.)

A bloke by name of Mohammed Rashad Khairi Hussain got it in the neck after being convicted of murder and sodomy. The victim was a Pakistani national, Pashteh Sayed Khan.

It’s a bloody shame – Saudi Arabian authorities can’t find swordsmen to behead the baddies

Want to get ahead?

Brush up on your skills with a sword, then offer your services to the Saudi Arabian Government.

That government is considering dropping public beheadings as a method of execution (see here) because of a shortage of government swordsmen.

The shortage is of swordsmen, it should be noted, presumably because Saudi womenfolk are not too skilled with a sword, and even if they were skilled, their burqas would impede their work as executioners.