More Gulf news, here:
Under the sponsorship system, no foreigner can enter or leave the GCC, obtain work or switch jobs without the approval of his or her sponsor — a ministry, a company, an institution or an individual.
Unsuspecting workers are often cheated by recruiters in their home country who pretend to have lucrative job offers. The agents receive a commission for their services. However, once the worker is in the host country, his passport is kept with the sponsor and he is told there is no job waiting for him or that he will be paid less than promised by the recruiter. He is also told to pay a specific amount of money to the sponsor if he wants to avoid having his residency visa cancelled and being expelled.
Although the Gulf countries have been often urged to do away with the controversial sponsorship system, the business community has vehemently opposed the move, arguing it would adversely affect local economies.
Indentured servitude is Constitutionally barred, in the US of A. Next, same news source, Let's Make a Deal:
Jeddah: US Secretary of State John Kerry pressed Arab leaders on Thursday to back President Barack Obama’s new military drive against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), calling for tighter curbs on funding for militants and fewer extremist messages in Arab media.
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[...] Obama declared on Wednesday that he would lead an alliance to root out Isil in both Syria and Iraq, plunging the United States into two conflicts in which nearly every country in the Middle East has a stake.
An alliance against Isil is bound to require cooperation from countries that consider each other bitter enemies. Washington itself supports the government in Iraq but opposes Al Assad in Syria; it [the US] is allied to Gulf Arab states and hostile to Iran.
The meeting in Jeddah was attended by Arab countries and non-Arab power Turkey, which have stood together against Syria’s Al Assad.
A State Department official travelling with Kerry said the top US diplomat would the [sic] ask allies to accept a bigger US military presence in their airspace and regional bases: “We may need enhanced basing and overflights ... there’s going to be a meeting soon of defence ministers to work on these details.” Kerry would also urge regional television news outlets, particularly Qatari-owned Al Jazeera and Saudi-owned Al Arabiya, to air anti-extremist messages. Governments in the region would be urged to press mosques to preach against Isil.
“They need to get at the clerics because the clerics can get at the mosques in the neighbourhood and they have to expose Isil for what it is,” the official told reporters.
Washington also wants more efforts to stop the flow of money to the group by tackling oil smuggling and cracking down on contributions from private donors, the official said.
