Saturday, January 24, 2015

Oman's pending power vacuum

On the same day this week, Saudi Arabia's king died and the president of Yemen resigned. Neighboring Oman is also going to lose its leaders soon. Its sultan has been laid up in a German hospital for months. The benevolent dictator has no children so there is no clear successor. The process for picking the next leader is wild. His family has three days to pick a replacement. If they can't come to a decision, an envelope containing the current sultan's choice is opened. That person becomes the next sultan.

I recently read a book on the countries of the Indian Ocean and was surprised to learn that Oman had colonies from Zanzibar to Gwadar in Pakistan.

One question: What's that bubble on top of his plane for?


Here are a couple of articles about the sultan:

2 comments:

m4ff3w said...

That's the flight communications dome. The plan is a 747SP, Special Performance signifying range extension.

Rich said...

Pretty rare bird, that 747SP. The founder of Fry's Electronics owns one, and I always look for the Sands' plane at Las Vegas airport.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EANFiiICUM