Panda Supermarkets is a subsidiary of Safola Foods Group. They have a large network of supermarkets in the big cities of the kingdom, and they are expanding quickly. Last year, they opened the first HyperPanda to face the foreign hypermarkets that came to town like Carrefour and Giant. Recently, it seems that they are working on a campaign to rebrand their stores, which used to carry multiple names in the past. Their stores used to have different name in different places, including Panda, Al-Azizia Panda, and Al-Azizia Market. Now, they are renaming all the stores Panda, and the largest ones will carry the prefix Hyper.

I think this is a smart move. It was confusing in the past when you ask the cab driver to take you to Panda on Takhasosi St., and the driver asks: “What Panda?” “The large place at the intersection with Makkah Rd.,” you answer. “You mean Al-Azizia?” he asks, and you say yes. Next time, you tell the driver to take you to Al-Azizia, and he asks “What Azizia?” A stupid conversation that has repeated several times during my three years in Riyadh.

After the case of the two girls who used to work at a restaurant in Qateef last year, here comes another story about a girl who worked at an optics shop (Arabic) in the same region. The 20-year-old married girl said, that after less than a week in the job, the religious police ordered the owner of the shop to fire her.

I don’t know what the religious police have to do with such issue, and how they could interfere in similar situations, but the girl thinks it’s not about the opinion of the religious police. “It is about the society that sill cannot accept women’s working in such jobs,” she said. She added that her husband has completely supported her, and that she used to work at the reception of a private hospital, but had to quit the job after the harassment she had to endure there.

Earlier this year, the Council of Ministers has issued a decision to open more job opportunities for women. However, if the religious police, and the army of the conservatives and extremists behind them, are going to interfere like this, Saudi women should consider the decision, that they described earlier as historical, to be history.

Laila al-Uhaideb, who had written about the same subject twice previously, has come to write a good analysis to the reasons behind the harassment incident in Riyadh. She thinks that one of the reasons is the total isolation that most young men and women suffer, “to the extent that prevents a young single man from entering malls and parks by himself or with his friends, because in the public eye, he is not trustworthy; he is just a hunter who came looking for a victim, and to the extent that a woman -even an adult responsible woman- can’t leave house alone even to the grocery store next door.”

Moreover, is the environment where girls do not see any males before her eyes except for her father and brothers,” so she does not know how to react with anyone else but with repulsion or giving up; both are too negative.”

She says that what boys and girls watch on TV about the relationship between the two sexes is also a reason for the awful incident. Something that that our Sheikhs could not find a solution for but by banning TV, “and the weird thing, they appear on TV, and then they say it is haram,” she wrote.

Al-Uhaideb, who has written several times before about the unfair view to women in our schools’ curricula, thinks that the problem is also cause by many fatawa that left nothing without banning it, “including wearing jeans for a woman in front of her husband,” she added.

I read many articles about that harassment incident, but I think that this column (Arabic) by al-Uhaideb is one of the few that analyzed what happened in a logical, rational manner. In the title of her column, she asked if there was a light at the end of the tunnel. What do you think? I’d like to read your opinions.

To Shoot or Not to Shoot: The dilemma facing all professional photographers in the Kingdom – as well as amateurs who simply want to take a picture.

The day before yesterday, I woke up early and had some extra minutes before going to class, so I turned on the TV to have a quick roundup. On CNN, there was an interview with the Syrian Ambassador to the UN, and it really got on my nerves.

The interviewer was asking about some specific aspects of the Mehlis report, and the Syrian official had one answer to all questions asked: “I’m not in a position to answer this, but all I’m going to say is the following: ‘This report is grandly politicized. You can’t make accusations against a country based on no evidence and shady witnesses’.”

What a whole load of crap! He kept on repeating that answer that I felt I was going to throw up (having an empty stomach due to fasting helped to prevent that). The report is not politicized, and many people, including Jihad al-Khazen (Arabic), agree with me. The fact that the US and France would use the report to put political pressure on Syria has nothing to do with its neutrality.

The accusations made in the report are raised against a certain group of people, and are based on what any fair observer would consider as rational evidences. Syria is a country is not accused in the report. Excuse me, Mr. Ambassador, but if you feel offended and/or accused by the content of the report, that’s your own business. I mean, you don’t need to take things that has nothing to do with you too personally, and, btw, you are not fooling anyone.

Dave Winer: “We don’t have to agree on everything to work together. In fact we must work together, and honor our differences with respect.”