Author Archives: Ahmed

  • I have been following this photoblog for a while. Michael is a Swiss photographer who works with a publishing company in Jeddah, and he has been posting different pictures from the Kingdom. I have frequently linked to them on my link blog, but today I was dismayed to read that he removed a series of abaya pictures that he previously posted because he was afraid that his “association with KAUST could get the university in trouble.” I’m not a KAUST basher, but I’m a KAUST skeptic, and removing these pics only deepens my skepticism. UPDATE: I talked to Michael and he said he will repost the pictures.
  • Indonesian housemaids who want to come work in Saudi Arabia must take a Sharia crash course before they can come here. The course will include prophet’s teachings about black magic and the punishment of those who might use it, as well as some basic Arabic vocabulary. The Saudi government hope that such program would reduce the number of runaway maids who eventually get employed in the housemaids black market.

Arab News Redesigns

Finally, and after many long years of stagnation, Arab News gave their website a redesign. Nothing groundbreaking, but certainly an improvement over their old one which looked like a website from the mid 90’s.

True to its nickname, the Green Truth, the new design features the green color heavily, using it for all headlines and links. Although I have to say that the green .com next to the newspaper name is pretty lame and it looks rather outdated. The website also uses more pictures in a much nicer way than the old one. But more importantly, they finally introduce RSS, but the feeds are not full so you will have to visit the website to read the articles.

They also decided to open all articles to comments by readers, so that’s something as well. The very first comment on the new AN was about the Grand Mufti’s call for monitoring of massage centers, and it reads: “That’s all this blind man cares about?! I expected him to encourage MOH to care for the poor patients who lose thier (sic) lives due to mistakes and recklessness. I guess massage pose a greater danger!!!”

I guess it will be interesting to watch their policy when it comes to comments. Is it going to be like al-Arabyia’s ‘everything goes’ policy, or something like al-Watan’s which its editor Jamal Khashoggi recently bragged that he employs ten girls whose their sole job is to monitor comments.

But back to the redesign itself, it will be inevitable to compare it to the other English daily in the country, Saudi Gazette, which has also gone through a redesign last year.

While Saudi Gazette uses a solution developed by the local company SmartInfo, which Fouad al-Farhan recently sold, Arab News uses Escenic, a CMS developed by a Norwegian company that was also used for the website of al-Majalla. However, when compared to other regional and international newspapers, both remain pretty barebones. Nothing out of the ordinary, and nothing that really stands out.

It is very obvious that newspapers here are still approaching the web with their old mentality. Except for al-Riyadh, which has a very good team of local smart developers, none of these newspapers think of their websites as an important part of their service. None of them has an ‘online newsroom,’ and none of them think of their websites as a new medium where they can build a community where they can engage their readers in ways print cannot do.

I believe that the local internet scene is still lacking on many levels, and there are many opportunities to create excellent Saudi content especially in Arabic. The attempts that we have seen so far in this field are very weak and leave much to be desired. I have been thinking about this a lot lately, and I have some ideas that I’m working on, so if you are interested please get in touch.

  • Smile. Whether you celebrate Valentine’s Day today or not. Just smile. Check out this video that Asmaa and her colleagues made:

  • It’s been more three years since we first heard about MOCI’s plan to allow new radio stations to broadcast in the country. Last month a media company owned by Prince Khaled al-Faisal won the first FM radio license for a reported price tag of SR75m. I was surprised. Is an FM radio license in Saudi Arabia really worth such costly price? Or is this simply a tactic by MOCI to put a high barrier to entry so they would only give the license to certain people? Yesterday the second license was sold for SR66m. Winners of the remaining three licenses will be announced over the next six weeks.
  • Saudi Valentine’s FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU! (via rt)

  • Arab News reports on the campaign to boycott ‘manned’ lingerie shops that I wrote about a couple of days ago. Fellow blogger Eman al-Nafjan is quoted in the story.
  • Tariq al-Maeena: “Yes, tomorrow is different to some. And depending on which side of the fence you sit, the color red will definitely have some say.”
  • The young Bin Baz continues to make headlines. Here, he is interviewed by al-Watan daily where he reaffirms his not-so-orthodox opinions about women’s driving, mixing, khulwa, and birth control.
  • This is awesome: “Nouf wears a lab coat instead of an abaya when she is in public. She likes people to think she is a doctor. But she is not.” While she does it because she wants people to believe she is a doctor, other Saudi chicks are doing it simply because they don’t want to wear the black abaya. Nice one, gals. (via MMW)
  • My friend Bandar Raffah has been on a roll with some really fine iPhone apps, and his latest creation is proving to be a great success. 2Do is an award-winning and beautifully designed time management that is available for $6.99 in the App Store.
  • Roba posted about her favourite snacks that she grew up with in Saudi Arabia. Her absolute favourite was “Salad Chips,” or more correctly Salad Snack, which she could not find a picture of. But since this one is also a favourite of mine, I thought I would get her the missing picture. Enjoy!

Unnecessary Wars

While the Religious Police today launched their annual nationwide crackdown on stores selling items that are red or in any other way allude to the banned celebrations of Valentine’s Day, Reem Asaad and her fellow women continue their lingerie jihad. Starting on the 13th of February and for two weeks, women are called to boycott all lingerie shops that employ men.

This is the second phase of the campaign that Asaad started a year ago, aiming to address one of the many bizarre contradictions in Saudi Arabia, where in this supposedly most conservative country on earth women have to divulge their underwear sizes and colors to strange men on regular basis. Check out this Facebook group to learn more about the campaign.

Ghazi al-Gosaibi, minister of labor, who is currently ill and being treated in the US, has issued a law in 2006 stating that “only females may be employed in women apparel and accessories stores.” However, the law has never been implemented due to the objection and resistance of different parties.