Well, I did not see that coming. The owner of the pharmacies chain said yesterday that he has nothing to do with the bribery and he will sue the MOH for libel! Close sources to the owner told the press that the employee who offered the bribe does not represent the owner and he knew nothing about it.

However, insiders from the MOH told Asharq Al-Awsat that the same owner has offered a bribe to another government body before, but no details were revealed then. I have this feeling that the owner will not be charged with anything. We’ve seen this before, and this time will probably be no exception.

Two men were killed and 30 other persons, including women and children, were injured yesterday. No, it’s not another bombing by Al-Qaeda, it is the grand opening of the new IKEA center in Jeddah.

IKEA was promoting the whole week in papers and the streets that the first 50 customers will get 500 SR shopping coupons while the next 200 customers wil get 100 SR shopping coupons. What IKEA did not expect that people will wait from the early hours of dawn to get some free stuff.

In Riyadh, where the other new branch of IKEA was opening at the same time, there was police officers, the National Guard and even the Religious Police to keep everything under control.

Read Arab News for further details.

While I was in Riyadh and all that bombings were happening, I wasn’t scared as much as my parents who kept on calling me after every major event to make sure I’m all right and to tell me not to go out! But two days ago I was really scared when I heard about some chasing to the terrorists here in my hometown, Hassa.

The thing started when four terrorists refused to stop at a checkpoint, so the police started to chase their green Camry until they got to some crowded neighborhood in Mubarraz. The police surrounded them there and they killed two terrorists while the other two were wounded.

The owner of the largest group of pharmacies chain here in the Kingdom was arrested after he tried to bribe an official in the Ministry of Health to help him to get possession of 200 pharmacies illegally.

According to Arab News daily newspaper, the official immediately called the minister Hamad Al-Mann’a who told the police to handle it. The owner was ready to give 10M SR to settle the deal with the official. The deal was supposed to help the owner to expand his network in the capital mainly, while in other regions he already was taking control of the pharmacies market.

The owner also hoped that this bribery would help him to get rid of the regulations of the MOH on the employment of Saudis. This is good news to pharmacy students like me that we could find a job in the next few years.

I’m just wondering why none of the papers or TVs has revealed the name of the briber. I heard early this year that the owner of that group is a member of the royal family but I really can’t tell if this is true or not. Anyway, only time will tell, or maybe it won’t? who knows?

I use every possible service of Google and I never thought of anything like that. You know what, I don’t care either!

(via Subzero Blue)

Back to football, Turki Bin Khalid, the supervisor of the National Saudi football team, has finally announced that he resigned from his position. However, he revealed no reasons for this decision. For me, it was so clear this is coming, as he already told the press during the Asian Cup that there’s no intention to sack the Dutch coach Gerard Van Der Leem, but after the third match in the cup the president of the SAFF sacked the coach without even asking Bin Khalid for his opinion.

What I can remember clearly is that Turki Bin Khalid was the one who brought Van Der Leem and told the press then that the Dutch coach will stay with us until the 2006 World Cup in Germany. It seems like those guys above Bin Khalid do not understand the job of a football coach. All what they can think about is winning and then the praise of others, even if they had nothing to do with that victory.

I’m really looking forward to that day when someone who really understands football to be the president of our Football Association, but I can’t see that day coming. My earlier post title was “Please Resign,” but I definitely was talking to someone other than Turki Bin Khalid. In fact, he could be a good president for the Saudi Football Association someday.

I’m not pretty sure if Saudi women are getting the rights they deserve here or not, but I know for sure that they are making more headlines lately.

The thing that everybody was talking about last week is about two women who were arrested because they were working at a restaurant behind closed doors. Legally, there is no such thing says women cannot work at restaurants, but as usual, police got it their own way by saying the two women have no “health permission.” Abdul-Rahman Al-Rashed made some really good points related to this issue in his column.

While Saudi women are not allowed to drive cars here, our super girls are enjoying driving all kinds of vehicles abroad on their vacations. A Saudi eye-witness told Asharq Al-Awsat from Beirut “Saudi women are good at driving cars. I was just behind them, and a Saudi girl was driving well all the way to Brummana.”

150 driving licenses from Bahrain, hundreds of licenses from Dubai plus unknown number of international licenses from other parts of the world; all that proves that Saudi women do not need our stupid system to get their very own rides. If they are not allowed to vote; why they will need to drive cars? It’s just the way people are thinking here. I know; this whole thing just sucks!