Few days ago I was watching Inside Story on Al Jazeera English, and one of the guests on the show was Baria Alamuddin, foreign editor of Al Hayat. This sounds normal, or at least it should, except that Alamuddin was speaking from Riyadh. It is no secret that Al Jazeera and the Saudi government are not friends. They have been banned from working inside the country for a long time, and some of their Arab employees say they are not allowed to enter the Kingdom even when they come on their own. I’m a little bit puzzled over this: are Al Jazeera no longer banned from working here, or is it just for the English channel while its Arabic sister is still banned?

Our current legal system needs serious revision, and stories like this are more than enough indication. As usual, it seems as if we take one step forward, and then undo it by taking ten steps backward.

Keef Al Hal, the first Saudi full-feature movie is now available on Google Video. On a related note, LBC have announced that they will run the movie on New Year’s Eve at 1800 GMT.

Faiza Ambah profiles Saudi human rights lawyer Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem who contends that the religious police oppress people in the name of religion and act as if the law doesn’t apply to them. He wants to prove them wrong.

After less than four months of searching, MTV has found what they consider the right partner to launch their Arabic channel. The new channel will start broadcasting during the first half of next year, Asharq Al Awsat reports.

Some bloggers here have expressed their anger and disgust after finding Christmas decorations stuff in some supermarkets in Riyadh. Their reasoning: “we are not responsible for bringing joy to Christians who live among us because Christians in other countries are killing our Muslim brothers.” I have to say that I was totally disturbed by this senseless statement.

This way of thinking seems very similar to some reactions in the U.S. after 9/11: “hey, let’s kick Muslims out of this country altogether.” This is no good, and this is what gives extremists on both sides the chance to shamelessly voice their narrow-minded opinions. This is what makes people like Debbie Schlussel objects to Barack Obama’s nomination for presidency because his father was a Muslim “when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam” she says in a recent, as well as senseless, post. I think people everywhere should realize that we, the whole world, are fighting a war against extremism of every kind, and not this faith or the other.

I can understand how some people feel threatened and want to protect their faith and beliefs, but I think it can be way too extreme sometimes. It is not as if these guys were putting a big Christmas tree in the middle of King Abdullah Rd., or as if they were forcing everyone to join the party. These Christmas decorations were even purposely distributed in the supermarket in such a way that it doesn’t feel they were there to celebrate the season.

Just because you don’t believe in something doesn’t give you the right to deny others from believing in it, especially when it has nothing to do with you whatsoever. We need to learn how to be more tolerant and accept differences, and that “different” does not necessarily and always equals “bad”.

I wonder if anyone in the local blogosphere has written about the recent Asian Games that took place in Doha earlier this month. The Qataris have managed to organize a really great sports event, and they are already talking about bidding to host FIFA World Cup in 2018. I don’t have much to say about the Asian Games: the Sydney-esque opening ceremony was spectacular, and I enjoyed watching some of the competitions.

I just wanted to point to this report by Chris Turner for the IAAF about Saudi athletes. He compares our homegrown talents who won 9 gold medals in the Asiads to the imported athletes of Bahrain and Qatar, and he thinks they may have the potential to compete in World Championships and the Olympics Games.