Starbucks Challenge: Next time you go to Starbucks, ask for a fair trade coffee, and report back.

Last week, I was interviewed by a Spanish newspaper. I don’t read Spanish, but here is a link to the interview for those of you who do.

STC’s National Center of Information and Research on Tourism, has published a study stated that unjustified interference of the religious police in some locations is one of the obstacles to local tourism (Arabic). Other obstacles include expensive prices, limitations of available entertainment themes, fears of terrorism, and harassment of Saudi youth.

The Saudi telethon to aid the victims of South Asia’s earthquake was a big success, rising more than SR 100m (about US$ 27m). Badria al-Bisher thinks (Arabic) that next similar events should include celebrities from sports, media, and the entertainment industry, in order to attract teenagers to participate in the “experience of giving.”

After the video clip of Riyadh’s harassment incident, another video clip is producing anger among Saudis. This time, the video clip is showing a teacher beating an 11-year-old student with a wire. I think there are more wrongful behaviors take place inside our schools, but the difference now is that Bluetooth makes it so much easier to circulate bad news. So watch out everybody, do not even try to joke in public these days, because probably somebody is filming you.

The first Saudi bloggers meet up is to be held on Friday. Unfortunately, this necessarily means that I won’t be able to attend, because I will be leaving Riyadh on vacation. However, I would be happy to attend (or even organize, if in Hassa) a meet up for the eastern province bloggers. I know there is several bloggers from Dammam, Khobar, and Dhahran, and I think we can schedule a date for a meeting before Eid al-Fitr. If you are interested, leave a comment here, or email me: saudijeans at gmail dot com.

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.