Heavy rains in Jeddah the past couple of days have claimed 78 lives and still counting. Heavy rains led to flooding because of how the city is managed. Millions go into its infrastructure for digging sewers and putting in pipelines and paving roads but by the time the money finally trickles down to the purchase [...]
Entries from November 2009
November 22, 2009
The great return
A week ago, AlRiyadh newspaper interviewed the minister of higher education and he had some fascinating things to say. If you read Arabic it is really worth reading through the whole interview and if you don’t then you’ll just have to make do with my post about it.
Before getting to the interview, let me explain [...]
November 12, 2009
Poverty in KSA
For people who have never been to Saudi Arabia, the fact that we are one of the biggest producers of oil often gives the impression of affluence. And in major tourist attractions around the world, every Saudi tourist is thought to be a member of royalty. That’s why I believe it’s important to show that [...]
November 8, 2009
H1N1 conpiracy theories
Yesterday morning the minister of health, Dr. Abdullah Al Rabeah publicly got himself and one of his daughters vaccinated at a launch ceremony for the H1N1 vaccine campaign. This was reported in today’s newspapers. So I went through the comments posted on the article and just as I suspected many if not most doubted that [...]
November 6, 2009
Saudi Women Activists launch the “Black Ribbons Campaign” on November 6th
This was posted on Facebook by Reem Pharaon and is making the rounds:
On November 6. 1990, 47 brave Saudi women drove their cars publicly in the capitol of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, to demand their right to drive. They were subsequently detained, their passports were confiscated, and fired from their jobs.
On the 19th anniversary of this [...]
November 3, 2009
The Ideology of Control
This is from an article I wrote for the November issue of Relativity Online:
Ultra-conservative Saudi families, and they are a majority, have a general dynamic that few Saudis could deny. Like old-fashioned western family ideologies, the father is the breadwinner, the mother takes care of the home-front, the sons are served and tolerated and the [...]
