Reuters reports, via The New York Times, that the dependents of American diplomats in some of the posts in Saudi Arabia will be permitted to return. The article points out that the overall security situation has improved. School-age children will not be returning to Riyadh and Jeddah however.
The difference is that the International School in Dhahran is located on the grounds of the US Consulate there. It is ‘off campus’, so to speak, in the other cities. This means that the security of the schools in those cities is outside the control of the US government, relying entirely on private security forces contracted by the schools and whatever security the Saudi government is willing and able to provide. This is not a criticism of the Saudi government: there are scores of private, international schools and securing all of them dissipates the ability to secure any of them.
Allowing families, even if only adult family members, should help morale at the posts, as well as make it somewhat easier to get officers to sign up for the assignments. Getting officers to go to Saudi Arabia, though, is never easy. The social/cultural climate is not one that appeals to most Americans, Foreign Service Officers or not.
U.S. Lets Some Diplomat Family Members Back In Saudi
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States said on Friday it will allow some family members of U.S. diplomats at its embassy in Riyadh and its consulate in Dhahran to return to Saudi Arabia because the security climate has improved.
However, it said Westerners remain threatened by “terrorist groups” in the world’s largest oil exporter, and said U.S. diplomats at its consulate in Jeddah, which was attacked by militants in 2004, still cannot be accompanied by dependents.
In a travel warning posted on its Web site, the U.S. State Department said it had authorized all U.S. diplomatic family members to return to Dhahran and adult family members and “non-school age” children to return to Riyadh.
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UPDATE: Saudi Gazette reports that the US government has also changed its policy on tours of duty in the Kingdom. While the unaccompanied tours had been for only one year (fairly useless, in my opinion) they are now going back to two years (also not ideal, but better).
I’m bumping this piece back to the top as this change is an important one.
Michael Jackson and his music are going to be missed, even in the Arab world. While his music never spoke to me and his behavior went beyond bizarre in my book, I’m clearly not the one to assess his place in the music halls of fame. I’ll let others speak.
Here’s the Associated Press report out of Cairo, run in Asharq Alawsat. It reports on—but does not answer—the belief that Jackson converted to Islam.
Arab World Mourns Michael Jackson
CAIRO, (AP) – A Bahraini royal mourned him publicly, young Lebanese held a candlelight tribute, Egyptian musicians hailed him as an inspiration.
Beyond his global reach, Michael Jackson held a special place in the Muslim world, as one of the first major Western entertainers to break through cultural barriers in the 1980s.
Some made a connection with the pop icon because of rumors, never substantiated, that he had converted to Islam. Others embraced him as one of their own after he sought refuge in the Gulf emirate of Bahrain in 2005, following a bruising trial on child molestation charges in the U.S.
“God have mercy on him. He was a Bahraini. He lived with us,” said Jassim Ali, 35, shopping for Jackson CDs on Saturday in a music store in the capital, Manama.
Jackson only spent a year in the emirate, as a guest of Sheik Abdulla bin Hamad Isa Al Khalifa, a son of Bahrain’s king and an aspiring songwriter who had befriended the entertainer. Jackson kept a low profile there, largely staying close to his host.
After Jackson’s departure, the sheik sued Jackson for $7 million, saying he had failed to fulfill a joint music venture, but the two settled in November, with terms not disclosed.
The sheik said Saturday, in a statement in the Gulf Daily News, that “the world has lost a giant in the music industry.”
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More Saudi-specific, Arab News has an editorial. It notes his impact on music, but laments that too many young people were looking toward him as an answer to their own vacant lives.
The worldwide wave of grief that has greeted the news of the untimely death of pop star Michael Jackson is as extraordinary as was the man himself. News bulletins globally have been dominated by reports first of his death and then of the preliminary results of his autopsy, which will not be completed until toxicology tests are finished in maybe six weeks.
In cities around the world from Los Angeles, to Paris, London, Berlin, Tokyo, Shanghai, Mumbai, Sydney and Johannesburg, stunned fans gathered in vigils and sang his music. TV networks in many countries cleared their schedules to broadcast tribute programs to the dead star. The Internet slowed to a crawl and the Twitter site actually crashed, as fans searched out the latest news, exchanged messages and made millions of commercial downloads of Jackson songs. Even politicians found time out to express their deep regret at Jackson’s passing.
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On the same editorial page linked above, Arab News also has a piece on current political scandals, from South Carolina’s Governor Sanford through Italy, the UK, Bulgaria, Greece, Australia and Japan. What can I say? Newspapers seem to love scandalous stories as much as the common man!
Saudi society, it seems, is a bit more violent than usually reported. Arab News carries this story about attacks on teachers at Saudi schools, both boys and girls schools.
There have been reports about teachers abusing their positions and inflicting corporal punishment on students. It appears that it’s not only the teachers who can be a problem.
I’m sure that the vast majority of Saudi schools are not the scene of warfare between students and teachers. That it happens often enough to warrant reporting, however, suggests a problem.
Violence against teachers: Who is to take the blame?
Badea Abu Al-Naja | Arab NewsMAKKAH: The gunning down of a teacher at a school in Makkah last week was not the only case in which teachers have been subjected to violence and threats.
The teacher, who was in his 30s, was shot dead at a high school in Al-Zaher district on June 8. A man walked into the school asking for the teacher. When he saw the teacher, he shot him and seriously injured him. He was pronounced dead in hospital.
A clip, most probably from a cell phone, posted on the Internet shows footage of another teacher trapped inside a car surrounded by a mob of students. The teacher tries to talk to the students, but they ignore him. Other teachers try to interfere and calm students down; they are also attacked. Finally, as the teacher tries to escape, he is attacked and forced to take refuge inside the school.
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In preparation for this week’s conference on swine flu in the Kingdom, with particular reference to pilgrims, officials from the American Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization toured various ports of entry in Jeddah. According to this Saudi Gazette report, it appears that identification of flu sufferers and their quarantine and treatment will be the principal public health measures to be taken. The paper also reports that six new cases of flu have been identified in the Kingdom, bringing the total to 62.
Measures to fight swine flu assessed
JEDDAH – Saudi experts and those from the United Nations and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Saturday toured entry points used by millions of Haj and Umrah pilgrims to assess the Kingdom’s measures to prevent the spread of swine flu.
The field trip is part of a four-day workshop, which opened here Saturday. Organized by the Ministry of Health, the workshop divided the subjects on the agenda into eight groups such as command and control, combating infection and management of emergency services, readiness of laboratories, epidemic monitoring and readiness, strict medical measures for Haj and Umrah, policies for travel and health quarantine procedures, risk management and dealing with epidemics.
The experts also visited Jeddah Islamic Port and the Regional Laboratory to get acquainted with the preparations and measures, said Dr. Ziyad Bin Ahmad Mimish, Coordinator of the Program for the Workshop for Combating Swine Flu.
Mimish said the workshop follows the directives of King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, to enhance precautionary and preventive measures during the Haj and Umrah seasons.
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Arab News, of course, also reports on the visit. Its report also notes that training programs will be held in Mecca in order to bring the medical staff there up to speed.
Arabian Business is reporting that the first case of swine flu to be transmmitted from Saudi Arabia has shown up in Egypt.
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/560076-egypt-reports-first-swine-flu-case-in-mecca-pilgrim
Egypt, which has already raised the possibility of quarantining returning Haj pilgrims, must be considering its options now.
As readers may have noticed, economics is not my greatest interest and doesn’t get a lot of coverage on Crossroads Arabia. It is an important facet of life, though, and cannot be ignored. Increasingly, the issue of ‘Islamic finance’ has been getting media coverage. Unfortunately, in much of the West, it is seen as some insidious worm being fed into Western economies, part of the plot to surreptitiously convert the world to global Islam. That, it assuredly is not.
Here’s a piece from Asharq Alawsat that defines the difference between bonds, prohibited in Shariah-compliant finance, and sukuk, their permitted equivalent:
The Difference between Sukuk and Bonds
Lahem al NasserThe launch of a secondary market for Sukuk bonds by the Saudi Arabian Capital Market Authority [CMA] has led to Ulama and religious scholars issuing a number of fatwas and statements prohibiting this. The majority of these fatwas and statements were unwritten [i.e. issued verbally] and so were missing many details. Many people also circulated messages via mobile phone of a fatwa issued by the Islamic Fiqh Academy that deals with bonds, but does not mention Sukuk, which is an alternative to bonds that are forbidden under the provisions of Islam. These statements and reports did not take into account the secondary market launched for Sukuk, as this market consists solely of Sukuk that comply with the provisions of Islamic Sharia law and whose documentation have been verified by a legal authority comprised of a number of religious scholars including members of the Council of Senior Ulama and the Islamic Fiqh Academy.
The statements and fatwas mentioned above have caused ambiguity among the public with regards to the legality of circulating Sukuk. Members of the public have asked me to clarify this, and explain the difference between Sukuk and bonds, and the legal status of each. The difference between Sukuk and bonds can be most easily seen by defining each term;
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Asharq Alawsat has been running a series of interviews with journalists who write about the Middle East. The interviewer is good at asking the right questions, sometimes awkward ones. The journalists and writers, for their part, do a good job of explaining how they approach the issues and what’s of interest to them.
Below is a list of links to the articles which have appeared over the past month:
I worked with Angeles in Riyadh and still correspond with her. She was one of the most astute journalists covering the Riyadh bombings in 2003.
Wright, the author of The Looming Towers, has lived and worked in Saudi Arabia (with Saudi Gazette), and is generally on top of things. He’s currently working on a film about Al-Qaeda
I worked with Neil throughout my tour in Saudi Arabia. He was based in Cairo but made frequent visits—and certainly knew my phone number! I consider him, too, among the best correspondents in the region.
I’ve never met Michael, but enjoy his features and profiles. I might argue with some of his conclusions, but he’s not a fly-by journalists, the ‘instant expert’. He, too, is based in Cairo.
I confess, the British Observer is not on my must-read list. Hence, I don’t really know Burke’s work at all. Given his work on religious extremism in the region and in S. Asia, that’s my loss and needs to be corrected.
When it comes to women’s transportation, Saudis are up the creek. Social and cultural barriers are stopping women from driving—religious authorities are on record saying there’s nothing in Islam that prohibits it—but women (and often their husbands) get jammed. The cities have rudimentary public transportation; taxis (known in the Kingdom as ‘limousines’) are expensive and drivers curt at best; hiring a foreign driver (even at the paltry salary of $533/mo.) is too expensive for many Saudis.
These and other problems are the meat of this Arab News article. I get a sense that the push to permit women to drive is heating up again. I don’t want to be too optimistic, but it seems that there is going to be a breakthrough in the near future. The religious arguments have mostly been won. The government acknowledges that there’s no law against it. Now, the economic and social cost arguments are being waged. They are irrefutable, of course, but they still have to convince the incalcitrant.
Women’s transport: Solutions needed
Laura Bashraheel | Arab NewsJEDDAH: In Saudi Arabia, the only country in the world where women are not allowed to drive, transportation is definitely an issue. Women are usually driven around by family members and personal drivers, or are forced to use some other type of private transportation. While the private transport is a booming business, the higher the demand the more expensive the supply becomes.
Providing alternative solutions is the only exit. Some companies provide cars and drivers to ferry their women employees for work purposes, but not all companies have the budget to do that. Workingwomen, meanwhile, find it difficult getting to work and are often charged thousands of riyals a month in transportation.
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With the pilgrimage season fast approaching—late November for Haj—and the number of reported cases of swine flu (A/H1N1) rising—now 56—the Saudis are getting concerned. They’ve established a workshop in Jeddah that brings together public health experts from the CDC and WHO with those from the region to discuss the situation and attempt to get a handle on prevention and care.
This Arab News piece doesn’t go into particulars, but notes that “new preventive measures that could be introduced at the country’s entry points, especially airports.” Exactly what that means remains to be determined.
Experts discuss measures to fight swine flu
Mohammed Rasooldeen | Arab NewsRIYADH: Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah will inaugurate a four day-workshop on swine flu at the Jeddah Hilton today.
Health Ministry spokesman Khalid Al-Mirghalani told Arab News that the meeting is being organized by the ministry on a directive from Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah.
He indicated that 20 foreign experts from the US Centers for Diseases Control, the World Health Organization and local health officials from the 20 health regions in the Kingdom would participate in the meeting.
“They will exchange notes with one another in the current context of the swine flu,” said Al-Mirghalani. “Experts will enlighten participants on the increasing incidence of swine flu cases in the world and its impact on the Kingdom.
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In his weekly Asharq Alawsat column, Mshari Al-Zaydi surveys the Islamist landscape, from Iraq and Iran to Lebanon and Kuwait. He finds that fundamentalist politics has taken a bit of a beating, but that it’s hardly on its last legs. Rather, he says, the particular situation in each case has required the fundamentalists to behave more pragmatically. They’ve not changed their rhetoric or ideologies, however, nor have they done anything to educate the populist fanatics who support them toward any sort of moderation. What we’ve been seeing is encouraging, but is far from spelling the end of reactionary Islamism.
Iran: Has Political Fundamentalism been Defeated?
Mshari Al-ZaydiAre the latest developments in Iran evidence that political Islam is weakening?
This is the question that comes to mind after having read some published articles in support of this conclusion, such as the article written by the well-known Kuwaiti journalist Abdul Latif al Duaij in the Kuwaiti Al Qabas newspaper on June 21 entitled, ‘Has the Civil Awakening Begun?’
In Lebanon, parliamentary elections were held recently and the opposition, led by the Khomeinist fundamentalist party, suffered an overwhelming defeat to the March 14 Alliance, which presents itself (in its own words) as a guardian of the concept of the state and an enemy to fundamentalist radicalism represented by Hezbollah as well as some Christian allies.
In Kuwait, after the dissolving of parliament in March 2009 as a result of the escalating attacks launched by Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood MPs against the government, another round of parliamentary elections was held. Four women were voted to parliament for the first time much to the disappointment of fundamentalist currents that campaigned against women’s political rights. Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood currents suffered heavy losses in those elections.
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Necessity may be the mother of invention, as the saying goes, but so, apparently is boredom.
Arab News reports on a new fad in Saudi Arabia wherein young men get special coatings of ‘dust’ applied to their cars. What once was the result of simply driving in the desert kingdom is now seen as a canvas upon which youth can create an identity. Dust removal is an industry in the US, taking special effort to remove dust from fancy paint jobs. The reverse seems to be the coming thing, though using substances like milk and salt seem like they could do permanent damage to the paint.
Police, of course, are not amused, particularly when the dusting changes the color of the car as stated in registry reports. They have a point. Dusting, though, looks a lot safer than drifting!
Car ‘dusting’ is the latest trend
Omar Muhammad | Arab NewsJEDDAH: People driving long distances in Saudi Arabia often face sandstorms that can ruin their vehicles’ bodywork. Dusting — a process of smearing cars with dust, especially on the front and around rims — is something that is particular to this part of the world where sandstorms abound.
Traditionally undertaken at car body shops, in the Kingdom dusting has lately taken different dimensions and become common among boy racers who often dust their cars in funky colors to make them stand out. Young drivers view dusting as an art that should be appreciated.
Traffic officials, however, feel differently. They often issue tickets to drivers who dust their cars for recreational purposes, as it changes the look of their vehicles. With many car body shops offering funky colors and tailor-made designs to satisfy customer tastes, dusting is the latest fad.
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Saudi women will be completely equal to men, at least in the halls of the Saudi Chambers of Commerce & Industry, reports Arab News. A new law, to be passed within the next few days, will permit businesswomen to compete without any barrier to Chamber positions.
Again, this isn’t a major step, but it’s an important step in shifting Saudi ideas about the role of women in society as much as in business.
New law gives greater role to businesswomen
Galal Fakkar | Arab NewsJEDDAH: The new law for the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry (CSCCI) gives greater powers to businesswomen, Fahd Al-Sultan, secretary-general of the council, said yesterday.
“The new law, which replaces the existing 50-year-old law, will be passed within a few days,” he said.
… Al-Sultan said the new law gives businesswomen a greater role in the council as well as in the development of the country.
“Even if only women are elected to the CSCCI board, there is nothing in the law to prevent it,” he pointed out.
Farah Pandith, a 1990 graduate of Smith College and of Tufts University, has been named as the US Special Representative for Islamic Outreach at State Department.
New U.S. Special Representative Announced
for Muslim OutreachWashington — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has appointed Farah Pandith to serve as special representative to Muslim communities, in charge of a new office that is responsible for outreach with Muslims around the world.
According to a notice published by the State Department June 23, Special Representative Pandith and her staff will carry out Clinton’s efforts to “engage with Muslims around the world on a people-to-people and organizational level.”
Pandith previously was an adviser on Muslim engagement at the State Department, serving as a senior adviser to the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. She has also served on the National Security Council as the coordinator for U.S. policy on outreach to Muslims, and worked at the U.S. Agency for International Development on assistance projects for Iraq, Afghanistan and the Palestinian Territories.
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