The Saudi Press Agency is announcing that a Chinese construction firm has been selected to build 200 schools in the Kingdom. The project, worth over $53 million, is being undertaken to provide for the needs of 1,700,000 primary and high school students.
Chinese firm gets SR2 billion deal to build schools in KSA
RIYADH – The Saudi Ministry of Education has signed a 2-billion-riyal contract with the China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) to build 200 schools in different cities and provinces in the Kingdom.
Prince Faisal Bin Abdullah Bin Muhammad, Minister of Education, signed the contract for the constructing work which has to be completed in 14 months.
CRCC was selected from among several companies that had bid for the work, he said.
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Arab News‘s report is more comprehensive and point out that this project is only part of the massive King Abdullah Project for the Development of General Education.
China will build 200 schools in Kingdom
Mohammed Rasooldeen | Arab NewsRIYADH: Education Minister Prince Faisal bin Abdullah has signed a SR2 billion contract with China Railway-15 Bureau Group for the construction of 200 school buildings in various cities of the Kingdom. The Chinese company won the contract in competition with several global construction companies, the Saudi Press Agency reported Saturday.
“The new school buildings with a total capacity of 150,000 will be operational months after the date of the signing of the contract,” Deputy Minister of Education Faisal bin Muammar said Saturday after a meeting with the officials of the Chinese company in his office. The contract period has been fixed at 14 months.
Muammar said the contract represented 6 percent of 3,500 projects currently being implemented by the Ministry of Education at a total cost of SR20 billion. When completed, the schools will have a capacity of 1,700,000 students of both sexes. He said his ministry takes over an average of 80 new schools a month.
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Meanwhile, China is pushing its own public diplomacy through a new Arabic-language TV channel:
Beijing courts Middle East with Arabic TV channel
Mohammed Rasooldeen | Arab NewsRIYADH: China Central Television (CCTV) launched an Arabic-language channel for the Middle East and Africa on Saturday as part of the government’s efforts to expand its relations with the Arab and Muslim world, the Chinese Embassy announced here.
The 24-hour channel will air in 22 Arabic-speaking countries, reaching a total population of nearly 300 million people, CCTV said in a statement at the launch of the new service. The new channel is available through Nilesat and Arabsat services for viewers in the Middle East.
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Arab News editorializes.
Gulf News from Dubai has more information about the case of a young Saudi who went on a Lebanese TV station’s call-in program to boast of his sexual conquests. The article reports that more than 100 Saudis had complained to authorities about his bragging. One Saudi cleric, Sheikh Abdullah Al Othaim, is calling for the young man’s execution.
Capital punishment seems rather excessive punishment for the excesses—even if actual—of a young man. Saudis, however, take Shariah law seriously and find that offending public morality by bragging about immorality is a serious crime.
Jeddah court accelerates legal action against Jawad
for boasting about sex
Abdul Rahman ShaheenRiyadh: A Jeddah court started legal proceedings against a Saudi young man, who has been accused of bragging about his sex life on a popular Arab television channel.
This was in line with the directives issued to the court by the Ministry of Justice to expedite the case filed by a number of citizens against 23-year-old Jeddah resident Mazen Abdul Jawad.
In an order addressed to Shaikh Abdullah Al Othaim, head of the Court of Summary Jurisdiction in Jeddah, the ministry asked to urgently examine the case.
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The Washington Institute publishes this paper on how Saudi Arabia has been refocusing its anti-terrorism efforts to address terrorist funding rather than solely terrorist actions. It notes improvements, as commended by US Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, but adds that much still remains to be done. It quotes Richard Holbrooke, U.S. special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and his frustration that money to support extremists groups is still coming from the Kingdom. Interesting reading.
Saudi Efforts to Combat Terrorist Financing
Michael Jacobson
July 21, 2009This past week, Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner traveled to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for his first official visit to the Middle East since assuming his current position. Although in many respects the Obama administration is off to a bumpy start with Saudi Arabia, Geithner praised Saudi efforts in combating terrorist financing, which is a significant departure from statements made by senior Treasury officials in recent years. His remarks in Riyadh were more than just empty praise, reflecting the broader view in Washington that the Saudis are finally beginning to make progress on this important front. Despite improved Saudi efforts, however, the kingdom remains one of the major sources of terrorist financing throughout the world, with significant funds continuing to go to al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Laskhar-e Taiba (LET), among other groups.
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Major Steps Forward
Over the past several years, Saudi Arabia has made significant improvements to its counterterrorism-financing efforts. In the week prior to Geithner’s visit, the Saudis announced that 330 individuals had been convicted of terrorism charges in the first trials involving the kingdom’s new specialized terrorism court. Although the Saudis provided few details about these cases, it was notable that the charges included terrorist-finance-related offenses, an indication that Riyadh may have begun to consider terrorist financing as “real terrorism,” as Levey put it. Saudi Arabia no longer appears to be focused solely on al-Qaeda; the kingdom has expanded its efforts to crack down on Taliban fundraising activities as well.
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While Saudi Arabia is known for its dates, it seems that it is also pushing forward in the production of mangoes. Saudi Gazette/Okaz provide a few details:
Credit: Okaz
Saudi Gazette – Jizan delicacies
Mango farmers display their produce in Jizan at the weekend. Since the sowing of the first seeds of 30 different varieties in 1972, the mango industry in Jizan has reached a production output today of some 700,000 tons per year, making it a staple economic source for the region. – Okaz photo
Saudi Gazette/Okaz report that for the first time, Saudis who hope to become teachers—both male and female—will be required to take a government-developed aptitude test. This is more than a good idea. The way the Saudi system of higher education now works, people end up earning degrees in Education because they cannot be placed in other fields of study. Simply earning a degree in Education, however, does not automatically result in a good teacher. The way the individual approaches the challenges of the work is very important. Weeding out the blasé or hyper-authoritarian should result in better education for Saudi students.
Aptitude test for women who want to teach
Abdullah Obaid Allah Al-GhamdiRIYADH –Female university graduates applying for educational posts will be required to take the National Assessment Center (NAC) aptitude test.
Prince Faisal Al-Mishari, NAC Director, said the measure would come into effect as of the next period for applications to educational positions next year.
Male applicants were first obliged to sit the test earlier this year with 7,000 examinees failing. A retest is scheduled to be given Sunday in Riyadh. – Okaz/SG
Saudi Gazette reports that a Saudi actor and TV screen writer has been selected to represent the country and the region in an international performing arts competition sponsored by the UK. Naif Al-Fayez, who stars in a TV serial called ’37 Degrees’ (98.6°F, or ‘body heat’), stands to win a cash award to be spent on a project in a collaboration with the British Council. He, and the other finalists, also get to attend the Edinburgh International Festival.
Saudi actor wins UK performing arts award
Shahid Ali KhanRIYADH – A young Saudi actor and writer of television serials has been chosen as the Kingdom’s finalist in competition for the UK’s International Young Performing Arts Entrepreneur 2009 Award (IYPAE).
Naïf Al-Fayez, best known for his leading role as a medical intern in a television serial called 37 Degrees aired by MBC Channel 1, was chosen from 16 entries, including four Saudi women artists, that the British Council received from across the Kingdom, said Amani Fairak, Assistant Director for Creativity Projects, British Council, which is the sponsor of the award.
Fairak said that although the IYPAE category of awards has been introduced for the first time in Saudi Arabia, other categories, such as, Visual Arts, Fashion and Publishing have attracted participants in the past.
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Asharq Alawsat summarizes the steps the Saudi government is taking to deal with swine flu and the Haj. The piece repeats that the Ministry of Health has decided against informing the media—and public—of new cases, something I still think is an error. When information stops flowing, people tend to assume the worst, often far beyond the reality of what might be a bad situation. In other words, if the purpose is to quell fears, this is a counter-productive step.
Mention is made, too, of a sufficiency of vaccine to confront an outbreak of the flu. While no names are given, I take this to be Tamiflu, one of the general antiviral agents on the market which has shown some success in dealing with the disease. There is, as yet, no specific vaccine for the A/H1N1 virus.
Saudi Arabia Ready to Combat Swine Flu During Haj
Amal Baqazi and Mohammed Al-KabiJeddah, Asharq Al-Awsat- The Saudi Health Ministry has affirmed that it will not change the recommendations made by the workshop that was held in Jeddah recently to face up to swine flu, all the more since changing them depends on a change in the type of the virus. In this respect, there has not been any change in the type of the virus, according to a statement made by Health Ministry Spokesman Khalid Marghalani. In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, the latter stated: “There will be no change of the preventive plan already made by the ministry, for the pilgrimage season.” He stressed that Saudi Arabia is completely ready to receive this year’s pilgrims.
Dr Khalid Marghalani told Asharq Al-Awsat that the plan already made for the pilgrimage season provides for the need to focus on information technology and on equipment to monitor and follow up cases of disease. This equipment has been made available in sufficient quantities in the country, including laboratory scanners, and all plants and health sectors have been equipped and placed at the disposal of the ministry.
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Here’s an interesting piece from Asharq Alawsat. ‘Spyware’, computer software that monitors the activities of the computer on which it is installed, has been used by spammers and ‘phishers’ to gather illicit information about computer users. More benignly, companies use it to monitor their employees’ use of the companies’ computers to avoid legal issues. Parents use it to see where their children are going on the Internet. And now, Saudi women are using it to see what their husbands are up to!
The software mentioned in this piece is relatively expensive, SR 1,000 (US $267), but is apparently easy to install and difficult to discover. In a country in which women have some reason for paranoia—e.g., suddenly finding that their husbands have taken a new wife—the attraction of tracking a potentially wayward husband is obvious.
The trouble is, according to Islamic scholars interviewed in the piece, it also runs contrary to Shariah law. Privacy is to be protected in Islam, something which this software clearly violates.
Saudi Women Adopt Spyware to Monitor Husbands
Manal HomeidanJeddah, Asharq Al-Awsat- “Modern technology is a double-edged sword; it can both ease and complicate one’s life.” This axiom is perhaps the obvious and appropriate description of the countless problems caused by some computer technology companies that are marketing easy-to-use spyware computer software. The Saudi market has recently been overtaken by companies advertising spyware software. It is worth noting that, for the first time, these advertisement campaigns are being aimed at women, in particular.
The companies marketing such software claim that their programs are marketed towards companies, corporations, and individuals. These companies claim that spyware is most commonly used by a father to monitor his children’s internet access or by a company monitoring the internet access of its employees. However these same companies post advertisements on social networking sites and internet forums that specifically market this software towards women. These advertisements are aimed particularly at married women, and use explicit language such as “Monitor your husband’s computer” and “Unlock his password.”
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I’m writing about this US-based story not for tu quoque (you, too!) purposes, but to show that even in a terrorism-conscious America, keeping a handle on money given to ‘charitable organizations’ is not an easy task. The story, involving corrupt politicians and religious leaders laundering illicit funds internationally, should suggest that the effort is not a trivial one. Complaints that Saudi Arabia ‘isn’t doing enough’ to control charities and their funds should be taken with a grain of salt, therefore.
The American story, here reported in The Washington Post, is as odious as any coming out of the Middle East. It should not, of course, be taken as an excuse nor as a reason to let up on national and international attempts to ensure that charitable contributions go to their intended recipients… legal intended recipients.
Rabbis, New Jersey Politicians Among 44 Arrested
in Corruption Probe
Corruption Probe Brings 44 Arrests In NJ and NY
Keith B. RichburgNEW YORK, July 23 — A two-year federal probe into a money laundering operation taking place between the New York area and Israel ballooned into one of the biggest bribery and corruption sweeps in New Jersey history, netting three northern New Jersey mayors, two members of the New Jersey Legislature, a raft of local officials, five rabbis, and a Brooklyn man accused of trafficking in human kidneys, U.S. prosecutors said today.
FBI agents arrested 44 people in a series of morning raids, creating a dramatic scene of politicians and rabbis in traditional outfits handcuffed and being marched into the federal building in Newark, and then boarded onto a bus for the drive to the federal courthouse.
… According to the complaint, the rabbis used registered charities linked to their synagogues to launder money from illegal goods, such as counterfeit handbags. The person wishing to “wash” illicit proceeds would write a check to the charity, then receive cash — minus a handling fee of 5 to 10 percent kept by the rabbis.
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Writing in Arab News, Siraj Wahab details many of the logistical problems that will result if the recommendations of the recent Cairo conference on swine flu and the Haj are implemented. He points out that for many, Haj is performed late in one’s life, after all of life’s other obligations are fulfilled. Thus, there are huge numbers of the elderly who would be excluded—even if they have already made plans, spent money, and acquired their visas.
Pilgrims don’t necessarily travel alone, either. Many, if not most, travel in family groups. The regulations would force the elderly, young, or ill members of a family to stay behind while the other proceeded, or for all to cancel their plans.
Complicating things even more, Saudi authorities do not intended to change the quotas for visas assigned to the various countries. Thus, those who had been refused visas may not become eligible again, but at considerable cost to the organizations which had done the first round of processing.
There’s no doubt that swine flu is creating headaches, even among those not afflicted.
Haj bar move ‘a logistical nightmare’
Siraj Wahab | Arab NewsALKHOBAR: Haj authorities in India and Pakistan are gearing up for a logistical nightmare after the Arab health ministers’ decision in Cairo on Wednesday to restrict the elderly and children from performing Haj this year.
Egypt too expected a drop by 30 to 40 percent in the number of people performing Umrah and Haj this year following the Cairo recommendations.
The ministers unanimously agreed at the emergency meeting in the Egyptian capital that people over the age of 65 and children under the age of 12 and those with chronic illnesses should be excluded from undertaking the pilgrimage to Makkah.
“The total number of pilgrims will not be restricted,” Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah was quoted as saying by news agencies. “We will not change the quota of any country. We have agreed to change certain rules” in an effort to contain the spread of the H1N1 flu virus, he said. Representatives of the World Health Organization (WHO) also attended the meeting.
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If the moves reported in this Saudi Gazette/Okaz story hold true, Saudi Arabia is on the verge of creating a law that will bring its marriage laws into compliance with those of the rest of the developed world. In fact, if it sets a minimum age for women to marry at 18 years, it will have a stricter limit than many Western countries.
The article discusses several recent cases where marriages involving children have been overturned by Saudi courts. It’s better, of course, to avoid them than to have to correct the problem later.
New law on child marriage under consideration
By Mohammed Al-EniziDAMMAM – A new law on child marriage from the Ministry of Justice which currently has the issue under study may set the legal age of marriage at 18 while also imposing greater restrictions on persons permitted to authorize the marriage of minors.
President of the Islamic Courts in Al-Khobar Saleh Al-Sheikh said that the new law would be announced soon and would ban the “ma’dhoun”, the person conducting marriage procedures, from signing marriage contracts for young girls, even upon the insistence of their guardians, without consulting the judiciary.
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Shooting off your mouth can lead to trouble in Saudi Arabia, as we all know. Arab News reports on the case of a young man who, after boasting of his sexual prowess on a TV program, finds himself in hot water back in the Kingdom. While his unsavory comments deserve condemnation, we only have his word for it that he actually behaved in the way he bragged. That makes his arrest an arrest for thought crimes absent any evidence that he committed the acts he claimed. That is troublesome. In my experience, those who brag tend to exaggerate, sometimes rather elaborately.
Sure, if he were using language that was unlawful in Saudi Arabia, he might fall under a public indecency law. But according to this story, it appears that he was speaking in Lebanon. That presents a jurisdiction problem in that states and courts do not generally have power to punish crimes that take place in other countries. If he were calling in to the program from Saudi Arabia, there would not be quite the same jurisdictional problem, but that is not clear.
I’m sure that LBC will also be facing censure for having broadcast an objectionable segment, but that’s a slightly different issue: press freedom.
The article points out, however, that ‘speaking publicly about vice’ (I assume this means in a positive manner) is also a punishable offense. That is so completely antithetical to the concept of freedom to think that it’s creepy. But nothing new in the Kingdom, alas.
Bragging on TV about sex lands Saudi in hot water
Laura Bashraheel | Arab NewsJEDDAH: Lewd remarks about sex by a Saudi man in Jeddah that broadcast last week on LBC’s “Red Line” has led to his arrest, Arab News learned on Wednesday.
Mazen Abdul Jawad appeared on the program last week in a red button-down shirt and open collar bragging in graphic detail about his sexual conquests.
In the segment, Abdul Jawad talks about having slept with a neighbor when he was only 14 and how this got him interested in sex. After discussing sex and foreplay in graphic detail and providing a recipe for an aphrodisiac, Abdul Jawad is seen getting into his vehicle at night on a Jeddah street.
“It all starts with turning my Bluetooth on while cruising around in my car,” he tells the camera.
About 100 people have filed a complaint against Abdul Jawad at the summary court in Jeddah. They allege Abdul Jawad has not only confessed to pre-marital sex, but also violated another Shariah principle by publicizing his sinful behavior.
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