Saudi Gazette notes that the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs is advising Saudi nationals to take care about cultural differences while traveling abroad. Good advice!
While Saudi culture certainly has its virtues, not all of its values or behavior are shared elsewhere. The advice given about how to deal with children is, unfortunately, just a fact of modern times and the near-universal fear about child abuse.
Foreign Affairs advises travelers on ‘cultural differences’
RIYADH – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement Tuesday on issues of which Saudi nationals “should be aware before traveling outside the Kingdom”, urging them to heed cultural differences and avoid behavior that could lead to charges of child abuse and possible loss of custody of their children. The statement cautioned Saudis abroad against “treating children harshly and kissing them on the lips in public places” and types of behavior “unfamiliar to some cultures such as kissing foreign children, hugging them or talking to them without prior introduction.” Such behavior, the ministry warned, could lead to court action.
Litigation could also emerge from “flattering remarks or displaying a fondness for non-acquaintances”, according to the ministry, as these “could be interpreted as sexual harassment and a crime”.
The ministry also advised Saudis not to engage in conversation with children or teenagers on the Internet or to invite them to a private meeting at home or elsewhere.
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Arab News reports on the wave of conspiracy theories circulating around swine flu and its vaccine in Saudi Arabia. It notes the cranks who are claiming that it’s part of a plan to rid the world of undesirables. Just who is behind the ‘plot’ is left in the air, but various targets can be found on the Internet: the Illuminati, ‘Big Pharma’, the ‘Rockefellers and the Rothschilds’ among others.
Sadly, this conspiracy seems to have taken hold of the Nation of Islam in the US. The piece focuses on American dentist Len Horowitz who, among other fantasies, believes that the US government created AIDS as a genetic weapon, that it is spraying its citizens with bad stuff through ‘chem trails’, and that he has the cure to everything with his magic silver-in-water solution, available for purchase through his website. Horowitz is very successful, however, in getting his name in the news…
H1N1 vaccine: Protection or conspiracy theory?
Hassna’a Mokhtar I Arab NewsJEDDAH: A wave of panic has settled over people in the past weeks following rumors that H1N1 vaccines destroy the immune system and reduce fertility rates by 80 percent.
Parents are being advised not to allow their children to take the vaccine. Some, however, say that the rumors are just conspiracy theories lending weight to the claim that swine flu is manmade.
One text message warned people against the H1N1 vaccination, which would be available next month. “But please, before you take it or give it to your children, watch Al-Jazeera tonight at 10 p.m. There will be a show about the vaccination and its side effects. Please inform your friends and relatives,” it read.
On Oct. 7, Ahmed Mansur, presenter of Al-Jazeera English’s Bela Hodoud (Without Borders) program interviewed consumer health expert Dr. Leonard G. Horowitz who spoke about the suspicious emergence of H1N1 and vaccinations. Horowitz further described the harmful side effects of H1N1 vaccinations as “pangenocide,” and accused vaccine makers and famous investors of genocide.
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Here, by the way, is one of the better pieces I’ve come across to discuss the conspiracy theories:
Related, the CDC in the US has released new data on both infection and death rates linked to swine flu. As it had predicted, the young are at greater risk than the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions even more so. The Examiner reports:
CDC shocker: Swine Flu killing young people at surprising rate
I guess one could say that the issue of co-education in Saudi schools has started down the slippery slope. Arab News reports that private elementary schools have been given permission to experiment with co-ed schools. Not classes, though. The experiment is minimalist, permitting boys up the to the third grade to attend girls’ schools as long as the classrooms are kept sexually segregated. The two can ‘mix’ in non-classroom environments, however.
The article makes clear, though, that the experiment will not, repeat not, be carried out in state schools. Only those foolhardy folk with money to spend on private education will be challenging the fates by letting their nine-year-old boys associate with girls. Is the world coming to an end?
Coeducation for kids being tried
Muhammad Humaidan I Arab NewsJEDDAH: The Ministry of Education has not backed away from a trial to allow boys up to third year to study in private elementary schools for girls, a senior education official announced on Monday.
Head of the Private and Foreign Education Committee at the ministry in Jeddah Muhammad Hassan Yousif told Arab News 15 private elementary schools for girls had been granted permission to accept boys in the first, second and third classes which would then be taught by women on the condition the boys study in separate classrooms. “The boys can mix with girls in all school facilities including the campus, the courtyard as well as the cafeteria and also join them in the morning procession,” he explained.
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As baby steps go, this is one of the most feeble. It is, however, a step in the right direction. At this pace, though, it might be the 23rd Century before fully-integrated classrooms reach Saudi Arabia.
When I saw this Saudi Gazette article yesterday, I was somewhat dismayed. Two things that don’t belong together in the same sentence sent me reeling: ‘flu’ and ‘anti-bacterial’.
Flu, short of influenza, is a virus. It is not a bacteria. Those things that work as anti-bacterial agents do not work as anti-viral agents. The confusion between the two is one of the reasons that bacteria are becoming drug-resistant as people use the wrong products to treat an illness.
Granted, the article is basically talking about keeping one’s hands clean. That’s a somewhat effective control on contamination whether bacterial or viral. But washing one’s hands does nothing to mitigate the spread of airborne viruses.
Swine flu scare: Demand for anti-bacterial products rises
Nouf Hassan GhaznawiJEDDAH – Pharmacies in the Kingdom are witnessing a huge demand on anti-bacterial products due to the swine flu panic among the Saudi society.
During the first few days of the new school year, pharmacies in Saudi cities have sold a huge number of bacteria cleaning products in order to meet demands of the people, particularly the families for finding ways to avoid swine flu virus.
“During the first three days of school I sold at least 150 anti-bacterial bottles other than the wet napkins and the spray cleaners for parents who purchased a huge number of these products to meet the needs of their children’s daily use,” said Taher Saeed, a pharmacist in Jeddah.
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Worse, though, is the rumor mill. Al-Arabiya TV reports on the latest conspiracy theory (born in the US, of course) that indicts pharmaceutical companies in a plot to sterilize males throughout the developing world by tricking them into taking the anti-swine flu vaccine. The article is in Arabic, but you can use an on-line translator program, like ‘http://translate.google.com” to get the gist if you don’t read Arabic.
Al-Arabiya does a pretty good job of shooting down the inanity, noting that the ‘public health expert’ is actually a dentist. It points out that if the US were on a genocidal program, it would not start with immunizing its own military. Modern technology is a great thing, but it’s certainly being abused to spread nonsense, whether through YouTube or the ubiquitous cell phone.
“Conspiracy theories” on the hunt for the swine flu vaccine in Saudi Arabia
Saudi media yesterday reported more details on the shootout last week which killed two terrorists on the Saudi ‘most wanted’ list. The two, :Youssef Al-Shihri and Raed Al-Harbi, were killed at a security checkpoint when they, dressed as women, were being approached by a Saudi female security officer and opened fire. They were both wearing suicide bomb vests at the time. A third person, whose name is yet to be publicly released, was captured.
Arab News reports that the group had four bomb vests. Two were being worn, a third was ready to be worn, and the fourth was awaiting assembly.
Slain Al-Qaeda militants planned massive attack
RIYADH: The two Al-Qaeda militants killed in a recent shootout entered Saudi Arabia illegally from Yemen and were planning to carry out a massive attack, an Interior Ministry spokesman said Sunday.
Four explosive belts — three of them ready to use — were found in the car used by the militants in Tuesday’s shootout. The four belts suggest that at least four people were going to take part in the attack, ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki told The Associated Press. He said six Yemenis who were coordinating with the two militants — Youssef Al-Shihri and Raed Al-Harbi — were also arrested.
“The group was planning a terror attack and each of them had a specific role to play,” said Al-Turki. “The presence of the extra belts indicates they
were working with people inside the Kingdom,” he added. Al-Shihri and Al-Harbi were disguised as women as they drove across the border with a third militant who was later arrested.
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Saudi Gazette carries much the same coverage. It too notes that one of the vests was filled with ball bearings. The only plausible explanation for that was that the bomb was intended to cause massive damage to people, not structures. It also reports that the original ‘most wanted’ list has been trimmed from 85 down to 78 terrorist suspects.
Killed militants planned imminent attack: Ministry
Abdullah Al-OraifijRIYADH – The two men killed in the gunfight in Jizan last Tuesday were known Al-Qaeda militants who carried a store of explosives and four suicide vests for use in an “imminent” attack, the government said Sunday.
The authorities have arrested six Yemenis in the wake of the shootout and are searching for more people believed to be involved in the planned attack, according to the interior ministry.
The two killed men, identified as Yousef Al-Shehri and Raed Al-Harbi, were both Saudis included on the list of 85 wanted alleged Al-Qaeda associates Riyadh handed over to Interpol earlier this year. With the killing of the two terror suspects and surrender of Muhammad Al-Aufi, Fahd Al-Ruwaili, Fawaz Al-Otaibi and the handover of Muhammad Al-Harbi from the Yemeni authorities and the suicide of Abdullah Asiri on August 28, the list has declined to 78.
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Today’s issue of Saudi Gazette has information on the third suspected terrorist, the one who ran away from the gunfight and was later captured. The article says that he has provided information that’s led to the arrest of other extremists, connections in the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda operation.
Jizan 3rd man a Saudi with ‘very close ties to Al-Qaeda’
Abdullah Al-OraifijRIYADH – Security sources at the Ministry of Interior have revealed that the driver of the two Al-Qaeda members killed by security forces in Jizan Tuesday was not on the list of 85 wanted but had “very close ties to the deviant group”, and added that his two passengers were “on the point of blowing themselves up” when they were shot dead by officials.
An unnamed official told Okaz newspaper that the driver and sole survivor of the vehicle carrying wanted militants Yousef Al-Shehri and Raed Al-Harbi was a “Saudi and a main partner with very close connections to the two, and a member of the deviant group”.
The official said that the driver was not, however, on the Ministry of Interior list of 85 wanted persons made public in February this year.
Other security sources close to the case said that the driver disclosed “important security information that led to the arrest of six Yemenis working with Al-Shehri and Al-Harbi inside the Kingdom”, arrests which were made public on Monday. The ministry said Monday that more people were being sought in connection with the case.
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The computer system problem I had last week led to a bit of a communications problem between my computer and the servers at my host. That left me unable to post for the past couple of days, though I could get to the comments.
All seems back to normal now, though…
Here’s more from Saudi Arabia in which you have to decide whether it’s coming from a court or a Dickens novel. Saudi Gazette reports on the case of a man jailed for four months for speaking to the press about his unhappiness with a court’s verdict, a verdict that seems irrational at best.
Now, it is possible for a person to be jailed for contempt of court, but that usually involves violating a specific court order. According to this piece, no such order was given, that is, the court did not give the man prior warning that he should not talk to the press. (Whether that prior restraint is reasonable is itself a debatable issue.) But incarcerating someone, seemingly because they simply annoyed a judge, does appear to be a violation of human rights, not a proper action of the court.
Codification of Saudi law cannot come too soon.
Man jailed for speaking out against court ruling
Joe Avancena
AL-KHOBAR – A Saudi man has spent two weeks from his four-month prison term for speaking to a local newspaper against “unjust” court verdict in his own divorce case.The jail ruling was handed down by the same judge.
The verdict was a flagrant violation of human rights, the Saudi judicial system, and clear instructions of King Abdullah securing individual rights, said Sheikh Mekhlef Al-Daham, a human rights activist and representative of the National Human Rights Society(NHRS) in the Eastern Province. Taking up the case of Ammer Al-Shammari whose wife was divorced against his will by a court order, Al-Daham said “After my client’s Syrian ex-wife, from whom he has three children, was naturalized, she filed for divorce with no good reason and she was granted a favorable verdict from the court despite her husband’s objection guaranteed by the Shariah law.”
Ten days after the divorce was announced, the judge hit the man with three orders. He was ordered to move out of the family house, to stop visiting his children at the house, and to pay all utility bills incurred by the mother and her three children. The judge also ordered the man’s employer to deduct SR3,000 from his monthly salary to be deposited into the ex-wife’s account.
A year after the divorce, the woman married another man and handed over the house and the children to Al-Shammari. “On her second marriage news, Al-Shammari went to the same judge to report the new developments in the case, asking him to re-consider his original verdict.”It has been automatically void with her second marriage,” the judge replied to the man, Al-Daham said.
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Abu Dhabi’s The National has an excellent piece on King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). The article notes the various ways the university differs not only from other Saudi universities, but from international universities as well, e.g. no tenure system and the lack of traditional academic departments.
Controlled experiment
Can a new research university save the Saudi economy and transform a closed society? John Gravois on the birth of KaustIn a bustling harbour just north of Jeddah one recent morning, a white 27-metre diving yacht was nosing its way slowly toward the open Red Sea. It was a gorgeous blue day, and the marina was teeming with families – young boys running around in swimming trunks; girls clustered at the margins, garbed from head to toe in black. Saudi youths on jetskis were swarming around the yacht, using its wake to launch themselves in the air and perform various tricks. The boat’s passengers, however, were absorbed in sombre discussion.
They were academic scientists who had recently converged on Jeddah from all over the world, and they naturally fell into trading reports of the shocks their profession had sustained in the global recession. One of the scientists was regaling the others with the latest dismal news from the United States, where the University of California system, one of the country’s most prestigious networks of research universities, was enduring an emasculating set of cutbacks.
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The article points out that the focus of the university is very much Saudi-oriented. It will be addressing problems that are, if not Saudi-specific, at least of great concern for the Kingdom, including such things as solar power, desalination, and Red Sea research.
… In the realm of higher education, the institutional structure of Kaust is similarly otherworldly. For starters, the all-science university has done away with two of academia’s sacred touchstones: traditional academic departments, and tenure. Rather than departments, Kaust is organised around problems – specifically, Saudi Arabia’s problems. Hence, rather than a physics and a chemistry department, Kaust has a Solar and Alternative Energy Science and Engineering research centre and a Water Desalination and Reuse research centre. Several of the university’s nine research centres are explicitly organised around developing sustainable technologies of the sort that might be particularly handy once the petrochemical economy has gone the way of the typewriter. And while some of Kaust’s projects – like its Red Sea research centre – are slightly more geared towards pure science, most of Kaust’s research centres were very much designed with industrial applications in mind. “They’re already aligned with the needs of the industry,” says Ahmad O al Khowaiter, the university’s interim vice president for economic development. Unlike at a traditional university where professors operate out of standardised academic departments, at Kaust, al Khowaiter says, “companies don’t have the challenge of trying to find who’s interested in their problems”.
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Overall, this is one of the best piece on KAUST that I’ve read. You might enjoy reading it in its entirety.
The Washington Post runs an article arguing that President Obama may be in a constitutional confusion when it comes to accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. It goes into the legalities and past practices in an interesting sort of way, noting among other things that the cash award, some $1.4 million, is not his to give to charity: it belongs to the US government.
Then the article gets rather pissy about how Obama committed an even graver sin by accepting an award from Saudi King Abdullah, the “Collar of the King Abdul Aziz Order of Merit” on his visit to the Kingdom last June. The piece provides gratuitous slaps at King Abdul Aziz and the fact that we don’t have peace in the Middle East. It ignores that fact of King Abdullah’s peace plan entirely.
Personally, I think receiving the Collar is not significantly different from receiving the ‘Keys to a City’. It’s a mark of respect and acknowledgment, perhaps even a gift to encourage continued behavior. It’s hardly a bribe, however. Further, whatever monetary value is inherent in the Collar goes to the US government anyway. There are long-standing regulations about what Presidents and other government officials must do with gifts with more than token value: either give them to the US Treasury for safe-keeping or buy them from the Treasury at their fair market value. I suspect the Collar will end up in a warehouse along with various other medals, works of art, and official bric-a-brac.
An Unconstitutional Nobel
Ronald D. Rotunda and J. Peter PhamPeople can, and undoubtedly will, argue for some time about whether President Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Meanwhile, though, there’s a simpler and more immediate question: Does the Constitution allow him to accept the award?
Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution, the emolument clause, clearly stipulates: “And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.”
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For those in the Wasington, DC area, you might be interested in hearing Robert Lacey talking about his new book, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia at 7:00 PM on Monday, at the Politics & Prose bookstore, 5015 Connecticut Ave.
I’ve not yet received my review copy of the book [Note to FTC*: This is a disclaimer!] but will review it as soon as I finish it.
*The US Federal Trade Commission has proposed ‘rules’ that require all bloggers (among many, many others) to clearly state that they have received something of value from publishers and the like if they then write about that thing. Thus, the pre-emptive disclosure.
Economist takes a look at the sorry state of education in the Arab world. Income levels, whether as a national figure or per capita, don’t seem to have much bearing on the quality of education. Arab countries, the piece states, spend more on education, on average, than the rest of the world. The only place money seems to have an effect is when students escape the state education systems by attending private schools. The article notes that until recent reforms, Saudi students spent 31% of their time on religious studies, but only 20% on science and math.
The article also notes that while KAUST is a magnificent effort, its value is diminished by an education system that does little to prepare Saudi students to deal with the real world.
Laggards trying to catch up
One reason that too many Arabs are poor is rotten educationA RECENT issue of Science, the weekly journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, was devoted to research into “Ardi” or Ardipithecus ramidus, a 4.4m-year-old hominid species whose discovery deepens the understanding of human evolution. These latest studies suggest, among other things, that rather than descending from a closely related species such as the chimpanzee, the hominid branch parted earlier than previously thought from the common ancestral tree.
In much of the Arab world, coverage of the research took a different spin. “American Scientists Debunk Darwin”, exclaimed the headline in al-Masry al-Youm, Egypt’s leading independent daily. “Ardi Refutes Darwin’s Theory”, chimed the website of al-Jazeera, the region’s most-watched television channel. Scores of comments from readers celebrated this news as a blow to Western materialism and a triumph for Islam. Two or three lonely readers wrote in to complain that the report had inaccurately presented the findings of the research.
The response to Ardi’s unearthing was not surprising. According to surveys, barely a third of Egyptian adults have ever heard of Charles Darwin and just 8% think there is any evidence to back his famous theory. Teachers, who might be expected to know better, seem equally sceptical. In a survey of nine Egyptian state schools, where Darwin’s ideas do form part of the curriculum for 15-year-olds, not one of more than 30 science teachers interviewed believed them to be true. At a private university in the United Arab Emirates, only 15% of the faculty thought there was good evidence to support evolution.
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With all the talk in comments about Saudi Arabia not being prepared for the post-petroleum world, I offer (tongue in cheek) the following piece from Saudi Gazette…
Credit: Okaz photo by Amro Salam
Children run on treadmills at Sports Kids Center in Jeddah Thursday. The SR3 million center is entirely supervised by female staff and takes up 400 children in three training halls for aerobics, weightlifting, and gymnastics. The General Presidency of Youth Welfare has recently supported the establishment of sports centers for girls below the age of 13. Inset: A girl practices ballet training techniques at the center Thursday.