The World Knows Who We Are

I was probably 11 or 12 years old at the time, comparing what we had in the Gulf to the West. The West had all the cool movies. They had all the cool products. All the cool restaurants. They were the scientists, the nobel prize winners, the countries that hosted the big events, the big money. We could catch a glimpse of their world through a TV screen once in a while when a western show or movie aired, and maybe if we were lucky enough to find one of their magazines in a store, we could flick through and see what they had. It was a bit of a dream world to most of the people living here.

A few years earlier my family had lived in the UK - I would say I primarily grew up in London; arguably the center of the world at the time (either it, or New York). It was a different planet from the Gulf. Everything was available in terms of products, media, events, theme parks, and creations. They were 'developed'. We were still behind. Light years behind.

Back in Bahrain (this was somewhere around the early 1990's), getting your hands on a western toy or comic was quite a feat, and was the sort of achievement you'd take along with you to school to show off to your classmates, much to their ooh's and aah's.

I remember thinking and wondering why the West had so much. Why everything they made was seemingly magical to us, while we didn't even register on their radar ("Where/what is Bahrain" was an almost standard reply when I told people where I was from).  I knew the Gulf had to wake up, and move faster, and achieve something. Just something to catch their attention. I wanted to help this region grow and develop, but what can I do as a 12 year old kid with a head full of dreams?

My family travelled considerably after then, back to London, Los Angeles, Paris, and so on. But we were back in Bahrain in 1997, and I was ready to graduate from high school. My original options were somewhere between the UK and the US, but for some reason I ended up going to university in the UAE (long story, ask me later). Dubai was just starting to break out of it's shell at the moment.

My first indication that things were starting to change was around 1999. One of my friends had gone to Australia for a holiday, and when he came back, we discussed the comic book scene there (he was a comic book collector). To my 'shock', he told me comic books were more accessible in Dubai than they were in Australia. But how could that be, I asked myself? Australia was a developed country, wasn't it? They had access to all the media, the products, and so on? But for some reason, we had more access to them in Dubai.

I remember being on an American car forum again around the year 2002, discussing the Skyline GTR (a pretty fast, if a little rare japanese vehicle). Some of the Americans on the forum mentioned hearing about a place called Dubai, being the number one importer (from Japan) and exporter (to the rest of the world) of Skyline GTR's. That was a little shocking; how could these random Americans in the middle of Texas even know about Dubai?

Our region grew and grew from there onwards and these 'moments' became more frequent. I stepped into a taxi in Italy in 2005, and he asked me where I was from; I said Bahrain, knowing very well that he probably would not recognize the country - but he said (in a very stereotypical Italian accent) "Ahhh Bahrain, Formula Uno!" Another was discussing the Abu Dhabi Louvre with some random passer-by in France in 2007. Asking a London travel agent about destinations in 2008, to which she replied, Oman. Talking about the Qatar World Cup in London in 2009. And so on.

And to top it all off, the announcement made just a little over an hour ago, with Dubai winning the right to host the 2020 World Expo. Even before the announcement, I could see tweets and facebook posts from people I know from Lebanon to Los Angeles to Lagos, talking about Dubai. The whole world is looking at us now, the world knows who we are. Although some may see this as the 'importing' of major global events, brands, and trends, what you can see if you look at closer is how we are creating our own as well. The fashion designers, the films, the TV shows. We've built some of the best/biggest airlines in the world, innovative solutions like Masdar and are slowly starting to export what we have to the rest of the world. Who in their right mind would have thought you could walk into the middle of New York and see the Emirates and Al Jazeera logos plastered everywhere, or walk into Harrods in London and grab some Chapati and Karak? And put all that aside for now; people from the West are coming here in hordes trying to get jobs, start businesses, or just explore.

Sure, some Gulf countries were slower to make the transition than others, but the growth is amazing for the region as a whole, and with the right effort we can all benefit from this. We're the cultural and economic heart of the region, and looking further ahead, maybe even the world. We've made it here; the world knows who we are now. And we're about to make waves, lots of them.

Dubai Air Show, an Awakened Gulf, and Bahrain

I don't regularly blog anymore, and this is going to be a bit of a bittersweet post, but after seeing the amount of power the Gulf has in it's hands after yesterday's Air Show, I figured I have to start screaming somewhere. Might as well be my blog.

Anyhow; yesterday was the first day of the 2013 Dubai Air Show. The behemoth of the airline industry in the GCC is Emirates, which has very casually decided to order $100 billion dollars worth of planes. The notable runners up are Etihad and Qatar Airways, with a combined $50 billion worth of orders.

Now on the surface, and to the uninformed, this seems to be a bunch of rich sheikdoms throwing around their god granted oil money. But look a little deeper; if this was just about money, perhaps Kuwait should be a notable entry, with a higher GDP than either UAE or Qatar. Or, maybe Saudi, with more than double the oil revenue of the next closest competitor. You can't just build a massive airline out of thin air if you had money. Sure, you can start one, but without the right strategies, direction, management and so on, it won't last too long no matter how much money you throw at it.

Back in the 80's, the GCC was made up of a bunch of oil-rich countries with a lot of money and no incentive to use it to build up the country. Emirates Airlines was started by the Dubai ruling family in the mid-80's with an aim to turn Dubai into a regional business hub. With a very focused strategy over the next 20 years, they managed to pave the way for the world to have easy access into the city, and through that (and a very solid growth strategy) expand into a global superstar. As this ridiculous growth caught the eyes of the other sheikdoms around, they wanted in on the global game, and so began the story of the hyper-growth of the GCC.

Of course, some countries raced ahead while others lagged behind. Money played a contributing factor, but some did better with it than others. Look up now, and you'll see cities that people didn't even realize existed 20 years ago are buzzwords on the tongues of tourists, businessmen, politicians and even average citizens, all the way from Seoul to Sao Paulo.

To top it off, at the Air Show yesterday, Etihad, Qatar Airways and Emirates single handedly gave a life-line to Boeing with it's largest ever combined order of $100 billion. And with that kind of money comes power - Sh Ahmed Al Maktoom (Chairman of Emirates Group) turns around and casually says to the West, you give us the landing rights we're asking for (there have been arguments over landing rights for Emirates etc in the West over the past few years), or we're going to cancel these orders.

In other words, you're playing 'our' game now.

All sweet so far, right? The growth of a region, the increase in both economical and political power, the developments within it, and so on. So where's the bitter part?

I look at our tiny little Bahrain, so motivated and always starting new trends being slowly pushed to the side. In fact, they don't even have a noticeable participation in the Air Show; sure I understand we have our own in January and we're probably saving whatever loose change we have to sign deals there, but either way... We started the whole aviation thing in the region. Gulf Air was formed way before any of these other airline, back in the 1940's. And sure, we grew, and eventually Bahrain, Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Oman all decided to come on board as shareholders.

But I think the turning point was in the 80's - Dubai, back then a little desert village with nothing but huge aspirations, kept requesting more flights through Gulf Air, to which the airline turned around and said, no. Not being one to wait for things to happen, the ruling family of Dubai decided to start their own airline, Emirates, and from then on, it's growth, and with them the growth of Dubai astounded everyone.

To the point where Abu Dhabi and Qatar eventually decided, hey, we should have our own airlines too, and left Gulf Air. That's not necessarily a bad thing for GF - they can grow better with more focus, right? But no, the airline kept tumbling deeper and deeper into losses, corruption and one problem after the other. Oman eventually seceded from the airline, making it a pure Bahraini burden. On a positive note though, I guess we can say the reason Emirates was created, Dubai grew, and following that, the whole GCC ended up growing is because of Bahrain (denying Dubai more flights). Ironically now, Gulf Air's busiest route is to Dubai. Funny how time changes things.

I'm happy for what we've managed to do in the Gulf overall, and how we've managed to literally sit on top of the world through our airlines. But again, looking at Gulf Air's sad decline from being a true Gulf airline to one that is just an after-thought, even in the mind of the average Bahraini traveller, makes me feel a little bitter inside. And this follows through everything else in Bahrain - we start all the trends, we have the first hold on any new idea, but for some reason we fail while everyone around us grows. We're smart, we're motivated, we have so much potential in us, but that's all it remains - just pure potential, with no follow up.

I think it's less of feeling sad and more of feeling let down, or disappointed. We all gave tons and tons to the country, and after all that's happened we see it remain relatively stagnant. Maybe it's just a curse. Or maybe it can be fixed. Or maybe we lost hope. Don't get me wrong; I still love our little island, and that won't ever change, but sadly she just feels like the lazy offspring that ended up not achieving much in life while all it's siblings went on to become CEO's and presidents. 

The Reason i'm Not Voting this Year

Tadaaaaaa:

No seriously, this is the face of our Parliament? Are you kidding me? If its not a beard on their chin, its a 3mama on their head.

Where are the doctors, the engineers, the bankers, the teachers, the businessmen, who are supposed to give us a well rounded Parliament that represents all aspects of our developing economy? Why just the extremist religious nuts who have only enough education to think economy is just the cheaper option when buying a plane ticket?

God, another four years of legislation to do with banning anything not related to bringing us back to the 12th century? I'm so looking forward to this (please sense my sarcasm).

And then you ask why Bahrain is hardly moving forward?



Thanks to Mahmood for the image.

MP Ban

A short and to the point fun post for today:

The Facts:
- Alcohol is allowed in Bahrain, Qatar, UAE and Oman. It is not allowed in Saudi or Kuwait.
- During an MP session, it was a majority vote to ban alcohol.
- The MP's are up for re-election this year.
- The decision is to be raised to King Hamad on the 10th of May for a final binding decision.

The Proposed:
- Alcohol to be served only to those who are non-muslim. All of this in the name of Islam, of course.

The Stupid:
- See above. Because Islam is about choice; if you have no choice, you're just a sheep and therefore whether you do good or otherwise has nothing to do with your conscience, it's just you doing what you do. Second of all, if a 'muslim' person sends his non-muslim friend, maid, etc to go get alcohol, you're still in the same dilemma. Third, black markets exist; examples are in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, where a bottle of Black Label has a higher street price than almost anywhere else in the World.

ammaro's Proposal:
- Let's ban MP's.

Random Observation:
- Walked into a Zain Shop today, and they had a large Wheel. Asked them what it was for and they said, pay BD4 and spin the wheel to win. Great. Alcohol is on the verge of being banned and people are already opening casinos. Nice.

Let Me Speak

I haven't blogged in a while, and not planning on doing it for a while to come.. My "blogging" has shifted to mostly random babbling on twitter, and with decreased spans of attention in people, 140 characters seems about as long as you can keep a persons interested before they drift somewhere else (probably to a photo of a cute kitten or some random YouTube video of something being destroyed).

There are things that tick me off so much with this country, however, that the rage must come out. What is UP with Bahrain? Seriously? So much for a country all about promoting freedom of speech, right to say whatever you want, and so on. But no, after numerous arrests of reporters, the crackdown on websites (no, it's not just a porn crackdown, it's tons of political content too), shutting down a newspaper for a couple of days last year after an 'unpatriotic article', and so on, now they're trying to stick their hands into blackberry messenger groups.

There's been a group started a few months ago called خبر عاجل which translates into 'breaking news'. This basically gives you an update of all news that the newspapers are planning to print tomorrow, today, and also covers some fun stuff such as what movies were released in the cinema, etc. The service is free; as long as you have a blackberry, you can add the service and receive the news updates, wherever you are. This service was started by a single individual who wanted to provide a useful service to the country. He's not profiting from it, and all resources to broadcast the service are financed by him. Subscribers to the service reached approx 12,000 as of yesterday.

But yesterday, the service stopped.

What happened, we asked?

And we got the reply; apparently the Ministry of Culture has decided that this service never got official permission from them to broadcast the news messages, and can thus cause chaos and confusion.

Excuse me, what?

Why the hell does a broadcast message need to get official permission from you? I just sent out a dirty joke via BBM to about 100 people, wanna come and regulate that as well? What a way to say thank you to someone whose just trying to help, and the thing is, he was just sending out news which is meant to be published the next day through "official" publications anyway.

Seems our Ministry of Culture wants to control all messages being sent out via people to people. You will NEVER be able to control information; it goes through email, text messages, word of mouth, Facebook fanpages, twitter, and services you don't even know of let alone understand. It's news articles like this that just gives me a bitter after taste every time I remember the Bahrain National Action Charter:

Fourth - Freedom of expression and publishing

Every citizen shall have the right to express himself orally, in writing or in any other way of expression of personal opinion or creativity. Under this law, freedom of scientific research, publishing, press and printing are ensured within the scope specified by law.

And here's what actually happened:

In a statement carried by the Bahrain News Agency (BANA), Abdullah Yateem, assistant undersecretary for press and publication at the Ministry of Culture and Information, attributed the decision to the "chaos and confusion" of unauthorized news postings.

"In view of the impact that such news create among the public by causing chaos and confusion, especially since the source is individuals and agencies which have failed to obtain official permission by the ministry prior to engaging in such activities, we have summoned those individuals and will be taking legal action against the offenders who broke the regulations and laws," Yateem said.

Way to go Bahrain...

A Bahraini Romantic Comedy Crime Thriller

News in this region is generally more entertaining than informative, mainly because we have a ton of idiots living in this region. They are fun to read about, such as the below: I know we have a lot of desperate and bold people, but not like this lot.

First guy (let's call him Abood) has a BD500 phone bill, and doesn't have the cash to pay it. Instead of going out and getting a job like regular people, he decides there are tons of ways to make money on the internet.

He goes online and finds someone to chat with (let's call him Hamood). So Abood talks to Hamood and tells him he needs him to pay his bill, but the twist is, he actually tells Hamood he's a girl. And he's actually willing to send Hamood nude pix of her (him) if he does pay her (his) bill.

Hamood, being a total naive jackass, decides, yes, I can get nude pix just by paying someone's bill! Here the mistake is made because 1- there's a ton of free porn online and 2- for BD500 you can actually get a little more than a photo, and get it a few times over as well. Not that I endorse either.

Anyhow, now Abood thinks he's pretty clever right? Well, Hamood decides he's gonna be even cleverer, and instead of spending his own cash for a photo, he decides to steal a credit card from someone (let's call him Khalood), and use that to pay Abood's bill.

Now, here's where it backfires. Khalood discovers BD500 missing from his credit card, calls the cops, who see that card was used to pay a specific phone number. They look up the owner of the phone, and guess who they find? Abood! Now obviously the phone company has all of Aboods details, so they go to his house and arrest him.

Abood says he's not guilty, and tells them about Hamood. Now he doesn't really know anything about Hamood, so him, along with the cops, chat with Hamood and says that he wants to 'meet him' at a shady spot in Hamala, and also gets him arrested. Now they're both on trial... Here's how I feel about this whole situation:

No further comments. Here's the original article from the GDN.

Credit card fraud denied

AN alleged Internet scam in which one man posed as a woman to convince another to pay his phone bills has backfired - after his supposed target apparently used stolen credit card information to settle the balance.

Both appeared in the High Criminal Court yesterday where they denied charges of fraud and theft. The 21-year-old first defendant is said to have created an online persona called "Manal" before meeting the other man, 25, in an online chatroom.

Prosecutors claim he offered to show the second defendant pictures of "Manal's" body every time he paid the bill. However, police were called when the 25-year-old allegedly paid a BD500 bill with stolen credit card details that he took from a website.

Both are standing trial in the High Criminal Court, where they pleaded not guilty to fraud and theft. The Bahraini victim whose credit card was used to pay the bills was due to testify during yesterday's hearing, but failed to appear.

Judges issued a warrant ordering him to appear at the next hearing, which was set for February 23. Police first arrested the 21-year-old, who then led officers to the second defendant after arranging a meeting near a restaurant in Hamala last April.

Lol. Just, Lol.

Free Parking Spot

I don't post much because, well, time is pretty tight and there isn't an abundance of stupidity (which always makes a great topic). Well, actually there is but i'm not keeping up with it.

But I managed to keep up with some today, check this out:

Bidding 'war' over project

TWO developers are bidding for a project to turn a prime Manama site into a massive multi-tower office and shopping complex. Manama Municipal Council is studying the bids.

The site is currently a car park attached to buildings occupied by the Municipalities and Agriculture Affairs Ministry, the council and the municipality, just off the King Faisal Highway. All three would occupy offices in the new complex.

Council chairman Majeed Millad Al Jazeeri said: "We are looking for ways to best utilise municipal lands and it is a waste to have this land, which overlooks the King Faisal Highway, being used as a car park" he said.

Err, excuse me? Waste? Have you BEEN to the area recently? Cars are parked on top of each other and there is NO VACANT PARKING space at ALL, and that's WITH a parking complex in the area. You want to take that out, and put an office building to bring in even MORE people and cars? What are you frickin' stupid?

Seriously, do people in charge of stuff here just do things without any common sense? You're SUPPOSED to rip down some of those buildings and place more car parks, before thinking of any more buildings, you jackass.

Some people just tick me off.

Logo Fever!

Wow, it seems like logo fever is taking over the country! So after last week's new BTV logo (which we came to the conclusion represented nothing, really), Batelco have come to the scene with their own brand new identity!

Come to think of it, didn't Batelco change their logo just a few years back, when Zain (back then MTC Vodafone) came onto the scene? So why are they changing it again? Here are some quotes from Batelco Chief Executive:

Combining the English "B" with its Arabic equivalent, the aim is to make the company identifiable with all cultures

Aha, all cultures? I don't see the Indian and Chinese culture in there. And in fact, I don't even see Arabic culture; sure there's an Arabic letter ب in there somewhere but mixing it in with the B makes it look like this:


Don't see it? Okay look closer:


Hmm. New spelling needed then, Batelcow? No seriously, what's up with all the logo changes? Changing a logo doesn't mean your company moves up in the World. Batelco's service isn't necessarily bad, it's not great though, and it's the internal issues that need to be fixed, not the external view of the company. Anyway, here are the older logos:

2003:


Prior to 2003:


Funnily enough, the oldest one still seems the most relevant to a telecom. Hmm. Anyway, this means we've had 3 logos over the span of less than a decade. What we should be doing is look at the big global companies around the world and follow their examples! So, have those big companies been changing their logos as often? Let's see some examples:

Coca Cola:

1885:


2009:


Hmm. So essentially Coca-Cola has had the same logo for over 100 years, only changing the font a teeny tiny bit to make it look fresh and more modern. Hmm. Doesn't look like we're following that example. Let's look at another:

Nike:

1971:


1981:


1991:


2001:


Hmm. Guess we got it all wrong then...

The Hurricane of Destruction

I've got a pretty good idea on viewership statistics for Bahrain TV; they're probably around 7 people (4 of who are the channel operators and producers who have to check the channel for errors etc).

I don't know why the station is still alive really; it was considered pretty advanced back in the 80's, in comparison to the other countries in the region (ie, Kuwait, UAE, etc)... Yup, and it managed to stay in the 80's and on the same level, while all the countries around us moved forward. Not good.

Now we've got advanced programming from Kuwait, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Saudi, MBC, etc etc, but Bahrain TV is still... Well comic to say the least. Whether the quality of the TV shows (which look like they've been filmed with a mobile phone camera), to the bad scripts and fake acting, or the website that's been "under construction" for the past two years.

Anyway; so a few days ago I heard that BTV decided to change their logo. Yup, their logo! How about you guys change your frickin' employees who have been running the station for the past 40 years? As if changing the logo is going to push up views - Random scenario: Hey Ahmed, can you change the channel to BTV? I heard they have a new logo, let's sit and watch that for a few hours.

Emm... No.

But seriously, Ministry of Info (the guys who run Bahrain TV and Radio), get your act together! We're supposed to be displaying world-class productions through our various media; TV is one obvious portal to the world. I can cite specific examples of why our TV channel is so bad, but I would rather not spread that sort of embarrassment to our country online.

Maybe you (Bahrain) should make me the next head of TV & Radio. No seriously, come on, i'll turn this whole thing around. But anyway, for your enjoyment, the old and new logos:

Old:

Nice and simple, obvious and to the point. Nice portrayal of red and white symbolizing the colors of our flag, with the B looking like some sort of butterfly or whatever, possibly symbolizing how we've let the opportunity of creating a top-notch TV channel fly away :?

New:


No idea in the hell what this is. Sources claim this is supposed to be some sort of calligraphy saying "Bahrain" in Arabic but i've been staring at the thing for the past 20 minutes and I still can't see where half the Arabic letters are. It looks more like a hurricane symbolizing the total destruction we've managed to let the Ministry of Information do to our media channels.


Way to go BTV. Love the new logo. I'm soooo gonna keep the channel on all the time just so I can catch this beautiful graphical piece of art wherever I go.

Bahrain's Top 50 Power List

Arabian Business is a magazine that's been running for quite a while, and one thing they're good at is picking out and identifying whose who. They've brought us the top 50 richest Arabs a few months ago, and are now down to tackle our own little island with their top 50 most influential people.

This list confuses me a little. It's not the 50 richest, nor is it the 50 in the top positions of power. I guess it's a little bit of everything, fame, fortune, etc. Royal family members are not included apparently because that skews the list, so here you have it.

It's a pretty interesting list. Talal Al Zain tops out at number 1, being CEO of Mumtalakat (which is essentially the holding company for the governments assets, namely Gulf Air, Bahrain International Circuit, major shares in Batelco, National Bank of Bahrain, etc). CEO of that? That's a lotta frickin' power.

Esam Janahi holds the second spot, mainly for his role as Chairman of Gulf Finance House, as well as being on the board of a bunch of other companies. A regular employee just over a decade ago, Esam pushed forward with GFH to create one of the biggest Islamic investment banks in the region back in '99; we're talking about initiative such as energy cities in countries all over the world, economic development zones, and those two emerald green towers you see from almost any spot in Bahrain. And that's hardly scratching the surface; GFH has done a LOT, with many investment banks in the country and region opening to try and follow course.

The Kanoo's make an obvious appearance in the top 10. So do the Moayyed's, although not the one you would expect; Mona Almoayyed, President of Bahrain's Businesswomen Society, MD of Y K Almoayyed, and achievement spanning being the first woman to be elected to the board of the Bahraini Chamber & Commerce. Lovely.

Number 5 gives me a bit of a shiver when I read his history; Menir Kirdar, who originally escaped from Iraq as a child hiding in a rolled up carpet, is founder of Investcorp, one of the earlier investment banks in the region holding over $13 billion dollars worth of assets, with regional office in London and New York. A bit of a step-up from that rolled up carpet, huh.

The list goes on to cover CEO's, Chairman's, and other people holding up major positions. A few names hold special interest, however. Milan Macala, Coach for the Bahrain football team makes #10, and with good cause. Bringing Saudi to their knees and bringing us that one step closer to the World Cup, Milan is revered as one of the best coaches in West Asia. Will that hold true against New Zealand? Let's wait and see.

Artists also manage to make the list, as we see both Qassim Haddad, probably Bahrain's most famous poet, Al Shaikh, one of our most influential composers, Balqees Fakhro, artist, and Haifa Hussein, actress whose gone on to be featured in TV shows all around the region make the list. I don't necessarily agree with all of these, as I do believe we have more deserving and influential artists, but it's always good to see that this list is not just about business.

What do you think of the list? I personally have a bunch of names I would take out and a few more I would put in there (I would also rank myself at either 27 or 28 somewhere on this list), but generally this gives a good idea of whose who on our little island. Check out the actual list and let me know what you think!

1 Talal Al Zain
2 Esam Janahi
3 Abdulla Ali Kanoo
4 Mona Almoayyed
5 Nemir Kirdar
6 Anwar Abdulrahman
7 Khalid Abdulla Janahi
8 Abdul Rahman Jawahery
9 Steve Harrison
10 Milan Macala
11 Dr Jawaher Al Mudhaki
12 Ahmed Al Noaimi
13 Dr Mohamed Nedal Alchaar
14 Jawad Habib Jawad
15 Khalid Rashid Al Zayani
16 Alan Horne
17 Hassan Ali Al Majed
18 Samer Majali
19 Dr Osama Al Ali
20 Rashid Mohammed Al Maraj
21 Qassim Hadad
22 Khamis Al Muqla
23 Jamil A Wafa
24 Farouk Y K Almoayyed
25 Jassim Al Jowder
26 Akram Miknas
27 Mohammed Dadabhai
28 Peter Kaliaropoulos
29 Mohamed Al Qaed
30 Fouad Rashid
31 Martin Whitaker
32 Fahad Al Rajaan
33 Stephen Rothel
34 Hassan Ali Juma
35 Adel Hassan Bin Ali Al A'Ali
36 Bob Vincent
37 Abdulla Ahmed Nass
38 Khaled Al Sheikh
39 Murad Ali Murad
40 Fathi Al Mohamed
41 Ahmed Al Ameer
42 Faisal Jawad
43 Haifa Hussein
44 Khalid Abdulla Al Bassam
45 Nooruddin A Nooruddin
46 Balqees Fakhro
47 Atif A Abdulmalik
48 Ammar Ali
49 Majid Al Sayed Bader Al Refai
50 Yousof Saad Kamel


ArabianBusiness.com - Bahrain Power List

Swine Flu or Not, a Necessary Ordeal?

Swine flu doesn't scare me much. It's nothing more than a pretty bad flu with more severe symptoms. The chance of death isn't as big as the media makes it out to be, and with the right precautions and action taken, along with some common sense, it should come and go with no issues.

What scares me isn't Swine Flu; it's how we're dealing with it here. We're putting our health and lives in the hands of the Ministry of Health, who keep saying they have everything under control. Do they? Do they, really?

I haven't experienced anything first hand, so i'm copying a letter from a dear friend whose had that experience, hoping it might increase awareness for what's going on.


-------------------------------------------

SWINE FLU OR NOT, A NECESSARY ORDEAL?

One cannot appreciate the severity of the situation until faced with the reality of it in the emergency room. For the past few months we have been watching the news on TV from the comfort and luxury of our homes and taking it for granted that the Health Officials have got it under control. Little we knew that the situation was far beyond control!

5 days ago, Ali, our baby boy of 12 months suddenly got high fever, we immediately took him in to a private hospital’s emergency section where they performed some test and confirmed “viral infection”, prescribed some medicine including Tami Flu and sent us home.

The symptoms only got worse the next day and we again went rushing to the same hospital. This time, they examined our baby and prescribed anti-biotic and sent us home again.

Things did not get any better that evening, when our baby’s fever did not come down and this time, he was starting to vomit. We decided enough was enough, and rushed him to the emergency at the Salmaniya Hospital where he was examined and put on IV fluids, and transferred by ambulance to Kanoo Medical Center as a “suspect” case of swine flu.
In the span of a few hours of us being there at Salmaniya, there must have been dozens and dozens of walk-in cases of children with exactly the same symptoms as our baby. It was indeed an outbreak; there was no doubt about it. Whether confirmed cases or not, no one could tell because the Ministry had earlier issued instructions to all to stop testing for H1N1 and immediately start the Tami Flu treatment.

Now here’s where our cry-out for concern comes in.

Upon arriving at Kanoo Center, we noticed that there was no senior in-charge of the whole facility and were told that doctors were not available as they were all too busy at Salmaniya. The facilities may have been new, but the services and support to maintain an acceptable level of competence and hygiene was nowhere to be seen.

Apart from the fact that we did not see the General Consultant assigned to our boy show his face through-out our stay there, he never showed up even after repeated requests by us to see him, which is legally our right.

The cleaning staff was not available when required; it took them 2 days to even replace the bed sheets which were soiled from vomiting. The nurses were helpless without up to date directives from seniors who were nowhere to be found.

The only time a pediatrician showed up was on the 3rd day where we shortly discovered was an intern junior with no senior guidance or shadow. She kept asking the nurses about our boy’s case and could not even give us a straight forward answer when we asked her important questions about our boy’s condition. She was quick to make an exit after feeling a little under the spotlight and never showed up again.

What concerned us the most was how patients were being brought in to the center as “suspect” cases but not being given the serious consideration that comes with the “title”?

Adult “suspect case” patients were brought in with obvious respiratory problems, and put in the same room within only a meter from our boy... only to be tested a day later to confirm their diseases. How could that be justified in a situation where a serious out-break is present which is considered to be more dangerous to children below the age of 5 than adults?

Baby cribs were not even available so mother and baby had to share a bed the whole time while being on IV drip lines throughout.

While on medication, our boy developed other symptoms such as rashes, dipping of the body temperature and yellowish skin tone, and when we put our concerns forward to the nurses, they could not diagnose and no doctor was available to address these concerns.
Can you imagine the state we were in the whole time? NOT KNOWING anything, not being able to speak to a doctor who can answer the simplest questions we had such as “what is wrong with our boy?” or “is this normal?”

When a doctor came to visit on the 4th day, and decided baby Ali needed to have a swab test done for H1N1, knowing very well that the results may take up to 24 hours to come out, Ali was ordered to be discharged the nest morning and no instructions were given to anyone of us as to what to do next! We are yet to get the results, and have not been put on any preventative medication!

My question to the Ministry of Health is:

If the Ministry are under-staffed as we have witnessed “beyond any reasonable doubt” and cannot handle such situations. Then why quickly step up and take complete charge of this situation leaving the general public in limbo as to what to do, where to go and how to go about it?

There are so many private hospitals and clinics in Bahrain that are at this moment in time not authorized to admit or even diagnose suspect cases. What are those hospitals with their luxurious facilities and staff doing right now? Why are they being sidelined when there are obvious shortages at the Ministry facilities?

It is easy to mimic other countries at times of urgency, but do we have the resources, competence and experience to deal with it?

From first-hand experience, I can now say NO! We are far from being able to handle, manage and control a pandemic of any kind. And this should concern every resident of Bahrain that has the right to ask “why?”

Ahmed Baqer

Metroing About

Car breakdowns.. Traffic jams.. Trying to find a parking spot.. Running out of gas.. Crawling through the traffic.. Car accident blocking the road.. Not being able to drive until you get your license.. Road rage.. Flat tires.. Traffic fines.. No parking zones.. Headache of annual car registration.. Scratching your car.. Getting lost.. Overheating engine.. Road construction.. Potholes.. Expensive repairs.. Running to the parking meter every two hours to put some more coins in.. Annoying drivers.. Blocked roads.. Dead battery.. Getting locked out.. Losing your keys.. Car theft.. The list goes on..



Almost 70 years ago, we discovered oil in the region. There has been milestone after milestone in development.



Today, a new one has been set. Dubai Metro, opening 09/09/09. It's been a long time coming, a little (ahem) over budget, and while talks all over the GCC have mentioned trains, metro's, etc, nothing material has emerged. Dubai has taken action, and has made all the above an obsolete choice for those who wish to use it. May this set the pace for the rest of the region.



Well done Dubai, even with the current situation of the World, you continue to astound.

Mr. Smooth @ City Center

We were all excited when Bahrain City Center was finally opened to the public. Yup, a big new mall, new shops, restaurants, and new outlets full of fun, woohoow!

A little under a year after the mall has opened, it's most striking feature (I think), is actually none of the above. It's one of the traffic warden dudes who works there.

If you've been to City Center on more than one occasion, you must have an idea of what i'm talking about. Always there, on the far exit of the parking lot, slowly guiding the cars out with a smooth, slick motion? Always smiling? And looks pretty damn cool while doing it?

Yup, it's 'that guy' from City Center! If you don't already know him, he's always standing there and smiling. What he's smiling about, we can't really tell, but he alwaaaays manages to make our day, no matter what's been getting on our nerves or stressing us out.

Now this is a guy whose happy; if you can't take that as an example in your life, I don't know what else to tell you. Maybe he escaped from a brutal warzone where everyone was fighting and killing each other, and this job is a perfect heaven in comparison. Or perhaps he's on some sort of Opium or Marijuana or something. I dunno. Either way, he's happy, and that's something to look up to. Check out the video, and enjoy!

BTV; fun fun fun

Ah yes, another Ramadan is upon us. Another month of fasting, religiousness and giving. Equally also known as the month of laziness, gluttony and TV.

I've been gone for a while; its been a hectic 6 weeks, running show after show at Seef (we set up a big stage, and had everything from latin bands, breakdancers, talent shows, to much more). If you haven't seen it yet, check out the video below (just a short quick compliation to give you an idea of what we've been doing). More on UrFilez.

It really has been a bit of a rollercoaster with no breaks (brakes?), and it's finally over straight into Ramadan. Yup, a definite month of laziness for me.

And that's what the month ends up being. I'm really not feeling Ramadan at all this year; it usually has some sort of sparkle to it but apparently that's lost and all that's left is grumpiness, laziness, and a bunch of silly TV shows.

What's sad to note is Bahrain TV. Really, really sad. Back in the 80's we were so far ahead of the rest of the Gulf countries in terms of media it seemed like they would never catch up. Unfortunately we stayed at that same level while everyone else evolved; our actors and TV hosts are still the same ones that have been on TV for the past 20 years, the acting fake, stories repeated, and the special effects, well, they're just lame. Seriously, I've seen so much talent and creativity when it comes to audio-visual production (and even actors and script-writers) in Bahrain, but they prefer to either keep their stuff on YouTube, or fly out to countries like Qatar and Kuwait that actually appreciate those sort of skills, and compensate them accordingly. I swear, I watch the productions of Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, etc with pleasure; they're great. But us? Hmm.

So when is the Bahrain Ministry of Information considering hiring young blood with some actual skill/knowledge in the field to produce something of value? I swear its embarrasing to actually switch on Bahrain TV. Example; one of the shows is a Punk'd type thing with a new celebrity each day; wow, exciting! The only problem is that every episode is recorded in exactly the same location, (a worn out school classroom), with the same prank every day (kids make fun of the celebrity). Yup. It's basically repetitive right after the second episode. Not to mention the microphones used are actually mounted on the camera and so half of the audio isn't exactly clear. Oh, and the intro song talks about this show being a "brand new concept 100%" while the cheesy graphic special effects shine in the background. So much for Bahraini creativity.

Another show is in the form of local competitions, where the host goes around to different people in public and asks them questions for prizes (wow, that's original). Whose the host? None other than Abdulla Malek, the same guy whose been hosting these shows for like, the past 20 years. The dude's old and gray, falling apart and really not the best candidate for a young and fun TV show, but hey, who else are you gonna bring, right? (Well, besides some new young fun performers?).


Oh and lets not forget the 'graphic special effects' put in place by Windows Movie Maker.

Anyway, I feel sorry for the state of Bahrain TV and really wish I could do something to help out. Obviously I wouldn't be allowed to since I have no certificate or background in TV (which honestly is the last thing you need to put on a good show). You need young and fresh people with new ideas and concepts, rather than these old and gray jokers who have taken over the channel. Maybe then, we would actually feel like watching Btv for something other than comical amusement.

Sweating Like a Pig

He looked at the outside temperature gauge, looked away, then looked back at it again. Was this for real? No, no, something must be wrong. He hit it a few times just to check if it was correct.

53 degrees, it read.

"That can't be normal", he thought to himself, "we're still just in May". The traffic infront of him moved another meter, so he let his car crawl a little further down the highway.

It had started off as a regular day; the alarm clock rang at 6:30am with it's annoying metallic buzz, waking up Ahmed from his deep slumber. "Dammit," he said, "another routine crappy work day", as the rays of the sun shined through the window onto his face. As he got up, changed, and left for work, he felt a little hotter than usual, but thought nothing of it.

At the office, all telecommunication systems were down, cutting down all possibilities of doing anything useful. No phone landlines, no internet, and difficulty getting a mobile phone signal (and even then, there was too much static on the line to actually be able to communicate). Something was definitely going on today; even the office AC which was on full blast seemed like it wasn't able to keep up with the massive heat surge coming in through the office windows.

He looked outside his window to the Bahrain World Trade Center; the fans weren't spinning at all. An initiative by the authorities to help cool down Bahrain whenever the temperature rises above 40 degrees, the fans would automatically start, and spin faster relative to the air temperature. "That's weird", he thought to himself, "it feels quite a bit hotter than 40 degrees.."


His boss asked him to pay a visit to their telecom operator, who they couldn't get a hold of because all systems were down, so off Ahmed went to his car and drove away. The roads were packed; people had their windows down, blasting their horns waiting for others to move, screaming out of their windows at each other. It seems their car air conditioning just wasn't keeping them cool.

He looked at the outside temperature gauge, looked away, then looked back at it again. Was this for real? No, no, something must be wrong. He hit it a few times just to check if it was correct.

53 degrees, it read.

By now the traffic jam and heat was starting to get to people; the guy in the car infront of him, a middle-aged man who was shouting to the driver in the next car to move out of the way, lost it all of a sudden and got out to pick a fight. The two drivers shouted and argued, as other drivers left their vehicles to see what was going on. The scene got physical, as the heat wave caused everyone's blood to boil, and what started off as two angry drivers started to turn into a mini-mob, running around from car to car opening the doors and beating up the drivers.

Ahmed was shocked; as they came closer to his car, he decided the best option was to get out and run, and he did. As the size of the mob increased, they jumped on his car and broke the windows, but he didn't look back to see what was going on. He ran through the traffic-filled streets, and in every group of vehicles he could see similar zombie-like mobs starting to grow. Weirdly enough each of these zombie like creatures was starting to develop a pink glow to their skin.

This was disturbing. Something was definitely not normal ("No shi#!" - A reader), and as Ahmed ran from the chaos that was starting to form, he could feel the sweat dripping down his forehead like an open tap. The heat was getting to him, and he looked up at the sky to see the sun shining in a scary orange yellow glow. The sky didn't look normal, more like it was burning, and Ahmed figured the temperature was rising even further.

He wondered if there was anyone who could do anything about this, and he remembered the only people who were wise enough to solve any problem; the MP's ('How the hell are the MP's supposed to solve anything!? - Another Reader). He stopped a fake-London-taxi and asked the driver to take him over to the MP meeting hall. He got there, and waited as the 40 MP's made their entrance.

He stood in the middle of the hall, and pleaded to them;

"Oh great MP's, we have a situation on our hands. The temperature of Bahrain is rising. Just an hour ago, I noticed the temperature at 53 degrees in my car, and it only seems to have gone up since then. This heat is causing damage to our infrastructure, causing problems to our telecom systems that cannot handle these temperatures, and affecting our people, turning them into zombie-like mobs who cannot think. I plea with you to solve this problem"

One of the MP's stood up and said; "We already know the reason for the problem. It is because of the 1, 2 and 3 star hotels serving alcohol."

"What!?" Ahmed said, "How the hell does that contribute to temperature change?!"

"Oh unwise one," the MP continued, "God does not like these petty hotels serving the forbidden drink, therefore he has condemned us to a sample of hell"

Ahmed: "Umm, and what about the 4 and 5 star hotels then?"

MP: "You ask too many questions! Don't question the wisdom of the mighty MP's! We also need to make sure the pork is banned, otherwise our land will be cursed for ever! And we need to make sure that cinemas and parties should be closed down, as well as the internet, because it is all evil"

Ahmed felt a bit of frustration and decided he should leave before his nerves give and he ends up attacking the MP's violently. He walked out into the streets only to see the situation escalated; people blasting their horns, others giving into road rage and crashing into each other, the burning heat rays scorching trees and plants everywhere, people screaming and shouting, mobs destroying cars and setting fire to anything they can...


It was getting to an extreme, and the temperatures were getting hot enough to cause anyone to black out, so Ahmed decided it was time to take matters into his own hands. He needed immunity against this heat, and so ran off to Aloo Basheer and ordered 200 fils worth of Aloo and 100 fils nikhi (and a red Crush) with a ton of filfil. After quickly devouring the hot spices, the temperatures (now hitting 60 degrees) were no match for him.

He ran through the streets, mobs and fires to look for a solution, and he finally found the cause of the problem:


Apparently, one of the large truck carrying tons of pigs had crashed and threw the pigs all over the highway, right infront of the World Trade Center. All the people who came in contract with the same highway managed to get Swine Flu, turned into pig-zombies and went nuts, destroying and burning everything, including the power supply to the fans of the World Trade Center (explaining the rising temperatures). He obviously didn't get the flu because of his supernatural immunity, developed through years and years of eating Aloo Basheer.

Ahmed thought quickly, and since the big fans of the World Trade Center weren't working, he decided the only way this the weather could be brought back to normal is through using lots of other, smaller fans. He called his good friends, Ali Bahar and El Ekhwa, and asked them to perform a small concert infront of the corniche immediately, which they did. All of a sudden, all of their fans from Isa Town came out and that slowly caused the temperatures in Bahrain to cool down to normal levels, bringing back the telecommunication network, giving the police a chance to remove the pigs from the highway and dispose of them into the sea, and turning all the pink-zombie-mobs back into normal people.

Phew. Ahmed had actually saved the day, and maintenance worked on the World Trade Center fans to make sure they wouldn't break down in such a drastic situation again. With no one to thank him for his great deed, he went back to the office, and was shouted at by his boss: "Where the hell were you, it doesn't take 3 hours to go to the telecom and back. And go get yourself washed up, you're sweating like a pig!"

God does not hit with a stick

The authorities in Bahrain have a bit of a problem with road planning; one plain example of their utter failure to be able to complete a project with any form of efficiency is the Sitra Causeway. If you don't know Bahrain, Sitra is a little island just off the mainland (also an island), and they are both connected via Sitra Causeway. Two lanes forward, two lanes back.

Increases in the volume of traffic over the past 10 years have made Sitra Causway about as useful as smelly used underwear (which really isn't very useful unless you're pretty creative about what you do with it). A strip of road a little over 3km long takes a good 30 minutes to cross; that's the equivalent of driving at approximately 4.5km an hour. Average human walking speed is closer to 6km/hr, so if you drove across and I walked across, I would literally get there before you.

ANYWAY.

This was before the Ministry of Road Destruction decided to do anything about it; they put a plan where they figured, 2 lanes is obviously not enough, so let's have 3 (with a department that supposedly plans things you would have expected them to increase it to 4 or 5 so that they wouldn't need to do another expansion over the next few years, but hey that's them for you). This meant completely redoing the causeway, and digging up half of the land on the Manama side of things to make for (supposedly) better flowing traffic as you exit. Supposedly a job that in my point of view should take a good 6-12 months at a maximum, it has been ongoing since mid-2007, and from the speed at which they're doing things is nowhere near completion anytime within the next 2 years. The total mess they've made has managed to slow traffic down even more, and now it sometimes takes up to an hour to cross the causeway (which now means that if you get in your car and drive across, and I set a tiny puppy to cross with 3 broken legs, he would probably get to the end before you).

ANYWAY.

I've vented a bit and sort of steered off the topic of this post; God does not hit with a stick is the literal translation of the Arabic saying الله ما يطق بعصى which means that if you do something bad, God won't come back and beat you with a stick, but you will be punished somehow. Sort of like karma.

Thursday night, me and Nibz were driving back to Manama from Riffa and made the stupid mistake of deciding to take the Sitra Causeway route. Now there are two lanes going back, but there is a third emergency lane where anyone who has broken down can stop. People who don't enjoy the long wait sometimes think it is their right to use this as an actual driving lane and bypass everyone else waiting. Jerkoffs.

As we got halfway through the causeway (about half an hour later), we heard shouting from about two cars behind; a quick look in the rear view mirror told the story. Some young dude, being the jerkoff that he is, decided he wants to overtake everyone else via emergency lane, and apparently an old guy in a beat-up pickup felt this was a little disrespectful and swerved a little to block his path. Mr. Jerkoff got a little annoyed at this, and started shouting at the old man from his window, who didn't really care to listen. The dude stepped out of the car and went all the way around to the old man's door, opened it and started screaming about how the old guy had no right to do that and how he was going to "show him who he was". After a minute of fuming and screaming and almost punching the old guy, jerkoff went back to his car and burnt rubber as he overtook the old man (scratching his side mirror along the way).

We had a bit of a laugh about this as we drove along, sort of annoyed that a jackoff like that was allowed to do whatever he wanted. Drove along the causeway for another half hour, and we could see the old man 2 cars behind us, driving along following all the rules.

Almost at the end of the bridge, there was a bit of a bottle-neck. Seems a car had broken down, and funnily enough it was our old friend Mr. Jerkoff; this gave us a huge laugh and we just hoped the old man would come by and see this. Jerkoff managed to start his car, however, and drove a few meters then stopped as his engine failed one more time. As we overtook him we could see the look of frustration in his eye as he tried to start his car again, checking his rear-view every few seconds just to make sure the old dude doesn't pass him.

But he did! We had the biggest laugh and totally cracked up watching the old man cross, give jerkoff a quick nonchalant look and drive across with the biggest grin on his face. That was lovely. Just lovely.

Moral of the story? If you're going to be screaming at old people you try to overtake on the highway, make sure you get your engine serviced first.

Or at least be nice to people.

Abandon Ship

What have we come to? Seriously, what has happened to our little island?

I've witnessed hotels get put out of business due to some stupid rules placed overnight by total blockheads at one of our ministries. I've seen the ridiculousness from our MP's over everything from plastic models in store windows, to trying to ban pork sales. I've even laughed at the concept of the authorities trying to block the internet (which can't be blocked).

I've seen a lot of rubbish come out of idiots in high places, who are so out of touch with reality that it's ridiculous. But what happened last night, was just.. Wow...

Preparations for the past month were ongoing for the biggest rock concert to ever hit Bahrain; Rage to the Extreme. Bands from all over the country, as well as bands from Saudi, UAE and Egypt would all come down for a full day of rock and metal music, and a competition to choose the top regional band. A full 10 hours of rock music, from 4pm-2am; definitely going to be a great one. The venue was booked, the bands arrived, the crowd arrived and everything was going PERFECTLY..

Until a few hours into the event, the CID decide to walk in and stop everything. Why?

Wait for it...

...


...


...


Over a t-shirt.

Yep. The police decided to come in and arrest a member of a band that just got up on stage, because he was wearing a t-shirt with a cartoon picture of the devil on it, and a quote saying "God's Busy, Can I Help You?"

And of course, during the course of arresting him, since everyone else was wearing black, the police assume the concert is a satanic ritual and decide to close it down, and tell everyone to wear their t-shirts inside out (to cover all 'satanic' images).

A t-shirt guys? You closed down a whole rock concert, one that brought people from all over the gulf to one place, to do something that hasn't been done before in this region, over a t-shirt? And I mean i'd be more inclined to consider this if it was actually offensive; this t-shirt was supposed to be funny, but I don't get how a bunch of uneducated idiot CID/Policemen who can't even speak English properly are supposed to understand this or how to even begin explaining it to them: "Helloooo, make funny joke, god busy, me can help you? No Broblem only making funny. Haha? NO? NO BITCHES DON'T YOU F**ING GET IT!?"

And then the authorities keep trying to portray Bahrain as 'the destination' for business, innovation, etc. Yeah, that's not happening. Not until we wipe out half of the people in charge and replace them with people who know the difference between the letter P and letter B.

My head hurts. I apologize to anyone and everyone who came to enjoy a day of music and was turned away. I especially apologize to those who came all the way from UAE, Saudi and Egypt. I apologize on behalf of Bahrain; this country is sooo going down the drain guys. Time to abandon ship.

Can't Hold Us Down

(following from my last post...)

The Ministry of Information has went from being a minor pain in the ass to just totally infuriatingly outrageous. Besides blocking politically affiliated sites, they've blocked proxy sites, translation services, art & culture websites, archives, and much more.

MINISTRY; HERE'S A SPECIAL MESSAGE FOR YOU. YOU CAN BLOCK A DOOR, YOU CAN BLOCK TWO, BUT YOU'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO CENSOR THE INTERNET, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT. THERE ARE A MILLION AND ONE WAYS TO GET AROUND YOUR BLOCKADES, AND YOU'LL NEVER KEEP UP WITH THEM. GET WITH THE PROGRAM.

Besides the numerous politically affiliated websites, proxy sites, as well as adult and gambling websites, there is a number of ridiculous bans we don't understand (Why?!?!?!?)

www.DeviantART.com (Art/Culture website)
www.Demonoid.com (Private torrent tracker)
www.askmen.com (Online Men's publication)
www.google.com/translate (Online translator)
www.allposters.com (posters site. WTF?)
www.4chan.org (imageboard service)


Want to read more about this? Here's a list of bloggers/newspaper articles dealing with the blockade.

English:
Yacoubs Dome
S as in Saudi
Silly Bahraini Girl
Gulf Daily News #1
Gulf Daily News #2
Another Day
Eyad
RedBelt
Al Singace
Ali Abdulemam

Arabic:
Suad
Marhoons
Ali7
Khalid Bahrain
Hayat

FaceBook Groups:
Article 19 of Decree Law 47!! :S
The website Ban in Bahrain is BULLSHIT
You may take our porn... But You will Never... Take... OUR FREEDOM!
The Ministry of Culture/Info Should Stop Blocking Websites

And i'm pretty sure there are a lot more out there. If you know any, add them in the comments below and i'll update the list. We won't stop till these stone-age minded big brother tactics are lifted.

Country of Disinformation

The Ministry of Information in Bahrain has never really done much of a great job; their role in the country is quite varied, dealing with the running of the Bahrain TV channels (which are still stuck in the 80's), the Bahrain radio stations (which usually feel more like amateur efforts than serious radio stations), to having a hand in everything that the has to do with the media, from magazines, newspapers, films, and the internet.

Being the Ministry of "Information", you would expect them to be knowledgeable about most things, especially those that they deal with.

Unfortunately, that isn't true.

A little over a week ago, the Ministry decided to come up with a directive for all internet providers in the country to block a number of websites (somewhere between 20-30 sites; i'm not sure of the exact number). These included a number of forums, blogs, and information websites, mainly because of their political content. Of course, even when a website is blocked, users can access it through anonymous browsing/proxy services. So oops, let's block those too. Oh and guess what, you can also enter any website address into Google Translate, and get a translated version of that page, bypassing any blocked content. So guess what? That gets blocked too.

Okay; so the Ministry want to block certain information from coming in. Last time I checked, we were living in the Information Age. Not the Industrial Age, not the Nuclear Age, not the sticks and stones age. THE INFORMATION AGE. Information will get through, whether you like it or not; if you block a website, there's a proxy. If you block a proxy, there's a million more proxies that are available. If you block every single one of those, there are services like Google Translate that will bypass the blocked sites. If you block those, there are a million other ways to get past blocked information; through blogs, through email, through new forums, through Facebook, through messages, through pure old photocopied papers, through SMS messages, through phone calls, through satellite TV channels, through gatherings in someones house, in a coffee shop,
etc...
etc..
etc.

There is no such thing as a complete block for information nowadays, and especially when it concerns the internet. Information is not a one way street, you can't block it and expect that people will give up and go to sleep. Nowadays, there is ALWAYS a way around it.

I'm really not for or against what is being blocked; I honestly couldn't care less about different peoples' political agendas. What I completely and 100% oppose is the restrictions of free speech, of which a law has recently been granted in Bahrain. And even then, this isn't what i'm here to talk about; my point is that you cant block the internet. But let's leave this on the side for now and go back to what's being blocked.

Google Translate?

ARE YOU FRICKIN' KIDDING ME?! This is probably one of the most useful tools on the internet today, giving us access to knowledge and information from all over the World! It gives us a chance to communicate with people from other parts of the globe, do commerce with people from other countries whose language we can't speak, and opens up a multitude of opportunities.

But nooooo... MOI decides it has to be blocked because you can bypass their blocked sites with it, which tells you one thing; it doesn't really bother them how many benefits something has, as long as it sparks one negative issue for them. This means there's no real limit to what they can block. What's next, Gmail? Hotmail? Facebook? MSN Messenger?

There are still a million other ways around the blocks, which renders their whole effort useless, just makes us more mad, and brings down the levels of freedom in this country. From the actions of the past few days, it's not really far-fetched that someone from the Ministry of Interior comes across my website, sees how i've put-down their whole blocking charade, and decide that ammaro.com needs to go too. (Speaking of which, if they do block my site, my posts are distributed by email, they're on feedburner, they're on BahrainBlogs, they're on Facebook, they're everywhere. Don't worry, you can still get your regular dosage of ammaroness; your world will not end.)

Just today I got a message; it seems they decided to start blocking anything with porn in it, as well as online gambling sites. Now that's just stupid; porn is everywhere, from downloading it on peer-to-peer networks, getting it through email, as well as satellite channels which every household has nowadays. And gambling? Well you could start by stopping that BD50 win-a-car lottery thing in the airport Duty Free, because if that isn't gambling, I don't know what is.

Ministry of Information; PLEASE WAKE UP.

(PS. Just to give you a sample of how BAD a job they're doing, even with trying to block sites, check this out:

Try going to http://google.com/translate, and you'll get a blocked site notice.

Want to bypass it? Then just go to http://translate.google.com/. Apparently their Head Blocker Engineer (blockhead?) doesn't realize that there are different forms of domain name that can lead you to the same website. Duh.)

Mall Randomness

No matter how many things we have to do in Bahrain, somehow we still end up cruising around the malls.. Passed by Seef and City Center malls yesterday; a few fun pics from both (click for large size):

Here's what happens when you mix our culture with the West; tadaaaa, Baklava Blizzard at Dairy Queen! (If you don't already know, Blizzard's are ice creams infused with some sort of cookies, chocolate chips, etc. Baklava is a traditional Arabic pastry dessert) The two actually don't taste bad together at all!

Speaking of mixing East and West, check out our very own Bahraini Christmas trees, with the whole Arabic theme going on and all:


Buying phones: You can either get the original Nokia, or you can get the Chinese version! Half the size, half the price!


This has got to be the most boring job in the world; you see, there's a special stand in the cinema for HSBC credit card holders (some sort of privilege you get for signing up for an HSBC credit card). It doesn't really offer any benefits besides having a special queue; ie, no special seats, no free popcorn, no nothing. Now first of all, the most i've had to wait in the cinema queue is about 3 or 4 minutes, and that's at an extreme. Usually I have to wait more like 30 seconds, if not immediately since the stands are hardly busy. Second of all, HSBC accounts cover less than 10% of Bahrain's population, and most of these people have savings accounts, and not credit cards. Third of all, not all of these credit card holders are regular movie-goers by any means; therefore leading to this really really bored lady in the HSBC privilege stand on the right, with hardly any work to do:


Oh, and the regular cinema stands didn't actually have anyone in the queue.

Moving on... Someone is obviously not happy with people eating or smoking in his shop!!!! (Can you add a few more exclamation marks please? I don't quite seem to get it).


Then it was off to City Center, the mall of funny mannequins. No seriously, I don't think the people in the shops here understand the concept of them:


Yes, uhh, those things are used to put clothes on, actually... But even when they figure out that you can put clothes on them, they still can't strike the right pose:


This mannequin sort of says: "This suit feels so good, it makes me want to pee!"

Of course, we couldn't pass up the opportunity for a hot Krispy Kreme donut! Red light is on, warm donuts coming out!


And I decided i've had enough with waiting, I finally got myself a Blackbery Bold! Yuppeeee!


Same night I saw the news about the Nokia N97 coming out sometime next month! Dammit!

Anyway, that's enough mall hopping for today! Go get yourselves a donut or something.