Don't kill your beloved by your love !!

Egg price increases in UAE by 50 to 100% this month !!

Previously, it has been said by the Ministry of Economy that egg price will be increased by 15 to 20%, due to the lake of eggs in the country as a reflection of the reduction of chickens because of the birds flu.
But now it has been increased by 50 to 100%, which is unreasonable.

Now and as this muddle is happening, some costumers started to reserve egg trays from the small groceries and supermarkets. The funny thing, I have noticed, is that almost all grocers and those who work in supermarket are Indians, so they reserve the egg trays to the Indian costumers!

The country has banned exposing eggs from some countries; this might be part of the solution, yet they should work out the whole problem as soon as possible in order to meet people’s needs.

World Statistical Clock

http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf

Lebanon Presidential Vote Postponed For Tenth Time

Lebanon presidential vote has been postponed, till Saturday, Dec 29, 2007, for the tenth time. "info2cell".

BEIRUT- It remained unclear on Friday whether the latest bid in three months to elect a new president would even take place amid efforts to convince pro- and anti-Syrian factions to proceed with a vote.

“Saturday’s session may be postponed... given that things have gone back to point zero, and contacts seem to have ceased between the majority and the opposition,” the independent Al-Balad newspaper said.

To read the entire article, please click here.

Source: "khaleejtimes.com", "info2cell"

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates to Make First UAE Visit

As the "gulfnews" mentioned:

Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman and co-founder, will top the list of keynote speakers at the Government Leaders Forum in Abu Dhabi in January.

Microsoft, which is sponsoring the event, also confirmed the attendance of Shaikha Lubna Al Qasimi, Minister of Economy.

More speakers are expected to be announced next week.

The forum will be held on January 27 and 28 at the Emirates Palace Hotel.

HIV Replication 3D Animation

Dropping The Charge "200 Lashes of The Whip To An Abused Girl" !!

I was really shocked when I knew that when a girl is being abused, she should be punished by getting struck and jailed!

Based on information provided by "reuters.com" (Nov 20, 2007):

This is what the Saudi court has settled on up to day to sentence a 19 years old girl who was gang-raped (by 7 men) in 2006.

At the beginning, the court had sentenced the girl to 90 lashes of the whip and to be jailed between 10 months and five years, and had blamed the woman for being alone with an unrelated male companion.

And just in this Nov. 2007, the Supreme Judicial Council increased the sentence to 200 lashes and six months in prison, and ordered the rapists to serve between two and nine years in jail.

The court also took the unusual step of penalizing procedures against her lawyer, Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem, by compulsorily removing him from the case for having talked about it to the media!

These decisions are being made according to Saudi Arabia's strict reading of Islamic law, and the United States described the verdict as "astonishing".

New York-based Human Rights Watch called on King Abdullah, who announced (in Oct 2007) to drop all charges against the girl.

Just couple of hours ago, I received it from “Info2cell” that the charges are dropped by King Abdullah, and the girl won't be punished.

13 days ago, “reuters.com” published (Dec 4, 2007):
U.S. President George W. Bush avoided directly criticizing Saudi King Abdullah over a decision by his country's court to punish a woman who was gang-raped with 200 lashes and jail time.

Information from: Reuters, info2cell


Actually, it's really astonishing that the court was running after the girl and sentencing her while I didn't hear much about the rapists except that they would have to serve between two and nine years in jail.
In my point of view, the spot light in this case should have been focused (by the media, court and people) on the rapists more than the girl. Those criminals were the party who should been sentenced, not the abused girl!

Elton John to perform in Abu Dhabi, UAE

Elton John has been one of the dominant forces in rock and popular music, especially during the 1970s.

As it is from the "Gulfnews":

Abu Dhabi: Elton John will be performing in the open air theatre at the Western Wing of the Emirates Palace on January 22, 2008.

This is the very first time Elton John will be performing in the UAE, and it will be a great opportunity for his fans to see him perform live.

In his four-decade career, Elton has been one of the dominant forces in rock and popular music, especially during the 1970s. He has sold more than 250 million albums plus over one hundred million singles, making him one of the most successful artists of all time.

He has more than 50 Top 40 hits including seven consecutive #1 US albums, 59 Top 40 singles, 16 Top 10, 4 #2 hits, and nine #1 hits.

His success has had a profound impact on popular music and has contributed to the continued popularity of the piano in rock and roll.

Just wow!

Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?

A question has been raised in the "IEEE Spectrum" magazine this moth about the website "Wikipedia", and I would like to publish it here. The question is: How much do you trust Wikipedia’s content?

This is the entire article:

A Caltech graduate student has developed a search tool that can trace who makes entries in Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that lets anyone edit content on everything from Paris Hilton to the history of electricity. The Web site has become a popular one-stop research source, but there’s a debate about its information. Entries have been found to be inaccurate; at least one person discovered his biography contained false, defamatory information. And the new search tool revealed that many companies delete negative, though factual, information about themselves. How much do you trust Wikipedia’s content?

Holidays’ Decorations..

The big Christmas Tree in "Abu Dhabi Mall"

What Ahmed Arshi posted about holidays’ decorations in our countries is, as I noticed, the viewpoint of many people around. (To read his article, click here)

And as more than a few friends of mine talked about this situation, I actually have something to say here:

These are just rental areas that can be rented to any party to do decorations. So, what to do if Christian people care about their Christmas more than how we do about our Eid! It’s always about us dude!

The thing I wanted to say is that the municipality isn’t the one how’s responsible for these Christmas decorations (As I don’t see decorations in streets). It’s about people; I don’t mean citizens, but communities responsible for such stuff.

Add to this that "Abu Dhabi Mall", "Marina Mall", and some other places in Abu Dhabi did a very beautiful decorations in Ramadan about 2 monthes ago.. So, as I said it is that sometimes we are just careless.

At the end, whatever the reasons are, “It’s a pity” as Ahmed said!

New Clooney film to open "Dubai International Film Festival"

As is in the Middle East Online:

Fourth edition of festival features section for Arab narrative features, documentaries, short films.

(141 films will be showcased)

DUBAI - George Clooney's tense new legal thriller "Michael Clayton" will open the fourth Dubai international film festival on December 9, the organisers said on Monday.
Clooney plays a lawyer, a legal "fixer" who clears up complex or dirty cases for corporate clients in the movie directed by Tony Gilroy which will launch the week-long event showcasing 141 films from 52 countries.
US actor, activist and producer Danny Glover will receive a lifetime achievement award along with South Korean filmmaker Im Kwon-Taek and Egyptian director and screenwriter Youssef Chahine.
Sharon Stone will also attend the festival as part of an AIDS awareness campaign.
This year's festival features a section for Arab narrative features, documentaries and short films. The Muhr Awards has a top prize of 10,000 dollars and will include seven world premieres.
For the first time, festival-goers will be allowed to vote for their favourite film in the People's Choice awards.
"We have made numerous improvements for our fourth edition that will take us further in our mission to celebrate excellence in cinema and to nurture and develop local and international talent while also adding value to culture in the arts in Dubai and the UAE," festival chairman Abdulhamid Juma said.
Dubai, one of seven emirates that makes up the UAE, is a booming city-state with grand cultural aspirations.
Earlier this year, acrobatic extravaganza Cirque du Soleil said it would stage a permanent show on a huge artificial island off the coast of Dubai, and Universal Studios plans to build a theme park in the emirate costing more than two billion dollars.

>> Can't wait to go and see.. That's pretty interesting :)

Labour (housemaids) regulation in UAE

This is how it began in the UAE:

"Governments in the Gulf expose Sri Lankan domestic workers to abuse by refusing to guarantee a weekly rest day, limits to the workday freedom of movement and other rights that most workers take for granted," said Jennifer Turner, a women's rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Now this talk and many other talks from the HRW aroused wonder about how this category of people is treated in the Gulf Countries(including UAE!).
As far as I know, and as far as what I see as a resident in the UAE for 23 years (not as a person who has ever had a maid), maids in this country always used to have their rights preserved as humans and employees!
Refering to Alittihad newspaper; Nov 14, 2007:
On his part, Minister of State for the National assembly Affairs and chairman of the Higher National Election Committee, Dr. Anwar Qarqash, asserted that the Salary, food, medical care, working hours are taken into consideration in the country Mol (Ministry of Labour) to protect these labours.
So, these goodies show the concern about maids, and as I said protecting their rights.
The question which arises now is that; did the UAE really prohibit giving one legal rest day per week for maids? And if so, then why?!
The answer is YES. They did prohibit giving one rest day per week for maids.
The answer for the second part of the question is unpleasing at all. In short, stuff against law.
After a while, the government of UAE realised that this decision of forbidding one day rest per week for maids, they realised that this decision doesn’t seem to be right.
As a result, they applied new rules towards this issue and that is by developing what is called “Labour regulation”.
To know about the new “Labour regulation in UAE”, click here (Nov 22, 2007).
"This information about "New Labour Regualtion" is not authorized by any party so far except to "aljazeera.net".

Mothers! Can’t you just do the house work without relying on maids?
Because this very simple and easy solution will definitely solve it all.

Social Networking Websites..

“Facebook” is a social utility that connects you with the people around you.
This is how it is described, and if you’re not one of the “Facebook” confederacy; it’s just very similar to Myspace, hi5, Freindster, LinkedIn,WAYN, Bebo, Windows Live Spaces (aka MSN Spaces) , Yahoo! 360°… And this list goes on…
Wow! You’ve never heard about any of these? Ok, you should go and ask one of the 289,000,000 people joining “Myspace”, or one of the 50,000,000 who are joining “hi5”..

To me, I used to be a member in “Myspace”, but recently I transformed to be one of the 73,500,000 people who belong to “Facebook”.

Those social networking websites focus on several obsessions, most of them mainly are considered for “friendships”, some for “business”, some for “travel & lifestyle”, and some for “sexual relations” as I have discovered!!
Whatever the aim was for joining such websites, and although I’m a member in “Facebook”, I’ll mention what I most hate about this kind of websites:

1- May be you can have a silly fun over there, but don’t try to convince me that you want to be in contact with all your friends since you have a bunch of friends that you can’t handle catching each one of them individually, because if that was your claim for having an account in “Facebook” or any other network, then let me tell you that you didn’t have the perfect solution for your problem.
*If you need a reminder, I remind you that someone invented something called “email”.

2- Adding friends who are not friends! Adding friends who are really just aliases! Yes! Believe it or not. Anyone can be called a” friend” just by one click; just by accepting something called “Friendship request”. I really wonder how some people add others as friends, while they don’t have any clew about who they are!
“I’m having hundreds of “friendship requests” pending. I always used to reject them, but now I don’t, I just keep them pending because a lot of stupid people, when you reject their request, they consist and add you for another time! So, when you keep the request pending, the person can’t send you another request until you reject his first request.. That’s it! Keep them pending!”

3- Adding people you hate! You’d be surprised from time to time that some people you hate are sending you a “friendship request”… May be they just want to make your day! How lovely it would be when you add them!

4- I hate it also when I people discuss some personal issues or have a conversation in their profiles, allowing all the people read and enjoy their interesting talk. That space as I guess is supposed to be for light comments, or for saying hi for instance.

5- According to “Facebook” (which I’m joining), I’m being sick of keeping adding more and more features and applications to the website.. And people… People just add lots lots lots of applications to their profiles.. loads of applications which makes me feel that their profile is going to explode in any moment! (may be they add all the applications yelle allah khala2a based on: Elle bblash Katter meno).. because as I noticed the “gifts” application (chargable application) is not used by the users as much as the new free applications are used.

6- Finally, I hate it when I find a guy having some 1029 girls in his friends list, even though I’m quite sure they are not friends and they even may be don’t know each other! And the same; when a girl has a 4362378839402 guy in her friends list!

Now, very few things I like about such websites which can’t weigh against my “dislikes”:
1- I found a KG friend, Shatha, whom I didn’t talk to since I was in the KG… That’s just unbelievable! (By the way, she didn’t remember me, haha)

2- I like the local events advertisements and reminders.. This is a plus for the “Facebook” although you can be updated to the events through your local “timeout” website.

Now back to the first point I mentioned in the dislikes… I’m having a “Facebook” account because I just want to have one… I admit that I sometimes do contact my friends through it.. But in my point of view, one can never be called social if he/she is just living in the “Facebook” boat… or any of the other boats!

Gulfnews: Shaikh Mohammad and Princess Haya blessed with a baby girl

According to Gulf News...

"Dubai: Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and his wife Princess Haya Bint Al Hussain have been blessed with a baby girl.

The new baby was born on Sunday morning.

Her birth coincides with the auspicious National Day anniversary."

Congratulations! :o)

Hugs.. Love & Peace..

Don't we need this most in our arab world?

The Miniature Earth

I'm speechless after I saw that animation done by Allysson Lucca.. I know that almost all people realize the huge disasters taking place in our earth, but I think we should remind each other about it every now and then.. I mean everyday, every moment.. Because it's about people; Human been... AND humanity!

And this is not the only disaster we have.. The other disaster is that we just act like "happy go lucky".. Yes exactly like that.. If we have feelings, we are expected to stop by.. Not to ask, pretend, and then go away.. But to ask, help, and stay there..

Now if you are not willing to do something (even if tiny thing), I, at least, ask you to concentrate in the animation..

To watch, please click the link below:
http://www.bambooshootz.com/miniature_earth.swf