I noticed it yesterday, and it is confirmed now (Thanks Ahmad), the TRC (Telecommunications Regulatory Commission) reversed their bad decision of blocking Skype. It seems that Skype is no longer a security threat.
اللهم احفظ اردننا سالما من كل شر ومكروه وسكايب وياهو وجوجل وماسينجر و……
God keep our Jordan safe from any Harm, or Evil, or Skype, or Gtalk, or Yahoo Messenger, or MSN Messenger, or…..
Is it just me, or there is a big spike in begging in the streets of Amman ? I just took 3 minutes walk, from office, to super market, back to the office, and I was stopped and interrupted by: One Young Man who need 1JD to get back to Gwaismeh (Meskeen, Magtoo3, and can only use taxis it seems), 2 ladies ( separately) – each with a baby- asking me for money to feed the baby, and last, one lady without a baby (maybe it is not her turn to use the baby today).
If there is one thing that I believe in more than Open Source, then it is that those beggars are big manipulative liars, every and each one of them, no exclusions.. and they come in different packages:
There are many other derivatives and mixtures of the above basic-types.. it can differ according to location, such as in front of a mosque, or near the burier places at funeral times, and so on.. and they are all big “thin” liars.. call me cruel, but I would never give a penny to any of them. If one is to help, then there are trusted organization, that take donations, and take the extra effort of checking the illegibility of those asking for money, and it is those organization that should be given money regularly, and not those pretending to wipe your windshield at a traffic light.
Allah ywafegko, don’t give money to any of those..
PS. to check the street I got 4 beggars in less than 100 meters, it is near the fifth circle, in front of the Sheraton.. Near Hotels .. mm.. interesting coincident ..
I know I haven’t written for a while, but I found a certain piece of news about a new blog for Ahmedi Nejad the Iranian president. It seems that the blog was announced in official news agencies. Now I must admit that the Iranian blog movement had always fascinated me. What amazes me is how it was “embraced” by the government in Iran in a way that no other country did. I even read earlier last year that the ministry of culture organized a “Blog Awards”.. imagine this, it is amazing..
The way I see it, it is the smartest middle-eastern country when it comes to dealing with blogs.. instead of “blocking” it, and making it a taboo, they made it “pro-government”.. so the “anti-government” voices in the blogosphere will just fade in the waves blogs that are pro-gov. Now that’s smart.. The number of blogs in Iran today are in the 100s of thousands last I heard from my friend Hoder when he was in Amman. Now, I am not sure if the Iranian experience on blogs could be implemented in other countries, and infact I am not sure I want it to.. So far we are enjoying the government ignorance, blindness, or dismissal of blogs, it gave us a space that we might not have if they paid attention…
So let them stay away o ghanilo..
I was reading a story in the Independent about an investigation that is taking place in USA by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) about having news stations air “fake news reports” about the success of war in Iraq, that was tailored by Bush adminstration, and corporates that have businesses in Iraq.
I am not sure why I wasn’t surprised, when I first read it I thought “so, where is the story?”, doesn’t this really fit with the consperency theory that we all believe in ? Anyhow, for some unknown reason I remembered a certain article that I read some time ago in Alghad (Arabic).
This morning I heard an interesting report in BBC Arabic about a news report saying that the Chairman of Jordan Television (Warning: An annoying site with parts of it working with a “DLS Connection” as mentioned in the Arabic section) resigned yesterday, and along with him a number of board members resigned as well.
What surprised me, is that while many think that Jordan TV need to be more open, our elected parliament thinks that it is “too free” and through accusations that it have open discussion program that criticize the government, and that it have entertainment programs that are inappropriate.
I started to believe that this is my fault, I choose not to vote in the last elections thinking that there is no one that is worthy. Maybe this attitude is what lead to us having such parliament. I am Sorry ..
The last weeks had been crazy for me. During Eid, I got a job offer to join a company here in Amman, so I dropped my plans to accept an offer I got in Dubai in favour of staying in Amman. Some of my friends called me “habeeleh” or something for turning down a very good offer from Dubai, but for me, nothing beats waking up to a nice weather, no AC noise, walking outside to get the newspaper, no humidity, reading it, then heading to work where the most lengthy traffic Jam is 3-5 minutes (I’ve head stories about traffic in Dubai, No thank you, not interested).
The last month had been crazy for JP as well. We had been almost holding the voting process to add new blogs, reason is that we are currently discussing the voting, and proposing other ways than voting to have blogs added. We currently have a loong list of blogs that are to be added or decided on. Don’t worry, everything is kept in a record, once we decide on the voting process, it will move on. No need to resubmit your blog.
I had been as well following the stupid cartoons thing, I think that the issue had been greatly oversized when it was not needed. A cartoon that was printed in a local daily newspaper now is printed in newspapers all over the world, even here in Amman. It seems to me that the people were glad to find the peaceful nation of Denmark and Norway to exercise their anger on them, because the same can’t be done on other governments, or own governments, so they targetted anger toward the lands of Lego, Happy Cows, and Trolls.
I will try to blog more often from now on, and keep you and myself on what’s on my mind. Later
A comment that I heard the most in the first hours of the event, is that “It couldn’t be a Jordanian who did this”, I even heard it from officials. Well I disagree … I think it could have been Jordanians. The sick brain-washed people are among us, and had been bombing themselves in Iraq for the last 2 years. So, I think that the mentalities that could justify bombing people in a market, a wedding, or police stations in Iraq, could justify bombing hotels in Amman.
We can’t, and shouldn’t, act as if it is an “External” attack, because we call know that the radical mentalities that justify killing innocent people was home-grown in Jordan before it moved else where, and now it is backfiring on us. So, fixing the situation won’t be through more strict border checks, and hotel door security, but I think that it should be as strong and radical as those movements. The nests that grow those people, and brainwash them is here, and this is where we should look, and target.
This post was greatly moved by Jameed’s latest post
I’ve never been in one, and I hope that I won’t have to be in one again. In front of the Radisson SAS and Hyatt people gathered for candle litting. It was emotional, stronger than shouts and words.
We all felt that we should do something, but nothing much could be done after the attack. I got a message from Roba about a protest at 1pm, starting from the third circle (few meters away from Al-Hyatt Hotel) passing in front of Radisson Sas, and ending at Dakhleyeh Circle. And so I headed there with 3anan.
I met Ammar, Roba, Lina and many other friends. It had some emotional moments. Check the pictures from the protest that I took.
30 seconds of the protest (Video) (3MB)
Click for the full gallery
As well check Roba’s pictures of the demonstrations
I just read in Al-Jazeera, and called a friend who confirmed.. it seems that there was a strong explosion in Amman near the Radisson SAS and Hyatt. I am a little nervous, don’t know what to say or think. Allah Yostor
UPDATE1: 5 were killed, many wounded (Source Yahoo News).
UPDATE2: Explosion happened in 8:50pm, in Radisson-Sas, wedding hall. Special forces were deployed in the area 15-20 minutes after it. Evacuation is in place now for the near-by Hyatt.
UPDATE3: There was 3 explosions in Amman at Radisson SAS, Al Hyatt, and Days Inn. Jordan Television reported 20 killed.
UPDATE4: Petra News Agency (The official state news Agency) reported that the explosions could be caused by by suicide bombers. (Source Petra News
UPDATE5: Jordan announces tomorrow off for all public and private sector. One of the dead is the Manager of Cairo Amman Bank.
UPDATE6: Latest count: 57 dead, 150+ wounded
Live Update will be blogged here and in Global voices
A very interesting post by Khalaf pointed out that the National Agenda Committee will post the Agenda document online for feedback, now that’s a first, and something that I would salute. It basically means that the committee (government) thinks that the internet is a good medium to collect feedback about the document. Now I am not sure that I will read the full document, or post my feedback on it, but I am really happy for such move. I wonder who’s really behind it, and the reasons for it.
I was not really surprised when I read today’s Alghad headline about the the diesel produced by the Jordan Petroleum Refinery (which is having a monopoly of petroleum fuel until 2008) against the Jordanian standards for diesel. The Jordanian standards says that a 1KG of diesel should have no more than 350 milligram of Sulfur, while Jordanian diesel have 10,000-11,000 milligrams (no wonder diesel vehicles in Jordan are known to have extremely black smoke). I kind never had doubts that the Jordanian standards are the problems, problem is always in implementing those standards. Now the funny/sad part is that they are given until 2008 to fix that error, while the refinery officials said that they are unable to comply with the standards because of the high costs of having extra filters.
Recently, diesel had a price hike of around 25%.. only if a small part of that is given to the refinery to have those filters and allow us to have some cleaner air. I guess that our lungs does not have a high priority.
I woke up today to the news about bombing in Aqaba, some news channels say it is 1 explosion, other say 3, some say it was targeted at an American ship in the port, while I heard some say that it was near the city, I heard that at least one Jordanian was killed from the bombing… I don’t know what to say.. why can’t we just live peacefully.. what is it that they want to prove ? why Aqaba ? why Jordan ?
What would hurt me the most is that we will find out that it was Jordanians who did it.. what a shame..
Update:: It had been confirmed that one of the rockets hit the yard of Princess Haya Hospital, which is near the entrance of Aqaba city. While the other hit a warehouse in the port used to store Rice and Sugar. Jordanian soldier Ahmad Saleh died, while another soldier is now in hospital
This morning when I read Ammar’s Six Minutes and watched the video he referred to, I was in shock and shame , although I had some laugh. Basically the piece, for those who do not understand Arabic, is about interviewing random people from Jordan, who are mostly university/collage students and asking them general knowledge questions. “Who is Berlusconi?” gave answers such as “A Romance Actor” and “where is Bulgaria?” resulted to “a planet in the solar system”. What could be considered a basic knowledge such as “What are the major 2 parties in USA”, “Who wrote War and Peace” and “Name 3 novel writers from Jordan” was a complete failure. A question that 100% of the interviewees answered properly is “Who Sings Ah o Nos?” where no one failed to remember Nancy Ajram. At the end, the director shares with us a painful fact. An Arabic student reads in average 6 minutes a year outside curriculum books. Ouch.. Read more…
I was listening to BBC Arabic news this morning on the way to work, a report about the anti-corruption committee that was created upon a request by King Abdullah to address the issue of corruption more seriously.
Now I know that corruption is on many levels, and I am not going to talk about it on the higher level because I don’t know much about that.. but what I know, and I see, and practice (ya shoot me) is corruption on the individual level.
To start with, there is a special type of corruption, that is Wasta (English: a mean, mechanism, medium), and sometimes we even give it a nickname Vitamin Wow ( as it gives power and so). Wasta for those who are unfamiliar with the term is about having someone in a power position do something (legal or illegal) for you (a favor) that couldn’t be done without a wasta. The funny thing is that we don’t usually hide our acts when we use Wasta, but we brag about it, and offer providing the same wasta to people around us to help them out. Read more…