Alstom and the Saudi Rail Project Story

Image by michallon via Flickr

Gulf News' remarkable cover story today is that French rail company Alstom is coming under pressure from a range of advocacy groups lobbying Saudi authorities to withdraw from their award of the Makkah to Madinah railway project to the company. Those groups, including the PLO and the PA, are angered that Alstom is building a light rail network in occupied Jerusalem.

The page one lead story for some reason completely fails to mention that Alstom holds the contract for Dubai's Al Sufouh tramline. The contract, awarded by the RTA to the ABS consortium, is worth over $500 million, with Alstom claiming some $280 million of that value in the partnership with felow consortium members Besix and Serco (who, respectively, put the BS into ABS). In fact, it's one of a number of significant contracts that Alstom has won in Dubai and the Middle East region as a whole - Alstom is a major player in power generation, too.

The Dubai contract for the Citadis railway system is actually significant as it will trial a new air-conditioning system on platforms for the first time. Citadis has been installed in over 28 cities around the world, according to the company.

Gulf News merely mentions that the company is 'eyeing' business in Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Dubai. And yet the Alstom contract award, made in April 2008, is the first result you get by googling 'Alstom transport Dubai'.

How strange, is it not, that Gulf News' journalists missed that fact when researching such an important story?

(By the way, Alstom itself makes no secret of its work in Israel - in presentations such as this one, the company cites its work in Jerusalem as a case study. Like many other corporate companies around the world, Alstom works globally including projects in the Arab World and Israel. We do all know that hundreds, if not thousands, of corporates do this, don't we?)

The Palestine Festival of Literature

I have been following, wide-eyed, the progress of the Palestine Festival of Literature team as they have been blogging, Twit-picking and Tweeting their way across Palestine since the 21st March.

This brave, perhaps even foolhardy little band of authors and poets, including British comedian and intrepid maker of popular travelogues Michael Palin, has been travelling around Palestine, taking the Festival to Palestinians because the Palestinians aren't free enough to travel to any one location by themselves.

The aim, as one of the participants puts it, is "To confront the culture of power with the power of culture," - the official mission is to bring writers and artists from around the world to Palestinian audiences, to initiate and organise cultural festivals and workshops with students.

It has been compelling viewing - for the relatively small audiences following the blogs, Twitter feeds and other social media channels the Festival team has used have been treated to the sight of the Festival team squeezing through checkpoints, having their first night event banned by the Israeli military, being shut out from the Dome of the Mosque and other delights.

It's sort of close to my heart - my nasty little book-writing habit led me to pen a book called Olives that I guess has heightened my awareness of and feeling of connection with the people of Palestine, although it's always been a constant element in my 20-odd years mooching around the Middle East.

Today is the last day of the festival with an event taking place at The National Theatre in Jerusalem from 7pm. And then the team of weary artists will leave. But it's nice to think they'll leave something behind them that will perhaps inspire people, to build a heightened sense of expression and to find a voice, a response that will both help them to make sense of the future and to help the world understand that there's another side to this terrible story.

You can look at the team's photos on Flickr, unless you're in the UAE in which case that's not allowed. However you are allowed to connect to the Author blog, including a mesmerising post by Palin, look at the YouTube page or connect via Twitter - it's not too late to do so. There's a story told there that I think deserves a wider audience.

I realised yesterday, looking at the team being hassled as they passed through yet another checkpoint, that I would dearly love to go to Palfest next year.

Let's see what the year brings...

Association to Stand Behind "Good Bloggers"

Well, it's official. Bloggers facing legal action will be protected by the UAE Journalist's Association if they abide by the ethical code of the association, wash behind their ears and are kind to small furry animals.

Mohammed Yousuf, the head of the Association, told Emirates Business 24x7's Dimah Hamadeh:

"Bloggers and "virtual" journalists have the right to be protected by the Journalists' Association, provided they abide by the ethics code, including stating of facts and sources of information, avoiding defaming without tangible proof, or provoking hostility arising from religious, sectarian or race discriminations."

Yousuf, displaying a remarkable lack of understanding regarding the 'online world', goes on to tell Hamadeh that audiences still mistrust online media, a lack of credibility that leads to online often being perceived as a channel for spreading rumours and destroying reputations.

Tell that to Arabianbusiness.com, Zawya.com and maktoob.com, will you? Or to the many, many people that intelligently sift online sources to arrive at an informed and wider picture than is often available through the 'traditional' media that Yousuf freely admits in the piece are subject to a greater degree of censorship than online media.

Yousuf tells Hamadeh (who must have been struggling to hold a straight face) that the Association's mission is to "invite bloggers and online reporters to adopt professional standards."

All this on the sidelines of a two-day event that invited bloggers from the UAE and around the region to discuss the role of new media and journalism. I didn't see anyone Tweeting from the conference and I don't know of any bloggers that were there. I certainly didn't get an invite (snif) - did you?

Isn't it funny that the UAE's bloggers NEVER seem to get invited to events where online and 'new' media are being discussed in... err... the UAE?

But I think we're missing quite a big thing in all this talk of protecting bloggers who abide by the ethical code of the UAE Journalists' Association.

Bloggers. Are. Not. Journalists.

The BBC's eminent Hossam Sokkari rather confounded the Arab Media Forum's Token Blogger, Algerian Issam Hamoud, by asking him if he had always wanted to be a journalist - as if being a blogger is something that can only be explained by a frustrated urge to journalism.

I know some excellent journalists that have become bloggers and some excellent journalists who blog alongside their more traditional, more papery, roles. And I know many excellent bloggers that are not, don't want to be and wouldn't dream of being journalists.

I do wish they'd get this into their heads! Bloggers. Are. Not. Journalists.

This is a new thing, not another face of an old thing. It follows new rules - and raises ethical questions and questions of practice that are not touched by old codifications of good journalistic practice.

While I'm sure the UAE Journalists' Association's offer is kindly meant, it's barking up quite the wrong tree.

UPDATE
This story in Gulf News today, that Saudi Arabia is mulling putting an electronic publications law on the anvil, is another and slightly more worrying take on this very topic. Take a look here.

The Inconvenient Truth

Image via Wikipedia

‘Dark side of Dubai’ journalist Johann Hari made much of the reaction to his article in The Independent when he put up a piece on the influential Huffington Post recently, playing the ‘poor mouth’ and using the overblown language that caused Dubai blogger Chris Saul to coin the ‘transgression too far’ mini-meme that had so many of us howling with laughter at the pompous hack’s expense.

The Dubai authorities have decreed that the article must not be read says Hari in his post, written and placed carefully up on the Internet when he knew perfectly well that the ban was not a policy decision, was not total by any means and was clearly not an official act. All facts made clear in the blog post by The National’s Jen Gerson he links to as proof of his banning.

Any honest man would have waited to see what the outcome of this clearly confused and idiotic situation was before screaming ban. But not Hari.

He links to Jen’s post as ‘one of many bloggers’ who have been discussing the ban. In fact, only two blogs have discussed the ban – mine and Jen's. If anyone knows of any others please do let me know. Mine, of course – the post that first exposed the daft Du block - is critical of The Great Hari and so wouldn't get linked to.

Hari also makes the assertion in his Huff post that he has also been told that he would be arrested or turned away at the airport if he came back to Dubai.

Who told him that? Does he really think he figures so large in the scheme of things that his name’s on every national immigration computer ready for the day that he comes back to save us once again? Is that an official response to him or a warning from a credible source? Or just another empty assertion intended to demonstrate how damaging The Great Man’s Truth has been to this evil and morally corrupt state?

It’s an example of the way that Johann Hari treats the truth – anything that doesn’t fit his purpose is quietly dropped from his skewed and distorted accounts. And that includes balance. The inconvenient truths, that his piece was not banned as a policy decision, that the ban was not called for, let alone authorised at any government level, that the Dubai authorities have decreed nothing of the sort and that it is highly unlikely that anyone could be arsed to arrest him, are missing from his Huffington assertions. As is the very likely scenario - that 'authority' here would have been mildly horrified at Du for trying to block the piece at all.

But then there’d be no piece to demonstrate to the world that Johann Hari, scourge of the unjust and bearer of the torch of truth, is important enough to ban, would there?

And that, one suspects, would be a transgression too far...

Wonderful Things

It's not often that I'm reduced to Sharing Hilarious Internet Things, but this is (I am sure you'll agree) very special indeed.

Oddee is one of my favourite blogs ever. It's a mad little collection of often bizarre things that pulls over a million readers a month because it collects the strange bits of fluff in life's sock drawer and presents them in lists that are convenient and rewarding to graze.

One such Oddee list, '15 Sexist Vintage Ads' is linked to the picture above. It brought tears of helpless laughter to my eyes and so I thought I might as well share it.

Normal service will be resumed shortly...

Mr Futurist

Image via Wikipedia

The way we talk to technology and the way we talk to each other is changing at a pace that I can only describe as frightening.

You understand, the ‘f’ word is coming from a life-long technocrat.

Right now, we type on mobile keypads to retrieve or dial a number. We sit, fingers crashing down on nasty, analogue keys or dragging mice around in order to instruct our machines to do stuff or to send text to each other. But innovations afoot today are going to change the entire nature of our relationship with enabling technologies.

The keyboard will be a thing of the past in a few years’ time – we’ll use voice and hand movements to manipulate systems and objects on screens, walls or other surfaces. We’ll be able to take our ‘stuff’ and deposit it wherever we want – on walls, products, bulletin boards or public places (‘digital graffiti’ will become a problem) or add stuff from those places to our stuff if we want. We’ll be able to interface to systems and query them about products in supermarkets or people, to send messages or update friends or special interest groups which we belong to with new information. We’ll get used to a world where everyone, potentially, knows everything – and where consumers can access peer reviews, scientific information, manufacturer claims and third party viewpoints at any time.

We’re going to share video and voice more than text – we’re going to become digitally tactile and our world is going to be based on streams of information served up to us through ‘real-world’ interfaces to information networks. We’ll likely access all of that through one ‘network device’ which will be camera, credit card, database access tool, megaphone and information system all in one.

It’ll be smaller than today’s mobile phones.

The totally empowered consumer will be a result – a process that is also evident in the way today’s markets are changing. The game is about putting the right information in people’s hands when they want it – reliable, believable, credible information. Even today, as we look at this brave new future world, consumers are increasingly information-centric.

And they’re already buying the steak, not the sizzle.

This piece originally appeared as one of the chucklesomely named 'A Moment with McNabb' columns in Campaign Middle East magazine. I have to put it here ‘cos they haven’t got a website yet and don’t post these on their own damn blog.

Momentary Lapse of Awe

My first HDR image. Catalin 'Momentary Awe' Marin's to blame. I have discovered the joys of HDR imaging and am now to be seen wandering around wildernesses lugging my red hot (and damn heavy) Manfrotto tripod.

I'm not saying the end result's any good, but it's amazing fun. If you want to see cool and frankly inspirational HDR imaging, take a look at Catalin's piccies here.

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. It's a photo enhancemnt technique that uses three exposures (or more!) of the same shot - typically on neutral, one two stops down and one two stops up. The three images are then stitched together with a range of controls and filters that help you to create a range of effects from slightly jazzed up pictures to strange, ethereal images that go way beyond traditional photography.

It's a little like Marmite to photographers - you either love it or hate it. The hate it camp, as usual, is vocal. Me, I love it.

This image of a crashed car was, incidentally, taken in the mountains of Ras Al Khaimah, near Ajman and five minutes' drive from Sharjah. It's also two minutes out of Oman and a stone's throw from Dubai. Any guesses where, peeps?

The Gurkhas Have Won

Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife

The following was sent out by email from Joanna Lumley to everyone who'd signed up for the campaign to support the right of Gurkhas who had served in the British military to reside in the UK at the end of their service:

At midday today, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith made the announcement to the House of Commons that the Gurkha Justice Campaign have been fighting for for years. All ex-Gurkhas who have served more than 4 years in the British Army will have the right to settle in the UK if they wish.

After such a long fight, with huge ups and downs, this is a superb announcement.

We simply would not have won this fight without the massive, overwhelming support of all those who have supported our campaign. To the hundreds of thousands of people who have signed Gurkha Justice petitions, lobbied their MP, campaigned, attended rallies and marches - thank you so much to you all. This is your victory. It would not have happened without you.

The Government has now responded to that campaign after court cases, votes in Parliament, a huge media campaign and, most importantly, massive public support. I am delighted, and humbled, at what has been achieved by our remarkable team.

The whole campaign has been based on the belief that those who have fought and been prepared to die for our country should have the the right to live in our country. We owe them a debt of honour - a debt that will now be paid.

With warmest good wishes,

Joanna
www.gurkhajustice.org.uk

Independent Article Blocked by Du?

This screengrab by pal Catalin (who normally captures images of a much more artistic nature) shows what the UAE's Twitterers have been confirming today - that UAE telco Du does, indeed, appear to have instituted a block of Johann Hari's skewed Dubai-bashing article in The Independent.

Hari's piece, considered by a great number of the people that live and work here as unbalanced and even egregious, was hilariously taken off by blogger and Sun person Chris Saul.

It angered many people, certainly had an impact and was arguably the zenith of the Dubai bashing pieces that have broken out in international media over the past few months like a rash of irritating little surface lesions. Many of these pieces were awful examples of 'Drive-by journalism', but Hari's certainly appeared to have been well researched, even if many of us disagreed with its hysterically outraged tone, wilful lack of balance and insistence on portraying Dubai in the worst possible light.

But we all had views on it, expressed widely and with vim and wit. The vast majority of people I know who live and work here disagreed with Hari's piece and did so from a standpoint of great experience of Dubai and the wider Middle East - the context in which Dubai demands to be placed by anyone genuinely wishing to provide service to their readers.

We were able to have that discussion because we could see what we were discussing. Chris was able to lampoon it so brilliantly because he had the chance to read what he was lampooning. Public voice provided a balance to Hari's article and also provided many of the balancing comments that disagreed with it on The Independent's website. Because we could see the piece, make our minds up and provide our counterpoint to Hari's rant.

Now Du has apparently blocked the article (see the grab above), at least in part (some Du users say they can still access it, although the majority appear not to be able to). If so, we can only urge the telco to reconsider this unilateral decision (Etisalat customers can still access it, so presumably this means the block is not a TRA decision) and reverse it.

I can only assume that it was a decision taken in error by some jobsworth and does not truly reflect a policy of blocking all material that reflects an opinion or tone that does not meet some hidden 'standard' of what's acceptable. Or that it is a technical 'glitch' that can be remedied.

But if it is a block based on the content of the piece, that's really bad news. It would deny people the right to an opinion. It would deny the practice of journalism. And it would have the potential to create yet more negative sentiment on Dubai - negative sentiment that I, for one, really and truly do not want to see being so needlessly created.

Anyone from Du able to confirm that this is not a block by policy?

Update

The National's Tom Gara reports, via Twitter, that the du block is to be removed and seems possibly to have been the subject of a little confusion between du and the TRA.

Good news, then, at the end of the day.

Tree Hugger

Three things caught my eye yesterday and today and I thought I'd share them. Do bear in mind they come from someone that doesn't wear organic cotton, eat lentils or hug trees.

The evaporation of the Aral sea.
This image from NASA shows the evaporation of the Aral Sea. Not really a sea at all, but the fourth biggest lake in the world, the draining of the waters from the two rivers that lead to the Aral Sea in the 1960s has had a devastating and exponential effect on the surrounding environment, destroying the local fishing industry and rendering agriculture around the sea virtually impossible. Attempts to save the least polluted northern lake appear to have had some effect - this image appears to actually show a slight improvement on the situation a couple of years ago - but the damage has been done. Clouds of toxic dust from pesticides, biochemical research and industrial activity are swept throughout the barren area, the local population are being eaten away by poverty and sickness, including lung disease and cancers.

The declining polar cap
This time series of images from NASA shows the patterns of ice on the polar ice caps in September and March each year from 2000-2009. It will make you crap yourself.

The Story of Stuff
Someone (sorry, forgot who!) Tweeted a link to this impactful little video yesterday and I watched it. Getting the two links above from NASA the next morning did rather pull me up with a bump. I do highly recommend investing 20 minutes in taking a look at the video - you'll be the six million and somethingth to do so. It's entertaining, amusing and sobering. Not a bad mixture to manage!

It's been a tad controversial - one commentator called it 'Community college Marxism with a pony tail' - activist Annie Leonard certainly doesn't pull any punches. But you'll perhaps be pleased to know that Fox News, that famous left wing think tank and Voice of Reason, has quibbled with the facts presented in the video.

The list of quibbles with the film that Right Wing America trots out was the final, most scary thing of all. Because they don't question the substance of the presentation - just nitpick over facts such as whether the world's top 5 (Leonard) or 37 (Fox) economies are corporations. Wikipedia cites the sources for Leonard's figures, but I honestly don't care. 51 is a shocking number. 37 is a shocking number. And these are probably the least shocking numbers in the film.

Have a nice day!