Obama in Cairo

"The history of the relationship between America and the Muslim World is deeper and more complex than the common perception might suggest. Thomas Jefferson taught himself Arabic using his own Quran kept in his personal library, and had the first known presidential Iftaar by breaking fast with the Tunisian Ambassador at sunset."

Just in case you're interested:

The Whitehouse Blog.

The Facebook Video feed for the speech, to be given at 2pm Dubai time.

I think this is potentially the most important American speech in 25 years...

(PS, the comment from brn to this post is that most embarrassing of things, a comment that's more insightful and readable than the post it adorns. Recommended reading, then!)

Facebook and Disaster

Image via Wikipedia

7Days, with its superior sense of news, leads with the tragic story of Ana Negra Barrabeig, the Dubai based woman who lost her life, returning from her honeymoon, on AF447. Tragically, her new husband took another flight back to Dubai as he had to return to work. Ana had planned to spend a few days with relatives in Spain on her way back.

The story is heartbreaking enough, but there's a macabre little postscript for those of us that like to follow the ins and outs of social media and its growing role in our lives.

Ana's Facebook page is still up, you see. And so journalists researching the story have been able to get details about her employer, her friends (I can only assume friends are getting Facebook and other requests from media) and also have been able to trawl through her photographs and other personal information posted up on the site.

I'd link to her page, but it feels like such a scandalous invasion. Maybe I'm being funny about it.

I had never, strangely, thought about this possibility. I have worked with media on the trail of a 'big' story on many occasions and it's always an interesting experience. The story is everything and woe betide anyone who gets in the way of it. Media will try literally anything to get that 'edge' that 'angle' - including faking sympathy, concern and trying every back door to get through to the subject.

But the media looking into AF447 had a new first port of call. They just had to Google the names of the passengers on the list and start digging into their online background. There it all is - pals, fears, hopes, photographs. Everything you'd want to get started on that story about the people who were lost.

Here's a thought, peeps. Take a look at your online self. What would you be leaving behind if, God Forbid, you were taken suddenly?

Air Outpost

I love HDR. Official.

This might not be a technically ‘correctly composed’ shot, but it makes a smashing desktop image (if I say so myself) – drop me a mail or a Tweet if you’d like a full sized image. Nick probably won’t apply. ;)

The image was taken in a mooch around a much-loved monument; Sharjah’s Mahatta Fort Museum. If you haven’t been there, I can only urge you to go.

A nice little slice of the UAE’s history – and a little slice of British history too, is wrapped up in the story of this odd little fort.

Mahatta Fort used to be a mile from the old town of Sharjah. Today it’s enveloped in the city – but the road outside that leads from the traffic lights just down from Mega Mall past the ‘Saudi Mosque’ and through Ittihad Square to meet ‘Smile You’re Insane’ (Sorry, ‘Smile You’re In Sharjah’) roundabout is suspiciously straight and slab-like, with dribbles of bitumen infilling the slabs. There’s a reason for that – the road is actually the old runway of Sharjah International Airport, before the airport was moved out of the city.

In 1937 this runway was a sand landing strip and served Imperial Airways, the (at the time) miraculous air-route that led from Croydon to Australia – a route that traversed Europe, taking passengers to Egypt and from there either through Darkest Africa to Cape Town or through Darkest Arabia through India, Asia and down to Australasia.

This first ever attempt to create a global airway brought the whole (Sun Never Sets On It) British Empire together. It meant travelling from Croydon to the desert town of Sharjah in just four days! From South East Asia, the Imperial Airways service was handed over to the Queensland and Northern Territories Airline Service. You’ll likely recognise it better as QANTAS.

We have a copy of the documentary film Air Outpost, made in 1937 about this remarkable desert airstrip, the fort that was built by the Sheikh of Sharjah to house the 38 passengers of each flight and protect them from marauding bedouin as they made their way through from Alexandria via ‘Bahrein’ to Qwaidar in Baluchistan and on to Karachi in India. In the morning after the Alexandria overnight stop, staff would have to be despatched to the city’s brothels to round up wayward passengers. Honest.

Sharjah held no such attractions, of course...

The film itself is important, credited as being likely the first ever true ‘documentary’ film, one of a series made by director Alexander Korda for Imperial Airways by his London Films company – and featuring a soundtrack composed by William Alwyn, now recognised as an important C20th British composer. The film is preposterous in the extreme, from the quoits-chucking Brit goons playing in the courtyard of Mahatta to while away the time between arrivals through to the stiff fish carried on donkey-back from the ‘Arab city of Shar-Jar’ to serve the lucky guests. There’s even a grumpy looking Scottish station manager who signals to the Sikh walla to ring the bell announcing the arrival of the flight – using, as the instruction, the very same bell-ringing motion he could have used to damn well do it himself. The Iranian petrol-boys play cards as they wait for the flight to arrive and the Sheikh's guard of honour turns out to greet the passengers. Tally ho!

It still amuses me greatly.

The planes used to fly from Alexandria to Gaza in Palestine, and then on to Habbaniya and Baghdad by following ‘The Trench’ – a guideline laid across the black desert of Northern Trans-Jordan by trawling a bunch of chains behind a tractor. After the overnight stop in Baghdad, it was off to Basra, Kuwait, Bahrain and, finally, a landing in Sharjah as the last of the day’s light played itself out.

Imperial Airways eventually became BOAC, the British Overseas Airline Corporation and then just simply British Airways.

Sharjah airport was used to house Spitfires in WWII (A pal of my dad’s used to fly ‘em here – “What you want to live in Dubai for, boy? It’s just a bunch of mud huts on a creek!” I kid you not) and then flew commercial stuff until the new airport was built and Mahatta fell into disuse. The extensive (and fascinating) area of Nissen huts and workshop buildings that used to litter a swathe of central Sharjah was eventually cleared for development, only the broken down remains of the old fort eventually remaining. And then, wonder of wonders, it was renovated and turned into a delightful museum – which is well worth a visit, BTW.

The story of the Handley Page Heracles class biplanes, 38-seat luxury airliners decorated inside in mahogany and chintz (featuring, of course, a bar) that linked the world for the first time ever is a remarkable one that has long captivated me. It ended in tragedy when one of these great planes was lost en-route to Sharjah in the Indian Ocean, somewhere off the coast of Kalba, or perhaps in the Eastern Hajjar Mountains. Nobody is quite sure.

And that is where I end my tale. With a thought for the 228 people who didn’t make it to the runway this week, either, lost somewhere in an ocean. Where, nobody is quite sure...

UPDATE
With consummate cool, The National has posted the full copy of Air Outpost up on its website! You can find it here!

Gulf News. An Apology.

Image via Wikipedia

In its editorial today, Gulf News exhibits an amazing mixture of ignorance and arrogance. I'm really not sure which is greater.

The paper's rant, the second* most idiotic piece of editorial comment I can recall in 15 long years of regular GN readership**, asserts that French company Alstom is 'defying international law' - presumably because it is working with the Israeli government (GN's madcap scribble asserts 'by seeking financial gains at the expense of justice and peace') on the Jerusalem railway project.

The paper then goes on to say, of Alstom, 'It must reconsider its position, and so must regional states that deal with the French company.'

States like the UAE, for instance?

• The 2,000 megawatt $2 billion Fujeirah power plant contract awarded by the UAE in August 2007? Or the 16-year maintenance contract for that very same plant it signed in 2008?
  

• The February 2006 $250million Dubal power plant contract? Or the power plant and fume treatment contracts with Sohar Aluminium Company and ALBA (Aluminium Bahrain)?
  

• The August 2007 contract for a $175 million 150Megawatt co-generation plant at Dubai's aluminium smelter, DUBAL?
  

• The June 2008 award of a $500mn tram network in Dubai (together with consortium partners Besix and Serco)? The Al Sufouh tramway is apparently under construction.
  

In fact, the most cursory search of Gulf News' own website reveals a long history of huge contract awards to the company in the UAE and the wider Middle East, with key and strategic elements of transport, power, water and other public infrastructure being supplied and maintained by the company across the entire region.

So what's the answer here? Are we really being subjected to the ranting of simian, gibbering idiots - or is Gulf News knowingly misleading its readers as to the extensive and ongoing dealings which the UAE and other Middle East governments have with this major multinational company?

Does it owe its readers an apology for its ill-considered and badly researched coverage of this issue? Or an apology for being craven in its 'clarion call'?


* The most idiotic award still belongs to the holocaust denial piece, which seems to have been taken down from GN's website.

** Jeepers. That's over Dhs 16,000 at today's rates! I want a refund!

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.