Here is an excellent article by Sarah Cuddon at the BBC on "Khmer Rock", a style of fusion rock that emerged in the pre-Khmer Rouge era of the 1960s and 1970s with the introduction of Western music from American Forces Radio out of Vietnam into society. Sadly, many of the artists were later killed with the anti-Western crackdown in the 1970s, including the "Cambodian Elvis" Sinn Sisamouth.
Having read the recent Jenny's Story in The Arab Times, as well as an article published today in The Kuwait Times by Ben Garcia that gave an estimate that 5 to 10 Filipina maids a day flee their employers. More importantly, the Philippines Embassy seems to have a vested concern about the condition of their female labourers in the country.
Yesterday I took a ten hour boat ride for the day, stopping at Kubbar Island. I had mostly heard about the destination as a result of news headlines reminding readers that police authorities are considering taking major steps to boost up surveillance of "immoral" and "devious" activities that occur on and off the islands shores. Apparently, many yacht-cruising, mostly affluent Kuwaitis and foreigners, often go to the island to be able to party in peace. This tends to involve music, girls in bikinis and sometimes alcohol.
"Saudi beauty queen Aya Ali Al-Mullah trounced 274 rivals to win a crown, jewelry, cash and a trip to Malaysia, and all without showing her face, Saudi media reported yesterday. With her face and body completely covered by the black head-to-toe abaya mandatory in the conservative Muslim kingdom, 18-year-old Mullah was named "Queen of Beautiful Morals" late on Thursday, newspapers said.
There was none of the swimsuit and evening gown competitions and heavy media coverage of beauty pageants elsewhere when the contest was decided in the eastern city of Safwa. Instead, the winner and the two runner-up princesses had to undergo a three-month test of their dutifulness to their parents and family, and their service to society. This included a battery of personal, cultural, social and psychological tests, Al-Watan reported. It was unclear exactly what Mullah did to pip her rivals in the huge field, but Al-Watan reported that the high school graduate had good grades and hopes to go into medicine.
She raked in a 5,000-riyal (1,333-dollar) prize, a pearl necklace, diamond watch, diamond necklace, and a free ticket to Malaysia with her win. The 20-year-old first runner-up, one of triplets, had already won an education ministry-sponsored "I love you, my country" competition. The second runner-up, a high school student aged 15, was cited for taking care of her home and family during the week because her mother works far from home and can only return on weekends.
Beauty contests focused on physical beauty are non-existent in segregated Saudi Arabia, where women cannot mix with unrelated men, and must appear in public completely covered-even in photographs. Miss Moral Beauty pageant organiser Khadra Al-Mubarak kept the focus on inner beauty, as defined by Islamic standards of Saudi Arabia. "The real winner in this competition is the society. The winners represent the culture of the society and its high Islamic morals," Mubarak said, according to Al-Watan." (for full link click here)
The continuing problem of femicide in Juarez has been a cause dear to my heart for quite some time. I continue to be positively impressed with Al Jazeera's coverage and scope of topics, often times about victims that other media channels just do not talk about. Each year, the tally mark of victims keeps rising, and yet there is silence on behalf of Mexican authorities.
This is the 5th installment of the AHDR (for full PDF of report, click here). Why is this report particularly interesting? Well, because Kuwait is chosen as one of four Arab states polled through questionaires on personal views of human security.
But two sources, one a former U.S. official who recently traveled there and one a current official speaking anonymously, say the meeting did not go well from Obama's perspective. What's more, the former official says that Dennis Rosshas told associates that part of what prompted Obama to bring him on as his special assistant and NSC senior director for the "Central Region" last month was the president's feeling that the preparation for the trip was insufficient. The White House vigorously disputes all of that, some of which was previouslyreported by the New York Times.
Sources say Obama was hoping to persuade the king to be ready to show reciprocal gestures to Israel, which Washington has been pushing to halt settlements with the goal of advancing regional peace and the creation of a Palestinian state.
"The more time goes by, the more the Saudi meeting was a watershed event," said the former U.S. official who recently traveled to Riyadh. "It was the first time that President Obama as a senator, candidate, or president was not able to get almost anything or any movement using his personal power of persuasion."
"The bottom line is that the Saudis were not prepared," the former official continued, for Obama to ask them to take steps toward Israel. Obama changed his trip to go to Saudi Arabia, he pointed out.
"Senior sources in the Saudi national security team," he said, "think the president's trip was poorly prepared." From their perspective, "he was coming and asking them for big favors with no preparation," but "the Saudis never give big" in that situation.
The former official said that Ross has told associates that Obama was "upset" about the meeting "because he got nothing out of it." Ross didn't respond to a query."....(for full article, click here)
"The World Bank has raised concerns over Kuwait''s current education system and warned that the perpetuation of the existing structure may render the country''s high school certificates unrecognized by major academic institutions in the future.
I'll be posting a breakdown of my short weekend trip. We avoided, yes thats right, avoided Dubai and Abu Dhabi. We spent most of the time in the North near Oman and the Eastern Coast around Fujeirah and back again through the mountains. Spectacular, and more details later.
Fellow blogger D. Roberts has an article published this week in the Egypt Daily News.
Yes, I will be taking that great voyage to the ultimate Gulf hyperreality experience...all that is United Arab Emirates. I am only going to go for the weekend, but my goal is to (while of course seeing it a little bit) is to keep Dubai to a minimum and focus on the Northern lesser known Emirates.
I am now serving as a guest contributer for the website Migrant Rights. Here is a recent post I wrote:
Although attempting to throw a bone by letting it known that this policy is not a total ban, the dehumanization and apartheid of workers in the UAE only becomes more obvious in the following ludicrous concession:
Shraim said it was not a total ban, adding that laborers were “allowed to use the mall’s rear entrance closest to Carrefour during the day and early evening”.
Whereas outdoor shopping areas can occur on public streets, the advent of the mall culture in the Gulf countries has brought with it and increasing privatization of social areas of congregation—and with it greater exclusivity on who gets in and who remains outside.
I first read about the notion of geographies of exclusion and hierarchies of entitlement in reference to the banning of lower income citizens in certain enclaves of Bangalore, India however I believe the same observations can be drawn from this scenario.
Much scholarly research has also been done on in Western cities, particularly the United States, on analyzing how the spatial make-up of cities and municipal governance either divides and fractures cities or unites them.A city of exclusion bars certain segments of its residents from a right to use certain amenities, partaking in certain processes or entering certain areas. In short, a city of exclusion marginalizes certain city dwellers, and this subsequent segmentation of society is manifested in distinct geographies.
The main question this recent development beckons is whether their quest to build modern, skyscraper cities are Gulf countries deliberately creating rules that prevent the very laborers who built these enclaves from being able to access them in their leisure time?
So what makes a city inclusive? The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) is the UN’s responsible branch for the promotion of “socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all”.
UN HABITAT has a deliberate agenda committed to augmenting cities’ capacity for greater inclusion. According to this initiative, an inclusive city is:
It is a place where everyone, regardless of their economic means, gender, race, ethnicity or religion, is enabled and empowered to fully participate in the social, economic and political opportunities that cities have to offer.
How can we change the direction of cities in the Gulf, with large foreign labor populations to make these urban areas less demarcated by the haves and have-nots? How can we change this “tale of two cities” story?What can be done to counteract these socio-spatial divisions?
This article highlights an urgent and unable to be neglected need by local governments in the Gulf to assess their obligations to low-skilled foreign nationals, who although not citizens, often form the bulk of urban residents. It also demonstrates that much work is yet to be done on the Gulf countries’ participation and best practices in projects that take into consideration the international sustainable urban social development goals as demarcated in the UN HABITAT agenda."
Most reports – official, academic, journalistic – on the slum population of the world foresee a relentless increase in these agglomerations of human misery. For three decades the UN has overestimated the future population of the world's megacities: in 1975, the UN Population Fund forecast a 2000 population of 19.7 million for Kolkata (it was 13.1). Jakarta was to reach 16.9 million (it had 11.1). Mexico City 31.6 million (18.1), Cairo 16.4 million (10.4).
The most recent UN/H
abitat document, The Challenge of Slums in 2003, sees the doubling by 2030 of the 1 billion slum dwellers of today. Asia will have at least five cities with more than 20 million by 2025 – Jakarta, Dhaka, Karachi, Shanghai and Mumbai. Mike Davis, in his splendid polemic, Planet of Slums, evokes a plausibly scary world in which hundreds of millions of young urban unemployed, prey to fundamentalism – Muslim and Christian – are potential recruits in drug wars, mafias, and political militias.
Given this apocalyptic consensus, it is surprising that the government of India's urban poverty report of 2009 (pdf) claims a mere 25% of people in cities live in slums, against The Challenge of Slums estimate of 60%. In June 2009, the president of India declared there would be a "slum-free India" in the next five years.
It is natural for governments to play down slum populations, just as non-government organisations working with the urban poor will seek to inflate the figures to impress donors. But why such wide variations?"...(for full article, click here)
Oh Faris! You do not like things that are smelly and old and tiny on your road. I agree with you that there needs to be more regulation of vehicles on the road in unfit condition, but you seem to blame all taxi drivers for this problem, and then you use a bit of jingoist talk in what you think should happen. By insisting that Kuwaitis be given priority in working and owning these companies, like in say Bahrain where Bahrainis drive taxis, you forget one important thing. The situation now is no trick against Kuwaitis, rather its a result of supply and demand. Find me Kuwaitis willing to work in blue collar jobs like taxi driving?
The Al Watan Daily published another leg of their exploratory journey of the niqab. This time, expats were interviewed to get their opinion on their initial impressions/aprehensions of seeing women wear the niqab for the first time in Kuwait. Although most of the responses are common to many foreigners living in Kuwait, some other perspectives were excluded in this talk. There are three that stick out in my head:
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