Tuesday, Mar 17, 2009
Gulf News
Can you hold hands with your partner in public in dubai? the Blogosphere was abuzz with this question and many more this week.
The blogosphere was abuzz with two things this week in the Gulf. The first one gave us the answer to an age old question. Well certainly it's a question that some bloggers wanted an the answer to.
"Is holding hands in Dubai really illegal? Apparently that question has finally been answered, yes it is illegal," wrote samuraisam on the newly revamped UAE Community blog (uaecommunity.blogspot.com).
He is, of course, referring to reports of new public decency rules which are about to be released by the Dubai Executive Council.
Amongst the no-nos on the list, are holding hands in public (unless you are husband and wife), wearing inappropriate clothing in public and tailgating and flashing your headlights at other road users.
Alexander from Fake Plastic Souks (fakeplasticsouks.blogspot.com) had another take on the story, which first surfaced in the Arabic press. "This is nothing new, people. It has always been this way in the UAE. All of it, including the holding hands thing.
"It's good that now, better late than never, it's down in black and white and people can be quite sure of where they stand.
"But let us be very clear this is a restatement of what has always been the case here. It's not a 'new crackdown' or a new 'tightening' or any other such tosh.
"It's the way things are and always have been here. Just because people have got [sic] into the habit of disrespecting those norms does not mean that reaffirming them is any form of restriction or clampdown."
Weather
A storm of another kind had people blogging this week.
And although it was the more conventional kind, the sandstorm that hit Saudi Arabia and Kuwait was anything but ordinary.
The UAE based blogger An Englishman in Dubai (englishmanindubai.com) was lucky enough (if that's the right phrase!) to be in Riyadh when the massive storm hit.
He wrote: "The weather this morning was great - sunny, clear and about 28C. Around 10.30am we started a meeting and as it wound down a couple of hours later I glanced out the window. It was dark.
"This I thought was a little odd and a closer inspection it was clear that a sandstorm had whipped up outside. It was really weird, everything turned an odd shade of yellow/brown. I actually thought when I opened the door to the outside that I was wearing my sunglasses! In fact it was the fine sand particles in the air&
"It turns out that this was no ordinary sandstorm but a an absolute monster of one - possibly the largest in decades."
The Saudi Woman (saudiwoman.wordpress.com) was also caught up in the storm.
She had a similar story, but added some excellent pictures she'd taken: "In the morning you would have never guessed. I left the house at 7.30 and the sky was blue and clear.
"Later in the day, I was going to pick up my son after a lecture and I had to drive (be driven) right into it. I took a few photos.
"You can actually see it approaching on the horizon. A trip that normally takes 45 minutes took twice that long. Cars were hardly moving and sirens were wailing. Firetrucks, ambulances and police cars were following the storm. It probably was a really bad day for people with asthma."
Finally , an announcement about Facebook being available in Arabic.
"Why is this important? Well, with such little Arabic content available online, this gives Arabic speakers the opportunity to converse in their own language. With all the media planned, Facebook has been smart in bringing this to market. Arabic speakers are increasingly more educated, tech savvy and forward thinking," according to a blogger on the UAE Community blog.
Gulf News 2009. All rights reserved.
