Saudi Arabia confirmed on Monday the death of one of the patients infected by the novel coronavirus, which some scientific journals now refer to as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, or MERS. The Ministry of Health published a short statement on its website saying the patient had chronic heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and renal failure. This raises to 16 the number of deaths by the virus. MOH also said that one of the healthcare professionals who contracted the virus is improving and has left the hospital. No new cases has been recorded since the last one that was announced on Friday.
Saudi Woman Scales Mount Everest→
/A Saudi Arabian woman was among 64 people who successfully scaled Mount Everest on Saturday from Nepal’s side of the mountain, according to mountaineering officials.
Raha Moharrak, who is 25 years old and lives in Dubai, has become the first Saudi woman to scale the world’s highest peak. “I really don't care about being the first,” she was quoted as saying, according to the BBC. “So long as it inspires someone else to be second.”
Lowest Bidder→
/Rashid al-Fouzan:
Anyone who follows up on the government projects will notice that many of them are never completed on time or that their completion is not according to the required standards or quality. Years and years have passed on some projects without them being completed while the need for them is steadily growing. As a result, development remains to be an illusive goal and the gap in services remains unsolved. The government projects have been characterized by slowness, slackness and incompletion.
In my opinion, the entire problem lies in the way the government projects are offered. The projects are usually offered to the lowest bidder. This is an actual fact despite repeated denials by the concerned government departments. When he opens his file to see why the project is behind schedule, the contractor will discover that he has spent his money not on the project itself but in some other areas.
This echoes statements made earlier by Said al-Shaikh, Chief Economist at the National Commercial Bank, who said during a press conference on Tuesday that the current system of awarding government contracts made banks reluctant to give loans to small and medium contractors. Al-Shaikh, who is also a member of the Shoura Council, said “banks now view the whole construction and contracting sector in the Kingdom as being semi-monopolized by three or four corporations only.”
Saudi Confirms 31st Coronavirus Case→
/Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health confirmed on Friday another case of the novel coronavirus in the Eastern Province. “One case of coronavirus has been reported in the Eastern region, and he is now under medical care and receiving proper treatment,” MOH said in a brief statement published on its website. The new discovery raises to 31 the total number of nCov infections in the country since the SARS-like virus first emerged in September 2012. Most cases have been recorded at the oasis of Al-Ahsa in the eastern part of Saudi Arabia.
Self-immolation in Riyadh→
/A Saudi man has died after setting himself on fire in protest at his treatment by authorities, the BBC has learned.
Sources told BBC Arabic that more than 100 hundred people gathered outside the police department in capital Riyadh in anger at Ali Jabiri Alhouraysi’s death.
He is said to have killed himself after being searched by police.
The incident is similar to the death of Tunisian man Muhammad Bouazizi, who set himself on fire in 2011 in protest, triggering revolution a revolution that ousted dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who was offered refuge in Saudi Arabia. Like Bouazizi, the Saudi man was also a vegetable street vendor.
A Few Good Saudi Men→
/A Saudi lawyer who defended activists says he has been hounded out of the country because he stood up for human rights. Now in Washington DC, Abd al-Aziz al-Hussan tells Marc Lynch this his situation is not unique as the government has launched a crackdown on those who dare speak against it. Lynch writes:
During a conversation in Washington this week, Hussan emphasized that this was not just a personal matter. He told me that his case was part of a broader crackdown on human rights activists, lawyers, and reformers. Since the sentencing of Qahtani and Hamed in March, he argued, the Saudi regime has been on the offensive against human rights activists and Sunni protesters. Activists and lawyers such as Fawzan al-Harbi and Abdulkarim al-Khoder have been harassed and interrogated, and security forces have arrested hundreds of demonstrators, holding many of them for weeks without access to lawyers. The Saudi government also appears determined to explore the possibilities for monitoring and controlling social media, particularly Twitter.
Saudi Government Websites Under Attack, Official Says
/Saudi authorities are investigating attacks that targeted several government websites this week, the state news agency reported on Friday. The Saudi Press Agency quoted an official source at the Ministry of Interior’s National Center of Electronic Security who said “many government websites, including MOI portal, have been under synchronous coordinated attacks over the past few days.”
The official confirmed that the Interior Ministry site was inaccessible for nearly an hour on Wednesday due to a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. Initial assessment shows that the attack came from hundred of IPs from different countries, the official said.
“Specialized parties at the National Center of Electronic Security have begun investigating this and taken the necessary measures to deal with these electronic sabotaging attacks and decrease their effect on the electronic services offered by the government to citizens and expatriates,” he said.
A new hacker group called Anonymous Saudi on Twitter have claimed responsibility for the attacks on government sites. The group, which started tweeting five days ago, first targeted the website of telecom Mobily after a US software engineer known as Moxie Marlinspike said on his blog that the company approached him to help them spy on costumers. The company has denied the allegation.
“We are Saudi Anonymous, We are #Anonymous We are the new generation of saudis,we are not stupid, we don't fear anyone or anything #expectus,” the hacker group tweeted on Wednesday.
Few days after attacking Mobily website, the group announced plans to attack government websites. The list of their targets included the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other government departments. Several government websites were inaccessible for different periods of time, and the group repeatedly apologized to those who were inconvenienced by the attacks as many citizens depend on these website to access government services.
State-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco was the victim of a major attack last year that was described as “among the most destructive acts of computer sabotage on a company to date.” The virus attack is said to have erased data on three-quarters of Aramco’s corporate PCs.
The local al-Hayat daily attributed to an Aramco source saying the attack originated in Romania. US intelligence officials later told the New York Times that Iran was the real perpetrator behind the attack, “although they offered no specific evidence to support that claim,” the newspaper said.
Four Million Visas Issued to Pilgrims→
/The official Saudi Press Agency:
The Ministry of Hajj has announced that the number of Umrah visas already issued since the start of Umrah season this year 1434 H. are approaching the 4 million target.
A statement said yesterday that the number of Umrah Performers entering the Kingdom over the last five months reached 3,145,506 from more than 70 countries around the world.
The major hajj occurs this year in October and is expected to draw three million Muslims from around the world, despite concerns about the spread of a new SARS-like virus that has killed 15 people in Saudi Arabia so far.
Launch of Foreign Carriers Operating Saudi Domestic Routes Delayed Due to Fuel Prices Dispute→
/Two air carriers that have won licenses from the General Authority for Civil Aviation (GACA) will not be able to operate by the end of this year, informed sources told Al-Watan Arabic daily.
Qatar Airways and Gulf Air may be forced to delay their domestic operations after a committee comprising leading officials from GACA and Saudi Aramco failed to reach a resolution on what fuel prices to charge the two airlines, the sources claimed.
GACA is demanding Saudi Aramco to provide reduced fuel prices as they do for Saudi Arabian Airlines, but the state-owned oil giant does not appear keen on that. The two airlines won the domestic license back in December.
Saudi Princes Deny Laundering Claim→
/In addition to the Guardian, the Financial Times also got access to the London court papers of a case involving two Saudi Princes:
A brother and nephew of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah were involved in a scheme to launder millions of dollars, including to the Lebanese militant group Hizbollah, according to a London court claim filed by a former business partner.
Prince Mishal bin Abdulaziz al Saud, a former defense minister, and his son, Prince Abdulaziz, have rejected the allegations as “scandalous and outrageous”. Their lawyers have argued that they amount to a malicious attack on their reputations, and “extortion”.
UK Court Upholds Ruling Against Saudi Princes in Sovereign Immunity Case→
/Owen Bowcott reports:
Two senior Saudi princes have failed to extract themselves from English justice after the court of appeal upheld a ruling that they are not entitled to sovereign immunity in a case involving their London-based business interests.
Lawyers for the princes were informed that they had lost their claim at the start of a two-day hearing on Wednesday into a related attempt to impose reporting restrictions on the sensitive commercial dispute.
Lawyers of Prince Mishal bin Abdulaziz and his son wanted to impose reporting restrictions on a commercial dispute with a Jordanian businessman.
Mobily Denies Asking Moxie for Help→
/“Mobily or its employees never communicated with the author of this blog,” the company said. “Mobily communicates with information security companies only based on legal and lawful requirements. We never communicate with hackers. Moreover, it is not our job to spy on customers.”
American software engineer known as Moxie Marlinspike wrote Monday on his blog that he was approached by a manager at the company to help them organize a program to intercept messages sent via apps like WhatApp, Twitter and Viber.
Sovereign Decision: Saudi Arabia Not Ready to Open Football Stadiums to Women Yet
/
President of the Saudi Football Federation (SAFF) denied media reports suggesting that the federation will allow women to attend matches in stadiums, saying this decision was not his to make.
“A decision like this is a sovereign decision. Neither me nor SAFF can make it,” Ahmed Eid told al-Riyadh newspaper. “Only the political leadership in this country can make that decision.”
Eid added that there are studies being conducted to explore the possibility of building boxes at some stadiums that can be rented by businesses and families so women can attend football games. Eid said these boxes could be built in the new King Abdullah Sports City stadium when it opens in 2014, and also at Prince Abdullah al-Faisal stadium that is being renovated, both in the coastal city of Jeddah on the Red Sea.
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy that applies a strict interpretation of Islam with many restrictions on women. But the country sent two women to the Olympic Games for the first time last year in London after pressure from human rights organizations. Wojdan Shahrkhani competed in judo at and Sarah Attar in track and field. Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, praised Saudi Arabia’s late decision to send women to the games. “This is a major boost for gender equality,” he said.
The Saudi government recently announced that it will allow physical education at private girls’ schools under supervision from the Ministry of Education. Some private schools for girls already offer sports classes, but the decision is expected to regulate an existing practice and open the door to other schools to do the same.
Human Rights Watch urged the government to remove hurdles on women sports. “Sports for Saudi girls in schools will have a lasting impact on their empowerment, education and professional opportunities,” said Minky Worden, the director of global initiatives for HRT, in a statement. “Doing away with the ban on sports will allow a generation of girls to compete and to work within the kingdom to pull down hurdles.”
Football is the most popular sport in the country, and SAFF is understandably cautious about the issue of allowing women into stadium. Ahmed Eid is the first elected president of SAFF and also the first non-royal to take this office. A former goalkeeper for Jeddah-based al-Ahli club, Eid is considered a reformer and a supporter of women sports.
Writing in Arab News earlier this year, columnist Sabria S. Jawhar said Eid as “probably the single most important male ally that Saudi female athletes have to get a women’s football team up and running.”
Photo courtesy of Waleed Alzuhair via Flickr
Saudi Arabia Confirms Two New Coronavirus Cases→
/Two new cases of the SARS-like novel coronavirus (NCoV) have been confirmed in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, the Ministry of Health said in a statement released Wednesday night. The statement added that the two patients are receiving treatment and medical care. This raises to 30 the number of cases reported in the Kingdom. 15 people have died from the virus in Saudi Arabia so far.
Untapped Potential→
/Ahmed Al Majid on Saudi tourism:
The absence of tourist visas to Saudi Arabia for individuals is not without reason; the flood of non-religious tourists could lead to a heated backlash from the country’s conservative core. In addition, some of the western tourists might find it challenging to adhere to the countries unspoken conservative laws, especially in terms of dress code and public behavior.
Overly negative portrayal of the country in global media, that is, at times, exaggerated, only adds to the anxiety of potential international tourists, especially women. However, the success of recent domestic tourism events (such as the Riyadh Book Fair and the Janadriya festival), and the objective portrayal of successful Saudi women in international media, are hopeful indicators that Saudi might be ready to open its doors to international tourists.
Four New Coronavirus Cases Confirmed in Saudi Arabia
/Four new cases of the novel coronavirus have been confirmed in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said. The Ministry said in a statement published on its website Monday night that one of the cases has improved and left the hospital; the other three are still receiving treatment.
28 cases of the coronavirus infection have been reported in Saudi Arabia. 15 people have died from the virus, thought to be similar to the one that caused SARS. The outbreak appears to be clustered in the eastern part of the country, especially the oasis of al-Ahsa near the Gulf coast.
Experts from the World Health Organization visited the region earlier this week and said there are still many unanswered questions about the disease. “I would like to remind everyone that this is a new infection,” said WHO Assistant Director-General Keiji Fukuda in a statement, “and there are also many gaps in our knowledge that will inevitably take time to fill in.”
Other cases of the coronavirus have been reported in the UAE, France, Britain and Germany.
Another Saudi Man Interrogated in Michigan Over Pressure Cooker→
/A Saudi Arabian man was arrested in Detroit after authorities said he made a false statement about why he brought a pressure cooker with him on a flight from Amsterdam, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney in Detroit said on Monday. [...]
Authorities said he initially said he brought the cooker with him for his nephew, who is a university student in Toledo, Ohio. He later changed that story and was arrested on suspicion of making a false statement, the spokeswoman said.
This is the second case of this kind in a week. On Friday, local media reported that a Saudi student in Michigan has been interrogated by the FBI after he was seen carrying a pressure cooker outside his house. Two pressure cookers were used in the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, killing three people and injuring 264.
Mobily Can Monitor Saudi Users of WhatsApp, US Researcher Says
/Saudi mobile operator Mobily approached a US software engineer to help them organize a program to intercept messages sent via apps like WhatApp, Twitter and Viber. Moxie Marlinspike wrote Monday on his blog that Mobily told him they already have a “WhatsApp interception prototype working” and that they were surprised how easy it was to make.
Saudi Arabia said in March that it could block several messaging apps because they do not meet the country’s regulatory requirements and laws. The Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC), the local regulator of telecoms, said in a statement it has asked licensed mobile operators in to work with developers of these apps to ensure that they meet the regulatory requirements.
This step by CITC raised concerns about government surveillance of communication on these apps. Local media reported at the time that CITC has asked the telecom companies to do what is required to monitor apps like Skype, Viper and WhatsApp, and that if communication through such apps cannot be monitored due to encryption than the telecoms will have to block access to them.
When Marlinspike told Mobily that he was not interested in the job for privacy reasons, a manager at the Saudi telecom company told him that the program to monitor users data on messaging apps was not about “freedom and respecting privacy” but rather about combating terrorism. The manager even went further to suggest that, by not taking the job, Marlinspike will be “indirectly helping” the terrorists “who curb the freedom with their brutal activities.”
According to Wikipedia, Moxie Marlinspike is the pseudonym of a computer security researcher based in San Francisco. He was the co-founder of Whisper Systems, a mobile security and privacy company that was acquired by Twitter in 2011. Marlinspike said he hopes that by publishing the story about Mobily approaching him to monitor users we can have a conversation about what can be done to stop such practices.
“Really, it’s no shock that Saudi Arabia is working on this,” he wrote. “but it is interesting to get fairly direct evidence that it’s happening.”
Through CITC, the Saudi government has earlier this year forced mobile operators to add a user’s National ID number while topping up mobile phone credit. The government decision to link mobile prepaid cards to National IDs was justified as a security measure to prevent criminal uses of mobile phones. Linking mobile numbers to IDs means it is now harder to obtain numbers for temporary use, aka “burners,” which makes surveillance easier for authorities.
In March, English-language daily Arab News pulled a story about plans by CITC to link Twitter accounts of Saudi citizens to their national IDs. The newspaper has not explained why they pulled the front page story which said the plan was inspired by CITC’s successful implementation of the government decision to add the user’s ID numbers for topping up mobile credit.
Social networks and messaging apps are extremely popular in Saudi Arabia. It is estimated that there are 4 million active Saudi users and Twitter and as much as 12 million users of WhatsApp. In a country with many restrictions on free speech, these apps provided new platforms for citizens to communicate and exchange messages away from government censorship.
Even though there was no update from CITC since they released their statement last month regarding surveillance on messaging apps, the fact that Mobily has been working to design such tools and hire engineers to work on them suggest that the telecoms might have chosen to work quietly with the government to monitor these apps, despite protests by the their customers and local human rights groups.
Al-Hayat daily reported that two Saudi human rights organizations warned that the government plan to monitor messaging apps could infringe on international accords that the government has signed. A spokesman for the official Human Rights Commission (HRC) told the newspaper they stand by citizens’ rights to protect their information privacy. “Denying citizens access to these tools under any justifications is something HRC does not agree with,” the spokesman said.
UPDATE: Mobily has denied asking Moxie for help. “We never communicate with hackers,” the company said. “Moreover, it is not our job to spy on customers.”
What is Hidden→
/Mohamed Hemish says the latest Saudi campaign on domestic violence ignores the fact in Saudi Arabia the problem goes far deeper than just a social issue because there are no laws in the country that regards violence against women as an illegal activity:
The ad in the new campaign is meant to define domestic violence in Saudi Arabia as being a social issue and divert attention from the government’s lack of laws that protect women. This campaign takes the responsibility away from the government and puts it in the hands of individuals themselves; women have to step up and talk about abuse and go to shelters, and men have to restrain themselves from abusing women.
Lessons from Riyadh Compound Bombings→
/Asharq al-Awsat has been running a series of articles on the 10th anniversary of Riyadh compound bombings. The latest is this piece by Thomas Hegghammer, author of Jihad in Saudi Arabia, who lists ten lessons that we have learned from that deadly terrorist attack. Lesson no. 9:
Counter-terrorism works best when it is targeted and calibrated. The Saudi response to the Riyadh Compound bombings was relatively successful because it was restrained. History is full of governments that responded to terrorism by lashing out against an invisible enemy, thereby creating new grievances that only served to aggravate the problem. Unlike Algeria and Egypt in the 1990s, Saudi Arabia did not conduct mass arrests and appears to have abstained from systematic torture. It also developed a prisoner rehabilitation program that, despite some cases of recidivism, is better than most alternatives. However, not everything is rosy: like the United States, Saudi Arabia has a detainee problem in the form of individuals that the government, for various reasons, does not want to put on trial, but who are considered too dangerous to release.