Laughs, lectures and reflection--It's Ramadan TV

By Andrew Hammond

RIYADH, Oct 1 (Reuters Life!) - If you're seeing women drivers in a futuristic Riyadh, laughing at the antics of Saudi bumpkins abroad or being reprimanded for using English slang in Arabic then you must be watching Ramadan TV in Saudi Arabia.

The holy month, when Muslims around the world fast from dawn to dusk, has traditionally provided the media with the chance to mix hilarity with serious debate on a host of social issues for Saudis glued to the television during their evening feast.

With "reform" now a buzzword in the conservative kingdom since King Abdullah ascended the throne in 2005, efforts to "better" the Saudi citizen through pithy commentaries in comedy, drama and direct lecturing have notably increased.

Saudi-owned, Dubai-based pan-Arab entertainment network MBC is the main vehicle for Saudi Ramadan television.

Self-styled preacher-in-jeans Ahmed al-Sheqeiri kicks off the evening around 6 o'clock local time (1500 GMT) with his 10-minute "Thoughts of a Youth" show, in which topics range from attacks on the trend for mixing English with spoken Arabic to pressing for Islamic technology advances to catch up the West.

"We have to admit that today English is the language of knowledge, but that doesn't mean we should forget our own mother tongue," he said recently.

In another episode, he exhorts viewers to help the Islamic world to equal or outdo the West in industrial, technological and other creative output by 2030, while praising the Proton car made in fellow Islamic country Malaysia and ruefully noting that the equipment used to film his show was made in Japan. "I hope Islamic countries can start the project for the Islamic camera!" he said.

SOCIAL REFORM

A number of shows have tried to lend a helping hand to a campaign to overturn the kingdom's informal ban on women driving. Cartoon series "Mizna and Family" showed women driving in a Riyadh-of-the-future replete with space-age skyscrapers.

The most-watched Saudi show in Ramadan, the comedy "Tash ma Tash" has provoked controversy for lampooning Islamists and liberal intellectuals. The show's popularity has not been dented by the issue of several fatwas banning viewers from watching it.

One recent episode depicted members of the conservative Islamic country's liberals as boozy bourgeois chatterboxes out of touch with reality as they discuss Marx and Engels over bottles of alcohol and heaping dishes of Arab food. As they chat, the music of the secular intellectual's chanteuse of choice, Lebanese diva Fairouz plays in the background.

But liberals were also shown as being easily susceptible to state influence.

"Tash has become a Ramadan staple. It's on the table with the food, but every year they raise the ceiling of criticism," al-Hayat newspaper commentator Saud al-Rais said of the show.

In another comedy, "Bayni wa Baynak" (Between Me and You), two country bumpkins turn the stereotype of affluent Saudis swanning around the Arab world completely on its head when they pitch up in Egypt and become so tangled up in dialect that they end up spluttering gibberish at each other.

Actor Fayez al-Maliki's character Manahi, has become a familiar figure of fun for Saudis watching huge plasma screens put up for Ramadan buffets.

Odwan al-Ahmari, who writes about Ramadan TV in al-Watan newspaper, said the social critique "Bayni wa Baynak" was far more subtle than "Tash".

In one episode, Manahi completely ignores Islamic mores and gets drunk on a plane heading to Saudi Arabia from Egypt, but then inadvertently finds himself in the role of a hypocritical zealot yelling at Egyptian women to "cover up".

"Maliki is like Mr Bean. Now people are waiting every year to see what show Manahi will be on," he said.

© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved

Volcano erupts off Yemen coast

The Canadian navy said it was trying to locate people believed missing [AP] A volcano has erupted on an island off Yemen's coast, spewing lava and ash hundreds of metres into the air, Canadian naval officials and the Yemeni state news agency said. The eruption occurred on Jabal al-Tair island, about 130km from Yemen and at least nine Yemeni soldiers were reported missing from a military installation. A government official told Reuters news agency: "At least eight are regarded as dead now." It was not clear how many people were stationed on the island, which is used for naval control and observation because large cargo ships pass nearby. Khaled Mahfoudh Bahah, Yemen's oil minister, said several earthquakes were felt on the island on Sunday which triggered the eruption. Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Yemeni president, gave instructions to Yemen's navy to send rescue teams to the island, state news agency Saba said. 'Catastrophic' Ken Allan, a Canadian navy spokesman, said a Nato fleet just outside the territorial waters of the island reported seeing a "catastrophic volcanic eruption" at 7pm (16:00 GMT) on Sunday. "At this time, the entire island is aglow with lava and magma as it pours down into the sea. We do not have confirmation of how many people were on this island at the time of the eruption," Allan said in an email. "The lava is spewing hundreds of feet into the air, with the volcanic ash also [rising] a thousand feet in the air." Saba said a military garrison on the island was being evacuated. The Canadian armed forces said it was trying to locate nine people believed to be at sea after Yemen's coast guard requested help. The Nato fleet was sailing towards the Suez Canal when it spotted the eruption. The government of Yemen asked Nato to assist in the search for survivors and the closet ship, the HMCS Toronto, is heading towards the island. By english.aljazeera.net

Half of travel insurers don't cover terrorism

The case of the injured British couple abandoned by their insurer in the Maldives is a sharp reminder to read your policy small print

by Ginny McGrath

News that the British couple injured in a bomb in the Maldives this weekend will not be flown home by their insurance company will have travellers scrambling to check the small print on their travel insurance policies. And rightly so – only 50 per cent of British companies that offer travel insurance cover terrorism.

For many holidaymakers an unexpected event that results in loss of life, property, or injury is what travel insurance is there to cover, yet for many companies it still constitutes force majeure – which absolves them from paying up.

The situation is improving though: “Five or ten years ago it would have been very unlikely that insurance companies would provide cover in the event of terrorism, but there is growing demand for it,” says Malcolm Tarling, a spokesman for the Association of British Insurers.

“There is an increasing availability of terrorism cover among travel insurers, with over half now providing it as standard, so if injured you will receive medical treatment and/or be repatriated.”

A warning to travellers though: while medical and repatriation expenses are covered by most policies, the cost of cancelling a holiday to a destination that has been affected by terrorism is unlikely to be covered.

The crucial factor in these incidents is whether the Foreign and Commonwealth Office changes its advice to warn against travel to the affected destination. In these cases, the travel company with which the holiday is booked should offer its customers the opportunity to change destinations in the short term, or in some cases offer a refund.

According to Tarling, for those who are not refunded by a tour operator, because, for example, they have booked their holiday independently, some travel insurers will cover the costs of a holiday abandoned due to a change in Foreign Office advice. Again, it's a case of reading the small print.

Following the terrorist attack in the Maldives this weekend, the Foreign Office has not changed its advice, but warns tourists to be vigilant in public areas around the capital, Male. It means that holidaymakers who want to cancel a trip the Maldives would not be able to claim from their insurer.

Owing to the relatively robust approach of British holidaymakers though, it appears at this stage that the bomb has not affected tourist arrivals to the islands. The Deputy Minister for Tourism in the Maldives, Abdul Hameed Zakariyya, claims that British tour operators are reporting no holiday cancellations in the wake of the bomb, which injured 12 tourists.

"Funkaerobics," Belly Dancing Get Beaver Hills Fest Shaking

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Nicole Allan Photo

"You want every extra bit of flesh to be shaking around!" Amanda "Muneerah" Hilton shouted over her shoulder, wiggling her hips. "American culture tells you that's bad, but in belly dancing, it's good!" A group of disciples imitated her actions, learning how to do "snake arms" -- raise your arm from elbow to wrist to fingers and then let it drop -- at a wellness festival hosted by business owners in the Edge of the Wood plaza on Whalley.

The festival Sunday afternoon was organized by Mubarakah Ibrahim, owner of Balance Fitness and nine-year resident of Beaver Hills. "I keep seeing on the news lots of negative reports about Beaver Hills," Ibrahim said, explaining why she decided to organize the festival. One day, while driving past Norton Parkway, she'd seen an Orthodox Jew talking to a black couple and an Asian man, and she thought: "This is what New Haven is all about."

Ibrahim is proud of the diversity of her neighborhood and wants to share it with Greater New Haven. "I don't want people to be scared to come to Beaver Hills," she said. So she teamed with the owners of Edge of the Woods, Shang Hai Chinese restaurant, Sylvan Cleaners, Custom Tees, and Jackson Hewitt Tax Service to organize a community-building event in their shared parking lot.

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Edge of the Woods provided fresh apple cider, fruit, and a big basket of chocolate chip cookies, while Shang Hai set out a sampling of some of its more popular items, including fried balls of dough known to customers as the traditional Chinese delicacy of sugar donuts. Sylvan, Custom Tees, and Jackson Hewitt together provided a table full of crayons and paper for the kids, and Balance Fitness blasted music for the belly dance class as well as a "Funkaerobics" demonstration.

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Sheila Masterson, director of Whalley Avenue Special Services District, introduced Rob Smuts, City Hall's chief administrative officer, at the kick-off of the afternoon event. "It's great to see a positive business like [Balance Fitness] opening up on Whalley. I live a couple of blocks up on Whalley so I really appreciate it," Smuts said. Balance has been around for almost two years now; Ibrahim's presence adds frequent jolts of energy to the area. Edge of the Woods owner Peter Dodge described her as "a high energy girl," and Masterson called her "dynamite."

(Click here to read a previous Independent article about Ibrahim.)

Ibrahim hopes to bring business opportunity and visibility to the Whalley neighborhood, a goal Masterson shares. When she moved to the area in 1996, Masterson explained, there were 11 foreclosed properties on Whalley, all of which have since been developed. "I've seen huge positive change in the neighborhood," she attested.

Asked about the area's recent crime-ridden reputation --click here to read about community policing controversies in response to an upswing in crime -- Masterson made eye contact and said, "You want to know something? I live up the street half a mile. I've worked in this district for 11 years. I've worked in New Haven since 1979, and I've never once had a problem."

City officials are responding to these developments -- and Whalley's old reputation as a dingy strip of auto repair shops and fast food drive-throughs -- with targeted marketing efforts to attract new business and make the area more walkable with events like Sunday's festival.

Thought quiet at first, the festival attracted a crowd of about 40 as the day wore on. Mothers belly danced, business owners chatted, and kids dashed about with crayons and balloons and handfuls of cookies.

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Ibrahim's children (her daughter, Salwa, is pictured) clutched as many cookies and sugar donuts as they could hold. Their mother firmly instructed them to wait a few more hours. An observant Muslim family, the Ibrahims are currently fasting for Ramadan. "We'll have a big feast with all this food at 6:30 on the dot," Ibrahim said.

By injecting music and food and dancing and laughter into her diverse business environment, Ibrahim hopes to create waves of change throughout Beaver Hills. "Crime is just the absence of opportunity," she stated firmly, "and bad is just the absence of good."

http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2007/10/beaver_hills_fe.php