A Jewish-Palestinian advocacy group held a thank-you rally outside the UAE’s representative office in New York on Tuesday over the country’s stand on not allowing a controversial Israeli businessman from opening a store in Dubai.

The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East (Adalah) gathered on Tuesday outside the UAE representative office in New York city [...]

Officials at the United Arab Emirates Mission to the UN affirmed their government’s commitment to boycotting the businesses of Israeli settlement-builder Lev Leviev in a meeting Tuesday afternoon with representatives from Adalah-NY and Jews Against the Occupation (JATO). Leviev is attempting to open jewelry stores in the Emirate of Dubai and to sell his diamonds [...]

The government of Dubai recently allowed a major bankroller of Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank to open at least two Jewelry stores in the Gulf emirate.

According to reliable sources in the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is a key member-state, Israeli billionaire and diamond magnate Lev Leviev is preparing to open two [...]

New York human rights activists, and representatives of the West Bank Palestinian villages of Bil’in and Jayyous called on the government and the people of the United Arab Emirates to boycott the jewelry stores of Israeli billionaire and diamond magnate Lev Leviev over his companies’ construction of Israeli settlements. According to a flurry of recent [...]

Sport cars are not enough. Ferrari-branded goodies are expanding. After the sunglasses, perfumes, laptops, etc… Now it’s taking on Disneyland with its own theme park. The doors will open in 2009 in Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the United Arab Emirates.

A large slice of desert on the island of Yas will be reclaimed to [...]

One of the biggest criticisms of Dubai has always been the traffic congestion, ask me about it as I lived there for six years.

In an effort to reduce the traffic, Dubai, opened a floating bridge which connect the two sides of the creek - Deira and Bur Dubai.

(Click thumbnail to enlarge)

The Floating Bridge [...]

I don’t know how many of my friends around the Gulf received this alert from Greenpeace, however, here it is for the use of everyone: From: Hussein Fakih [hfakih@diala.greenpeace.org]
Date: Feb 4, 2007 10:20 PM
Subject: Greenpeace: opinion poll
To: [haitham.sabbah@gmail.com] Dear Mr Haitham Sabbah, I am an activist in Greenpeace (the international environmental independent organization). Greenpeace [...]

In the fifth annual Reporters Without Borders Worldwide Press Freedom Index, in between 168 indexed countries, our beloved Arab countries makes sure to be among the worst.

Here is the list in order from “best” to “worst”:

Kuwait - 73
United Arab Emirates - 77
Mauritania - 77
Qatar - 80
Morocco - 97
Lebanon - 107
Jordan - 109
Bahrain - 111
Algeria - [...]

This is a cross-posting. It was initially published at Global Voices in my (semi)-weekly translation post.

The following is an abbreviated translation from some of the Arabic-language blogsphere.

This week, johacom was happy to find some cartoons by Arab cartoonist that depict some Official Arab Leaders. He says:

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First, here is a racist cartoon:

Decpite that the United Arab Emirates said it was a close ally of the US in its war on terrorism, the US senators, Hillary Clinton and Robert Menendez opposed a UAE firm’s takeover of a company that operates several American ports over security concerns. The two US Democratic senators have [...]