Rice&mobiles

Jawad Ali, a Muscat-based business analyst says: “Inflation is just a natural market phenomenon. And it is not one-sided. If there is a rise in price somewhere, there is a fall somewhere too. While the price of rice may be high, your mobile bill is not as much as it used to be earlier. Also, with a recharge for RO1, you can now speak for longer than you could talk, say, in January this year. Cell phones and electronic items are also becoming cheaper by the day. Anita Joseph

Jawad, I thank you for this piece of information but if the stomach is empty, I don't feel like talking too much .

H.M. vacation in Italy continues : people still fancying to meet him but no way .
In general locals are happy at least for the fact that his staff is spending lot of money in hotels and shops and are amazed for the Sultan generosity :
same as it happened for another vacation in Naples in 2003, a concert of the Royal Orchestra will be offered and gifts will be distributed to the population .
Journalists are bit disappointed and sometimes criticise a lot : they can't get used to the fact that our Sultan is not like Diana and Charles . He is there for a private vacation so he is not doing public appearances .
Am trying my best to explain this on their sites, not sure am succeeding : they're still of the idea that Arab royals are spoiled .
Everyone is hoping in some investment in Bari : apparently Oman is the only Gulf country not to have big commercial deals .
There was a good one for Sicily in 2006 when Cantieri Navali Rodriguez won the bid for 5 fast catamarans that should be delivered to the Sultanate [value 90 millions dollars] before the end of the year : H.E. Macki went to Messina for inspection .

Haras 1 is ready

No sex in Jerusalem

There's going to be "sex" - but not in two Israeli cities.
The Israeli distributor of the soon-to-be-released Sex and the City movie won't be hanging advertising posters and billboards in Jerusalem and Petah Tikva.
A company spokesman says the two cities have large religious populations and municipal officials don't want the word "sex" on display.
Adverts for the movie are to go up elsewhere in Israel on Tuesday night.
The worldwide release of the movie is scheduled for May 29.
This isn't the first time Sex and the City has run foul of Israeli religious sensibilities.
Several years ago, a poster campaign showing star Sarah Jessica Parker in a skimpy, sequined dress was quickly pulled and replaced with new ads of her in a dress that covered her arms, back and thighs. The Press Association



If this had happened in a Muslim country or if the movie had been presented in some public school in the West and Muslim parents had made the same request of Jerusalem and Petah Tikva mayors, then they would have been labelled as bigot and arrogant .

Israelis instead, have religious sensibilities .

As I said some time ago, the money of the Israelis have more power than those of the Arabs .

Trash

Less than a year after Cyclone Gonu devastated the coast of Oman, a UK-based international weather bureau has predicted that another tropical storm could hit Oman and Yemen at the end of May.
This time the forecast of landfall of the cyclone is on May 29 around Oman/Yemen coast. Gulfnews
The Times of Oman office was flooded with phone calls after a television station based in India reported a possibility of a cyclone in the west Arabian Sea, with the ECMWF expecting a yet-to-be-born rogue circulation to spin up to class-matching strength. When we contacted an official at the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation and Meteorology, he ruled out any possibility at this juncture and added that an accurate forecast could be provided only 78 hours in advance. He also urged the citizens not to believe in rumours, unconfirmed stories and create panic situations.Timesofoman

Indians are good in spreading gossip, which is fine to kill time but not for serious issues .
Definitely they are not skilled for journalism .
Gulfnews article is built to create fear : that's irresponsible .
It doesn't say anything specific but given that the average Omani knows that he can't rely on local press, and after all Gonu brought last year, he will panic .
If I was the Ministry of Information I'd kick Sunil Vaidya out of the country or throw him in jail for the rest of his life, but luckily for him I am not in that position .
He is a trouble maker and an attention seeker .

Updates through Met Satellite Images

Black and white

Public companies listed in Oman and Kuwait have more women on their boards than those in Italy and Japan, highlighting rare gains made by businesswomen in one of the most restrictive parts of the world.
Women make up 2.7 per cent of boards in Kuwait, compared with Italy, where they represent 2 per cent and Japan, where the number falls to only 0.4 per cent.
The representation on boards in the two Gulf countries masks a bleaker overall picture: across the region women represent only 1.5 per cent of board seats, compared with 13.6 per cent in the US and 22 per cent in Norway. ft

The average Omani or Kuwaiti doesn't trust yet women in power positions and in fact there's no female presence in the parliament or in the Shura .
On the other hand, compared to the rest of the Arab world, they're very well represented in boards of private companies .
Definitely as noted in the article, most of them are from important and influential families but that's an achievement already .

People have even started calling radio stations, questioning the temperatures released by the Directorate General of Meteorology and Air Navigation (DGMAN).
A computer vendor, who spends most of his time visiting clients, claimed that temperatures were much higher than officially announced. "My car was showing 46C when officially it was only 41C," Rajabala told Gulf News. Sunil whatever his name is

This why we are shiny happy people here in Oman : we spend most of our time enquiring about temperatures .

"all those men and women who had gone to watch the film, have done a great injustice and committed a big crime."Gulfnews
Black

Also Saudi Imams suffer the heat .

So sad

But I might give it a try .
Pillow is getting boring .

As for satisfying those not-so-innocent late-night desires, this lady adheres to her role as steady girlfriend. Give her kiss on the check and she rolls over and buries her face in the pillow. And yes, she stays fully clothed at all times. Nonetheless, Burrows suggests his new alternative to a full-body pillow or (ugh) blow-up doll could provide late-night comfort for traders, lawyers, or any other single guy in Manhattan who simply works too hard to keep a girlfriend. Speaking of, how long has Burrows been single?
"Long enough to come up with this idea," he sighed. —

nymag

Journalists have a wild imagination

Sultan Qaboos is spending a couple of weeks in Puglia , a lovely destination in Southern Italy .
While waiting for him, newspapers described the preparations between local authorities and the Omani diplomatic corp led by H.E. al Harthy and ran with fantasy describing H.M. yacht, number of Mercedes [some said he brought 24 with him, some others thought that he rented around 15 in Italy ], thousands of fresh flowers requested daily by him, lot of people as staff [some said 600, some others 1000]: well this is what western people like to fancy about Arab Royals, not a big deal .
But last night I came across an online source, stating that H.M. had finally landed in Bari with his 6 wives and many children .
At that point I jumped off my chair, searched for the newspaper email and wrote them asking to correct : since we Italians are treated with respect here in Oman and we owe it to H.M. guidelines, it would be good our country does the same with him, while he's our guest, without forgetting that H.M. likes to keep his privacy .
A journalist immediately answered saying he had checked online about H.M. biography and he would immediately repair but it was not their fault, rather the national news agency ansa that had given those informations .
He corrected immediately and on the article just wrote that the Sultan is there with a huge staff.
I emailed ansa too but I have doubts they read it as they are a big agency : well in the end the average Italian reads the newspaper, rarely the source .
But how can they write that one who is not married, has 6 wives, that I don't know .
If they exaggerate with these meaningless details, what about serious socio-political issues ?
Thanks to Armando Fizzarotti of La gazzetta del Mezzogiorno, for having immediately fixed the problem . Some journalists still listen to the general public and that's a good sign .

ONA : if you want me, am free but I accept only director positions .

Update : World Aeronautical Press Agency reports that H.M. landed with 3 of his wives [not specified how many he has] together with his mothers in law :
either they confused him with someone else or Ambassador al Harthy and his staff are not doing a good job .