Mobile-driving ban starts in May

By Kholood F. Al-Rhamah

JEDDAH – Starting in May drivers will be under the scrutiny of a new traffic system which prohibits the use of all mobile phone activity while driving.

Traffic agencies all over the Kingdom will begin enforcing the newly approved rules issuing fines to those using their mobile phones while driving.

The new system institutes 73 infractions for both men and women: applicable only to where women are allowed to drive, said Major General Fahad Al-Bisher, Traffic General Manager.

Women are not allowed to drive on public roads in Saudi Arabia at present, for socio-cultural reasons. Major General Fahad Al-Bisher said the system would encompass all drivers – man or woman.

“Policemen will be obligated to issue a fine for those they see using their mobile phone. “Whether it is for calling or sending short messages.” “In future, a more technical mechanism will be implemented, like surveillance cameras,” he said. The fines start as low as 100 riyals and can increase to 500 riyals.

If drivers fail to pay, traffic courts can apply jail time or a seizure of the vehicle if the driver becomes a repeat offender. Al-Bisher said hands-free devices like Bluetooth headphones will be allowed.

“Drivers will be allowed to use the headsets while driving because it leaves their hands free and won’t distract them. Nor will they jeopardize their lives as well as the lives of other drivers.”

Some of the new traffic system fines are for vehicles with no plates, unauthorized plates, driving under the influence of alcohol, crossing red light, using the vehicle for unauthorized purposes, driving with an expired license, misusing the horn and driving an uninsured vehicle.

First anti-piracy Arab forum set for Oct.

Monday, 17 March 2008
By Kholood F. Al-Rhamah

JEDDAH – For the first time in the Kingdom a conference dedicated to eradicating counterfeit products is set to take place later this year.

The First Arab Consumer and Brand Protection Forum 2008 will be held in Jeddah on October 19-21 with the support of the Arab League and the Islamic Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ICCI).

The World Customs Organization (WCO) is also backing the forum to be held under the auspices of Makkah Emir Prince Khaled Al-Faisal Al Saud, at the Jeddah Hilton.

In 2006 the Saudi economy suffered a $620 billion loss, a 10 percent increase from 1996, as a result of commercial fraud and counterfeiting. Commercial fraud defrauds the region of about $50 billion annually, accounting for approximately six percent of the $780 billion lost worldwide every year to piracy, according to WCO Secretary General Michel Danet.

The Forum aims to find ways to trigger Arab world public participation in the global war on commercial fraud and piracy.“We will be focusing on the existence of a mechanism to activate rules, adjust them, and adding new ones to protect the consumer,” said Faisal Bin Othmain, an executive member and public relations manager with Hemaya Universal, co-organizer of the forum.

Hemaya Universal is pioneering the Arab private sector effort to protect consumers from fraudulent trade and safeguard intellectual property rights in the region. “Our goal is to discuss and see how to adjust, develop, rules that fit with the new situation of the increasing percent of counterfeiting in the whole Arab region,” Othmain said.

After the forum, a national eight-month awareness campaign will begin, Bin Othaimin said, its coverage includes amusement parks to schools.
The campaign is designed to spread awareness of the damages counterfeited goods cause both physically and economically.

“The campaign will take place in five countries for five years and so far we haven’t decided where the next campaign will be, we are waiting for feedback and the reactions from the first forum,” Bin Othaimin said. “The forum will include international organizations and will host brand owners in addition to officials from the ministries of Commerce and ministries of Finance of the Arab League and any government sector dealing with counterfeiting.”

The Forum is the brainchild of the Arab League, resulting from collaboration by its Secretary General Amr Moussa, with Hemaya Universal, according to Arab League assistant secretary general for Economic Affairs, Dr. Mohammed Bin Ibrahim Tuwaijri.

“Such synergy between the public and private sectors is critical in enabling this region to compete effectively in the international marketplace,” Dr. Tuwaijri said in a speech to the recent 4th Global Congress on Combating Counterfeiting and Piracy.

Cancer survivor uses experience to teach others

Saturday, 15 March 2008
By Kholood F. Al-Rhamah

JEDDAH - The sixth international conference on Women’s Health Update 2008 ended its four-day run Wednesday after focusing on cardiac disease, family medicine, breast cancer, alternative medicine and other health issues affecting women in Saudi Arabia.

Speakers at the conference held under the auspices of Princess Alanood Bint Abdullah Bin Mohammed Al-Saud: Lina Bissar, vice president of the internal department at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center (KFSH); Nuha Dashash, consultant in social and family medicin; and Lama Suleiman, a businesswoman and breast cancer survivor.

Lama Suleiman used her experience with cancer to try and give hope to other similarly afflicted women.“I woke up one morning feeling a rigid mass in my breast that I could swear I didn’t feel the night before,” Suleiman said. “I had tests done and waited for two weeks and completely forgot to ask my doctor for the results.

My doctor called me to tell me I had breast cancer. My life changed completely until my doctor called me to tell me that I have a breast cancer and my life changed completely.”

She urged women, using her experience as an example, to persevere their faith in Allah and in themselves. “After I started my chemotherapy I started to lose my hair, my eyebrows and my eyelashes. I didn’t realize how important they were until I lost them, until I constantly had water dripping into my eyes,” Suleiman said.

KFSH and Roche Medicine Company sponsored the conference held at Laylaty hall.

BBC Arabic wants a piece of the pie

By Kholood F. Al-Rhamah and Michael Bou-Nacklie

JEDDAH – The BBC’s new channel is the new kid on the block for the Middle East. The new Arabic language channel will begin broadcasting March 11 for 12 hours a day then move to a 23/7 schedule by the summer.

BBC Arabic will be in comp-petition with other media net-works such as Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera, which provide news 24 hours a day to the Arab world. According to the Allied Media Corporation web site, an independent marketing organization, the total viewer ship of Al-Arabiya has 23 million viewers in the Arab World.

Whereas Al-Jazeera has roughly 53 million viewers in the Arab world. According to the BBC, over 13 million people listen to BBC Arabic every week while its website bbcarabic.com receives over 21 million page views and has over one million unique use-each month. A decade earlier the BBC attempted to launch a similar version of BBC Arabic in partners-ship with Bahrain-based Orbit.

The deal fell through and many investors and journalists moved to Al-Jazeera based in Qatar. Viewers in the Kingdom have their own favorite channels but they are not entirely convinced that BBC Arabic will be much different from its established counterparts.

“I watch several news channels but I prefer to watch Al-Arabiya,” said Mahmoud Abo Al-Huoda, an educational supervisor in the Kingdom.

“Certainly I’ll watch the BBC Arabic because whenever something big happens I switch from (channel to channel ) to get all the details."

Rasha Al-Zahrani, an administrator in Tecnimont Arabia Ltd Company, said she does not like many of the channels because of unfair bias. “Al-Jazeera news is not credible and Al-Ekhbariy-yah channel does not back up the reports with filmed pictures and it’s all local.

On the other hand, Al-Arabiya’s news is neutral, credible, periodic, both loc-and international, you know that you can trust anything they broadcast. The BBC is also credible news but it wasn’t local enough and sometimes its news is not backed up (properly)" Al-Zahrani said.

BBC Arabic will be funded by British taxpayers with a bill of £25 million and part of a larger set of alternative language channel for the Middle East. Later this year BBC Persian is set to begin, geared towards viewers in Iran.

The initial plans for BBC Arabic were announced in late 2005, resulting in the closure of 10 stations service in Eastern Europe in order to finance the new channel. Since then the British government has agreed to boost World Service funding to £252 million annually.

The BBC’s latest endeavor will have its primary centers in Cairo and London and will draw from the BBC’s 250 correspond-dents working from 72 news desks from around the world to provide its daily coverage. The main reason behind opening an Arabic channel is that Arabic viewers follow the BBC channel and website in higher demand for their 24 news cover and trust what they provide from their credible sources.
BBC World Service Director Nigel Chapman said people in the Middle East will welcome another news channel because of the reliability of the BBC in the rest of the world.

“We are encouraged that independent research consistently shows an appetite for a BBC Arabic television channel. The main reason people give is quite simple – it is because they believe the BBC will provide an independent news service they could trust,” Chapman said.

Their service is free and provided by the Arabsat, Eutelsat, and Nilesat satellite, to the region. – SG

* Rania Al-Alattar

- Joined the Baghdad office of BBC Arabic in early 2003
- Baghdad-based Nahrain TV, in 2004
- Presenter and correspondent
- Baghdad Today - one hour live newscast
- Bayuna – a weekly musical program
- Nejoom – a weekly cinema show
- Al-Hurrah television in 2005
- Presented daily live news bulletins, summaries, breaking news and conducted live interviews.
- Writer, editor, producer and correspondent

* Tony El-Khoury
- Aka Antoine Khoury

- Started 16 years ago London-based Al-Hayat newspaper.
- Later joined the London-based MBC TV as a producer.
- Trained as a TV presenter with Independent Weather Productions at UK’s ITV
- He also worked as reporter with the Dubai-based satellite TV channel, Al-Arabiya, as the UK roving reporter.
- LBC for two years as anchor for The World Tonight,
- Has won various awards such as: Best International Weather Graphics Presenter for MBC, and various awards for graphics for Al-Arabiya News in Dubai.
- Studied
- French Literature, Linguistics and Journalism at the Lebanese University in Beirut (BA)
- School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London (MA).

* Dalia Mohammed
- Started in 2003 at Damascus Radio for five years.
- Produced, presented and directed a weekly program - Cinema Radio
- Also worked for a private radio channel where she produced and presented the daily morning show- Lifestyle.
- Dalia says she was excited to join the BBC - “It is more than just a channel. It is an academy.”

* Osman Ayfarah
- Started in 2001 as a reporter with Arab News Network (ANN).
- He was one of few correspondents to cover the war in Afghanistan from inside Kabul before the fall of the Taleban.
- Worked as a news presenter and talk-show host at ANN before moving to London-based Khalifa TV, where he worked as news reporter and presenter.
- In 2003 joined Dubai TV as a reporter
- Later moved to the Al-Arabiya TV as a reporter and presenter of business and political news and program.

*Hasan Muawad
- Hasan Muawad has 30 years of broadcasting experience with global and Arab media.
- Joined BBC Arabic in 1977 as a producer.
- Became senior producer of current affairs programming,
- Then Head of the Current Affairs Unit.
- In 2001 went to work for Middle East Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) in Dubai for five and a half years,
- Moved to Al Arabiya TV for five years as person Point Of Order.

*Lina Musharbash
- Known as the first female TV journalist in Jordan to report from the field as the royal correspondent
- Later became the military correspondent, covering, among other developments, the Jordanian UN peace force in Croatia and Bosnia in 1993.
- In 1994, Lina joined the MBC as its Jordan correspondent, covering the peace treaty between Jordan and Israel.
- In 1995, she joined the MBC’s London-based operations as a TV presenter.
- In 2003, she returned to Jordan to work as Abu Dhabi TV’s bureau chief prior to the run up of the Iraq war.
- In 2004, joined Al-Hurra TV for its launch in Jordan office, where she covered news and features.
- In 2005, moved back to London to present a daily business program for Kuwait TV.
- In 2007, she joined the London team of the Russian-Arabic service, Rusyia Al Yaum, covering news and features in Britain and Europe including the EU summit in Brussels in June 2007.

* Dina Waqqaf
- Started as a radio presenter at Syrian Arab Republic Radio
- Presenter for a political program for Syrian TV - International Scene.
- Graduate of Dentistry College in Damascus,
- Has completed a range of training programs for radio and TV presenting – from talk shows and panels to breaking news and interviewing.