"Kelantan records the lowest rate of Internet users in the country, with only 10 per cent of its 1.5 million population.
"The Pas spiritual leader said although the State government champions Islamic-based development, he encouraged people to utilise modern technology the 'halal' way, responsible Internet usage being one of them."
arabcrunch.com, Yemeni Social Rating Site Ras2ras.com "Acquired by an Investor from Qatar, 13 June 2010"Ras2ras.com, a social rating platform from Yemen was acquired by an investor from Qatar for an undisclosed amount. Ras2ras.com, which was founded by Amad Almsaodi in 2008, is built around a very simple yet really interesting idea: putting any two comparable things against each other, and letting people vote on which they like best."
I like the idea of Ras2ras.com too. As you'll see from the shot below, it asks 'significant' questions. Which is better: gold or cash? Brazil or Portugal (that's a World Cup question!)? etc.
The latter site gives this description: "Journey into America is equal parts anthropological research, listening tour, and travelogue. Whereas Ahmed's previous book took the reader into homes, schools, and mosques in the Muslim world, his new quest takes us into the heart of America and its Muslim communities. It is absolutely essential reading for anyone trying to make sense of America today."
Not a 'tech' story, but it has implications in relation to many of the themes discussed in this blog (Martin was one of the researchers). I haven't seen this book yet.
Robert Mackey, The Lede, NYT, Video of Kyrgyz Unrest on YouTube, 14 June 2010 "Video showing the aftermath of deadly clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbek citizens in and around Osh has been posted on YouTube and collected on the video-sharing service’s CitizenTube blog. Some of the images of dead or badly wounded people posted on the blog are very hard to watch."
Matthew Weaver, Guardian, Iran protests: One-man video channel that is a thorn in Tehran's side, 11 June 2010 "Until his father was arrested, Mehdi Saharkhiz had little to do with Iranian politics. But since the arrest in the aftermath of the disputed elections last July, Saharkhiz, a 28-year-old graphic designer living in New Jersey, has poured all his energies into a one-man internet video channel that has captured crucial moments of the country's unrest.
"Saharkhiz has become the source for dramatic mobile phone footage of the demonstrations and their violent suppression. As independent mainstream media has effectively been banned from Iran, it is these amateur clips that have perhaps best documented what has been happening in the country – and they have been a major irritant to Tehran."
Adam Rawnsley, wired, Taliban Webmaster: We’ve Been Hacked!, 10 June 2010 "Abu al-Aina’a al-Khorasani, an administrator an elite jihadi forum endorsed by the Taliban, warns in an online post that the “group’s main site and the site of its online journal Al-Sumud, have been the subject of an ‘infiltration operation.’”"
More at GIA News, First Arab Bloggers Conference concludes sessions, 10 June 2010 "The First Arab Bloggers Conference, co-organised by the Department of Culture and Media (DCM) – Ajman, the Information General Authority and the Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation, has shed light on the personalities and fads of the people behind the over 75 million active Arabic blogs on over 120,000 platforms."
"“Not only have Arab blogs attracted some 60 million Arab web surfers, but also ranked Arabic language up to the sixth position among all active languages on the world wide web,” Saudi blogger Mohammed Badwi told the audience of the first session titled ‘Press and Media’."
"The Arab countries, particularly the UAE and Bahrain, have presented leading examples of government blogging, yet all still lack systematisation, according to senior official here.
"“The Bahraini e-government has created a blog where it more effectively interacted with the public and led to an informed decision making process based on the comments, feedback and information received and collected from residents,” said Dr Basem Shahin, Content Development Manager at the UAE General Information Authority."
Views from the Occident, Abu Yahya al-Libi's New Book: Jihad & the Battle of Uncertainty/Vagueness/Doubt "Abu Yahya al-Libi, a senior Al-Qa'ida Central (AQC) leader based in Pakistan-Afghanistan who is often referred to as the group's mufti (chief jurist), has penned a new book, Jihad and the Battle of Uncertainty/Vagueness/Doubt, الجهاد و معركة الشبهات . The 45-page book was published by the Al-Fajr (Dawn) Media Center, a shadowy transnational jihadi-takfiri media outlet that distributes all the visual, audio, and written media productions of AQC and its two main affiliates, Al-Qa'ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in North and Northwest Africa and Al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) based in Yemen."
"The report, National e-Strategies for Development Global Status and Perspectives 2010, highlights the varying stages of development in the adoption of ICT across the Arab World."
See ITU, E-Strategies/ICT Strategies which links to the pdf: "The report National e-Strategies for Development, Global Status and Perspectives, 2010 is a publication in the framework of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the WSIS’s Tunis phase and the adoption of the Tunis Agenda for Information Society. The Report reviews the progress in the elaboration of comprehensive, forward-looking and sustainable national e-strategies, and makes recommendations on policies and measures. This includes ICT strategies and sectoral e-strategies as an integral part of national development plans and poverty reduction strategies, as was called for by the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society."
"Around 500 female Saudi bloggers responded to an online Arab News survey about their ages, the topics they write about and why they blog. Sixty percent of respondents, all of whom are between 17 and 30, use blogs as personal diaries, while 30 percent comment on social issues and 10 percent write about fashion."
This sounds like useful research: I'd like to see the data-set.
"By tightening their speech, the Conservatives seek to strengthen their base, says former mufti of Perlis state, bordering Thailand, which became a university professor in 2008.
"They can win the battle but, at the age of the Internet, they can not win the hearts of young Muslims who are demanding answers based on reason," he said.
Joe Ryan/The Star-Ledger, N.J. terror suspects to appear in court for bail hearing, 10 June 2010, "The men, both U.S. citizens, had been being monitored by the FBI since 2006 after they began watching lectures by radical Muslim clerics on the Internet. Authorities say Alessa, of North Bergen, and Almonte, of Elmwood Park, were caught on tape talking about killing, beheading and sending Americans home in body bags."
"In an official statement, the Turkish Telecommunications Presidency (TIB) – which regulates communications in the country – confirmed the that it had blocked access to many Google IP addresses, citing “legal reasons”. However, it gave no further explanation of these reasons, nor did it confirm whether the ban is temporary or permanent."
See the related article in Hürriyet Daily News, Google new target of Turkish censors, 4 June 2010 "Turkey's web users again bear the brunt of heavy-handed censorship as the Telecommunications Commication Presidency indefinitely shuts off access to several Google services, including 'Google Docs.' The move follows the banning of the popular video-sharing website YouTube for alleged insults against Turkish Republic founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk"
"The latest Facebook episode is a remake of the same old story. Some ill-intended ‘artist’, under the guise of freedom of speech, takes on a confrontational mission, knowing fully the response such an act would generate, and perhaps the lives that would be lost. Muslim masses, predictably, respond through angry protests, burning flags, denouncing America, Israel, Zionism, Facebook, Youtube and so on. Strangely, the very governments that are considered US allies tend to be on the forefront of condemning the ‘blasphemous’ provocations. Muslim masses are thus exploited on all fronts - by the media, by anti-Muslims, by rightwing forces in the West, and their own governments."
Smeeta Mishraab & Gaby Semaan, Islam in Cyberspace: South Asian Muslims in America Log In, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Volume 54, Issue 1 January 2010 , pages 87 - 101 "This study explores how South Asian Muslims in the United States use the Internet for religious purposes. In-depth interviews of 25 respondents show that they used the Internet to listen to religious lectures, look up information about prayer times, holidays, halal food, rules regarding the recitation of the Qur'an, and correct pronunciation of Arabic words. The anonymity offered by the Internet helped them seek Islamic answers to deeply personal questions. Many respondents made lifestyle decisions after accessing multiple opinions on an issue on the Internet. However, it was difficult to definitively conclude whether access to competing interpretations of Islam necessarily led to moderate or extreme lifestyle choices."
Abbas Milani, Foreign Policy, Iran's Hidden Cyberjihad, 7 June 2010 "The Iranian government trains its cyberjihadists in everything from how to influence chat rooms to the "semiotics of cyberspace," according to a curriculum sent to me by a disgruntled regime member. The IRGC site Gerdab.ir features photos of demonstrators, seeking in effect to crowd-source surveillance. Since September, the IRGC has owned the telecommunications giant that controls all Internet access, cell phones, and social networking sites in Iran. But the story of Iran's cyberjihad has gone almost entirely unremarked in the Western media, despite its massive scale and relative effectiveness."
"The sacrilege committed by some global users through posting a few pages in Facebook, might have caused offence to religious sentiment, and the government sought to protest it openly. But the ostensible reason for blocking Facebook was the caricatures of the prime minister and the leader of the opposition posted on it. The person who drew the caricatures should be dealt with in accordance with the law, but there is no point in victimising all the users."
Excellent detailed report by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, which includes some reference to the impact of technology on recruitment for al-Shabab and Hezb al-Islam.
arabnews.com, Facebook frenzy beats out newspapers in ME, 1 June 2010 "The Middle East has more Facebook users than newspaper readers, a new study has found. Spot On Public Relations, a Middle Eastern PR agency specializing in social media, found that as of May 2010, Facebook has more than 15 million users in the Middle East and North Africa, easily surpassing for the first time the region’s newspaper sales of just under 14 million."
Mohamed Marwen Meddah, startuparabia.com, AppsArabia, An Arabic Mobile Applications Development Fund, 7 June 2010 "Abu Dhabi’s twofour54 has recently announced it will be launching a new investment fund called ‘AppsArabia‘, which promotes and supports mobile app development throughout the Middle East and North Africa using the Software Development Kits (SDKs) of all the major mobile and online platforms (e.g. Android (Google), iPhone OS (Apple), BlackBerry, Facebook, OpenSocial and Ovi (Nokia))."
"• IP traffic in the Middle East and Africa will reach 1 exabyte per month by 2014 at a rate of 45%. Monthly Internet traffic in the Middle East and Africa will generate 182 million DVDs worth of traffic, or 727 petabytes per month.
• "The Middle East and Africa will have the strongest mobile data traffic growth of any region at 133 % CAGR, followed by Asia Pacific at 119% and North America at 117%."
Peter Finn and Jerry Markon, The Washington Post/Seattle Times, N.J. men accused of trying to join Somali terrorists, 6 June 2010, "According to the criminal complaint, the two New Jersey men listened to several U.S. citizens who have used the Internet to trumpet al-Qaida and violent jihad, including Anwar al-Aulaqi, the Yemen-based cleric linked to the Fort Hood, Texas, shootings and the Christmas Day attempt to bomb a U.S. airliner, and Adam Gadahn, an al-Qaida spokesman in Pakistan. Almonte kept audio recordings of Aulaqi on his cellphone. The men also watched a video featuring Omar Hammami, a U.S.-born fighter with al-Shabab, the group they planned to join in Somalia, according to the complaint."
"The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) ordered the country’s international Internet gateway providers to unblock the site after the company agreed to remove the obnoxious images and content."
As I've been offline during the past week (although monitoring stories closely), this is a round-up of the Gaza flotilla issues as they relate to this blog:
Amira Al Hussaini, globalvoicesonline.org, MENA: Question Time Following Gaza-Bound Flotilla Attack "As the dust settles, and some of the ‘truths' come out, a new wave of tweets on Israel's attacking the Gaza-bound flotilla take over the Internet. Here are a few reactions from the Twittersphere summing up reactions of users around the world, some asking questions we are yet to learn the answers for."
examiner.com, Murder on the high seas sparks global outrage, 2 June 2010 "Four of the nine killed by Israeli commandos aboard the Mavi Marmara were Turkish citizens. Three of the six ships in the Free Gaza Freedom Flotilla were Turkish. Some of those who were on board the vessels included a Holocaust survivor and a survivor of the U.S.S. Liberty. The journalists aboard the ships were armed with video cameras, cell phones, and Internet connections."
AFP, Flotilla raid goes viral as Israel floods YouTube, 5 June 2010 "Days after the botched attack which killed nine Turks, the fight over what exactly happened on board the ferry is still raging on YouTube, with both sides posting more and more clips on the video-sharing website to support their case."
Covering Iran: the role of conventional and non-conventional media.
Centre for Media and Film Studies at SOAS
One-Day Conference
"The Conference will address how the 2009 presidential election in Iran and its aftermath provided conventional international media channels with great challenges in covering events and will look at how with further controls brought to bear on the foreign press, many channels turned to use mobile phone footage and Twitter messages in television coverage."
9.00am-6.00pm, Wednesday 16th June 2010
Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, SOAS
" ... Babcom currently employs almost 300 people, most of whom are minorities including traditional Israeli Arab Muslim women. They also hire Jewish people from the peripheries who are socio-economically disadvantaged. Telhami knows how to work with the diverse cultural and religious rifts that sometimes exist:"
The article discussed many aspects of this tech company, including outsourcing, and the diverse workforce of Babcom (Telhami is a Christian Maronite, living in a Druze village near Haifa).
Irena Akbar, indianexpress.com, Inside the fatwa lab, 23 May 2010"In Darul Uloom Deoband, the second largest Islamic seminary of the world, the computer is a “born Muslim” but ties and trousers are ways of “debauched Westerners”. Its internet department answers queries from Muslims across the world and sends out fatwas."
"According to Nabila Usman, a 24-year-old journalist and business development executive of an online portal offering tidbits dedicated to quirky news from the region, social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have become an essential part of digital journalism."
"A group of six young IT professionals from Lahore, the cultural and entertainment capital of Pakistan, launched www.millatfacebook.com on Tuesday for Muslims to interact online and protest against blasphemy."
Amber Rahim Shamsi, Dawn blog, Pakistan unplugged, 28 May 2010 "As I write this, the protests against Facebook continue, even though the offensive page has been removed and the social networking site is still banned in Pakistan. Now it is no longer even a matter of whether facebook should’ve been banned, but whether there can be any rational discussion in this country about anything to do with religion without fear of reprisal. This is symptomatic of a deeper malaise in society – the disengagement from the world of ideas and debate."
ameinfo.com, World's first Arabic address website launched by UAE, 23 May 2010 "The UAE's Presidential Affairs Ministry has launched the world's first Arabic address website: Khalifa.emarat. The UAE is one of four countries in the world which have been allowed by the Internet Corporation Assigned for Names and Numbers to use the internet domain in its mother tongue. The UAE government announced last year its plan to launch .emarat - the Arabic equivalent of the .ae domain name for the country."
It may have been launched, but Khalifa.emarat was 'under construction' when I visited.
Global Arab Network, Egypt: Information & Communications Technology Expanding Knowledge Economy, 25 May 2010 "The ICT sector has played a major role in the growth of the Egyptian economy during the global crisis, expanding 14.6% in the 2008-09 financial year. In contrast, the overall growth rate for the economy was just under 5% in the same period. Foreign investment into the sector has reached over $1bn annually, due in part to developed infrastructure, including the 3m-sq-metre technology park Smart Village in Cairo.
"In addition to courting international IT players, the government has focused on building up a more computer-literate populace as the foundation of an information society. In February 2010, internet penetration reached 22.2%, representing more than 17m internet users, while the state has made efforts to increase this rate by lowering internet costs."
NPR, Jamaican Cleric Uses Web To Spread Jihad Message, 25 May 2010 "Abdullah Faisal is one of the best known radical clerics on the Internet today. NPR set up an interview with Faisal weeks ago. But when he arrived to speak to us in Montego Bay last week, he demanded money for the interview. NPR refused. So he declined to speak on tape.
"But what he revealed in a conversation provided a peek into the mindset of an Internet cleric who is dancing along the line between free speech and incitement."
Dawn, Editorial, Internet censorship, 25 May 2010 "The furore over the websites blocked last week by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority on the instructions of the Lahore High Court refuses to die down, and for good reason. At least 800 web pages and URLs have so far been blocked for Pakistan’s Internet users in an effort to restrict access to material considered blasphemous. The number may grow. However, apart from the Facebook link that called for the drawing of the Prophet (PBUH) — and which has now been removed — we have been given no explanation as to what exactly this objectionable material is."
"All three countries in the first batch are Islamic countries, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt and one may wonder whether the constant clash between non-Western governments and mostly-US based internet companies may not spawn a segregated Internet."
PR Web, Muslim World's Answer to Facebook and Wikipedia - Islamic Social Network Launches for the Muslim World!, 20 May 2010 "Madina.com has been envisioned as a virtual city catering to Islamic values, in particular, offering services to Muslim youth, that are commensurate with advanced features on other sites like Facebook and Twitter. Users of Madina.com can have discussions on various topics, upload videos, audio files, form groups, post blogs, articles, and even have a points based system which upgrades their rank, based on the level of activity in their accounts. Also, gender segregation is adhered to, on Madina.com."
Plenty to talk about regarding the Facebook 'ban' - here are a few perspectives and opinions that I found today:
Ahmad Rafay Alam, The News International, The Facebook shame, 21 May 2010 "One thing about this entire banning Facebook ado is the level of organisation displayed across the country. I may not agree with what they have managed to do, but I do appreciate that they could use Facebook (as many did) to organise their protests. Today I learn that the women's wing of the Jamat-e-Islami is organising a protest against Facebook. Never mind that it has just been reported that a teenager was raped for four months in Lahore, the ladies of the JI (women's wing) have something to protest on this sunny May day.
"We are a country entirely devoid of a sense of irony. Just before the PTA got around to enforcing the ban, someone I know updated her Facebook profile to inform people how pleased she was that Facebook had been banned ...
" ... There is simply no justification – legal, ethical, moral, religious – for the High Court to have ordered a ban on the social network page. Our law is crystal clear: A person's rights cannot be impinged upon without notice. There are well over 40 million Facebook users in Pakistan. The alleged blasphemy is supposed to be taking place in the United States. Under what legal framework is it permissible for the rights of the overwhelming majority of lawful users of Facebook to be affected in this way? As a lawyer, I fail to understand both the petition and the High Court's order."
Asif Akhtar, blog.dawn.com, What do Facebook and cricket have in common?, 21 May 2010 "Though all this buzz about a silly Facebook contest group seems a little bit over-hyped to be making international news headlines, I’m sure the administration of the Pakistan censorship regime were just looking for an excuse to test out their instant web-portal blocking apparatus. Probably didn’t do as well as one would expect, since it took them a few days to get the blocking sealed. Please, do these people have any idea how many status changes, picture uploads, note posts, and information sharing can take place within a few days? This could be catastrophic in an emergency situation which prompts Facebook blocking. A sorry attempt, I must add."
Sana Saleem, blog.dawn.com, The ban that backfired,20 May 2010 "This is a a sad day for new media in Pakistan. While many claim this to be a ‘victory’ against the offensive campaign, I feel at loss. The ban frenzy has only created a win-win situation for extremists on both sides. Instead of allowing people to opt for deactivating their accounts and registering their protests in the way they want, we have been forced to act like sheep once again, forced to jump on a bandwagon, and bear the burden of the perception that we are in fact an intolerant society."
"Halal Scanner Islamic (featured in the clip above) prompts the user to take a photo of an item’s listed ingredients, scans the photo and checks each item on the list against a database of allowed ingredients, and then alerts the user if there’s a possible conflict; Vegetarian Scanner works the same way, but for vegetarians."
I've been writing about apps - hope to see the piece out shortly.
"During the last year he has released five hip-hop songs on the Internet praising the virtues of jihad and urging the slaughter of the U.S. military and U.S. political leaders, ABC News reported Tuesday."
"The new leaders are "Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi al-Husseini al-Qurashi, the Emir of the Believers of the Islamic State of Iraq" and "Sheikh Abu Abdullah al-Hassani al-Qurashi is his prime minister and deputy," it quoted a statement from the group as saying."
'Syrians and Israelis are crossing one of the Middle East's great divides to co-operate – in cyberspace – to explore ways to advance peace between their countries.
"The groundbreaking OneMideast.org website aims to bring together prominent Israelis and Syrian bloggers, academics and experts seeking ways to break the stubborn impasse in negotiations."
thedailynewsegypt.net, Islam Online staff to launch new website, 17 May 2010 "Staff of disputed Islamic Resource Islam Online (IOL) are preparing to launch a new website after a two-month row between its employees and the website’s Qatari funders, according to Fathy Abu Hatab, former journalist at IOL."
Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed, Asharq Alawsat, 'Opinion', Activating the Counter-Terrorism Fatwa, 17 May 2010 ""Targeting public resources, corruption, hijacking planes, and blowing up buildings." This is the most important line in the historical fatwa that was issued last month by the Saudi Arabian Senior Ulema Council which is in practice the most important religious authority in the Islamic world. This is a line that explicitly prohibits the actions of terrorist groups that claim to be Islamic and who fight in the name of Islam. As this is a fatwa that deals with international security, not just security in Saudi Arabia and the Islamic world, we expected that this would be circulated and broadcast everywhere, however I only succeeded in finding news of this fatwa with difficulty, and the majority of what was reported was just general information.
"Since this is the most important fatwa to appear until now with regards to the controversial war on terrorism we expected news of this to appear everywhere, however this fatwa still remains away from the spotlight and unknown to the general public. Without publicity this fatwa remains as nothing more than a mere piece of paper, and terrorists will continue to benefit with regards to financing, recruitment, and winning public sympathy. Therefore it is in the interests of terrorists and the extremists who support them for this fatwa to remain unknown and not receive any publicity, and they are trying to bury or silence this fatwa."
Abdullah Al-Dani, Saudi Gazette, Al-Sheikh favors special focus on educating youth, 17 May 2010 "Aal Al-Sheikh also touched on the efforts made by the ministry to protect young people by carrying out various awareness programs for propagators, imams, khateebs and all segments of society. The ministry has launched a dialogue campaign for youth on the Internet named the “Peace campaign for dialogue”."
The Jakarta Post, Sonata’s blog messages show RI’s terror war is far from over, 17 May 2010 "The police on Sunday blocked a web blog publishing an article said to be written by terrorist fugitive Abdullah Sonata. He called on fellow former convicted terrorists to keep their faith in jihad and not to follow the footsteps of those he said had become anshoru thogut or “the helpers of evil”."
wall Street Journal, zawya.com, Summer Said, WSJ Special Report: Saudi Arabia: Second-Class Citizens, 17 May 2010 " Against the odds and wearing a veil, Saudi female poet Hissa Hilal made the final of hit Arab reality TV talent show Million's Poet. With only her eyes showing, Mrs. Milal performed her poem Chaos of Fatwas in which she denounced those who issue hard-line religious edicts, comparing them to suicide bombers. She then attacked the segregation of the sexes maintained by preachers who "prey like a wolf" on those who seek progress and peace.
"The former journalist's poem sparked controversy in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia and prompted lively exchanges on internet forums. While many viewers hailed her "courage," others called for her death."
"Al Qaeda in Iraq announced the appointment of Nasser al Din Allah Abu Suleiman as the new minister of war for its political front, the Islamic State of Iraq. Abu Suleiman's appointment was announced in a statement released on jihadist Internet forums."
I've just received this, so haven't read it fully yet. It contains a number of references to the role of the Internet in relation to religious and political authority, so will be relevant to regular readers of this blog.
Star, Imam concerned over computer games' effect on children, 12 May 2010 "An imam here has expressed concern over the impact of computer games on children, saying the portrayal of gods as well as heaven and earth in these games could potentially confuse them about the concept of the hereafter."
Denis MacEoin, rightsidenews.com, Anwar al-Awlaki: "I Pray that Allah Destroys America" 12 May 2010 "We will implement the rule of God on earth by the tip of the sword."[1] These words are among many coming from the pen and tongue of one of Islamic terrorism's leading proponents. Anwar al-Awlaki (Anwar Nasser Abdullah al-'Awlaqi) is not as well known in the West as Osama bin Laden, but for growing numbers of radical and radicalizing Muslims, he is a beacon."
AFP: Qaeda in Iraq names new 'war minister': SITE "The US-based SITE Intelligence Group service said that the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), the branch of Al-Qaeda in the country, named him in a statement posted on jihadist Internet forums.
""The new War Minister is identified as al-Nasser Lideen Illah Abu Suleiman, 'The Supporter for the Faith of Allah, Abu Suleiman'," it reported."
"El Aroud was known as one of the most prominent internet jihadists in Europe, urging Muslims to take up arms against the West in the name of radical Islam.
"She was sentenced to eight years and received a 5,000-euro (6,400- dollar) fine, along with her second husband, Moez Garsallaoui, who was tried in absentia, the Belga news agency reported."
also see AFP/Dawn.com, Three leaders of Al Qaeda cell jailed in Belgium, 11 May 2010 "Ms Aroud, who was acquitted a few years ago when an extremist group went on trial in Belgium, oversaw Internet websites from Belgium and Switzerland calling for “holy war”, the court said in its findings. She had told the court she was “opposed to terrorism but in favour of ‘jihad’”."
MEMRI, The Islamonline Schism, 10 May 2010 "The Al-Balagh Society for the Service of Islam on the Internet, a Qatari association that owns Islamonline.net, recently decided to reorganize the popular Islamic website and to transfer supervision of its content and technology, as well as its administration, from its Cairo-based editors to the association's main headquarters in Doha. In response, some 300 of the website's Cairo employees who faced layoffs as a result of this decision launched a strike."
Pepe Escobar, Asia Times, The American Taliban are coming, 11 May 2010 "Shahzad fits the profile: young, globalized and addicted to a fantasy - the virtual ummah (Muslim community). He apparently did make the conceptual leap from idealizing the ummah on the Internet to actually feeling the irresistible urge to act on the ground. Like virtually every neo-jihadi - from Dhiren Barot (who planned to bomb the New York Stock Exchange) to shy underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab - he broke communication with his family. As a Pakistani-American he was already a living exercise in deterritorialization." Op-ed. Escobar wrote Obama Does Globalistan, which I have yet to read.
"The losses were recorded at RM1.4bil last year, compared to RM1.2bil previously. The local software market is growing, the BSA pointed out, but the illegal-software industry is keeping pace."
Brian Whitaker, al-bab, Blocking Skype in Yemen, 9 May 2010 "Yemen has joined the list of Arab countries trying to stop people making cheap phone calls over the internet. According to the Yemen Times, blocking of Skype was introduced earlier this year at the request of TeleYemen to protect the revenue it gets from international calls."
Scott Shane and Souad Mekhennet, NYTimes.com, Anwar al-Awlaki - From Condemning Terror to Preaching Jihad, 9 May 2010 "His mix of scripture and vitriol has helped lure young Muslims into a dozen plots. He cheered on the Fort Hood gunman and had a role in prompting the attempted airliner bombing on Dec. 25, intelligence officials say. And last week, Faisal Shahzad, who is charged in the attempted bombing in Times Square, told investigators that Mr. Awlaki’s prolific online lectures urging jihad as a religious duty helped inspire him to act."
"JC Butler, the co-founder and managing director of Dubizzle, said the company had spent the past nine months building several features that would allow advertisements to be automatically cross-listed in English and Arabic."
Tony Glover, The National, Middle East is making the grade in e-learning, 6 May 2010 "Middle East students in higher education are becoming increasingly demanding of the technology used in teaching. Research by the US-based O’Reilly Radar reveals that the highest age demographic of Middle East users of the social networking website Facebook is between 15 and 25 years old.
"Many in this group are students who expect academic environments that allow the same level of interactivity and collaboration as that available on Facebook, YouTube or MySpace."
"Net regulator Icann has switched on a system that allows full web addresses that contain no Latin characters."
Also see ICANN blog, First IDN ccTLDs now available "Today the first three production non-Latin top-level domains were placed in the DNS root zone. This means they are live! Here is one newly enabled domain with a functional website that works right now: وزارة-الأتصالات.مصر
Don't forget that you can pick up a (very) condensed version of this blog at Twitter: @garybunt. I generally update it daily with key words from this blog.
Hamad Al-Majid, Asharq Alawsat, Saudis to Fund Sufi Channel, 28 Apr 2010 "With funding from a number of Saudi and Gulf businessmen, the Sufis have decided to start a television war by launching a satellite television channel that aims to find an audience among Sufis, while also targeting members of other sects. Sheikh Alaa Abul-Azayem, the head of the Sufi Azayemiya order in Egypt said that this channel is set to be launched soon, and that it aims to address the "deluge" of new satellite channels that are financed by Gulf States and Saudi Arabia and that are controlled by "Salafist and Wahabi extremists and fundamentalists" according to the well known almesryoon website."
"The first of Maktoob’s sites that should have been shut down first is ‘Helwa’. I have been monitoring the website for academic research for a long time, one thing I am sure of; there is hardly any education of women going on there, notes Iqbal Tamimi."
arabnews.com, Crown prince calls for more e-books on Islam, 3 May 2010 "Crown Prince Sultan, deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation, chaired a meeting of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs here on Sunday and emphasized the need to publish more e-books and establish e-libraries."
Rachelle Kliger, themedialine.org, Digital Books Leave Arabs Cold, 3 May 2010 "Jalal Abdallah, managing director of Arabic E-Book, an online store for digital books in Arabic, said the most popular books sold on his site deal with culture and politics, while books on religion rank at the bottom of the list."
Reuters, Failed New York bomb puts Pakistan under spotlight, 4 May 2010 "Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Taliban Movement of Pakistan, has claimed responsibility for the failed bombing and its leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, appeared in videos on the Internet on Sunday threatening suicide attacks on major U.S. cities."
The latter site gives this description: "Journey into America is equal parts anthropological research, listening tour, and travelogue. Whereas Ahmed's previous book took the reader into homes, schools, and mosques in the Muslim world, his new quest takes us into the heart of America and its Muslim communities. It is absolutely essential reading for anyone trying to make sense of America today."
gazafreedommarch.org
Waqar Hussain, AFP, Pakistanis create rival Muslim Facebook, 28 May 2010 "Pakistanis outraged with Facebook over "blasphemous" caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed have created a spin-off networking site that they dream can connect the world's 1.6 billion Muslims.
Ahmad Rafay Alam, The News International, The Facebook shame, 21 May 2010 "One thing about this entire banning Facebook ado is the level of organisation displayed across the country. I may not agree with what they have managed to do, but I do appreciate that they could use Facebook (as many did) to organise their protests. Today I learn that the women's wing of the Jamat-e-Islami is organising a protest against Facebook. Never mind that it has just been reported that a teenager was raped for four months in Lahore, the ladies of the JI (women's wing) have something to protest on this sunny May day.
