Desperate in Saudi

It's official: Satellite airing of Desperate Housewives has neither made Saudi Arabia more liberal nor its media more open... instead media laws have simply been 'tweaked'.

According to Beirut News editors responsible for offending content are now fined from their own salaries, local ministries in cities 'track journalists' while ministry 'operatives' invite those with a pattern of unacceptable opinions into the office for a chat., or to ask "after their families."

The article makes the point that contracts for Hollywood rights and freedom of expression are two quite different things.

An incredible collection of images from Damascus over the past 150 years, including a water fountain from 1910, Aleppo’s Umayed Mosque in 1916, a portrait of the first American ambassador to Syria, taken in 1859.

Here the Emirates Economist shines a spotlight on the practice of "Adhl", where the father or male relative of an unmarried women violates Islamic law by forcibly keeping her single... all the time collecting her salary.

The post mentions the backlash against the practice after Saudi Arabia secured a position on the United Nations Women's Rights Council. According to the post although conservative judges support Adhl, it is not permitted under sharia law.

A girl in Lebanon goes on a major rant about hair - and the "authorities" who say it can't or shouldn't be curly, or however you want it to be. Curl's are apparently 'faux pas' and not 'hip'. Humorous, if perhaps one for the ladies...