Don’t fall in love with a Dane

Why to be mindful of the rigorous qualifications required to marry Danish before you take the plunge, A dip into the Gulf of the 70s through some unopened letters, and twitter stats that don't lie.

This mixed royal marriage where Greek mingles with Dane, would surely not have been subjected to the same scrutiny that commoners' foreign spouse's must stand the test of.

Ana Naddoush [2]

Why you should check if you're up to par for the rigorous Dane-test to marry a national before you've fallen too deep into Scandinavian waters. A new immigration law from November 2010 has tightened the already very strict rules. With the old law it was very difficult to get married to a foreign spouse if you were younger than 24 (a law enforced to stop forced marriages) but now it’s just difficult for everyone.

Mich cafe [3]

Dad’s 38-year-old Gulf letters

Unopened letters that have survived a time-warp of some 40 years come to our notice here courtesy of an expatriate daughter who stopped off in Beirut while her father took up residence in the Gulf for his legal career in the mid -70s; she invites us to share the intimate collection of a Gulf state experience from the 70s. We are treated to how some things have not changed (take the heat and the satellite TV) and others radically have. Remember, this was pre-internet age. Poignant not least because they bear the promise of what more adventures and recollections might have been shared had this experienced panned out to span more of this man's retirement days in a career resurrected in the Arabian climes of the Gulf. "What the envelope contains are the last four letters I received from my father, Esa, between 30 October 1973 and 1 December 1973 -- four days before he was killed by a drunken driver in Bahrain." A father's unwitting final words to his daughter: " Remember that your Daddy is constantly thinking of you and in your future, bright and successful may it be… Nothing will make me happier than to know that you are progressing and doing well in your work."

Kovas Boguta [4]

Arab Mind Maps of a new order

Experts say Egypt is the crystal ball in which the Arab world sees its future. Twitter mapping of the region that maps the new wave of people voices sweeping the region. We've had satellite views of a nation or region now we have social network maps that tell a whole lot about the new players on the world map and certainly taking over the Middle East. Take a look and see what all the structures represent in communicative terms. "The lump on the left is dominated by journalists, NGO and foreign policy types; it seems nearly gafted on, and goes through an intermediary buffer layer before making contact with the true Egyptian activists on the ground."'

Blogs of War [5]

Tracking Algeria

Does what it says on the label. Here's how far we've advanced in people monitoring devices that with this program we can watch the tweets stream for different regions under threat from war blogs This online tool was first created to monitor the Egyptian revolution were so popular so this innovator has expanded the coverage significantly.