There is a lot of disagreement about ‘colour in Islam’. Some colours appear to be recommended or forbidden. But this often differs between Quran and Hadith and different Islamic sects. There is very rich use of colour in arts and crafts in Islamic cultural traditions and modern visual creativity.
Pan-Arab colours
White, black, green and red, dominate the flags of Arab states.
Green
Green (Arabic: أخضر) is considered the traditional colour of Islam.
The Arabic word for “greenness” is mentioned several times in the Quran, describing the state of the inhabitants of paradise. Reclining on green Cushions and rich Carpets of beauty — Sura 55, verse 76.Upon them will be green garments of fine silk and heavy brocade, and they will be adorned with bracelets of silver; and their Lord will give to them to drink of a Water Pure and Holy. — Sura 76, verse 21.Al-Khidr (“The Green One”) is a Qur’anic figure who met and traveled with Moses.
The Green Dome, traditional site of the tomb of Muhammad, was painted green on the order of sultan Abdul Hamid II (r. 1876–1909).
Green was used as the colour of the banners of the historical Fatimid Caliphate. The Umayyads fought under green and gold banners. Green is also used in several national flags as a symbol of Islam. These include: Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Comoros, Iran, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia. and Sri Lanka.
Black
The Abbasids chose black (blue) and fought under black banners.
It is often worn by Shi’ite Muslims, who mourn the death of Husayn ibn Ali, killed at the Battle of Karbala. Black cloaks are worn by the ayatollahs, the Shi’a clergy. In many Shi’a countries, a black turban is worn only by male sayids, men who descend from Muhammad through his daughter Fatimah and his son-in-law Ali.
Symbol of modesty in some Muslim cultures. It is the colour of the chador worn by devout Iranian Shi’ite women
Black is considered the colour of mourning in Western and Mediterranean countries. But this is seen as a Christian tradition.
White
The colour white symbolizes purity and peace.
Many Muslims wear the colour white when they attend Friday prayers and when performing sacred rites of pilgrimage.
In Sunni tradition, Muhammad wore a white kufi (head cap) with a black amaana (turban).
The Umayyads chose white for their battle standards when they fought the Abbassid during the Caliphate period
It has appeared on many Islamic flags since.
Red
Has no religious significance.
Some claim the hadith forbids the wearing of pure red clothing, it should be mixed with patches of other colours
Various countries on the Persian Gulf have chosen red flags
Blue and turquoise
many Islamic towns in the middle east, tend to have blue color? for example, the also many houses in sana city of yemen also painted the windows and the doors in blue color? even the villages in santorini Island of greece also painted in blue and white?………..the nazar bonjuk of turkey also in the blue color. Do you think is it possible that they painted the houses in blue, blue green, white and light yellow is because those soft colors are counteract the high color of the heat desert?
Turquoise
The colour turquoise greenish blue, has a special cultural place in Islam, though apparently not clear religious significance.
decoration of mosques and other buildings in Middle East: blue town of Chefchaouen in Morocco, blue town of Sidi bu Said in Tunisia, blue mosque and blue rooms in Topkapi palace of Turkey, blue in mosques of Isfahan and Shiraz in Iran
used in coats of arms, so that they could not possibly be mistaken for their Muslim opponents in the heat of battle.
Yellow
The yellow colour of gold symbolizes wisdom.
Brown
Brown is often believed to symbolize purity and peace.
Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book from an ordered stack of paper sheets that are folded together into sections or sometimes left as a stack of individual sheets. The stack is then bound together along one edge by either sewing with thread through the folds or by a layer of flexible adhesive. For protection, the bound stack is either wrapped in a flexible cover or attached to stiff boards. Finally, an attractive cover is adhered to the boards and a label with identifying information is attached to the covers along with additional decoration. Book artists or specialists in book decoration can greatly expand the previous explanation to include book like objects of visual art with high value and artistic merit of exceptional quality in addition to the book’s content of text and illustrations.
Bookbinding is a specialized trade that relies on basic operations of measuring, cutting, and gluing. A finished book depends on a minimum of about two dozen operations to complete but sometimes more than double that according to the specific style and materials. All operations have a specific order and each one relies on accurate completion of the previous step with little room for back tracking. An extremely durable binding can be achieved by using the best hand techniques and finest materials when compared to a common publisher’s binding that falls apart after normal use.
Bookbinding combines skills from other trades such as paper and fabric crafts, leather work, model making, and graphic arts. It requires knowledge about numerous varieties of book structures along with all the internal and external details of assembly. A working knowledge of the materials involved is required. A book craftsman needs a minimum set of hand tools but with experience will find an extensive collection of secondary hand tools and even items of heavy equipment that are valuable for greater speed, accuracy, and efficiency.
History of bookbinding
Decorative binding with figurehead of a 12th Century manuscript – Liber Landavensis.
9th Century Qur’an in Reza Abbasi Museum
Sammelband of three alchemical treatises, bound in Strasbourg by Samuel Emmel ca.1568, showing metal clasps and leather covering of boards Western books from the fifth century onwards[citation needed] were bound between hard covers, with pages made from parchment folded and sewn on to strong cords or ligaments that were attached to wooden boards and covered with leather. Since early books were exclusively handwritten on handmade materials, sizes and styles varied considerably, and there was no standard of uniformity. Early and medieval codices were bound with flat spines, and it was not until the fifteenth century that books began to have the rounded spines associated with hardcovers today.[9] Because the vellum of early books would react to humidity by swelling, causing the book to take on a characteristic wedge shape, the wooden covers of medieval books were often secured with straps or clasps. These straps, along with metal bosses on the book’s covers to keep it raised off the surface that it rests on, are collectively known as furniture.[10]
The earliest surviving European bookbinding is the St Cuthbert Gospel of about 700, in red goatskin, now in the British Library, whose decoration includes raised patterns and coloured tooled designs. Very grand manuscripts for liturgical rather than library use had covers in metalwork called treasure bindings, often studded with gems and incorporating ivory relief panels or enamel elements. Very few of these have survived intact, as they have been broken up for their precious materials, but a fair number of the ivory panels have survived, as they were hard to recycle; the divided panels from the Codex Aureus of Lorsch are among the most notable. The 8th century Vienna Coronation Gospels were given a new gold relief cover in about 1500, and the Lindau Gospels (now Morgan Library, New York) have their original cover from around 800.[11]
Luxury medieval books for the library had leather covers decorated, often all over, with tooling (incised lines or patterns), blind stamps, and often small metal pieces of furniture. Medieval stamps showed animals and figures as well as the vegetal and geometric designs that would later dominate book cover decoration. Until the end of the period books were not usually stood up on shelves in the modern way. The most functional books were bound in plain white vellum over boards, and had a brief title hand-written on the spine. Techniques for fixing gold leaf under the tooling and stamps were imported from the Islamic world in the 15th century, and thereafter the gold-tooled leather binding has remained the conventional choice for high quality bindings for collectors, though cheaper bindings that only used gold for the title on the spine, or not at all, were always more common. Although the arrival of the printed book vastly increased the number of books produced in Europe, it did not in itself change the various styles of binding used, except that vellum became much less used.[12]
Up to the early nineteenth century books were hand-bound, sometimes using precious metals such as gold or silver and costly materials, including jewels, to cover valuable books and manuscripts. Book bindings had existed as a functional device for hundreds of years, both to protect the pages and also as an elaborate decorative element, to reflect the value of the contents.
The process of bookbinding began to change with the introduction of mechanical bookbinding techniques in the 1820s. The availability of cheaper materials such as cloth and paper and the faster industrialised process of mechanically-produced paper and steam-powered presses gave rise to a greater volume of books at a lower cost per book. Hand-binding began to wane as a consequence.
Historical forms of binding
Coptic binding: a method of sewing leaves/pages together
Ethiopian binding
Long-stitch bookbinding
Islamic bookcover with a distinctive flap on the back cover that wraps around to the front when the book is closed.
Wooden-board binding
Limp vellum binding
Calf binding (“leather-bound”)
Paper case binding
In-board cloth binding
Cased cloth binding
Bradel binding
Traditional Chinese and Korean bookbinding and Japanese stab binding
Girdle binding
Anthropodermic bibliopegy (rare or fictional) bookbinding in human skin.
Secret Belgian binding (or “criss-cross binding”), invented in 1986, was erroneously identified as a historical method.
Bookbinding is an artistic craft of great antiquity, and at the same time, a highly mechanized industry. The division between craft and industry is not so wide as might at first be imagined. It is interesting to observe that the main problems faced by the mass-production bookbinder are the same as those that confronted the medieval craftsman or the modern hand binder. The first problem is still how to hold together the pages of a book; secondly is how to cover and protect the gathering of pages once they are held together; and thirdly, how to label and decorate the protective cover.[1] Few crafts can give as much satisfaction at all stages as bookbinding—from making a cloth cover for a paperback, or binding magazines and newspapers for storage, or to the ultimate achievement of a fine binding in full leather with handmade lettering and gold tooling.[2]
Before the computer age, the bookbinding trade involved two divisions. First, there was Stationery binding (known as vellum binding in the trade) which deals with making new books to be written into and intended for handwritten entries such as accounting ledgers, business journals, blank books, and guest log books, along with other general office stationery such as note books, manifold books, day books, diaries, portfolios, etc. Second was Letterpress binding which deals with making new books intended to be read from and includes fine binding, library binding, edition binding, and publisher’s bindings.[3] A result of the new bindings is a third division dealing with the repair, restoration, and conservation of old used bindings. With the digital age, personal computers have replaced the pen and paper based accounting that used to drive most of the work in the stationery binding industry.
Today, modern bookbinding is divided between hand binding by individual craftsmen working in a one-room studio shop and commercial bindings mass-produced by high speed machines in a production line factory. There is a broad grey area between the two divisions. The size and complexity of a bindery shop varies with job types, for example, from one of a kind custom jobs, to repair/restoration work, to library rebinding, to preservation binding, to small edition binding, to extra binding, and finally to large run publisher’s binding. There are cases where the printing and binding jobs are combined in one shop. A step up to the next level of mechanization is determined by economics of scale until you reach production runs of ten thousand copies or more in a factory employing a dozen or more workers.
Coptic binding or Coptic sewing comprises methods of bookbinding employed by early Christians in Egypt, the Copts, and used from as early as the 2nd century AD to the 11th century.The term is also used to describe modern bindings sewn in the same style.
Coptic bindings, the first true codices, are characterized by one or more sections of parchment, papyrus, or paper sewn through their folds, and (if more than one section) attached to each other with chain stitch linkings across the spine, rather than to the thongs or cords running across the spine that characterise European bindings from the 8th century onwards. In practice, the phrase “Coptic binding” usually refers to multi-section bindings, while single-section Coptic codices are often referred to as “Nag Hammadi bindings,” after the 13 codices found in 1945 which exemplify the form.
Nag Hammadi bindings
Nag Hammadi bindings were constructed with a textblock of papyrus sheets, assembled into a single section and trimmed along the fore edge after folding to prevent the inner sheets from extending outward beyond the outer sheets. Because the inner sheets were narrower than the outer sheets after trimming, the width of text varied through the textblock, and it is likely that the papyrus was not written on until after it was bound; this, in turn, would have made it a necessity to calculate the number of sheets needed for a manuscript before it was written and bound.[3][4] Covers of Nag Hammadi bindings were limp leather, stiffened with waste sheets of papyrus. The textblocks were sewn with tackets, with leather stays along the inside fold as reinforcement. These tackets also secured the textblock to the covers; on some of the Nag Hammadi bindings, the tackets extended to the outside of the covering leather, while on others the tackets were attached to a strip of leather which served as a spine liner, and which was in turn pasted to the covers.[5] A flap, either triangular or rectangular, extended from the front cover of the book, and was wrapped around the fore edge of the book when closed. Attached to the flap was a long leather thong which was wrapped around the book two or three times, and which served as a clasp to keep the book securely shut.
Multi-section Coptic bindings
Multi-section Coptic bindings had cover boards that were initially composed of layers of papyrus, though by the 4th century, wooden boards were also frequent. Leather covering was also common by the 4th century, and all subsequent Western decorated leather bindings descend from Coptic bindings.
Approximately 120 original and complete Coptic bindings survive in the collections of museums and libraries, though the remnants of as many as 500 Coptic bindings survive.
The few surviving very early European bindings to survive use the Coptic sewing technique, notably the St Cuthbert Gospel in the British Library (c. 698) and the Cadmug Gospels at Fulda (c. 750)
Modern Coptic bindings
Modern Coptic bindings can be made with or without covering leather; if left uncovered, a Coptic binding is able to open 360°. If the leather is omitted, a Coptic binding is non-adhesive, and does not require any glue in its construction.
Artisans and crafters often use coptic binding when creating hand made art journals or other books.
Ethiopian binding
The Ethiopian bookbinding technique is a chain stitch sewing that looks similar to the multi section Coptic binding method. According to J. A. Szirmai, the chain stitch binding dates from about the sixteenth century in Ethiopia. These books typically had paired sewing stations, sewn using two needles for each pair of sewing stations (so if there are 2 holes, use 2 needles…or 6 holes, 6 needles etc.). The covers were wooden and attached by sewing through holes made into edge of the board. Most of these books were left uncovered without endbands.
Japanese Bookbinding
Islamic bookbinding
Case and Bradel binding
A Bradel binding (also called a bonnet or bristol board binding, a German Case binding, or in French as Cartonnage à la Bradel or en gist) is a style of book binding with a hollow back. It most resembles a case binding in that it has a hollow back and visible joint, but unlike a case binding, it is built up on the book. Characteristic of the binding is the material covering the outside boards is separate from the material covering the spine. Many bookbinders consider the Bradel binding to be stronger than a case binding.
This type of binding may be traced to 18th century Germany. The originator is uncertain, but the name comes from a French binder working in Germany, Alexis-Pierre Bradel (also known as Bradel l’ainé or Bradel-Derome). The binding originally appeared as a temporary binding, but the results were durable, and the binding had great success in the nineteenth century.Today, it is most likely to be encountered in photo albums and scrapbooks.
The binding has the advantage of allowing the book to open fully, where traditional leather bindings are too rigid. It is sometimes modified to provide a rounded spine. This lends the appearance of a book where the paper is not suited to spine rounding; this is also to provide a rounded spine to a book too thin for a spine rounding to hold. The binding may also provide an impressive-looking leather spine to a book without incurring the full expense of binding a book in full or partial leather.
United Arab Emirates was established in 1971 as a federation of seven emirates: Abu Dhabi (capital), Dubai, Ajman, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al-Quwain. Each Emirate is governed by an absolute monarch, together they jointly form the Federal Supreme Council. One of the monarchs is selected as President of the UAE.
It has a very ancient civilisation – stone tools from archaeological sites show settlement of people from Africa 130,000 years ago. Trade in cooper from Hajar mountains motivated trade with Iran and Mesopotamia around 3000 years ago. There was constant movement of peoples from Bahrain and Oman. The area of the Al Ain/Buraimi oasis (Tu’am) was an important trading post for camels between the coast and Arabian interior. Islam was established shortly after the hijrah.
Peoples were nomadic dependent on varying mixes of aniumal husbandry, agriculture and hunting. Seasonal movements often led to clashes between groups, but also establishment of seasonal and semi-seasonal settlements.
By the 16thy Century came under the Ottoman Empire. Then Portuguese, English and Dutch forces. Al Qawasim tribe practised piracy against the British. Finally 1892 Exclusive Agreement between British and sheikhs – though abolition of slave trade led to some issues.
19th and early 20th century wealth dependent on pearl industry, but this declined early 1930s with invention of cultured pearls. Oil was discovered in early 1950s, and in commercial quantities in 1958.
After Independence UAE was a strategic ally of the US.
100 activists were jailed during the Arab Spring. In November 2012 UAE outlawed on-line mockery of the government, and attempts to organise public protests through social media.
In 2013 of 9.2 million people, 7.8 million are expatriates (27.15% population Indian, 12.53% Pakistani.)
Videos
Video 1: 50 minutes (first 42 minutes on UAE) produced 2007. Very interesting overview of history with old black and white photos of boats, old cities and people, and the souq markets. Less romantic than the tourist videos – shows health problems, discussion of impact of oil and situation of immigrants. Sees UAE as very standardised and ‘missing in soul’ except for Fujairah.
Video 2: 8 minute video produced in. Introduction seems a part spoof of the tourist video below ‘Imagine a land where reality actually outstrips fantasy…Imagine a city that has emerged almost over night like a mirage out of the desert built by the sweat of indentured labour.Imagine a place like no other’. Smoochy music. But then rest is a fairly straight history. Airports. Oil and construction.
‘200,000 man [sic] has lived and thrived’. Desert, fertile oases, nature, industry… Lots of ‘Arabian’ film music. ‘In a world of beautiful places you could say that UAE has more than its fair share…a celebration of the big, the bold and the inspired’ etc etc etc
Abu Dhabi
‘energy and ambition’. Pearl industry declined 1930s because of synthetic pearls. 1950s discovered oil. Zayed is a’visionary’ for rising architectural statements.
Rubh al-Khali (empty quarter) dunes 400 metre dunes ‘sculpted by wind’ 600,000 sq km emptiness – winds and textures. birthplace of Islam. Now like a car track.
Jebel Hafit mountain 1,000 metres with extensive network of caves and ‘world’s greatest driving road up to it used by international cyclists.
El Hafit graves 3,000 years BC beehive design.
Rubh al Khali
Jebel Hafit
White marble Sk Zayed mosque for 40,000 worshippers.
3bn USD Emirates palace hotel ‘reflects hues and shades of Arabian desert’.
Sk Zayed mosque
Emirates palace hotel
Abu Dhabi Golf championships.
Yas Island Formula 1 ‘can come by your own yacht and watch from room in Yas Hotel.
Bani Yas Island conservation Arabian Wildlife park. Dolphins, dugongs.
Liwa oasis ‘splashes of green signify life, crops and man’. Tourism 5 star hotels. ‘tourists who want to experience desert life in a more comfortable way.’ eg ballooning.
El-Ayn oasis ‘garden city’ 7,000 years old. Ancient falaj irrigation system. El Jahili fort. El-Ayn palace. Now 380,000 people.
Plan Abu Dhabi 2030 initiative – largest commitment in the world to renewable energy: Mazdar solar energy.
Masdar solar energy
Dubai
Burj Khalifa
Palm Jumeria
Burj al Arab Hotel
Waterway established it as centre of commerce, divides into 2 ‘soul of city’. Use small wooden boats. Development of less than 20 years. Government aimed at new Hong Kong or Shanghai, and attract tourism.
Ras al Khor wildlife wetland sanctuary – flamingos.
Sk Zayed road and Dubai metro above highway.
Burj Khalifa tallest man-made structure in world. 1.5 bn USD.
Burj al Arab hotel tallest all-suite hotel built on a small island based on traditional dow sail design. 2004. Cannot see it unless you can afford a room.
Cruise ship to see the Gulf.
Palm Jumeira – increases waterside real estate
The world – man-made islands representing countries also wildlife sancuary
Port and harbour – free zone and containers with cranes
Golf including ‘Dubai Ladies’ Masters’
Hata. 2 watch towers and Juma mosque. Cool refuge from heat – breathtaking hajar mountains
Sharjah
was vital stop over for aircraft from Britain to Asia and Australia
touches Arabian gulf and Arabian sea so strategic
Museums and mosques UNESCO cultural capital of Arab world
Gold and Blue Souqs
Support services to offshore oil and international container terminal
University of Sharjah brings together cultural and Islamic values. American University co-education.
Fishing harbour
Mangrove marsh for endangered species
Diba fort occupied by Portuguese
Sharjah
Fujairah
The most historic emirate – but trying to ‘modernise’
rugged untouched mountains
home of UAE 16th Century mosque like West African
Fujairah fort and surrounding village restored using traditional materials and methods with Indian architect
hotels on palm beaches
key international shipping lanes
Fujairah Free Zone !!!!
Ajman
smallest emirate. extensive building in recent years
fort
Umm al_Quwain (mother of two powers)
Blue green lagoon and wildlife
Tel Abrak archaorological site. Was inhabited for 2000 years on coast before sea retreated in 300BC.
Umm Al Quwain Free Zone
Ras al Khaima (top of the tent)
From mountains, deserts and ancient cultural sites to beaches, mangroves, water sports and more,Ras Al Khaimah is a truly unforgettable Arabian experience. Tourist board website
inhabited many thousands of years
reinventing self for tourism
mangrove wetlands with flamingos
Hajjar mountains – camel farms and gorges with snow. highest peak 1100 metres.
isolated villages perched on rugged outcrops
‘What to do in Ras Al Khaimah’
Research on players from Money Rush
Shkh Zayed 1918 – 2004
50 minutes (late 1950s??) Evocative portrait in Black and White film – if a rather patronising and romanticised BBC documentary that shows its age. Provided a lot of material for sketches of Zayed, falcons and desert driving.
“Sheikha Fatima is one of the women rights supporters in the country. She is the supreme chairperson of the family development foundation.She significantly contributed to the foundation of the first women’s organization in 1976, the Abu Dhabi society for the awakening of women. She was also instrumental in a nationwide campaign towards girls’ education”
Shkha Fatima:
heads the United Arab Emirate’s women federation, which she founded in 1975.
president of motherhood and childhood supreme council.
At the end of the 1990s, she publicly announced that women should be member of the federal national council of the Emirates.
supports efforts concerning adult literacy and provision of free public education to girls. Annually an exclusive award named the Sheikha Fatima Award for Excellence has been presenting in her honour since 2005.It is awarded for the outstanding academic performance and commitment to the environment and world citizenship of the female recipients. It entitles winners to a full-tuition scholarship and extends across schools in the Middle East and was expanded to India as well in 2010.
Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak Award for Woman Athletes has been given to female athletes.”
1997 UNICEF, WHO, UNIFEM, UNFP and UNFPA awarded Sheikha Fatima for her significant efforts for women’s rights.UNIFEM stated “she is the champion of women’s right.”
2009 awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order by Tunisian president Zine el Abidine ben Ali for her contributions to raise the status of Arab women.
UNESCO Marie Curie Medal for her efforts in education, literacy and women’s rights, being the third international and the first Arab recipient of the award.
“My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel”
Sheikha Sanaa Bint Mana Al Maktoum was the daughter of Sheikh Mana Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, famous for the reform movement in Dubai in 1938–1939. A former education minister described as a “moderniser” by Lienhardt in Shaikhdoms of Eastern Arabia and an “enlightened philanthropist” by Michael Field in The Merchants: The Big Business Families of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. In the 1930s Mani had his young daughter taught to read and write, then an extremely rare thing for women.
Her father, along with key figures from trading families in Dubai, was deported after a civil war with the Ruler Sheikh Saeed II bin Maktum and his son Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum (who later became the Ruler). The cause of this civil war in Dubai was their call for more people’s right and more participation in the ruling of the emirate as well as more nationalistic approach to education and commercial management. Many of the key commercial family members were killed and tortured.
After her father was deported, Sheikha Sana was forced, at the age of 10, to marry Sheikh Saeed bin Maktoum’s second son, Khalifa. She was the mother of Mana and Rashid. Her son Mana was the head of the Ruler’s Office for more than 20 years during the time of Rashid Bin Saeed.
Sheikha Sana was famous for her love of poetry and support of the local intelligencia. She was, herself, a poet who demonstrated her sadness with repression for what happened to her family. She lived as a key woman in Dubai and her majlis was one of the key gatherings in which, occasionally, men also visited.
23 minute BBC documentary on Abu Dhabi showing new working lives: Emirati woman pilot, eco city, Emirati woman entrepreneur and Indonesian woman taxi driver.
42 minutes US promotional video promoting technology of Dubai construction industry.
Domestic Worker’s rights
Voice of America article
Voice of America 2014 article
UAE Domestic workers rights
13 minute – early (2006?) US investigative video from ABC News contrasting the OTT luxury and prices of the hotels like Burj el Arab – interviews with Western enthusiasts, managers and promoters (including an admiring Richard Branson and consultant was Bill Clinton paid thousands of dollars) – and billionaire autocracy power of Shk Rashid (billion dollars spent on horses) ‘no end to boom town spending’ on ski mountains etc. BUT treatment of people building it all – living in virtual enslavement in labour camps – though after the film were reported attempts to enforce the labour laws.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCaVQeiA2aI
12 minute Frontline World video by Mimi Chakarova about Dubai tax haven – men outnumber women by 3-1’capitalism on steroids’. Starts with harrowing story of sex trafficking by journalist who has worked on this issue worldwide. But then goes on to how some of prostitutes are willing ‘businesswomen’ ‘hypnotised’ by the amount of money they can earn and the lavish environment. Chinese are the cheapest, then African and Eastern Europeans. Middle Eastern most expensive. Some is ‘no sex money’ on Internet. Prostitution is safer than many other places. Unregulated but in government-approved tourist bars. But very sad. And the journalist had been watched and followed, and the authorities tried to take all the tapes.
46 minute British ITV video (2007?) by Piers Morgan about possibilities of impact of credit crunch.
UAE first woman fighter pilot
UAE has first woman fighter pilot
Mariam Hassan Salem al-Mansouri has become the first Emirati woman to hold the rank of fighter pilot in the UAE Air Force and may be the first Gulf woman to enjoy the title.
Captain Mansouri, 35, pilots an F-16 Fighting Falcon, a single-engine multirole fighter aircraft, and is a squadron commander.
With backing from her family, Mansouri, who had always wanted to fly fighter jets for her country, joined the UAE Air Force in 2007 when authorities first announced they were accepting volunteers.
During her career, Mansouri has taken part in a significant number of the aerial maneuvers both inside and outside the UAE alongside allied and friendly states.
Emirati Vice President and Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashed al-Maktoum honored Mansouri for her achievement and presented her with a medal as well as the Mohamed Bin Rashed award for distinguished governmental performance.
Oman is the oldest independent state in the Arab world- at its peak in the 19th century the Omani Empire stretched down the east African coast and vied with Portugal and Britain for influence in the Gulf and Indian Ocean. Most Omanis follow the Ibadi sect of Islam – the only remaining expression of Kharijism, which was created as a result of one of the first schisms within the religion.
Under Sultan Said bin Taimur (ruled 1932-1970) was very isolated, run along feudal lines with internal rebellion. After deposing his father in 1970, Sultan Qaboos Bin Said opened up the country, embarked on economic reforms and boosted spending on health, education and welfare. He has moved to increase popular participation in decision making. There is little religious violence. But protests in 2011 demanding reforms were dispersed by riot police, and the government began a crackdown on Internet criticism the following year.
Oman is heavily dependent on oil; but compared to its neighbours Oman is a modest producer. Agriculture and fishing are important sources of income. A diversification drive includes tourism (see the many You Tube promotion videos). Oman’s attractions include a largely-untouched coastline, mountains, deserts and the burgeoning capital Muscat, with its forts, palaces and old walled city. The focus is on modern art and architecture building on the traditional appearance, rather than the futuristic high-rise architecture of many other countries in the Gulf. Oman is developing the health sector. A policy of Omanisation aims to replace expatriate workers with locals.
Oman has a strategically important position at the mouth of the Gulf. It is a long-standing US ally, not least because of its steady relations with Iran. There is a free trade agreement between the two countries.