Getting married in Saudi Arabia, a how-to-guide. Of course, Saudi isn’t a “normal” country.
Showing all posts tagged Saudi Arabia
Keeping girls “pure”
Saudi Arabia is one of the most gender-separated nations on earth. The idea, suggested by some leading Saudi bloggers, to “segregate the blogrolls on blogs for the links of female and male Saudi bloggers”, is a sign of religious insanity. One female blogger explains: …A number of bloggers have separated the blogrolls and posted them…
Watching the censorship debate
My speech today at the Global Voices internet censorship conference in Budapest was streamed live across the world (starts at one minute): Webcast powered by Ustream.TV The event was liveblogged, too.
Towards a total human rights outlook
I gave the following speech at the Global Voices Citizen Media Summit 2008 in Budapest today: NGO’s and on-the ground activists: Defending the Voices How can NGOs seeking to advance freedom of expression most effectively work with on-the-ground free speech activists to combat censorship? As a journalist, author and blogger living in Sydney, Australia, the…
Killing “them”
Who is really assisting the killing of the world’s Third World population? Yes, the United Kingdom: A controversial deal with Saudi Arabia catapulted Britain to the top of the world arms export league last year, as UK firms won a record …£10bn in orders from overseas, official figures show. The figure amounts to a third…
The Left should oppose repression
I’ve spent most of my professional life skewering the unhinged tendencies of the Right (not least debunking its support for Israeli violence). Sadly, some on the Left are equally ideological and blind to their own propaganda. Western support for Cuba remains fairly strong on the Left, despite the vast evidence that Fidel Castro ran a…
How not to progress democracy
Washington is dedicated to… human rights, we’re constantly told (well, yes, as long as energy reserves and arms sales are sorted first). Exhibit one: A group of Democratic senators wants to make a massive arms sale to Saudi Arabia contingent on getting cheaper oil, reports AFP. “We are saying to the Saudis that, if you…
Iraq, the Kurds and where to from here
I was recently interviewed by Peshawa Muhammed of the Kurdistani Nwe Newspaper, the publication of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Iraqi Kurdistan (Noam Chomsky was also interviewed recently.) The article ran on May 4: Peshawa Muhammed: Five years on, how do you assess the current US policy in Iraq? Which option do you think…