A few nuggets of news for you all today:
1. Eid holidays have been announced. They are Saturday - Wednesday for the Government sector, and Sunday - Thursday for the Private sector. Both groups of workers returning to work on Saturday 26th September.
2. Mains water will be turned off on the 3rd and 4th days of Eid. If Eid is called on Sunday, then I guess the water will be turned off Tuesday and Wednesday, or maybe Wednesday and Thursday. the effected areas are: Muscat, Muttrah, Al Ameraat, Al Khyuwair, Madinat Qaboos, Al Shatti, Baushar from 9am on the 3rd day of Eid to 9pm on the 4th day of Eid. The reason given was to fix a pump at the Al Gubra station.
3. Oman public schools have delayed the start of school AGAIN. Here is the official notice (in Arabic) from the Ministry of Education. Perhaps they should be renamed the Ministry of not Educating. The new dates are now as follows:
Class 1-4 open date 7/11
Class 5-7 31/10
Class 8-10 17/10
Class 11-12 open date 3/10
The reason? H1N1.
4. The plans for the new Al-Amerat - Wadi Adai road have been floating around the Internet for a few days. The new road looks like it'll be a lot better. Also, the back road from Al Amerat to Al Khuwair is progressing as well. Expect land values in Al Amerat to increase once the two roads are open.
5. Oman Air took delivery of their first A330-200 recently, and it landed in Seeb yesterday. The plane is setup for Business Class and Economy Class,with a total passenger capacity of 216 (20 Business class, 196 cattle class).
6. 2 more people died in Oman from H1N1 - bringing the official toll to 18. No guessing what the unofficial toll is, but compared to the infection rate, its really nothing to get too worried about. The massive over-reaction from the Government to cancel Muscat Festival, and continue delaying the start of School is a bit heavy-handed in my opinion. In the same vein - they should cancel all football matches, gatherings at large mosques, close down all the malls. Where do you draw the line? I'm sorry but this is just nonsense.
7. Oman have joined the International Atomic Energy Agency with a view to obtaining Nuclear Power Generation technology for the Sultanate. The No. 2 chap from the Foreign Ministry, Sayyid Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidy was in Vienna yesterday to give a speech to the IAEA's 53rd general conference session.
8. In a final nod towards the Ramadan driving bonanza - I counted 24 seperate accidents that occured between the ministries road and the 18th November St in the last few weeks. On top of that, there have been 7 major accidents that I've counted on the SQ highway between Azaiba and Al Khuwair. It'll be interesting to see The Week's reported figures on traffic accidents in the sultanate during Ramadan.
Thats all for today. Have a great week off everyone :)
le fin
Wednesday, 16 September 2009
Monday, 14 September 2009
Just a quickie: Muscat Festival 2010 cancelled
Just a quick story here for local fans of the Muscat Festival (of parking really really badly).
Whatever will they cancel next?
"Sultan bin Hamdoun al Harthy, Chairman of Muscat Municipality and head of the Muscat Festival's organising committee, has announced the cancellation of Muscat Festival 2010. In a statement to Oman News Agency, Al Harthy attributed the cancellation to a government decision to limit instances of public gatherings as a preventive measure to combat the spread of H1N1 virus. Al Harthy noted that Muscat Festival, which is growing into a grand annual event, attracts thousands of visitors from different countries. Hence its cancellation in 2010 would ensure the protection of public health and safety".
Whatever will they cancel next?
Graffiti in Salalah
Just a brief blog for today. Recently I popped down to Salalah for a bit of R&R. Whilst walking around in a village down there I came across some derelict houses, and was amused to find some graffiti inside the old buildings. I even had my camera with me, so I snapped off a few pictures to share:
It appears that only black and red spray paint was available to these fans of hip hop. 2 Pac died.... how long ago? I don't know. Perhaps the graffiti is older than it looks. Either way, I thought it was quite funny to see down in Salalah, and am sharing it with you all now!
In the first picture, under "Deathrow" there is some Arabic... can anyone tell me what it says?
le fin
It appears that only black and red spray paint was available to these fans of hip hop. 2 Pac died.... how long ago? I don't know. Perhaps the graffiti is older than it looks. Either way, I thought it was quite funny to see down in Salalah, and am sharing it with you all now!
In the first picture, under "Deathrow" there is some Arabic... can anyone tell me what it says?
le fin
How does MBC make money?
I've been watching MBC 4 and MBC 2 lately. For those of you that don't know what MBC is, its a free TV station which is available here in the Middle East. They have MBC 1, 2, 3, 4, Action, MAX, MBC + Drama, MBC Persia and Al Arabiya. The English-language channels are:
MBC 2 (movies)
MBC 3 (sometimes english, but its a kids tv chanel)
MBC 4 (Seems to be entirely devoted to women's programs)
MBC Action (Action tv shows, some movies)
MBC Max (movies)
MBC Persia (Usually older tv shows from the 90's and some movies)
The Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC) is a Saudi-run company broadcasting a mix of free-to-air news and entertainment channels via satellite. It was launched on September 18, 1991 as the Middle East Broadcasting Corporation, initially broadcasting from London in the United Kingdom. Since 2002, its headquarters have been in Dubai Media City, United Arab Emirates.
So now you all know what MBC is. So now I raise the question - How do they make money? There is rarely any adverts on the channels - they just advertise their own programming in the commercial breaks. Occasionally Coca Cola will run an advert, but not very frequently, and I've been watching closely lately during prime time in the evenings and have failed to see a single commercial. Not one. How does a broadcasting company continue to operate with no advertising income?
The network is rumoured to be owned by the Saudi Royal family, but again, why burn money on something that just isn't generating any cash, and broadcasts in English? I reckon it's a big money laundering operation for some shady gun-runners! Or something. But seriously, running a TV network with 9 24 hour channels (ok MBC + Drama is a subscription channel available via Showtime) costs some serious cash - why would that much cash be burned up?
Just as an off-shoot to this blog, I thought I'd just talk briefly about what is going on with English Language TV here in the middle east.
There were, until very recently, 2 major English-language pay-tv subscription services - Orbit, and Showtime. Showtime have recently bought-out Orbit, and thus now have a monopoly on English-Language subscription services in the Middle East.
But, there are actually quite a few decent English language stations available for free:
But, coming back to MBC. How exactly are they making any money on this network? Do they even have a marketing team in place?
le fin
MBC 2 (movies)
MBC 3 (sometimes english, but its a kids tv chanel)
MBC 4 (Seems to be entirely devoted to women's programs)
MBC Action (Action tv shows, some movies)
MBC Max (movies)
MBC Persia (Usually older tv shows from the 90's and some movies)
The Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC) is a Saudi-run company broadcasting a mix of free-to-air news and entertainment channels via satellite. It was launched on September 18, 1991 as the Middle East Broadcasting Corporation, initially broadcasting from London in the United Kingdom. Since 2002, its headquarters have been in Dubai Media City, United Arab Emirates.
So now you all know what MBC is. So now I raise the question - How do they make money? There is rarely any adverts on the channels - they just advertise their own programming in the commercial breaks. Occasionally Coca Cola will run an advert, but not very frequently, and I've been watching closely lately during prime time in the evenings and have failed to see a single commercial. Not one. How does a broadcasting company continue to operate with no advertising income?
The network is rumoured to be owned by the Saudi Royal family, but again, why burn money on something that just isn't generating any cash, and broadcasts in English? I reckon it's a big money laundering operation for some shady gun-runners! Or something. But seriously, running a TV network with 9 24 hour channels (ok MBC + Drama is a subscription channel available via Showtime) costs some serious cash - why would that much cash be burned up?
Just as an off-shoot to this blog, I thought I'd just talk briefly about what is going on with English Language TV here in the middle east.
There were, until very recently, 2 major English-language pay-tv subscription services - Orbit, and Showtime. Showtime have recently bought-out Orbit, and thus now have a monopoly on English-Language subscription services in the Middle East.
But, there are actually quite a few decent English language stations available for free:
- BBC News 24
- Al Jazeera International
- CNN
- Press TV
- MBC 2
- MBC 4
- MBC Action
- MBC Max
- MBC Persia
- Fox Series
- Fox Movies
- MTV Arabia
- Dubai One
- Dubai Sports
- KTV 2
- Infinity
- Al Jazeera Sports 1-3
- Boomerang Channel
- City 7
- CCTV 9
But, coming back to MBC. How exactly are they making any money on this network? Do they even have a marketing team in place?
le fin
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
La Senza & Oman
Now one of my favourite things about my wife being a member of the Womens Guild of Oman is that you get this little discount card that gets you (usually 10%) a nice discount at tons of restaurants. Actually, its my only favourite thing about my wife being a member of the WGO. Last night we decided to go out for dinner and ended up going to the delicious Noodle House at Muscat City Centre. And that's when I saw it, the one thing that I've been wondering why it wasn't already at the MCC.
"Opening soon" - I don't know how soon, but I'm sure it cant be too long before it opens. I just hope that the prices are no more expensive than the already super-inflated prices in the UAE branches of the store, as my wife is a big fan.
le fin
"Opening soon" - I don't know how soon, but I'm sure it cant be too long before it opens. I just hope that the prices are no more expensive than the already super-inflated prices in the UAE branches of the store, as my wife is a big fan.
le fin
Monday, 7 September 2009
Oman gearing up for a Census, Oman Air on growth and some H1N1 vaccines.
Oman's gearing up for a census in 2010. Apparently some people will have test questions being asked in the next few days.
MUSCAT -- Field works for the 2010 Census of Population, Residences and Establishments are under way. The week-long stage, which conclude on September 10, is significant for the census and it aims at crafting a comprehensive list of all residential and other buildings and to locate them precisely on a comprehensive map, besides enumerating the families that live in the residences.
The Census Administration at the Ministry of National Economy hereby requests all Omani and expatriate families to co-operate with the enumerators who will visit the families in their residences. The families are required to give accurate data in reply to questions to be asked by the enumerators, who will take only a few minutes to note down the data.
Oman Air, who have been enjoying some pretty significant expansion lately, have been busy again in the last few weeks.
First up, Oman Air have signed on SITA to create and manage their voice and data networks between their offices world wide. This will help streamline things at the airline behind closed doors, for us customers, it shouldn't really make much of a difference, but its a sound business move. Oman Air then cleverly decided to target the German market by hiring a German PR firm, C.O.M.B.O. Starting in this month, 4 flights a week will run between Frankfurt and Muscat, then in October, 3 flights a week will run between Munich and Muscat. Ze Germanz do love to come to Oman, its a wonder direct flights were never done before. Or do Lufthansa fly direct? I know they fly cargo planes direct from Frankfurt to here, but not sure on passenger flights. Additionally in October, Oman Air will be operating 4 flights a week between Paris (CDG) and Musat, and also 4 times a week between Muscat and the Maldives. And if thats not enough new destinations for 2 months, they will also be launching a daily service to Colombo. I predict a long weekend in Colombo looking at elephants and stuff in the near future...
Oman Air's fleet should be 7 A330s and 15 737s over the next 15 months. Thats a lot of wonga to be spending on planes, good job they're starting to actually fly to places I want to go to! Can we have a direct service to Hong Kong? Cape Town? LA? Cork? Ibiza? Athens? Manilla?
The best bit about Oman Air to blog about today is this: they announced that in July 2009, fourteen young Omani Pilot Trainees successfully completed the 15 month comprehensive and intensive Pilot Training Program with RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia). These Omani Trainees now possess an approved Commercial Pilot License - Multi Engine and Instrument Rating category as their initial qualification.
Thats pretty good going, obviously the Jet Driver is doing his job well :)
And finally, H1N1.
Novartis have pledged 100,000 doses of its H1N1 vaccine, and GSK have pledged 20,000 doses of it's equivalent vaccine. Which I guess is a pretty good start. There are still rumours of distortion of actual fatality figures and published figures, but in the general scheme of things, it's pretty low. I'm sure more people die every day from IDS (thats Idiot Driver Syndrome) here in Oman.
MUSCAT -- Field works for the 2010 Census of Population, Residences and Establishments are under way. The week-long stage, which conclude on September 10, is significant for the census and it aims at crafting a comprehensive list of all residential and other buildings and to locate them precisely on a comprehensive map, besides enumerating the families that live in the residences.
The Census Administration at the Ministry of National Economy hereby requests all Omani and expatriate families to co-operate with the enumerators who will visit the families in their residences. The families are required to give accurate data in reply to questions to be asked by the enumerators, who will take only a few minutes to note down the data.
Oman Air, who have been enjoying some pretty significant expansion lately, have been busy again in the last few weeks.
First up, Oman Air have signed on SITA to create and manage their voice and data networks between their offices world wide. This will help streamline things at the airline behind closed doors, for us customers, it shouldn't really make much of a difference, but its a sound business move. Oman Air then cleverly decided to target the German market by hiring a German PR firm, C.O.M.B.O. Starting in this month, 4 flights a week will run between Frankfurt and Muscat, then in October, 3 flights a week will run between Munich and Muscat. Ze Germanz do love to come to Oman, its a wonder direct flights were never done before. Or do Lufthansa fly direct? I know they fly cargo planes direct from Frankfurt to here, but not sure on passenger flights. Additionally in October, Oman Air will be operating 4 flights a week between Paris (CDG) and Musat, and also 4 times a week between Muscat and the Maldives. And if thats not enough new destinations for 2 months, they will also be launching a daily service to Colombo. I predict a long weekend in Colombo looking at elephants and stuff in the near future...
Oman Air's fleet should be 7 A330s and 15 737s over the next 15 months. Thats a lot of wonga to be spending on planes, good job they're starting to actually fly to places I want to go to! Can we have a direct service to Hong Kong? Cape Town? LA? Cork? Ibiza? Athens? Manilla?
The best bit about Oman Air to blog about today is this: they announced that in July 2009, fourteen young Omani Pilot Trainees successfully completed the 15 month comprehensive and intensive Pilot Training Program with RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia). These Omani Trainees now possess an approved Commercial Pilot License - Multi Engine and Instrument Rating category as their initial qualification.
Thats pretty good going, obviously the Jet Driver is doing his job well :)
And finally, H1N1.
Novartis have pledged 100,000 doses of its H1N1 vaccine, and GSK have pledged 20,000 doses of it's equivalent vaccine. Which I guess is a pretty good start. There are still rumours of distortion of actual fatality figures and published figures, but in the general scheme of things, it's pretty low. I'm sure more people die every day from IDS (thats Idiot Driver Syndrome) here in Oman.
Saturday, 5 September 2009
Saturday again, and fresh gossip on The Wave
Well what another great Ramadan weekend. It's a shame the bars are closed, but the house parties can be fun too :)
Now, at one of these house parties I head the following latest twist on the Nick Smith - Ex-CEO of The Wave rumour. I'm positive it's a rumour, but its fun anyway so here we go:
There was a senior Omani employed by The Wave (no names, of course!) who was pushed out by the board. This ex-employee has a court case against The Wave for unfair dismissal. Now that Nick Smith has resigned, people have speculated that this ex-employee of The Wave had some "dirt" on Nick Smith and threatened to expose him unless he resigned. And so Mr Smith resigned.
Classic Muscat Muttering, that one, I think :)
No clue if it's true, but a pretty big bomb-shell if it was, cos it would mean that Mr Nick Smith was bent and doing who-knows-what on the side.
In other news, Apex Publishing - the people behind The Week, are launching a new Daily newspaper. In October apparently, it'll certainly be an interesting read, with what is rumoured to be 10 pages every day devoted to local news. Certainly sounds interesting, and if they deliver on this rumour, it'll blow every other local rag out of the water.
A final note: Angry in Oman, Dhofari Gucci, and myself were the test guinea pigs for OmanForum's latest venture - publishing local bloggers work to the forum. A good idea, but tainted. Angry In Oman certainly didnt like this one bit, with a somewhat fiery blog on the subject in her blog today. Nadia @ Dhofari Gucci hasnt made any comments on this yet, so perhaps she didnt know. The latest development to this (quite frankly pretty decent idea in it's rawest form) is that the forum head-honcho Neo has closed it down for further discussion. So any other fellow bloggers out there, watch out!
Now, at one of these house parties I head the following latest twist on the Nick Smith - Ex-CEO of The Wave rumour. I'm positive it's a rumour, but its fun anyway so here we go:
There was a senior Omani employed by The Wave (no names, of course!) who was pushed out by the board. This ex-employee has a court case against The Wave for unfair dismissal. Now that Nick Smith has resigned, people have speculated that this ex-employee of The Wave had some "dirt" on Nick Smith and threatened to expose him unless he resigned. And so Mr Smith resigned.
Classic Muscat Muttering, that one, I think :)
No clue if it's true, but a pretty big bomb-shell if it was, cos it would mean that Mr Nick Smith was bent and doing who-knows-what on the side.
In other news, Apex Publishing - the people behind The Week, are launching a new Daily newspaper. In October apparently, it'll certainly be an interesting read, with what is rumoured to be 10 pages every day devoted to local news. Certainly sounds interesting, and if they deliver on this rumour, it'll blow every other local rag out of the water.
A final note: Angry in Oman, Dhofari Gucci, and myself were the test guinea pigs for OmanForum's latest venture - publishing local bloggers work to the forum. A good idea, but tainted. Angry In Oman certainly didnt like this one bit, with a somewhat fiery blog on the subject in her blog today. Nadia @ Dhofari Gucci hasnt made any comments on this yet, so perhaps she didnt know. The latest development to this (quite frankly pretty decent idea in it's rawest form) is that the forum head-honcho Neo has closed it down for further discussion. So any other fellow bloggers out there, watch out!
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