Yesterday, Khaled Mahadin’s trial began. For those who don’t know, Mahadin is being sued by Parliament for slander by way of an article posted on Khaberni.com, a Jordanian news site. A few protesters gathered outside Parliament yesterday morning as Mahadin was pleading not guilty. I hope he’ll win this case.

Meanwhile, in other media news, cartoonist […]

Arabian Business just published it’s annual Most Influential Arabs list for 2009 and it’s pretty good popcorn reading. Like last year, only three Jordanians made the list, including Fadi Ghandour (who went up 52 spots to be ranked 27th), Samer Majali (38th) and Emad Hajjaj (who dropped 40 spots to be ranked 83rd). While Fadi […]

On Ammon today, an interesting article featured a Yarmouk University professor who protested AIDS awareness posters posted by the Ministry of Health that asked “Have you practiced anal sex, oral sex or vaginal sex?”. I’ll let you do the reading but to sum it up, Dr. Azzam’s argument is that the posters promote promiscuity or, […]

While I still appreciate that the concept of Earth Hour has finally come to Amman, I am overwhelmingly disappointed with the outcome. Last night, several locations were supposed to turn their lights off in honor of Earth Hour, between 8:30 and 9:30pm, along with the rest of the world. What happened was nothing short of […]

A year ago, I used my powers of sarcasm to criticize Amman for not joining the rest of a lengthy list of world cities that turned off their lights for an hour to mark “Earth Hour” - an initiative to push the issue of global warming in to psyche of people and government everywhere. I […]

It’s been a long week so far. I’m here in London to attend two different conferences and it’s been an interesting ride. I apologize for the lack of posting but, on the other hand, I’ve also been getting a lot of fascinating feedback on some of the posts published here lately. The general tone of […]

Likely one of the most pertinent issues of our time and our specific region, Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International are launching the second annual World Day Against Cyber Censorship. Last year, if some of you recall, RWB put together an interesting, 24-hour virtual demonstration.
This year, RWB have updated their annual list of “Internet Enemies” […]

Somewhere in the depths of the Royal Hashemite Court and perhaps even the King and Queen’s respective offices, there are people who dream up wonderful initiatives. From education to dialog to just a whole bunch of other great initiatives that span the spectrum of issues. They are all well-branded and well-publicized and it’s hard to […]