It’s been about 10 days or so, and HM Queen Rania’s first YouTube video has received over 1 million views and over 3,500 comments thus far. Today, she takes some time to give her early reaction to all the feedback.

[h/t: Nina]

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Arabian Business published its 100 Most Influential Arabs list, and only 3 Jordanians made the cut. Wadah Khanfar, who runs Al Jazeera (all of it) at only 38 years old, is ranked 8th, while Fadi Ghandour of Aramex ranks 82. Emad Hajjaj however, is a new entry on the list, and now ranks 43, with […]

Despite my own daily rounds of the online world, I unfortunately missed an important event that took place a few weeks back on March 12th, and I’m kind of disappointed in myself. But I suppose, it’s better late than never, right? Well, apparently, on March 12th, a very interesting initiative took place, as Reporters Without […]

Here’s a selection of my delicious pickings for this week:
Hilary Death Watch Update: Hilary drops from 12% to a 9% chance of winning the Democratic nomination on Slate’s Death Watch. From Barack endorsements and superdelegates lead, Slate boils down what went wrong for Hilary this past week.
USA 2008: The Great Depression: Food stamps are the […]

“The US military bases and the presence of around 150,000 American soldiers in Iraq have made the United States one of the neighbouring states in the region.” - Prince Hassan, in a seminar on “Armament and Security in the Middle East” on Tuesday. [source]
The Prince also said he said he doesn’t expect US troops to […]

For the next three days, Jordan will be hosting SOFEX, which stands for Special Operations something or other. Forget about the name. The point is I got to attend the first day and, to my surprise, it was a pretty fun filled couple of hours. Special forces did a whole hostage situation scenario that I […]

It seems like a long time ago that I once wondered if HM Queen Rania was a blogger. It seems lately, she’s gone a step forward and become a Vlogger on YouTube.
Now this is pretty interesting…

I think it’s a pretty good initiative (me wishing I had thought of it first), and it’s one of […]

Ammon has been reporting about a book written by an Iraqi author, called “The Rain of God”, which seems to “insult God” and has slipped Jordanian censors and made its way onto the market. It’s kind of ironic because I’ve never seen Ammon so much in favor of censorship! What makes this more interesting, is […]

Last night, Amman joined the list of cities all around the world and turned its lights off in honor of Earth Hour, a WWF initiative to raise awareness about global warming. Here’s a picture of the Capital that I took last night as it was plunged into darkness.

Ok, ok, so that picture was totally photoshopped. […]

Here’s a selection of my delicious pickings for this week:
Some Politicking:
- The Unpopular Hilary: Nicholas Kristoff has an interesting oped in the New York Times on how Hilary will have to drop out if she can’t win the popular vote over Obama. The article is timely considering Senator Casey’s endorsement of Obama that might help […]

The above is a map of the New York Times’ coverage of certain hot spots. The point of the heat map is to indicate the regions that some of the major papers, and even the blogosphere, gives more attention to (red). Guess which media is most balanced in its coverage?
These maps allow you to […]

As Israel continues its illegal land grab of Palestinian territory, by caging in the West Bank, the controversial barrier wall has become more than just oppressive concrete slabs to some; it’s become an easel for various artists. Two Palestinians have come together to put a new spin on rendering the wall into an art form, […]

While in Uganda to open a large mosque for the Muslim community…
Ugandan Church leaders have asked Christians to forgive Libya’s leader for suggesting the Bible was forged as it didn’t mention the Prophet Muhammad.
LOL!
Ugandan clerics pointed out the Bible was written before Muhammad was born.
ROFL!
At Kampala’s Christ the King Church, Monsignor Paul Ssemwogerere said: “Since […]

To break the political monotony of the last couple of posts here are a few of my delicious pickings for the last couple of days that are more entertaining than serious.
- Recycled Wonderlands: Simply put, some of the craziest architectural creations you’ll ever see.
- Muppet President: You know how they say every president is […]

As most people know by now, there is a massive shortage of bread in Egypt these days with reports of actual deaths as many Egyptians line up in long bread queues. Mubarak has even declared a sort of martial law on subsidized bread, by ordering the army to increase production and aid in the distribution […]

AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordanian authorities on Wednesday released Jordanian Sheikh Abu Mohammad al-Maqdisi, a leading al-Qaeda mentor, after several years imprisonment without trial, security sources said. They said Maqdisi, who was regarded as the spiritual mentor of slain al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had been in solitary confinement since he was rearrested […]