Tag Archives: opinion
41% of Arab world’s Facebook users are from UAE
41% of Arab world’s Facebook users are from UAE Staff Reporter / 23 June 2013 Of all the Facebook users in the Arab world, the UAE has some 41 per cent — almost double the amount of the country next in line, according to the fifth edition of the Arab Social Media Report series. The report is part of a series spearheaded by the Governance and Innovation Programme at the Dubai School of Government, which conducted a regional survey with around 4,000 participants, exploring perceptions about the quality of schooling in the region, the use of technology and social media in the classroom at different educational levels, interruptions to schooling due to conflict, as well as views on educational reform. Analysing demographics, the report reveals that the UAE continues to score the highest amongst all Arab countries in terms of Facebook penetration at 41 per cent, while Egypt claims around 25 per cent of Arab Facebook users and Saudi Arabia has more than half 50 per cent of the Arab active Twitter users. However, for the first time, most GCC countries saw a drop in social media adoption for the first time in 2013. Mariyam Reshi, a 13-year-old Indian High School student said all of her classmates were on Facebook. “When we go home, we share the day’s happenings and like each other’s statuses.” When asked if she could fathom her world without FB, she giggled and said: “No way … I don’t know how my parents used to manage.” But parents may not be so enthusiastic about the widespread use of social networks, with the report showing they were concerned about the effect of social media, of Facebook and Twitter, on their school-going children. While 55 per cent of students said they used social media as a classroom resource, and 10 per cent of parents said their children have access to social media platforms in the classroom, more than half said their children’s classrooms did not encourage Facebooking or Tweeting. More than half of parents, 56 per cent, said they were worried that their children got distracted from other tasks with access to social media. Abeer Matthew, 48, father of 12-year-old twins Sherlyn and Jacob, said he was against the “invasion of technology in schools, at least till students reach grade 9”. Matthew said he did not much care for receiving homework assignments through email, forget about any social networking. Matthew, a management consultant in Abu-Dhabi said he had to travel a lot on work, and was constantly interacting with people for business who allowed their pre-teenage children to operate their own Facebook accounts, but it was not for him. “I don’t think it’s healthy … they need to be forming more human, one-to-one connections. When they leave the home and go away, they can make as many online associations as they please, while in school and in my house, no.” The research also surveyed parents in Arab countries suffering from political instabilities, violence and civil strife. Fadi Salem, Director of the Governance and Innovation Programme at the Dubai School of Government and co-author of the report, said: “With more than 55 million active Arab users of Facebook and 3.7 million of Twitter, social media is already playing a growing role in formal and informal education. The emergence of new concepts like ‘social learning’, ‘intelligent decision making networks’ and ‘massive open online courses’, is enabling educators, students and educational institutions to rely on social media tools.” The percentage of Arabic tweets generated reached 74 per cent of total tweets in the region in March 2013, up from 62 per cent a year ago. Facebook registered an increase of 10 million users between June 2012 and May 2013. The number of active Twitter users in the Arab World has also grown from just over two million to 3.7 million in the past year. In March 2013, Arab Twitter users generated 336 million tweets. news@khaleejtimes.com Continue reading
World powers to provide ‘urgent aid’ to Syria rebels
World powers to provide ‘urgent aid’ to Syria rebels (AFP) / 23 June 2013 World powers supporting Syria’s rebels decided on Saturday to take “secret steps” to change the balance on the battlefield, after the United States and others called for increasing military aid to insurgents. Yet even as they prepared to step up their own involvement in a war that has killed nearly 100,000 people, they demanded that Iran and Lebanese movement Hezbollah stop supporting President Bashar Al Assad’s regime. In their final communique, the ministers agreed to “provide urgently all the necessary material and equipment to the opposition on the ground, each country in its own way in order to enable them to counter brutal attacks by the regime and its allies and protect the Syrian people”. Speaking in Doha, top Qatari diplomat Shaikh Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani said the meeting of foreign ministers of the ‘Friends of Syria’ had taken “secret decisions about practical measures to change the situation on the ground in Syria”. Ministers from Britain, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United States attended the talks. Washington and Doha called for increasing military aid to end what US Secretary of State John Kerry called an “imbalance” in Assad’s favour. Kerry said the United States remained committed to a peace plan that includes a conference in Geneva and a transitional government picked both by Assad and the opposition. But he said the rebels need more support “for the purpose of being able to get to Geneva and to be able to address the imbalance on the ground”. To that end, he said, “the United States and other countries here — in their various ways, each choosing its own approach — will increase the scope and scale of assistance to the political and military opposition”. Shaikh Hamad echoed Kerry’s remarks, calling for arms deliveries to the rebels to create a military balance that could help forge peace. A peaceful end “cannot be reached unless a balance on the ground is achieved, in order to force the regime to sit down to talks,” he told the ministers. “Getting arms and using them could be the only way to achieve peace.” On Thursday, the rebel Free Syrian Army said it was already receiving unspecified new types of arms that could change the course of the battle, but also said it needed anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons. In their communique, the ministers agreed that all military aid provided would be chanelled through the FSA’s Supreme Military Council. Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the ministers demanded that Iran and Hezbollah stop meddling in the war by supporting Assad. “We have demanded that Iran and Hezbollah end their intervention in the conflict,” said Fabius. “Hezbollah has played a terribly negative role, mainly in the attack on Qusayr,” a strategic town recaptured from rebels earlier this month with the group’s help. “We are fully against the internationalisation of the conflict,” he told reporters. Kerry also accused Assad of an “internationalisation” of the conflict, which has claimed nearly 100,000 lives, by bringing in Iran and Hezbollah. And the final communique said the crossing into Syria of militia and fighters that support the regime, a clear reference to Hezbollah, “must be prevented”. The ministers also warned of the “increasing presence and growing radicalism” and “terrorist elements in Syria”. It is “a matter that deepens the concerns for the future of Syria, threatens the security of neighbouring countries and risks destabilising the wider region and the world”, they said. Shaikh Hamad also voiced support for a peace conference but insisted there could be no role in the future government for “Assad and aides with bloodstained hands”. He accused Assad’s regime of wanting to block the Geneva conference in order to stay in power, “even if that costs one million dead, millions of displaced and refugees, and the destruction of Syria and its partition”. The final communique stated that Assad “has no role in the transitional governing body or thereafter”. On the ground, loyalist forces pressed a fierce four-day assault on rebel-held parts of Damascus, while insurgents launched a new attack on regime-controlled neighbourhoods of second city Aleppo. Saturday’s developments come as the military pushed on with its bid to end the insurgency in and around Homs in central Syria, said the Observatory. They also come a day after at least 100 people were killed nationwide, it added. — AFP Continue reading
Longest day of the year brings heat
Longest day of the year brings heat Staff Reporter / 21 June 2013 As the longest day of the year hit, the mercury is set to keep rising. Friday marked the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere, which is the longest day of the year, bringing with it high temperatures, humidity and a spot of rain in the UAE also. A National Centre of Meteorology and Seismology spokesman said Friday’s highest temperature was 45.2 degree Celsius in the Hamim area, in the south of the country — more than twice the temperature atop the country’s highest mountain Jebel Jais, which racked up just 20.3 degree Celsius. “The difference between the interior and coastal areas is a big (one). The interior areas are mostly above 40 but in the coastal areas and islands, it’s about 33, 34, 35, something like this.” Abu Dhabi recorded 37.9 degree Celsius at the airport, near the interior, but along the Capital’s corniche temperatures only reached 32.9 degree Celsius. “It was a hot day in general, 44 or 45. The humidity is high so the feeling is a lot hotter, it makes it feel for or five degrees hotter,” he said. The high humidity that formed convective clouds also accounted for moderate to heavy rain in the east of Al Shiwed. “There’s a chance tomorrow for some cloud formation in the east of the UAE after noon.” The north of the country, in Zafar, Abu Dhabi and Dubai’s Al Minhad were all plagued with fog on Friday morning too. Residents should brace themselves for rising temperatures. In the next two months, the mercury would hit up to 50 degree Celsius, he said. “The heat is coming.” In other, cooler parts of the world, the solstice was celebrated, with more than 20,000 celebrants gathering at the famed Stonehenge monument on a cloudy English day. In New York, free mass yoga lessons took place in Manhattan’s Times Square for the 11th year running. The annual event had grown from just three people in the first year, to more than 15,000. amanda@khaleejtimes.com Continue reading
