Month: October 2005

Al-Jazeera Online in Japanese

Flamboyant Japanese internet tycoon turned politician Takafumi Horie has said he will bring Arab news broadcaster Aljazeera to Japan, hoping to provide a greater variety of views to the public.

The 32-year-old entrepreneur on Monday said his firm, Livedoor, which offers a portal site much like Yahoo! along with other internet services, has signed a deal with Qatar-based Aljazeera to distribute its news online in Japanese.

Horie, an unsuccessful candidate in last month’s parliamentary election, wrote on his blog that he was trying to diversify Livedoor’s news content.

I think it’s good that Al-Jazeera’s news will be reaching more people in the world, giving them another view of the events that take place in the Arab world.

I’m especially looking forward to their English news channel that should be launched soon.

TunisCity G

TunisCity, the biggest mall in Tunisia, opened it’s doors on September 29th.
I thought it would be better to avoid the first days of it’s opening because it would be too crowded, but our curiosity got the best of us yesterday and we had to go check it out.

TunisCity is on the outskirts of Tunis, located at the beginning of the Bizerte highway, which would make you think it’d be harder for people to get there, but that was not the case, the parking was crowded and there was a long line of cars waiting to get in to the parking or the areas around it.
What’s amazing is that even though I hate crowded places, my curiosity won over my instinct, which was telling me to just turn the car and go home.

Anyway, I confirm that this is the biggest mall in Tunisia now.
It’s design is pretty nice and I though the interior was pretty cool.
It’s bigger than Carrefour and better organized.

It was so crowded you’d think everything was for free, especially inside the hypermarket section “G

IAEA rejects Arab call to discuss Israel

The UN atomic watchdog has unanimously called for a nuclear-weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East but rejected an Arab call to denounce Israel as a nuclear threat.

The IAEA conference rejected discussion of “Israeli nuclear capabilities and threat,” as proposed in a resolution by Oman, despite a strong push for this by 15 Arab states plus Palestine.

I think this is total hypocrisy!
The IAEA, the US and Europe go on and on and on about Iran and how it could be trying to build nuclear weapons even though they’ve been assured millions of times they’re not, yet Israel that is known to already have a stockpile of nuclear weapons and which rejects to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty isn’t even pressured one little bit about it.
I can’t find anything else to call it but hypocrisy!
This is why the UN, IAEA, US, EU don’t have any credibility with the people of the world!

Ties With Israel

While going through the daily news, I came across this article on the english website of Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth about Turkish and Tunisian ties with Israel.

The article talks about an interview the prime ministers from both countries had with the London based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, which reported on the visit of both prime ministers to Abu Dhabi, where they spoke about relations with Israel.

Both prime ministers say that their countries’ ties with Israel serve the Palestinian cause and are aimed at finding a solution to the conflict.

The article goes on to say that Tunisian prime minister, Mr. Mohamed El Ghannoushi said that there was no direct conflict between Tunisia and Israel, and that his country was fully ready to recognize Israel and normalize ties, but added that this would