Middle East and African telecom market revenues to reach $2Trillion
Posted on June 29, 2008
Filed Under Economy, Middle East | Leave a Comment
Looks like the Middle Eastern and African telecom market is to become the next best thing.
AME reports
The Middle East and Africa region has the highest growth rates within a consumer telecommunications market that is set to reach $2 trillion in global revenues by 2012, according to a new report from research firm In-Stat.
Read the rest here
Here is one example of how these perspectives are materializing into something practical: last week we published this post in Naama Chronicle, telling about a major $500 Million investment in mobile market in Tanzania.
Egypt reaches new record of brutality - troops murder Sudanese refugee child
Posted on June 29, 2008
Filed Under Israel, Middle East, News, Terrorism | Leave a Comment
Egyptian troops, patrolling the border with Israel, murder an African refugee and a 7-years-old Sudanese girl while they were trying to cross into Israel
EL-ARISH, Egypt (Reuters) - Egyptian police shot and killed two African migrants, including a seven-year-old Sudanese girl, as they tried to cross the border into Israel on Saturday, security and hospital sources said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the security sources said an Egyptian patrol opened fire on the migrants to stop them getting across the border south of the Rafah crossing.
They added that seven other African migrants had been detained, including the dead child’s mother.
Their deaths bring to 16 the number of migrants killed at the border this year.
Hospital sources said the other victim was an unidentified African in his thirties, killed by a gunshot wound to his back.
Egypt has pursued a crackdown on African migrants that has seen up to 1,000 Eritrean asylum seekers deported since June 11, despite U.N. objections.
Reuters report is speaking about 16 deaths this year. However, the killing did not start in 2008.
World Divided posted this and this article where the cases from 2007 are listed as well.
We prepare to launch an online action/protest, hoping that someone will finally pay attention to these crimes against the REFUGEES, systematically committed by the troops of the country - Egypt - that was invited by the Sudanese Minister of Defense to increase its presence in peacekeeping force in Darfur.
British politics in a nutshell
Posted on June 27, 2008
Filed Under EU, Politics | Leave a Comment
This is what the future Labor voter in Britain thinks about who should be the Prime Minister.
If only she knew how right she was…
New Feature on our Website
Posted on June 26, 2008
Filed Under News | Leave a Comment
Dear Readers,
World Divided features a new widget - MEMRI news and clips.
MEMRI - The Middle East Media Research Institute - explores the Middle East through the region’s media. MEMRI bridges the language gap which exists between the West and the Middle East, providing timely translations of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish media, as well as original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social, cultural, and religious trends in the Middle East.
Founded in February 1998 to inform the debate over U.S. policy in the Middle East, MEMRI is an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501 (c)3 organization. MEMRI’s headquarters is located in Washington, DC with branch offices in London, Tokyo, Rome, Baghdad and Jerusalem
This widget is a long-waited one. MEMRI - thank you and welcome.
Official website: MEMRI
Comverse wins deal in Indonesia - why it is odd
Posted on June 26, 2008
Filed Under Economy, Israel, Israeli-Muslim Conflict, News, Politics, Religion | Leave a Comment
On June 24, Comverse - the world’s leading provider of software and systems enabling network-based messaging and content value-added services - issued the following press release:
Comverse, the world’s leading supplier of software and systems enabling network-based multimedia enhanced communication and billing services, today announced that Indonesian wireless operator Excelcomindo, with more than 19 million subscribers, has selected Comverse for a major SMSC expansion to handle its rapidly growing personal and application-related text messaging needs and to be able to quickly implement new SMS services.
Dian Siswarini, Director of Network at Excelcomindo said, “After voice, SMS is the highest revenue-generating service in our market, accounting for nearly 30% of total revenue. We are currently experiencing a dramatic, rapid expansion of our user base and we are also working to increase our market share, so it is mission-critical for us that our SMSC provides superior performance. Comverse SMSC meets our demanding requirements in terms of its capacity and ability to handle extreme usage during peak hours, and in terms of ability to support our roadmap vision to improve the messaging experience by adding exciting SMS services. Comverse also met our requirement for fast time to market to enable us to handle heavy holiday messaging traffic.”
A market leader deployed by hundreds of operators all over the globe, Comverse SMSC’s highly flexible multi-layered environment supports IP-based networks and is ready for IMS.
Eitan Achlow, President of the Comverse Asia Pacific (APAC) Division said, “Comverse SMSC is ideally suited help this rapidly expanding operator achieve its goals of providing the best possible value and user experience for its current users and for the many millions of new subscribers it expects to gain in the coming years. Comverse looks forward to working closely with Excelcomindo to increase its success in its marketplace and to fulfill its vision of bringing to life innovative SMS services and applications that boost user satisfaction and sharpen its competitive edge.”
It is odd because Comverse is an Israeli-based company, and Indonesia have no diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. Indonesia - the largest Muslim country - opposes Israel’s policies and vows not to establish diplomatic relations with Israel before the issue of “Palestinians” is resolved.
However, it did not stop the Indonesians from expressing their interest in Israeli advanced agricultural and telecommunication technologies, exchanging the experts’ delegations (on a special entrance-visa permit), and cutting deals with the Israeli companies, including on the consulting level for agricultural and telecommunication sectors of Indonesia.
I guess one can say that politics is one thing, and business is another, but in light of increasing calls for boycotting the companies from Denmark and Netherlands in the Muslim world, I wouldn’t be surprised if one day the similar calls will reach Comverse reps in Indonesia.
Indonesian government has a bitter record of succumbing to the pressure from the local radical Muslim groups. The latest example: imposing a ban on a peaceful Muslim sect “Ahmadyya”, the members of which are viewed by the radical and moderate Muslims alike as apostates (apostasy is punishable by death in Islam.)
So…to Comverse - don’t get too comfy over there.
Fancy a diamond trip?
Posted on June 25, 2008
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Angola is the place. Very original idea by the Angolan state-owned company
Luanda, 06/20 – Angola’s State-run diamond producing company (Endiama-Ep) will launch a tourist excursion programme into the exploration areas throughout the national territory next year, seeking to publicise the development of the industry in the country.
The information was released Thursday in Luanda by the director of Endiama’s planning and investment department, Alberto de Oliveira dos Reis Fancony.
The official was speaking on the fringes of the seminar on “Challenges of the mining industry in supporting sustainable development”, as part of the ongoing International Minerals Fair (FIMA). He delivered the topic “Objectives and Stage of preparation of the world summit on Diamond-Angola/2009.
In his presentation, the official said it is fundamental to equip the participants with the most useful knowledge on Angola’s diamonds and its tourist riches.
According to him, his institution will run a world diamond summit from November 4-6, 2009, to discuss such matters as prospecting and production, technologies, trade and all sorts of activity in the world.
The summit will be attended by 500 foreign participants and 250 locals.
The hometown of the dead arch-terrorist Zarqawi to become the center of $4B development project
Posted on June 24, 2008
Filed Under Economy, Middle East, News | Leave a Comment
Milkyway Galaxy - Solar system - Planet Earth - Middle East - Jordan - the town of Zarqa. This is where one of the most vile men that ever walked this planet was born, and from a dusty town, stricken by fear, shame, anger, poverty and misery, it is likely to become a home of $4 Billion development project - the largest one in Jordan.
Photo by Bryand Denton, New York Times
Zarqa, a gritty, industrial city infamous for producing Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the late al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, is the unlikely home of Jordan’s biggest new development project.
The $4bn scheme will be named after King Abdullah, the ruler of Saudi Arabia who is one of its principal financiers. It will ultimately house some 500,000 residents over an area the size of lower Manhattan, making it the largest real estate project in the Middle East outside the Gulf.
The development of former military land by Mawared, a state-owned investment company with strong links to the Jordanian military, aims to tackle Jordan’s housing shortage, and promote Zarqa’s economy, in an area long known as a breeding ground for Islamic extremism.
The biggest scumbag this town produced won’t be around to enjoy the fruit of this project, which represents everything this man despised and worked against - development and progress - what an irony.
Oh well, if only he knew…or maybe he does.
There is, however, a debate whether this project will benefit the poor of the town. I tend to see this debate as probably the healthiest one that can and should be held the economically developing society. To me, it is the best indicator that things are on the right track.
Read the rest of the story here
