Bahrain International Circuit has enjoyed its busiest week of motorsport competition and corporate activities since it was opened in March last year. The circuit is now really living up to its motto “the Home of Motorsport in the Middle East� with countless events taking place at the circuit during the last seven days.

The list of events underlined the circuit’s portfolio of activities and included the opening round of the Bahrain International Drag Racing Championship with record crowds and two days of intense competition. In addition the circuit hosted the FIA sanctioned second round of the FIA Middle East rally Championship with rally headquarters, the service area, parc ferme and the Start and Finish all taking place at the circuit. Everyone involved in the rally, (and there were many nationalities from the GCC, Britain, Ireland and mainland Europe represented), were overawed by the scale and professionalism and the organisation of both the Bahrain Motor Federation (BMF) and the Bahrain International Circuit. Winning driver Nasser Al Attiya commended the organisers on a fantastic event held in facilities of such a high standard.

The Cyprus Rally, one of the rounds of the World Rally Championship, will be launched from the heart of the ‘Home of Motorsports in the Middle East’ today.

The Bahrain International Circuit will host the launch venue of the sixth round of the championship during a press conference held at its premises.

“It gives us a great pleasure to host the launch of the Cyprus Rally from the Bahrain International Circuit. The launch will add another achievement to BIC’s track as Home of the Motorsports in the Middle East,� said BIC General Manager, Martin Whitaker.

For the first time in the Middle East, the opening round of the 2005 Porsche Michelin SuperCup will take place at the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix on April 1,2 & 3. The new Porsche 997 will also be tested on the circuit a week prior to the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix. Bernie Ecclestone’s Formula One Management (FOM) organisation has given special dispensation to the Bahrain International Circuit to allow the German manufacturer the opportunity to test the new car.

The car is ‘so new’ that the SuperCup teams have not had the chance to test the all new 997 and will be eagerly awaiting the opportunity to try the new car on the Sakhir circuit.

The SuperPrix aims to bring together identically prepared Porsches to compete as a supporting event to Formula 1 races. The cars are on an equal footing and competition is fierce with lots of wheel-to-wheel racing and contact. The drivers are world class road racers including young and upcoming international stars, recognizable names from the past, plus a celebrity racer (former great from racing, rallying or motorcycling).

Trackshare is an English based company who run track-day based events using a fleet of GT racing cars and high performance road cars. They are in Bahrain until the 11th of March.

Trackshare have brought with them 2 of their most exotic racing cars: a Porsche GT3 and a Ferrari Challenge.

Don’t just watch these cars from the stands, experience the extreme speed and g-forces of these racing cars for yourself. Trackshare will teach you to conquer the long straights and fast sweeping corners of BIC’s award winning track. The ability to handle powerful cars at high speed is an art. Now you can learn that art for yourself here in Bahrain.

A Bahraini blogger was reportedly arrested this morning, no charges are published yet, but the draconian way of the arrest is alarming. Probably armed with an arrest warrant from the public prosecutor, the police went to Ali Abdulimam’s house and on not finding him there, arbitrarily have taken his sister instead probably to ensure that he turns up at the station.

Disregard all of that. It remains to be seen why he is arrested, and what the arrest warrant says.

Ali runs montadayat.org bahrainonline.org a site very critical of the government, and its commenters even more so. So Ali is paying the price…

Holding judgment for a moment, I hope that Ali and other fellow bloggers realise where the line is. For not knowing definitively where it is, is a dangerous enterprise. We just have to follow logic, no more and no less. It is vitally important as well to understand that with freedoms of expression comes responsibility. It behoves us to realise that just as “regular” journalists, we have to ensure that we do not defame people, symbols or entities without just cause.

It’s too early for me to judge Ali and his arrest. It is however amply demonstrated that once again, the government has overstepped its line probably to derail yet another excellent attempt by the Crown Prince to right this country… just after his Economy Reform launch…

update: Bahrania is a lot more “on the pulse” of this situation than I am. I suggest if you want quicker and more thorough updates, please go visit her site. On my side, I’ve done some contacts here and there and my contacts are as flabbergasted as I am. So hopefully some common sense will prevail soon.

update 2: The case has been taken up by various rights organisations locally and internationally:
• Committee to protect bloggers
• Reporters without Borders

update 3:
• Chan’ad posts about a protest in support of Ali Abdulemam which happened yesterday in front of the Public Prosecutor’s office in Manama.
• BahrainiBlogger suggests that we should have one day of solidarity with Ali and write one article severely critical of the government to (1) see how they react, and (2) to essentially tell them that if they shut one person or site down, tens of others will spring up.

Once again I’ll be on my travels, this time to Germany to attend the Nordic Ski World Championships on a quick consultancy job.

I’ll be back on Feb 26. I’ll be celebrating my birthday in the snow!! They tell me the temperature is about MINUS 20, and it’s been PLUS 30 here at noon!

In the mean time, as is customary in these here parts, it’s time to declare the MtvSM:

Jasra Jedi

Blame ANYTHING that happens to you personally, or at large in the world on her. She’s the cause of every ill that befalls you and the world until Feb 26th, 6AM, when I come back.

I’ve got 50 gmail accounts available. if you want one, share a joke! If I find your joke worthy, I’ll send you an invite.

Leave your email where I can contact you in the comments here, feel free to nonspamise it like mnalyousif_at_gmail_dot_com if you don’t want email harvesting bots to get your email…

let the fun begin!

SEVERAL enraged men chased and beat up a drunken driver who drove over a roundabout and smashed into several cars on Exhibition Avenue.

Bahraini Mustafa Yousif, aged 23, said that he saw the Saudi driving really fast close to the entrance to the avenue near Adliya.

He said that several cars which were in front of him swerved to avoid him.

“He kept on coming and drove on the sidewalk as well, when there wasn’t enough room for him on the road,” said Mr Yousif.

“He also climbed onto the roundabout before coming down and smashing into my car.

After months of half-hearted determination, I decided that it’s time for me to publish a website. Seeing that weblogs were quite a trend these days, I further decided to publish it in the aforesaid format. As often is the case, it turned out that deciding on it and actually executing it were two entirely different beasts (come to think of it, deciding is a beast in a fuzzy bunny sort of way), but that’s the subject of a differemt article

A Saudi programmer’s blog

Ahmed, aka Saudi Jeans has a very interesting article where he explores the divide between the two camps of Arab bloggers, ones that choose to write in English, and the other camp that prefers to write in Arabic and how they almost consiously refuse to cross-link.

The great divide can be shown clearly by the variation of the qualities in every group. For example, most members of group A (bloggers in English) are liberals who look to West with admire, and tend to criticize the situation in their countries harshly. They have little or no HTML knowledge, and they like to start blogging using a free service such as Blogger.

In the other hand, most members of group B (bloggers in Arabic) are expert programmers who look to West in suspicious, and write their blogs with Islamic sense. Of course, there are some exceptions in both sides, but I can’t study every individual case in this article.

While I have never shied from adding links to any Arab or Arabic blog as evidenced both on this site and of course Arablogger, I can understand where Ahmed is going with this. Refusing to link (and even use the trackback tool which is a necessity for growth I think) because some feel that they are in camp A or B exclusively is silly.

Blogs to me are the zeitgeist of a community, so bloggers should actively encourage cross-linking and popularising the activity as much as possible.

Unfortunately I’ve been attacked several times within the comments and trackbacks by spammers, so I’ve switched trackback off for now, but every blogger should install trackback as a matter of course so that the conversation can actually go the complete circle and aid in the discovery of other bloggers so the Arab blogging scene can explode and consume the traditional news sources which are nothing more than government propaganda/mouth-pieces.

Ahmed also has a nice review of some blogs he frequents. Thank you for your kind words Ahmed!

Bahrain International Circuit is being beefed-up prior to the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix on April 1,2 &3 thanks to additional landscaping designed to make the event more appealing and enjoyable to spectators.

Fans flocking to the US$150 million circuit will be offered a wide variety of new activities and services in time for the April race. New tarmac has been laid on walkways between the grandstand and the “F1 Village� behind the main grandstand. Shuttle buses will run continuously for the public allowing them to enjoy practice, qualifying, support races and the Grand Prix as well enjoying the “F1 Village� and the merchandising outlets, coffee shops and recreational areas.

“We aim to offer race fans the most memorable experience. Formula One is the pinnacle of motorsport throughout the world and here in Bahrain we are members of an extremely exclusive club of 19 Grand Prix races. Ours is the only race in the Middle East and we want people to come to the circuit not only to enjoy the racing but to bring the family for an entertaining day out together with other families and friends,� said BIC General Manager, Martin Whitaker. “With this in mind, we have added and upgraded a string of services and facilities to ensure that spectators enjoy their time at the circuit,� he added.

I am fat.

Too bloody fat, and I’ve got to do something serious about the weight problem. I’ve just come back from suit shopping and in a shop full of suits they only had 2 which were my size.

Sick.

Right. Measurements tonight (no, no naked pictures of me!), and weighing. Then targets are set, and stick to the plan this time to get my health and fitness back, now that I have been a non-smoker for almost 4 months, I can do this too.

Insights, Articles and Stuff from the Emirate of Dubai, United Arab Emiartes

Yes, I’m afraid I did!, I’ve been told by a local Apple dealer that they had the Mac Minis 1.42GHz in stock, and they received only 2 units which are still at Customs and expected to be cleared only by tomorrow afternoon. Knowing that they have actually received the Mac Minis on the island was enough for me, all the other crap is irrelevant. So I placed the order with them for BOTH units, and have even pre-paid without a moment’s hesitation! The price was ok. Could’ve been better but I wouldn’t get that to corrupt my “instant gratification” here…

I’m anxiously awaiting their delivery to my office tomorrow afternoon.

I have no idea what I’m going to use them for, but that’s another problem!

Welcome to the Mac world. After a disconnect since about 1995, I’ll probably be back to the Mac. And one of the major reasons (ok, I’m making this up.. bite me!) is the OS’s base of a Unix-like operating system!

They’re here and one of them is installed, this is the first post edited with the new mac mini!

Click the picture to see the whole set…