As A U.S companies Google has been in compliance with US export controls and sanctions programs against countries that does not follow the US policy.

In Syria all google software and google code was blocked in the country due to those US government sanctions programs.

We at ArabCrunch wrote about how these sanctions affect the average innocent user in Syria, Sudan, Iraq, North Korea and Cuba, specially with the blocking of open source software repository sourceforge.

Today Google announced the good news as it made Google Earth, Picassa And Chrome available for download in Syria. The announcement was made via a blog post but did not say the reason behind this move possibly the US government is easing restriction as such this move. We will contact google for updates on this story.

MonsterGulf.com, one of Middle East’s leading online career and recruitment solutions providers, today launched Monster application for mobile devices on Windows Phone platform, the app gives job seekers and career minded professionals the to search for jobs and explore new career opportunities. The new application can be downloaded through Monstergulf.com and Windows Phone Marketplace.
Commenting on the launch, Sanjay Modi, Managing Director, Monster.com (India/ Middle East/ South East Asia) said, “We are excited to introduce our latest addition, Monster Windows Phone app, to our robust suite of Monster Mobile Solutions. Microsoft has taken a unique and fresh approach with Windows Phone, and it is great to see the rapid growth of these devices. At Monster, our goal is to connect seekers to the right career opportunities by giving them a variety of mobile and web site options that meet their job search needs. We are confident that new media, especially mobile technology will continue to play a pivotal role in empowering jobseekers. At Monster, we are committed to bringing about best in class innovations leveraging latest technologies to help seekers access job opportunities by their preferred method.”

For job seekers, the new app provides:
On the move access: Seekers will now have Mobile access to available jobs on Monstergulf.com;
Search and apply on the move: Seekers can now view and apply to job postings directly from their windows Smartphone
Pinned permanently on dash board: Jobseekers can pin the application to the Windows mobile Home screen and once a section/feature is pinned, it is “always-on” on the user’s start screen, as a “Tile” allowing him to directly navigate to the pinned section within application and thereby driving higher user engagement.
Fresh Jobs: Jobseekers will get fresh jobs alert matching their profile. The alerts will be available on the start screen for pinned applications.

YouTube, Lenovo, and Space Adventures announced last Thursday the two global winners of YouTube Space Lab (b), the worldwide science competition that challenged 14-18 year-olds to design a science experiment that can be performed in space. Amr Mohamed from Egypt (17-18 year old age group) and Dorothy Chen and Sara Ma from the U.S. (14-16 year old age group) were awarded the honor at a ceremony in Washington, DC, attended by members of Space Lab partners including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The students will have their experiments conducted by astronauts 250 miles above Earth aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and live streamed to the world on a Lenovo ThinkPad laptop via YouTube later this year.

“Humanity’s future relies on moving beyond Earth,” said renowned scientist, Professor Stephen Hawking. “Realising this goal will require an entrepreneurial spirit and a new generation of scientists and astronauts. YouTube Space Lab is a wonderful initiative that helps inspire young minds around the world to take a greater interest in science and the future of space exploration.”

Amr Mohamed, 18, from Alexandria, Egypt, came up with an experiment to explore the question: “Can you teach an old spider new tricks?” Amr proposed investigating the effects of microgravity on the way the zebra spider catches its prey and whether it could adapt its behavior in this environment. “The idea of sending an experiment into space is the most exciting thing I have ever heard in my life,” said Amr. “Winning YouTube Space Lab means everything to me, to my family, and to the people of the Middle East.”

Dorothy Chen and Sara Ma, both 16, who attend Troy High School in Troy, Michigan, created an experiment that asks: “Could alien superbugs cure disease on Earth?” Dorothy and Sara want to send bacteria to the space station to see if introducing different nutrients and compounds can block their growth in the hopes of providing new tools to fight germs on Earth. “The idea that something that is your experiment being sent up into space and actually becoming a reality is incredible,” said Sara. “I definitely want to pursue science as a career,” added Dorothy.
Amr, Dorothy and Sara joined the four other regional winning teams in Washington, DC, this week to honor their achievements, with prizes including a ZERO-G flight, a Lenovo IdeaPad laptop and a special tour and dinner at the Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Museum at Dulles. YouTube and Lenovo held the awards ceremony at the Newseum in downtown Washington.
In addition to having their experiments performed in space, Amr, Dorothy and Sara will get to choose one of two unique space experiences: either a trip to Japan to watch their experiment blast off in a rocket bound for the ISS, or once they turn 18-years old, a one-of-a-kind astronaut training experience in Star City, Russia, the training center for Russian cosmonauts.

The U.S. Embassy in Amman is hosting former NASA astronaut Marsha Ivins from March 21-26, 2012, for a number of lectures and workshops in Aqaba, Ma’an, Tafeeleh, Irbid, Mafraq and Amman, to meet and inspire Jordanian youth and share through presentations her experience as a pioneer woman astronaut in space exploration and space research.
Ivins, who is a veteran of five space flights, has recently retired from NASA, the U.S. Space Agency in 2010. Marsha Ivins spent over 1318 hours in space to perform a study in the field of space engineering.

Marsha Ivins graduated from the University of Colorado in aerospace engineering and holds a multi-engine Airline Transport Pilot License, and she has logged over 7,000 hours in civilian and NASA aircraft.
Her speaking program will share the experience of space exploration to develop interest in science among the young people of Jordan.

We will try to get the schedule and location of her workshops and update here at AC.

MENA Private Equity Association has launched a VC legal documentation guide designed to give entrepreneurs a practical understanding of the basic terms involved in a venture capital transaction.

The guide focuses on issues specific to the Middle East and North Africa, and also includes a standard term-sheet template format. Standardized documents help acquaint entrepreneurs with the investment process and simplify transactions for investors. Templates reduce transaction costs and time, while promoting fair legal norms throughout the industry.

“We are confident that this guide will make VC funding easier to access and understand, especially for entrepreneurs who are approaching VCs for the first time,” said Jeanette Lepper, Manager, MENA Private Equity Association. “Ultimately by making the deal process easier, we expect the number of deals to increase significantly, thereby channeling more funds into new ideas and new businesses in the region.”

A copy of the Report, in both English and Arabic can be downloaded at: http://www.menapea.com/vc-legal-documents.php

Regular updates to the documentation guide and standard term sheet will also be posted on the same link.

Today At the MIT Enterprise Forum Arab Business Plan Competition Workshop session taking place in Abu Dhabi, Ken Morse, Senior Lecturer and Managing Director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center shared some tips with the business plan’s 50 Semifinalists, along with 20 Semifinalists from Global Innovation in Science and Technology (GIST) Competition. 

Here are the tips

1. Expanding market share is more important that reducing costs

2. Its not about you it is about them

3. no one is going to buy from you unless they think that you understand them

4. Sales is all about listening and understanding

5. God gave you two ears and one mouth, don’t forget the ratio

6. you need a customer and sales focused part in your company

7. Remember the people who helped you along the way, that is what entrepreneurs do

8. when you signed up for entrepreneurship, you didnt sign up to be comfortable

9. first step for pitching, define who you are pitching to

10. define who is your target customer, one

11. you stop pitching when you die

Source: @MITEFarab

Bayt the leading job portal in the Arab world has redesigned putting much emphasis on it social offerings.

The new design offers a clean and streamed lined UI. A search bar has been added where you can search for Jobs, Salaries, and People. Resource tab has been added offering different resources that can help in career hunting and development.

Bayt has also worked on enhancing its features among them is auto upload a CV where Byte will read the CV after it is upload it. As it used to be manually filled.

Also Bayt has added CV and Application Insights, offering insights into things like How does your application rank? What keywords trigger your CV in employer searches?

To lure people to be more engaged and spur its social offering Bayt has added “Your Specialties” where users are asked to engage in discussions around their areas of Specialties.

I like the new design of Bayt it was needed.

What do you think of new Bayt Design?

Well true to his word 0xOmar has released umped info belonged to the Israeli airforces training and dod standards belonging to a virtual flight school that the Israeli airforce use and are associated with .

0xOmar says this is a retaliation for Israeli terror air raids against Gaza which killed around 25 people since Friday.

“Eighteen of the Palestinians killed since Friday were identified by medical officials as fighters and five as civilians.
At least 74 Palestinians, mostly civilians have been wounded.
“

a hefty 8.6 meg dump will take a while to trawl through just as much as the zionist pounded gaza “
the hackers involved in #opfreepalestine should be proud for their concerted effort at striking back aginst those that kill children and call them terrorist or that its an act of defence these are the excuses the zionist gives i really think israel shouls expect them ….
this guy may be the man to unite all hackers against the nazi zionist occupiers …”
a statement said.
Here is the dump download files:
Donwload links:

http://www.zshare.net/download/99392809d6b3bba1/

http://www.2shared.com/file/mq71vaef/airforce.html

http://www.mediafire.com/?tretit4cv18l3d0

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ij37px

http://www.4shared.com/zip/LxOKg_aF/airforce.html

http://www.fileserve.com/file/6UhFagX/airforce.zip

http://www.hyperfileshare.com/d/76f9b165

http://herosh.com/download/10751510/airforce.zip.html

http://www.ziddu.com/download/18868073/airforce.zip.html

http://www.supershare.net/file/413228-5203782916.html

The Egyptian revolution is achieving its objectives one after the other in the hard way, with paid souls and blood in the long march for justice, freedom and Independence from domestic and foreign tyranny and conspiracy.

However, Egyptian economy is not doing well. Egypt has a high level of poverty rates, around 40%, its economy is dependent in few things to earn hard currency: tourism, Swiss canal some Gas and what Egyptian workers outside Egypt send back home.

Beside basic human rights and political freedoms the economic case should be dealt with in order to achieve one of the revolution’s objectives: social justice. To that end Egypt must work hard to transform it self into a scientific production and excellence. Producing world class R&D projects that can produce world class startups that can solve problems in different avenues with innovative solutions, products and services.

Egypt has no shortage of great people and scientists like Dr. Ahmed Zewail a Nobel prize winner and a professor chemistry and professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) as he has the right vision and plan with his City of Science and Technology. Which was conceptualized back in 1999 but was established right after the blessed Egyptian revolution.

The City of Zewail is becoming a reality now. It offers the right pillars that can help transform Egypt into scientific production and excellence, in helping bring innovation and the out break of innovative tech startups that can compete at the world level which in turn will bring hard currency to Egypt and provide employment to thousands of people and raise the standards of living for Egyptians.

The pillars for the The City are Zewail university, Research Institute , Technology Pyramid or Park, Think tank.

Technology Pyramid:

Will offer gifted entrepreneurs and scientist the opportunity to incubate and develop their new technologies and industries.

The technology Pyramid or technology Park will provide some financial assistance and appropriate space and will take in exchange a share of the startup equity which would help the city generate income while building world class tech companies that can penetrate the international markets.
The Park will also provide R&D center and will invite different multi national tech companies to come up and open research centers. It can do so since it can demonstrate to blue chip companies that it has the skilled work force necessary for such R&D centers to function.

Egyptians will benefit from working with multinationals with gaining more experience and expertise which in turn will help them launch their own tech satrtups. The technology Pyramid will work also as a commercialization arm for inventions coming from other pillars of the city namely the Research Institutes.

Research Institute:
Research  Institute will provide researchfrontiers necessary to provide commercial innovative solutions to problems in these frontiers and they are:

Helmy Institute for Medical Sciences (HIMS)
Center for Aging and Associated Diseases
2. Institute for Nanoscience and Informatics (INI) 
3. Institute for Imaging and Visualization (IIV) 
4. Institute for Energy, Environment and Space (IEES) 
5. Institute for Economics and Global Affairs (IEGA) 
6. Institute for Virtual Education (IVE) 
7. Institute of Basic Sciences (IBS)
Center for Theoretical Physics
 Some fields of research will be particularly relevant to the needs of Egypt and the region. These include R&D in energy, information technology, medicine, and other areas relating to water resources and global climate change.

“In the initial phase, there will be up to twelve research institutes. With the passage of time and beyond its first decade, there may appear the need to create new research institutes, but the uniqueness and distinction of the institution must be strictly maintained”

The institutes will be open to anyone accepting students and researchers from anywhere in the world but priority will be given to Egyptians.

Zewail university:

  The university will carefully train selected students in basic state-of-the-art science and engineering and offer them hands-on research opportunities. The total number of students will not exceed 5000 and any increase must be unanimously approved by the Board of Trustees. The university will be equipped with the most advanced tools and laboratories.

Students of the university will provide the minimum pool of scientists and researchers to carry on research in the different institutes and in launching state-of-the-art tech ventures that can be incubated at the tech park.

Think Tank:

Egypt faces a number of challenges and risks, among them is the Nile, power, housing and so forth. The think tank will carry on scientific analysis of major projects of development and for the assessment of national risks associated with them and they will be then presented to policy makers.

I am are very excited about city of Science and Technology it has the right tech and scientific ecosystems that Egypt needs in order to transform it into a scientific and tech center in the world. The project is registered as a not for profit and will be funded through 2 main means and endowment that will provide monetary resources from profits from its projects and from direct donations. The city did not achieve its objective in collecting the necessarily funds. It has collected around 10% of the money necessarily. It needs your help so if you believe in january25th revolution you should go ahead and donate here to this critical project for the future of Egypt. #EgyptCan

Mubawab , operating 17 local country websites across the Middle East and North Africa, announced today that it has received $850,000 in funding from Grupo Intercom, One of Spain’s l Web consortium, as well as from international business angels, to further develop classifieds portal for the Arab region. Well-known Web brands emerging from Spain that Grupo Intercom has previously backed include Softonic, eMagister, InfoJobs and BuyVIP.

Mubawab’s aim is to make it easier for people across the Middle East and North Africa to find everyday things online – from real estate to cars, jobs and household items.

The company also announced today that it is now serving 600,000 visitors per month and generating several thousand user-posted classified ads each day – after just 14 months of company operations. Mubawab’s content comes from users, as well as through feeds and partnerships with local businesses and portals.

Despite its rapid growth, Mubawab also faces unique challenges specific to the Middle Eastern market. Shadi el-Hajj, Mubawab CTO, explains: “The Arab online market is still young but with the popularity of social networking and mobile telephony, it’s maturing faster than the underlying economic infrastructure. For example, many countries in the region don’t have reliable street addresses but yet demand for location-based services is emerging. This often creates the need to really think outside the box with the technical solutions we go for.”

Twitter is now available in four new languages Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu.

This happened after Thirteen thousand volunteers around the globe worked in translating and localizing Twitter into these languages.

Twitter is now available in 28 different languages around the world.

Twitter says that it solved the issue when Tweets contain both right-to-left and left-to-right content scramble. It says in that case now Tweets, hashtags and numbers all look and behave correctly.

News surfaced end of last month that Saudi based Kammelna Games! has been acquired by Turkish game developer Peak games! a maker of social games.

Sources familiar with the matter has confirmed to ArabCrunch the deal and said the price tag was 10 million USD in cash and stocks.

Kammelna is a web based card games popular among Saudis called baloot, it has been seeing impressive usage among Saudis.

Peak games is a Turkish based game developer that targets the Arab world and Turkey with culturally relevant games. With more than 20 million monthly active users, Peak Games says it has become one of the top four social game companies in the world in the past 14 months,.

Peak Games is run by chief executive Sidar Sahin. Kammelna was founded by Essam Alzamel, who will continue to run the studio in Damman, Saudi Arabia.

Peak Games already has studios and offices in Istanbul, Ankara, Barcelona, Berlin, San Francisco and Amman Jordan.

The company is funded by Earlybird Venture Capital, Hummingbird Ventures, and serial business angel Evren Ucok. Peak Games has 150 employees and Kammelna has 30.

Wikileaks has published today email files of US intelligence company Stratfor that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence Agency.

The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods, for example:

“[Y]ou have to take control of him. Control means financial, sexual or psychological control… This is intended to start our conversation on your next phase” – CEO George Friedman to Stratfor analyst Reva Bhalla on 6 December 2011, on how to exploit an Israeli intelligence informant providing information on the medical condition of the President of Venezuala, Hugo Chavez.

Here is the full wikileaks press release:

LONDON–Today WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files – more than five million emails from the Texas-headquartered “global intelligence” company Stratfor. The emails date from between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods, for example:

“[Y]ou have to take control of him. Control means financial, sexual or psychological control… This is intended to start our conversation on your next phase” – CEO George Friedman to Stratfor analyst Reva Bhalla on 6 December 2011, on how to exploit an Israeli intelligence informant providing information on the medical condition of the President of Venezuala, Hugo Chavez.

The material contains privileged information about the US government’s attacks against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks and Stratfor’s own attempts to subvert WikiLeaks. There are more than 4,000 emails mentioning WikiLeaks or Julian Assange. The emails also expose the revolving door that operates in private intelligence companies in the United States. Government and diplomatic sources from around the world give Stratfor advance knowledge of global politics and events in exchange for money. The Global Intelligence Files exposes how Stratfor has recruited a global network of informants who are paid via Swiss banks accounts and pre-paid credit cards. Stratfor has a mix of covert and overt informants, which includes government employees, embassy staff and journalists around the world.

The material shows how a private intelligence agency works, and how they target individuals for their corporate and government clients. For example, Stratfor monitored and analysed the online activities of Bhopal activists, including the “Yes Men”, for the US chemical giant Dow Chemical. The activists seek redress for the 1984 Dow Chemical/Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, India. The disaster led to thousands of deaths, injuries in more than half a million people, and lasting environmental damage.

Stratfor has realised that its routine use of secret cash bribes to get information from insiders is risky. In August 2011, Stratfor CEO George Friedman confidentially told his employees: “We are retaining a law firm to create a policy for Stratfor on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. I don’t plan to do the perp walk and I don’t want anyone here doing it either.”

Stratfor’s use of insiders for intelligence soon turned into a money-making scheme of questionable legality. The emails show that in 2009 then-Goldman Sachs Managing Director Shea Morenz and  Stratfor CEO George Friedman hatched an idea to “utilise the intelligence” it was pulling in from its insider network to start up a captive strategic investment fund. CEO George Friedman explained in a confidential August 2011 document, marked DO NOT SHARE OR DISCUSS: “What StratCap will do is use our Stratfor’s intelligence and analysis to trade in a range of geopolitical  instruments, particularly government bonds, currencies and the like”.  The emails show that in 2011 Goldman Sach’s Morenz invested “substantially” more than $4million and joined Stratfor’s board of directors. Throughout 2011, a complex offshore share structure extending as far as South Africa was erected, designed to make StratCap appear to be legally independent. But, confidentially, Friedman told StratFor staff: “Do not think of StratCap as an outside organisation. It will be integral… It will be useful to you if, for the sake of convenience, you think of it as another aspect of Stratfor and Shea as another executive in Stratfor… we are already working on mock portfolios and trades”. StratCap is due to launch in 2012.

The Stratfor emails reveal a company that cultivates close ties with US government agencies and employs former US government staff. It is preparing the 3-year Forecast for the Commandant of the US Marine Corps, and it trains US marines and “other government intelligence agencies” in “becoming government Stratfors”. Stratfor’s Vice-President for Intelligence, Fred Burton, was formerly a special agent with the US State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service and was their Deputy Chief of the counterterrorism division. Despite the governmental ties, Stratfor and similar companies operate in complete secrecy with no political oversight or accountability.  Stratfor claims that it operates “without ideology, agenda or national bias”, yet the emails reveal private intelligence staff who align themselves closely with US government policies and channel tips to the Mossad – including through an information mule in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Yossi Melman, who conspired with Guardian journalist David Leigh to secretly, and in violation of WikiLeaks’ contract with the Guardian, move WikiLeaks US diplomatic cables to Israel.

Ironically, considering the present circumstances, Stratfor was trying to get into what it called the leak-focused “gravy train” that sprung up after WikiLeaks’ Afghanistan disclosures:

        “[Is it] possible for us to get some of that ‘leak-focused’ gravy train? This is an obvious fear sale, so that’s a good thing. And we have something to offer that the IT security companies don’t, mainly our focus on counter-intelligence and surveillance that Fred and Stick know better than anyone on the planet… Could we develop some ideas and procedures on the idea of ´leak-focused’ network security that focuses on preventing one’s own employees from leaking sensitive information…  In fact, I’m not so sure this is an IT problem that requires an IT solution.”

Like WikiLeaks’ diplomatic cables, much of the significance of the emails will be revealed over the coming weeks, as our coalition and the public search through them and discover connections. Readers will find that whereas large numbers of Stratfor’s subscribers and clients work in the US military and intelligence agencies, Stratfor gave a complimentary membership to the controversial Pakistan general Hamid Gul, former head of Pakistan’s ISI intelligence service, who, according to US diplomatic cables, planned an IED attack on international forces in Afghanistan in 2006. Readers will discover Stratfor’s internal email classification system that codes correspondence according to categories such as ‘alpha’, ‘tactical’ and ‘secure’. The correspondence also contains code names for people of particular interest such as ‘Izzies’ (members of Hezbollah), or ‘Adogg’ (Mahmoud Ahmedinejad).

Stratfor did secret deals with dozens of media organisations and journalists – from Reuters to the Kiev Post. The list of Stratfor’s “Confederation Partners”, whom Stratfor internally referred to as its “Confed Fuck House” are included in the release. While it is acceptable for journalists to swap information or be paid by other media  organisations, because Stratfor is a private intelligence organisation that services governments and  private clients these relationships are corrupt or corrupting.

WikiLeaks has also obtained Stratfor’s list of informants and, in many cases, records of its payoffs, including $1,200 a month paid to the informant  “Geronimo” , handled by Stratfor’s Former State Department agent Fred  Burton.

WikiLeaks has built an investigative partnership with more than 25 media organisations and activists to inform the public about this huge body of documents. The organisations were provided access to a sophisticated investigative database developed by WikiLeaks and together with WikiLeaks are conducting journalistic evaluations of these emails. Important revelations discovered using this system will appear in the media in the coming weeks, together with the gradual release of the source documents.

Public partners in the investigation:

More than 25 media partners (others will be disclosed after their first publication):

Al Akhbar – Lebanon – http://english.al-akhbar.com
Al Masry Al Youm – Egypt – http://www.almasry-alyoum.com
Bivol – Bulgaria – http://bivol.bg
CIPER – Chile – http://ciperchile.cl
Dawn Media – Pakistan – http://www.dawn.com
L’Espresso – Italy – http://espresso.repubblica.it
La Repubblica – Italy – http://www.repubblica.it
La Jornada – Mexico – www.jornada.unam.mx/
La Nacion – Costa Rica – http://www.nacion.com
Malaysia Today – Malaysia – www.malaysia-today.net
McClatchy – United States – http://www.mcclatchy.com
Nawaat – Tunisia – http://nawaat.org
NDR/ARD – Germany – http://www.ard.de
Owni – France – http://owni.fr
Pagina 12 – Argentina – www.pagina12.com.ar
Plaza Publica – Guatemala – http://plazapublica.com.gt
Publico.es – Spain – www.publico.es
Rolling Stone – United States – http://www.rollingstone.com
Russia Reporter – Russia – http://rusrep.ru
Ta Nea – Greece –- http://www.tanea.gr
Taraf – Turkey – http://www.taraf.com.tr
The Hindu – India – www.thehindu.com
The Yes Men – Bhopal Activists – Global http://theyesmen.org
Nicky Hager for NZ Herald – New Zealand – http://www.nzherald.co.nz

CURRENT WIKILEAKS STATUS:
An extrajudicial blockade imposed by VISA, MasterCard, PayPal, Bank of America, and Western Union that is designed to destroy WikiLeaks has been in place since December 2010. The EU Commission is considering  whether it will open a formal investigation, but two  lawsuits have been  filed (http://wikileaks.org/Banking-Blockade.html).  There are also other ways to donate (https://shop.wikileaks.org/donate). It is legal to donate, including in the United States. The US Treasury has publicly stated that that there are no grounds to place WikiLeaks on a US government blacklist.

WikiLeaks Founder and Publisher Julian Assange has not been charged with any crime in any country. Four prosecutors are currently trying to charge him under the Espionage Act of 1917 before a closed Grand Jury in Virginia, in the United States. Julian Assange has been detained for 447 days (10,728 hours) since Dec 7, 2010, without charge, and he is currently awaiting a decision from the  UK Supreme Court on extradition to Sweden (http://www.justiceforassange.com/Supreme-Court-Appeal,65.html). The decision is expected in March. The decision on whether he will be onwardly extradited to the US lies in the hands of the Swedish Executive, but Sweden’s Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has refused to state whether he will protect Assange from a politically motivated extradition to the United States (http://justice4assange.com/US-Extradition.html).

The Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has repeatedly attacked WikiLeaks this week in a bizarre manner (http://ferrada-noli.blogspot.com/2012/02/anatomy-of-untruthful-scoop-explaining.html).

An alleged WikiLeaks US military source, Bradley Manning, has been in pre-trial detention for 639 days (http://bradleymanning.org/). His arraignment took place on 24 February 2012. In December 2011, Manning’s attorney revealed in the preliminary hearing that the US government is attempting to enter a plea deal with Manning in order to “go after” Assange. Manning has 22 charges against him, including violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and aiding the enemy. Manning has deferred entering a plea. Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are legally represented in the Manning hearings by the US Centre for Constitutional Rights (http://ccrjustice.org/). WikiLeaks was denied full access to Manning’s hearing after appeal (http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/ccr-appeals-denial-of-guaranteed-access-manning-hearing-wikileaks-attorneys). WikiLeaks put out a statement relating to Manning’s trial ahead of the Article 32 Hearing: (http://www.wikileaks.org/Statement-on-Bradley-Manning-Case.html).

The alleged WikiLeaks-supporting hacktivists known as the “PayPal 14″ were arrested in 2011 following co-ordinated online demonstrations against the financial services companies that are carrying out the unlawful financial blockade on WikiLeaks (VISA, MasterCard, Paypal, Western Union, Bank of America). They are represented by attorney Stanley Cohen and will go before court in May 2012 (http://www.cyberguerrilla.org/?p=4644).

WikiLeaks is about to launch a distributed, encrypted “Facebook for revolutionaries” (https://wlfriends.org/).

Julian Assange is currently directing interviews, from house arrest, for a programme on the future of the world that is syndicated to various broadcasters. The first show will be broadcast in March (http://www.wikileaks.org/New-Assange-TV-Series.html)

http://wikileaks.org/gifiles

Jordan Amman based startup accelerator Oasis500 has concluded its 10th startup boot camp in collaboration with the British embassy in Jordan.

Out of 350 applicants 65 entrepreneurs where selected to take part of the boot camp 15 of those being from out side Jordan. The startups that participated covered a wide range of fields including commerce, online services. Mobile and digital content.

The boot camp provided entrepreneurs with training in a variety of fields, including marketing, investment techniques, pitching techniques, business model creation and market segmentation, attracting investment and how to approach investors.

Dubai, UAE (February 24, 2012). On his 707th birthday, Google celebrates the famous Moroccan explorer, Ibn Battuta’s by featuring a doodle on its homepage.

Showing across the Arab world on February 25th, the Doodle pays tribute to one of the greatest travellers of all time through various scenes from his adventures across Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and China. The doodle depicts Ibn Battuta’s 70,000+ mile journey and the many different monuments he visited. The interactive doodle cleverly conceals 16 different monuments for the viewer to discover.

Doodles are known as the decorative changes that are made to the Google logo to celebrate different people, events or special dates such as holidays, anniversaries, and the lives of famous artists and scientists. Over the years, doodles on the Google homepage have made searching on Google more fun and enjoyable for its users worldwide. For more about Google doodles please visit: www.google.com/doodles

In his “famous” Cairo speech in 2010, US president Obama made a promise for a new beginning with Muslims. While many observers call it a new conspiracy or decoy under the banner of “help,” others call it a genuine one for a new beginning.
Among the pillars of his promise is to help foster entrepreneurship and tech innovation in the Muslim world. We had contacted the US embassy in Amman, to get some details of the plans programs and partnerships and today we are publishing them unedited the way they were sent. Though this plan and programs date back to mid of 2010, they might have changed so we will contact the US State department to get an update in the over all strategy and on each plan:

EXCHANGE PROGRAMS
Entrepreneurs for a New Beginning
Entrepreneurs for a New Beginning is a new two-way professional exchange program for rising business and social entrepreneurs. The Department of State is forging relationships to offer participants educational seminars, mentorship, and first-hand experience in the business place with American entrepreneurs. The program will connect participants with outbound American entrepreneurs and will examine strategies used in the United States to enhance the capacities of young business managers, to develop a spirit of entrepreneurship and small business enterprise, and to strengthen societies through the pursuit of social entrepreneurship. This program will bring 100 entrepreneurs to the U.S. over the next 4 years and will also work with private sector partners to send 100 American entrepreneurs abroad over the next four years. More information can be obtained from the Department of State.

Science and Technology Education Exchanges
During his speech in Cairo, the President said that “education and innovation will be the currency of the 21st century.” This new science and technology exchange program will bring 25 science teachers from Muslim-majority countries and communities to examine effective methods of teaching science at the primary and secondary school levels. The program will explore how to nurture and support hands-on science education, how to demonstrate the relevance of science for children, and how to create a setting in which children actively engage in scientific learning. In addition, the participants will observe extracurricular science camps and science fair educational programs that emphasize experiential learning.

Professional Technical Exchanges for Women
TechWomen is a new professional mentorship program for women from eligible countries who are working in the field of technology. “Selected participants will travel to the United States in the spring of 2011″ to work with mid-level female employees in various companies in technology hubs such as Silicon Valley. Upon the completion of their mentorships, select American counterparts will travel to the participants’ home regions to offer skills development and networking workshops for a broader range of women.

Young Entrepreneurs Program
Launched in September 2009, the Young Entrepreneurs Program is a professional exchange program that promotes entrepreneurial thinking, job creation, business planning, and management skills to assist young professionals. As part of the YEP, the Department of State “will launch a new initiative called Education to Employment Fellows. Beginning in 2009, this initiative will bring at least thirty fellows from eligible countries to the United States for internships that will aid their professional development.”

DIRECT ASSISTANCE FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP
USAID’s Commitment to Support Entrepreneurship
USAID will support all stages of the entrepreneurship ecosystem by working with partners to strengthen the business enabling environment, expand educational opportunities, facilitate market opportunities and access to capital, and build connectedness and business support. Specific efforts USAID plans to undertake include:
• Support business enabling environment reforms in 15 partner countries.
• Undertake surveys in five countries (Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Turkey, and Egypt) and use their findings to work together with local private partners to promote supportive environments to encourage economic growth.
• Provide open source web-and media-based entrepreneurship education targeted for women, youth, and other underserved audiences on topics ranging from starting and growing a business to the use of internet technologies…..
• Support local educational programs to build capacity among business owners and their employees.
• Facilitate entrepreneurs’ access to private sources of finance (e.g., microfinance institutions, venture capital funds, commercial banks).
• Develop and expand business innovation centers.
• Develop partnerships to expand the number of companies and volunteers assisting entrepreneurs in developing countries, thereby building partnerships between entrepreneurs in the U.S. and abroad.

Small Business Administration Partnerships with Oman, Bahrain, Tunisia
SBA and the Department of State have entered into several agreements with Oman, Bahrain, and Tunisia to assist women entrepreneurs in the Middle East and North Africa. Through these Memorandums of Understanding, SBA will provide guidance and assistance in developing and implementing loan guarantee programs, government procurement policies, entrepreneurial development programs and business centers, and support to strengthen women and small and medium enterprises.

Global Entrepreneurship Program
A new effort led by the Department of State in partnership with the Department of Commerce, USAID, OPIC, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Global Entrepreneurship Program will coordinate, integrate, and leverage existing U.S. Government and private sector resources, partnerships, and programs to support six methods of supporting entrepreneurs: Identify, Train, Connect, Guide to funding, Sustain, and Celebrate. The proposed program has twelve focus countries throughout the world, including seven Muslim-majority countries. The Department of State and USAID have launched the first pilot program in Egypt and will soon launch the second in Indonesia. ( already launched in Egypt)

FINANCING FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION
Global Technology and Innovation Fund
In response to President Obama’s Cairo speech last June, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) launched the global technology and innovation call for privately managed investment funds in October 2009. The Funds will make investments in start up and growth oriented companies in the telecommunications, media, and technology sectors. Some Funds will utilize a “technology transfer” strategy by importing existing technology in developed countries to increase innovation and efficiency in sectors such as healthcare, education, and infrastructure. In addition, the Funds will promote the economic and social development of the target countries. With the private sector capital catalyzed by OPIC, these Funds will have the potential to mobilize over $2 billion in private equity capital for Muslim-majority countries. All Funds remain subject to review and approval of OPIC’s Board of Directors. ( already hundred of millions has been given to VC and PE in the Arab world)

STRENGTHENING PARTNERSHIPS
Partners for a New Beginning
Partners for a New Beginning will be a group of eminent Americans from a variety of sectors – corporate, philanthropic, education, non-profit, entertainment – who will leverage resources and capabilities outside the U.S. Government to advance the vision for a new beginning with Muslim communities around the world. Partners for a New Beginning will be an independent, self-administered group that will operate in close coordination with the Department of State.

Expanding Ties With Silicon Valley
The Department of State will collaborate with partners in Silicon Valley to launch two of the first Silicon Valley-based incubators and venture capital funds in the Middle East, Turkey, and Southeast Asia. Both efforts will provide venture capital, Silicon Valley mentorship, technology and connectivity to emerging entrepreneurs in 5 locations – Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, and Malaysia. In addition to helping provide technological and financial expertise and access to capital and other services, these two efforts will help to build ties between business and educational communities in the United States and those in the countries in which it operates.

What might be worrisome for Arab online activists that Twitter might collaborate with Arab oppressive regimes after Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, and Kingdom Holding Company (KHC), announced today, Monday, December 19th 2011, a combined investment of $300 Million in Twitter.

Prince Alwaleed has a strong presence and influence in media through his investments in entertainment and media entities in the Arab world, and beyond, such as the Saudi Research and Marketing Group (SRMG), in which Kingdom Holding holds a 29.9% stake. The publications that fall under SRMG include Asharq Al Awsat, Al Eqtisadiah, Arab News, Hia magazine, Al Majalla magazine, Arrajol magazine and Sayidati magazine. Furthermore, other entities that fall under SRMG are Al Khaleejiya for Publicity Advertising and Public Relations and Al Madina Printing and Publishing Company. KHC is also owner of approximately 7 percent of News Corporation’s Class B Common Stock.

In February 2010, Rotana Group announced that Newscorp had reached an agreement to buy a 9.09 percent stake in Rotana Group.

Under the terms of the agreement, News Corporation will acquire newly-issued shares in Rotana for $70 million. News Corp. has an option to increase its stake to 18.18 percent in the 18 months following completion.

In addition, Prince Alwaleed recently announced his plans to launch his privately owned Alarab news channel. The news channel will be managed by Mr. Jamal Khashoggi.

As 2011 is about to end, history was rewritten in 3 Arabs countries and counting. Bu Azizi started something that can not be stopped.

But what where the top search terms coming for Egypt and Saudi Arabia? Google released today it is annual Zeitgiest a look into the year’s top google searches. We would like to note that Facebook and Twitter and news where the among raising trends. meaning more new users for both Facebook and Twitter and more interest from the general public in political news.

Fastest Rising Searches in Egypt ( we translated them to Arabic)

Jan 25th revolution

Mydan Al Tahrir

Facebook

Jocks 2011

7th day ( a newspaper)

Mubarak Trail

Twitter

Finance Ministry

Google Gravity

Love forbidden serias.

Egypt’s Fastest Rising People:
Mubarak

Wael Ghonim

Hisham Al juokk

Isam Sharaf
Tamer Ashour

Omar Katamesh

Hussien Salem

Ahmed Al Shahat

Ahemd Iz

Jamal Mubarak

Egypt top Google news:
Al Youm Al sabaa
Al Maser Al youm
Youtube
Masrway
Adustour
Facebook
news
google
al jumhuria
al shourok

http://www.googlezeitgeist.com/en/top-lists/eg/google-news

As for KSA: fastest raising searches:
Youtube
Facebook
hafez
games
twitter
spongup
aljazeera
heart heart song
al arabiya
bank Al tasleef

KSA fastest rising people:
Ghadafi
Myriam Fares
Ali Abdallah Saleh
Maher Almaakulai
justin Bieber
Mohamd Abdo
Manal Aalem
Khaled Abdul Rahman

KSA Googel news:
Mohamed Abdo
manal Al alem
Khaled And Al rahman
Itihad sports club
Egyptian league
Al Yaman
Reyal Madrid
Al Nasr sports club
Egypt
Barcelona

Spam is a major problem that the internet suffers from, to fight spam websites uses captcha when submitting a form or registering for an account.

Up until now Capthca has been using random English letters that a users needs to submit in order to go to the next step in registration or in posting a comment. But few days ago, UK based Hsoub launched Arabic Captcha. meaning it uses Arabic letters, and since Arabic words combine Arabic letters together it is hard for automated software to figure them out.

This is much needed initiative to fight spam and hackers in the Arabic web, but the Captcha does not work with people who do not know Arabic, since they do not know how the letter looks like after being combined with other letters.

Hsoub Arabic Captcha comes with API so any website can use. well done for such initiative.

UK based newspaper the guardian has launched an Arabic version of its website. The new site offers translation into Arabic from its English edition.

The Arabic site displayed news in chronicle order and sure the Guardian can do better to enhance it.

Competing for $40,000 and six scholarships to the university of Sharajah in UAE, 120 promising Arab students and scientists concluded their participation in the 2nd Annual Intel Science Competition at an award ceremony help last night in Sharjah under the patronage of Dr. Sultan Al Qasimi, member of the UAE Supreme Council.

Anas Eshtaya from Palestine won the first prize for his movement and gas detection project followed by Sara Al Nasser and Hayfa Al Bassam for 2ndh and 3rd places for their projects in the fields of Medicine and Health Sciences and Behavioral Social Sciences.

Other winners included Hasan Bani Salameh from Jordan for his project in Chemistry, Mohammad Othman from Palestine for his project in Energy and Transportation, Radwan Othman from Lebanon for his project in Intelligent and Safety system engineering.

In total 81 science projects were showcased according to Dr. Martina Roth, Director of Intel’s Global Education Strategy, Research and Policy.

Here is the list of winners:




Updated: typo edited, we are very sorry.

The number of mobile subscriptions in the Middle East (see note) will cross the 250-million mark during 2012, reaching 271.27 million at end-2012 and rising to 352 million at end-2016, according to forecasts by Informa Telecoms & Media.

Additionally, the average mobile penetration rate for the Middle East will cross the 100% mark in 2012: It will rise from 97.72% at end-2011 to 107.09% at end-2012, exceeding the mobile penetration rate in North America (US/Canada) for the first time. (The mobile penetration rate in North America at end-2012 will be 102.77%.)
Iran will continue to be the biggest mobile market in the Middle East by subscriptions with   82.91 million subscriptions forecast for end-2011, rising to 122.13 million at end-2016.

Saudi Arabia has the next biggest mobile market in the region by subscriptions, with a 50.8 million active mobile subscriptions forecast for end-2011, rising to 71.32 million at end-2016.

Despite the take-up of smartphones and, to a lesser degree, mobile broadband in some parts of the Middle East, data services only account for a relatively small proportion of mobile revenues in the region overall. Data accounted for 13% of mobile revenues in the Middle East in 2Q11; the lowest percentage for any major world region other than Africa.

But this low figure also points to the growth potential for data in the region. Iraq and Iran, both of which are substantial markets, have yet to introduce 3G networks, for example.
In the UAE, smartphone penetration is already high and will continue to rise further: The smartphone penetration rate in the UAE is forecast to be 47.23% at end-2011 and to rise to 70.35% at end-2016, according to Informa.

In Saudi Arabia, the smartphone penetration rate is forecast to rise from 25.01% at end-2011 to 48.63% at end-2016.
But the rates of smartphone penetration will be lower in some other markets in the region. In Jordan, for example, the smartphone penetration rate is forecast to be 2.2% at end-2011, rising to 17.98% at end-2016.
While some countries in the region do not yet have 3G services, all three of Saudi Arabia’s mobile operators have unveiled LTE services. Etisalat is also poised to launch LTE in the UAE.
However, it will take some time for LTE to gain momentum. LTE subscriptions in the Middle East will number only 1.94 million at end-2013 but will reach 15 million at end-2016, according to forecasts by Informa.
Fixed-broadband subscriptions are also set to grow strongly in the region: The number of fixed-broadband subscriptions in the Middle East will rise from 6.51 million at end-2011 to 11.6 million at end-2016.
The report categorize Middle East as: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, UAE and Yemen.

More info about the research can be found here.

Saudi Telecom Company (STC) Group announced its investment in a new Venture Capital Fund which specializes in start up, small, and medium sized companies operating in the field of telecommunications and IT in the Saudi market as well as other international markets.
STC Group will invest an initial amount of $50 million that is self financed making it the only investor in the fund at this stage. Other local and international companies will be invited to invest in this fun at a later stage.

Eng Saud bin Majed Al Daweesh, STC Group CEO said that his Fund targets the local market and invests in local Saudi expertise in the field of IT and telecommunications in addition to other markets in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and the United States.

The fund had been set up in an agreement with venture capital firm Iris Capital.

This is good news for Saudi tech startup community as startup based seed and early stage funding is still nascent. We hope to see more funds like this in Saudi Arabia and the region.

A hacktivist hacker hacked briefly yesterday Egypt State TV website in protest of its coverage of the events in Tahrir square. After Thousands of demonstrators re-occupy square in the Egyptian capital Cairo, after a violent attempt by security forces to evict them leaves 11 dead. Protestors were demanding an end to Military leadership of Egypt and a transition to elected government. Last Friday the square saw around 1 million people after a call from Islamic moment demonstrating in demand to end a paper from the Egyptian government that would put limits on people’s choice of the government, constitution and parliament.

The hacker on Egypt TV website left a banner with the Egyptian flag and a message in Arabic saying” this is a simple response to your silly coverage on TV, same failed and hypocritical policies. … we only demand that you transmit the real images. not people die and you keep a romantic images of the Nile.”




Jordanian gaming developer Quirkat has launched MENA Speed (Sur3a) on Sony Play Station, the company says the game works with both PSP and PS3.

“MENA Speed is the first drag race game with tracks in major cities across the Middle East, pumping adrenaline with screeching tires and burned rubber across the roads of Dubai, Amman, Kuwait and Cairo. The player can customize and upgrade the car then accept challenges across different terrains.

 
There are many different power-ups to enjoy by upgrading the car engine, gearbox, cooling system, and manifold to improve its performance; and customize its look with different paint jobs, spoilers and rims; all with a wide range of options.”

While it provides an edge “somehow” for regional gaming developers to develop games with local touch “or” feel, they are encouraged to rather create a new untapped and exciting games that can be combined with the rich Arabian and Islamic cultures.