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.

Preston & Walker Pte Ltd. singapore based investment firm is offering 1 Million USD for the most promising business plan with a global scope.

“Our aim really is to look for the next big thing – whether it is an idea to generate more jobs, to change the way the game is played in a specific industry, to create a more socially responsible world – or even just to inspire us to learn more about ourselves,” said Gareth Walker, who is the company’s founder in a press release.

Participants in the contest cab submit their business plan here, and it will be judged by a team of anonymous millionaire judges. A small registration fee will be charged. For those who are selected, the judges will consider investing a maximum of US $1,000,000 of seed funding, as well as offer help in development of the ideas, serving as mentors to jumpstart the business. Deadline for submissions is December 31, 2011, and winners will be announced on January 31, 2012.

Participants may belong to a start-up or early stage venture.

For more information, including rules and regulations and registration fees, see the competition Web site.



Google has launched recently gmail SMS chat  in many Arab and some African and Asian countries with a number of mobile operators.



SMS with Gmail enables users to send free text messages (SMS) to  their friends directly from their Gmail accounts.
if the user’s contact replies, the text message response will appear as a reply in Chat.  just like gmail chat gtalk.

Sending and receiving a message from Gmail to any phone is free.

When replying with an SMS from phone to Gmail, you will be charged a regular SMS rate by your mobile provider.



Google has partnered with a number of operators in the region to bring the service here is the list of Arab, African and Asian mobile operators that are supported:

 ( Syria and Sudan are not on the list due to US government sanctions.)

Afghanistan
: Afghan Wireless Communication Company



Algeria
: Nedjma


Angola
: Unite


Bahrain
: Viva, 
Zain


Cameroon
: MTN
, Orange


Congo, Democratic Republic
: Vodacom


Côte d’Ivoire: 
Orange


Ghana
 Airtel, 
Tigo

Guinea
: Orange


Indonesia
:Indosat
, Telkomsel
, Tri


Iraq: 
Zain


”Israel
:” orange
, Pelephone


Jordan
: Zain


Kazakhstan: 
Kcell


Kenya
: Airtel
, orange
, Safaricom,
Yu

Kuwait:
Wataniya, 
Zain

Liberia
: Cellcom


Malawi: 
L Airtel, 
TNM


Malaysia
: DiGi


Maldives
: Dhiraagu
, Wataniya


Mozambique
: Vodacom


Nigeria
: Glo
, Starcomms


Palestinian Territories
: Jawwal
, Wataniya Mobile


Philippines
: Globe
, SMART
, Sun Cellular


Saudi Arabia: 
Mobily, 
STC
, Zain


Senegal
: orange
, Tigo


Sierra Leone
: Comium


Sri Lanka
: Dialog,
 Etisalat, 
Mobitel


Tanzania
:Vodacom
,Tigo


Thailand
: dtac, 
True Move


Tunisia
: Tunisiana


Uganda
: Orange, 
MTN
, Uganda Telecom


United States: 
All operators


Uzbekistan: 
Ucell


Zambia
: Airtel
, MTN
, Zamtel





Tomorrow is Eid Al Fitr in most Muslims countries. In this occasion I send my greetings (see my Video below) to All Muslims worldwide and specially AC’s Muslim reader: Happy Eid, Eid Mubarak and May Allah accept from me and you. If you are not Muslim then I also wish you a happy Tuesday  :).

What Is Eid Ul Fitr?

Muslims celebrate ‘Eid ul Fitr on the first day of Shawwal — the tenth month of the Islamic calendar, following the month of Ramadhan (in which the revelation started and ended 20+ years later, and which is also the month of fasting). Following a Lunar calendar, Muslims mark the beginning of the month with the sighting of the new crescent.

The month long fasting of Ramadan culminates into the festival of ‘Eid-ul-Fitr (the Festival of Fast-Breaking). It is a festival of joy, family reunion and thanksgiving to Almighty God. The giving of a special charity for this occasion is obligatory. This is known as Zakat. Muslims dress in holiday attire, attend a special community prayer in the morning, and visit friends and relatives. Greetings of “‘Eid mubarak,” or “a blessed ‘Eid” are exchanged.
Eid Ul Fitr Prayer

:

Allaho-Akber, Allaho-Akber. La ila-ha ill-lal-lah. Allaho-Akber, Allaho-Akber. Wa-lilahill hamd. 

(Allah is great, Allah is great. There is no god but Allah. Allah is great, Allah is great. And all praises are for Allah).

Here are some links to websites that helps you know more about Islam:

Islam Guide.

Islam Web

Islamic Tube

Just Quran

Best Islamic Sites

Sisters Magazine

#image by creativesam,

As in most countries in the world Ramadan is one day to start. a new startup has emerged to provide Islamic mobile apps for all devices. which would be handy to help Muslims during the holly month.

Islamic Appstore provide Muslims direct access to thousands of Islam-oriented contents in different sections such as The Holy Quran, Ahadith, Prayers, Supplications, Ringtones, Wallpapers, nasheed… All what users need is to connect to www.islamicapp.com using their mobile, tablet or Smartphone browsers and start downloading various contents.

Islamic appstore is also available for Developers as they can start publishing their contents and apps using the developer portal.

Robert Murdoch’s Newscorp owns many influential media outlets in UK, USA, Australia and other countries in the world. Many believe that no prime minister in England can be elected without his newspapers and media outlets’s blessings, that might also be true for any U.S president. His Fox news station in is one of the most followed news stations in America and its is known to support Zionist agendas and in growing islamophobia sentiment across the U.S.

But that empire is collapsing after the phone hacking scandal of his U.K news of the world has made against thousands of people, now the tide is turing on News corp.

Public outrage against News corp illegal practice is growing, and the world is realizing the extend of media power that is controlled by one family. Many now call to boycott news corp and its publications.

MurdochAlert is a Firefox add-on warns you whenever you visit one of the 100+ Murdoch Family-controlled websites. The add on says If you’re not ready to block them all, MurdochAlert can warn you instead. “Also it’s handy for identifying news sources controlled by the Murdoch Family. MurdochAlert warns you whenever you visit one of the 100+ Murdoch Family-controlled websites. If you’re not ready to block them all, MurdochAlert can warn you instead. Also it’s handy for identifying news sources controlled by the Murdoch Family. “

The browser add-ons developer explains why it was developed by saying:

“NewsCorp agents in multiple countries have been arrested for hacking into the phones and computers of at least thousands of innocent people. Since the Murdoch family controls 100+ high-traffic domains, it is difficult for average users to know which sites could potentially place them at risk. 

MurdochAlert identifies the domains that may place users at risk for Murdoch-related hacking. MurdochAlert shows a bottom warning box whenever you visit a Murdoch-controlled sited. “

As for Chrome there “Murdoch Block”, a chrome browser add-one that Blocks websites owned and operated by Newscorp.

If you need a list of websites controlled by newscorp of the world you can see the list here.

Via ArabCrunch Arabic Edition.

Update: the deal is confirmed.

Looks like group buying giant has acquired UAE daily deals startup startup GoNabit that has presence in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Lebanon, Jordan and Kuwait. and indonesian startup DealKeren.

The news comes from Indonesian tech startup blog Daily Social. according to the blog the logo on DealKeren’s website today has changed, officially confirming that the daily deal site has been acquired by Groupon US competitor Living Social, and that the blog sources has told them that Living Social Bought GoNabit.

I called Dan Dan Stuart CEO & founder of GoNabit and he declined to comment in the story.
GoNabit was launched last year and is backed by #1 job site in the Middle East Bayt. Here is an interview with Dan we did back in July 2010.

We will keep you posted with updates and confirmation from GoNabit, however it is worth mentioning that I’ve been seeing Facebook ads for LivingSocial in Facebook for a to be launched site for Deals in Amman. Groupon the main competitor to Living Social has presence in the Arab Region in Duabi, Abu Dhabi and Sharejah in UAE.

MIT Arab Business Plan competition which organize a yearly business plan competition for Arab startups has announced round 3 finalists.

12 teams from 30 semi-finalist teams hat qualified for Round 3. The 12 teams will fly to Tunisia and attend a coaching session with Booz & Co. guiding them through how to better perform in oral presentations and pitch their ideas in front of investors. The final award ceremony will be taking place in Tunisia on Friday, June 17. The 3 winning teams will receive up to $65,000 in prize money to help them take their business to the next level.

Here is the list of teams as per MIT Arab Business Plan Competition website:

Apple announced that its iPad 2 is coming to Japan today, Hong Kong, India, “Israel”, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey and UAE on April 29 and will sell at the same US suggested prices of $499 (US) for the 16GB model, $599 (US) for the 32GB model and $699 (US) for the 64GB model. iPad 2 with Wi-Fi + 3G will be available for a suggested retail price of $629 (US) for the 16GB model, $729 (US) for the 32GB model and $829 (US) for the 64GB model. iPad 2 with Wi-Fi will be available in China on May 6, Apple said in a press release further international availability will be announced at a later date.

In Summer time the weather when worldcup 2022 starts it will be too hot in desert Peninsula Qatar, the emerat is finding a solution to cool open playgrounds.

Dr Saud Abdul Ghani, head of the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Qatar University unveiled a design and construction of an artificial cloud to shade and cool the open playgrounds which will be executed in collaboration with Qatar Science and technology park.
According to Saud, artificial cloud will move by remote control made of 100 percent light carbonic materials, fueled by four solar-powered engines and it will fly high to protect direct and indirect sun rays to control temperatures at the open playgrounds.
Saud aid that the cost for the initial model will be 500,000 USD and the models could be used on beaches and car parking lots.

(Via engadget source The Peninsula)

Amman, Jordan based Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Information Technology International (TAG-IT), a member of Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Organization (TAG-Org) an accounting; auditing and financial services giant, is launching of TAGITOP.

TagiTop boost an Intel Atom N470 @1.83 GHz which makes it sound more of a netback than a laptop, LCD screen of: 10.1 inch, 16:9, 1024 x 600. @ GB RAM DDRII up to 4 G, Webcam 1.3 pixel, Battery life of 8,5 hours. The laptop comes with Windows 7, office 2010 starter edition, MS Security Essential, MS live Essentials, Microsoft Digital Literacy Curriculum, Learning Essentials for Microsoft Office, TAG Dictionaries: Business accounting, Intellectual property, ICT, Legal and TAG-Cambridge IT Skills examinations demo.

The laptop is run as non for profit initiative from Talal Abu-Ghazaleh and aims to help increase ICT knowledge and compueters literacy.
TAGITop comes in partnership with Intel, Microsoft and FOXCONN as original design manufacturing (OEM).
The chocolate look of the laptop makes it look more formal, hope they add more hip and young stylish colors to attract the young generation.

TAGI IT said that they will host a press conference this month providing more details about the laptop. for more info and where to buy it official site has the answer.

Update: per Ahmed EL AMINE TAGITop is not the first Arab laptop as TAGI posted Accent compute in morocco. Thanks Ahmed for the tip

National Net Ventures (N2V), the Internet Holding company, unveiled a new investment in Qaym.com, the Arab portal specialized in rating restaurants.

Investing in qaym.com is the third investment N2V announces during this month, and it aims at diversifying the company’s investments in the Arab website, especially ones that offer new, add-value services.

The website had previously received early stage investments from two angel investors: Abdulrahman Tarabzouni and Nichola Eliovits.

National Net Ventures (N2V) announced today a joint investment with several Arab executives in AqarMap.com, a real estate portal that is based on interactive Satellite Maps. N2V’s investment in AqarMap.com coincided with the investment of Jamal Al-muttareb, CEO of almuttareb group and Fadi Ghandour, MENA Venture Investments CEO.

Amount of investment were not disclosed, however Aqarmap.com is expected to benefit from N2V’s online ad network Net-Advantage.com This is the second investment for N2V this year after investing few days ago in True-gaming.net an Arabic gaming portal and is the Internet holdings third investment since the inception of its venture investment arm which was with weddings portals Yebab.

In a press release landed to AC, US department of state said its special envoy for International energy Affairs, David Glowyn signed with the Director General of the National Resources Authority for the Government of Jordan Dr. Maher Hijazin a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Shale Gas resources.

Under the MOU cooperation will include and not limited to, a series of workshops where U.S Geological Survey (UGSGS) would conduct as assessment of Jordan’s Shale Gas potential and visits from the Jordanian side to US counter part in the industry.

Jordan is poor in its energy resources, it exports all its oil consumption and big chunk of its Gas consumption.

Shale Gas is natural gas produced from shale. Developing Gas Shale industry in Jordan will help the Kingdom’s energy sector as well as its economy which spend around 2 billion USD a year on importing oil.

#image credits

Seems that Wikileaks started something that can not be stopped, clone versions of the site are poping everywhere in order to expose governments corruption.

Latest of them is a site called KSA Leaks which is being hosted on blogger and posting leaks about what is happening in the Saudi kingdom.
Currently the site displays what documents of corruption at some of Saudi Arabia official and private media.

The Arabic sites has been reported to be blocked in Saudi Arabia by Twitter users, we could not confirm that.

F.B.I. director Robert Mueller III travled to Silicon Valley, Tuesday, to meet with top executives of several tech companies including Facebook and Google about a proposal that would make it easier to  spy on Internet users.

According to NY Times report, under Mueller’s proposal, ” firms would have to design systems to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages. Services based overseas would have to route communications through a server on United States soil where they could be wiretapped.”

ArabCrunch urges Silicon Valley companies to refuse cooperation with the F.B.I. in this matter, 100s of millions of Non-Americans rely on Google and Facebook for their daily internet life and these 100s of millions of people did not elect the government that wants to spy on their communications  and on what they say online.

The F.B.I. will not use wiretapping of criminals from U.S soil  only. But also opposition to its occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq,  and other countries in the world. Not to mention with the US government treatment of Wikileaks  and other free media would raise huge suspicion that  the FBI would wiretap journalists and bloggers like us in order to identify and suppress source of leaks of government criminal activities in USA and around the world.

NYTimes says that the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act requires phone and broadband network access providers  like Verizon and Comcast to make sure they can immediately comply when presented with a court wiretapping order.

As for the 100s of millions of non-americans would there be a court order to wirtetape anyone? we doubt.

It is really ironic that Hillary Clinton few months ago expressed concerns of wiretapping requests  to BlackBerry devices by governments in the Arab region, while its government is pursuing this on its soil. Preashing sometime overseas and do something else home!

#Robert S. Mueller III and Gorge Bush image from the White house archive.

Defense Research and Development Organization (DROD) of India is putting a dedicated team of 50 software professionals in the Bangalore and Delhi software development centers to develop an operating system (OS) of its own.

Dr V K Saraswat, Scientific Adviser to the Defense Minister of India told India times that he just set up a software center in Delhi for that task. The effort will be headed by DROD in partnership with software companies and academic institutions.

Saraswat, told India times that the efforts to build India own operating system is based on security needs to thwart attempts of cyber attacks and data theft, rather than relying on western Operating systems “Only way to protect it is to have a home-grown system, the complete architecture…source code is with you and then nobody knows what’s that.”

DRDO is also planning a commercial arm for the OS, the OS is expected to be operational next year.

#Image via Indian Institute of Science.

Since 1967 “Israel” has been confiscating land from the indigenes Palestinian inhabitants of occupied westbank and Jerusalem (Alquds)  and building settlements on top of them for new illegal jewish migrants.

Americans for peace now a US adjunct to Jewish Israeli Peace Now organization has launched an iPhone and web google maps mashup to track those settlements and their expansion called: APN Facts on the Ground Map Project.

Facts on the Ground enables users to view and filter Jewish Settlements based on areas that have full or partial control by Palestinian authority , view each Settlement, symbolized by little blue houses on the map, once clicked on one of them , icon gives its land area. A second click brings up a window with more details: the year it was established, population, ideology (or lack of), character (secular or religious), amount of ‘private Palestinian land’ it occupies, and a graph that tracks its population growth.

APN intends to update the map regularly with new information, including the establishment of outposts and their dismantlement, and violent incidents on the part of Palestinians and settlers. and plans to turn it into a real time info app.

The app is available English on for free the web and for the iPhone and iPad, Android and a hebrew version in the works.

Peace now says that their goal from this app “is to revolutionize the debate over settlements, breaking through polemics and spin, to anchor the discussion in the facts.”

This is another example how iPhone and google maps have been used for social causes.

ArabCrunch over Twitter around a week ago said that AC’s founder was aware he was under surveillance, he confirmed that he was aware since several months ( might mean 5-7 or 20 or 40:) (surveillance: that does not necessarily mean on the ground or just online by NSA, we do not comment at this point for security reasons.)
The leak from the US State Department and US department of Defense about Obama’s administration criminal plans (CIA) to destroy ArabCrunch are a security alert to those agencies and their dogs, as such the agency and its dogs would look for sources of the leaks and any evidence.

We mentioned for the first time in the last post who is behind the terrorist DDoS attacks and criminal hack of ArabCrunch blog. Now we will reveal more plots, as all these plots were designed to force ArabCrunch founder to become a CIA agent or remove him from the leadership position or get red of him in one way or another or destroy ArabCrunch with anyway, whether by blocking advertisers from advertising on AC so there are no revenues and we go bankrupt, or to the level of cutting the line of communications for ArabCrunch have with the outside the world, by manipulating our email on google ( we did not talk about Voice yet).

The CIA/Mossad and the global Zionist movement are ready to go at any level to destroy AC. The Zionist infiltration of United States of America is a secret to too many Americans, the way they operate is no different than they way Banana republics operates: control key power elements: Media, Economy then you control politics.

In 1997 the world hottest news was about Bill Clinton Monika Laynski Scandal, The US president was blackmailed by this young Jewish girl, she had her shirt with the “evidence” for 2 years! why? because she was a trap (card) to be used when needed.

Some say in USA that the blackmail was orchestrated by the Israeli Prime Minister Natneyaho, Monika is a member of an Israeli Party and when she went back to “Israel” she was greeted with flowers and roses as a hero who saved “Israel.” We mentioned in the last post, that the father of Gaith Saqer the founder of ArabCrunch is Dr. Mohammad Saqer a senior Muslim BrotherHood leader, and was an ex-president of Islamic university of Gaza.

• Dr. Mohmmaed Saqer is believed to be a former Hamas leader during his stay in Gaza in the 1980s. in the 1980s and during Dr. Mohammad presidential period of Islamic University in Gaza he was a target for several assassination attempts. He lives in Jordan and teaches at the University of Jordan.

Again we stress, AC’s founder Gaith is NOT a member of Muslim brotherhood or Hamas or any political parties. AC’s founder is not involved in any politics. But his job requires him to meet people from different walks of life. That does not mean he agree with anyone point of view or believes.

The Mossad is always actively fresh for new recruits as a recent announcement reveled that they have succeed in recruiting a son of a Hamas leader. Mossad tries to recruits not just Hammas leaders but their direct family members. Not just that anyone they can add as an asset. and Not just Mossad tries to recruit other Arab Intelgance agncies and the ICA too.

• One of ArabCrunch American fans who owns shares in one of the most poplar sites in USA has been facing several lawsuits.

We asked him if those are because of his support to AC, he said “Yes extreme Israelis are behind this!” The guy is not Muslim or Arab by the way!

• CIA acquired ArabCrunch hosting company

ArabCrunch was in negotiations with a major hosting company in Texas: Softlayer, the hosting deal would bring salable server bandwidth to serve AC’s growing visits. We were waiting for this deal to happen because we had a deal with another company that would bring us 10s of millions of visits per month and potentially make us the number 1 blog or 2 in all categories ahead of Huffington Post. Negotiations with the hosting company took sometime and was about to close when we were close to close the deal, boom a private equity firm comes and acquires softlayer!!! And who is this private equity firm?

It is GI Partners a firm that has secured $4.0 billion of capital commitments on behalf of recognized institutional private equity and real estate investors in the U.S., Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

GI Partners is CIA front for its business, spy and military operations, GI Partners runs an imam program to brain wash Iraqi prisoners and destroy their well, a common tactic used before by clonal powers such as UK the program name is Russian and East European Partnerships (REEP) Inc., REEP/OSS Web site, also offers “intelligence support operations.”

A REEP Inc. Web site announced in August 2008, for example: “Counter Intelligence Agents – Urgently needed. – There is a unique opportunity to serve the United States as an interrogator and Counter Intelligence Agent as part of a rebuilding effort in Iraq.” (This REEP Web site has been taken down since truth-out.org asked a REEP official about the ad in August, and the REEP web address now transfers visitors to a combined REEP/OSS Web site.) So Basically did GI Partners blocked our partnership with Softayer? well since the deal went south after GI become the owner. We believe so. Now we are hosted with a CIA owned company.

• CIA/Mossad Accessed and tampered ArabCrunch EMAIL

That means not only the CIA and Mossad have access to our google email but the CIA have direct access to our server! Very nice! We mentioned before that the CIA and the Mossad had access to our email, now also confirmed: our server, We know that certain data that belong to us else where has been played with, and since there are thousands of files we do not know what else was added or deleted. Probably not just to fabricate crimes against AC’s founder and AC but also to wipe of any evidence of their passing by!

• Former Israeli Army Solider is one of the people behind Obama’s Entrepreneurship Plan

Former Israeli Army solider (six years in the Artillery Forces) Mickey Bergman is a major architect of Obama’s and the US State department “Muslim entrepreneurship engagement plans” Founder and President of the Solel Strategic Group (SSG) Current clients include: the Clinton Global Initiative, the Aspen Institute (jointly with the U.S. Department of State), New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, the Robert Redford Center at Sundance, and J Street.

Completed contracts also included the Reut Institute, former Member of Knesset Ami Ayalon, the American Jewish World Service, the Elders, and the University of Utah. He also works Aspen Institute as Director of the US-Palestinian Partnership (UPP).

With the Governor he helped negotiate a “ceasefire” between the government of Sudan and local Darfur militias He continues to work in collaboration with Governor Richardson as his Foreign Policy Advisor to the Middle East and Africa.

Aspen Institute is the main think tank behind Obama’s engagement and tech plan for the Muslim world: this person who is involved “very much” with these “efforts” is a former Israeli army soldier.

• Coupe attempt in certain Arab Country in September linked to the CIA

One of our friends is an Arab foreign minster, we asked him to help us get signatures from other Arab and non Arab foreign ministers in the illegal and the obviously now unfair competition from the Obama’s admin.

He promised to raise the issue with secretary general of Arab league and make it a discussion issue in the next meeting of Arab foreign Minster which ended last week! Boom, coupe attempt in that country! email does not arrive to his inbox and no much wording from him!

• Other Plots:

The other plots that the some CIA criminals did from leaking wrong news that we know that they are wrong, but they leaked them in-order to make us write about them which would bring our coverage trust down.

The other plots were designed to confuse AC’s founder and make him think “even by force that he is hallucinating” one more! the CIA and Mossad pigs have started a counter campaign on new blogs, or via tweets making fun of AC and trying their best to confuse the public that “who is AC” it is nothing! no cares about you! Well we are something, and Obama is determent with his entrepreneurship plan to engage Muslims in “a very nice way” as the case with AC and the case or Iraqi Journalists.

• Former FBI Director Running Obama’s “Engagement” with Muslims

Oh this effort is run by Former senior FBI executive at the US nationally security advisor. FBI are “nice people!” It is not just ArabCrunch, every Muslim tech Startup should submit to Zionist and CIA well or out of business. It happened to others but they did not publicly talk about it. We did! and we are almost done!

Inside Facebook released few days ago its Inside Facebook Gold report, with data about membership and usage across the number 1 social networking site in the world Facebook.

The report reveals the shift of Facebook population of more than 500 million users, from being dominated by US citizens and English speaking people to more of an international play ground.

According to the report Arabic had the highest growth rate in August with around 18%  followed Portuguese by around 11%, this is due to the increasing number of Brazilian coverts from Google’s social network Orkut to Facebook, as Facebook is showing strong growth in Brazil.

As for Arabic, despite that its high growth rate it is still the smallest of the top 10 languages, holding around 1%. Our source inside Facebook informed us few months ago that Facebook users from the Arab world stands at around 16-18 million users ( we will update you soon with the latest numbers.)

English has dipped from holding 50% of languages on Facebook to 47.95%. The second language was spanish with 14.43%, then French with 5.26%, Turkish makes the 4th largest language on Facebook with 4.66%, while the largest Muslim country in terms of population Indonesia holds the 5th rank with 4.44%.

That also means that  3 languages moslty spoken by Muslims ( Turkish, Indonesian and Arabic) make around 11% of facebook users holding the 3rd place ahead of French, which implies that facebook has to be more concerned about Muslims feelings with provocative stuff such as (draw Mohammad -peace be upon him- day on facebook) as someone like Millatfacebook might eat the lunch.

This shift in Facebook population, also means that facebook is eating users from Google and Yahoo at the international level, which is a good news for Facebook and International social marketers alike, as ads on Facebook now can be targets to specific languages not just English.

#via insidefacebook.

2 allegations hit Whistleblower website Wikileaks‘ founder Julian Assange in Sweden, the first one involves rape  but was dropped only after 6 hours.

Wikileaks got famous after leaking 90,000 documents involves the war in Afghanistan around a month ago, and before that releasing video footage of a U.S army Apache Helicopter killing journalist in Iraq. Since then Obama’s administration has been publicly attacking the site and looking for ways to press criminal charges.

Wikileaks said over Twitter“ Reminder: US intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks as far back as 2008.” The site on March 15, 2010 published a classified 32 page U.S. counterintelligence investigation reveled a plan in plotting to destroy the center gravity of the site by attacking its “trust” and credibility.

In an interview with Aljazeera English Asang said  that Wikileaks was warned by Australian intelligence of such things. However, he said they do not have yet an evidence of CIA involvement in this allegations but called it “Smear.”

Mentioning rape, many Iraqi prisoners accused US forces in Iraq of rapping them, while some CIA reports shows that rape threats where used as interrogation techniques by CIA operatives.

Wikileaks prepares to release another 15,000 documents relating to the war in Afghanistan.

Here is Alajzeera video interview with Assang:




There have been some confusion among some our followers on Twitter and facebook about our tweets since we recently started to share our readers’ comments on ArabCrunch English and Arabic.

Yes, we started to tweet our readers’ comments on ArabCrunch via our Twitter account, but that does not mean we necessarily agree with them, it is just to inform our Twitter followers of these comments and to offer our readers more visible voice. If anyone do not like the comment, he/she is welcomed to comment back on ArabCrunch.

Normally when we share a reader’s comment, we start the tweet with “comment” or “commenter” or the user name depending in how best we can shrink the tweet into 140 characters, the limit that Twitter offers.

On the Retweeting: We do retweet tweets from our followers and other places around the web, again that does not mean that we necessarily agree with the content of the tweet or the post. It is just that we find the Tweet or the post worth sharing or think it is of interest to read, again that does not mean we necessarily agree with the tweet’s content in fact in many occasions we do not. Example, if we stumbled into a post about “how Communists work with technology,” that does not mean we are communist, in fact we are NOT and we DO NOT have any political ideology or bias at ArabCrunch. But it would be of interest to know how communists use or work with technology.

This also applies to our facebook page, as we also started to share with our followers some of our users’ comments and other posts from around the web.

At personal user level, people need to note that if a person “Likes” a page or an update on facebook, it does not necessarily mean he/she really “likes” everything in that page or update, he might disagree with the whole update. But since Facebook does not have the text option of “follow” status update or “follow” a page many people will think that this person truly likes this page because the word is “liked”, which in many cases is not true. As again it might be something he/she likes to share or follow, however in other occasions he might truly like that post or update.

We hope this post clarifies some of the confusion about the stuff we share on Twitter and facebook.

Thanks,

We wrote 2 times before about the floods in Pakistan that killed an estimated 1,600 people, made 4 millions homeless and affected  about 20 million human-beings.

Yahoo! has joined the effort and added a link to its logo on its website to Pakistan Floods how to help Page on yahoo that offers a guide in how to help a long with a list of Organization that you can donate to and news and vidoes.

Thank you Yahoo !

As for Google it has setup a special web section for Disaster Relief in Pakistan, offering donations options and tools to help in the disaster such as look for someone, find someone, also Disaster Relief in Pakistan. Resource Finder is a tool to help disseminate updated information about health facilities and services

This is the second time that Google failed with Muslims this month, before Bing beat them by featuring Ramadan images on its homepage. Google did not offer a Ramadan Doodle but a number of Chrome themes.

ComScore released today a report on Twitter stats for the month of June, the report reveals that 93 million Internet users visited Twitter.com -exluding third party app such as TweetDeck- an increase of 109% from last year.

Indonesia the largest Muslim country in terms of population achieved the highest penetration rate, at 20.8 percent of the country’s Internet users. Brazil and Venezuela follows Indonesia in that category.

In terms of users growth, Twitter is growing at much higher rates Internationally than in its homeland in North America as the region’s growth rate is at 22% to nearly 25 million visitors in June. Latin America had the strongest audience growth, surging 305 percent to 15.4 million users. Asia Pacific ranked as the second-fastest growing region, climbing 243 percent to 25.1 million visitors. The Middle-East Africa jumped 142 percent to 5 million visitors, while Europe soared 106 percent to 22.5 million visitors. ( we do not know what the term Middle East and Africa means to ComScore, is it the Arab world plus Iran and Turkey plus all Africa? last time we wrote about Twitter visitors  in early this year via 2 parties it was  about 15 to 30,000 thousand users, so 5 Million is a very massive growth rate)

The report reveals that Twitter is gaining adoption among smartphone users. In the U.S., 8.3 percent of smartphone users (4.2 million people) accessed Twitter.com in a month via the browser on their mobile devices, outpacing each of the European markets. In Europe, 2.8 percent of smartphone users overall accessed Twitter.com (1.7 million users), with the U.K. experiencing the strongest penetration in the region at 5.8 percent, followed by Germany with 3.1 percent and France with 2.1 percent.

It would be great to add third party apps usage, not sure how would that number increase, but many users who use apps like TweetDeck access Twitter.com occasionally over the month period. Another Interesting finding would be knowing who are the active memebrs from those reported and those coming as visitors via referrals like Google.

What is your take, why Twitter growth in Middle East and Africa plus Latin America is exploding?

#image via Si.

Whistleblower website WikiLeaks that is now well known for releasing the Afghanistan War Log of around 90,000 secret US military documents and the Baghdad shooting Video seems to be preparing for a new massive batch of leaks.

A Tweet sent by the Twitter account of Wikileaks asked for 700,00 USD for its next harm-minimization review, and accused the Pentagon and the media of not helping in the efforts of harm minimization.

That money seems to be going to help edit 15,000 more documents about the war in Afghanistan which might mean removing the “informants” names or a 260,000 pages that involves the Middle East or a new  a batch of fresh leaks and that money might be used to support the organizations infrastructure such as servers and so on as it lives off donations as a not for profit organization. Wikileaks accepts donations via different means starting with big to small payments on sites such as micropayment site Flattr.com.

The Pentagon has asked wikileaks recently “to do the right thing” and remove the war logs but wikileaks spokesman said more leaks to come.

Wikileaks accused in another tweet that “the pentagon wants to bankrupt us by refusing to assist  the review.

“Pentagon wants to bankrupt us by refusing to assist review.Media won’t take responsibility.Amnesty won’t.What to do?”

The Obama administration has asked today Britain, Germany, Australia and its other allies to consider criminal charges against the founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange to limit his cores Europe movement.

While an American official was quoted by The Daily Beast saying ““It’s amazing how Assange has overplayed his hand,”…. “Now, he’s alienating the sort of people who you’d normally think would be his biggest supporters.”

He was referring to 4 human rights organizations such as the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission AIHRC.

Wikileaks replied via Twitter by saying “Research note: AIHRC is primary funded by the occupying forces of Afghanistan.” and “Remember well those organizations currently rushing to push the Pentagon’s agenda without fact checking.”

A Petition posted online with the title of “Defend WikiLeaks – End the Secret Wars” said that “We believe that WikiLeaks and those whistleblowers who declassify documents in a time of secret war should be welcomed as defenders of democracy, not demonized as criminals. We support their First Amendment rights and welcome their continued disobedience in response to a long train of official deception.” The Petition has gathered   a number of well known people with 3061 signatures saying.”

Wikileaks has released on March 15, 2010 a classified 32 page U.S. counterintelligence investigation reveled a plan in plotting to destroy the center gravity of the site by attacking its “trust.”