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.

Update:
Google responded by saying that the US government allowed them to offer these software:
“Export controls and sanctions are maintained by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry & Security (BIS) in the past they prohibited us from offering software downloads to Syria. We used IP blocking to comply with those regulations.

A combination of regulatory changes by both the Commerce and Treasury Departments have made it possible for us to make certain types of software downloads available in Syria”

Google has celebrated today’s Egyptian presidential election with a doodle at google.com.eg the doodle features each letter of Google participating in the election by standing in line then writing the name they will vote for and then submitting the vote.

Also google has launched a news site that enables users to follow election’s news in general or by the presidential candidate. In this section like Google news google compile the list of news stories from news sources across the web, be it a newspaper online magazine or a news portal.

Shoutit is a social marketplace to trade that is an evolution of classified listing, it takes classified concept to new grounds buy offering social aspect such as folowing of people and stuff that maters to you.

On Shoutit users can post a request (shout) be it a good service or help they need and the amount they request and the local community and respond. They call also offer things for sale too.

Shoutit also helps you to build your shopping profile listening (following) to stuff that you like, and then it will try to always show you recommendations based on what you listened to (interested to). You can also build a listeners base which gives your shouts a louder effect and make them reach more people. You can follow a specific tag for example iPhone4 to see what offers are available for iPhone4.

The startup is based in Dubai and it is angle backed as per The National has 5 employees, the site has attracted more than 250,000 page views and 10,000 users. It planes make money by renting businesses a profile whereby they could send out targeted offers based on potential customers’ interests.

Tehran has said it will sue Google over dropping the name of the Persian Gulf on Google Maps. If Google does not restore the name of the Persian Gulf, it will face “serious damages,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said, as cited by AP. The famous search engine earlier left the body of water between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula nameless on its online map service. Tehran has already warned Google of possible legal action, Mehmanparast said. Iranians has had tensions with some Arab states which insist on calling the body of water the Arabian Gulf.

(Via RT.)

Flat6Lab’s most recent demo Day l was highlighted by an array of announcements one of which was their official induction into the Global Accelerator Network (GAN). GAN is the largest and most prominent network of accelerators in the world. Championed by TechStars, the Global Accelerator Network was created in 2010 under the management of some of the top accelerator programs and alongside the White House’s Startup America Initiative. With that, Flat6Labs becomes the first accelerator in Africa to join GAN.

By joining GAN, Flat6Labs would have expanded its network and reach from a regional to a global scale. Flat6Labs will now have access to a larger group of investors, mentors and entrepreneurs. This will help connect the program’s member entrepreneurs to global partners and investors with whom they can collaborate and grow. Each of Flat6Labs’ companies will also receive over $100,000 worth in free perks from over 25 of the best vendors in the world as well as many training opportunities.

Queen Rania Center for entrepreneurship (QRCE) a not for profit organization based in Amman, Jordan and aims to spread entrepreneurship in Jordan has announced yesterday that it launched its 5th business plan competition: Queen Rania National Entrepreneurship Competition (QRNEC.)

Unlike last year this year competition is aimed at students at universities and not open for non students except if they were teachers and applying teams have members who are students. Application submission is open now till mid-may 2012.

QRNEC awards amount to over $30,000, awarded to projects in the fields of ICT, Biotechnology, Agricultural Technology, Renewable Energy, Water, Life Sciences, and Advanced Technologies.
As part of the competition successful team will receive Entrepreneurship Development Bootcamp and Mentoring & Coaching.

Focus.com has made an informative infographic about startups and how they look like in 2011 and how startup form and grow. The infogrpahic answers questions about : who the startups are? What are they doing? What are they spending? How old are they? What are they doing? Who will break even? What problems are they facing? Here the infographic and its details you can leave a comment if you found something interesting.

In the presence of representatives from Sawari Ventures and the American University of Cairo, School of Business, Entrepreneurship & Innovation Program (EIP), Flat6Labs Cairo based startup accelerator celebrated the end of its second cycle with its teams’ Demo Day. In line with the startup accelerator’s aims, the event was a final opportunity for its cycle’s seven teams to present and demonstrate the potential of their respective projects to an audience of entrepreneurs and investors.

In attendance at the Demo Day were the Flat6Labs mentors and staff, reputed IT figures from the region, and investors who were keen on witnessing the progress of the cycle’s teams.
GyroLabs was the first team to step forth, outlining their vision of the possible collaboration between the worlds of television and Internet, one that they are have already taken strong steps towards implementing. Eshtery followed with their plan to revolutionize the shopping experience as known to the Egyptian society, allowing people to shop for groceries using smartphones without losing anything from the joy of the shopping experience. AskNative demonstrated how it plans to serve the adventurous, knowledge seeking public through a question-answering platform that serves to facilitate travel experiences. 2ogra illustrated their plans that are intended to revolutionize Egyptian transportation by developing productive experiences between customers and taxi drivers. Yadget explained their vision of a social experience that is centered around items and places and not just people, wherein people can leave virtual notes anywhere and everywhere. Crowdsay spoke of their desire to facilitate the virtual existence of artists in a platform that allows for talents to grow and be hired. Finally, Nafham brought the team presentations to a close with their vision of an online system that aids in developing the educational system in Egypt by helping students in their education process away from the world of private tutors.
Afterwards, Mr. Hany El-Sonabty, Managing Partner of Sawari Ventures, gave closing comments, during which he mentioned that ‘ Flat6Labs next cycle will begin by early June 2012.

Souq.com and the American University in Cairo’s Entrepreneurs Society have teamed up to launch The Hit 2012, the first product innovation competition for the university’s students, which gives participants the opportunity to win LE 50,000 to start up their business and own a commercial channel through an online store on Souq.com.
The concept of The Hit was developed by Souq.com and the Entrepreneurs’ Society, under the support of Sherif Kamel, the Dean of the School of Business. Its aim is to raise student interest in entrepreneurship and innovation, by providing a platform for a practical learning experience. The process shows young Egyptians that with an innovative idea that is properly researched, they can create a product and develop a commercial model to sell it. Souq.com is giving the students real opportunities to go to market with their ideas.
“Our aim is to spread entrepreneurship awareness and foster an entrepreneurial spirit among AUC students and among the Egyptian youth,” said Youssuf El Samma, CEO, Entrepreneurs’ Society. “We chose to partner with Souq.com because through them students with innovative ideas can build business models for products that will get retailed online and will have real buyers in a matter of days. There are many wonderful ideas and concepts among students, who are the entrepreneurs and business leaders of the future. The Hit has encouraged these innovators to bring their ideas to life.”

In collaboration with the Adham Centre for Television and Digital Journalism, each stage of The Hit 2012 was filmed and posted online as webisodes. Today, out of the 16 teams who pitched their ideas to a panel of expert judges, only 10 teams remain in the competition. These 10 have now received LE 1,000 each to build a prototype of their product and present it.
Prior to the prototypes presentations, Omar Sodoudi, general manager for Souq.com in Egypt, spent an entire day mentoring the teams in his office. “It’s been such a journey, watching the ideas of these young entrepreneurs develop and get nurtured to the stage they’ve reached today. The most important thing for us is that all of these ideas end up on the market, not just the winning “Hit”. The teams or the ‘entrepreneurs’ need to start expanding their thinking beyond the idea, but more into setting up a business operation, and how they’re going to make money. We’re offering them an online retail channel, but we also want to encourage them to learn more about all the possibilities of e-commerce.”
The prototype presentations will be filmed on May 3rd and the videos posted on the website for the public to vote on. The voting results will determine the five finalists who will present their fully developed prototypes to the judges. In the final round, the online voters will get to choose the winner of The Hit, which will be announced in an awards ceremony at the American University in Cairo’s New Campus on May 9th.
The Hit 2012 is supported by Souq.com, the Adham Centre for Television and Digital Journalism and KUWADICO.

The competition is divided into three rounds
 
Idea Generation and Executive Summary
100 teams participate in this round by attending the session on Idea Generation and Product Innovation to incubate their initial ideas and learn about the dynamics of ecommerce in Egypt. Participants are then required to send their executive summaries for evaluation
 
Planning Round
In this round participating teams attend the session on Business Case writing where they learn how to plan, write their business cases and present their elevator pitch to the judging panel. 16 Teams are then chosen to take part in the first episode where they pitch their ideas to the judging panel. The panel of judges will choose eight teams and online voters will pick the two other teams to become the top ten.
 
Branding Round
In this round the top ten participants are not yet announced which gives a chance to all 16 teams to brand their businesses and products. The 16 participating teams will attend the session on Branding and Marketing where they learn how to fully develop a marketing campaign and brand their products.  In the second episode top 10 teams are announced and they get a chance to present their full marketing campaigns to the judging panel.
 
Production Round
In this round the top five are not yet announced and therefore all ten participating teams will attend a session on Supply chain and Building a prototype. Participating teams are then funded with 1,000 EGP to build a prototype of their product and present it to the judging panel. Voters will then choose the top four teams to present their fully developed prototypes and the judges bring one of the bottom six back in the competition to present his prototype forming the top five.
 
Final Round
Voters get to choose this year’s Hit through online voting on our website.

Opera Software today released the beta version of Opera 12, codenamed “Wahoo”, the latest entry in Opera’s long line of desktop web browsers. Opera 12 is both smarter and faster than its predecessors and introduces new features for both developers and consumers to play with ahead of the final launch. Discover Opera 12 for yourself at http://www.opera.com/browser/next.

The new browser is fully localized in to new languages Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Hebrew with a a remodeled interface for right-to-left scripts.
Customizable themes

Themes give you an easy way to change the look of Opera to suit your tastes or your mood. Just select a new theme and — voila! — your new-look browser awaits. To try a theme for Opera 12 beta, visit .
http://addons.opera.com/themes.

Themes are also easy to make. If you want to try your hand at making a theme for Opera, learn how to do it here: http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/operas-lightweight-themes..
A separate process for plug-ins

Plug-ins are a leading cause of browser instability, so Opera gave them their own process. This way, when a plug-in crashes, it doesn’t take Opera down with it.
Faster by being smarter

Opera gained speed improvements by further optimizing the network SSL code and used smarter tab loading to accelerate start-up and shut-down times.
Camera support

Opera 12 shows some of the new tricks available to web developers by supporting getUserMedia, an API that allows web applications to use hardware like your computer’s built-in web cam. To try some demo applications when you’ve downloaded Opera 12 Beta, click here:
Photo Booth
Polaroid
Color Picker
Explode
Native pages in the browser

What if webpages could be laid out like a book with pages that can format automatically to the screen size? What if it only took a few lines of CSS code? The project was formerly known as Opera Reader, but Opera are opening it up for standardization as CSS3 Generated Content for Paged Media.

Opera upgraded its innovative security badge to make it easier to understand the security and privacy policies of the sites you visit. You can quickly see if a site is using your location information or wants to turn on your web cam.
Extensions extended

The Opera extension platform becomes more powerful with the introduction of a Windows and Tabs APIs that allow extensions to control the windows and tabs in the browser.
Other cool things like:
64-bit versions for Mac and Windows
Support for the Do Not Track header
CSS3 Animations and Transitions
HTML5 Drag and Drop
Support for CORS — not the beer, but rather Cross-Origin Resource Sharing
Opt-in hardware acceleration and WebGL

“Woo-hoo! After months of hard work, we’re nearing the finish line on Opera 12,” said Haakon Wium Lie, CTO, Opera Software. “There are so many new things to try. The paged media project has the potential to change the way browsers handle content, and camera support shows just how web applications can compete with native apps. With so many new features, especially for developers, Opera 12 is a platform to build upon. We’re excited to share it with the world and see what people can create.”

E-commerce is hot in the Arab world and now it is taking off after several years. Last year group buying site GoNabit which was founded in UAE was acquired by LivingSocial for a price around $10 million.

Today brings a news of another milestone for e-commerce in the Arab world, MarkaVIP Amman, Jordan based flash shopping site has secured investment of $10 million Series B funding led by European venture firm Prime Ventures. It’s joined buy participation from New York City-based Invus Financial Advisers (IFA), Antwerp-based Hummingbird Ventures, and San Francisco-based Lumia Capital.

According to TechCrunch the cash will be used to expand MarakaVIP operations and marketing and also expand to other parts of the Arab world, specially the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC.)

MarkaVIP, was founded in Jordan in November 2010 by Alkhatib and Amer Abulaila, MarkaVIP’s CTO. Its has 1.5 million registered users and is adding around 5,000 new members per day,

Syrian Electronic Army a hacker group affiliated with Bashar Al Asad regime has claimed responsibility for taking down Linkedin Blog http://blog.linkedin.com/.

As of writing this post Linkedin in blog is down.
This is the zone-h info of the hack.

In Blog post announcing that google has added Jerusalem old city to Google maps street view Google has recognized Jerusalem as an Israeli city the post reads “
Every year, 3.5 million people come to Israel to visit ancient sites that are holy to billions of people, to walk among the unique stone of Jerusalem, or to relax on the beaches of the Mediterranean. “
“To help you explore Israel’s history and present, we’ve launched imagery of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv-Jaffa and Haifa on Street View.”

However there is no mention to Islamic holly sites in Jerusalem like Al Aqsa Masjed and Dome of Shrine Masjed.

Google has done a mistake by recognizing the old city as part of “Israel” and this is expected to damage its image among Muslims worldwide. It is worth mentioning that the Current CEO and the other cofounder of Google are Jews.

Here are the places from Palestine Google added to street view:

“You can explore the narrow streets of Jerusalem’s Old City and each of its four quarters, walk along the Via Dolorosa and see the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, visit the Western Wall and the Mount of Olives. You can stop by the Biblical Zoo, then visit the Israel Museum and the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum—and explore more with the Art Project and the Yad Vashem photo archive. Or you can stroll through Tel Aviv’s bohemian Neve Tzedek neighborhood and the ancient port of Jaffa, and take a virtual trip to some of Tel Aviv’s scenic beaches or to Haifa’s Baha’i Gardens. “

Via Tech Wadi.

A New Arab Advisors Group‘s survey conducted on February 2012 of cellular users in Kuwait reveals some details on smartphones and tablets adoption and usage patterns. The survey probed general cellular usage habits, smartphones awareness in addition to tablets availability among cellular users in Kuwait.
The survey revealed that iPad is the preferred choice of housholds that uses tablets and that 51.3% of the total cellular handsets used by the respondents are smartphones. More than half (58.5%) of smartphone users who use applications prefer the English language for their applications.
Respondents were randomly called through a randomly generated table of cellular phone numbers for each of the three cellular operators in Kuwait: Zain, Wataniya and Viva. The survey results encompass answers from 750 cellular users. The survey yields a confidence level of 99% with a margin of error of less than 5%.
“The survey revealed that 82.2% of the respondents who download applications download social networking applications, followed by games applications (60.7%) and then news applications (41.1%).” Ms. Noura Abdulhadi, Arab Advisors Project Manager, commented.

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.

Egyptian hacking group Team Hacker Egyp took over Barack Obama http://barack-obama.co.il/ Israeli site in retaliation for the conspiracy against Islamic Egyptian presidential candidate Hazim Salah Abu Ismael.

Salah Salah Abu Ismael are talking about a US government conspiracy in partnership with the rolling military council to dismiss him from presidential raise in Egypt’s first free presidential election.

The conspiracy according to his supporters is the attempt by the US government and the Egyptian regime to prove that Abu Ismael’s mother is an American citizen which would disqualify abu Ismael from presidential race if proven.

Abut Ismael has talked about a US government plot in partnership with the rolling military council against him and Egypt because he calls for Islam to role Egypt and to make Egypt free from American imperialism that aim to keep the country weak and poor.

http://barack-obama.co.il/ has completely been taken over by the hacking group Team Hacker Egypt, they raised the Egyptian flag and left the following message:

“Message Team Hacker Egypt: much away but come back strongly and this is not the final blow, but the next strikes a much stronger
Message Soly Hacker:  Fuck Cops Alectornic And Fuck InterPool And Fuck FPI ( maybe the mean FBI)
we Are : Soly Hacker , Dr.Silnt Hill , Mego

https://www.facebook.com/TeamHackerEgypt

Greats : To All Egyptian ppl =)
./e0f”

As for the Egyptian hacker group affiliation with the famous international hacking group Anonymous, he hacker said that there is no alliance but they help each other.

Other American Israeli and Danish sites that Team Hacker Egypt are:

http://harley-checks.com/

http://hellokittypersonalchecks.com/

http://bingosignupcodes.com/

http://obamassecrets.com/

http://mickeychecks.com/

http://lejlux.dk/

http://ppm.dk/

http://axinaweb.dk/

http://dansktelefonpasning.dk/

http://gilru.co.il/

http://nekudotaim.co.il/

http://gil-peretz.com/

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on facebook that his company is acquiring iPhone and Android popular photo sharing startup Instagram.
Mark did not say how much was the price, Update: the price is $1 billion in a combination of cash and shares of Facebook according to facebook announcement. but he said unlike other facebook acquisitions instagram will keep growing independently. And that it wont milt inside facebook.

“We think the fact that Instagram is connected to other services beyond Facebook is an important part of the experience. We plan on keeping features like the ability to post to other social networks, the ability to not share your Instagrams on Facebook if you want, and the ability to have followers and follow people separately from your friends on Facebook.”

A report has surfaced on UAE’s English newspaper The National that Arab business portal Zawya! will be sold next month for several tens of millions of dollars.

The National is reporting that several international and regional companies are involved in bidding process to buy the site. Among them Thomson Reuters, Emap whose Middle Eastern subsidiary owns MEED and the business site AMEinfo.com; and Crisil, an Indian credit-ratings agency. and Pearson, which owns the Financial Times. The Libyan government has minority equity in Pearson.

Gunnar Skoog, Zawya’s chief executive, told The National that several companies were negotiating with the owners of the site.
“We are in final stages in the sales process,” said Mr Skoog. “In four to six weeks we will have clarity on who the new owners of Zawya will be.”

The national is reporting that Saffar Holdings, a Dubai investment company that holds a 60 per cent stake in Zawya, last year appointed Arma Partners, a London consultancy, to advise on a sale of the portal.

Zawya has a partnership with Dow Jones to provide a newswire service in the Middle East. Dow Jones is part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp empire.

The portal business model is via subscription service and online advertising and says it has “over 5,000″ paying subscribers and 750,000 unique visitors to the free website. “Obviously we want to improve,” Mr Skoog told the national.

Zawya has 200 employees in the UAE and Lebanon, and this month launched a new website design and a new brand identity.

If this sales succeeded it would be the next largest sale in the history of Arab Internet industry after Yahoo acquisition of Maktoob in 2009 at around 150 million USD and would be the second exit this year after Saudi based Kammelna Games! has been acquired by Turkish game developer Peak games for 10 million USD in March 2012.

Anonymous has taken down the UK interior ministry website which is called in the UK Home Office @AnonymouSpoo has claimed responsibility with tweet and called it #OpTrialAtHome:
”
TANGO DOWN – http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/ (via @AnonymouSpoon) For your draconian surveillance proposals! Told you to #ExpectUs! #ANONYMOUS #AnonUK
”
The Twitter user profile reads: “Just a older girl trapped in a f…. up government world, life is like a swirl, btw. I’m not your type of girl :3. #Freew0rmer give me liberty or give me death
#TheWikiBoat “

We do not know what type of hack was this or whether it was a DDoS or something else however the @AnonymouSpoo is rallying to free recently Anon arrested hacktivist #Freew0rmer

UK government has been planning new internet monitoring laws.

Tahrir2 the startup accelerator that is based in eAlexandria Egypt and is Head cofounded by Mohamead Gawdat Google’s Emerging Markets ! got its 2 startups launched.

The 2 startups are:

1. opendayz.com : www.opendayz.com, an e=commerce portal for home and small businesses to market their products while offering buyers high quality products and logistics at reasonable prices. Pilot launch will target Egypt.
2. Ultras  from funwave : A social games company targeting middle east with related games. Starting with Vuvuzilla, a football game on facebook. https://apps.facebook.com/funwave_ultras/?fb_source=timeline
In the next post we will write more about those 2 startups.

Another third company is coming out at the end of this month from Tahrir2 called  www.shootget.com. Shootget is a company that aims to make interacting with static ads possible through a mobile app.

Google’s YouTube has launched a UAE domain name http://youtube.co.ae

So Muslim Brotherhood has announced last night that they will nominate from their part Khairat Alshater as presidential candidate for Egypt.

The news was very much controversial on socialmedia as some denounce it and others supported it.
Right after his nomination Alshater official facebook page has been setup and it received so far 43,000 likes. Not something that what Wael Ghonim Page Received after his television appearance during the Egyptian revolution in 2011. But many observers note that Muslim Brotherhood has many supporters “millions” and that Alshater has a very good chances in the race along with presidential candidate Hazim Salah Abu Ismael whose facebook page has more than 439,000 likes.

Reporters Without Borders condemned the arrests and trials of netizens in the United Arab Emirates, yesterday. It also listed the UAE as a country “under surveillance” in its 2012 report on “Enemies of the Internet.”

“The Emirati authorities are cracking down harder on bloggers and netizens who criticize the regime,” Reporters Without Borders said. “March has seen a wave of arrests, attacks and acts of intimidation. We urge the government to abandon these methods. The authorities must stop arresting netizens and bloggers for what they post online and must guarantee their safety.”

In a “post” in its site Reporters Without Boarders published names of some of the Emarati activist who were arrested or attacked for their online activism specifically on Twitter:

“Saleh Al-Dhufairi, a netizen who is very active on social networks (@SalehAlDhfairi), was finally released on bail on 20 March after being arrested on 9 March and held in Abu Dhabi’s Al Wathba prison. He is charged with using Twitter to “incite sedition” and “abuse religion.”
Dhufairi has been covering sensitive subjects such as the “UAE 7,” a group of pro-democracy activists whose citizenship was withdrawn after calling on the government to carry out political reforms and organize elections, and criticizing the state security department’s meddling in political matters. He is to be tried by a state security court but no trial date has so far been set.
The blogger Juma Al-Felasi (@jalfelasi) was attacked by an unidentified group as he was driving in Dubai on 6 March. His assailants pulled him out of his car and beat him, accusing him of sullying the image of the UAE’s rulers. Felasi is known for criticizing government policies and calling for democratic reforms in his blog posts.
The continued close monitoring of the Internet is evident from the immediate reprisals against anyone posting content that is not to the government’s liking. The police do not hesitate to intimidate opposition bloggers and netizens using social networks.
Mohammed Abdul Razzaq Al-Siddiq, one of the “UAE 7,” was arrested at his home without a warrant in the northeastern emirate of Al Sharjah at 4 a.m. on 24 March following a comment on Twitter accusing the emirate’s ruler, Sultan Al-Qassimi, of discriminating against the UAE’s large expatriate population. He was released later in the day after paying a fine, and will not be prosecuted.
Another “UAE 7” member, activist Ahmed Ghaith Al Suwaidi, was arrested in Abu Dhabi on 26 March along with Judge Ahmed Yousef Buatabh Zaabi, a fellow activist. The police did not have a warrant and the two men are still being held although no charge has been brought against them.
Dubai police chief Dhahi Khalfan used Twitter to warn human rights activist Khalifa Al-Nuaimi (‎@Alnuaimi_k) that police were coming to arrest him 13 March:
ضاحي خلفان تميم ‏ @Dhahi_Khalfan ‎
‎@Alnuaimi_k‏ انت مطلوب للعدالة… ونحن شفا فون … حضورك الينا افضل.
ضاحي خلفان تميم ‏ @Dhahi_Khalfan ‎
‎‎@Alnuaimi_k‏ خليفه لا نعرف اننا سنحيلها هذي جريمة يجوز القبض فيها لنا ولكن النيابة الاتحادية هي جهة الترافع فيه.. شرطة دبي في الطريق اليك .
Translation: You are wanted by the judicial authorities… We are transparent… You’d be advised to surrender.
[...] This is a crime for which we have the right to arrest you but it’s before the federal prosecutor that you enter your plea… the Dubai police are on their way to arrest you.

The netizen Mohamed Ismael Akhbar has been detained since 19 February on a charge of insulting an official for criticizing Khlafan, the police chief, on social networks. A stateless person, he had condemned the corruption he had encountered in the course of his attempts to regularize his situation, and the failure of the police to take any action in response to his complaints. He has had not access to a lawyer and has been held in solitary confinement. A court is expected to issue a verdict on 1 April.

Meanwhile, the “UAE 5,” five activists who were arrested last year and given jail sentences for calling for democratic reforms, have not been given back their passports since their release on 28 November and their convictions have not been quashed, which they requested after getting a presidential pardon. The authorities have also taken no action in response to the complaints they filed against the people who waged a smear campaign against them.”

Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP), has announced five new rounds of investments.
 
Anghami.com: “ Unlimited Music for your ears” got seed funding The startups is Mobile music and web music streaming service targeting the Arab World with premium Arabic and foreign music content. A Turkey based VC is investing alongside MEVP in this round. Visit www.anghami.com

Laimoon.com closed serias A investment the startup is a a job search engine. Currently focused on jobs in the UAE and Qatar, Laimoon helps companies easily connect with talented professionals. Expansion plans to the rest of the Middle East are underway. An institutional UAE based investor will be investing alongside MEVP in this round. Visit www.laimoon.com

Box & Automation Solutions: closed serias B investment the startup is  a cash management, audit and treasury solutions provider, via the SWIFT network. It allows treasurers and decision makers to fully monitor and audit their global cash positions in real time. Sigma Gestion, a French SME fund is co-investing alongside MEVP in this round. Visit www.boxautomation.com
 
 
Pin-Pay: a mobile payment service provider allowing mobile phone users to pay and receive payments into their bank accounts.
Bank Med and Bank Audi have both invested alongside MEVP in Pin-Pay. Visit www.pin-pay.com. This is th second round MEVP invests in Pin-Pay.

Mezzabites Technologies Company LTD. (Falafel Games):  a designer and producer of Arabic content online MMO games targeting MENA audience. The venture arm of the project is Dubai-based Satcaster, MBC Group, under their new division, “MBC Ventures”, are investing alongside MEVP in this round. Visit www.falafel-games.com and also MEVP invested 2 round in Falafel games.

InMobi, the world’s largest independent mobile advertising network, announces the appointment of Richard O’Sullivan as Head of Sales for the Middle East, as part of its latest step in its global expansion. InMobi will be exhibiting at The Mobile Show in Dubai on between 17-19th April 2012.
 
Richard O’Sullivan has over ten years experience within the digital media and advertising industry, where he has held senior and strategic roles.
 
Richard O’Sullivan, Head of Sales for Middle East at InMobi comments: “InMobi has grown exponentially over the past six months. The Middle East is a very important region for us, and I’m looking forward to working with advertisers and agencies to identify connected audiences on the mobile device and providing both performance and bespoke interactive & engaging solutions. We want to help advertisers capitalise on this growth, sharing best practice and our global and local knowledge.”
 
InMobi’s network reaches over 20.3 million consumers in the Middle East, where it has seen a 400% growth in usage of mobile devices in the last 12 months. The Middle East expansion and growth is a commitment to InMobi’s global strategy to have a presence locally, in key regions.
 
O’Sullivan adds: “With InMobi’s network’s scale and reach, and the creative opportunities made available by our recent acquisition of Sprout, we can enable brands and agencies in the Middle East to create exciting and engaging HTML5 Rich Media ad campaigns to mobile consumers worldwide. I’m very excited about the endless opportunity for brands to target their audience, and be a part of the growth within this industry.”
 

 
InMobi recorded over 93.4 billion advertising impressions in January 2012; its network now reaches over 485 million consumers in 165 countries across the globe. It has the industry’s first scalable rich media solution, following the acquisition of HTML5 expert Sprout last year. InMobi providesaccess to best in class creative and production expertise in rich media, running on iOS and Android devices.
 
Richard O’Sullivan will presenting Mobile Rich Media Best Practice, and providing a seminar on How Mobile Devices are Changing the Media Consumption Landscape at The Mobile Show this year in Dubai.