One of ArabCrunch team members received verbal death and rape threats against him and other team members. The threats came in light of ArabCrunch posting parts of CIA, Zionists and their Arab secret police allies conspiracy against ArabCrunch and free press.

The people who delivered the threats are members of certain Arab intelligence agency. One of the conversations was recorded but then wiped out.

Some suspicious people would accuse us of being mentally ill, delusional and crazy. But there is an evidence of such threats against ArabCrunch and its founder “Gaith Saqer” via a twitter account that publicly calls for the killing of ArabCrunch and its Jordanian founder Gaith Saqer:

The Twitter account reads Kill ArabCrunch

@KillArabCrunch Middle East
“Arabcrunch.com and its paranoid founder Gaith Saqer.

One of the accounts tweets read:

” @arabcrunch and Gaith Saqer are one and can’t be seperated. That’s why we need to kills the website”

Which means kill Gaith Saqer

@KillArabCrunch was formed shortly after ArabCrunch published parts of the CIA and Zionist conspiracy against free Arab press in 2010. There is only one party who would rush to voice death threats against ArabCrunch and Gaith Saqer knowing that Gaith Saqer does not have personal enemies, it is the CIA and its allies in certain Arab intelligence agencies. Note also that its publicly reported that the CIA and the mossad has a special division for social media propaganda. Also almost all Arab governments.

ArabCrunch asks Twitter to track the people behind this account and bring them to justice.

The US government has a history in killing and rapping innocent people, the video that was leaked to wikileaks early last year shows the evidence of such killing of journalist in Baghdad, not to mention the bombing of Aljazeera offices in Baghdad and afghanistan in which the US government claimed it was a mistake . The images of mass rape of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib are also another evidence that the US government rape men and woman alike. another evidence is the leak of US government contractor auctioning Afghani boys to be rapped by Afghani police. Not to mention reports of torture and rape in Guantanamo and other secret CIA jails across the world.

Who kills journalist in Iraq and rape in Iraq has no problem in rapping and killing anywhere in the world including the US main land.

As for Arab governments, you need to search YouTube to look for people being tortured and rapped by Arab police. Do not trust governments that claim they are different. Even those who brand themselves are resisting occupation. No one is immune of US government pressure.

Most likely the CIA and its allies would not kill or rape any ArabCrunch team members in broad day light, they won’t use conventional means such as snipers and bombing rather it would be fabricated death and rape.

Khaled Saed in Egypt was beaten to death and then they put drugs in his stomik and said he was killed because of drug over dose., they also claimed that he was a peeve. Not only Khaled Saed many people who died under torture where fabricated a normal death. and the doctors who give the report where blackmailed to issue false normal death reports. This is not hallucinations this happened across many Arab countries.

There are many ways these threats can be delivered: for example someone who is homosexual and sent by an intelligence agency would drug the victim and then rape him/her while he/she is sleeping, record a video of the rape and then post it online. Later a fake suicide would occur to the victim. This way the victim public image is destroyed as a homosexual person, who committed suicide after a fake scandal. Which is untrue and fake.

Another operation would be to inject the subject with a material that cause heart attack and say “Oh he died in a heart attack”. Another one is to fake a car accident such as jamming breaks. Another one would be drag the subject to an old building and make it collapse so it looks as a normal death.

Another operation would include a fake rubbery that would result in killing the subject. and blame the death in thieves while in fact they are secret police. Another one would be to fake a fight that would bring death to the subject “unintentionally.” Make one note that there is no shortage of fabricated deaths and rape that might occur.

Also one victim might be fabricated a crime of any sort specially the usual “terrorism” and put to jail under fake charges and then his cell mate would rape him/her, in fact this cell mate has been planted intentionally to rape the victim. Another instance, the victim would be accused of being mentally ill and then inside the mental hospital he/she would be rapped or sexually harassed. The mental doctors would be also blackmailed to accuse the victim of being mentally ill.

Are we crazy? are we paranoid? NO. we received threats and that Twitter @killArabCrunch account is an evidence of those threats, and similar fabricated deaths and suicide happened in many Arab countries to innocent and unknown people, whose crime is simple as growing a beard, posting a video of police crime, being an activists, or as simple as marching in a demonstration. Events in Libya during Gaddafi are evidence of such things. remember he accused the demonstrators of being Al Qaeda members and of taking drug pills.

So we are posting this so the world would know that may God forbid in case any members of ArabCrunch or anyone who is affiliated with or their families died or was/will be raped in such ways you would know who is behind it. And the host government of the victim is 100% responsible about such assassination or rape and is a partner and executor, no matter who they are.

It is worth mentioning that a number of secret police at least has planted agents who worked before with ArabCrunch and played a role in not just spying but try to destroy important partnership deals.

We hope by this post we would defuse such plots against our peaceful members and that we can live in peace.

We will make a deceive decision about ArabCrunch and its future in the coming days and weeks as AC has become dangers to anyone to be involved with.

Saudi Hacker claiming to be a member of hacking group named GroupXP claimed to post personal information of 400,000 Israelis after hacking into an “Israeli” sports site One.co.il.

The hacker said the information including credit card details, personal addresses, names, phone numbers and ID numbers of individuals listed on the website.

According to Israeli newspaper Haaretsz, Israeli credit card companies said Monday that the list is repetitive and only includes 14,000 Israelis.

The website on Monday were redirected to a page on pastebay.com, where a message by a hacker who identified himself as xOmar 0 suggested visitors download a linked file containing a database of “Israelis” and their personal information.
“One of the lists included what the hackers termed 65 Zionists, who purchased products from a website called Judaism. Another list included the details of 500 people who donated to rabbis.” the Haartsz said.

Group-XP said that it hacked into multiple Israeli websites from which Israelis frequently purchase products with credit cards. The hacker said the group’s goal was to reach the credit card numbers of one million Israelis.

“We decided to give the world a gift for New Year’s – the personal information of 400 thousand Israelis,”the hacker wrote.

“400 thousand people crowding Israeli credit card companies and banks and complaining their credit card details were stolen, watching as Israeli banks shredding 400 thousand credit cards and issuing new ones,”

ArabCrunch World’s only independent and most popular English tech news site focused on Arab tech, startups and social media has announced its selection of the person of the year 2011.

Starting 2010, each December, ArabCrunch selects Person of the Year featuring and profiling a person, group, idea, place, or machine that has done the most to influence the events of the year in technology, internet, entrepreneurship or in using technology.

Last year we selected Julian Assang founder of Wikileaks, to celebrate the distinguished efforts by the Wikileaks in pushing transparency worldwide and exposing wrong doings and crimes of governments and corporations alike. Redefining what media is.

“this year 2011, went through many historical events, which lead to the emergence of new type of persons with achievement and impact that changed the course of history. “Said ArabCrunch spoke person.

adding “For this year it was hard to select one person, Wael Ghonim, Anonymous hacking group and Bradley Manning where all persons of achievement at the global and local stage. So we decided to split the winning person into the three of them.”

Wael Ghonim:

” target=”_blank”>Wael Ghonim via his Facebook page “We are all Khalid Said” was the main person responsible in igniting the Egyptian revolution against tyranny and corruption. Though that revolution did not achieve all its objectives until now. The removal of fear factor and the effort that Wael played in exposing the tyrant and corrupt Husni Mubarak regime will be the guarantee that the times of tyranny is gone and that the Egyptian revolution will achieve by the well of God all its objectives, sooner or later.

Though, the real heroes of the Egyptian revolution are the millions who answered the call and the people who paid their souls and blood so others can live in dignity.

Here is a bio of Wael on Wikipedia.

Anonymous hacking group:

After Wikileaks started publishing the US government diplomatic cables, the true color of big corporations has been reveled, PayPal, Visa and others started blocking funding to Wikileaks with no legal justification. Among other corporations who blockhead Wikileaks, Amazon denied the ability for Wikileaks to host the website on its Amazon’s server. Wikileaks was also subject to massive DDoS attacks.

The result: a group of unknown hackers has emerged to retaliate against in injustice and corruption by the US government and corporate America. From cyber attacks against CIA to leaking defense contractors confidential documents ( that said does not nesacrlly means that ArabCrunch support such hacking activities) . With each attack Anonymous massage against tyranny and corruption of corporate America has grown. Anonymous did not just attack US based government and corporations who are accused of wrong doings. But also sites of governments that witnessed revolutions such as Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria.

Anonymous also targeted the Mossad and Israeli defense website also, showing solidarity with the Palestinian people struggle for freedom and justice.

Whether a person would agree or disagree with Anonymous attacks or not, their work has been important to spread the message of the unheard, the unknown and essentially its activities laid the ground for the occupy wall street movement to emerge against the corruption and greed of Wall Street, essentially those who run Wall Street: the Zionists. Here is a good list of some of the group operations.

There is another Anonymous group of people who also should be celebrated, they are the young Arab men and woman who are using social media, with tweets and retweets, Facebook updates, likes and share of content that expose the crimes of the current and past Arab regimes. Those users took the effort online then offline to mass protests that toppled criminal governments.

Bradley Manning:

Bradley Manning a US army intelligence officer. he is accused of leaking the video of US army helicopter murdering journalists and children, he is also accused of leaking the classified Iraq war log, Afghanistan War log and the US diplomatic cables.

Bradley Manning is going now through his trial now, instead of being in trial he should be thanked, if he was the person behind the leaks and should be celebrated as a hero. Ask the mothers of the journalists who were killed in the leaked video, asked the young children who were killed by the hands of American Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ask the mothers of the young kids who are auctioned by a US government contractor in Afghanistan to the Afghan Army personnel to be raped as the embassy logs reveals., yes rapped. Ask the populations of many countries who now they know with evidence how brutal is their government, how corrupt and how shameful liars are their leaders.

The world and specially Muslims ow a lot to Bradley Manning , Many human rights activists says that Bradley Manning should be an example for every inelegance agent in the US government or any government in the world. The message is simple: if you witnessed wrong doings and crimes of your government, take all the necessarily security measures and leak to wikileaks and let the world know about those criminals. Remember never to tell anyone that you leaked.

Here is the video that Bradley is accused of leaking:




and here is a song against Tunisian President Bin Ali when the revolution and Arab spring started in Tunis:




Facebook is going away from its traditional zero cost marketing efforts to boost membership to its social network and counter its upcoming rival Google+. Historically Facebook relayed on viral marketing to push current members to invite their friends.

But recently several Facebook ads has been popping in the Arab world at Google’s AdWords on its partnership program with third party websites “Adsense.”

for example one facebook ad, titled: “chat with friends Facebook: lookup for your friends on Facebook and chat with them signup for Facebook today. The text ad link leads to Facebook front-page.”

Yahoo! is also using Adwords, recent ads spotted on Adwords entice users to signup to the new Arabic Yahoo Mail leading to this landing page: http://xa.overview.mail.yahoo.com/

This is an interesting step to see that Facebook appetite for new users in the Arab world extends to use advertising off its website. The same would apply to Yahoo!.

What is interesting too to that both Yahoo and Facebook are using the product of their rival to advertise and reach new users.

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.

Many people have startup ideas but they never see the light. GoodorGreatIdea.com tries to change that. The site offers its users to submit startup ideas and rate and disuss it with others. The submitter of the idea earns points depending on his idea rating. As a result, both great ideas and people with great ideas bubble up over a period of time.

The site also helps people form teams around an idea.

GoodorGreatIdea.com is founded by Mohammed Guller , the startup is based in Danville, California, USA.

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.

Google has launched recently a website dedicated to Egyptian parliamentary election that starts today.

The site http://google.com.eg provide a number of services, news about the election aggregated from the web and that can be filtered according to any egyptian political party or issue.

It also has a section which provides a google map mashup that asks users for their national number to get info about where to cast their vote and other voting information, this is done using Egypt’s supreme juridical comity for elections sites.

Also google has a YouTube Channel dedicated for the election called “sayyedqararak” that features videos from elections candidates. The channel is in partnership with BBC, Egyptian Satellite Channel On TV and Egyptian news Maser Al Youm.

As today is the election and if you were an Egyptian who did not vote yet, this is a useful service for you.

Saudi based National net ventures (n2v) has announced that it invested in Mj in the region (Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and UAE) , they have not invested until now in pure play e-commerce ventures, I would advice them to seek to diversify their investments and explore new disruptive e-commerce ideas.

According to sources in Egypt, Mobile service is offline in Tahrir square in Cairo Egypt, the square is witnessing a new revolt against the military rule in Egypt with around 1 million people demonstrating.

We do not know if it was switched off intentionally by mobile operators -after a request from the government in Egypt – or not. Vodafone one of the mobile telecom operators in Egypt says over Twitter that the service is running and the outage might be due huge traffic.

In the first version of the Egyptian revolution in January this year , one of Husni Mubarak tactics -which did not save him- was to switch mobile network off.

#image credit.

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.

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.

Twitter trending topics are the most discussed topics on Twitter, last year Twitter added local trending topics to some US cities and some countries around the world, where it buzzed the most discussed topic coming from a given location. However now we can see United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Turkey were added to the list , where users can see trending topics from UAE and Turkey. We do not know when these 2 locations were added, a user told us it has been there for a while

Looking at UAE trending topics we found some of them similar to those trending worldwide, with the exception of hashtag #Syria and #Egypt. As we can see all trending topics are in English due to the high presence of expats in UAE. According to latest estimation there are around 2 million Twitter users in UAE:
#Top100Lies
#ThingsWeDoDuringExams

Yosri Al Tarqi who come by A”bu Qatada The Tunisian” was executed 2 days ago in Iraq despite Tunisian officials attempt to stop his execution.

In response, Tunisian youth launched cyber attacks against many Iraqi government web sites that they accused in being collaborators with the American government leaving. Iraqi oil ministry website was hacked, the hackers left a the message that read:
” WE never forget what you did to Yosri”
“we do not forget, we do not forgive, we are Anonymous .. we are Tunisians! expect us”

Also Iraqi Justice Ministry is still hacked with a posted message by the hacker saying Yosri execution was unjust and that God will bring back his right, It also asked God to accept him as a martyr.

A Facebook page which was setup to stop the execution sentence and had 10,133 fans posted a letter from his father praising him as a martyr saying the crime Yosri was accused of which is bombing Shiat shrines was fabricated and that AlArabiya reporter Atwar Bahjat has revealed that truth about the bombing in the day it happened “but was also killed to coverup the crime and the real people behind it”. He also praised the Iraqi resistance whose blood was mixed with that of Yosri.

Around 2 years ago Yahoo acquired maktoob the largest Arab portal for around 200 million USD. And people started speculating when an Arabic version of Yahoo Mail will go live.

Few days ago Yahoo! Maktoob announced launching the Arabic version of the already popular Yahoo! Mail. this is a very important step for Yahoo in the Arab world. As some of its Yahoo function in English would not enable Arab user who do not know English to use fully. Now they can!
Google’s gmail is already in Arabic.

Yahoo’s acquisition of Maktoob seems have paid well for the Sunnyvale, CA, USA based company, in Jun, 2011 former CEO of Yahoo shared existing numbers of Yahoo’s operation in the Arab world: Maktoob homepage is the fifth most popular home page on Yahoo with around 50 million unique users compared 30 million unique users when Yahoo.

In terms of revenues in a press release Yahoo said that Yahoo captures 40% of online display advertising around 40 million USD.

Since its acqution of Maktoob, Yahoo launched Yahoo Maktoob homepage and introduced few new services such as OMG in Arabic.

If you follow international tech the news you probably heard that Yahoo Inc is running thorough not easy times and might be looking for a buyer. The company is advised to refocus and chose a newstrategy of what it wants to be and how it can stay relevant after at least 5 years of now.

Activists in Syria are reporting that hacker group “Syrian Electronic Army” which is affiliated with the Syrian regime is using phishing tactics on Facebook to steal users emails and passwords.

The scam uses an interesting hot story with a fake link often like:

http://facebook.com-video-php-v222423423.homsrev.webgoof.com/video/video.php ( DO NOT USE THE LINK )

The link looks like a facebook link and when opened you get a copy of Facebook homepage but in fact it is a page on webgoof.com and when activists enter their email address and passwords it will be sent to “electronic thugs of the regime” as Anonymous Syria calls them, and then start sending the link to the users’ followers and friends.

Syrian activist Feras Attasi had his facebook profile hacked and this image shows the scam sending tweets from his linked Facebook profile “great operation by Khaled Bragged, watch the heroes, God salut them, please page owners login to spread the video”

Activists and any user need not to trust any link posted on Facebook and Twitter, and should be sure that only https://facebook.com is the only way to log in to Facebook. Also the user need to check the certificate of the https encryption and make sure it is not faked.



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





As an estimated three million pilgrims have gathered yesterday on the plains of Arafat in Mecca for a key rite of Hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage. Worldwide, around two billion Muslims are celebrating the holiday known as Eid Al Adha.

In this occasion ArabCrunch greets every Muslims worldwide: Eid Mubarak and may God bless you. And for our readers who are not Muslim, we say: Happy Saturated and may God guide you and us to the best.

You’ll find interesting information about the holiday of Eid-ul-Adha and about the Hajj at the following links.

-Eid-ul-Adha (the Festival of Sacrifice) is celebrated throughout the Muslim world as a commemoration of Prophet Ibrahim’s (PBUH) willingness to sacrifice his son for God. Eid-ul-Adha is celebrated on the tenth day of the month of Zul-Hijja.

-The Hajj, or pilgrimage to Makkah is a central duty of Islam whose origins date back to the time of Prophet Ibrahim (PBUH). It brings together Muslims of all races and tongues for one of life’s most moving spiritual experiences. For 14 centuries, countless millions of Muslims, men and women from all over the world, have made the pilgrimage to Makkah, the birthplace of Islam. In carrying out this obligation, they fulfill one of the five “pillars” of Islam, or central religious duties of the believer.
(source:�Ummah 2.o)

For more detailed explanations of the rich history and traditions of Islam, feel free to visit the following sites:

Islam Guide.

Islam Web

Islamic Tube

Just Quran

Best Islamic Sites

Sisters Magazine

#pic from Aljazeera English.