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The era of discrimination has ended. Saudi Woman Makes History Driving F1 Car On The Day Female Ban Was Liftedhttps://www.carscoops.com/2018/06/saudi-woman-makes-history-driving-f1-car-day-female-ban-lifted/ Aseel Al-Hamad of Saudi Arabia drove a 2012 Lotus Renault F1 car on the very same day that a driving ban was lifted on female drivers on the Gulf kingdom’s roads. Al-Hamad is the first female member of the Saudi Arabian Motorsport Federation to drive around the French Grand Prix circuit. This past Sunday, she took the 2012 Lotus E20 out in front of thousands of fans, saying that she felt she belonged in the driver’s seat. “I believe today is not just celebrating the new era of women starting to drive, it’s also the birth of women in motorsport in Saudi Arabia,” she said during an interview with Reuters. “The most important thing I am looking forward to is to start seeing the next generation young girls trying (motorsport). I want to watch them training and taking the sport very seriously as a career. This is going to be really my biggest achievement.” The Saudi interior designer and businesswoman had driven the E20 around Paul Ricard before, part of a familiarization day. She’s also the first woman to import a Ferrari to Saudi Arabia, and has taken part in track days, workshops and professional racing courses around the world, in her 458 Spider. As for the Renault-powered F1 car she drove on Sunday, it’s the same one that Kimi Raikkonen drove to victory in Abu Dhabi in November of 2012. “It was perfect. Everything was smooth, I felt I belong in the seat,” she added. “I loved the fact that there was an audience around…today is magical.” Saudi women gear up for new freedom as driving ban endshttps://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/24/end-to-driving-ban-for-women-in-saudi-arabia.html The lifting of the ban, ordered last September by King Salman, is part of sweeping reforms pushed by his powerful young son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in a bid to transform the economy of the world's top oil exporter and open up its cloistered society. Women with foreign drivers' licenses only began converting them earlier this month, so the number of new drivers remains low. Others are training at new state-run schools, with 3 million women expected to drive by 2020. Women in Saudi Arabia took to the roads at midnight on Sunday, ushering in the end of the world's last ban on female drivers, long seen as an emblem of women's repression in the deeply conservative Muslim kingdom. "It feels weird, I am so happy ... I'm just too proud to be doing this right now," said 23-year-old Majdooleen al-Ateeq as she cruised across Riyadh for the first time in her black Lexus. The lifting of the ban, ordered last September by King Salman, is part of sweeping reforms pushed by his powerful young son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in a bid to transform the economy of the world's top oil exporter and open up its cloistered society. Women drove up and down a main road in the eastern city of Khobar and cheered as police looked on. "We are ready, and it will totally change our life," said Samira al-Ghamdi, a 47-year-old psychologist from Jeddah, one of the first women to be issued a license. The lifting of the ban, which for years drew international condemnation and comparisons to the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan, has been welcomed by Western allies as proof of a new progressive trend in Saudi Arabia. But it has been accompanied by a crackdown on dissent, including against some of the very activists who previously campaigned against the ban. They now sit in jail as their peers take to the road legally for the first time. Women with foreign drivers' licenses only began converting them earlier this month, so the number of new drivers remains low. Others are training at new state-run schools, with 3 million women expected to drive by 2020. Some still face resistance from conservative relatives, and many accustomed to private drivers say they are reluctant to take on the country's busy highways. "I definitely won't like to drive," said Fayza al-Shammary, a 22-year-old saleswoman. "I like to be a princess with someone opening the car door for me and driving me anywhere." Economic boon Concerns that women drivers will face abuse in a country where strict segregation rules usually prevent women from interacting with unrelated men prompted a new anti-harassment law last month. The Interior Ministry plans to hire women traffic police for the first time, but it is unclear when they will be deployed. The public security directorate reported no unusual incidents one hour after the ban ended. Riyadh resident Amr al-Ardi said the women in his family would wait to see how the system works before they start driving. The decision to lift the ban in the tightly controlled kingdom — where once-forbidden cinemas and concerts have also returned — is expected to boost the economy, with industries from car sales to insurance set to reap returns. The change should save families billions of dollars on chauffeurs while encouraging more women into the workforce and raising productivity, if only modestly at first. Auto companies have produced theatrical ads marking the ban's end, while private parking garages designated "ladies" areas with pink signage. Many Saudis celebrated on social media, but some reactions were derisive or expressed concern about social impacts. One Twitter user said he would not allow his wife to take the wheel: "If she wants to drive she can go to her father and God willing she will drive lorries. Decisions like this depend on personal freedom #She--Won't--Drive." Much of the kingdom's overwhelmingly young population supports Prince Mohammed's reforms, but many Saudis fear their speed could provoke a backlash from religious conservatives once seen as dominant. Activists arrested Activists and diplomats have speculated that the arrests of more than a dozen women's rights advocates over the past month were aimed at appeasing conservative elements or at sending a message to activists not to push demands too far. The crown prince's modernization efforts have won praise at home and abroad, but he has also provoked unease with an anti-corruption purge last year, when scores of royals and top businessmen were detained at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh. Most were freed after reaching settlements with the government. Billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, an early advocate of women driving who was detained at the Ritz for three months, tweeted a video of his daughter driving. "Saudi Arabia has just entered the 21st century," he said to his granddaughters in the back seat in the video. "Thanks to King Salman for this achievement." Even with the end of the driving ban, Saudi Arabia remains one of the most restrictive countries for women, who need permission from legally mandated male guardians for important decisions such as foreign travel and marriage. Amnesty International said lifting the ban was "a small step in the right direction," but called for an end to other practices that discriminate against women. Activists have already begun campaigning to end the guardianship system, which has been chipped away at slowly over the years. Prince Mohammed declared in an interview earlier this year that he believes men and women are equal. But veteran Saudi activist Hala Aldosari says women remain second-class citizens and criticized the crown prince's "piecemeal approach" as serving the interests of the elite at the expense of women from more restrictive families. "Worst of all will be if these small-scale reforms, and the silencing of feminists, slow the momentum for pushing the Saudi regime into making more meaningful change," she wrote in a U.S. newspaper.

Any one know? how much is the market rate for monetary per month to be justifiable for a engineer working in SA?

Saw this in Yahoo web page..... so he is the modern astronomer Galileo??? Saudi cleric claims Sun rotates around the Earth Saudi cleric has become the topic of discussion on Twitter after he rejected the scientific fact that the Earth revolves around the Sun, claiming the exact opposite and added that the Earth is stationary. A video posted on YouTube shows Sheikh Bandar al-Khaibari answering students' questions and rejecting the centuries-old discovery that the Sun stays still, while Earth and other planets rotate around it. When a student asked the cleric whether the Earth was stationary or moving, he replied "stationary and [it] does not move". Then he went on to explain his theory while holding on to a sealed water cup and said: "First of all, where are we now? We go to Sharjah airport to travel to China by plane." The cleric then asked the students to focus and continued, "This is Earth, if you say it rotates, if we leave Sharjah airport on international flight to China, the Earth is rotating right? So if the plane stands still in the air, wouldn't China be coming towards it? "If the Earth rotates on the other direction, the plane will not be able to reach China. Because China is also rotating as the plane rotates." The irony of his comment is that it came on the birthday of great astronomer Galileo Galilei. The Italian astronomer was born on 15 February 1564, and has supported the Copernican theory that says the Earth and planets revolved around the Sun. The cleric's answer triggered some hilarious responses with the hashtag #cleric_rejects_rotation_of_Earth on Twitter .

http://straitstimes.com/news/asia/more-asia-stories/story/saudi-woman-killed-defying-driving-ban-report-20140508 Didn't know that women are disallowed to drive in Saudi until I read this report..

One of Saudi Arabia's top conservative clerics has said women who drive risk damaging their ovaries and bearing children with clinical problems, countering activists who are trying to end the Islamic kingdom's male-only driving rules. A campaign calling for women to defy the ban in a protest drive on October 26 has spread rapidly online over the past week and gained support from some prominent women activists. On Sunday the campaign's website was blocked inside the kingdom. As one of the 21 members of the Senior Council of Scholars, Sheikh Saleh al-Lohaidan can write fatwas, or religious edicts, advise the government and has a large following among other influential conservatives. His comments have in the past played into debates in Saudi society and he has been a vocal opponent of tentative reforms to increase freedoms for women by King Abdullah, who sacked him as head of a top judiciary council in 2009. In an interview published on Friday on the website sabq.org, he said women aiming to overturn the ban on driving should put "reason ahead of their hearts, emotions and passions." Although the council does not set Saudi policy, which is ultimately decided by King Abdullah, it can slow government action in a country where the ruling al-Saud family derives much of its legitimacy from the clerical elite. It is unclear whether Lohaidan's strong endorsement of the ban is shared by other members of the council, but his comments demonstrate how entrenched the opposition is to women driving among some conservative Saudis. "If a woman drives a car, not out of pure necessity, that could have negative physiological impacts as functional and physiological medical studies show that it automatically affects the ovaries and pushes the pelvis upwards," he told Sabq. "That is why we find those who regularly drive have children with clinical problems of varying degrees," he said. A biography on his website does not list any background in medicine and he did not cite any studies to back up his claims. U.S. diplomats in a 2009 Riyadh embassy cable released by WikiLeaks, described Lohaidan as "broadly viewed as an obstacle to reform" and said that his "ill-considered remarks embarrassed the kingdom on more than one occasion." The ban on women driving is not backed by a specific law, but only men are granted driving licenses. Women can be fined for driving without a license but have also been detained and put on trial in the past on charges of political protest. Sheikh Abdulatif Al al-Sheikh, the head of the morality police, told Reuters a week ago that there was no text in the documents making up sharia law which bars women from driving. Abdullah has never addressed the issue of driving. Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/...varies-20130929

better not bring your maid to CA when you are there for holiday [sweatdrop] the working hours dun seem ridiculous over here [laugh]

WTF...see the limbs and bodies fly out like peanuts http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=playe...p;v=BrNPoEjds6I

November 30, 2008 -- Updated 0146 GMT (0946 HKT) http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/11/29...c.ap/index.html Looks like oil price will rise afterall. Read: CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Saudi Arabia said Saturday that it hoped to raise oil prices to $75 a barrel, but indicated that no measures would probably be taken until an OPEC meeting next month in Algeria. OPEC countries will have to cut oil production by 3 million barrels a day to hike price to $75, group says. OPEC countries will have to cut oil production by 3 million barrels a day to hike price to $75, group says. Saudi Oil Minister Ali Naimi said that OPEC will "do what needs to be done" to shore up falling oil prices when the cartel meets next month in Algeria, even as his king told a Kuwaiti newspaper that $75 a barrel was a fair price for oil Naimi did not entirely rule out the chance that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would slash output at the hastily convened meeting Saturday, but he did say the bloc needed to wait until the meeting in Oran, Algeria on Dec. 17 to assess the impact of two previous rounds of cuts. His comments came after Saudi King Abdullah told the Kuwaiti daily Al-Seyassah that oil should be priced at $75 a barrel, far above its current rate. "We believe the fair price for oil is $75 a barrel," he said, without elaborating on how this would be achieved. Whereas crude stood at about $147 a barrel in mid-July, it now hovers about $90 lower. On Friday, the U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude for January delivery was trading at about $54 per barrel. The king was echoed by Qatar's Oil Minister Abdullah Bin Hamad al-Attiya, who told the Arab news channel Al-Arabiya just before the opening of the meeting of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries Saturday that prices needed to rise to guarantee investment into the oil sector. "The price between 70 to 80 (dollars a barrel) is the one encouraging in investment and developing new or current oil fields. It falls below 70, the investment would freeze, which will lead to a crisis in supply in the future." The representatives of the OPEC face their third test in as many months to engineer a rebound in prices hammered by plummeting crude demand amid a global economic meltdown. The cartel has already held one emergency meeting -- on Oct. 24 in Vienna -- to try to halt the slide in prices with an announcement of a 1.5 million barrel per day drop. It failed to support prices, and the cartel hastily convened the Cairo gathering on Saturday on the sidelines of the OAPEC meeting. Don't Miss * Iraq increases oil exports by 3.5M barrels Kuwait's oil minister Mohammed al-Aleem said Friday he believes there was "no need" for OPEC to take a decision in Cairo on cutting output. But he warned the market is oversupplied, and didn't rule out the need for OPEC to cut production further. "We believe a decision could be taken ... but I think it will happen in Algeria," he said. Al-Aleem said current prices could undercut investment in future projects and were not good for either producers or consumers. The recent price drop has left price hawks Venezuela and Iran clamoring for further reductions of at least 1 million barrels a day. Both countries need crude of about $90 per barrel to meet current spending needs aimed in part at propping up domestically unpopular regimes. Other OPEC members, such as Nigeria and Ecuador, face budget problems too, making them reluctant to implement more cuts that might shrink revenues further. Unlike many of their fellow members, the Saudis are better positioned to cope with the drop in prices. The International Monetary Fund estimates Riyadh needs crude in the range of about $50 per barrel for 2008 fiscal accounts to break even. Also unclear, after two earlier cuts failed to push prices higher, is what the group can do without prolonging the global economic downturn. OPEC itself, along with the International Energy Agency, has significantly revised down its projections for demand growth in 2009. Meanwhile, global crude inventories are growing, as evidenced by a U.S. government report showing a surprisingly large 7 million barrel build in stocks last week in the world's largest energy consumer. OPEC's last round of cuts would put its total production at about 30.5 million barrels per day, according to the IEA. That is about 500,000 barrels per day higher than the forecast call on OPEC crude in much of 2009. advertisement Those factors argue against restraint if some in OPEC want crude back up to at least $70. A Nov. 24 research report by the New York-based Oppenheimer & Co. in New York said that for oil to rebound to $65 a barrel, OPEC would need to cut crude production by more than 3 million barrels per day from its September levels -- a move it called highly unlikely.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7498634.stm See how outrageously these people do to their rides such as Toyota Supra and Honda Civic.

June 22, 2008 Saudi king announces oil production boost JEDDAH (Saudi Arabia) - SAUDI ARABIA'S King Abdullah announced on Sunday that his country has increased output to 9.7 million barrels a day as he opened a summit on the soaring international price of crude. The king also said Saudi Arabia would give one billion dollars to an Opec fund for developing countries and give 500 million dollars in soft loans for poor countries to finance energy and development projects. Earlier on, consumer nations stepped up pressure on the oil powers on Sunday to increase production at an international summit on spiralling crude prices in the Saudi city of Jeddah. Divisions within Opec were exposed as Saudi Arabia was to increase production by 200,000 barrels a day and Kuwait said it was ready to follow, but the cartel's president insisted that opening the taps further is not the answer to the price crisis. The summit started with roundtable talks among the 36 countries and top international institutions and 30 major oil companies on the causes of the surge to nearly 140 dollars (S$191) a barrel. The United States, Germany, India, Australia and other major consumers came to the meeting, called by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, appealing for greater supplies to slake the world economy's thirst for oil. But the summit hosts and other top providers are also demanding action against 'speculators' that they blame for the astonishing rise over the past year. US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman insisted that 'there is no evidence that we can find that speculators are driving futures prices' to current record heights. 'Market fundamentals show us that production has not kept pace with growing demand for oil, resulting in increasing prices and increasingly volatile prices,' he told a press briefing late on Saturday. 'Even despite higher global production for oil so far this year, inventories have been drawn down and production capacity is below historic levels.' Warning that prices would almost certainly rise further, Mr Bodman said: 'In the absence of any additional crude supply, for every one percent increase in demand we would expect a 20 per cent increase in price in order to balance the market.' German Economy Minister Michael Glos said: 'We need more oil in the world market quickly in order to stop the spiralling prices at the gas pumps'. He wrote in an article for the Sunday newspaper Bild am Sonntag that prices have passed the 'limit' acceptable to consumers. India's Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and Australia's Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson also called for oil producing nations to increase their output, diplomats said. Saudi Arabia has said it will step up production by 200,000 barrels to 9.65 million barrels a day from July. And Kuwaiti Oil Minister Mohammed al-Olaim said on Sunday that Opec members 'will not hesitate' to increase production if the market needs it. But Opec president Chakib Khelil insisted there is enough oil to supply the market. 'We believe that the market is in equilibrium. The price is disconnected from fundamentals. It is not a problem of supply,' the Algerian oil minister told a briefing. 'Why would you have a supply problem when demand is going down,' he said. Mr Khelil said the 13-nation Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries had decided no special meeting on production was needed now and that a decision would be made at a regular Opec meeting in September. 'We believe speculation, in its noble and not noble terms, has its impact,' the Opec chief said. Mr Khelil refused to answer questions about why Saudi Arabia has decided to increase its output. He said much of the price explosion can be explained by turmoil around the dollar. 'A lot of people are talking about the uncertainties about the reserves. But what about the uncertainties on the dollar?' he said. Before the summit, Saudi Deputy Petroleum Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said: 'What is bringing us together is a sincere wish to be responsible. 'We will meet demand,' the prince vowed. 'If demand requires more crude, we shall sell it.' A Saudi source said there is scope for other countries to follow his country's example as there is up to three million barrels of spare capacity within Opec nations. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the senior western leader at the summit, has called for a 'new deal' between consumers and producers. He wants producer nations to 'invest in countries like ours, and oil consumers like us with good companies, with good technology and skills can invest in the oil-producing countries.' Mr Brown said in an interview with The Guardian newspaper that the world was going through 'the biggest of all three oil shocks' and called it 'the downside of globalisation.' -- AFP http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/...ory_250544.html 10,000 blessing for his Highness for his magnimous help, may he live to 1000 year old He can bring the price of oil down and dun just use his mouth...

going to stadium this saturday to watch.. anyway idea where park is good?? was thinking Kallang Theater.. per entry should be $3 or $4 if i am not wrong, can save on some coupon parking + squeezing + searching of carpark at the stadium.. anyone keen to predict scoreline??

personally i think singapore wun lose by 2 goals anyway is there a live telecast of this match?