June movie review
It's been a long time since I updated my movie list. In no particular order maximum 5 stars
XIII the conspiracy - awarded 2 stars only I simply could not get the feel of the action
X-Men origins wolverine - can I say 6 stars ? I simply loved the plot and everything about it - to me this is the best X- men so far.
Yes Man - 4 stars it was a fun movie
The curious case of Benjamin Button - a well deserved 5 star
Seven Pounds - 5 stars - great theme
Beowulf ( with Angeline Jolie) - a dismal 2 stars although the cartoons deserve a 4 star
Frost Nixon - 4 and a half star - I just did not like the actor who played Frost :)
Knowing ( Nicholas Case) - 2 stars only - actually regret buying this DVD
More next months
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Musings about the Swine Flu
Swine flu is no longer breaking news material and seems to have become 'another flu' just like bird flu. We know it's there but we don't think about it much, even though we are anticipating the second deadly wave around autumn.
I remember at the beginning when it looked like it was going to be something bigger than bird flu or even SARS how I used to read testimonies from all over the world to evaluate the situation of the outbreak. A family's ordeal in the UK struck me as something like a movie script...
"My partner and I returned to Birmingham from Cancun yesterday morning at 08:20am. There were no members of the health department there to meet us, over 400 people passed through without help or advise being offered.
We returned home to our seven-months-old daughter and in-laws. Last night we developed many of the symptoms listed.
I contacted the NHS Direct and after several hours we were asked to go to the hospital ourselves. We had to wait in A&E before being seen by doctors dressed in masks, aprons and gloves.
We have high temperatures over 38 degrees, aches, coughing and sneezing, diarrhoea and nausea. The hospital prescribed us both with Tamiflu and told us to drive to a chemist in Coventry, we waited for 15 minutes surrounded by other people before we had the Tamiflu.
The chemist informed us that they only had one dose available and that we would need to return the following day. This morning we were contacted by the HPA, we informed them of the situation and they told us that under no circumstances should we leave the house.
We are waiting the results now, we are very concerned about our daughter and family around us as it looks like we have now infected them. "
Richard Cook, Nuneaton, UK
The pandemic scenario painted by the WHO means that what happened to the family above could have resulted in a much worse situation and that maybe a few basic rules had been flaunted.
(1) no members of health department at the airport
(2) no one offering advice
(3) they contacted the NHS who asked them to go to the hospital => so putting many people at risk on the way !
(4) they had to wait at the ER => more contact with people
(5) they had high temperature and were sneazing
(6) they had to go on their own to get the medicine from the pharmacy => putting more people at risk on their way
(7) they were asked to return the second day to get more Tamiflu.
Only 3 days after they returned were they contacted by the equivalent of the CDC and asked to stay put. I don't know what happened to them but I expected this to happen in an non EU OECD country, like Libya for example. How safe are we really and is it realistic to expect that people will watch their borders as closely as we imagine or does that only happen in movies?
I had the opportunity to experience first hand and compare when I recently travelled to Britain.
Upon boarding the flight to London from Tripoli international airport, there were a number of medical staff at the gate, the tube to the airplane has obviously been cleaned and sprayed with something similar to Dettol- so I assumed this was a request by the country of destination so that travellers do not bring any germs in the sole of shoes or something.
My flight landed about the same time as a flight arriving from Mexico, and my luggage was on the conveyor belt right next to the one of the Mexico flight. I saw no body with face mask or from any medical body and that area was quite crowded. It was just business as usual. I retrieved my baggage very fast and proceeded to the customs and the way out.
When I returned to Libya, we were greeted at the gate by medical staff with masks and gloves who proceeded to screen travellers by checking their forehead temperatures. I realise it may not be much and I'm not that knowledgeable medically but I guess that someone with fever was going to be asked to step outside into another area. I think Hong Kong had already been using sophisticated thermal scanners since the bird flu alert, we have nothing like that in Libya but I was happy at the effort deployed no matter how insignificant or ridiculous or annoying some people were thinking it was.
So far Libya and the rest of the Maghreb as Swine flu free. For the naysayers and negative people who see always only the bad sides yes we do have lots of other problems but it's good to know someone has thought about this virus because if it is as dangerous as they say then our health system cannot deal with it, so an ounce of prevention goes a long way.
Our neighbours in Egypt had decided to cull pigs - I'm not sure that's such a great idea because the waste generated is above their capacity to clean up and could probably cause an outbreak of something else besides Swine flu. I mean they still have cases of bird flu as recently as last week.
The Swine flu or Mexican flu as some people call it (unfairly) has also brought a number of questions to my mind it has now spread into over 42 countries. ( see map here for confirmed cases and deaths). So why many of us would hesitate to go to Mexico even though we know now it is a mild strain - and yet would travel to the USA or to Europe without any second thoughts?
Another idea to ponder on is that human greed is the cause of all disasters and similarly to Mad Cow Disease, Swine flu also seems to have a human mismanagement component in farming. When we mess with nature it always backfires.
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Libyan Female Writers
Beirut has been chosen as the World Book Capital this year, and the bookworm that I wanted so much to be there and immerse myself in all these books on display but I had other commitments.
There has indeed been a flurry of Arab novels in the last few years not only in the Arab world but also on the international scene. Recalling the hit books by Arab authors that reached international fame, I found myself nodding in agreement with the statement that ""The West likes Arab novels that deal with political oppression, women, or sexual taboos. ""...
Algerian writer Ahlam Mosthaghanemi is not far from this thought
when she notes that:
"Arabic writers are accepted in the West only if they criticise their homeland or their culture and religion. The West only promotes Arab writers who criticise their own people and culture. Mosthaghanemi, who has more than 2 million readers in the Arab world, said her works are not well received by the Western world because of her great respect for the Arab culture and her religion."
Something tells me that's how our very own Hisham became famous ;) but that is not today's topic so put those filed tongues back where they belong he he he....
What I had been thinking about all along was... are taboos really stiffling Arab women writers as this article implies ? which is again what Mosthaghanemi whom I respect immensely states :
" [..]as women writers are forbidden from using personal emotions as a tool of creative writings, most of the works of Arab women lack the warmth of real life. “We have to take great risks to portray the basic emotions of human beings like love, lust and romance”".
It vividly brought to mind a chat I had with a great Arab blogger friend of mine (let's call her A) about why with all her talent, head firmly on her shoulders and great humour does she not write a book. A told me that she shelved her dreams of writing novels because everything she wants to write about could be unacceptable.
This led me to have a short look at Libyan blogs after all even blogging is writing n'est ce pas?
And so I discovered that poet Lolitta's blog was no longer available... a week after she made this post :
Lolitta is Libyan and she writes beautiful daring poetry in English. Is it social pressure or is it because she has gotten married and simply moved on?
In a ranting from back in January, it was with surprise that I noted Shahrazad complaining that :
" Many Libyan female bloggers have either left the blogspehere all together or have made their blogs open to invites only [because]hey have been put into the so called pressured social paralysis situation where either the parents or some other family member has read the so called blog and disapproved of it existing . On the other hand these fanatic members of family read other blogs and enjoy them as well[.]Many fathers have given consent to their daughters writing a blog and quite a few are so proud of them and encourage them continuously until they get entangled in the dos and don’t of a young lady still unmarried whose future hubby might not approve of her blog!"
I'm all for sharing everything with family but it's difficult enough to be a blogger so why bother to tell anyone? (personally I regret telling some people - who are not family about it but I was happily surprised that one of my brothers who stumbled on it by chance loved it and was so proud of me he actually wanted me to stop being anonymous). Use the blogosphere as a sandpit to hon in your writing skills ladies - and don't tell anyone yet :P
I don't think that the Libyan males are against their sisters, mothers, wives etc. writing but more as social pressure and the 3ayb part - as in what cannot be seen then does not exist... or that the precious females maybe recognised and their ideas misintepreted and God forbid their reputation ruined because Libyan dudes would be trolling their website/blog . This was indeed confirmed in the comments from various Libyan female bloggers on that post here.
I think that's why controversial Libyan Violet's blog is hardly known and people who do comment do so almost shyly because most of her writing is about love or sometimes blatant erotica and all one anonymous commenter could tell her was " u're longing for an orgasm ".
Then I checked Luna and she echos Shahrazad " we Libyan bloggers especially the women face tremendous pressures from family ,work and all who are close. Is Blogging such an awful thing ??I never in my mind thought it to be till I got into trouble with needless to say the closest people to me." Again some of the comments confirm the suspected weird behaviour that prompted some bloggers to go underground or in this case in 'restrict' mode.
This is a pity as we readers loose so much by not being able to tap into their ideas, experiences, emotions plus someone could actually be the next Nobel or Pulitzer prize winner.
We have tons of talented ladies!
So I guess if you keep to cooking recipes, mothering and crochet tips ( which I think is absolutely fine as topics as well) you are OK. If you venture into more mature ground whether you are blogging or being in the printed media - about your life, fantasies or hopes then you have two choices : (1) if you bash your own strongly enough then you will be celebrated in the West a la Hirsi Ali or (2) move to Beirut :) otherwise the climb is very steep!
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Facebook in Libya
Many of the earlier Libyan bloggers are hardly writing anymore, rumour has it they have moved to Facebook. I am not sure how you can blog on FB but I understand they just want to talk among each other as their real selves.
Over the years I've had dozens of requests to join FB. It seemed like all my friends were suddenly incapable of writing emails. Email became the new snail mail.. and I was left with a dwindling inbox. I still fought back the urge to join the community, until a great friend asked me to do so and I accepted to try it for fun. After creating the account and adding him I browsed and found that as I initially thought the Libyans were populating FB fast. So many bloggers were there, so many people. Young men and women and not so young either. I found one of my brothers had an account too and I toyed with adding him as friend but decided against it as his account was gathering dust....
Also, I did not like any of the add-ons, pokes and applications so avoided them like the plague. So there you have it the number of friends in my account are counted on the fingers of one hand and I have forgotten the password!
What brought FB back to my mind to warrant this post ? it's just that I've seen a few Libyan bloggers/readers mention it...
Dream Libya thinks the facebook era is quite evil " Facebook is a way to spy on your friends, what they do, who their Friends are, the more you put on your facebook account the less privacy you will have." and from him I found out that there is a large community of Libyans online there.
While Libyan Violet has discovered that it has now replaced the traditional informal way of investigating about the bride or the groom before the engagement "Don't tell your parents about her yet man, why dont you probe about her on facebook, check her profile, pictures, list of friends and who sent her flowers. Then investigate in Hi5 and it won't be wrong to Google her name see what comes up ... I mean I don't have anything specific on her, but you never know!".
Personally I think that this tool is OK to have; as a master data of friends and acquaintances all in one place where you can check on them from time to time. Also for finding long lost classmates and friends and satisfy your curiosity about what happened to your high school crush :P. For the security conscious I think there is nothing to fear, FB will dish out whatever you feed it and you can put as much info as you wish and you can ask your friends not to upload photos of you as well and usually if they are your friends then they have no business doing so and if they are not your friends then they would put your photos online regardless of being on FB or not! If you are paranoid then you should not be online in the first place!
But the main point is that I'm glad the bloggers are still around but simply in another place and I'm glad Libyans are networking too! I may join them at another time ...
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The Mysterious Libyan Coins
In my last post related to the economy in Libya, Khadijateri said "Are Libyans too lazy to carry coins? Are they [the coins] too heavy to lug around? Or is the problem that they are so difficult to count?".
I don't think any of these choices is the right answer :)
But it is not the first time that this issue has been brought to my attention....
Last year Khadijateri had already noted : "Another thing I can't understand is why people here [in Libya] hate using coins. When they raise the prices on goods in the shops they usually add a quarter of a dinar because that is the smallest banknote used here. When I first came to Libya, in 1989, using coins was common. It certainly would be better if they went back to using them again and then only raising the prices a few cents at a time instead of in big chunks."
I can't really state that Libyans hate using coins or are too lazy to do so, because we do use them overseas and we know how to and we also use them when available. The fact that at least in 1989 i.e . 20 years ago and some years after for sure, they were available is proof enough that we do love our coins. Are we too lazy or are the coins too heavy? Surely that can't be the case for all Libyans?
Our salaries are not always a perfect round number but would be something like this : 300 Dinars and 0.631 Dirhams, if I get this in cash then I would either receive 0.500 Dirham or 0.750 Dirham depending on the mood of our cashier. But most of us receive our money in our bank accounts and so those precious Dirhams accumulate and I like it this way. We also would love the prices not to rise in such increments as mentioned above because the smallest paper denomination is 0.250 (or 25 ) Dirhams. Why buy 5 breads instead of one only ?
"Until 1975, old coins denominated in milliemes (equal to the dirham) circulated. In 1975, coins were introduced in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 dirham which bore the coat of arms of the Federation of Arab Republics. These were followed in 1979 by a second series of coins, in the same denominations, which bore a design of a horseman in place of the arms. ¼ and ½ dinar coins were issued in 2004. [1] 1, 5, 10, and 20 dirham coins are rarely used, if ever, as units of exchange. However, they still retain their status as legal tenders. [source]
See the old and new sets of coins here - but you need to scroll down to Libya:
The next logical question is why has the circulation of coins dwindled in Libya?
Theories:
(1) In the late 80's I remember reading in the local newspapers about the caravans of cisterns filled with coins that were busted on their way to cross the border to Egypt. Someone had been smuggling our coins outside the country. You can imagine how many coins can one cistern carry? But what would Libyan coins buy you in Egypt I used to think ? nothing really their value lay in the quality of the alloy they were made from.
(2) Greedy Libyan merchants were hoarding coins in order for the price increase to be large. Instead of 5 or 10 Dirham they would 'have' to raise it to 25 at least.
(3) The country was not minting enough coins.
Whatever it was the circulation of coins continued to decrease slowly but surely. At one point coins became so rare that I started collecting them each time I actually came accross some. I have a small jar full now. We learn to live with that especially during the sanction years, afterwards people were too busy consuming and becoming materialistic in their outlook. But now when prices have become astronomical due to inflation and our extreme hurry to catch up with capitalism many are wondering where are those elusive coins?
In my quest for the Libyan coins I saved an article from the Oea newspaper of November 8th 2008, issue no. 068 : " who is responsible for the non-circulation of coins? where have the coins that the Central Bank of Libya issued disappeared? Is it true that they are smuggled out of the country to be recycled? Is there a mafia that melts the coins to make sewage covers?".
The author confirms that at least one old man he knew had started throwing the coins in the rubbish as too heavy too carry around especially since they are useless with the spike in prices. Also the merchants have been hoarding those coins for decades as this is to their benefit, and yes a 'mafia' was busted smuggling coins because the alloy could be smolten into other useful things or sold as scrap metal and they would still make loads of money.
Once again this is a vicious circle, sometimes you don't notice things and when one does its quite late in the day.
For sure though that the following is true :
(1) The Central Bank of Libya (CBL) has been taking steps for some time now to combat this shortage by putting new coins into circulation at regular intervals. We've seen from the Wiki article above referenced that at least till 2004 some new coins have been punched out. Moreover, the CBL's website has a link to money issued and money taken out of circulation, and one of the sublinks refers specifically to coins. See the photo below, courtesy of CBL. We can see that there are 8 denominations ranging from 50 Dirhams to 1 Dirham and all are valid!
(2) The merchants have been exponentially increasing prices following anticipated pay rises and that means for sure that they have been hoarding coins for a long time.
The lack of coins actually hurts our economy because it affects:
(a) salaries
(b) purchasing power
(c) accounting
(d) it wastes public money
So it's definitely a combination of circumstances but I can't believe that as stated at the beginning of my post that we are so irresponsible as to throw money or are simply lazy.
For the last 3 months or so it has become very very common to get change in coins at least in 25 and 50 denominations which I'm always happy to accept and use, I've been surprised with a few 5 Dirhams as well in some government offices. Basically there is an effort and the supermarkets cashiers are full of shiny gold coloured coins. Hopefully this a good sign !
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The significance of foreign currency reserves, imported goods and inflation
"Libya had $44 billion balance of payments surplus in 2008[and]Libya's foreign currency reserves were at $136 billion at the end of 2008 [...]Oil producer Libya is among the few countries which are free of any foreign debt".[Reuters]
This all sounds like great news to me (regardless of the political system which is not my concern in this post.).
It's good to have liquidity in these high risk financial times. I still maintain that the OPEC countries though should stop pegging their economies to the US$ and diversify a little to spread the risk. Although I'm not sure at the safety of their respective countries from physical demolition if they do take that step. But the global financial crisis and credit crunch gripping most nations could be used as an excuse to divest from the US$ and stockpile gold bullion as in not put all the eggs in one basket). Maybe then the US will run less high trade deficits and get away with it! but this is not my concern today either :P
What I was wondering about was the central bank governor in the same article I quoted above was saying i.e. that "average inflation is expected to fall sharply this year as a result of the decline of prices of food and other imported goods as well as the fall of the euro-Libyan dinar parity,".
Again I'm no economist so I'm not able to project into the future but would appreciate someone explaining this to me.
Does he mean that in quarter 2 or quarter 3 of the financial year prices will drop ? Because I thought that many commodities have definetely increased - check On the Edge "I couldn't BELIEVE how much food items have gone up ! A small jar of coffee that used to be 3.50 is now 6 dinars and the large would be 10 , when it was only 7 something last month". This is imported goods that she is talking about.But maybe supermarkets in Libya are making their own prices unrelated to the global situation. I think the eggs are cheaper but for sure car fuel has gone up it is now officially at 20 dirham per litre. To be honest I was embarassed at the gas station when I asked him to fill up my car for 5 Dinars and that barely reached half of the car tank. I thought the employee was cheating and regretfully it showed in my faces (even though I did not voice it) and he had to explain that prices had gone up.
So basically if inflation goes down, will fuel, bread and food commodities decrease too ? How does this work ?
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The Gaza Aid Convoy in Libya
"Thousands of people have contacted me to say that they have marched, cried at the television pictures and feel helpless in the face of the suffering.
That’s why I have launched a major initiative in response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. I will be leading an aid convoy from London to Gaza leaving on 14 February and travelling through France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and through Rafah and into Gaza. It will bring material aid and raise the banner of Palestine in all the countries that we visit.
The convoy will be led by a British fire engine, ambulances, and many trucks full of practical aid given by the various communities in Britain.
It is quite an undertaking, which I anticipate will have a high public profile throughout its journey and on its arrival in Gaza, god willing, some 30 days later." George Galloway
I was aware from media activity that the Gaza Convoy initiated by George Galloway was going to pass through Libya, but since I was not following the news closely I was not aware it had arrived.
So when I was driving in Tripoli yesterday afternoon I noticed a humongous traffic jam on the coastal road. I assumed there must have been some visiting VIP or a road accident. But as I got closer I noticed too many trucks too count and all had a Viva Palestina banner. Only then did I remember about this planned convoy.
I mean many of us had already donated to the various charities and movements collecting money for Gaza even to the Viva Palestina cause . But it was one thing to read about it and another to see the sheer number of trucks and people surrounding them live. Can you imagine more than 5 lanes of cars stopped in the street - litterally parked alongside the trucks !
I was talking at that time to my best friend and mentioned the trucks to him, he suggested I take a photo with the cellphone and I really did want to join the group and shake some hands and take a few photos but I was driving on the other side of the road separated by concrete - it would be suicidal to stop and run accross the road.
It was definetely a great sight anda lump rose in my throat...not just for Palestine but also the incredible emotions of my Libyan brethrens. I knew that the visitors would have a grand time in Libya - because being hospitable is what we do best and I'm not counting the trucks filled with goods that Libya has donated to this cause this time again.Reading the testimonies online was an added bonus:
"This is the best welcome we received. What is different this time is that the authorities did not try to stop the people mingling and getting close to us, nothing was orchestrated, it was natural and spontaneous.." [Viva Palestina website].
I'm happy to hear that they will be allowed into Gaza from Egypt! Well done to all.
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