A former expat's reflections on Makkah

[email protected] (Arab News)
May 7, 2013

Makkah

Columbus, May 7: On our way to Makkah from Jeddah, I was surprised at the traffic. What was wrong? Everyone was actually driving within the speed limit and in their lanes. There were no cars on the shoulder. I was here for Umrah from the United States, visiting the Kingdom after seven years.

“There are cameras everywhere. You get snapped and fined, if you break the law. I have received speeding tickets worth SR 900 in the last two months alone,” said our friend, Qureishi.

There were occasional speedsters, who didn't seem to be afraid of the cameras. But I soon found out why. Qureishi pointed out that some drivers had placed a white tape on the license plate number, hiding one or two digits hoping to render their vehicle untraceable. I did not see any major accident that day. But I did notice that a large number of vehicles had signs of a fender-bender; broken taillight or dented bumper. I had never seen so many dents on vehicles in a single day in my life.

As we sped toward Makkah, I was amazed to see how Saudi Arabia seemed to have grown. There were no signs of recession, but on the contrary economy seemed to be booming. Things were gone or closed, but only to be replaced by something better or bigger. The Beautiful Creatures Zoo was gone. That was a good thing. I remember doing a story on it for Arab News. I had gone at a time when it was breakfast time for pythons. I still remember with a shudder how live rabbits were fed to the snakes.

Gone was also the Al-Watani supermarket. This is where we did our grocery. I could still remember Al-Watani General Manager Leslie Lloyd who was perplexed as to why oats were the No. 1 seller in Ramadan when it was a breakfast food and people were fasting. He at the time did not know that oats were used for shourba (soup) which was what Saudis ate after breaking their fast.

The visit to the Grand Mosque in Makkah was a very emotional and nostalgic experience for me. I could not believe my eyes when I entered the vicinity of the mosque. It had grown so much. The Clock Tower stood out in its splendor. There were so many new hotels. A portion of the mosque was closed; there were many cranes and construction work going on. There were so many pilgrims, enthusiastic and vibrant. It felt a bit like Haj. The Grand Mosque needed this expansion because of the increase in Haj and Umrah traffic from within and outside the Kingdom.

The “saiee” downstairs was closed and was only being performed on the top level. The sight of mechanized carts was a pleasant surprise. My 89-year-old mother was with us. She had performed Haj in 1996 and was here for her first Umrah. We rented the battery-operated cart for SR 100 which my husband drove. There was just one slight mishap. Two women riding their cart crashed into ours, but because the speed is never high no one was hurt. However, I noticed two similar mishaps and they both involved women, perhaps because they aren't accustomed to driving.

After Umrah, we stopped to eat. I did not have the heart to eat at Al-Baik. When we lived in Jeddah from 1994 onward, my daughters, aged 6 and 7 at the time, loved Al-Baik. “When we go to Makkah, it is 'Labbaik' and when we come back it is 'Al-Baik,'” they said. Now in their 20s and married, I asked them if they wanted anything from Jeddah? “Only Al-Baik,” they said.

Jeddah looked so different. We lived on Arbaeen Street for seven years but I couldn't recognize it. The roundabouts were gone replaced by flyovers. Even Arab News had shifted to a beautiful new building. Jeddah looked all dug out, ugly and inconvenient but that is a necessary evil needed in the expansion and beautification of a city.

Downtown Jeddah looked every inch the vibrant place that it was. Toys were still selling at SR 15.

Women working at checkout counters in department and grocery stores were something I had never imagined seeing in the Kingdom in my lifetime. I had read about it, but seeing it in person was an awesome experience. Many women I spoke to were all praise for Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah and said he understood women's issues and was a very kind and fair ruler. They were also confident that if women were ever allowed to drive, it would be in his reign.

Men on the other hand, seemed to be the same. Most of them were tired of Jeddah's traffic delays and diversions. They complained about their wives watching soaps all day. Some also complained of the strict government rules regarding visas and iqamas. In all fairness, I think it is a good thing to streamline the iqama industry. There have always been too many shady practices going on. People came on one company's iqama, worked for someone else and even their profession was not registered correctly on paper. If implemented thoroughly, everyone will benefit from it. Right now a handful of corrupt people are able to make a lot of money and oftentimes cheat the people they are dealing with.

We were there for only a week and left Jeddah with mixed feelings of joy and sadness. Immigration and security officers were actually polite and even smiled. I would love to come back to Jeddah in a few years, once the dust settles on the construction, expansion and deep excavation projects. Who knows, I may have a female cabbie, then.

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Agencies
July 4,2020

The Mars Colour Camera (MCC) onboard ISRO's Mars Orbiter Mission has captured the image of Phobos, the closest and biggest moon of Mars.

The image was taken on July 1 when MOM was about 7,200 km from Mars and 4,200 km from Phobos.

"Spatial resolution of the image is 210 m.

This is a composite image generated from 6 MCC frames and has been color corrected," ISRO said in an update along with the image.

Phobos is largely believed to be made up of carbonaceous chondrites.

According to ISRO, "the violent phase that Phobos has encountered is seen in the large section gouged out from a past collision (Stickney crater) and bouncing ejecta."

"Stickney, the largest crater on Phobos along with the other craters (Shklovsky, Roche & Grildrig) are also seen in this image," it said.

The mission also known as Mangalyaan was initially meant to last six months, but subsequently ISRO had said it had enough fuel for it to last "many years."

The country had on September 24, 2014 successfully placed the Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft in orbit around the red planet, in its very first attempt, thus breaking into an elite club.

ISRO had launched the spacecraft on its nine-month- long odyssey on a homegrown PSLV rocket from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh on November 5, 2013.

It had escaped the earth's gravitational field on December 1, 2013.

The Rs 450-crore MOM mission aims at studying the Martian surface and mineral composition as well as scan its atmosphere for methane (an indicator of life on Mars).

The Mars Orbiter has five scientific instruments - Lyman Alpha Photometer (LAP), Methane Sensor for Mars (MSM), Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA), Mars Colour Camera (MCC) and Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer

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News Network
May 7,2020

Toronto, May 7: Scientists have uncovered how bats can carry the MERS coronavirus without getting sick, shedding light on what triggers coronaviruses, including the one behind the COVID-19 pandemic, to jump to humans.

According to the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, coronaviruses like the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) virus, and the COVID19-causing SARS-CoV-2 virus, are thought to have originated in bats.

While these viruses can cause serious, and often fatal disease in people, bats seem unharmed, the researchers, including those from the University of Saskatchewan (USask) in Canada, said.

"The bats don't get rid of the virus and yet don't get sick. We wanted to understand why the MERS virus doesn't shut down the bat immune responses as it does in humans," said USask microbiologist Vikram Misra.

In the study, the scientists demonstrated that cells from an insect-eating brown bat can be persistently infected with MERS coronavirus for months, due to important adaptations from both the bat and the virus working together.

"Instead of killing bat cells as the virus does with human cells, the MERS coronavirus enters a long-term relationship with the host, maintained by the bat's unique 'super' immune system," said Misra, one of the study's co-authors.

"SARS-CoV-2 is thought to operate in the same way," he added.

Stresses on bats, such as wet markets, other diseases, and habitat loss, may have a role in coronavirus spilling over to other species, the study noted.

"When a bat experiences stress to their immune system, it disrupts this immune system-virus balance and allows the virus to multiply," Misra said.

The scientists, involved in the study, had earlier developed a potential treatment for MERS-CoV, and are currently working towards a vaccine against COVID-19.

While camels are the known intermediate hosts of MERS-CoV, they said bats are suspected to be the ancestral host.

There is no vaccine for either SARS-CoV-2 or MERS, the researchers noted.

Follow latest updates on the COVID-19 pandemic here

"We see that the MERS coronavirus can very quickly adapt itself to a particular niche, and although we do not completely understand what is going on, this demonstrates how coronaviruses are able to jump from species to species so effortlessly," said USask scientist Darryl Falzarano, who co-led the study.

According to Misra, coronaviruses rapidly adapt to the species they infect, but little is known on the molecular interactions of these viruses with their natural bat hosts.

An earlier study had shown that bat coronaviruses can persist in their natural bat host for at least four months of hibernation.

When exposed to the MERS virus, the researchers said, bat cells adapt, not by producing inflammation-causing proteins that are hallmarks of getting sick, but instead by maintaining a natural antiviral response.

On the contrary, they said this function shuts down in other species, including humans.

The MERS virus, the researchers said, also adapts to the bat host cells by very rapidly mutating one specific gene.

These adaptations, according to the study, result in the virus remaining long-term in the bat, but being rendered harmless until something like a disease, or other stressors, upsets this balance.

In future experiments, the scientists hope to understand how the bat-borne MERS virus adapts to infection and replication in human cells.

"This information may be critical for predicting the next bat virus that will cause a pandemic," Misra said.

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Agencies
March 15,2020

Cybercriminals continue to exploit public fear of rising coronavirus cases through malware and phishing emails in the guise of content coming from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US and World Health Organisation (WHO), says cybersecurity firm Kaspersky.

In the APAC region, Kaspersky has detected 93 coronavirus-related malware in Bangladesh, 53 in the Philippines, 40 in China, 23 in Vietnam, 22 in India and 20 in Malaysia. 

Single-digit detections were monitored in Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Myanmar, and Thailand. 

Along with the consistent increase of 2019 coronavirus cases comes the incessant techniques cybercriminals are using to prey on public panic amidst the global epidemic, the company said in a statement. 

Kaspersky also detected emails offering products such as masks, and then the topic became more commonly used in Nigerian spam emails. Researchers also found scam emails with phishing links and malicious attachments.

One of the latest spam campaigns mimics the World Health Organisation (WHO), showing how cybercriminals recognise and are capitalising on the important role WHO has in providing trustworthy information about the coronavirus.

"We would encourage companies to be particularly vigilant at this time, and ensure employees who are working at home exercise caution. 

"Businesses should communicate clearly with workers to ensure they are aware of the risks, and do everything they can to secure remote access for those self-isolating or working from home," commented David Emm, principal security researcher.

Some malicious files are spread via email. 

For example, an Excel file distributed via email under the guise of a list of coronavirus victims allegedly sent from the World Health Organisation (WHO) was, in fact, a Trojan-Downloader, which secretly downloads and installs another malicious file. 

This second file was a Trojan-Spy designed to gather various data, including passwords, from the infected device and send it to the attacker.

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