The Melamine thing

Ahh Wednesday you beauty. What a week it's been, I'm glad it's nearly over!

Regular readers here may remember I got excited about Muscat Daily's story about Melamine last year on October 10th. I blogged about this on the October 17th here, and followed it up on December 10th here.

An example of Poultry products available in Oman. I'm not saying this particular brand is safe or unsafe to eat, it was just simply the poultry section in a local supermarket - that's all.

Muscat Daily reported that an SQU study into meats available for purchase here in the Sultanate indicated some meat products contained massive concentrations of Melamine, yet declined to report exactly which products were contaminated. The reason for this failure to report the brands affected was because the Ministry of Health declined to provide this information.

The World Health Organization's Oman representative was contacted via email (a Ms Suha Battash) on October 18th (as a result of a reader reading the article on this blog), and then a follow up email was sent to the WHO Rep again on November 25th requesting information. The WHO Rep then replied on November 28th with correspondence reference: WROMA.11/295 OMA/NUT - the contents of this email said:

From: BATTASH, Ms Suha Awni Mohammed -oma [mailto:REMOVED@REMOVED] On Behalf Of WR OMAN
Sent: Monday, November 28, 2011 1:51 PM
To: REMOVED
Subject: Melamine in local meats

WROMA.11/295

OMA/NUT

28 November 2011

Reference is made to your below email regarding Melamine in local meats, please note that we have forwarded your concern to the Director General of Health Affairs, Ministry of Health. Unfortunately we have not received any reply till now.

Please note that we will send you the answer as soon as we receive it.

With best regards.

Suha Battash

Office of the WHO Representative,  Oman
Tel (968) 2460XXXX / 2460XXXX
Fax (968) 2460XXXX
E-mail REMOVED

"Using Medicine Sensibly”

A follow up email was then sent back to the WHO Rep on 2nd January 2012, and again February 4th with no response to date.

So, the melamine issue still rumbles on. What we have learned so far is that the Director General of Health Affairs, Ministry of Health is obviously a very busy person indeed, being unable to give an answer to a single question asked of him or her (I dont know who the DG of Health Affairs is) in October 2011 until the end of February 2012 so far.

One might suggest that the Ministry of Health simply dont care about this issue and have decided that perhaps they'll just ignore the request for information in the hopes that it'll all blow over. Which raises even more alarming questions!

What if the slowness to respond is less rooted in the "too busy / don't care" pile and more rooted in the "Omani producers will get hurt so I'll stay mum about this" pile. This is a classic example of how NOT to manage your Public Relations. Here's a top tip: If the national press write a story about the potentially lethal levels of contaminants in foods available for purchase in the country, perhaps you should issue a statement so that citizens living here know what is safe to eat. Could you imagine the press reaction in, lets say for comparative purposes, China, if Melamine levels as high as reported here were found in local food products and the Ministry of Health failed to give a statement?

In China, as a result of the Melamine in milk scandal which broke in July 2008, a number of criminal prosecutions occurred, with two people being executed, another given a suspended death penalty, three others received life imprisonment, two received 15-year jail terms, and seven local government officials, as well as the Director of the Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) were fired or forced to resign.

Meanwhile, here in Oman, the DG of Health Affairs is too busy to even answer the question of what meat products are contaminated so we can avoid these products. Let's not forget that the question asked to the DG of Health Affairs was asked by the World Health Organization, not Joe Public. Why is the WHO failing to follow this up to get an answer? Why is the National Press not reporting on this to force a response? Why is the Ministry of Health ignoring this?

I sincerely hope that the SQU report first reported on by Muscat Daily was flawed or incorrect, and this is all a storm in a tea cup - and if that is the case, then TELL US! If it's actually the case that this melamine contamination is as reported in the SQU findings, then what on earth are the Ministry of Health playing at?

I doubt we'll ever hear anything, but I hope my rant helps spur some sort of positive reaction, instead of landing me in hot water with Al Plod for bringing this up again.

More soon.

le fin.

Muscat Daily's scoop on Adeyon Talents

Its Saturday and that means back to work for most of us.

I was surprised to see Muscat Daily splashed across it's front page the first of a 2 part exclusive story exposing Adeyeon Talents as a scam. The story is online here, or you can buy the paper for 100bz. It's good to support genuine local journalism, so consider coughing the 100bz if you happen to see it on your travels today.

Now the sting seems to be with the raffle for the 2 lambo's - the VIP cards are accepted, I myself used one and got a discount in Adidas at MCC lately. So the VIP cards seem to be working, its just the lottery tickets. I'm sure tomorrow we'll get to read more of the juicy details - rumour has it the people at the top of Adeyeon Talents have been arrested, but no idea if thats true or not.

Moving on, still with Muscat Daily, Dhofari Journalist, Susan Mubarak wrote a very good article about domestic help workers and their plight. It's a very good read, I recommend you read it if you haven't already done so.

In other news, yesterday it emerged that Oman Air have announced their new CEO: Mr Wayne Pearce, who has previously worked at Etihad as their head of strategy and planning, Qantas and UK based travel agency Gold Medal Travel. The story broke on the Oman Air SWAP group on facebook yesterday morning and I saw a note on the cover of the Muscat Daily today confirming it.

Oman Air's new CEO, Wayne Pearce

Best of luck to him, I'm sure he'll do fine :)

And finally for today, local blogger (now retired it seems) Muscat Jet Driver, has opened his archives for reading. I highly recommend these few stories for some laughs:

Rock Bottom Muscat
Omani Space Program

Some hilarious writing, worth reading!

More tomorrow!

le fin.

Public Prosecution seeking closure of a local paper

I was reading OmanForum last night and came across this thread about the Public Prosecution attempting to have local Arabic Daily paper Azzamn closed, apparently due to the papers insulting the Minister of Justice and his Undersecretary on May 14th, 2011 when an article was run about a MoJ employee who had written a letter of complaint saying that the Minister of Justice and his Undersecretary were intentionally delaying his Promotions.

Muscat Daily ran this story last Sunday, and I must admit I missed it then. It amazes me how petty this really is, and that these people actually have the time to go through court over something so.... pathetic. Freedom of the press is something that is touted and promoted here in Oman, yet then something as daft as this happens every now and then, which then scares all the news publishers back to publishing fluff and press releases again. I didnt read the article in question from May in the paper that has caused all of this but surely seeking the closure of a paper is just way over the top. If the article is indeed slanderous then sure the people affected can argue their case, but seeking closure of a publication over it? That seems a bit ridiculous to me, but then again I still don't really know what was said in the paper, or what the paper is actually like.

Anyway, I think the whole thing is stupid, these people should have more important things to be doing with their time. If anyone happens to know more information about this case, please share!

More tomorrow.

le fin.

Muscat Daily pokes dodgy employers who still hold passports

In an unexpected outburst from Mohana Prabhakar today in the Muscat Daily paper, the headline reads: "Holding passports is illegal, but who cares"

Its good to see some unprovoked prodding, and questions being asked of employers as to why exactly they are continuing to demand people's passports when joining them. I noted the absence of a direct out and out question to law enforcement as to why more is not being done to crack down on these law breakers but its certainly helping to draw more attention to what is very rightly described as an "unpalatable truth".

You can read the story here, and I note that if you are an employee and have to surrender your passport, you can contact Muscat daily, confidentially, by emailing muscatdaily@apexmedia.co.om

What do you all think about it? Personally I'm one of the lucky ones and if someone tried to take my passport away from me for a job I am confident enough to say bollocks to that and go and find another job. But I know I'm in the minority on that one.

Tomorrow, the results for the latest Poll - if you haven't voted yet - there's less than 24 hours to do so!

le fin.

Well done Oman, and how it's "not too bad" to drunk drive & kill people.

Firstly,

Congratulations to Oman for beating China in the London 2012 Olympic football qualifier preliminary round 2 in Shanghai last night. Hussain Al Hadhri slotted a goal in the first 3 minutes and then Oman held out for the full length of the game, shutting out the Chinese 1-0. There's nothing quite like winning against the odds away! China will be playing Oman here in the second leg game on the 23rd June. The game will be played at the Sultan Qaboos sports complex in Bousher As Seeb sports stadium, and I do not know anything about ticketing, it'll probably be free. If you do know anything about ticketing, please let us all know!

A nod to the boys up in the UAE as well, who also flicked some dirt in the eye of North Korea and beat them 1-0 as well. And the Saudi's beat Vietnam in a 2-0 victory too. Qatar dominated India in a 3-1 victory. No such luck for Kuwait, Yemen or Bahrain though, who lost their games. You can see all the schedules and results for the 2012 Asian team qualifiers by clicking here.

Next.

In today's edition of Muscat Daily, there was actually some local news! Top marks! The particular story I wanted to write about today is on page 3 at the top and you can read it online here. A man (not identified as to where he's from) was sentenced to 1 year in jail recently it is reported. But here's the reason I'm blogging about it: This man, who had 236mg of alcohol in his blood - the equivalent of about 8 pints of beer lost control of his car, hit another car, and then ran over a pedestrian, killing him.

So, in summary. He was shitfaced, crashed his car and took someones life. And all he got is 1 year in jail? What the hell? That is hardly a strong deterrent nor the right kind of message I'd of thought the authorities want to be sending out. The sentence seems unbelievably light for murder! I think that's outrageous, what do you think?

And finally, as reported on the blog on Monday last week, it has been confirmed that Borders has closed down in MCC. However, the Qurum branch is apparently set to stay open with no plans to close it as confirmed by Manoj Kanjari, the operations manager of Borders Oman.

le fin.