Monday, June 09, 2003

According to Gulf News, 107 women recently graduated from Qatar's police academy, the first time an all-female squadron has graduated. The same paper reported an Omani plan to reserve more job categories, mainly in retailing, for Omani nationals. Oman, like other Gulf countries, plays host to a large population of foreign workers who dominate certain sectors of the economy. However, as the population of these countries increases, they need to start finding jobs for their own people, especially as declining oil prices hurt their ability to maintain their current welfare infrastructure. To me, both of these stories are the sorts of things the Western media won't pick up on, but that reflect the changing face of the Middle East we're going to be dealing with in the future.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home