Al Mukalla's Friday evening market

It's an open market. Not far from the sea. In Sher'g. Every Friday evening. For rabbits, chickens and pigeons. Sometimes, ducks, gooses and other kinds of birds are sold here too. Most of the sellers and buyers are boys or young men. This is a man's world. No girls or women come here.

The problem with social networking

Each day, millions of people, especially in the 'developed' countries - interact, share and 'socialize' online. Social networking is the phenomenon of the 21st century. The social network preferred - depends on where one lives: Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tribe.net, and now Twitter are the most used by Americans; Facebook and Nexopia are most preferred by Canadians. Central and South Americans seem to go for Orkut, which is now a part of Google, and Hi5. The Europeans most preferred social networking services seem to be: Bebo, Badoo, XING, StudiVZ, Decayenne, Tagged and Skyrock; while Asians prefer - Friendster - one of the first social networking service; Mixi - mainly used by the Japanese, Multiply, Orkut, Wretch, Cyworld and Xiaonei now Renren - the last two popular with the Chinese.

Reportedly, the first social networking service, online, was SixDegrees.com which was launched in 1997 but, due to it not being much used and being unprofitable, it was closed 3 years later. SixDegrees failed, because, then , in the late 90s, very few people ever bothered or had time with socializing online. It was not until early this century, when Friendster, Myspace and then Facebook were launched - that social networking online - exploded, globally, and made many of its founders very wealthy people; and the sites, are now some of the most used on the Net.

Al Mukalla's meat market

Meat, all kinds of meat, is expensive here. Hadharem believe that the best lamb and mutton come from Hadhramout. Hadhramy lamb is more expensive than imported ones and more in demand. With Ramadhan now on and the Eid festivities ahead, lamb, and meat in general, is even more expensive.