Forbes has issued a list that featured the richest Royals in the world, below is the ranking along with the net fortune, you can also see the photo of each one sorted from left to right, up to down.
1: King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand - Net worth: $35 billion
2: Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan of United Arab Emirates - Net worth: $23 billion
3: King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia - Net worth: $21 billion
4: Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei - Net worth: $20 billion
5: Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of Dubai - Net worth: $18 billion
6: Prince Hans-Adam II von und zu Liechtenstein of Liechtenstein - Net worth: $5 billion
7: Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani of Qatar - Net worth: $2 billion
8: King Mohammed VI of Morocco - Net worth: $1.5 billion
9: Prince Albert II of Monaco - Net worth: $1.4 billion
10: Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman - Net worth: $1.1 billion
11: Prince Karim Al Hussein - Net worth: $1 billion
12: Queen Elizabeth II of U.K. - Net worth: $650 million
13: Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah of Kuwait - Net worth: $500 million
14: Queen Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard of Netherlands - Net worth: $300 million
15: King Mswati III of Swaziland - Net worth: $200 million
Source
The popular social networking site, Facebook, witnessed a 153% growth in its total number of users, which jumped from 52 million in 2007 to 132 million users in 2008, leaving Facebook in the first place among social networking sites with 22% of the total worldwide users.
According to a report by comScore the total number of social networking users in the world has increased by 25% in 2008 and jumped from 464 millions to 580 millions, majority of this growth came from the increasing popularity of Facebook and Hi5.
Although the Middle East and Africa witnessed the highest growth in overall social networking users, 66%, it maintained the last position in the list with 30 million social networking users in June 2008.
Different regions in the world witnessed reasonable growth excluding North America, which witnessed a 9% growth, the thing that gives an indication that this market is, not surprisingly, getting mature, if you do a small calculation you would figure out that 30% of people in the North America use social networking site.
The biggest loser among social networking sites was MySpace, which witnessed a shy growth that didn’t exceed 3%, leaving this community in the second place after being number one in 2007.
Facebook is witnessing an enormous growth all over the world; the slow growth in the North America effected Facebook’s growth in this region of the world, unlike Latin America, where Facebook witnessed an overwhelming growth of 1055% in the total users.
According to the report, 50% of social networking users in the Middle East and Africa use Facebook, representing 11% percent of total users on Facebook.
Source
The race for the title of Middle East’s best airline continues, this year, Arabia’s airline companies were busy trying to reserve a spot in the top airlines lists that were issued by Skytrax Research and Travel + Leisure Magazine, but seems like 2008 holds even more titles and lists, Maktoob Research revealed the outcomes of their “The TravelMonitor” survey, which had been conducted on 2,457 frequent travelers from Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. The Dubai-based air carrier Emirates Airline was voted the region’s top airline.
The survey revealed that Saudi and UAE travelers prefer to use their national airline companies, Saudi Airlines was rated the most expensive airline by Saudi travelers and yet it is the most widely used carrier among Saudis. The situation in the UAE is the same, Emirates Airline is the most widely used air carrier by UAE travelers, although they rated is as the most expensive airline.
Satisfaction:
Emirates Airline scored highest in overall satisfaction, 8.5/10 among Saudi travelers, and 8.3/10 among UAE’s travelers
Both Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways scored 7.8/10
Brand Awareness:
Emirates Airline scored 85% among UAE travelers
Saudi Airline scored 92% among Saudi travelers
Usage:
Emirates Airline scored 39% among UAE travelers
Saudi Airline scored 81% among Saudi travelers
Value-for-Money:
Majority of Saudi travelers voted for Etihad and Emirates in the Value-for-Money category
UAE travelers voted for Qatar Airways as the most value-for-money airline
Budget-Driven Travelers?
The low-cost air carrier Sama Airlines became the second most widely used carrier in KSA jumping from 1% in 2007 to 18% in 2008
Read more in their press release
It seems that everyone agrees on the fact that Singapore Airlines is the best air carrier in the world, according to two different surveys conducted by Skytrax Research and Travel + Leisure Magazine, Singapore Airlines came first for the second year in row.
Emirates Airlines, which moved from the 3rd place to the 2nd in the Travel + Leisure list, maintained its 9th place in the Skytrax list. While the Abu-Dhabi-based air carrier, Etihad Airways, which didn’t make it to Travel + Leisure’s list, managed to reserve a place in Skytrax’s list and came 10th.
The Skytrax awarded Qatar Airways the Best Airline and Best Cabin Staff for the Middle East award, the Doha-based airline dropped three places in the Skytrax list and came 7th after being 4th last year.
Few airline companies were common in the two lists, in addition to Singapore Airlines and Emirates, Thai Airways made it to both lists and came 4th in the Skytrax list and 3rd in the Travel + Leisure list, while Cathay Pacific Airways came 2nd in Skytrax’s and 4th in T+L’s.
Skytrax Top 10 Airlines 2008 List:
1. Singapore Airlines
2. Cathay Pacific
3. Qantas
4. Thai Airways
5. Asiana Airlines
6. Malaysia Airlines
7. Qatar Airways
8. Air New Zealand
9. Emirates
10. Etihad Airways
Travel + Leisure Top 10 Airlines 2008 List:
1. Singapore Airlines
2. Emirates Airline
3. Thai Airways International
4. Cathay Pacific Airway
5. SilkAir
6. Japan Airlines (JAL)
7. All Nippon Airways (ANA)
8. Virgin Atlantic Airways
9. Air Tahiti Nui
10. Korean Air
Mercer had released the outcomes of the Worldwide Cost of Living Survey 2008 with a little bit confusing results in the Arab world. According to the survey, cost of living in many Arabian cities like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Amman, Kuwait and Riyadh dropped down, making these cities even cheaper than 2007, even though prices are going up month after month.
Dubai and Abu Dhabi are known for the extremely expensive rent prices, which even went higher this year, Riyadh, Amman and Jeddah as well witnessed an increment in rent prices, and yet the report claims that cost of living went down. Amman, which topped the most expensive Arabian cities list that was created by the Economist, came fourth in Mercer’s report after Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Beirut, if you compare Dubai to Amman, you’ll find that Dubai is more expensive than Amman in rents and taxis only.
Arabian cities in Mercer’s Worldwide Cost of Living Survey 2008:
52. Dubai
65. Abu Dhabi
80. Beirut
88. Amman
94. Kuwait City
112. Manama
119. Riyadh
126. Jeddah
(courtesy of the Arabian Business)
Arabian cities in the Economist’s Arabia’s Most Expensive Cities:
1. Amman
2. Dubai
3. Ad-Dar Al-Baydha
4. Abu Dhabi
5. Manama
6. Doha
7. Riyadh
8. Muscat
9. Kuwait
10. Jeddah
11. Khubar
12. Cairo
13. Algiers
14. Damascus
(for some reason Beirut is missing)
World’s most expensive according to Mercer’s Worldwide Cost of Living Survey 2008:
1. Moscow
2. Tokyo
3. London
4. Oslo
5. Seoul
6. Hong Kong
7. Copenhagen
8. Geneva
9. Zurich
10. Milan
11. Osaka
12. Paris
13. Singapore
14. Tel Aviv
15. Sydney
16. Dublin
16. Rome
18. St. Petersburg
19. Vienna
20. Beijing Read the rest of this entry »
The Information and Decision Support Center in Egypt published an interesting report about Egyptian blogs, which revealed that the total number of Egyptian blogs in April 2008 was 160,000 blogs, while the total Arabian blogs in the same month was 490,000 blogs, the report included all service providers; maktoob, blogspot, jeeran… etc.
Numbers didn’t seem quite right to me, according to the report, Jeeran hosts 116,192 Egyptian blogs, even though on Jeeran you can search through 98,178 blogs only, go to their website and you can see it, either the numbers of the report are not correct at all, or the majority of Jeeran blogs are private and don’t appear in search results.
Some figures about Egyptian blogs:
67.8% of Egyptian bloggers use Arabic language, 9.5% blog in English, while 20.8% are mixed.
73% of the Egyptian bloggers are males, and 27% are females.
53.1% of the Egyptian bloggers are between 20 – 30 years old.
79.2% of Egyptian bloggers blog from inside Egypt while 20.8% blog from outside.
82.1% of Egyptian blogs come from Cairo, while 17.9% come from rest of Egypt.
Egyptian blogs by topic:
30.7% General, 18.9% Political, 15.5% Personal, 14.4% Arts & Culture, 7% Religious, 4.8% Social, 4% Science & Technology
Out of 10 frequently mentioned characters in Egyptian blogs, 6 were Politicians, 3 were Artists and Cultural Names, and 1 was Religious, the main three mentioned names were: Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), President Husni Mubarak, and his son Gamal Mubarak.
International figures:
According to the report, 100,000 new blogs that used to be created on daily basis in November 2006, while in April 2007 it was 120,000. So basically we’re talking about 43,800,000 new blog a year, I don’t think this seem to be right.
Top 10 blogging languages:
The report mentioned that the total number of blogs in the world was 70,000,000 in April 2008, and Arabic wasn’t among the top 10 languages in the world.
37% Japanese
36% English
8% Chinese
3% Italian
3% Spanish
2% Russian
2% French
2% Portuguese
1% German
1% Persian
5% Other
To download the report, click here!
