Random news: UN, Israel, and a drag race

Sorry, people who find my news posts boring.

• Qatar has just gotten one of Asia/Africa's rotating nonpermanent seats on the UN Security Council. It celebrated by giving a speech condemning terrorism.
  
• A Qatari with a strangely familiar name has been arrested for mowing 15 people down, killing 5, in an illegal drag race in Cairo, and then fleeing the country. Smart.
  
• Apparently, here in Qatar, we don't even say the word "Israel".</ul

The great Garangao mystery solved!

Here and here I have discussed the Gulf tradition of Garangao, and the students' inability to spell the word. (A colleague even mentioned the other day that she Googled Garangao to try to find out more, and my weblog was the second hit. w00t!)

This week there are Garangao posters up at school, and they have the (a?) spelling of the word in Arabic. It is: قرنقعوه (Qrnq'wa).

That explains why students seemed confused as to whether to transliterate it K or a G; in Gulf Arabic (Khaleeji) the ق (q) is often pronounced like a g. This time last year I thought they were saying a غ (gh) sound, but I was wrong.