When it comes to women and tears at the workplace — whether the latter come as a downpour or as reticent sniffles — colleagues take both seriously.

But how seriously? Well, it depends.

This burst of emotion needs to be examined in various contexts. Let’s start with the context of multiculturalism. A Japanese female manager starts crying in front of her male American director. What happens? Will the director use her emotional bout to hinder her professional growth, assuming she is weak? Will her co-workers judge her as out of control?

Not if the observer is Emirati Mohammad Ali Bin Futais Al Merri, head of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) at a government organisation in Abu Dhabi. He tells Gulf News, “In my previous workplace, my lady colleagues come out of my superior’s office crying due to his behaviour, and I empathised with them because I believe crying is a natural release for pent-up emotions.”

To read the full Gulf News report follow the link: gulfnews.com/news/1.1014646

Horwell also indicated he will soon announce the launch of Nobu’s first hotel in Riyadh — which will also be the first five-star boutique hotel in the country. He will make a formal announcement during a press conference at the 4th Annual Kingdom Hotel Expansion Summit on May 26th and 27th 2012. The hotel is expected to open in June.

The InterContinental Hotels Group has also unveiled plans to develop its presence in the Middle East with two new hotels in the Kingdom. The locations of the new Hotel Indigo Riyadh KAFD and InterContinental Riyadh KAFD are perfect for business and leisure travelers alike. A knock-on effect of the potential for new hotels in the region is that global contractors are awarded these projects — stimulating the construction sector.

One such developer, Saudi company Jabal Omar Development Co,has been awarded contracts by two local companies. The deal with Baytur Construction Co and Azmeel Contracting & Construction Corp includes four hotel towers and is rumoured to be worth US$ 397 million. This is of course good news for job seekers in the Kingdom too, given the many challenges experienced prior to the crisis in 2009.

Today there are more requests for employment than there are positions available, according to Christophe Landais, Managing Director of Accor Middle East. The regional hospitality giant plans to hire 4,000 workers for its new hotels in the Middle East – a topic [amongst several] that Landais will elaborate on at the upcoming Annual Kingdom Hotel Expansion Summit–which is organised by French business information group naseba.

“For the fourth year running we are hosting leading hoteliers, developers, consultants, and hospitality personnel from across Saudi Arabia. Connecting them and facilitating knowledge-sharing and business potential is part of our ongoing initiative to help grow the hospitality and tourism hospitality industry in the Kingdom,” commented Fabien Faure, naseba Managing Director.

Roger Cressey, senior vice-president, Booz Allen Hamilton, who was in Oman for the recently-concluded Cyber Defence summit, called for a coherent national policy as networks become pervasive and stated that traditional approach may not work anymore. It may be recalled that Oman amended the IP laws to make them compliant with various international conventions governing IP laws. Roger said, “It is a very good structure for now, but there needs to be an acknowledgement that the environment is changing and greater efforts are being made by criminal gangs and nation states to steal intellectual property”…

Click on the link to read The Times of Oman’s full report: http://www.timesofoman.com/2706&sec=news

Muscat: Following a day focused on international collaboration and knowledge sharing as potential solutions against the ever-increasing threat of cyber warfare, Day Two of the Cyber Defence Summit was opened by Marco Obiso, cyber security coordinator at international Telecommunication Union (ITU). Among the experts who contributed on the second day were Shawn Henry, former executive assistant director, Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch, Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In 2009, SC Magazine had termed him as one of the top industry pioneers to have shaped the information security industry. A year later, he was named ‘Cybercrime Fighter of the Year’ by McAfee Inc, and as one of the most influential people in security by Security Magazine. Henry commented: “We have to share threat data. My threat data will help enable you to be more secure. It will help you be predictive and will allow you to be proactive. Despite our best efforts we need to assume that we will get breached, hence we need to ensure our organisations have consequence management in its systems that allow us to minimise any damage.”

Click on the link to read The Times of Oman’s full report: http://www.timesofoman.com/echoice.asp?detail=2512

In a keynote address, European Investment Bank’s Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund Head Cyrille Arnould emphasised the importance of understanding clean energy finance in the emerging markets by highlighting how obtaining funding for small to medium-sized projects remains difficult…

To read Gulf Times’ full report, follow the link: http://www.gulf-times.com/article.asp

DOHA: The Third Annual Qatar Alternative Energy Investors Summit started with an opening session on one of the most interesting and discussed issues: The use of solar energy to power desalination plants.

The two-day summit organised by the French business information company naseba in partnership with the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI), opened yesterday at the Grand Hyatt getting together international clean energy industry leaders, starting the discussion from the great interest that the GCC has showed in applying solar energy to generate electric power and desalinated seawater.

The huge potentials of the area are evident thanks to the great sun light and the hydrocarbon resources, but still no large solar operated cogeneration power-desalting plants have been built or planned in the GCC. According to Dr Mohamed Darwish, Principle Investigator for Solar Desalination at QEERI, the most efficient energy mix for desalination process is the one that combines natural gas and solar energy…

Follow the link to read The Peninsula Qatar’s full article: http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/business-news/189367

MUSCAT — Eugene Kaspersky, the Internet security whiz behind the software that bears his name, has urged governments to close ranks and collaborate in the fight against cyber crime.

Kaspersky, who is the co-founder of global Internet security software services firm Kaspersky Lab, is currently visiting the Sultanate as a high-profile delegate to the Cyber Defence Summit, which began at Grand Hyatt Muscat yesterday.

The two-day summit, which has attracted anti-cyber crime czars from around the world, has been organised by Oman’s National Computer Emergency Readiness Team (OCERT) on behalf of the Information Technology Authority (ITA)…

To read more of the Oman Daily Observer’s report, follow the link: http://www.google.co.uk/International+co-operation+key+to+fighting+cyber-crime

Muscat: Cyber crimes are growing in the Sultanate as Internet users too have shown a phenomenal growth in recent years, said a senior official of Oman National Computer Emergency Readiness Team (ONCERT).

“In the last two years, we have managed to handle more than 900 cyber security incidents within Oman National CERT. I believe the number is going to increase with the growing awareness on cyber security issues and get the private sector to feel more comfortable in sharing the cyber security incidents in their organisations,” Badar Ali Al Salehi, Director, Oman National CERT, said on the sidelines of Cyber Defence Summit here yesterday…

To read the Times of Oman’s full report, follow the link: timesofoman.com/2409

“The importance of cloud computing solutions for us came from the e-Government initiative we need to align with. But cloud computing is definitely the key to the future of the Kingdom’s IT modernisation plan – and the biggest benefit of cloud-based infrastructure is IT resource sharing,” indicated Dr Ayman Fayoumi, Vice Dean for IT at King Abdulaziz University…

Follow the link to read all of  HPC’s report: http://www.hpcinthecloud.com/hpccloud/2012-03-27/