Saudi Arabia women drive cars in protest at ban

Women in Saudi Arabia have been openly driving cars in defiance of an official ban on female drivers in the ultra-conservative kingdom.

The direct action has been organised on social network sites, where women have been posting images and videos of themselves behind the wheel.

The Women2Drive Facebook page said the direct action would continue until a royal decree reversed the ban.

Last month, a woman was arrested after uploading a video of herself driving.

Manal al-Sherif was accused of "besmirching the kingdom's reputation abroad and stirring up public opinion", but was released after 10 days having promised not to drive again.

Campaigners have not called for a mass protest - which would be illegal - but have asked women who have foreign driving licences to drive themselves as they go about their daily life.

"All that we need is to run our errands without depending on drivers," said one woman in the first film posted in the early hours of Friday morning.

The film showed the unnamed woman talking as she drove to a supermarket and parking.

"It is not out of love for driving or traffic or the experience. All this is about is that if I wanted to go to work, I can go. If I needed something I can go and get it.

"I think that society is ready to welcome us."

Another protester said she drove around the streets of Riyadh for 45 minutes "to make a point".

"I took it directly to the streets of the capital," said Maha al-Qahtani, a computer specialist at the Ministry of Education.

Religious fatwa

On Twitter, Mrs Qahtani described the route she had taken around the city with her husband, saying: "I decided that the car for today is mine."

Her husband said she was carrying her essential belongings with her and was "ready to go to prison without fear", AFP news agency reported.

One woman who asked not to be named told the BBC driving was often considered to be "something really minor".

"It's not one of your major rights. But we tell them that even if you give us all the basic and big rights, that you are claiming are more important than driving, we can't enjoy practising those rights because the mobility is not there.

"We can't move around without a male."

The motoring ban is not enforced by law, but is a religious fatwa imposed by conservative Muslim clerics. It is one of a number of severe restrictions on women in the country.

Supporters of the ban say it protects women and relieves them of the obligation to driver, while also preventing them from leaving home unescorted or travelling with an unrelated male.

But the men and women behind the campaign - emboldened by uprisings across the Middle East and Arab world - say they hope the ban will be lifted and that other reforms will follow.

Amnesty International has said the Saudi authorities "must stop treating women as second-class citizens", describing the ban as "an immense barrier to their freedom of movement".

The last mass protest against the ban took place in 1980, when a group of 47 women were arrested for driving and severely punished - many subsequently lost their jobs.

The women were angered that female US soldiers based in the kingdom after the war with Kuwait could drive freely while they could not.

The cassette comes back as art

Remember the cassette? Mix tapes and mangled favourites in the car stereo? It's back. As an art object.

In 1989 Britain was a nation in love with the pre-recorded cassette. We bought 83 million that year. It was the peak of the little plastic music box's popularity.

Twenty years on, you would be forgiven for imagining the format was all but dead. The British Phonographic Institute says just 8,443 were sold in 2009.

But that number hides a new trend. In a digital age artists are turning to the cassette as an intriguing and challenging format - a ready-made frame for sound art.

In London, a tiny label called The Tapeworm has been quietly producing cassette-only releases since last summer, each one limited to 250 copies. Most have sold out.

"We do not view this as a dead format," says The Tapeworm's Philip Marshall. "We do not view this as something which does not have a place right now.

"We were looking for a way to edition music in small runs that was cost effective and would also make the artists we were commissioning think about the 'a' and the 'b'".

He is referring to the 'a' and 'b' sides of the cassette.

"There's a lost art to the 'a' and the 'b'," he says of downloaded music in particular, "a lost art to a sequence of music, a lost art to the album."

A typically leftfield offering comes sound artist Vicki Bennett, who has recorded two elderly women reading from the work of the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, complete with instructions to turn the tape over at the end of side one.

"I thought it would be amusing to do an audiobook," she says. "But also the context of the cassette has changed and now it's almost an art form. So I thought I would make a piece of high art on cassette."

Other releases include work by the composer Simon Fisher Turner, best known for his soundtracks to the films of Derek Jarman.

'Neat experience'

"You can make funny noises with cassettes," says Mr Turner, a lifelong cassette enthusiast. "You can do all sorts of things. It's just cute. Kids love them. And not just kids. I'm 55 and I love them."

In the US, cassette racks are returning to some alternative music stores. One music blog lists 101 cassette labels.

Tape Fiend is run by Kyle Wright, and each of his releases is individually numbered like a limited edition art print.

"It's definitely a neat experience listening to a cassette," he says.

"In the day of the iPod, when everyone is listening to crystal clear or supposedly crystal clear music on their headphones, just sitting back listening to a cassette Walkman on a bus, everyone stares at you [as if you are] a bit strange."

Berlin record producer and techno DJ Stefan Goldmann calls the new fascination with the cassette "format fetishism".

"We just take the format and think what makes sense in this particular format, rather than creating the music first and then finding the appropriate format," he says.

Mr Goldmann's Haven't I Seen You Before will be The Tapeworm's 12th release, featuring him playing languid electric guitar, sequenced, looped and designed to pick up seamlessly if you press AutoReverse on a cassette deck or simply turn the tape over.

Vicki Bennett, meanwhile, predicts more to come.

"Next up is the MiniDisc. I think the MiniDisc will return because it was a fantastic editing object.

"It's actually the beginning of a resurgence of older technology in the same way they got rid of vinyl records and now they're are selling more again."

Nigel Wrench's report can be heard on BBC Radio 4's PM at 1700 BST on Tuesday and is available on the programme's website.

Ford agrees Volvo sale to Geely

Ford has agreed the terms of the sale of its Swedish business, Volvo Cars, to China's Geely.

Ford said "some work still remains to be completed" but the deal will be finalised early next year ahead of completion soon after Easter.
Ford put Volvo up for sale a year ago to help pay off its debt and make its business more focused.
Geely was named preferred bidder in November. If completed, it will be the largest purchase by a Chinese car firm.
Ford said that while the "substantive commercial terms" had been settled, financing still needed to be completed and government approval was also necessary.
The update on the sale is necessary for Geely to apply for government approval of the deal and with it, it is thought, the firm's financial backing.
No details were given of how much the deal is worth, but it is widely rumoured that Geely will pay Ford $2bn (£1.2bn; 1.4bn euros), less than a third of the $6.45bn Ford paid for Volvo in 1999.
Ford said it expects to continue co-operating with Volvo Cars, but did not intend to retain a shareholding in the business after the sale.
Benefits for all
Industry observers say the sale is good news for Volvo.
"In theory, the Chinese market could be an opportunity for Volvo," Nomura's auto specialist Michael Tyndall said.
"It's a well-known brand, has a good heritage and a range of products that should appeal to the Chinese consumer."
Equally, the deal should help Geely get into the Western market.
It is thought that the main sticking point in the talks between Ford and Geely had been disagreement about how to deal with intellectual property rights - setting the parameters of Geely's use of Volvo's technology, such as its famous safety equipment, and the extent and cost of using any technology needed from Ford's research.
Moving to China
Professor David Bailey from the Coventry Business School said that he expects much of the Volvo production to be moved to China, which recently overtook the US to become the world's largest market for cars.
"I would expect development and research to remain in Sweden, and maybe some production, but the big scale production will probably come from China," he said.
"In the long run the question is whether they can continue to develop Volvo's safety profile and advanced engineering technology" he added.
Geely said that Volvo would continue to lead the trend of world auto technology in safety and environmental protection.
"It will quickly increase its unique competitive status in the Chinese market," the firm added.