Ikea Criticised for Airbrushing Women Out of Saudi Catalogue

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Ikea, the Swedish furniture retailer, has been criticised for deleting images of women from the Saudi version of its catalogue.

Comparing the Swedish and Saudi versions of the Ikea catalogue, Sweden's free newspaper Metro on Monday showed that women had been airbrushed out of otherwise identical pictures showcasing the company's home furnishings.

The report raised questions in Sweden about Ikea's commitment to gender equality.

The country's trade minister Ewa Bjorling did not criticise Ikea directly but told Metro that you can't delete women from society.

Ikea released a statement expressing regret, saying "We should have reacted and realised that excluding women from the Saudi Arabian version of the catalogue is in conflict with the IKEA Group values."

Women appear only infrequently in Saudi-run advertising, mostly on Saudi-owned TV channels that show women in long dresses, scarves covering their hair and long sleeves. In imported magazines, censors black out many parts of a woman's body including arms, legs and chest. » | Monday, October 01, 2012

Dutch Police Arrest 7 Suspected of Planning Attack
NRC HANDELSBLAD INTERNATIONAL: Dutch police on Thursday arrested seven people suspected of preparing a terrorist attack in Amsterdam, including a relative of one of the attackers who died in the 2004 bombings in Madrid.

Mayor Job Cohen said police were acting on an anonymous tip that warned an Ikea outlet or other stores in the southeast of the city might be targeted.

"It wasn't a regular bomb warning, but a warning of a planned action aimed at creating casualties in shops," Cohen said during a joint press conference with police commissioner Bernard Welten public prosecutor Herman Bolhaar on Thursday night.

"Men were planning to put explosives in the shops and wanted to cause casualties in busy places," he said.

Cohen told NOS radio on Friday morning that no explosives were found during the searches of the suspects' houses.

Police received the tip late on Wednesday night from an prepaid cell phone in Belgium. The tip also included names of one suspect and locations for police to search. The locations included Ikea and Media Markt, a large electronics store.

Cohen said the tip was "so specific" about names and places that it was decided to treat it as credible. The poilice contacted the secret service, AIVD, in order to verify the information.

By early morning, it was revealed that one of the suspects was a relative of one of the suspects in the Madrid train bombings, which killed 191 people and happened five years ago almost to the day. The relative killed himself when Spanish police raided his apartment at the time. "This established a link with Madrid," said Welten.

Early on Thursday morning, authorities shut down a major Amsterdam shopping street near the Arena football stadium and sealed off the nearby Ikea store. A concert by the American band "The Killers" in a local music hall was cancelled.

The houses of the suspects named by the anonymous caller were immediately put under surveillance. The first arrest took place around noon on Thursday; the last at 5.45 p.m. >>> News Staff, NRC Handelsblad International | Friday, March 13, 2009

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