$8,927,000 to go

As far as I can find out from news reports on the subject, the first compensation to child camel jockeys repatriated to their home countries from the U.A.E. has just been finalised.

73 cases have received approval from the U.A.E. Interior Ministry to receive $1000 each. The money, called a "rehabilitation fund", will be put into a Punjab Bank trust account. The Rs600 ($15) interest per month will be sent to the parents with the proviso that their child (the former child jockey) is "regularly" sent to school.

Back in 2006, a BBC report stated that the U.A.E. government would give $9,000,000 to approx. 1,000 former child jockeys who had been repatriated to Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sudan and Mauritania. Working in co-operation with UNICEF, the money would "ensure they receive the salaries owed to them and compensation for losing their income. It will also go towards education."

By my calculations, that means that each child should receive approx. $9000. There appears to be an anomaly between what was promised and what's been delivered.

More info sites, although I can't vouch that all of them can be accessed by everyone in the U.A.E.:
~ Commission on Human Rights Report on Anti-Slavery.org
~ "UAE: Talks on compensation for child camel jockeys" (held at Emirates Towers in June 2007) on Child Rights Information Network.com
~ Dubai Government's Dubaicameljockeys.org website
~ Camel jockeys return home on UNICEF.org

What's UNICEF's role in this? The organisation seems to have played no part in the recent allocation of the funds, nor in the June 2007 meeting as the report states:
Each Board may designate one or more NGOs or similar entities like UNICEF or the Red Crescent Society, chosen for their expertise in working with children formerly involved in camel racing. These NGOs/entities will help publicise the Claim Facility and provide legal and other assistance to children who are considering or have filed claims.

It appears that UNICEF has been removed from the insider loop - although, if not legally, then morally and ethically they must uphold their side of the agreement between them and the U.A.E. to ensure that the children are properly cared for and that the promises of adequate compensation and education are being upheld.

Also, in a brilliant piece of deduction, Dubai Police has stated that there is no organised trafficking in human beings in the U.A.E. because "no U.A.E. National has been involved in any kind of human trafficking case till date."

According to Major General Khamis Matar Al Mazina, deputy commander general of Dubai Police, this "proves that our country is free from such illegal practice."

Others would say otherwise, and if this lawsuit is ever brought to trial and the defendants proven guilty, the muppets in Dubai Police may have to rethink their beliefs.

Crocodile found near Warqa water desalination plant in Dubai

...is what they announce. "See tomorrow's Gulf News for full details."

Then, tomorrow, this. ("Fire, croc and mermaid latest e-mail spoofs")

Why report on something that might be a spoof when known the day before? Is this what modern-day reporting has come to in a restricted UAE media scene?

Your View

Yet another publication favors the same local spot: "Al Wathba inmates get internet access.".

After reading "Five-star quality food for prisoners", one could seriously doubt that the Force Majeure behind the publisher and the beautifying initiatives is one and the same.

(Last paragraph of the "National moment for newspaper launch")

Personal opinion: Not the right choice for new national paper.

Shifting Sand to Marrakesh and Floating Islands off Dubai

Question: What common ground could the two subjects in this post title have?

Answer: Sheikh Mohammed's poetry.

The Marrakesh connection
Filmed in Syria, Morocco and the U.A.E., an epic TV serial has been made using Sheikh Mohammed's poems.

Called Siraa Ala Al Rimal (Struggle on the Sands), the $6million production is due to be shown during Ramadan this year.

It's touted to be the biggest-ever Arabic drama and the classic Arabic in which the poetry was written was translated into Arabic Bedouin dialect for the series.

More on the Khaleej Times website.


The Floating Islands
Dutch Docklands has just been commissioned to construct the string of floating islands off Dubai, each of which will each be shaped as an Arabic character or word to quote lines of a Sheikh Mohammed verse.


Announced a few years back, this project is part of the Jebel Ali Palm development, and the verse will read:

Take wisdom from the wise, It takes a man of vision to write on water. Not everyone who rides a horse is a jockey. Great men rise to greater challenges.

According to their website, Dutch Docklands also has plans for floating hotels, cruise ship terminals and beaches - as well as a rotating tower.

Dutch Docklands' article here - watch the embedded video for more on the Dubai plans - including possible floating mosques!

Miscellaneous Statistics

For anyone interested:
Blog creation date: 16th August, 2005 (running 979 days as of the 21st of April 2008)
Blog members: 291
Total number of published posts: 2575 (3123 including drafts)
Average number of posts per day: ~2.6 posts per day
Number of blogs linked to via blogrolls (according to blogrolling.com): 326

Total Page loads: 649,470 (source: statcounter)
Total Unique Visitors: 371,279 (source: statcounter)
Most visitors on one day: 14th January, 2008 (3532 views, 2082 unique visitors according to statcounter)

Technorati authority rating: 73; ranked 123,627 out of 121 million blogs
Number of blog reactions (according to technorati): 373
Most used tags on this blog, in alphabetical order (according to technorati)
abu dhabi, animals, bloggers, cars, dubai, horseracing, horses, human rights, information access, labour, news, police, traffic, uae, arts and culture - dubai, censorship, construction, construction accident, construction site accident, du, dubai architecture, eid, internet censorship, proxy, rta, salary, salik, sheikh mohammed, telecommunications regulatory autority, uae driving,

Most popular page: http://uaecommunity.blogspot.com/2005/10/dubai-then-and-now-1991-vs-2005.html (1.10% of page views) (source: google analytics)
Highest traffic countries: United Arab Emirates (60.58% of traffic), United States (13.53% of traffic), United Kingdom (5.26% of traffic)
Number of countries having accessed this site: 183 (out of 193 countries)

(This section takes only UAE-based visitors into account)
Most popular browsers: Internet Explorer (65.53% of traffic), Firefox (25.76% of traffic), Safari (5.79% of traffic)
Most popular operating systems: Windows (90.50% of traffic), Macintosh (9.02% of traffic), Linux (0.31% of traffic)

Random tidbits:
8.52% of people accessing this site have accessed it more than 201 times.
3 people have accessed this site using a playstation portable.

Police chief says slash immigration or UAE will collapse

Emiratis vent fears over minority status
by Wissam Keyrouz


ABU DHABI, April 17, 2008 (AFP) - The growing concern of Emiratis about their status as a minority on their own land came out in the open again this week, with a senior official warning that it could lead to the collapse of the regime.
"I'm afraid we are building towers but losing the Emirates," Dubai's outspoken police chief General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim told a conference on Tuesday, referring to the construction boom fueled by foreigners' acquisition of property under legislation allowing foreign ownership in certain zones.
Dubai is one of the seven members of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, whose nationals dwindled to just 15.4 percent of a population of 5.6 million at the end of 2006, according to a recent study by the Federal National Council, an assembly that advises the government.
The "demographic imbalance," as it is euphemistically called in the UAE, also plagues Qatar and Kuwait, two other energy-rich Gulf Arab monarchies that rely heavily on cheap imported Asian labour for their economic development.
Tamim, who was addressing a "national identity conference" attended by senior officials in the capital Abu Dhabi, hailed UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan's decision to declare 2008 "national identity year," but said Emiratis have been late in tackling the demographic problem.
"If the children of incumbent crown princes (of the seven emirates) manage to rule the Emirates, we should be thankful for that," he said.
The veteran police commander warned that unless the problem is resolved, the UAE's hereditary monarchy will not survive and this will lead to the collapse of Emirati society.
A "disaster" will befall the UAE if the government does not take measures to redress the "demographic imbalance," Tamim said.
He proposed what he called "strategic" solutions, including the establishment of a union of Gulf Arab states that would grant a common citizenship, putting a ceiling on the size of expatriate communities and restricting foreign ownership of property.
He also urged Emiratis to have more children.
But UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan, while acknowledging that the demographic imbalance is dangerous, said that the UAE is "a tolerant, open and wealthy country" which should not shut out foreigners.
Emiratis cannot live in "isolated islands" under the banner of "preserving their national identity," he told the gathering.
To drive home his point, Dubai's police chief accompanied his address by video footage of cars torched and shops damaged during recent riots by foreign workers, as well as clips of streets in Dubai packed with Asian expatriates.
"They (foreign workers) blocked roads and destroyed facilities, and (human rights groups) speak of workers' rights," the general said.
He was referring to reports by rights groups, including New York-based Human Rights Watch, critical of the working and living conditions of hundreds of thousands of mostly Asian labourers in the country, which also has sizeable Arab, Iranian and Western communities.
Ahmad al-Tayer, a former education minister, said the UAE's national identity was under threat not only from the demographic imbalance, but also from the declining use of the Arabic language due to the massive presence of foreigners.
"What fate awaits our children and yours?" he asked officials.
Mohammad al-Bawardi, secretary general of Abu Dhabi's Executive Council, or local government, called for giving nationals the proper education and training to enable them to "hold all the leading positions" in the country.
The FNC study said that expatriates from the Indian subcontinent and southeast Asia make up around 75 percent of the workforce, with Indian citizens counting for 42.5 percent of all foreigners.
Foreign residents of the UAE range from low-paid construction workers to hard-partying professionals.

Ships Impounded for Middle East Internet Cable Cuts

Although Egyptian authorities said that satellite imagery showed no activity around the cable that was damaged off of their coast, Dubai has evidence of ships nearby cables.

It looks like last week Dubai authorities impounded two ships who were spotted in satellite photos near the damaged cables around the time that they were cut. The ships were identified by Reliance Globalcom, whose FLAG Telecom unit maintains the cables, and which in turn notified the Dubai Port Authority.

Officially, the two ships, the MV Hounslow and MT Ann improperly dropped anchor near the cables and accidentally severed them. When they arrived in Dubai on February 19, the Iraqi and Korean ships were seized. Reportedly, the Korean ship paid 60,000 USD in compensation to FLAG Telecom for repair costs while the Iraqi ship is sitll being held.

Whether other ships accidentally cut the other three cables serving the Middle East and caused a loss of power to a sixth is yet ot be determined. ;).

The damaged anchor discovered at the site of one of damaged cables.
This photo comes from the FLAG website, two of FLAG's cables being among those damaged.

Photoshop the Burj Al Arab - fark.com

An interesting photoshop competition is taking place on fark.com

Thanks to a random totalfarker for the tip

New paper - the national

Today is the launch of The National, a new Abu Dhabi based newspaper;
Their website is up and running and is worth a look.

Olympic Torch

The Olympic torch has passed by many countries and the headlines was not about friendship but about Tibet. Using such venues to get your political message is not correct. Now every time there is a big venue people will bring their politcal problems to it and God knows how many political problems the world has.

Oman did an amzaing job by not allowing any distractions and having the Olympic Torch go smoothly unlike the USA, France, Argentina...... etc.

business unaffected by du proxy?

According to Khaleej Times...

A du official said yesterday, “With immediate effect, all pornographic web sites will be blocked as per the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) requirements.”
[...]
"“du has blocked pornographic sites only, a move we are sure all parents will welcome. Content blocking guidelines are provided by the TRA and we abide by these,” he explained."
[...]
He also clarified that business will remain largely unaffected. “Normally business should not be affected because du has only blocked pornographic sites and sites that contain material that is offensive to the moral, cultural and social values of the UAE.

Despite claiming three times that only pornographic websites will be blocked (and also claiming only once that websites 'offensive' will be blocked) I find it interesting that on the 14th of April the following websites were blocked...

arabtimes.com = blocked
secretdubai.blogspot.com = blocked
wikipedia article on 'fitna' = blocked

DIY pump

Motorists using ADNOC are now being given incentives to pump their own gas.

"Abu Dhabi: Motorists in Abu Dhabi, using self-service pumps at Adnoc petrol stations will get rewards of 20 points worth 20 fils per gallon.

Customers will have the option to redeem the points to purchase certain Adnoc products or services except petroleum or donate the money to charity, said a statement issued by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) on Monday.

The company officially launched the self-service on Monday, the first of its kind in the UAE. A few pumps in 15 petrol stations across Abu Dhabi provide the self service, in addition to the regular service.
...
The Self-Service option will be applicable to 'EPLUS' 91 and Special 95 petroleum and Super 98, and exclude Green Diesel."

No matter what the incentive, I'm not going to be one of the DIY pump customers: at least not in the immediate future.

full article here

Another threat for expatriates?

The real question is: do our decision makers really believe in what they say? Last time I checked there were dozens of projects lunched that would attract millions of laborer to the market. So I don't know whether they really mean what they say. Are they planning to dump them later, as they did with the censorship for example?

Abu Dhabi: A permanent national authority to implement and follow up on the demographic structure dossier has been set up in the UAE. The newly-established authority will be responsible for monitoring the completion and implementation of demographic policies.

"Our future and national identity are strongly connected to the demographic structure issue, which requires collaborative efforts and teamwork," Shaikh Mohammad said.

The main aspects of the committee's work include demographic indicators and details, other strategies related to the job market as well as the relationship between demographic structure and national identity.

source

Mohammed praises creative thinking of first national identity study

Sheikh mohammed to open national identity conference

The demographic imbalance have always been seen by the government and citizens a like as a threat to the country so those steps shouldn't be surprising. The only reason why Emiratis accepted the imbalance was because they believed that it is temporary. I don't think that expatriates should feel threatened because they should have expected something like that coming.

I don't know exactly what they have in their mind but what every Emirati would expect is an authority that would put regulations to increase the number of Emiratis, either by encouraging marriage and having children or by naturalizing limited selected number of people. Their objective should be to increase the number of Arab speakers by importing Arab laborers, restricting the number of other nationalities and forcing the Arabic language.

When the community is backward..

Internet censorship is always a big deal for bloggers (writers and readers), let alone the average Internet user. For the most part, it is often the government dictating rules that residents/stake-holders don't want. In the case of Internet censorship, it appears to be a case of the citizens demanding more of.

Alexander McNabb (whose opinions I rarely agree with) wrote a piece that I wholeheartedly endorse. The problem is that it isn't the government and regulators at fault here. It is the minority of the population we call 'locals'/'citizens'.

This reminds me of when I was in college (US) and wanted to start an Arab students' group. We got together and started filing the necessary paperwork, gathered the students together and got endorsed by several faculty members. The effort was spearheaded by a friend of mine (political scientist) and myself. My friend's only fault is that she was a she. This didn't go too well with the 'community' we wanted to help and be a part of. The whole thing went out the window after the members of the community decided that it was insulting to have a woman run as president.

secretdubai talks about a "village green" mentality when it comes to media censorship and blames government officials for it. I think it is far worse than that. It is the people who don't seem to know what's good for them.

I have come to the conclusion that you can't help those who don't want to be helped. However, we should clearly identify who is responsible for the current state of access to information. In this case, it is the community that is backward. The situation is beyond help.

Preliminary Du proxy testing

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