Appeal for help from Dubai Aid City :: WAM

[ link ] Quote:

WHO representative based in Karachi said, "WHO is appealing that efforts in the health sector are being coordinated, for that purpose WHO has organised an operational cell that can be contacted at: help@whopak.org" Items needed urgently (updated daily) " Tents " Hospital and surgical equipment " Surgical tents " Medical and surgical kits " Micronutrients " Water Purification Tablets Collection Center (only above mentioned items will be accepted) Tel number: 050 - 502 3201 " Location: Al Attar Business Tower, Sheikh Zayed Road, Mezzanine Floor, opening times: starting from Saturday 15th October, 11 am - 4 pm (Friday closed) Money donation-please send to: " Dubai Islamic Bank: A/C #: 01-520-9452052-02 (Earthquake Relief Action Fund administered by DAC - DHC, donations will be evenly distributed amongst above organisations and will be used for items mentioned in the above list)

More Money Than Brains

I'm so impressed you spent more than Dhs 60,000 for a number plate. You must be so cool! So... can I call you some time? Can I ... be your friend? Everyone's looking up to you. Really. Everyone. No, I mean it. Everyone.

More blogging support from EmToday

Ramadan Ritual: Fast Daily, Pray, Head to the Mall - New York Times

Link: Ramadan Ritual - NYT (reg. req.)

Some quotes:

Here in Dubai, the region's supermall, commercialism has taken on a life of its own as almost everything has been dressed in the cloak of Ramadan, from consumer goods to cars. Malls are open till the early morning, and the nights rock away at dinner parties in desert tents.
. . .
Sheik Ahmed Abdelaziz Haddad, the grand mufti of the Islamic Affairs Department in Dubai, puts it even more succinctly. "The problem isn't that people are trading and doing business," he said. "It's that people have taken this month to be a month of shopping."
. . .
A shopping mall here even features a Ramadan display with an uncanny resemblance to a Nativity scene, complete with moving camels, a village elder reading stories and a desert scene.
. . .
For advertisers Ramadan is like a 30-day Super Bowl weekend, when TV channels broadcast their best programming and competitors jostle for market share. Some brands spend as much as half of their advertising budget in this month alone.

Is it inevitable that major religious seasons become secularized/commercialized - whatever the religion? The dates of many Christian holiday were chosen with the intention of displacing pagan celebrations on those dates. Now, without anyone's concious intention secular culture is overlaying religious seasons like the pre-Christmas season of Advent of the Christian faith, and Ramadan of the Muslim faith. These religious seasons create the focal points which seed their own displacement.

UPDATE: More evidence that consumption goes up during Ramadan rather than down.

JBC: http://emirateseconomist.blogspot.com

“It takes a village to raise a child.” This African proverb became a metaphor for creative problem solving. This phrase was quite often used by America’s favorite president since FDR (and creator of the WTO’s), Bill Clinton.
With the Internet, stretching it’s web around the world, and the corporations becoming multinational, the ruthless jinn of free trade had to be hidden in something warm and fuzzy (global village) in order to convince all of those who knew "it wasn't right from the start," that it was really a win-win opportunity and not a winners-take-all scam.
If you still are confused, remember Baghdad and that havoc being wrecked up north.
It’s shame how many of us are willing to accept ideas without seriously thinking about them. The metaphor, global village leads us to believe that we are all one community. One in which everyone’s concerns, hopes, desires, and needs are addressed. But have we ever taken the time to think about the social structure of the village?

Dubai then and now: 1991 vs 2005

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For the sake of better comparison, here is a re-coloured (not very well!) version of the 1991 pic:

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Ways to help quake victims

A commenter asked for a posting on the quake.

The Gulf News has a good roundup of the UAE's response thus far, both governmental and nongovernmental.

I know that where I work several groups are making it easy to make financial contributions to well-respected relief agencies.

Chan’ad Bahraini offers suggestions here on how to help. California Yankee has suggestions here.

Court sides with press :: Khaleej Times

Khaleej Times reports:

Commenting on the judgment, the attorney for the two defendants, Salim Sha'ali, said the verdict was "a big victory for freedom of expression which the constitution guarantees to all." "It also comes as a boost for the local Press which has been striving to play it's role in nation-building exercise and the overall development of the country," he said.

“I was so pleased by the court decision which is considered as the victory for local journalism. It represents an honorable position for the local media in the face of corruption and administrative bureaucracy or any unjustice practices against society rights."
. . .
The two journalists were charged with libel for publishing reports which the Sharjah Municipality claimed had tarnished it's reputation, and for publishing reports without cross-checking facts. Fareed published the "suffocation" report in Al Ittihad on December 18, 1999.
. . .
Sharjah Municipality responded to the report by denying any role and responsibility on the issue. It put the blame on the Sharjah International Airport authorities, the Al Dhaid farm owner and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. The Sharjah Municipality argued that the Sharjah Airport authorities were the supervisors of the fowl storage facilities.
. . .
The Primary Court found the two defendants guilty of the charges and sentenced them to pay a fine of Dh200 each. The verdict was earlier upheld by the Sharjah Appeals Court but the Federal High Court quashed the judgments of the lower courts and ordered a retrial of the case by the Sharjah Appeals Court, which, this time, acquitted and discharged the defendants from the charges.

Photos of Dubai :: Expat Monkey

An ex ex-pat commenter asked for some recent photos of Dubai. These are rather good.

One brave blogger

Gulf News has done another feature on bloggers, including Syrian economist Ayman Abdul Nour who has fought the government after they tried to block him for criticising Ba'ath officials:

Abdul Nour fought the crackdown. When his website was blocked, he copied his daily bulletin and e-mailed it to every reader registered on his site.

He sat down at his computer to do the same thing the next day, only to discover that his e-mail address had been blocked.

Undaunted, Abdul Nour gave himself a fresh address, and the bulletin went whizzing off. Come the next day, that address, too, had been disabled. So he created another.

The cyber-jousting went on, day after day, for a month and a half. At last, the security services gave up. “Finally,” Abdul Nour said, “they surrendered because they realised they can’t control it.”

Smoking survey

Here is a UAE smoking survey that someone posted as a comment in my blog, if anyone would like to fill it out.

The Stuff people come up with

Just read this in 7 days:
http://www.7days.ae/global-news/is-this-the-face-of-the-genuine-bard-.html

Where do people find the time to argue over stuff like this?!

5,000 visitor to UAE community blog :: Site Meter

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Another instalment of Blog Bites

in Emirates Today. This week, oasis dubai, The Desert Weasel, Emirati's thoughts, Secret Dubai diary and Desert Idleness.


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Bloggers are a bunch of whingeing gits

The title is a quote from Adventures in Dubai.

Here's my whinge of the day.

The nightmare of the National Paints Roundabout in Sharjah is no more.

It's been replaced with a marvelous flyover interchange. Only problem is that chaotic clusters of vehicles are parked on the exit and on ramps where, barring an accident, traffic flies by - or could, were it not for the congestion created.

Why are they parked there? Because the new interchange provided no way to access existing retailers located by the ramps. And, besides, the retailers themselves provide no parking.

Those who park in the roadway inconvenience and endanger their fellow human beings - all for the convenience of popping into a shop for cigarettes and a Red Bull.

UPDATE: A Gulf News reporter sacrifices 1 hour and 40 minutes in traffic to bring us this report from the new Sharjah interchange.