A Question For you

What is your strongest impression of Dubai?
(in 5 lines or less please)
(this is for creative work purposes - for privacy: please respond via email)

First Name - Nationality/Citizenship

Thank you!

Who says Dubai can't laugh - Comedy made in Dubai

It's cool to spot comedy content on YouTube originating from our very own Dubai and UAE.
Here's a series pilot by Phat Mo I found on YouTube... there are many in the series which he calls 'half sketch, half reality".
Just like Freej shows life in Dubai via animation, this stuff is a light-hearted look at the things we condemn...


There are other videos on the Phat Mo Show YouTube Page... but this is the one that made most sense to me. Does it ring a bell for other people too? The part about condemnation.... ?

topsy turvy world

This blog is an excellent effort for the uae expat/national group to voice their opinions.One always wanted a balanced perspective on this country ,which has obviously given a lot to most people who came here..whether they acknowledge it or not...and even if at the cost of relative loss of freedom. After I read some of the blogs here,specially one's written by locals..I began to feel sorry for them.It must feel strange to be alienated in one's own country and not find one's roots here.In India ,people may view a foreigner suspiciously.Here ,its the other way around,the foreigners view the locals in dismay.Its really high time the press opened up for the sake of its own people here.

Car pooling bureaucracy

Dubai and Abu Dhabi say that car pooling will be permitted, but with some mind-boggling red tape.


The Dubai RTA's Director of Planning & Business Development Department is quoted as saying:

"Now people can drive their friends and colleagues to and from their homes and workplaces without fear of getting fines if they get approval from the RTA."

It should never have been a problem, never have been banned, but it looks as though we're getting somewhere in the battle with traffic congestion. Until you read the "but" part of the reports.

To car pool:

The motorist must register the car with the RTA.

Motorists will be given certificates allowing them to share their cars.

The names of the persons sharing the car should be furnished at the time of registration to avoid a fine.

A maximum of four people will be allowed to share a car.

And look at this for the worst Big Brother part:

After they have entered their personal details and information on their vehicles, the authority will conduct background checks on colleagues wishing to carpool before issuing a letter of approval.

They're checking your background before you can sit in someone's car?!!

I can hardly believe these can be true reports.

All over the world people share cars. RTA equivalents and governments encourage and support it. Many cities have special lanes for them, to speed their journey. Singapore has various meeting places where a driver going into the city centre can pick up passengers.

If people want to give others a lift, and to share petrol costs if they choose, that is A Good Thing. And it should also be a personal choice, encouraged by the authorities to reduce traffic congestion, reduce the need for parking space, reduce pollution.

This is a real can of worms. Just a few of the questions:

The car must be registered with the RTA.

So if the car's in for service or repair, the owner can't use his hire car to drive his registered passengers around?

The names of those sharing the car must be pre-registered.

So when one of them leaves the company, his name has to be de-registered and any new passenger registered?

What if your company has an overseas visitor and asks you to drive him to the office - and around town come to that. Do you have to pre-register him as an approved passenger?

A maximum of four people will be allowed to share a car.

So if you have a vehicle suitable for carrying more, like a big 4x4 or a people mover, you can't fill it?


People can drive their friends and colleagues to and from their homes and workplaces.

What about other journeys? A group of friends going to dinner decide that one will drive them all. A friend or colleague is going to the airport and you offer to take him there. Illegal?


And in general, there are the less structured instances of people sharing cars.

What if a neighbour's car won't start and you offer to drive him to his office? Illegal?

A colleague's car is off the road so you offer him a lift until he has it back. Illegal?

You and a colleague are going to business meetings in the same area, so you offer to drop him off. Illegal?

And then there's the enforcement of it all. What's the plan, to stop all cars with more than one person in it? Check who they are, where they're going, if they have a car pooling certificate, if the passengers are registered?

And who will do it, the police? Don't they have enough real work to do?

Time for a petition I think.


The stories I've read are in Gulf News and The National.

FREEJ

Life changes at fast pace...

"Muslim men wishing to end their marriages may be ordered in future to use the legal system because of growing concern about the abuse by some husbands of the right to oral divorce, a leading Islamic cleric has warned."
/"Oral divorce could give way to courts" /

UAE community blog design change

I'm thinking about moving this blog to a more modern blogger platform (this does not mean away from www.blogger.com); we currently use a prehistoric plain HTML design with blogrolls that are located on an external server (blogrolling.com)--this alone increases load times dramatically.

At the moment the design is looking quite stale and isn't up to date with regards to video on the internet, and web 2.0 etc, I would like to make this blog into a more modern website.

The list on blogrolling is also difficult to manage, and due to the fact we have something like 200 links on this page showing at once, we must constantly rid the list of outdated links.

Unforunately, the current design would disappear because it is impossible to move it onto draft.blogger.com, and 3-column designs are impossible using the newer blogger designs; this could make space quite cramped.

I've made a small example of what this blog could easily look like (http://testuae.blogspot.com/; the list on the right titled "My blog list" is what could be done with the blogrolls. It is possible to list the 25 most recently updated blogs using this list, among other things this would...

• decrease loading times


• attract more attention to bloggers who regularly update (as opposed to listing a few hundred blogs)


• actually provide users with an accurate method to determine which blogs have been updated, blogrolling is notoriously inaccurate at reading when the blog has last been updated

Using the newer blogger platform we can also create image/video streams (this would enable sharing of photographs/video taken by people who post them to appropriate channels/lists).

Please share your opinions/ideas about this in the commenting section.

Now we can enjoy rains often

The Meteorological Department at the National Centre of Meteorology and seismology (NCMS) today carried out tests to induce artificial rains.

The NCMS used planes to sprinkle cloud seeding salts in the moist clouds heading towards Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Al Ain. The monitoring stations already registered light to medium rainfalls in different areas of Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

The Centre is planning to repeat the tests tomorrow. WAM

Are you ready for VAT?

Ex-pats, get ready for VAT. The National reports,

The UAE will be ready to introduce a system of value added tax (VAT) by the end of the year.

Abdul Rahman al Saleh, the executive director of Dubai Customs, said the “infrastructure” for an Emirates-wide taxation system would be put in place between October and December.

Dubai Customs was commissioned by the Government two years ago to look into a potential VAT and is finalising the strategy. If implemented, it would be the first time VAT, which is applied to the sale of goods and services and not income, has been imposed in a GCC nation.

However, a government source said although the mechanics would be in place, it was “very unlikely” that VAT would be introduced this year because Federal approval and GCC co-operation, on several related issues, would be required.

VAT would be introduced to replace customs duties, which the UAE must phase out as part of the free trade agreements (FTAs) it is signing with a number of major trading partners, Mr Saleh said.

The government source, who declined to be identified, said a GCC-wide agreement on these FTAs is still some way off.

Mr Saleh told a seminar at the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai that VAT was likely to be set at a flat rate of between three and five per cent. It would be applied to all goods and services.

UAE Press "Not Free"

Freedom House, the not for profit organisation that monitors international democracy and freedoms, has released it's 2008 "Freedom of the Press" Survey which it conducts annually. Since Freedom House commenced this survey in 2002, the UAE has maintained it's "Not Free" rating, which is the lowest of the 3 possible grades allocated. This year, fellow "Not Free" countries include China, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, KSA and North Korea.

Full details http://freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=362

You may kiss the bride

So I went that day to my friends majlis. One of them asked me if I've heard about this Emirati guy who married a famous model. I answered him that I don't and that it shouldn't be a big deal. He said that this dude wore the Kandura in his wedding and French kissed her in front the public and his picture is all over the media.


























Just to go out my cave (lol @ i*maginate), I posted this topic in the most famous Emirati Financial Forum with an average of 3000 visitors at any given time. Btw, it has been locked and deleted there. Fortunately I saved it before that. It is in Arabic if anyone is interested, source1, source2 . I'll leave you with the most interesting comments, positive or negative !!

- There is no strength nor power except Allah

- There are guys with Kanduras who steal, commit adultery, flirt .... and no one told them anything. "If it was bald, let it herd"

- May God bless us from these things

- Maybe he wants someone to sponsor him in 2040? He has a vision don't you think?

- We ask God for forgiveness, "if you are shameless, do whatever u want"

- May God guide him.

- It is true that there are Emiratis who steal and commit adultery but they cover themselves, unlike this man.

- Real men are died.

I guess am not the only one who is living in a cave. The ones who have no idea why there are such responses need to go out their caves too. Is he one of ur local friends Rosh? :P

Proxy serving private information

Over the time this blog was locked by blogger a small controversy emerged regarding Etisalat's proxy; it had been serving up private information accidentaly to users. Although the problem has since been resolved, it sets an alarming precedent considering Etisalat doesn't seem to think that it's an issue worth commenting on.

"In a statement to media Google acknowledged that the problem appeared to be a caching error at the ISP, although it declined to name Etisalat as the affected ISP. Etisalat has still not commented on the issue at the time of writing.

The statement from Google reads: "We have had reports of this problem in the UAE and believe it was due to caching being done by a local ISP. We take our users' security very seriously and have made necessary changes to resolve this issue. It should now be fixed, but if users see any more instances, we'd like for them to contact the YouTube support team at http://www.google.com/support/youtube."

more links on the youtube problem:
some screnshots of the problem in action from blog.shijaz.com
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/24/youtube_uae_security_snafu/

In other proxy news...
Internet access provided by du has become significantly slower since the telecommunications company decided to block websites deemed culturally incompatible, members of the business community say."

horse power?

This article in The National about a horse-powered car (i.e. a car that is literally powered by a horse on a conveyer belt) is very interesting...

"The vehicle, which is capable of carrying a passenger and driver, is said to be capable of a maximum speed of 70kph – as long as the horse is galloping and the road is long and straight.

While acknowledging that horse-drawn vehicles are hardly a new concept, Mr Mirhejazi notes that his invention is similarly easy on the environment. The horse produces the obvious emissions, he says, but the vehicle uses no petrol. Mostly, though, he is motivated by the advertising potential of the Naturmobil, which he believes could eventually earn him a fortune.

“Imagine you see this in the street, a horse-powered car,” Mr Mirhejazi said. “Can you turn your head away? No! Will you remember this image? Yes! If you put advertisements on the outside of the car imagine how effective that will be.”

The horse – which Mr Mirhejazi promises is never uncomfortable – stands on a treadmill inside the vehicle linked to a gearbox that is controlled by the driver.

The animal is provided with food and water and is also hooked up to a machine that monitors body temperature. If the horse is tired or overheating, an electric motor automatically takes over."

Does anyone else think the horse might be a tiny bit uncomfortable? or perhaps in imminent danger should the vehicle need to brake quickly?

Ajman to regulate alcohol sales

according to gulf news...

"Ajman: Residents will need a liquor licence to buy alcohol in the emirate from now on, Gulf News has learnt.

Previously anyone could buy any amount of alcohol in Ajman but soon only non-Muslim Ajman residents over 21 years with a liquor licence will be able to do so.

Liquor licences will be issued to residents with a valid residence visa from the police department.

Sources told Gulf News the authorities aim to regulate the sale of alcohol.

"People must be non-Muslims, aged over 21 years and must show their liquor licence to buy alcohol," a source said."

more here

blog unblocked

I just emailed blogger support and got a reply within an hour, they have unblocked this blog once again; thank you google.

Apologies to members/readers for any inconvenience caused.