This weekend, Emirates Bank will be upgrading their computer system to ensure that it talks nicely with the National Bank of Dubai's computers.the national has a story citing a 'government report' which makes a lot of interesting points.
"The report, published by the General Authority for Youth and Sport... identifies a host of challenges facing young people, especially men. It says they are less likely than women to enrol in university, more likely to be unemployed, more vulnerable to being killed while driving and more vulnerable to abusing drugs and contracting HIV.
“The high per capita annual income in the UAE [Dh141,700 or US$38,600] means the country’s youth do not suffer the poverty or hunger experienced in other countries,” the report says. “However, we should focus on some of the negative repercussions on the behaviour of youth as a consequence to growing up with wealth and comfort. This includes a rise in obesity and a lack of a sense of self-reliance among youth, especially young men. Independence and self-reliance make citizens contributing members of society.”
"Young Emirati women have especially benefited from their country’s advancement as they now have much greater access to higher education and employment. Women at university, including medical school, outnumber men by almost three to one, and this figure continues to rise.
"While young women attend university, many men join the armed forces or law enforcement agencies instead, which explains the high level of employment among young men compared with young women."
Ive heard these comments from locals as well as expats. (expats generally crib about how easy the emiratis have it) if government reports too are acknowledging the existence of such a problem, it will hopefully not be long before initiatives are taken address it.
There's a new, massive, revolutionary and state-of-the-art service the DM (Dubai Municipality) is introducing: online submission of drawings. Yes, ladies and gentlemen. We no longer need to print 100s of sheets and carry bundles like porters to the DM HQ. We only need to follow a simple procedure. But it's not really simple. I refuse to utilize a singular adjective to describe it. Even 'complicated' falls short. Now before we submit our lovely drawings we need to 'convert' them to DWF format. (my brethren-in-the-craft of you will know that we do handle all our files in DWG format; the standard Computer-Aided-Design software file extension). But we can't convert to DWF right away. We need to arrange all sheets in a layout format. Fix the size. The size does really matter, you know. There are few standard sizes for any engineering drawings. A0-A1-A2-A3...etc.. Once the size is fixed, we go on about converting. Once the conversion is complete, we go on about uploading our files to the DM website. Once we hit the crucial button of 'submit', a DM engineer will be notified. One engineer at each department, actually. And they will review our drawings. 99% of the cases they will have comments. When the comments show up on the system once again (one of the advantages of it, I must concede) we travel to DM HQ, our hands flailing empty at our sides (because the submission is electronic, no need to haul drawings) to meet the engineer, check up on him/her, send out some feelers about what mood he/she might be in, and then discuss the comments (which we already know and are prepared for, thanks to the genius of the system).
This process of online submission was explained to us (engineering consultants) by one of the DM long term experts and, to give credit where credit is due, one experienced and old-school engineer who knows what he's talking about, most of the time. We were in a packed Al Madina hall. There was a cacophony of protests and grumbles of disappointment when he finally declared the importance of the size: "if there was one single discrepancy in the sheets' size of your submission, you will lose the submission and all the subsequent approvals, and most of all, you'll lose the deposit ...."
Let me tell you about the money. The deposit is intended to make sure that the client --the owner of the plot of land-- is serious about his intention to build the aforesaid plot. The deposit is calculated on the basis of square foot of what we call 'built-up area'. Simply put, it's the collective floor area of the building you're designing. The deposit can amount to hundreds of thousands of Dirhams in case of big projects.
Dubai Municipality abolishes insurance for approving building plans
Eng. Hussein Nasser Lootah, Director General of Dubai Municipality, has issued a decision cancelling the insurance amount, which was required at the time of approving building plans.
who would be...?
a woman has an accident, she loses a child she's been carrying for 9-months, and you fine her for reckless behaviour? i cant even begin to imagine what she's going through, but this makes no sense. and who are the foetus's successors? the woman's husband? or she herself? or the grandparents? i'm still trying to figure out who has suffered the most in this incident.
and then what makes no sense at all is the headline of a follow- up story:
Heavily pregnant women 'shouldn't drive'. (where Heavily pregnant' is a real term)
the story says:
Salah Bu Farousha, Head of the Traffic Public Prosecution, advised women in the third trimester of pregnancy to avoid driving except in urgent cases.
which isnt absurd. the dude suggests something for the safety of the people, and leaves the choice up to them. but 'heavily pregnant'?
the language is laughable - if only the context wasnt so tragic.
Sorry I cannot agree with you at a fundamental and human level.My short answer is: I DO agree with you, in principle.
A country which jails its inhabitants for declaring bankruptcy, leaving their wife and children on the streets is not acceptable.
A country which uses slave labour to build its city is also not acceptable.
I am sure if you were an expat who is maxed out and is sleeping near hotels and sand dunes, you would agree with me.
…clearly there is something wrong with a global system in which 10 per cent of the population enjoys 90 per cent of the wealth…In no way shape or form do I condone human rights abuses. Nor do I believe people should have to live in poverty, not here, not anywhere.
Human history is replete with tragic examples of how the rich get richer at the expense of the poor, and how the powerful get more powerful at the expense the weak.
Does this make it acceptable? Obviously not.
Possible reasons given:Mutar Jumaa, an Emirati who published several studies on the demography of Gulf Arab countries while working at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), believes the UAE suffers from a serious demographic crisis.Al Jazeera Articles:
"I can say the UAE and the Gulf are in [an] unpleasant situation, and I totally agree with the need for effective security forces backed by [a] powerful army.
"The fact that our citizens are way outnumbered by foreign working bachelors is something disturbing. We had some unrest last year, disgruntled migrant workers attacked people and used violence to get what they wanted. Some South Asian countries even started to ask us to grant citizenship to their workers in our country."
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