How Dubai Works

On my last trip to Dubai I was standing in line at Customs waiting like everyone else. I noticed a couple of very young locals, who had been hired for some purpose at the airport, walking around inspecting the line and ensuring that people are not switching lines. Pretty silly to have 5 guys doing that but hey, they have the money for it. I also noticed that these locals were nice to all the Europeans, but those poor Indian laborers who were also in line with us would get yelled at for the smallest things. The guy at the front of our line stamping everyones' passports was some young idiot too, he didn't exactly know what he was doing and it was taking forever. After 1 hour of waiting, people started getting tired and started complaining. One poor Indian worker dared to just ask how much longer it will take when those local line enforcers came along and started shouting at him and asking, "you want to know how long it will take huh?!" and they took him with them into a room obviously meant for people who had been caught doing something wrong. We didn't see that poor guy again, I am guessing he probably got deported. His only crime was to be a laborer who dared to ask how much longer it was going to take. Thats how Dubai works!

Dubai is doing marvelously, but that is only economically and that is just one part of the whole story. The other side is inhuman treatment of labor, the officially sanctioned prostitution industry, money laundering, racism against all except the British (who were masters until two decades ago and now they are the senior managers), etc. The local population of Dubai does have a culture of racism towards many other people which often goes to inhuman lengths...anyone who has lived there can tell you horror stories about some poor Indian bloke working for a rich Arbab who regularly abused him both physically and otherwise. Legal rights of non-locals have always been precarious. Lets not forget how destructive their institutionalized practice of prostitution has been...how many little girls and women and even boys do you think have been scarred for life over the last several decades in Dubai's sex trade. They've decided to don suits and an air of respectability now, but lets not forget what these guys have been doing until now and what they are still doing under the dark side of this economic boom. Bet Shaikh Mohammad doesn't believe in freedom of the media enough to allow open reporting about this stuff from inside Dubai.

Overall Dubai lets you know that you may be moved aside at any time if someone else comes along who has more money and is willing to spend it. They have privatized most beaches so that the lower income residents of the city can no longer afford to go to the beaches simply because there aren't many left within a short/affordable distance. If you live on rent in Dubai, your choice has been to either fork up the ever higher rates or go to hell (Ras Al Khaimah)...this is ok from the capitalist point of view that supply and demand should determine these things...but there is a little thing called humanity which says that an such rapid increases will naturally not be affordable to vast numbers who will have no choice but to be forced out...this doesn't augur well for building much of a society...its just a place to shop, do some business and, if you are into that sort of thing...have sex with one of Dubai's 200,000-500,000 (not sure of the figure) prostitutes.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/11/dark_side_of_du.html
Da rk Side of Dubai's Boomtown

November 13, 2006 10:20 AM

Brian Ross and Jill Rackmill Report:

Workersbus_nr It may be the world's biggest boomtown, but human rights groups say that Dubai's gleaming towers are being built on the backs of exploited foreign workers.

A tiny Arab emirate on the Persian Gulf, Dubai has been making a big splash as a city on the rise -- with a glittering skyline, world-class shopping malls and luxury resorts, all fueled by the grand vision of its absolute ruler, Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashid al Maktoum.

But in a scathing new report released in Dubai this weekend, the organization Human Rights Watch says the migrant construction workers building Dubai are little more than indentured servants in the wealthy kingdom, one of seven emirates in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.).
THE BLOTTER RECOMMENDS

* Dubai Ruler Sued in U.S. Over Enslaving Small Boys
* Human Trafficking: From Dubai to Brazil to Germany
* Click Here to Check Out More of the Brian Ross Page

In an exclusive 20/20 story to air this Friday, Nov. 17, the ABC News investigative team went inside Dubai to learn how the emirate has grown so far so fast.

Just days after ABC News began asking questions, the government of the U.A.E. announced a series of reforms to improve the conditions of workers.

Clotheslines_nr_1 Dubai's building boom has been made possible by some 500,000 migrant construction workers, most from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Many work 12 hours a day, six days a week, in extremely hot temperatures that have led to illness and, in some cases, death. The workers live in crowded camps, with eight or more men sharing one small room.

In the Human Rights Watch report, called "Building Towers, Cheating Workers," researchers say that the average migrant worker receives a salary of about $175 a month. There is no minimum wage in Dubai, and some workers make as little as $8 a day.

Through extensive interviews, Human Rights Watch researchers found that employers in Dubai routinely abuse workers by withholding their wages for their first two months, along with their passports as "security" to keep them from quitting.

But the migrant workers have little freedom to quit since many have borrowed thousands of dollars to get the jobs to begin with, paying "recruiters" visa and travel fees, which under U.A.E. law should be paid by the employers, not the construction workers.

When workers arrive in Dubai, the construction jobs sometimes pay less than the recruiters originally promised. Desperate to repay their loans, the workers in those cases are trapped. And under U.A.E. law, it is illegal to switch jobs without permission from your employer. Unions are illegal, and striking workers have been deported.

"They are living in fear and in extreme anxiety," said Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch, adding that some workers, feeling hopeless, have even committed suicide.

Dubai's defenders point out that construction wages and conditions are comparable, if not superior to those in neighboring countries.

"Certainly they are going to be making more money than they would from the villages that they come from," said Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch. "But the very fact that they are so poor and so vulnerable is no reason that they should be taken advantage of to the extent that they are being taken advantage in the U.A.E."

After a series of well-publicized strikes and complaints over the last year, the U.A.E. has made some efforts to improve conditions for workers.

A law was passed to halt construction between 12:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. during the scorching summer months when temperatures reach well over 100 degrees. But Human Rights Watch said not all employers follow this law, and there are few government inspectors to enforce it.

Earlier this year, the U.A.E. announced that trade unions would be legalized. But to date, the government has failed to do so, according to Human Rights Watch, which says that without a strong message from the rulers of the U.A.E., little will change.

"It doesn't happen," Whitson said. "These problems are not being addressed by the U.A.E. government in a serious way, in a way that says, 'We are going to put employers who violate the law in jail. We are going to send the message that this is not how you are going to do business in the U.A.E. We are going to impose hefty fines and penalties.'"

Just last week -- only days before Human Rights Watch report was released but a decade after the building boom began -- Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashid al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai, ordered stricter enforcement of the country's labor laws. In addition, he called for improved medical care for workers, a special court to address their labor complaints and an increase in the number of inspectors monitoring camps and workplaces.

Rice tells Pakistan not to delay elections SHANNON, Ireland, Nov 2 (Reuters) U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday Pakistan must go ahead with elections next year and the United States opposed any move by President Pervez Musharraf to impose martial law. “I am not going to get into the details of our conversations but I think it would be quite obvious that the United States would not be supportive of extra-constitutional means,” said Rice, when asked whether the Unite
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This time it appears that Condi was more considerate to Mushy, the call was made at 1 AM instead of 2 AM and apparently Mushy was awake at 1 AM

Islam Islam this is a sickening story in an islamic state these thre MFs would have been executed

It is a good idea Romair, to have regional autonomy so that waziristan can host al quida. Karachi can have the indians etc. It will prevent also this type of events, below.

The only problem is how about the Jinnah vision...that will be bad.

from dawn of today


Suicide attack on Pakistan air force bus kills eight ISLAMABAD, Nov 1 (AFP): - A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden motorbike into a bus carrying Pakistani air force officials on Thursday, killing at least eight and wounding 40 others, officials said. Private TV channels reported that the death toll had risen to nine. “The bus was carrying trainee flying officers when it was attacked by the suicide bomber” in the Sargodha district of central Punjab province, interior ministry spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema told AFP. “Eight air force officials died in the terrorist attack,” Cheema said, and around 40 were wounded. “It was a suicide attack and the target was the bus which was carrying the air force officials,” chief military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said. The dead included a squadron leader, two airmen and five trainee flying officers, security officials said on condition of anonymity. The bomber's dismembered head was found at the scene while some pieces of his body were stuck to the exterior of the bus, police officer Hamid Javed said. The bus itself was badly mangled in the blast. “It was a huge bang and was heard several kilometres away,” a police officer said. Ambulances raced the casualties to local

You can take skyscrapers to an Islamic country but you can't take Muslim dicks out of other people's @rses.

In Rape Case, a French Youth Takes On Dubai

Bryan Denton for The New York Times
The rape of a 15-year-old French boy in a remote patch of desert outside of Dubai has raised questions about how the country’s legal system treats foreigners.
By THANASSIS CAMBANIS
Published: November 1, 2007
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Oct. 31 — Alexandre Robert, a French 15-year-old, was having a fine summer in this tourist paradise on the Persian Gulf. It was Bastille Day and he and a classmate had escaped the July heat at the beach for an air-conditioned arcade.
Just after sunset, Alex says he was rushing to meet his father for dinner when he bumped into an acquaintance, a 17-year-old native-born student at the American school, who said he and his cousin could drop Alex off at home.
There were, in fact, three Emirati men in the car, including a pair of former convicts ages 35 and 18, according to Alex. He says they drove him past his house and into a dark patch of desert, between a row of new villas and a power plant, took away his cellphone, threatened him with a knife and a club, and told him they would kill his family if he ever reported them.
Then they stripped off his pants and one by one sodomized him in the back seat of the car. They dumped Alex across from one of Dubai’s luxury hotel towers.
Alex and his family were about to learn that despite Dubai’s status as the Arab world’s paragon of modernity and wealth, and its well-earned reputation for protecting foreign investors, its criminal legal system remains a perilous gantlet when it comes to homosexuality and protection of foreigners.
The authorities not only discouraged Alex from pressing charges, he, his family and French diplomats say; they raised the possibility of charging him with criminal homosexual activity, and neglected for weeks to inform him or his parents that one of his attackers had tested H.I.V. positive while in prison four years earlier.
“They tried to smother this story,” Alex said by phone from Switzerland, where he fled a month into his 10th-grade school year, fearing a jail term in Dubai if charged with homosexual activity. “Dubai, they say we build the highest towers, they have the best hotels. But all the news, they hide it. They don’t want the world to know that Dubai still lives in the Middle Ages.”
Alex and his parents say they chose to go public with his case in the hope that it would press the authorities to prosecute the men.
United Arab Emirates law does not recognize rape of males, only a crime called “forced homosexuality.” The two adult men charged with sexually assaulting Alex have pleaded not guilty, although sperm from all three were found in Alex. The two adults appeared in court on Wednesday and were appointed a lawyer. They face trial before a three-judge panel on Nov. 7. The third, a minor, will be tried in juvenile court. Legal experts here say that men convicted of sexually assaulting other men usually serve sentences ranging from a few months to two years.
Dubai is a bustling financial and tourist center, one of seven states that form the United Arab Emirates. At least 90 percent of the residents of Dubai are not Emirati citizens and many say that Alex’s Kafkaesque legal journey brings into sharp relief questions about unequal treatment of foreigners here that have long been quietly raised among the expatriate majority. The case is getting coverage in the local press.
It also highlights the taboos surrounding H.I.V. and homosexuality that Dubai residents say have allowed rampant harassment of gays and have encouraged the health system to treat H.I.V. virtually in secret. (Under Emirates law, foreigners with H.I.V., or those convicted of homosexual activity, are deported.)
Prosecutors here reject such accusations. “The legal and judicial system in the United Arab Emirates makes no distinction between nationals and non-nationals,” said Khalifa Rashid Bin Demas, head of the Dubai attorney general’s technical office, in an interview. “All residents are treated equally.”
Dubai’s economic miracle — decades of double-digit growth spurred by investors, foreign companies, and workers drawn to the tax-free Emirates — depends on millions of foreigners, working jobs from construction to senior positions in finance. Even many of the criminal court lawyers are foreigners.
Alex’s case has raised diplomatic tensions between the Emirates and France, which has lodged official complaints about the apparent cover-up of one assailant’s H.I.V. status and other irregularities. The tension and growing publicity over the case seem to have prompted the authorities to take action.
Mr. Demas, from the Dubai attorney general’s office, said he had no intention of prosecuting Alex and was seeking the death penalty for the two adult attackers. “This crime is an outrage against society,” he said.
However, the investigation file in Alex’s case and a pair of confidential French diplomatic cables obtained by The New York Times confirm the accounts of inexplicable and at times hostile official behavior described by Alex and his parents.
“The grave deficiencies or incoherence of the investigation appear to result, in part, from gross incompetence of the services involved in the United Arab Emirates, but also from the moral, pseudoscientific and political prejudices which undoubtedly influenced the inquiry,” the French ambassador to the United Arab Emirates wrote in a confidential cable dated Sept. 6.
Most infuriating to Alex and his mother, Véronique Robert, is that police inaccurately informed French diplomats on Aug. 15, a month after the assault, that the three attackers were disease-free, the diplomats say. Only at the end of August did the family learn that that the 36-year-old assailant was H.I.V. positive. The case file contains a positive H.I.V. test for the convict dated March 26, 2003.
“They lied to us,” Ms. Robert said. “Now the Damocles sword of AIDS hangs over Alex.”
So far the teenager has not tested positive for H.I.V., but he will not know for sure until January, when he gets another blood test six months after the exposure.
A doctor examined Alex the night of the rape, taking swabs of DNA for traces of the rapists’ sperm. He did not take blood tests or examine Alex with a speculum. Then he cleared the room and told Alex: “I know you’re a homosexual. You can admit it to me. I can tell.”
Alex told his father in tears: “I’ve just been raped by three men, and he’s saying I’m a homosexual,” according to interviews with both of them.
The doctor, an Egyptian, wrote in his legal report that he had found no evidence of forced penetration, which Alex’s family says is a false assessment that could hurt the case against the assailants.
In early September, after the family learned about the older attacker’s H.I.V. status and the French government lodged complaints with the United Arab Emirates authorities, the Dubai attorney general’s office assigned a new prosecutor to the case. Only then were forensic tests performed to confirm that sperm from all three attackers had been found in Alex.
Alex stayed in Dubai in order to testify against his attackers, and went back to school in September, despite suffering unsettling flashbacks.
In early October, however, the family said, their lawyer warned Alex that he was in danger of facing charges of homosexuality and a prison term of one year.
Veteran lawyers here say the justice system is evolving, like the country’s entire system of governance that has blossomed as the economy and population have exploded in just a few decades. Despite its shortfalls, the United Arab Emirates have combined Islamic values with the best practices from the West to create “the most modern legal system among the Arab countries,” said Salim Al Shaali, a former police officer and prosecutor who now practices criminal law.
In business and finance, the nation has worked hard to earn a reputation for impartial and speedy justice. But the criminal justice system has struggled, balancing a penal code rooted in conservative Arab and Islamic local culture, applied to an overwhelming non-Arab population of foreign residents.
A 42-year-old gay businessman who would speak only if identified by his nickname, Ko, described routine sexual harassment by officials during his 13 years living in Dubai. He cut his shoulder-length hair to avoid attention, he said, but after years of living in fear of jail or deportation, he is leaving the country.
Although rape victims here generally keep quiet, some who have been raped in Dubai have shared testimonials in recent days on boycottdubai.com, a Web site started by Alex’s mother.
Prosecutors moved forward with the case against her son’s attackers only as a result of public pressure and diplomatic complaints, Ms. Robert believes. Now, she hopes, the attention could prompt more humane and even-handed justice for future rape victims here.
On advice of his lawyer and French diplomats, Alex says he will not return to Dubai but wants very much for the men to be convicted.
“Sometimes you feel crazy, you know?” he said. “It’s hard, but we have to be strong. I’m doing this for all the other poor kids who got raped and couldn’t do anything about it.”

....i have been spending quite a bit of time in uae lately......it is now basically an extension of the indian market for IT services......and it is investing quite heavily in pakistan.......

......perhaps uae would be a good model for pakistan, as far as de-centralization goes....uae consists of seven emirates......together, they form a country, uae......however, each emirate has its own sheikh, who runs it any way he wants......

.....the central govt. only has a few things in its control....a common currency, a common defence force and a few other items....other that that, everything is decided by the ruling sheikh.......this includes cultural issues also.......one emirate allows alcohol, the other doesn't....one is conservative the other is liberal......one is westernised, the other is traditional.....

......each emirate has its own rules and laws.....traffic departments, police (?).....even the taxi cabs look different in each emirate.......one emirate has an economy based on services, the other on oil and a third on real estate.......

.....yet one can drive between emirates seamlessly.......and one can shift homes and jobs also......the visa one gets is for all of uae.......

........perhaps this is what pakistan needs.....delegate all power to the provinces......the central govt. should only have defence and currency and foreign affairs.......in fact, the federal govt. should be just a combination of the heads of the provincial chief ministers, who should appoint one as the prime minister - a position which should rotate between all provinces......(in uae, the head of abu dhabi is always the prime minister of uae, since abu dhabi is, by far, the wealthiest and largest emirate)........

.......each province should have its own culture, policies etc........nwfp could implement shariah, while punjab could be somewhere in the middle, and sind could be more liberal......

......this would make it easy for the citizens.....if someone in karachi wants shariah, they can just move to peshawar, instead of trying to convert karachi into a shariah based state.......if someone in peshawar wants a more liberal lifestyle they can move to karachi, instead of trying to convert nwfp to a westernized area.......

arre baba....all those getting excited about cyclone please note that the place has shut down. now whether it is temporary or permanent is anyone's guess. they shut it after the tiffany hiest in june / july this year when jewellery worth USD 20 mn was looted in full public view. those thieves even gave poses for the security cameras!!!!!

#20 Posted by hamidm2 Re: # 19

... the cyclone club also offers muslima concubines at an hourly rate from iran, lebanon, egypt, syria, and morocco ....

Yeah I suppose the competition between the kafirs and the kanjars is intense!

The momin are mad because a city run by who they would call a kanjaroon and liberaloon is doing so well.

masadi #26: So this is the thanks I get for questioning allegations that you are not a genius?

Good night everyone. If you do not see any of my posts here tomorrow, it will be because one of these morons has got me banned...

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hamidm #23 Are you insinuating that Masadi is not a genius?

hamidm #23 Are you insinuating that Masadi is not a genius?

masadi,

you claim, "I have established myself here on Chowk" ..... uh?..... established yourself as what? .....