National staff salaries leaked on internet

From Maktoob.com:

National staff salaries leaked on internet
Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:46 PM

The salaries of the National’s entire editorial staff have been leaked on the internet in what is being described as a serious data security breach at the Abu Dhabi-based newspaper, Maktoob Business can reveal.

The monthly salaries of over 250 employees, including editor-in-chief Martin Newland, have been posted on Wikileaks, an internet site dedicated to the publication of confidential information.

...

Sources at the newspaper confirmed some of the salaries in the document were accurate said the leak might have been in retaliation for the freezing of bonuses this year or the u-turn on free housing.

Newland declined to comment when contacted by Maktoob Business. Abu Dhabi Media Co (ADMC), which owns the National, was not immediately available for comment.

Sun, sea and sanitised reporting

Not content with gagging the UAE media ("not to stop bad news but to stop journos digging for bad news blah blah" - Abdullatif), government authorities are now trying to silence business people too.

In a letter from Dubai's Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing, hoteliers were requested to comment only on business at their own hotels, since DTCM would “take the initiative of providing statements about the tourism in Dubai in general”.

This was “to ensure accuracy of the information published about Dubai” and to “avoid any misleading or conflicting statements,” the letter said.

Here's me thinking that hoteliers are probably well placed to comment on tourism in Dubai since they have ACTUAL room figures, not "government statistics". And they would ACTUALLY know - based on guest feedback - about whether tourists are fed up of construction, pollution, skanky water, price increases etc.

What's next? DIFC banning licensed companies from commenting on the state of the market? TECOM banning tenants from talking about internet usage and ADSL speed?

RAK hit and run

From today's Gulf News (extracts below):

An American journalist working for an English daily from Abu Dhabi has run over an Egyptian security guard at the entrance of a university here because the guard denied him access to the campus.

The security guard did not allow entry to the journalist identified as "J." because he did not have an "entrance permission" which is a must for visitors as per the university regulations.

The Egyptian security guard is demanding Dh50,000 in compensation, and the university is demanding to continue with the case against the journalist and his sponsoring organisation.

The sources said that it has been reported that this particular journalist had repeatedly entered the university surreptitiously. He had entered with the university students and without holding any proper permission and this harmed the university's image. The sources said that the journalist had violated the privacy of the university.