Despite claims from UAE Inc that the new law will not encroach on media freedom, it seems that there are already a number of cases where it has. Worryingly, these include the news wires, as reported in the Guardian, and verified by a couple of our wire sources in Dubai.
The article, which states that a Bloomberg journalist was detained at Dubai airport and warned to be careful, also confirms that the double whammy of the Panorama documentary and the Independent's article on Dubai have struck a nerve with the powers that be.
Have any of you noticed increased censorship, self- or otherwise? Or run-ins with local authorities over stories you have run?
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Apparently all reviews that are deemed to be medically-related have to now be approved by the ministry.
Big fines for those that are not approved.
As i understand it, any puff pieces (ie spa reviews in Time Out etc) will have to be approved.
So Time Out (etc) will have to seek approval weeks in advance of printing any such material.
Doable? I'm not sure.
Among all the discussions about curbs on media causing damage to the UAE's reputation, one of many things is overlooked.
It is a long-standing requirement of UAE media that it must not publish or broadcast anything that can be considered as damaging to any leader or country with which the UAE has friendly relations.
In the alleged interests of press "freedoms" this has been overlooked by the authorities, but with current sensitivities, don't be surprised if the authorities start tightening up!
So what happened to this?
Follow-up piece Rob?
Sheikh Mohammed opens Dubai Media City By Rob Corder on Monday, November 06, 2000
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has promised to personally guarantee freedom of expression for the world's media working from the UAE.
"I give you the right to speak your minds; be completely objective in your views and reporting." Sheikh Mohammed told the assembled press. "The UAE has understood that to flourish, media needs to be unshackled from policies and practices that limit its independence and creativity," he added.
So what happened? This is bollocks!
i was at the press conference when sheikh mohammed made this announcement and couldn't help noticing that he had his fingers crossed behind his dish dash and i also remmber how just a few months later all employees of dubai media city were warned by CEO Saeed Hussein Al Muntafiq that anyone caught discussing the events of 9/11 and its possible effects on dubai would be instantly sacked.
seems like things really havent moved on.
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090418/NATIONAL/328043494/1133
Check this out...
http://www.uaepm.ae/en/media/e-sessions/Meda_session_answers.html
You will like it!
To all the journos reading this who work for an international wire or media - keep up the good work. The longer this farrago of double standards and "one rule for the locals/one for the rest" continues, the more absurd and untenable the situation will become. You have already made great strides - keep it up.
anyone else bored of journalists just posting links to their stories?
I heard that the Bloomberg reporter was again held when leaving the country on Thursday. Also heard that his hotel room was searched. Whatever story he's got Dubai doesn't want it out in the open.
arresting reporters is such a dumb move and so counter productive.
Shakey mo needs to understand there is more to building a first world nation than pouring concrete into fantasy developments encouraging dodgy businesses to launder their money and providing a place for saudis to get laid.
Strange that Sheikh Mo neglected to answer any questions from the "nasty" internatonal press in his online lovin. "In the land of the blind the one eyed man is king!"
I have heard that standard filming permits through Dubai Media City have also been rejected, with no reason stated. It's becoming very difficult to do any reports from Dubai, entertainment news or otherwise.
The question and answer session released today smacks of a big propoganda campaign. All the answers were combined into the questions (or heavily implied). There is no way that any responsible international journalist would have asked those....
I was reading Sheikh Mo's online media interview and was sick all over my new Dell XPS 1530 after the first paragraph. Any chance of a replacement machine courtesy His Highness???
lol.
It's again a conspiracy, isn't it?
Why is it that the lot of you suffers from such a sense of inferiority that you assume a "responsible international journalist" would not ask what these guys did?
Why not pick up the phone and call a friend in the Gulf News or The National or Emirates Business or the Arabic press and ask?
Or at least read the questions and answers.
Maybe you like rumours better than facts.
The questions include everything from trafficking to independence of FNC (The National does sound like its only source of information on Dubai is the foreign press and its readers are all in the UK!), budgetary deficits, the dollar peg, even the PM's choice of young advisors over old etc... Sure they are not bashing Dubai but most of these are real questions by people who are familiar with the country, not with its image.
No, they don't mean that the press suddenly has more freedom. But the session answers many questions of residents and media of Dubai. Including the clarification that there will be no income tax!
someones gonna get sucked off.
Go and have your say then....
Under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, Dubai Press Club is organizing the 8th Arab Media Forum on May 11&12 at Atlantis Hotel, Palm Jumeirah. The Forum will discuss all the major developments on the media scene in the Arab world. The Forum will host a number of top figures from the media, economy and politics. For more information, please call 3616666 or visit the website www.arabmediaforum.ae
This year so far, no journalist has been publicly hung from his testicles in public or been passed through an industrial mincer a few times and then fed to stray Al Barsha cats - so that's always a good thing in the Arab world. See, who said you can't say anything postive about Arab governments?
Something very interesting happened yesterday night. I posted a comment on Zawya, on the sheikh mo online PR stunt. In it I very politely asked sheikh mo to comment on the Independent article. I'm sure it comes as no surprise, but the comment was removed! Somebody enlighten me pls. Is this standard Zawya practice or am I paranoid or what....
I picked up 24/7 yesterday whilst waiting for a hospital appointment. My god - it is really a nastly little rag! I know when it was first launched the only redeeming feature was that its pages were quite absorbent and it could act as emergency toilet paper.
However just flicking through it yesterday and the way it has turned into such a nasty, sycophantic, cocksmoking piece of PR/propoganda for Dubai astounded me...I mean, can it technically call itself a NEWS paper. Where's the news? It's all press release rewrite, agencies and knobgobbling the rich and wealthy of Dubai.
There was one negative story in there - but that was about the UK. It truly is one of the worst newspapers I have read for a long time. Is it not cruel and unusual punishment to leave that lying around in a hospital waiting room? Surely the people there are sick already - they don't need further punishment?
But hot on 24/7's heels is Gulf News (which I also found in the waiting rooms). Sports section. Cover story. First Line. First Word. Typo. Apparently they are playing cricket in Caper Town.
It's a copy and paste job from an agency! How can you fuck that up! It takes real effort and genius to screw up a copy and paste job.
Does anyone read this rag before they send it off to the printers? [Well, does anyone read this rag when it comes back from the printers?]. What happened to the basic law of subbing - read the paper!
Why is everything to do with the media in Dubai so utterly crap? Surely Dubai's media could be used as a case study by the world's journalism training schools on incompetence, sloppiness, stupidity and sycophancy. With this media law we will just become an ever bigger laughing stock - if that's possible!
Rant over. I must resolve not to read anything produced in Dubai again, or it will just raise my blood pressure, meaning that I'll have to go see the doctor more often, meaning I'll have to wait in his office and be exposed to more crap. It will just become a self-perpetuating cycle of self abuse.
I'm sorry but its not just the media. Every level of every possible product or service that could possibly make contact with people is absolutely dire. From transport to those customer service monkeys at banks, waiters at restaurants, the "Hello shir, hello ma'aam" crew in every shop across the country - the UAE is where all the world's failure's end up working. It's true and you all know it. Any denial of this very obvious fact is simply a pityful attempt at self-defence.
anon @ 10.18.
who exactly is getting sucked off..?
i know someone in Bristol and New zealand who have been discussing it...is it the same people..?
@21 April, 2009 11:40
And how are you better then everyone else? You've made such a sweeping generalization that includes every kid-expat or not-that was borne here and/or was raised here, studied here and are now working here...Are you saying they didn't have a chance and were failures from the womb?
I hope you are unique. Any more people like you in the world and we will really be in trouble as a species.
No offense to your family, who probably don't know you hold such ill will.
http://adnationme.com/news/top-story/dit-shuts-down-operations.html
Given that some people on this blog have slagged off the questions put to Sheikh Mo, why don't they post the ones they would have asked here? Some of the original ones seemed quite good to me, so it would be fascinating to find out what we're missing. And let's only have ones you would really have had the balls to ask.
Khaleej times just laid off 20 people any news on this?
11:09
Pl stay in the hospital a while longer. You need it.
That WAS a rant!
For the record: 24|7 staff does a fairly good job given its constraints. The recent story that they broke was about the KT board.
GN also has been doing some good work, in the UAE context.
But you know, on your hospital bed you could perhaps get delivery of News of the World or something.
Good work "in the UAE context" and "given its constraints"?
So that means breaking news on how Dubai will PROVE ITS DOUBTERS WRONG and is SUPERLATIVELY GROWING FASTLY THROUGH FINANCIAL CRISIS?
Yep. I cant understand why KT, GN and EB247 are continually overlooked at the Pulitzers.
No international journalists were asked to present questions for Sheikh Mo, and I imagine the questions that were sent in were heavily filtered. Here is what id ask his highness:
How precisely will Dubai manage to service its estimated USD117bn of debt?
Why are state companies not paying its contractors and suppliers?
How much money have you lost in the financial crisis?
Why are firms still allowed to treat their workers as sub-human pond life, after years and years of continually broken promises to clamp down?
How many people have left Dubai?
Would Dubai go broke if it hadnt received the USD10bn from Abu Dhabi?
Will you let some government parastatal companies go under, despite an implied government guarantee?
I don't work in the Gulf and I never have. That said, two things are obvious to me. The first is that media freedom in the Emirates is in its infancy. The second – to judge from the quality of comments on this site – is that expatriate hacks in Abu Dhabi and Dubai are typically in the same developmental position. If those of you who write this adolescent nonsense, littered as it is with bad grammar and petulant attitudes, hope to get good jobs back in your respective countries, you really are going to have to raise your game. You have good cause to be dissatisfied with government intervention in the Emirates. But if this is your level of argument when you are in your newsrooms, then is it any wonder that people ignore you? There are exceptions to this (there are always exceptions), but for the most part you come across as spiteful children – or, as I'm sure you'd prefer – cunts. Grow up.
10:41 - What???
Don't know if this is actually going to be allowed on here. Blog owner: review link before posting.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=7402099&page=1
Any local papers going to go near this one:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/print?id=7402099
ABC News Exclusive: Torture Tape Implicates UAE Royal Sheikh
A testament to the UAE, ITP and its publication CEO Magazine's integrity -
They're selling editorial space, including the front cover, essentially as advertorial but disguising it as valid, unpaid for editorial and balanced articles.
I shouldn't be surprised, the UAE has always reminded me of the 80's.
I am struggling to reconcile these two statements.
1. "A man in a UAE police uniform is seen on the tape tying the victim's arms and legs, and later holding him down as the Sheikh pours salt on the man's wounds and then drives over him.
2. "The government statement said its review found 'all rules, policies and procedures were followed correctly by the Police Department."
A sheikh makes videos of himself torturing people, talks a bit like a B Grade movie villain, video is in the hands of a businessman with a grudge, you can hear the bones cracking as he drives over him. I don't know, could be true but I'd be checking the sources on this one, even if I was one of the many who would love to eat up a story like this.
Why is he the brother of the Crown Prince? Why not say he's the brother of the President?
@14.49: "Checking the sources"? The man is on the tape torturing a guy, and the government -- and his own lawyers -- admit that it's him on the tape. What sources require checking here?
Well, those for a start. I'm not saying it's not true. But I hope you're not a journalist. What sources need checking? All of them, always, everytime, and ask them how to spell their name, to paraphrase my old boss.
Back to the law - would the ABC story be classified as an "assault on the character" of the shaikh, if reproduced here?
Wow!
As a journalist working in Dubai until a couple of years back, I'm shocked. Also because if I had got an interview with the Sheikh who is the owner of Pearl Properties, constructing Palisades, I would have been quite proud of myself for landing the interview with a member of the royal family...
And no one would've dreamt of asking him anything "controversial"...
I am glad I never had to make this particular moral choice.
How do you make this guy look pretty?!!
How does one sit across the table from someone like that?
He'll probably be on the front cover of Arabian Business next month, paid for naturally.
Video not downloading now - that's atrocious! I am without words!
You really think 24/7 and Gulf News are quality papers! I know News Of The World in the UK is seen as a trashy tabloid - but at least they have NEWS in there - not copied and pasted press releases, passed off as 'staff reports', or butt-munching eulogies of fly by night realtors and [morally] bankrupt bankers! I tend to agree with 20:16, if 24/7 and GN are held up as examples of how great UAE journalism is and as our very own 'gold standard', no Dubai writers would ever be able to get a job outside the UAE. Even at News of The World...
maybe because Sheikh Zayed sired many sons from different women?
Oh, and is it not enough that officials in the UAE confirm it is infact Sheikh Issa in the video?
This article seems to have been removed from the Financial Times website:
TV station airs UAE torture video. By Simeon Kerr in Dubai and Andrew England in Abu Dhabi. Published: April 23 2009 15:23
Arab governments have a long history of torturing their citizens - I'm surprised it's not a national sport. So what makes the UAE so special?
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=132286
not that press freedom has helped anyone ever
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/icrc-m17.shtml
so much for sophisticated non-Arab nations 23.25.
Funny that this was written a month before the abc one. Nice diversion tactics to shift the focus to where else but ???
Sometimes I wonder if it is really about human rights...
as for the sad 11.09 - bet you try using 24/7 to save costs which is what landed you in the hospital in the first place :-)
19:35
Pulitzers are awards for one country, perhaps yours. If I was working in a newspaper in the Bahamas I would think it strange to even aspire to them. They are like the Michelin... they work in a context.
In the context of the UAE, GN does good work. In the context of the non-free press of Dubai, 24|7 provides a lot of fodder between the lines. But to understand all this you have to stop pretending that the world needs looking at from a blue-eyed prespective.
Might be too much for you to understand going by the track record.
So, yes, pl go back to News of the World
@ 7:13
haha, i dont think ive ever come over someone as retardedly literal before. Yes, the reason GN and the other Dubai papers dont get pulitzers is because the pulitzers are a US award.
Im sure they are good papers in the UAE context, just like the Herald is a good paper in the zimbabwean context, but that is neither here nor there. Theyre shit, censorious and lamentable excuses for "journalism", and should be an embarrassment to a country that has aspirations to be a media hub.
Lets face it, we all know that not a single hack from the Dubai newspapers could dream of getting a job at the Sun or NOTW, let alone any of the "proper" papers.
Btw, that torture article is still on the FT website. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/117d4b5c-303c-11de-88e3-00144feabdc0.html
Shocking video, less shocking that no one in the UAE is covering it.
They are covering it. Up.
Zawya Dow Jones in Dubai was reporting on torture in the UAE long before ABC. See: https://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidZW20081224000103/%3D%20FOCUS:%20Dubai%20Graft%20Dragnet%20Fails%20On%20Convictions,%20Human%20Rights
The Dubai media law certainly wont bite Rob Corder.
Here he has written another fine piece of journalism, and mobilised his many fans to write in with praise for his prose and incisive analysis.
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/blogs/323-gcc-downturn-is-all-but-over
I've been away for a week, but I'd just like to say that the chap on 22 April, 20:16, nailed this blog:
"I don't work in the Gulf and I never have. That said, two things are obvious to me. The first is that media freedom in the Emirates is in its infancy. The second – to judge from the quality of comments on this site – is that expatriate hacks in Abu Dhabi and Dubai are typically in the same developmental position. If those of you who write this adolescent nonsense, littered as it is with bad grammar and petulant attitudes, hope to get good jobs back in your respective countries, you really are going to have to raise your game. You have good cause to be dissatisfied with government intervention in the Emirates. But if this is your level of argument when you are in your newsrooms, then is it any wonder that people ignore you? There are exceptions to this (there are always exceptions), but for the most part you come across as spiteful children – or, as I'm sure you'd prefer – cunts. Grow up."
Nice.
@ 7:13
...So, an inability to even get a copy and paste job is OK, or according to you even laudable? Can you read? How can you mis-spell the first word in your main story? The quality of GN is crap...Bad grammar. Bad spelling. No news. Just press releases. 24/7 - a sycophantic, grovelly little rag - that's all I can get between the lines!
Are they going to replace the pic Rob has on the Arabian Business website with one of a small puppy-dog? Why doesn't he just stop the pretence of being a reporter and go and join the PR agency that deals with Dubai's govenment...
17: 21, 15: 26
I have only one thing to say to you both - there is no cure for dumbness except effort. No one in the UAE will get a job with any of the rags in your country or mine, because contrary to hiring policies in the UAE (which seem to only work in getting dumbasses like you to this country) no other country hires journalists whose knowledge of their beat is zilch. And what they know they pick from publications foreign to this country. That is what context means, not in which country the award is geographically located. Duh!
Oh, and all the best with the Pulitzers!
I know plenty of people who have left Dubai to take up media jobs in their own or other countries.
Rob Corder can have any picture and any position he wants - even the cover. As long as he pays for it like everyone else.
See The Media Factory are hiring on journalism.co.uk.
What happened to Richard Rawlinson?
Something else you won't hear about in the UAE. Another dark tale from the sandlands.
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=7401720
http://awadmustafa.blogspot.com/2009/04/its-back-on.html
come on DMO,the biggest thing in UAE Media is being discussed and no i don't mean bobby serafins expenses i mean the JV/Merger talks between ADMC and AMG. now get a grip and start a thread.
By the way, Seymour Hersh is coming to town. Fancy discussing investigative digging? register for the Arab media forum. No pun intended nor implied.
Why is no one talking about the torture tape?
This is top news at ABC News...
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=7407186
Anyone could submit questions to Sheikh Mo via his website, not just local media. As you can tell from questions from the Arabic press around the world: Al Sharq al Awsat, Al Ahram, Al Hayat, all submitted questions. Everyone had the opportunity, so why all this pandering to the journalists who didn't bother? Those "responsible international journalists" didn't ask any. Oh, and obviously just because some questions weren't answered doesnt mean they weren't asked.
Why is no one talking about the torture tape?
CNN is:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/04/29/uae.nuke.deal/index.html
It's been covered locally. Have seen it on Zawya, The National, Gulf News, Maktoob Business... Not seen on Arabian Business or KT...
But it's around.
@11:32
you are talking gash. questions posed by international journalists were ignored. unsurprisingly, perhaps, as sheikh mo spent much of his online time slagging off the foreign press.
I mean here, why is no one on this blog talking about the torture tape? Aren't many of you journalists?
I don't talk about 'sensitive' things here because I don't want to be deported. plain and simple.
@02:23 no-one has been deported from dubai for more than a decade. relax. live a little and say something about "sensitive" things.
Anonymous @ 02.23 sums up the thinking of many journalists here. Self censorship rules. Actual reporting does not exist. Real journalists should not be working for local papers here as they are censored. Read some George Orwell.
Be warned. Yet another country where you can be arrested for having public sex.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2406229.ece
Let's hope all travellers thinking about going there are warned about this country's harsh laws.
PR advertising as news. Pathetic.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=/data/theuae/2009/May/theuae_May37.xml§ion=theuae
more blatant censorship as UAE govt makes sure nobody in the country can see the torture video. You think that makes a difference if UAE residents don't watch it? it's already out there.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=93287§ionid=351020205
@19:44 Er, wot, like ABC News?
Yeah, it's so blocked. My God, no matter how hard I look, I can't find-
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=7402099&page=1
FFS.
Also - quoting an IRANIAN publication on censorship issues?
hey 12.37. read the seventh para in the below link. another kind of love in the times of cholera
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/5251244/Elsa-Peretti-jewellery-for-British-Museum.html
we need the fluff. cant have swine flu all the time can we and the great economic depression.
Yes, I am laughing. many of us might not be posting after June.
very appropriate that the sequel to "greed is good" film will use UAE as a location http://www.arabianbusiness.com/554150-dubai-tipped-for-star-role-in-wall-street-2
dont you think Madoff's home would be a better location
@16:05
A merger between ADMC and AMG?! Abdullatif gets the best newspaper in the UAE, Borgerding gets... Emirates Business. Seriously.
sorry, whoever left the Gulf News comment, I deleted by mistake! Please re-post.
Oh ok Mod, no worries.
Gulf News is shit.
There you go. x
The email you kindly deleted of mine about GN, Moderator, referred to the article of "objective journalism" titled "Readers sympathize with mother, but respect verdict".
http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/09/05/05/10310691.html
While global media express horror at the verdict, GN goes to considerable lengths to find four people in favor of the verdict and two against.
A more groveling, sycophantic and kiss-ass piece of journalism it is difficult to find - unless you continue to read Gulf News, that is.
And what was wrong with my shorterned version (19:00)?
AMG not playing nicely: http://uaecommunity.blogspot.com/2009/05/free-with-no-passport.html
http://lagirlindubai.blogspot.com/2009/05/free-prisoner-of-dubai.html
I'd love to hear more about what this journalist and her bosses argued about in the short time of her employment.
Anybody been to yesterday's "night of the adeater"?
I couldn't believe that an advertising event in Dubai can have so low attendance. Utter shame!
I don't know if Dubai media people have started sleeping so early or they have better things to do than watch 350 international adverts at a stretch. Not even 50 people were left after 10:30 pm. Hope today is better!
Gulf News is a joke, and so is Xpress and all the other GN products.
What's the point of reading a review of a business or product in Dubai when you know the reporter is only ever going to sell the positives to the reader? According to those rags, every restaurant is Dubai is a wonderful culinary experience!
In fact what's the point of even reading these garbage papers in the first place?
Thank god for the Times, the IHT, and the internet.
What I do not understand is GN makes a fortune. If they would only spend that on staff.
Of course they would have to sack 70% of the people who are there, but with its financial depth, it would not need the funding of The National to do this. Theoretically at least could be far more independent.
GN does what it does because it has no reason not to. Why try and become a proper newspaper when writing sycophantic nonsense still results in decent ad revenues and a relatively stable readership.
Of course, if you work for GN, you are screwed. Imagine going back to a job interview in the developed world with copies of that.
Anyone going to Arab Media Forum? The geniuses have given one guy's phone cellphone to call for the timetable! Nothing is online. Are these people insane?
@11:09
The programme is here: http://www.arabmediaforum.ae/default.aspx?options={1ea0757c-9ed8-4f0b-b9fa-3680d975ae5c}&view=Article&layout=Article&itemId=34&lang=1&id=12
Dear insanes and inanes on this blog,
Read this and weep over your dumbness. This is what your blog should have done.
http://indotav.blogspot.com/2009/05/dubai-bashing.html
Do us all a favour: Rename yourself to Dubai Losers or We hate Dubai (and can't articulate why) or something.
Every other blog on Dubai has more substance.
Sad, because it is seemingly the only one run and read by people from the news media in the UAE.
WAM are reporting that Issa has been detained. Have any of the papers done it?
http://www.wam.org.ae/servlet/Satellite?c=WamLocEnews&cid=1241072573468&pagename=WAM%2FWamLocEnews%2FW-T-LEN-FullNews
I'm a bit late at this and now learning about Dubai. Could you please tell me: were the hotels built by slaves too? Has everything been built with effective slave labor?
Does anyone else find it disgusting if a building received an architecture award when the building was built by slaves?
What, you mean like the cathederals of Liverpool, or, i dunno, the whole of f**king Manhattan?
I think you've confused 200 years of the black slave trade with piss poor Indians and Pakistanis who come to the Gulf seeking more money to repatriate home to their loved ones who get exploited and generally treated like shit by thei Arab masters.
Similar, but incomparable, you fucking cretin!
@ 12.42: No, they are not slaves dipstick. They are low income wage earners who come here becuae anything is better than where they come from and they work really hard in tough conditions and get paid low wages and live with their fellow workers in crowded company accommodation and send money back to their home countries and dream of the day they can go back and live a better life in their own country. And many of them are ripped off and exploited by agents operating in their country of origin who extract excessive fees for their services. So not slaves, but low income workers like those all over the world who built the world class and morally superior cities we all claim to come from. So take your middle class disgust and accusations of slavery, get a grip and do some homework. Slavery is slavery and the exploitation of low income labour is what it is but it 'aint slavery.
Media Law? Bite?
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/as-dubai-economy-slows-myths-are-laid-bare
@06.09. Low, agreed-upon wages are one thing. Confiscated passports, paid 1/4 of contractual promise, and ghastly accommodation. Now a new media law. In newspapers, on foreign govt websites and those of human rights orgs.
If Dubai PR 2.0 communicates a worker compensation scheme with independent oversight, etc. etc. then maybe the dream can occur.
So I gather there are a number of buildings... unless there was been independent verification.
A rather low 2.1. Revision. Resubmit.
@6:09 True but for one thing.
The labourers are not cheated in their country of origin so much as contractors here insist that they will not pay for any immigration and visa expenses, even tickets for their first trip. Labour companies in source countries pass on costs to the labourers or workers.
There are some cheats, no doubt, just as there are some companies who do it legally and above board and don't charge the worker. But by and large processing costs are passed on to these employees... unlike in your job or mine.
I can't bring myself to comment on this. Just read it, and weep:
http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/editorial_opinion/nation/10315170.html
After reading it, I don't know whether to cry or laugh.
somethings and of course we can all play uproar.
every worker who comes here knows the name of the game. and he will still come.
even when there is amnesty i have met guys who prefer to beg. To work illegally. try talking them out of it and asking them to go to the embassy
above all, someone has to build these homes. and also build the labour accommodation in the first place that they have to stay in
go figure, sword wavers.
A mixed response to the double whammy: http://tinyurl.com/VFplaguedxb
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/coalition-to-vote-down-treaty-20101116-17vgr.html
Coalition to vote down treaty
November 16, 2010 - 4:14PM
AAP
An extradition treaty between Australia and the United Arab Emirates will be opposed by the coalition because of concerns about how the Middle East nation treats prisoners.
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