Was this a joke?

I am still hoping this is an April Fool's joke from Business 24-7, but quite frankly, it's not funny. Apart from the laughingly biased reporting. And I didn't think anyone at Business 24-7 had a sense of humour anyway....

Emirates has offered cabin crew voluntary unpaid leave starting May 2009, from one to six months.

An Emirates spokesperson said: "After a careful review of our operational requirements, we have decided to offer our cabin crew staff the opportunity to apply for unpaid leave on a voluntary basis, starting from May 2009. In anticipation of our growing fleet, Emirates' recruitment efforts over the past 12 months have been highly successful in meeting our operational requirements. Combined with a sharp drop in cabin crew attrition, we now find ourselves in a position to be more flexible as an employer.

"We believe some of our staff will welcome the opportunity to take time off to pursue personal interests such as studies, hobbies, or spend time with family and friends.

"There are limited slots available, depending on seniority and the aircraft type the crew is trained to operate on. Cabin crew may opt for unpaid leave from a period of one month, up to a maximum of six months. While on leave, they will still be employees of the airline."

Please can someone assure us that Emirates don't really think that six months unpaid time out to pursue basket-weaving and navel gazing is what their trolley dollies want?

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.

Inspirational leadership

From a comment:

Could I suggest urgent new thread based on the following letter sent to all AMG staff today - maybe DMO readers can comment on the "unique story of this organisation"?

Dear All,

As you are all aware we are all witnessing the dawn of a Change. Markets are shifting and organizations are being called upon to reassess their businesses and drive their activity towards consumer needs.

As a group, we are not immune to the depth and severity of this situation that has been reflected in our daily lives as well as our business in their different shapes and forms. The current Global economic tides have forced us into a careful recalculation of our business decisions.

To address the challenges we face, now more than ever, we need to restructure our business and transform AMG into a results driven organisation, which values quality over quantity and is focused on accelerating its rate of growth. As a result, very difficult decisions, including Staffing, will have to be made today.

We want to remember the unique story of this organisation and how we have shown, within a short time, our innovative roots and strong vision.

To fully realize our potential, we will all need to make adjustments and compromises. I am confident that if we work together, as one team, we will come out of this difficult time in our history even stronger and be well placed to multiply our growth moving forward.

Thanks and regards,

Mohamed Almulla

Group Executive Director

Go for your lives.......

Radio kaka

Another new thread request:

Can we get a thread going about the 'legal' issues between ENG and Fujairah Radio Network? This is apparently the reason that Coast is just playing music on a loop. Surely that has to be more interesting than 'Taps and Washers Weekly' being suspended by shite-TP.

Anyone got any info..?

Magazine closures

New thread request:

We (ITP) have closed another two magazines today...(thought I would get in there first)

My good friend over the road at Motivate tells me they are going to announce one more "suspension" in the next few days.

Any guesses?