They’ve only just got around to this?

Dubai: President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan issued a decree amending by-laws of the Federal Government Human Resources law. 

Under Federal Law No. 9 of 2011, the decree stipulates that all federal bodies are obliged to sign employment contracts with their staff, detailing their vocational rights and duties, and professional ethics that they must abide by when performing their governmental duties.

This is particularly amusing given that it’s the Federal Government that regulates the contractual arrangements between employers and employees in the private sector…

Schadenfreude – The Johann Hari Edition

There may be some amongst you who recall a piece of execrable weekend journalism by Johann Hari entitled ‘The Dark Side of Dubai’. It was published in the Independent in 2009 and caused something of a furore in the UAE blogosphere. Most Dubai-based writers accepted that there were (and are) undeniably a lot of problems with Dubai that deserved to be reported on, and that Hari is a very effective writer, if polemic or propaganda are your cup of tea. However, Hari’s article was deeply flawed as a piece of journalism: lacking balance or perspective and filled with jarring stylistic flourishes, sensationalist hyperbole and rhetorical tropes.*

As well as these flaws, a number of Dubai-based bloggers and writers also observed that Hari’s piece contained a number of implausible anecdotes, conveniently apt quotations and exaggerations. Few people were willing to suggest outright fabrication given Hari’s status in the world of journalism, but nagging doubts have stayed with me since then. I am therefore very glad to see that Hari has been caught out recently over his use of quotations and is now facing some very awkward questions over his journalistic conduct.**

I am fully supportive of free speech and the media’s right to investigate; there is certainly plenty about Dubai that can and should be written about. However, if a journalist can actually be bothered, there is more than enough interesting subject matter out there without having to resort to lazy caricature, sensationalism and outright fabrication. It is a pretty damning indictment of the journalistic profession that there have been some journalists lining up to defend Hari’s transgressions and that his rhetorical style has been rewarded with the Orwell Prize for Journalism, particularly given Orwell’s own attitude to language (my emphases):

The inflated style itself is a kind of euphemism. A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.

[…]

Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one’s own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase — some jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse — into the dustbin, where it belongs.

Hari has sought to defend his practice but the fact remains that he has been caught out presenting a false picture to his readers to achieve a rhetorical aim. By presenting these quotes with his own dramatised context and tone, he has shown a disregard for accuracy and truth that calls into question the convenient anecdotes and quotes he has previously presented as fact. The only reason that he has been caught out in this instance is because the quotations have been from famous or prominent individuals: he can be even more cavalier with quotes and events that are below the radar and impossible to properly verify.

I am reminded of something Albert Einstein once said to me, as we had lunch together at a charming Bistro in Penge. He put down his glass of Merlot, fixed me with his gaze and said: “Anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either”.

* – Brilliantly parodied and dissected by Chris Saul.

** – Links galore as follows: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.

The Federal Ministry

With documents all ready I arrive;

A licence is the thing for which I strive.

I’m sent to wait at counter number three.

I’m visiting the Federal Ministry.

-

I queue with hope still stirring but I find,

Another piece of paper must be signed,

For which another man I have to see.

I’m visiting the Federal Ministry.

-

The man in question proves a tad elusive:

His desk sat in a corner most reclusive.

He looks me up and down quite critically:

I’m visiting the Federal Ministry.

-

His manner cannot be described as warm,

Eventually he deigns to sign my form,

For this I must agree to pay a fee.

I’m visiting the Federal Ministry.

-

The cashier’s desk is where I must go next.

So off I slowly trudge a trifle vexed.

This is no place to find efficiency.

I’m visiting the Federal Ministry.

-

Apparently a stamp is also needed;

Had I really thought that I’d succeeded?

A slave to bureaucratic tyranny -

I’m visiting the Federal Ministry.

-

I’m told to visit counter number two:

Forced to join another lengthy queue.

The clerk is playing with his Blackberry.

I’m visiting the Federal Ministry.

-

The line is one of crushed and broken spirits

Our patience has been pushed beyond its limits.

We’re baffled by this strange reality.

I’m visiting the Federal Ministry.

-

Bureaucracy at last begins to work

I quickly grab the licence from the clerk

I cling to shreds of tattered dignity

I’m exiting the Federal Ministry.

Rubberneckers

Rubberneckers

I

There’s gridlock where the traffic freely flowed

The cause: an idle hubcap by the road

A clear non-event; completely mundane

That yet still causes necks to crane

 II

Whether prang or crash or minor collision

These ghoulish spectators earn our derision

Beguiled and entranced by an accident

To them each smash is heaven-sent

 III

They take their own sweet time to gaze their fill

The shards of Perspex form their daily thrill

They slow to idly gawp and watch and stare

Frustrating all around them without care

 IV

A rear-ended Kia; a Mercedes now smashed;

A Volvo whose front has been horribly bashed;

A Lancer now broken in multiple pieces:

Their morbid interest, it never ceases

 V

Of chaotic scenes they seem not to tire

They thrill with delight when a car catches fire

The daily commute thus grinds to a halt

Do they not realise that they are at fault?

 VI

Their gruesome obsession is hard to bear

Since when did courtesy become so rare?

Is there no other way to show my scorn,

Apart from the sounding of my horn?

The Libya Security Council Resolution

 

“Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted all other possibilities.”

– Winston Churchill

 

No commentary required for this one…

From ArabianBusiness.com:

British film ‘The King’s Speech’ has seen UAE ticket sales soar 300 percent after its Oscar win, but is still lagging Hollywood blockbuster ‘Big Mamma’s House 3’, film promoters have said.

The movie, starring Colin Firth, made its debut at the 2010 Dubai International Film Festival and has earned $473,784 during its four-week run in the Gulf state.

But despite sweeping the board at the film industry’s most prestigious event, ‘The King’s Speech’ is still being floored in the UAE by a comedy about cross-dressing FBI agents.

‘Big Momma’s House 3’ earned AED1,801,645 ($490,490) in its first week of release and attracted nearly 54,000 admissions, data from promoters Italia Film shows.

By comparison, 45,000 people have bought tickets to see the historical drama in the last month, putting it at No.11 in the UAE box office listings.

But general manager John Chahine said the historical drama had outstripped expectations, after being forecast to achieve a maximum of 15,000 admissions in the UAE.

No independent film has ever exceeded 20,000 ticket sales in the Gulf state, he said.

“Due to the Oscars and Dubai International Film Festival opening coverage, we reached 45,000 admits, which is huge for us. An Oscar movie has never done 150 percent or more than normal prediction… so we are very pleased,” Chahine said.

On an international scale, boxofficemojo.com reports ‘The King’s Speech’ has earned $310.2m worldwide since it release on November 26, 2010.

‘Big Momma’s House 3’ has raked in $51m since its release on February 18.

 

Sounds like fun!

Emirates 24-7 on the delights of nutmeg overdose and a recent edict on the substance:

Taken in high doses, nutmeg can be quite intoxicating. It causes symptoms such as stupor, drowsiness, delirium and sleep.

So similar to a viewing of Eat, Pray, Love?

Other symptoms include a rapid heartbeat, dry mouth, and thirst. Agitation, apprehension, and a sense of impending doom may last about 12 hours, with a sense of unreality persisting for several days.

This pretty accurately describes the sensations I experienced at various points while watching the recent Ashes series.

Its effects are like those of hashish. If it is consumed in large quantities, a person will get ringing in his ears, severe constipation, difficulty urinating, anxiety, stress, suppression of the central nervous system and possibly death.

It’s really quite incredible what some people prefer to normality. I’m glad they haven’t followed Saudi’s example and banned it completely. From what cracked say about it, it sounds as if it is likely to turn any experimental teenager off drugs for life:

Nutmeg, that piquant brown spice you sprinkle on egg nog, is chock full o’ the organic compound myristicin. Eating four to eight teaspoons of ground nutmeg causes mild hallucinations, warmth in the limbs …

The Downside

… dizziness, nausea, cottonmouth, paranoia, difficulty urinating and, the coup de grace, a hangover that feels like God taking a dump on your soul.

Some users compare the nutmeg “high” to a hellish case of the flu. To make things worse, nutmeg consumption is easily the most inconvenient way to get high–its effects kick in five to six hours after ingestion. That’s like having to drink a six-pack at lunch in anticipation of happy hour.

Qatar 2022

Much ink and pixels aplenty have recently been spilled regarding Qatar’s successful World Cup bid. The English media has predictably reacted with outrage that some tiny upstart sheikdom will be hosting a World Cup whereas football won’t be ‘coming home’ in 2018; others have helpfully prepared articles informing the world where exactly the place is and what all the fuss is about.

This is certainly a huge development for Qatar and the Gulf, but winning the bid was just the start of the challenges and there are risks entailed as well as opportunities. The immediately obvious issue is greatly increased scrutiny from the international media, not only of Qatar but the rest of the GCC. Dubai has already learned some painful lessons in this area and has, albeit slowly, taken some steps to improve. Many of the other Gulf countries and cities have managed to stay below the radar but that is going to change: the next 12 years are going to see some determined muckraking going on with regard to everything from political rights and democracy through to ‘carbon footprints’ and conditions for expatriate workers and labourers. There are many people waiting to leap on any difficulties and there are a lot of questions that Qatar needs to answer convincingly. For example, how are they going to deal with the influx of several hundred thousand mainly non-Muslim football fans from around the world? How are they going to deal with the inevitable ‘cultural misunderstandings’ that could ensue? How do they handle the immense security challenges given the relatively small Qatari population? How on earth are they going to live up to their commitment to a ‘carbon-neutral’ World Cup?

On the Dubai Eye Evening show last night there was a brief panel discussion on these potential cultural clashes with reference to Sepp Blatter’s comments on how homosexual visitors should comport themselves in 2022. The panellists predictably stuck to the party line of ‘when in Rome’ and this is a view I would normally have sympathy with; however, it is an argument that is far less convincing when Qatar has actively lobbied so hard to bring the world to their doorstep. You can’t have it all ways – if you want to hold a major global event and essentially invite the world into your country, then the onus lies with Qatar to adapt rather than the rest of the world. If you want to stay culturally, religiously or ideologically ‘pure’ then hosting a World Cup is probably not the path you should be following.

There is no doubt that this is going to affect Qatar’s longer-term economic strategy and development. Some commentators have opined that the vast infrastructure spending will put Doha in a position to replace Dubai as the Gulf’s main metropolis; however, business infrastructure and World Cup infrastructure are not necessarily interchangeable: vast transport investment focused on moving thousands of football fans to stadiums does not necessarily equate to effective transport for more quotidian requirements.

The frenzy of construction over the next decade is likely to make Dubai’s real estate boom look pretty tame. Qatar already had major projects planned and underway but now there is a clear and unavoidable deadline to meet with all the added cost pressure that entails. As someone who experienced the Dubai construction extravaganza, I can say with some confidence that such episodes end up crowding out other economic sectors, distorting cost structures and negatively impacting genuine economic diversification. You simply cannot dump that much money into an economy of that size for construction projects without a spike in business operating costs such as rent and employee compensation. Doha is about to get increasingly expensive at a time when Dubai is actually getting more and more affordable, albeit as part of a painful internal devaluation process. Dubai is in many ways a far nicer place to live right now than it was 3 or 4 years ago: the nightmarish traffic has somewhat dissipated, the ludicrous rents have fallen, and most of the asinine and vulgar real-estate carpet-baggers who moved here en masse have thankfully returned to whatever ooze they crawled out of. Doha, on the other hand, is about to get a nice helping of all this nonsense: there will be a lot of money to be made there of course in certain sectors, but it will not be based on long-term sustainable business in the most part. Construction booms can very quickly prove to be ephemeral, particularly if they end up crowding out the development of other economic sectors.

The other issue is the extent to which Qatar really wants to follow the ‘Dubai’ route. People sometimes wonder why Dubai, with its relatively small oil reserves, was able to become such a significant and cosmopolitan city. My theory is that Dubai actually had just the right amount of oil – enough to help get infrastructure development off the ground without allowing them to get too complacent or comfortable – in combination with a more commercial and outward-looking view of the world due to its historical role as a trading port. The question I often ask about Qatar and Abu Dhabi is whether they really have the stomach for the changes and cultural compromises inherent in following the Dubai path and becoming an international as opposed to an Arab city. With such vast oil wealth there is no certainly no compelling or pressing economic necessity for them to do so, and I therefore wonder whether they will be quite content with focusing on selected glamour projects such as the F1 and Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi, and the World Cup in Qatar. I could be completely wrong here of course: by 2025 Dubai could be relegated to a relative backwater in a Gulf centred on a Doha/Abu Dhabi axis; however, I’m still not convinced that this will be the case.

There is another element to all this; given the ‘friendly’ competition between the various GCC countries, would anyone be surprised by a 2020 Olympics bid from Abu Dhabi? Or perhaps even Dubai if they can get their finances in order in time or can form a joint bid with Abu Dhabi? Now that would make things interesting…

 

Latest from The Guardian on ‘The Cuts’

Punches were thrown around the Cabinet table yesterday after a heated argument between the education secretary, Michael Gove, and the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, over the brutal and sadistic decision to reduce vitally important investment in something that stops puppies from dying, tastes like raspberries and makes children smile. Critics say that these are the most shocking and unjust cuts since the last ones.

The mostly male Cabinet of  privately-educated millionaires looked on in shock as their two privately-educated and wealthy colleagues began pelting one another with gold coins before briefly trading blows. William Hague used his diplomatic and judo skills to break up the pseudo-aristocrat and upper-middle class combatants, who both promptly swept out of Downing Street into their respective ministerial sedan chairs.

The decision to stop confiscating money from people under threat of imprisonment in order to pay for this very important thing has caused shock and dismay amongst those who benefit from the subsidy as well as several politicians who keep their heads up their bottoms. In a shocking development, those who earn a living from this very important thing are simply unable to comprehend the reasoning behind the decision, particularly as no-one ever should ever be allowed to lose their job.

This change in policy threatens to destroy all the incredible good things created in the golden era of 1997 – 2009, when nothing bad ever happened and the world smelled of freshly-baked gingerbread. Critics say that without continued public spending on this good thing and constant government intervention, people will just fecklessly lie motionless in gutters, grow fat eating litter and wallow in their own filth before inevitably dying from a heroin overdose.

A spokesman for one group with a vested interest said there was a belief that “we might as well just shoot the children now, as a form of mercy killing”. Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers described it as the “clearest U-turn since Neville Chamberlain declared war on Germany”, stating that she “had never changed her opinion on anything in her life” and expected her politicians to be equally blinkered and doctrinaire in the face of reality.

Sources close to Gove said the education secretary believed the good thing was not actually a good thing at all and was bureaucratic and wasteful. The claims were immediately and unthinkingly dismissed as “mean” and “nasty” by critics. Tragically, Polly Toynbee was so filled by sanctimonious outrage that she actually exploded, leaving only a fine red mist of hypocrisy and foolishness wafting through the Guardian offices.

There will be a savage human cost to the end of this good thing. Mary Allen, a 27-year-old good thing worker who now faces a cruel and uncertain future, may have no choice but to sell one of her kidneys and turn to prostitution to pay the rent on her disease-ridden hovel – satisfying the darkest fantasies of depraved perverts just to afford a Tesco Value Meal and stave off the workhouse. “I think it is outrageous what the government has done. I don’t understand why they don’t use some of the money that falls from the sky, or pay for the good thing with the power of dreams. Don’t they realise that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown invented good things in 1997?”

Ed Miliband urged voters to turn back to Labour to ensure that no difficult or unpopular decisions ever have to be made again.

 

(* and *)

The long winter evenings must just fly by…

The excitement is building to fever pitch in the UAE’s Western Region:

An Emirati camel from the Assile category was crowned as the camel that yields the most milk in the Hallaba competition organised prior to Al Dhafra Festival, which will kick off on December 16 in Madinat Zayed in Al Gharbia (the Western Region).

The festival is organised by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (Adach) under the patronage of General Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces. The Hallaba competition started on Saturday and will conclude today.

The camel named Deri’a and owned by Emirati Obaid Naseeb Atiq Al Subousi, came in the first place with 11.7kg of milk. It competed against Omani, Saudi and Yemani camels.

The camel Hamra, owned by Omani Mubarak Mohammad Bakheit Al Sha’sha’I, yielded 11.353kg milk and was runner up. Camel Bin Dhaiban, owned by Emirati Salih Marzouq Al Ameri giving 11.485kg milk, was third.

This action-packed and thrilling event was only a foretaste of the hijinks and merriment still to come at the Al Dhafra Festival, “a celebration of the camel and its role in the life of the people of the region … centred on the Camel Beauty contest”.

(Incidentally, can anyone explain why the third-place camel produced more milk than the second-placed one?)