Ramadan Road Rage

Dubai police reported that there were 250 traffic accidents on the first day of Ramadan. Two of them were very serious. They reported that most of them happened between 2:30 PM and 7:30 PM. The root cause given was people driving badly when they were in a hurry to get their feed on at their Iftar meal.

Meanwhile, over in Germany, a group of Arab migrants burned down their asylum center because the Iranian guards didn't wake them up before dawn and they didn't get to eat before the Ramadan fast began at sunrise. (and in case you weren't aware, Arabs do NOT like Iranians, or as they call them, Persians)

Seems to me that this whole Ramadan fasting thing should be taken into tactical consideration. Will Allah (PBOH) allow you to skip the fast if you are on jihad?

Finally, Saudi Arabia is reported to be considering an income tax on expats. Since most expats choose to work in the Kingdom to avoid taxes, this would seem to be counter productive. It's the expats that make sure the trains run on time over there. I expect many squirrels will change trees if that happens and the KSA will have trouble filling key positions with people who know what they are doing.

Get High

Abseiling is a procedure that uses ropes to put a workman in an otherwise inaccessible place. The video below is an abseil at Burj Kalifa, the highest building in the world. The location is on the mast at the very top of the building. The job was to seal several light fixtures located in the mast. Unlike Hollywood, there is no stunt man and no FX camera tricks. The fall is over 800 meters. You do the math.

10 minutes of work but years of preparation.

Head Count

Five murderers and two drug dealers had their bodies separated from their heads last month in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It appears that they have cleared out their backlog of criminals deserving of the sword and are back to single digit execution numbers. The year to date total is now 92.

In other, less lethal, news....in the United Arab Emirates, a female American tourist was found not guilty of insulting the country and allowed to leave the country. She was arrested back in February after she had a confrontation with some locals at the airport. They can do that in countries with Sharia law.

In similar news, a former Miss Turkey was given a 14 month suspended sentence for insulting President Erdogan. You see how important that First Amendment is? When was the last time you cursed our President?

And also this week, the courts in Dubai sentenced American businessman Zack Shahin of financial impropriety and sentenced him to 15 years. He was CEO of the development company Deyaar. He was first arrested back in 2008. He was let out on bail and tried to flee the Emirates but was caught and was extradited.  Being a foreign business executive there can be a dangerous job.

News from the Emirates

The Abu Dhabi newspaper, The National, reports that an American woman went on trial for insulting the country and its leadership. She was jailed in February and will be sentenced in May. That's about 3 months for doing something - cursing the country and it's leader - that we do almost daily. Do not take the 1st Amendment for granted. Saying something as simple as "I hate this F'n place and the stupid people that run it" can land you behind bars in the liberal, westernized United Arab Emirates. You see, it's against the law to insult the sheikh, and since the sheikh is responsible for everything, insulting anything is an insult against the sheikh.

I'd be in jail for life if they could arrest me for cursing the president.

Dubai Fire Update

Below is a time lapse video of the Address Hotel fire in Dubai on New Years Eve.
 

Note the falling debris that may have started secondary fires in the neighborhood.

The root cause of the fire has not been published but the fire was focused on the aluminum panels on the facade of the building. The panels are a lightweight composite of polyurethane with aluminium cladding. They are NOT fire rated! In fact, Dubai did not start requiring fire rated panels until 2012. They were manufactured in a neighboring emirate and some 250 buildings are thought to have non-fire rated panels.

The architect for the building is large international firm. It is astounding to me that they allowed non fire rated panel in their design. I suspect they were approved without the firms knowledge.

This news is just starting to leak out but restrictions on UAE journalists make publicizing this information a career limiting action.

Dubai Follow Up

Back before Christmas I posted about the plight of Shezanne Cassim, a young American film maker who was imprisoned in Dubai for making a short film deemed embarrassing to Dubai. I can now report that after 9 months in jail, he has been released and will return home to Minnesota.

The United Arab Emirates promotes itself as a modern, progressive country that is open for tourism but if you scratch the surface, you find that the country is actually run as a dictatorship. The country has antiquated laws. For example, there is no bankruptcy. If you default on a loan, you can go to jail. That's why there are hundreds of expensive automobiles that are abandoned at the airport. Their owners have fled the country to avoid prison. If you do a little digging, you can find stories about western businessmen that have been held responsible for the failure of UAE companies they were hired to manage and they either are stuck in country awaiting trial or have fled. There are numerous stories about tourists that have been jailed for public displays of personal affection. And Dubai has very strict drug laws where having prescription codeine can land you in jail.

The other part of the story is that the US government will do little to help you if you run afoul of the law. The most they will do is to recommend a local lawyer. You will be on your own. Shezanne served his full sentence of 9 months and still doesn't know what he did.

The Emirates and Freedom of Speech

When I worked in Dubai I became aware of some of their laws regarding freedom of speech. Basically, if you say anything bad about the Sheik, you can be arrested. And that includes bad satire. Now we have the case of an American that has been convicted and sentenced to serve one year in a Dubai jail for making a video that the government said violated their cyber security laws. It is supposed to be a tongue in cheek representation of urban ganstas in an area of Dubai known as Satwa. Satwa is primarily an area that contains Indian and Pakistani businesses and is the center of the knock off stores.
Shez Cassim from Minnesota was the film maker. Here is the video in question. Do you think it is worth a year in jail?



If you travel, be aware that other countries have different levels of tolerance for criticism and that if you run afoul of their laws, the US will not help you unless you can generate a lot of publicity.

News from Dubai

A Norwegian woman has been pardoned and allowed to exit the country. Her crime? She was raped.

Yes, the 24 year old interior designer was raped by a co-worker but when she reported the crime to police, she was arrested for "having sex outside the marriage". She was detained and sentenced to 16 months but she was able to get a call home and her parents alerted the embassy. Since the publicity was not going to look good for the Emirate, and because it was Ramadan, she was pardoned.

This, folks, is a simple example of how Islam treats women.

Ramadan Mubarak

Ramadan starts today.

And just to make sure that you are all sufficiently warned, Gulf News in Dubai has been publishing warnings about eating and drinking in public during daylight. You can get one month in Dubai jail for commiting such an offense to Allah (PBOH). Such is life in the progressive, western friendly Emirates.

Another Dubai Jail Story

The Times Picayune had this news about a local man who had been held in a Dubai jail for 4 years.

It started with vague threats and harassment, Lionel Lombard Jr. says. Then he noticed he was being followed. At night, as he walked around the small lake in his neighborhood, men would jump out of bushes to scare him. Things began to escalate when he was refused entry to the United Arab Emirates community where he was living and working. Lombard challenged the denial, only to see the harassment intensify.

That was only the beginning of a four-year battle for freedom that the New Orleanian living in Dubai outlined in a lawsuit he filed in California this month against the owner of the property he used to call home.

Lombard, a public relations consultant, complained about the way his landlord, Emaar Properties, would go to keep him silent.

What began as intimidation culminated in what he claims were bogus criminal charges resulting in two years of imprisonment and torture.

In an e-mail message to the Reuters news agency, Emaar said simply: "The allegations are baseless and the company does not wish to comment."

Lombard said his troubles started when he was falsely accused of making a suggestive hand gesture to a woman. He was jailed for three months. When a friend bailed him out, the friend was told Lombard was not an American. Lombard said he was frequently mocked because of his race: "You are not an American, you are black," people said.

When he was released, he had lost his job and had been blacklisted from being able to find a new job, he said. He was also banned from leaving the country. Then he was evicted and denied access to his house, he alleges in the lawsuit.

When he went to the U.S. Embassy to seek assistance, his home was ransacked. The locks were changed. He relocated to neighboring Abu Dhabi.

For the next year and a half, Lombard attempted to move on. He began to promote a new fashion label. ""I put it behind me and moved forward," he said. "That's how I am."

In May 2008, he went to meet with a potential investor. At the meeting, members of the Emirati Criminal Investigative Department approached him and told him he was wanted in Dubai.He was taken to the police station, where he was arrested in relation to a "financial dispute."

his lawsuit says he was shackled at the hands and the ankles for six days. During that time, he was harassed constantly and kept from sleeping, he alleges.

He remained behind bars for 20 months, according to the suit.

The U.S Embassy had a difficult time determining what the charges against him were. When Lombard tried to obtain a jail certificate, he describes being "savagely beaten by six policemen."

Dubai Deputy Police Chief Khamis al-Mazeina told Reuters the allegations about Lombard's treatment were untrue.
"We strongly deny those accusations. Dubai police does not torture anybody .... This is all a figment of his imagination and entirely baseless."

On Feb. 3, 2010, all charges were dropped and Lombard was allowed to return home to New Orleans. The exact chain of events and parties involved in his release remain a mystery.

By filing a lawsuit and writing a book about his experiences, Lombard said he hopes to bring attention not only to the mistreatment by Emaar of its employees, but also to the practice of holding foreigners without evidence.

"It goes beyond greed," he said. "Everyone knows what is going on but turns a blind eye. I refuse to turn a blind eye. I stood up to them even though a lot of people said, 'You will get yourself killed.'"

Some people may think this story is far fetched. As someone who has lived in Dubai for an extended period of time, I find it perfectly credible. One of the first things you learn in Dubai is that it is against the law to say anything negative about the Sheikh or his family. I know that sounds outrageous but it is true. The second thing you learn is that the Sheikh owns everything in Dubai. He is, after all, the Sheikh. Therefore, if you say something negative about any institution in Dubai, you are saying it about the Sheikh and you are breaking the law.

The news is full of people who have been jailed in Dubai for infractions we in the west find ridiculous - making out on the beach, giving someone the finger, drinking too much or having cold medicine in your baggage. And there are also stories about businessmen who unknowingly found themselves on the wrong side of a financial transaction.

The bottom line is that the laws there are much different and your status as an American is meaningless. And Dubai, for all their public relations, is not the free and open society they appear to be.

Commutes

I was driving to the office the other morning when I realized that my daily commute was rather unique. I cross the Mississippi River on the Crescent City Connection,the 5th most travelled travelled bridge in the country. After I park, I have a short walk to the New Orleans Street Car, the oldest public transportation system in the country and a national historical landmark. That got me to thinking about other commutes I have taken.

I once had a temporary assignment that caused me take the ferry across the Mississippi River just south of English Turn. I would usually be on the ferry right at sunrise. With the city obscured by the bend in the river, all you could see of the opposite shore was trees. It was easy to imagine how the area might have looked to Bienville.

In London, I would catch the tube from Paddington Station to Kensington High Street. I would then transfer to a bus to complete my trip to Hammersmith. The best part was the return trip where my bus leg was usually on one of the historic Routemasters. There was something magical about riding that old bus during the Christmas season when London has its street light displays in evidence.

In Hiroshima, my main transportation was a motorcycle. I would drive a route that had me taking a left turn off the famous T bridge aiming point, travelling past the A Bomb Dome and Peace Park and on to Mitsubishi's shipyard.

In Lagos, we would all board a company bus. A chase car with armed guards would follow us. We would make a short drive to a boat dock where we caught a boat for a run down the river to Snake Island, where we were renting office space. The river was the safest route as you could avoid any hijackings that occur on the roads. Sights along the way might include the odd dead body.

In Dubai, my commute took me on the Sheik Zayed Road and past such landmarks as Ski Dubai, the indoor ski slope, and Burj Al Arab, the only 7 star hotel in the world and Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world. But the traffic was the fastest and most dangerous I have driven in.

In Paris, I would catch the RER from the stop near the Eiffel Tower and ride it to Versailles. (Not the palace but across the river from it).

And occasionally I would have to commute by helicopter to an offshore platform.

THAAD and Citi

There is an interesting news item out of Dubai. It is all over the Middle East news organizations but it is very difficult to find any mention of it on CNN, Fox or the US media.

The US is planning to sell a new missile defense system, called Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, to Dubai. The cost is about $7 billion. The story in Gulf News is here.

This system will be different from other missile defense system installed in foreign countries in that it will not be manned and operated by US soldiers. It will be sold outright to the United Arab Emirates and operated by them. This essentially places classified technology in the hands of a foreign nation. A nation, that although it is friendly to the US and an ally in the war on terror, has a steady stream of dhows sailing between Dubai and Iran with almost no customs control. Can you say “smugglers paradise”?

The stated objective of the missile defense system is to protect UAE assets, but it’s difficult to figure out just what those assets are. Their oil reserves are in decline. That’s why they have embarked on the mega building campaign. They need to replace the money from the sale of oil with other commerce. The “Navy Base” is only a concrete dock and few trailers. Is it needed to protect the world’s tallest building and the world’s biggest shopping mall?

My guess is that it is placed there to protect other GCC (Gulf Cooperative Council) countries such as Qatar and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which do have large energy assets and would be embarrassed by the need to have US military installations within their borders.

Oh, yeah. Your Congress Critters approved this. Do you remember seeing that news?

And in other news that you won’t see in the US media; Citibank has loaned Dubai about $8 billion dollars. Yup, the bank that was just bailed out with $45 billion is loaning money to one of the richest little countries in the world. With Abu Dhabi Investment Authority owning 4.9% of Citi and a Saudi Prince owning 5%, doesn’t this loan have a little odor to it? Especially given the recent concern about property investments in the UAE.

Dubai Builds Worlds Biggest Cess Pit

The Gulf News brings us a story of the solution to illegal dumping by vacuum truck operators. It seems that the truck drivers have been dumping their loads in storm drains becasue they didn't want to wait in line to unload at the sewage treatment plant. This has had a negative impact on the beaches in the expensive areas of Jumeirah Beach and the Duabi Marina where the brown turdfish have been found swimming free.

The solution is to dig a giant pit in the desert. The pit will serve 500 trucks per day. We are told that: "This is what mother nature does over the long term... some of the water will seep into the ground and some will evaporate. The lagoon will have four areas and eventually the water will get clearer," Najim told Gulf News. He said this technology is commonly used in countries that cannot afford proper facilities or infrastructure.

See, its all perfectly natural and "the site would be aerated naturally with only preliminary treatment. Reeds and bamboo will also be planted there to transfer oxygen to the sewage and help break it down." And, not to worry, "it is not just a hole in the desert, it has been engineered."