Israel and UAE Women

I read this excellent article in The National the other day:

Don’t lecture UAE on women, Israel told

Mahmoud Habboush

* Last Updated: March 29. 2010 1:15AM UAE / March 28. 2010 9:15PM GMT

BANGKOK // An Israeli politician got more than he bargained for when he said UAE leaders should be talking about women’s rights in the country instead of lobbying against Israel’s actions in East Jerusalem.

Majalli Wahabi, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, was reminded by a female UAE official that according to UN data, the Emirates rank higher on the empowerment of women than his country.

Mr Wahabi spoke shortly after Abdul Aziz al Ghurair, Speaker of the FNC, addressed the annual meeting of the International Parliamentary Union meeting in the Thai capital.

Just before the meeting concluded, Amal al Qubaisi, the FNC’s only elected woman member, took the podium.

“Jerusalem is home to 220 historical sites with symbolic value not only to Islam but also to international heritage,” said Dr al Qubaisi, who wrote her doctorate dissertation on the preservation of architectural heritage.

She said Israeli practices in Jerusalem contravened the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the destruction of cultural heritage by occupying powers in territories under their control.

As for women’s rights, Dr al Qubaisi noted the Emirates ranked 17th in the world for women empowerment, while Israel was 24th, according to the UN’s Human Development Report 2009.

She added that women occupy 23 per cent of the FNC’s seats, eight per cent of Cabinet positions, 33 per cent of leadership positions and 66 per cent of public positions.

“Women are empowered in the UAE at all political, social and economic levels,” Dr al Qubaisi said.

Her remarks were greeted with applause by many of the representatives of the 131 parliaments attending the conference.

The Israeli official had criticised the UAE’s insistence that Israeli actions in East Jerusalem be included on the meeting’s emergency agenda, saying that earthquake relief in Haiti was a more pressing matter.

“The Israeli practices in Jerusalem are not only a breach of Palestinian Arabs rights, but a violation and a threat to the feelings of Muslims around the world,” Mr al Ghurair said in his speech.

The Israeli government announced earlier this month plans to build 1,600 Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem while the US vice president, Joe Biden, was visiting Israel, triggering a rare row between the Jewish state and the US.

“I request the formation of an international parliamentary committee to look at what is happening in Jerusalem and report to the union’s conference next year,” Mr al Ghurair said.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, warned on Saturday at the opening of the Arab League’s summit in Libya that the peace process was unlikely to move forward “as long as Israel maintains its settlement policy”.

Islamic and Arab states have repeatedly criticised Israel’s excavation works outside the Al Aqsa mosque. Many Palestinians believe that Israeli extremists want to destroy the mosque to rebuild the ancient Solomon’s Temple in its place.

Mr al Ghurair said that changing the Islamic features of Jerusalem “is an unambiguous violation of the international treaty signed by all countries with regard to protecting the cultural and natural heritage of humanity”.

“We, the Arabs, have tentatively listened to the calls by the international community for peace with Israel,” said Mr al Ghurair.

“And the Arab leaders have held on to the Arab peace initiative throughout their meetings and resolutions, but our calls have been ignored.”


mhabboush@thenational.ae http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100329/NATIONAL/703289866/1186/enewsletter

Also.. this video clip is EXCELLENT.. I suggest you view it.. another excellent piece of work by Dr Norman Finkelstein.
http://www.who-sane.com/2010/03/dr-norman-finkelstein-2/

Emirates or Etihad?

Do you remember this piece of news a few weeks back?

Emirates, the Dubai government-owned airline, said the logo of Gulf rival Etihad Airways appeared on its in-flight entertainment system due to a “technical error.”

The branding of Etihad, owned by Dubai’s neighbour Abu Dhabi, was shown intermittently in the background of a film playing during Emirates flights last month.

source

Well, seems the tides have turned!

Or maybe it's just me.

Click here: http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100320/TRAVEL/100315941/1188/enewsletter



And in more detail...



What do you think? Or do I just have too much time on my hands this beautiful Saturday morning?

The complexities of residency deserve debate

The complexities of residency deserve debate

From The National: http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100216/OPINION/702159913/1080/NATIONAL

Peter Hellyer

* Last Updated: February 15. 2010 10:42PM UAE / February 15. 2010 6:42PM GMT

I read Sultan Al Qassemi’s column this week, where he suggests that “some” long-term expatriate residents should be given permanent residency status, with interest. It’s now 35 years since I first came to Abu Dhabi; if I can, I would like to spend more time here. I don’t have nightmares about being obliged to leave, but I do wonder how I would occupy myself if I moved to my house in Jersey, which has never been anything more than a holiday home for me, though I love it dearly.

Sultan’s suggestion, by the way, isn’t new. More than 20 years ago, a prominent Emirati businessman wrote a pamphlet that said much of the same, though it provoked little debate.

Sultan is absolutely right to stress that any creation of a permanent residency status for long-term expatriates, should not, and cannot, have any implications with regards to citizenship. If citizenship were granted more easily (albeit on the basis of individual approval by Government) to people who have been here for 25 years or more, a situation would rapidly arise where a large percentage of UAE citizens were of origins utterly unrelated to the country and its Muslim, Arab and Gulf heritage.

It’s hard enough, as it is, to preserve the special characteristics of the country without the introduction of a programme that would, in effect, mean that the people of the Emirates – the Emiratis – were giving it away. As we can see from Fiji, where citizens of Indian descent account for nearly 40 per cent of the population, in that direction lies a host of political, social and cultural problems.

It would be difficult, too, to extend the possibility – not the right – of long-term residency to the children of any long-term expatriates, particularly those born here or who have lived most or all of their lives here, though I appreciate the problems that many face in deciding where they actually belong.

In a piece last August another columnist for the paper, HA Hellyer, (who, as many readers may know, is my son, born in Abu Dhabi just over 30 years ago), wrote: “No child born to immigrants in the UAE ever says: ‘I am an Emirati’ – it is just not part of how people respond to the question of nationality. Children always refer to the country of their parents, even if they have been born and brought up in the UAE. So did my friend – until he went away to university. There, for the first time, he began to develop a sense of belonging to the UAE: not at the expense of his other identities, but in addition to them. One day, a new Emirati student at his university asked him: ‘Where are you from?’, and for the first time he replied: ‘I am from Abu Dhabi.’”

That’s a phrase I’ve used myself. I would never call myself an Emirati, but, after 35 years, I am certainly from Abu Dhabi, in a real, if not a complete, way, albeit happy to remain British as well, not just in terms of my citizenship but also in my own assessment of my identity, though I frequently tell younger Emiratis that I have lived here longer than they have, since I arrived before they were born. I know, perhaps, more Emirati history and geography than they do, though I know less of the traditions and, of course, the language.

I am pretty satisfied with the balance of being, in effect, both British and from Abu Dhabi. I can’t imagine being obliged to sacrifice either. Thus the issue of whether there should be a formal framework to allow some long-term expatriates to stay here is not merely, for me, an academic issue.

It is, though, enormously complex.

Some expatriates spend decades here, earning a living and raising their children without ever knowing the country itself. They do so almost entirely within a bubble, relating primarily to the expatriate community or communities, but without engaging with the Emirates and with Emiratis. They are among those mentioned by Mr Al Qassimi who, because of their age, face the problem of no longer being able to obtain residence visas.

There are others, including friends of mine, well past the age of retirement, who have identified in a more meaningful way with the country and who, because of the relationships they have developed over decades, continue to have visas, provided through the businesses they have created or through the good offices of Emirati friends that they have made.

Most of the expatriates who have spent much of their lives here are currently obliged to leave at 60 or thereabouts, taking with them not only their knowledge of the country but also the savings they have made. That is a matter of economic concern.

Policy makers, however, particularly those in the UAE with its enormous demographic imbalance between citizens and others, need to consider social issues too. What will be the nature of the state that will emerge in the future? What can those residents with any degree of permanency contribute to it?

Most new arrivals to the UAE do not emigrate here – as people emigrate from Britain to Australia or from India to Canada. They do not uproot themselves from their country of origin to put down roots in a new country. Some, a few, eventually do, but for many it’s always a temporary process, however long it lasts. Their hearts remain at home.

I would welcome a debate, between both Emiratis and expatriates, about the matters raised by Sultan Al Qassemi in his recent column. My own view is that there are many other aspects besides the length of time spent here that need to be taken into account in determining whether it is beneficial for the country to develop a formal framework that would permit long-term residents the right to stay for the rest of their lives.

Peter Hellyer is a writer and consultant who specialises in Emirati culture and heritage

Just a word about the economic decline of Britain

As you probably gathered, I am a big fan of the Abu Dhabi-based newspaper, The National.

Here is another brilliant article by them, written by Frank Kane.

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091208/BUSINESS/712089946/1058&template=columnists


* Last Updated: December 08. 2009 7:08PM UAE / December 8. 2009 3:08PM GMT

I know The Economist is not everyone’s idea of a fun read, but from time to time it really does have the right stuff. “Standing still, but still standing,” was a brilliant headline in that publication the week the Dubai World story broke.

Last weekend it did it again for me by introducing me to the Arabic concept of “shamata”, which I had never encountered in my time here in the Middle East. It translates roughly the same as schadenfreude, the German word for “taking joy at another’s pain”. Why does English not have a simple one-word term for this exquisite sensation, rightly identified by Germans and Arabs as worthy of its own individual place in the dictionary?

In that vein, here is my own little burst of “shamata”. The UK chancellor of the exchequer, Alistair Darling, will today unveil his pre-budget review to the House of Commons. It is universally expected to be the most gloomy, pessimistic and downright spiteful bit of economic policymaking to come out of Britain in many a year.

The economic background is truly awful. The UK, with its overwhelming dependence on the twin pillars of property and financial services, was the worst affected of any of the big industrial nations by the credit crisis. It is still mired in recession while the US, France and Germany have pulled out.

The precise statistical evidence of Britain’s decline is well known and I do not propose to rehash the dry numerical evidence here. Soaring government, corporate and personal debt, falling property prices, rising unemployment, declining currency, shrinking exports … I could go on, but will not.

Instead, it will take just three “freakonomic” facts to illustrate the extent of the UK financial morass.

One: The Bank of England (BoE) has noticed a sharp rise in demand for £50 (Dh301) notes. Since the Lehman Brothers collapse last year, and throughout this year, the British public has been clamouring for the big pink-brown bills with a picture of Sir John Houblon, the first BoE governor, on the reverse side of the image of Her Majesty.

Conclusion: Britons have lost faith in the reliability of their banking system, once the envy of the world, and are hoarding the £50s, stuffing them in the safe or mattress to keep them from being blown by their bankers in some ill-judged investment in trashy US mortgages.

Two: Britain may lose its place among the 10 largest economies in the world by 2015. The Centre for Economics and Business Research says there is a distinct chance that in just six years Britain, fourth in 2005, will have been overtaken by China, France, Italy, Brazil, Russia and India.

Conclusion: The credit crisis will prove to be the decisive stage in a process of economic decline that has been inexorable since the end of the Second World War. The UK will be the main casualty of the shift of economic power towards Asia.

Three: HSBC, the big global bank that began life in Hong Kong and Shanghai and is returning to its Chinese roots, estimates that 85 per cent of UK property loans made over the past five years are in breach of their lending agreements.

Conclusion: The British property sector, the national totem of financial and psychological security since time immemorial, is, for the foreseeable future, bust. It cannot be the dynamo of economic recovery in the country.

I doubt that Mr Darling will raise any of these “facts” in his speech. Instead, he will announce a ferocious increase in income taxes to an eye-watering 50 per cent of earnings. He will include some equally draconian measures against bonuses for financial services executives in what has become known in the British press as “banker bashing”.

He has to raise more money to pay for the huge bailout packages to the banks he took over last year to avert a total collapse of the UK financial system. He also has to bash bankers because it is about the only popular thing he can come up with in a pre-election period. By all sensible prognoses his boss, the prime minister Gordon Brown, has only six months left at 10 Downing Street.

I had dinner in Dubai this week with an old media pal from the UK, a household name in press and TV and as staunchly British as they come. Over a glass he said gloomily: “I’m going to have to get out if they put tax up to 50p. I pay enough already and then on top of that I have to pay 17.5 per cent in sales tax whenever I buy something.

“It’s intolerable. Now, just when do you think the recovery will kick in here?”

Call it schadenfreude, call it shamata. Even revenge. Whichever, it feels great.

fkane@thenational.ae

Trainee Traders

Shaikha Khamis, a student at the Zabeel Secondary School for Girls, had never invested in stocks and shares before, but in her first two weeks of trading she bagged an impressive profit of Dh107,481 (US$29,262).

That represents a return of about 10 per cent on her original investment of Dh1 million, and is the kind of performance that would have experienced fund managers and traders hugging themselves with glee. Not bad for a 20-year-old.

It was impressive enough to win this year’s Summer Stock Game, run by the Dubai Financial Market (DFM), during two weeks earlier this summer.

What fantastic work for these young Emirati women! I wish them all the luck! Luckily, being so young, they have time on their side! Mashalla.

From:

The National 19.09.2009

Emarati Blogosphere

It's delightful to be mentioned in The National on 31/Aug/2009. The printed edition is beautiful, but the online edition is available below and written by Ed Lake:

Blogosphere of influence

If you want something slightly shorter and with a bit of a kick, please have a look at Tom Gara's blog post below:

http://blogs.thenational.ae/beep_beep/2009/08/the-emirati-blogosphere.html

If The National is prepared to cover Arab blogs more regularly then they should look at the blogs by ABIT, Moryarti, DJ, GrapeShisha, etc to name but a few. There are many other amazing ones out there, but sadly they do not blog anymore.

A final word. About this twitter thing. I think it's a lovely new technology, but twitter is no match to blogger because you can make your blog posts 140 characters long if you want. You can follow people through google connect or reader and it's much more customisable. It's just that twitter is dumbed down a bit more so it appeals to those who would like things to be simple, and I can understand that. However the reason why I stick to this blog is because of comments. I'm not here to write as much as I am here to listen to your opinions and to debate in a constructive manner. I am also happy to provide a platform for those with strong views on anything to voice them on the relevant posts that I write on. You can even suggest a new topic if you feel I should cover it. It's all about the readers and less about me.

Happy reading and thanks for all the support.