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If you don't want to or can't read the article (Kid? Rudeboy?) you can watch the video.

FYI: Derek Khan is an ex-convict. He served time in jail in the US for theft. As a top designer he was given jewelry by the big jewelry houses to be used on models for shows and he was caught pawning them. His green card was revoked and he is not allowed back into the US.

http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2009/s2841143.htm

No sooner had the spire been fixed to the world’s tallest building than an almighty shiver went through the sprawling super-city below. What? Could it be possible that this glittering celebration of wealth, this ultimate gathering place of the world’s well-heeled had , er, money problems?

Sure it could.

In fact it’s surprising it hadn’t happened earlier when the rest of the world was reeling from the Global Financial Crisis. Because if there’s one thing Dubai relies on for its audacious growth and dizzying plans – it’s the rest of the world.

Oh, and as we’ll see in our story, the largesse of neighbours.

Cashed-up Europeans bought luxurious villas, global celebrities bought sandy islands shaped like countries and international businesses and an army of expatriate executives set up shop. This was a place where 5 stars were frankly slumming it, so they bolted another and another to marble edifices everywhere.

Then just as everyone was getting comfy in their Gucci loafers, Hermes scarves and crispy-cool air-conditioning - the unthinkable! One of the Emirate city’s biggest operations Dubai World was billions of dollars down the hole. Confidence was rocked and fears grew that Dubai would sink into its setting as if the desert were quicksand.

At the last minute a wealthy neighbour rode over the sand-dunes with a bag of money.

Dubai would be propped like the scaffold-covered buildings now looking pretty vacant all over town. But can it recover? Will it be able to win back the hopes, dreams and investments from the rest of the world?

Foreign Correspondent’s Eric Campbell travels to Dubai to survey the fall-out, check the financial pulse and to see if there is much chance of a bright future for the City Of Dreams.

He discovers expat-business people trapped by growing debt or snared by the Emirate’s draconian laws. Some like French submarine builder Herve Jaubert beat a hasty escape before the authorities could catch up with him. Others, like Australian executives Matt Joyce and Marcus Lee, are stuck in Dubai accused of impropriety while the wheels of justice barely move.

Shame the city’s legal system wasn’t quite as brand-spanking as the glass towers or the Lamborghinis and Ferraris in the shopping-centre car parks and that it didn’t seem to favour powerful locals quite as much as it appears.
__________________________________

Transcript

CAMPBELL: It was once an outpost of camels and nomads. Now, the ships of the desert come with fuel-injected four-wheel drives. The desert has become a weekend diversion for these sons of nomads. In just one generation, they’ve turned a wasteland into an international trading hub. Beyond the sand dunes is a city unlike anything the Middle East has ever seen.

RASHID AL HABTOOR: We are a unique experience. We have mixed the orient, the west and the Arabic civilisation altogether in one formula to produce something that we call Dubai. We do not have the pyramids, we do not have the Taj Mahal, we do not have the Petra of Jordan, but in our unique way we have created a new formula.

CAMPBELL: Part of that formula is being an oasis of hedonism in the Arab world. Dubai is a state of the conservative Islamic country, the United Arab Emirates. But every night its clubs fill with a United Nations of rich fun-seekers. Arabs come from neighbouring Iraq and Saudi Arabia to do things they could never do at home. Businessmen come from the west to make money from the Arabs, women come from Russia and Asia to make money from everyone. It’s been a wild few years for this Middle East boomtown, but for many the party’s over.

CEM BAYULEN: There are thousands and thousands of unfinished properties lying around on the desert, unattended. People either just dump them or they can’t make the payments. It’s a big dilemma for everybody now.

CAMPBELL: Cem Bayulen is a Turkish investment banker. He arrived in Dubai three years ago when the boom was at its height. For the past year, he and his American wife Ceren have been struggling to survive the crash.

CEREN: We actually signed for the loan on this big house and then found out I was pregnant and then the crash happened so it all happened one after the other. It was quite a stressful time for us for sure.

CAMPBELL: The global recession sent giant cracks through Dubai’s glittering façade. The city went into panic in November when the state owned property developer defaulted. Many foreigners who came to make easy money have fled the country.

CEM BAYULEN: So many people lost their jobs and subsequently their homes and their cars, etcetera. One thing that differs Dubai probably from the rest of the world is that this is an expat driven country so people actually have the option of just leaving everything behind and go back to their country.

CAMPBELL: Some just drove to the airport and dumped their cars, leaving their businesses and debts behind. Their impounded cars are now gathering sand inside the city’s police academy. Now no one can say how many people left this way but estimates run into the hundreds, even the thousands. And there’s good reason why some people would want to flee because if you can’t pay your debts here, even if you bounce a cheque, you won’t just be stopped from leaving the country, you can end up in jail.

Dubai’s prisons now hold scores of once successful entrepreneurs who didn’t escape in time. When the market crashed and their businesses folded, some were imprisoned to force them to pay their debts. Others were jailed over financial disputes. Australian businessman Marcus Lee spent nine months in prison and is no on bail. He and his wife Julie are confident the charges will be dismissed but in the meantime they can’t leave the country. The case and their lives have been on hold for several months because the government witness keeps failing to turn up at court. Like others trapped in Dubai, the Lees declined to be interviewed for this story for fear of jeopardising the case.

HERVE JAUBERT: I heard some westerners in jail that got tuberculosis or you know infectious diseases. Imagine those people two years from now, three years from now. They might die over there. Dubai is not an open society. It’s not an open country. It’s really, really a cage. Believe me when I say that. It is a cage.

CAMPBELL: Herve Jaubert escaped by boat before he was arrested for debts he claimed he never owed. He now lives in the US state of Florida.

HERVE JAUBERT: I tried to fight it but in Dubai there’s no way, absolutely no way. I realised that quickly that you cannot fight it. You cannot have a fair hearing, you cannot have a fair trial. If you are in that kind of situation, you are going to lose.

CAMPBELL: Like Dubai itself the court system appears modern and sophisticated. At this recent opening of a new courthouse, we were shown the latest in high tech facilities and user-friendly software. But foreigners are now finding that the laws they enforce have changed little since Dubai was a desert outpost. There is no such thing as bankruptcy, financial disputes are treated as crimes.

HERVE JAUBERT: When they put you in jail it’s not for three or five years, they put you in jail until you pay what they want you to pay. So if you don’t pay or if you cannot pay – regardless of the reason – they keep you in jail indefinitely.

CAMPBELL: Jaubert came to Dubai to develop recreational submarines for tourists and rich Emiratis.

COMMENTARY OVER SUBMARINE FOOTAGE: A revolutionary line of submersibles by Herve Jaubert.

CAMPBELL: He soon found himself hob-nobbing with Dubai’s finest, including its feudal ruler, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum. But when the company went under, his investors demanded nearly a million dollars in compensation.

HERVE JAUBERT: All the money that was spent was spent by them. I knew then that those people, they’re nothing but gangsters and there was no way, absolutely no way I would pay anything to those bandits.

CAMPBELL: Jaubert claims to be a former French covert military operative and his escape by boat to India was like something from a spy novel. He donned an abaya, worn by Emirati women, to sneak onto and disable a navy patrol boat.

HERVE JAUBERT: I never thought in my life that one day I would be walking the lobby of a hotel in full combat gear covered with a woman’s disguise. It was like being a ghost.

CAMPBELL: Then he sailed out to sea in a small dinghy to a yacht that was waiting to spirit him away.

HERVE JAUBERT: I escaped on a Friday at eleven o’clock in the morning when I know everybody’s at the mosque.

CAMPBELL: After a nervous ten days at sea he reached India safely and has now written a book called ‘Escape from Dubai’.

HERVE JAUBERT: I exposed the truth of what is really Dubai. They are not used to that. They don’t want that. They want to silence people like me and what I did to them is worse than a crime to reveal that Dubai’s just smoke and mirrors, and expose their frauds and their lies.

CAMPBELL: Dubai’s rich and powerful insist the economy is still riding nicely, thanks to its booming port and its Emirates airline. Rashid al Habtoor’s family owns a string of profitable hotels and construction companies, but he concedes Dubai may have gone too far too fast.

RASHID AL HABTOOR: We should have had a more regulated market. There as so much speculation. There was so much buying and selling and trading. Dubai property market because like a stock market of just buying…. just the same thing like you buy shares, buy it and sell it, same thing happened in the property market. There was too many speculators, too many cowboys.

CAMPBELL: The biggest developer was the State owned company Dubai World. It not only built on land, it even built on the sea, dredging mountains of sand for offshore developments. The grandest project was called ‘The World’, a series of artificial islands shaped as countries four kilometres out to sea. Four years ago it was expected to become one of the biggest developments on the planet.

We took a boat to see how the project has fared, sailing along artificial canals that two years earlier were desert. While security boats kept us away from the islands, it was clear the world was flat.

Well four years on it doesn’t actually look much different, just a bunch of empty, artificial, insanely expensive islands. Now we’re assured that the countries have been sold and that eventually the mansions and hotels and boutiques will be built, but the cost of these follies has left Dubai World with multi dollar billion debts that will never be recouped. You can only marvel that a State owned company ever imagined this was a good idea.

CEM BAYULEN: At some point I felt like this was becoming a surreal environment. I mean the signs were there, however once, as you are in it you can’t see it. You know you have to be outside of it and then of course the crash came just like any sane person would have predicted.

CAMPBELL: And bizarrely huge projects are coming on line. In January, Dubai completed the world’s tallest building, a 160 storey tower that’s 320 metres higher than its nearest rival. It’s not just the peak of Dubai’s achievement, many critics see it as the height of its folly. It gives a panoramic view of the empty desert and the abandoned building sites. But for Emiratis and many expatriates, it was something to celebrate – a sign that Dubai was back in business.

DEREK KHAN: This country has been extraordinary and it is still on the move and it’s still on the rise. Dreams definitely can come true in Dubai without a doubt.

CAMPBELL: Derek Khan is a Jamaican born fashion designer who moved here from the US.

DEREK KHAN: The good thing about the recession, it got rid of a lot of the trash from the country straight up. You come here for a greedy purpose, you come here to better yourself but at the same time you have to understand the culture and give back to what is good to you. This country has been extraordinarily kind to me. I have no intentions of moving. I love it and I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else other than Dubai.

CAMPBELL: Derek Khan makes his money at the top end of town. A former stylist for Madonna, he’s been adopted by the Emirati elite, despite a chequered past. He spent two years in prison in New York after pawning borrowed jewellery to pay mounting debts.

DEREK KHAN: It was a very stupid ridiculous thing I did and guess what it was a scheme to defraud and in the US that is a serious crime. They asked me to design a collection of jewels. I thought, hold on a second, what do you want? You know my first impression was like no, this is not happening. I was completely upfront, and sure they told me they knew who I was and they had understood what had happened and basically everyone deserves a second chance and they were great enough to give it to me.

CAMPBELL: This is the strange duality of Dubai. All Emiratis have to follow the same criminal and Sharia laws, but Dubai’s elite like to indulge in what some would call western decadence and it usually turns a blind eye to what foreign business people do behind closed doors. But when offences are brought to the attention of police the results can be shocking as we found during our filming.

Just a few days ago a distraught British woman reported to police that she’d been raped by a waiter at her engagement party. Police quizzed her about sharing a room with her fiancée and she was charged with having sex outside marriage. But even more disturbing than cases like this is the way the scales of justice are balanced. What you’re about to see almost defies belief.

This is not a re-enactment. It’s a home video of an Emirati sheik torturing a debtor. His name is Issa bin Zayed al Nayhan, a member of the country’s royal family. His victim an Afghan grain merchant named Shapoor. The Sheik ordered police to bring Shapoor to his farm in Abu Dhabi. They stood by as he filled Shapoor’s mouth with sand, fired bullets around him and drove a car over him. Sheik al Nayhan was so proud of himself he rang his business partner, a Lebanese American Bassam Nabulsi, to boast of what he’d done.

BASSAM NABULSI: And he was telling me all about what he did and honestly it was so unbelievable I disregarded it, I dismissed it, I didn’t think it was true. But shortly after he hung up my mother called me and said we have a man… he’s dying… on the farm, and we have to take him to the hospital.

CAMPBELL: That was five years ago. But Sheikh al Nayhan wasn’t even charged until his former partner Nabulsi released the tape publicly during a bitter business dispute. The Sheikh hired a prominent lawyer, Habib al Mulla to mount a seemingly impossible defence.

HABIB AL MULLA: We believe that film is totally distorted and tampered with.

CAMPBELL: Are you suggesting the tape was doctored or computer altered?

HABIB AL MULLA: That could be one way. I’m sure that today there are a lot of softwares that can achieve such a result.

CAMPBELL: But the tape does show him doing things like firing a gun, putting sand in his face, what appears very much to be torture.

HABIB AL MULLA: We totally deny that.

CAMPBELL: Dr al Mulla claimed Nabulsi and his brother were the real culprits. He accused them of drugging the Sheikh to make him behave this way so that they could blackmail him.

HABIB AL MULLA: Our client was not in a mental capacity that he could be held liable for his actions.

CAMPBELL: The court not only found the Sheikh not guilty, it issued an arrest warrant for Nabulsi in the US.

BASSAM NABULSI: Well to start with his acquittal is a joke. I mean the royal family of the UAE managed to make a big mockery of their own judicial system with such an acquittal. I mean the man is guilty, a hundred per cent, and to be acquitted and in turn also I turn out to be the bad guy? That’s unbelievable.

ANTHONY BUZBEE: If you can be caught on tape sticking a cattle prod into someone’s anus, running over someone with a SUV and then be acquitted and the individual who released the tape to the world is convicted, I would say that that justice system is really non existent and the justice system in Abu Dhabi and in the UAE is truly a joke.

CAMPBELL: If there’s rough justice for rich foreigners, there’s no justice for the poor. Most of the expatriate population are construction workers from south Asia. They live in squalid compounds like this, out of sight of the wealthy and they’ve been the biggest losers from the property collapse.

(TO BANGLADESHI WORKERS) Hello…Ozman…. How are you? …Pleased to meet you. So this is where you all sleep? How many people?

WORKER: Eighteen people.

CAMPBELL: Eighteen people ….in this room…?

These Bangladeshi workers came here to make money to send home to their families. Now only two of them have jobs and even they haven’t been paid in six months.

MAN: After not being paid by one supplier we went to another, hoping we’d get paid there – but they wouldn’t pay either. With no hope, we’re just passing time. We eat once a day, skip meals and live on bread. That’s how life is. Our life is very hard.

CAMPBELL: All want to return home, but they can’t. The construction companies took their passports and are now demanding they buy them back.

MAN: If we complain to the police they say, go to the court to get the passport from the company. We don’t have money. We can’t even afford to take a taxi. Where to go? We don’t know where to go.

CAMPBELL: But for some foreigners, the good times continue to roll. Every Friday, Derek Khan takes to the water in Abu Dhabi to enjoy the Muslim holiday. Thanks to oil, Abu Dhabi is the richest state in the United Arab Emirates and its loaned 25 billion dollars to its brash neighbour to service its astronomical debts. Like Derek Khan, Dubai has been given a second chance.

Is that reassuring for people here?

DEREK KHAN: Oh absolutely. I mean after the bad press and everything that started coming obviously we were all afraid there might be a rush on the banks and all of that but no, Abu Dhabi came to the rescue and as we say here, Hamdala.

CAMPBELL: It remains to be seen what lessons have been learnt from this debt-fuelled binge. Those who fled Dubai or are caught in its harsh legal system will only see this as a place of nightmares. But for some this strangest of desert states, remains a city of dreams.

and your point is?

rudeboy wrote:and your point is?

You missed it?? Or are you just in your usual state of denial?

Bora Bora wrote:

rudeboy wrote:and your point is?

You missed it?? Or are you just in your usual state of denial?

i am not denying anything. have you ever heard me say dubai is perfect place to live in? if i have said something like this then please post it here.

All i am saying is no place on earth is perfect that includes dubai but dubai has come a long way to what it used to be and i believe that it will still improve.

Do some research and see how children were used as jockeys. are they being used as child jockeys today?
Dubai is changing every day and has still got a long way to go before it is PERFECT. But compare it to UK for example it has its benefits which includes security.

You are only showing the negative news about dubai care to show the positive news? oops i am sorry I dont think you will care to show the positive news will ya because you think there is nothing positive about dubai.

rudeboy wrote:

Bora Bora wrote:

rudeboy wrote:and your point is?

You missed it?? Or are you just in your usual state of denial?

i am not denying anything.

I erased alot of crap you typed.

So now to the point. Are you going to condemn the craphole? Or keep cheerleading for it?

bora bora.. whats your point ? its like giving us a 2 year summery of DF ! what are you trying to say ? and why ?

rudeboy wrote:

Bora Bora wrote:

rudeboy wrote:and your point is?

You missed it?? Or are you just in your usual state of denial?

i am not denying anything. have you ever heard me say dubai is perfect place to live in? if i have said something like this then please post it here.

All i am saying is no place on earth is perfect that includes dubai but dubai has come a long way to what it used to be and i believe that it will still improve.

Do some research and see how children were used as jockeys. are they being used as child jockeys today?
Dubai is changing every day and has still got a long way to go before it is PERFECT. But compare it to UK for example it has its benefits which includes security.

You are only showing the negative news about dubai care to show the positive news? oops i am sorry I dont think you will care to show the positive news will ya because you think there is nothing positive about dubai.

As you recognize, no placeon earth is perfect. And Dubai will continue to grow and change. But don't kid yourself or try to have others believe that when all is said and done it's going to be PERFECT!!!

I very well know that there is another side to Dubai, it is still going through growing pains. There are people who portray as being something it is not - on both sides of the coin - it's the best, it's the worst - in fact it is neither. It just needs to find a balance in so many ways, starting with what is good for one should be good for another.

As for security, don't be so naive. Because you don't read about it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Do you lock your door at night when you go to bed or when you leave the house with no one home? Do you lock your car doors wherever you park it? It would make for poor publicity, something Dubai doesn't need or want at this time.

rudeboy wrote:

Bora Bora wrote:

rudeboy wrote:and your point is?

You missed it?? Or are you just in your usual state of denial?

i am not denying anything. have you ever heard me say dubai is perfect place to live in? if i have said something like this then please post it here.

All i am saying is no place on earth is perfect that includes dubai but dubai has come a long way to what it used to be and i believe that it will still improve.

Do some research and see how children were used as jockeys. are they being used as child jockeys today?
Dubai is changing every day and has still got a long way to go before it is PERFECT. But compare it to UK for example it has its benefits which includes security.

You are only showing the negative news about dubai care to show the positive news? oops i am sorry I dont think you will care to show the positive news will ya because you think there is nothing positive about dubai.

Amen

sage & onion wrote:Amen

Sage, I guess you chose to overlook my response to him. To say that there is only one side to Dubai is a bit of a reach. I don't know how you can agree to a statement that Dubai

has still got a long way to ge before it is PERFECT

. He acknowledges that there is no place on earth that is perfect, but yet states that Dubai will be PERFECT. Huh??

You really don't see anything wrong about Dubai? I do notice that you are quick to defend Dubai when there is a negative comment, but I haven't heard much from you about what is right about Dubai.

I have and will continue to defend Dubai where I think it should be defended, but I'm not going to pretend that there is nothing wrong with it.

thats ur problem bora, u always see and comment on black even though you your self iand 5 other m ppl are here bcz it is white. Did u u start a thead about it being white ? Do u c where im going ?

uaekid wrote:thats ur problem bora, u always see and comment on black even though you your self iand 5 other m ppl are here bcz it is white. Did u u start a thead about it being white ? Do u c where im going ?

I think you're of African descent, correct?

one more thing bora what u r told to think of uae being hypocrite, why dont u see it as them being nice in over looking expats breaking the laws ? why do jump on them even though u know hundedis r kissing and they r free to do to so but of coures they won over look it if it pass the kissing. Dont be always black or dont make them make u do that . See ya

RobbyG wrote:

uaekid wrote:thats ur problem bora, u always see and comment on black even though you your self iand 5 other m ppl are here bcz it is white. Did u u start a thead about it being white ? Do u c where im going ?

I think you're of African descent, correct?

scared robbyg ?

uaekid wrote:

RobbyG wrote:

uaekid wrote:thats ur problem bora, u always see and comment on black even though you your self iand 5 other m ppl are here bcz it is white. Did u u start a thead about it being white ? Do u c where im going ?

I think you're of African descent, correct?

scared robbyg ?

Thats funny. Both our ancestors are originally from African decent. Thats why our DNA is 99 percent identical.

Soooo scared. Nearly pissing my panties.

so now u see ur self better than the africans ? At least they got a job robbyg. Still looking ?

It means we are the same, numbnuts.

Is your low self-esteem coming up again? Don't make our ancestors look so humiliating. Man up.

admit it ... chicken

uaekid wrote:admit it ... chicken

There's nothing to admit. I'm changing my goals in life. So I wasn't looking in Dubai anymore.

Try again.

so Dubai was your goal ?

You must be a smart mormon.

Thats a wrap.

uaekid wrote:so Dubai was your goal ?

Of course it was, and now he/she is bitter at having been rejected on so many applications.

sage & onion wrote:

uaekid wrote:so Dubai was your goal ?

Of course it was, and now he/she is bitter at having been rejected on so many applications.

try this link to get a job http://www.thatsdubai.com/jobs/

sage & onion wrote:

uaekid wrote:so Dubai was your goal ?

Of course it was, and now he/she is bitter at having been rejected on so many applications.

Not only that, I can guarantee you that if tommorow he is offered a lucrative expat package ( everything paid for on top of a huge salary ) he will be on the next flight to dxb. Just like many westerners and Americans are still doing till date even after they " know everything ". Then all their morals and what they stand for blah blah blah go down the drain or vanish in an instance.

All this is actually nothing but sour grapes in the end. Like a selfish little child who didn't get to play with a certain toy so now he wants to break it.

If he wasn't looking anymore or ed with the place, why is still here and remains one of the most active poster er..basher here ? Nothing is going to change by making a noise here. What is your point about all this bashing ? You think your telling us something new here ? something you are more educated on by readig a few books, articles and being mr internet expert ? Something we don't know by living for decades here ? If your really so worried or intrested and want to see change go start doing something more effective. Go picket the embassy, petetion, FB group or whatever that you morally high and free soicety gives you the liberty to do.

Instead of regurgitating the same old crap over and over again !

Cheers

desertdudeshj wrote:

sage & onion wrote:

uaekid wrote:so Dubai was your goal ?

Of course it was, and now he/she is bitter at having been rejected on so many applications.

Not only that, I can guarantee you that if tommorow he is offered a lucrative expat package ( everything paid for on top of a huge salary ) he will be on the next flight to dxb. Just like many westerners and Americans are still doing till date even after they " know everything ". Then all their morals and what they stand for blah blah blah go down the drain or vanish in an instance.

All this is actually nothing but sour grapes in the end. Like a selfish little child who didn't get to play with a certain toy so now he wants to break it.

If he wasn't looking anymore or ed with the place, why is still here and remains one of the most active poster er..basher here ? Nothing is going to change by making a noise here. What is your point about all this bashing ? You think your telling us something new here ? something you are more educated on by readig a few books, articles and being mr internet expert ? Something we don't know by living for decades here ? If your really so worried or intrested and want to see change go start doing something more effective. Go picket the embassy, petetion, FB group or whatever that you morally high and free soicety gives you the liberty to do.

Instead of regurgitating the same old crap over and over again !

Cheers

Well said DD.

I'm surprised that Rob is getting most of the attacks - it was Bora that started this thread.

That said, many people did appreciate the good things about Dubai (there were many) and were very sceptical about the 'pie in the sky' promises and explanations.

I was routinely viewed as a person with strange views because I didn't buy into the hype and asked some simple questions like 'why should I pay 10 times my salary for a house by taking out a dodgy mortgage and then hope someone will pay 11 times my salary for it a bit later?' and 'it only cost 1 time my salary at outset, why should it go to 20 times my salary'? and 'is there really that much Iranian/Russian/Saudi black money around to buy all those appartments coming on line' etc etc

Sometimes the emperor isn't wearing clothes after all.

But not everyone was/is swimming naked.

cheers,
Shafique

Well the poperty market here became more like a stock exchange here. With properties changing hands many times, sometimes with in one day ! Everybody was just looking to make a quick buck and the speculation drove the prices way up there. The stock market here is useless so people needed something to play with.

As for RG he is the focus of all critisim because of his constant regurgitated jibberish. We can all understand, appriciate and respect his opinion about this place, but by constantly repeating your self over and over in almost each and everythread gets tedious and boring. Similar to your buddy eh over there.

Has anyone noticed how many people have left this place ( including myself ) because of this ? Because I personaly am bored of seeing everythread going that way. Also no point in starting any new threads and they will be hijacked and go down the same road.

This place moved up too fast almost unseen pace of growth in history anywhere in teh world. So its bound to have its problems nobody said it was perfect. Its is still comendable that people in charge managed to hold it in place and not let it fall apart with that kind of rapid change.

While beng constantly compared to the west, as if that was some kind of decent bar to reach in the first place ! The west took centuries to mould itself into what it is today and eveybody will agree it is FAR from perfect or even close to it !

Freedom of speech, women rights, archanic relious laws etc etc is flounted abundantly now but just go back 50 to a hundred years. Where women were official property had zero rights. Coloured people were treated as dirt, Slaves and the whole schbang !

So compare centuries of shaping, trial and errors to less than 50 years here. I'd say this place did one heck of job. Yes there are crease to ironed out and hopefully sooner or later they will.

I dont see if anybody doing aswell or anydiffrent if one day from having nothing you were given riches beyond your wildest dreams to do half aswell as UAE has done.

Look at Africa. Its not poor, but poorly managed. Many countries are blessed with oil, gold, uranium, diamionds and what not. Is there one country on the whole continent even close to this place in all aspects ?

Look at Greece 20 billion euro in debt and no big brother to bail it out ? What is one to say about that. Its in the heart of the western world. What happened there ?

This place is still very new, and struggling to keep everything in check give it time. Even with it flaws it has managed very well for itself. Its not perfect and never will be but then will any place be ?

So why all the unfair prejudice ?

As fo Bora I can totally inderstand. I sometimes myself feel this way about this place aswell. Specially when stories like the " kissing " scandals keep popping up. It does get your goat, but then there is always something more behind the scences aswell too. I assume she is just in a ranting phase, I am too sometimes. Everyplace and thing can sometimes get to you. Work, friends, wife, children etc etc. And you feel the need to get away from it all. But after a while you start to miss it.

All is not sunny and smiles is dubai, but then again like I said, is there any place that there is ?

Many Westerns call the middle east home and have been here for a very very long time, why ? Why would someone. Leave behind freedom of speech, democracy, human rights etc etc and come and live in " third world dictatorships". Places which techincally are against every fiber of " western society " and what it stands for.

For some its greed, but these are the greenhorns who have just come recently and in it just for the money. But somemight be turned and might end up living here long term. But many have lived here for decades, raised their children here and given the choice would do the same all over again.

Anyways time to get to brunch. Yeah I know its almost 4.00 pm . But Goddammit it the weekand and I'll do as I want !

shafique wrote:and 'is there really that much Iranian/Russian/Saudi black money around to buy all those appartments coming on line' etc etc

Shaf, I really appriciate your inf. about the UK but why are you so sure that Russians have nothing better to invest than to crappy built Dubai's appartments? Is there nothing for sale in Belgravia or Chelsea?

DD, I don't know why you keep your focus on Westerners and Americans as being the "culprits". What about arabs from other Middle Eastern countries, the Phillipines, Iran, Chinese, Japanese, Asians, blah blah blah? The motive for all is the same: an opportunity to make money. And there isn't a thing wrong with that, but you can't say that one or two nationalities "own" that motive. Why did your father come here? More likely there was an opportunity for a better life. Dubai gave me a nice life, but if it wasn't for my husband, I would not be here.

As I told the Kid, I found no hardship living here, even 15 years ago when it was more conservative. It has not disrupted my freedom because I basically live here as I would in the States. It's the hypocrasy that gags me - from the country and from people. I converted to Islam when I was in the States. I can say this with conviction: had I not converted in the States and came here, I would never have converted!!! The religious hypocrasy is so overboard. I was so excited that I was going to live in an Islamic country, but I can't tell you how disappointed I was. But, I will say this, if I had ended up in Oman, I probably would not have felt that way. I think Omanis are more honest in their practice of Islam.

As for RobbyG, well he's RobbyG. He knows what to expect and from whom when he posts. When he was all for Dubai he got pounced on because he didn't live here. For the most part people agreed to what he had to say, but still went back to "you don't live here". Now he posts some realities that you don't need to live her to know about. He has every right to change his views. Many people who thought this was Wonderland because of all the hype found it it wasn't. Every right to be disenchanted when you are made redundant and up to your eyeballs in debt or have to use all your savings to get out or, even worse, end up in jail because they had debt. The world was in a recession but everything was find in Dubailand, according to Dubai that is. And look where it ended up, in debt needing a bailout from its neighbor.

Dubai has done amazing things in the past 37 years. And it will learn from its mistakes. And it will survive. It just needs to find that balance - in more ways than one.

agreed

EDIT : But not on the RG bit. People are on his case because of his condesending and holier than thou attitude and snydeness. Like I said he is welcomed to his opinion and we will listen to it once or twice, but anymore than that and it becomes mindless dribble.

Suggestion : Buy Ad space here and put it up on a big banner on top of every page. Will save everyone of reading the same crap over and over again aswell as him having to type it out aswell.

As for RobbyG, well he's RobbyG. He knows what to expect and from whom when he posts. When he was all for Dubai he got pounced on because he didn't live here. For the most part people agreed to what he had to say, but still went back to "you don't live here". Now he posts some realities that you don't need to live her to know about. He has every right to change his views. Many people who thought this was Wonderland because of all the hype found it it wasn't. Every right to be disenchanted when you are made redundant and up to your eyeballs in debt or have to use all your savings to get out or, even worse, end up in jail because they had debt. The world was in a recession but everything was find in Dubailand, according to Dubai that is. And look where it ended up, in debt needing a bailout from its neighbor.

Loved to see some reasonable talk. Thanks BB.

DD is making the common mistake. I don't go for a high pay package. I do have a backbone and stick with proper judgement. I'm not exactly a rattling canon, mate

Cmon y'all, attack me person. I can handle it.
Too bad my substance is too strong for some of you.

pst: I'm making inventory who supports rational views and who is not. So it might backfire on you.