Sad saga of Dubai Zoo

Across the world, safari and wildlife parks attract millions of visitors every year, making huge money for the conservation of endangered species as well as plenty of profit for their owners.

Which makes it all the more mystifying that despite spending millions to promote tourism, and after years of promising to build a new facility for the poor, cramped animals at Dubai Zoo, the authorities still haven't managed to spend a single fil:

"Dubai Zoo is a blight upon the emirate. When so much is done to extol the city's virtues, the conundrum persists: Why do officials allow such appalling conditions for animals?"

Even more embarrassingly for Dubai, the usually less progressive emirate of Sharjah boasts a world-class wildlife park. It even features an internationally acclaimed breeding centre for endangered Arabian animals, closed to the public to give the animals peace and quiet to breed.

Many of the animals at Dubai Zoo are rescue animals: confiscated at Customs, or saved from maltreatment at shows and circuses, and even seized from the homes of private individuals. Zookeepers do their very best for the animals: but the space is extremely limited, and in the height of summer the animals stink and suffer.

Would it not be possible to at least have some inter-emirate cooperation, and rehouse some of Dubai Zoo's inmates in Sharjah, at least until more spacious homes are built for them?

The romance of Arabia

Rummaging for holiday reading at a second-hand bookshop in Sydney turned up Lynne Graham's fascinatingly bad novel The Arabian Mistress. In it, "Sheikh Tariq Shazad ibn Zachir" romances a naive and pathetic British girl called Faye. Bizarrely, Sheikh Tariq rules an "oil rich Gulf state", yet turns out to be Berber.

Even more bizarrely, this novel turns out to be part of an entire literary subculture of "Sheikhs and Desert Love", presumably read by paleface western ladies fairly deluded about Middle Eastern people and their customs. According to the FAQ:

"In most cases, the heroines of these stories are women who hail from progressive countries, such as the United States, Canada, Australia or Great Britain. The majority are slender, with long fair hair."

Unsurprisingly, the men are without exception dark, macho, and as rich as Croesus. In the case of the abovementioned Tariq:

"In the sunlight he was a golden feast of vibrant masculinity. His luxuriant black hair shone. His tawny skin glowed with health and his stunning bronze eyes gleamed like precious metal, both brilliant and unreadable. Indeed, he was quite staggeringly beautiful..."

Tariq fits into a category described as "Abducted by the Enemy". Other themes include "Angry Sheikhs", "Kidnapped by a Handsome Sheikh" and "Sheikhs Fearing Commitment."

The number one novel, according to the editors, is Nan Ryan's "Burning Love":

"Temple DuPlessis Longworth is ravishing, impulsive, and far too wealthy and independent for any gentleman to claim. Seeking adventure, she travels to the Arabian Desert and ends up captured and imprisoned in the lush oasis that belongs to Sheik Sharif Aziz Hamid, also known as El Siif, The Sword."

Mist of JOY!

Mist of JOY! JOY with MISTY Mountains and Springs!
Scroll around in the lush GREEN Mountains!
Shower and get wet in the Chilly Weather!

These lines introducing an advertorial on Oman's Khareef season are oddly beautiful. The Khareef is a rain-bearing fog that descends on Salalah every summer, bringing waterfalls and mist, and greening the hills and valleys.

"Chilly Weather!" may seem a strange reference in a tourism brochure, given most holidaymakers seek sunshine or good snow for skiing. But in the arid, scorching, clammy Gulf, with the mercury stuck in the mid-forties, cool rain is a kind of fantasy. No wonder over 200,000 tourists visited Salalah for last year's Khareef. Standing in the sprinklers in dusty Dubai is a poor substitute.

Blocked, unblocked, and back

From the icy blue skies of Australia to the smouldering grey skies of the Gulf, being safely back in the confines of Cell Block G is a strange delight.

An even greater joy has been the strength of support and encouragement that has led to the proxy-block being lifted. Thank you beyond words to you all.

But if the pervy Pashtun is feeling gleeful at the re-occupancy of his favourite private peepshow, bad luck. A Croaking Frog motion-sensor alarm is being installed on the verandah, aimed straight at his lurking place. Thorny bougainvillea may not have deterred him, but hopefully a raucus frog chorus will send him on his way.

Suffering in silence

The cyber-ink must dry on the quill for now, as the Great Proxy wields its heavy axe and severs Secret Dubai diary from UAE computers.

Will prison vans and manacles await at the airport?

Fellow bloggers and web diarists, all courage to you in these dark and difficult times.

Shivering in Sydney

Even in the far-flung, icy climes of the southern hemisphere the newspapers are full of Dubai. Specifically amusement at the UAE press's renaming of NSW premier Bob Carr as "Al Sharif Bobcar".

"General Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, yesterday received at the Al Bateen Palace, Al Sharif Bobcar," the report said.

Accompanying the article is a photograph of Carr, also described as Governor of NSW, being swallowed up by one of the giant palace sofas and tie listening attentively to Shaikh Mohammad, who looks resplendent in his white robes and headdress.

Even among the intelligent echelons of Antipodean society, there is a great deal of ignorance about the Middle East and its people.

"The women over there - are any of them educated?" inquires an elderly supreme court judge.

He is surprised to learn that not only are UAE and other Gulf women being educated, but that they actually outnumber their male compatriots at universities and colleges. And that overall, women in the UAE have higher literacy than males.

People are most fascinated by Nakheel's The World. And rather disappointed to learn that it's too late to buy a slice of their home country in a considerably warmer and more central location.

Chapter and verse

In response to Dubai police's request to tourists not to "violate the very fabric of society", a brilliant young poet offers the following verse:

I am the very model of a Dubai expat criminal
I thumb my nose at social cues, both blatant and subliminal
My fondness for a drink or two is rather undisputable
And leads me into acting in a manner quite unsuitable

I scatter hugs and kisses upon anyone deserving them
I care not for the country's norms, far less about preserving them
In taxis and on pavements I behave with impropriety
And often violate the very fabric of society

And often violate the very fabric of society
And often violate the very fabric of society
And often violate the very fabric of societiety

Kiss-me-quick, jail-me-slow

As the northern hemisphere sinks into summer, tourists to Dubai are being asked to help cooperate in:

"preserving and maintaining the norms of the country especially those that violate the very fabric of society such as expressing intimate feelings in the public places which is punishable by the country’s law."

For the average tourist, unaccustomed to the gruesomely quaint newswriting of the Khaleej Times, a rough translation is: "Don't kiss or hug in public."

Acording to Lt-Col Bin Seray, last year, an Egyptian man was arrested for intimately kissing his girlfriend on the street. It was proved that he was under the influence of alcohol and was bidding goodbye to his girlfriend who was leaving for the airport at that moment. The man was taken to the court on the grounds of morals accusation violation.

Tourists should also take care when swatting flies. A drunken Indian businessman has been jailed for a month after police noticed him acting strangely on a Dubai street:

The court heard the police patrol noticed that the 49-year-old Indian seemed to be talking to himself.

One of the officers approached him and asked him what he was doing.

He told the officer he was trying to get rid of a fly that had been annoying him.

Love's Labours Lost

Good old Dr Al Ka'abi, the UAE's most heroic minister, has hit several nails into very thick heads in his recent comments on emiratisation. The UAE's employment authority, Tanmia, has been strongly criticised for recruiting just 3,100 emiratis over the past four years, despite funding of Dh107 million:

"This means that the country has spent more than Dh34,000 to recruit every citizen, which is enormous," he said.

But wisely, the labour minister has no apparent plans to force quotas on the private sector:

"The private sector will not be able to provide jobs for UAE nationals if hasty and haphazard decisions are imposed on it.

Sadly for Dr Al Ka'abi, less than a fortnight after his greatly acclaimed order for labourers to be allowed to rest during the hottest midday hours, violation is rampant:

Abu Dhabi: Representatives of 15 local companies have been summoned by the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs for flouting the midday break rule.

The ministry has said that it will issue fines against employers who break the rule and make their workers engage in outdoor work between 12.30pm and 4.30pm this month and next month.

Less leaky borders

The wrongly-banned Maurice, scratching bed-bug bites in Muscat while yearning for Kiki and his leafy Jumeira villa, has been forced to cancel the air balloon hired to ferry him over the Hajjar mountains. UAE border guards have become worryingly efficient at capturing infiltrators - rounding up 850 last month in June alone.

A statement from the Ministry said immigration, coastguards and border forces of the UAE Armed Forces apprehended the culprits as they tried to enter the country via land and sea. Some of them were arrested in their hiding places after entering the country and during inspections on highways.

Plans to enter by submarine have also been put on a back burner, with Oman increasing night sea patrols to prevent smugglers from taking people into the UAE under cover of darkness.

Close encounters of the turnip kind

Tiny, often irregularly-shaped Egyptian nectarines huddle together in one half of the fruit display, a sad contrast to their neighbours: vast, firm, shiny immaculate American nectarines - four times the size and price - in a perfect pyramid formation.

Opposite, small European apples, randomly sized and coloured, lie in a windfallen, crestfallen heap. Adjacent is a platoon of American apples, well ordered into straight military rows: huge, round and unreal looking.

The gleaming American vegetables are generally twice the price but half the flavour of their less comely overseas cousins. Longer distance transportation and refrigeration can take some of the blame, but not all. GM foods seem to lack the sharp, wild flavours of more natural fruit. Compare a Cox's Orange Pippin picked straight from the tree in a country orchard to a massive, bland, Frankenfarmed apple of uniform roundness and colour. Perhaps a milder flavour suits the transatlantic palate, but European tastebuds demand more tang and bite. (France and their hellish Golden "Delicious" excepted).

It is no wonder the poor aliens in War of the Worlds met such a sorry fate. If only they had chosen an organic market garden in Cornwall for global domination:

"The aliens' machines were invulnerable to our weapons and technology. But the moment the aliens started breathing our air, drinking our water and eating our food, they were finished."

Want of wasta

While Maurice broods in the bed-bug-plagued two-star Muscat Novotel, Kiki has been running round like a mad desert hare between ministries and government offices to try and lift his mistakenly-imposed work and visit ban. What is becoming increasingly clear is that this is less a case of following a process, and less even a case of "additional charge for quick processing" (=bribe) than a case of really needing some high-level wasta.

But when Kiki sits down with friends and family to discuss who they know, and who friends of friends may know, the shocking answer is basically no one. Even aged Jumeirah expats growing dusty in their villas for the past twenty years have virtually no UAE local aquaintances. Kiki has no shortage of wealthy, well-connected westerners to call on: the problem is that none of these people carry any clout when it comes to a bureaucratic crisis.

Lost in translation

"So he handed me the new document he'd just typed, and I looked at it, and asked him what the hell it was.

"And he said: "it's your translated document madam."

""But it's in English!" I pointed out.

""Yes madam, I have translated the document you gave me."

""But that was in English too! How can you possibly translate from English to English? I needed it in Arabic."

""Oh, you wanted the document in Arabic, madam?""

One half of Jumeira media couple, Kiki, recounts the exasperating attempt to get her other half, Maurice, back into the UAE, after an incompetent PRO screwed up a visa transfer and left Maurice languishing in the Kuala Lumpur Ritz-Carlton with a six month work and visit ban.

When the document was eventually translated, it was so badly done as to reverse its actual meaning: transferring Maurice's sponsorship from Company Y to Company X instead of the other way round.

Maurice's re-entry options currently look like a choice between sailing round the Strait of Hormuz hidden in the cargo of a dhow, flying over the Buraimi/Al Ain border in a hot air balloon, or travelling by camel up through the Empty Quarter. None particularly appealing in the fifty-degree heat with the likely chance of a lengthy Government hotel stay on arrival.

Taking some Time Out

Ali, a Lebanese media associate, is just back from his three-week holiday at a Government hotel. Beverage and bad driving earned him and most of his fellow holidaymakers their free stay. Room occupancy rates are apparently so high that beds often have to be shared - but for a group of lads on an all-boys adventure trip, it's surely all happy camping?

With the holiday season arriving, and Dubai Police calling on the media to highlight do's and don'ts for tourists, TimeOut Dubai has published a useful article about what to expect when one is arrested:

It may come as a pleasant surprise to hear that you have many core rights, including the right to contact a third party, the right to be questioned with an attorney present and the right to presumption of innocence. If you are a woman, you have the right to have your body and clothes searched by a woman rather than by a man.

Unfortunately, local lawyer Ali Abdulla Al Shamsi warns that these rights are often violated:

"Most of the time people are given their rights, but sometimes the police are not helpful and do not cooperate much," he says. Al Shamsi claims that the accused may be treated aggressively by police or may not be given the chance to contact a lawyer. By his estimate, he says prisoners’ rights are violated about 30 percent of the time.

Stephen Jakobi, of Free Trials abroad, highlights a possible cause of pro-local bias in the UAE legal system. Many judges are non-citizen Arabs on short-term contracts, subject to periodic renewal by the Government.

"If they displease anybody, they lose the job… which means they’re at the mercy of local citizens and local officials,’ says Jakobi.

Bubble, bubble, oil and trouble

A good time perhaps to invest in Arabic worrybeads, as thousands of anxious fingers wear out their tasselled strings of amber and pearl on Nomura's The Great Arabian Bubble warning:

The Bahrain office of Japanese broking giant Nomura last week surprised clients with a report entitled "The Great Arabian Bubble" which pointed to a disconnect between the real economy and the financial instruments that are supposed to reflect it in the GCC stock markets in general, and the UAE and Saudi Arabia in particular.

The analysis traced the recent development of Saudi stocks and super-imposed the Nasdaq market during the dot-com years of the late 1990s and early 2000. Not only is the Saudi market's rise similar in shape to the Nasdaq, but stock price rises in Saudi Arabia are actually significantly higher than in the dot-com years.

Gambling is illegal in most Middle Eastern countries, so playing the stockmarkets is a popular substitute. IPO fever has ravaged the GCC over the past year, with wannabe investors even beating up bank managers in the rush to buy shares.

Hair today, divorced tomorrow

A UAE woman who agreed to marry a man after seeing a photograph of him in traditional headdress now wants a divorce after discovering he is actually bald:

After signing the marriage contract the couple met face to face and the wife was shocked to discover her new husband was bald. She immediately refused to live with him and decided to file for divorce.

In her claim, she said she had been cheated and did not want a bald husband. She maintained she would never have married him had she known he was bald.

The poor hairless husband is described as "irritated" and also wants to split.

A sandy cesspit

Ask any Gulf Arab what they think of Saudi Arabia and their answers will be more consistent than if you asked an academy of mathematicians the answer to 2+2. Despite the fact that KSA is "guardian" of the two holiest places, there isn't a non-Saudi that can stand the place. Businesses trips to the Kingdom are loathed and dreaded by male arabs and expats alike.

Now Saudi Arabia is objecting to a causeway that the UAE plans to build to Qatar, to make travel easier. One could already travel between the UAE and Qatar by land, if the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia wasn't so backwards, restrictive and uncooperative as to make it impossible for anyone to pass through a tiny bit of its land.

According to one report, Saudi Arabia is also totally against the building of a bridge that Qatar and Bahrain are currently planning to build. “This is because Riyadh fears this kind of bridges would enhance the affinity and rapprochement between the small member countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council."

“Relations among the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain are currently witnessing improvement, making the kingdom to see how their relations develop within the Gulf environment. This follows the distancing of Bahrain and UAE from the kingdom in recent times, while Oman is closer to the new Gulf bloc of the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar. As for Kuwait, it is now keeping a close eye on the developments before it decides where to align itself”, the report said.

But who would want to travel through Saudi Arabia anyway? Its own interior minister admits that the Kingdom is a hotbed of terrorism, unlike the peaceful Emirates and Qatar, where educated men and women can work together without fear of stoning, women can drive, and mad matawas with sticks don't beat up the populace and force young girls to burn to death rather than escape a blaze in their pajamas.

Wedded war

No wonder the UAE divorce rate is soaring: marriage support organisations are apparently trying to promote "Successful Martial Life", according to the ludicrous-misprint-and-inaccuracy-renowned Khaleej Times:

DUBAI — The Al Nahda Centre for Consultancy and Training (NCCT), affiliated to Dubai Women Association (DWA), organised yesterday a social awareness programme under the slogan “To Gather to Open Locked Doors for Successful Martial Life” to check the increasing phenomenon of divorce which has been affecting society negatively.

Yemen: Bride required

The Surveyor drops into Dubai en-route from Yemen to the Antipodes, solely to pick up a special consignment from City Centre. Not sandalwood camels, pashminas, Omani silver, saffron or even the Burj Al Arab in a plastic snowglobe, but three crates of Heinz tomato soup.

He has another, far more taxing mission: to find a twenty-something white british lady for a Yemeni colleague wanting a third wife. Forty-something Hassan, described as a "bearded Leonard Nimoy", already has twenty children. He earns US$200 a month and lives on a small farm.

The Surveyor admits that Hassan has absolutely no concept of what life is like for the average woman in the UK, nor what her marital expectations might be.

"But on the upside, he doesn't spend all his money on qat," he notes.

Applications on a postcard to hell@in-a-handcart.com.