Overheard at the Hiltonia

It's alright - emergency over - everyone can come out from their concrete bunkers and air raid shelters. Because that recent terror warning from the British Government turns out to be just a misheard chat between two drunk blokes in a pub:

A diplomatic source said the warning was issued based on a personal conversation between the two Arab men in the Hemingway bar in the Hiltonia Hotel in Abu Dhabi. The bar is frequented by hundreds of Britons and Americans.

One drunk man told the other in jest: "If someone wants to scare all these people and make them run away, just say there is a bomb. A belt bomb will kill hundreds of them."

The source said it is believed that Britons sitting near the men overheard the conversation and thought it was serious.

What a relief! Because as everyone knows, foreign governments routinely post overheard inebriated pub chatter as Official Terror Warnings. Thank god for the rapid propaganda amendments from the local UAE press to suppress sort everything out!

Meanwhile the high alert warning remains on the UK Foreign Office website. One would think they might consider amending their own website before tipping off Gulf News.


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iPhone iMoan

Unsurprisingly, since it didn't get the first model nor is there even an official Apple presence here, the UAE is not getting the 3G iPhone. More surprisingly, in fact absolutely absurd to the point of wanting to gouge ones own brain out with a rusty spork after reading it, is the TRA's claim that it is rejecting the iPhone, rather than Steve Jobs not giving the first toss about them (or probably even knowing the UAE exists):

Dubai: The iPhone will not see an official UAE launch as long as it wants to be made available through one telecom operator exclusively, an official at the Telecoms Regulatory Authority has said.

An exclusivity contract for the iPhone that etisalat was seeking has been rejected by the TRA, Gulf News has learned.

The spokesperson for the TRA, Rasheed Joumblatt, refused to confirm this but warned that all exclusivity contracts will be rejected "regardless of which operator applies".

Yes, it's the admirable Rasheed Joumblatt, that melodious mouthpiece-of-Al Ghanem who was educated at the American University but just can't get his head around the concept of freedom of speech. Or simple facts. Or the truth. A reality check for Mr Joumblatt:

1. Apple is not insisting on single operator exclusivity contracts. In many counties it is offered through multiple operators.

2. The UAE had one of the worst monopoly telco sectors in the world. It now has a duopoly so monopolistic in nature that it may as well be a conjoined twin. Both du and etishite are owned and misrun by the Federal government.

But hey, at least one person is thrilled by Mr Joumblatt's valiant stance - Aboud from Abu Dhabi: "Bravo UAE for not agreeing to Apple's terms."


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The Grand National

A new newspaper, the Abu Dhabi-based The National, has entered the sandlands media scene. There is already plenty of comment on it, from praise to scorn.

But the inescapable fact is that no matter how sparkling the prose or spectacular the photography, a "news" publication can only go so far in a regime of severe media oppression. The fact that the UAE government bans blogs that are "critical" of it speaks for itself: how pathetic and contemptible that some of the richest and most powerful people on earth can't take a little dissent. So The National is about as likely to push the envelope as Sheikh Khalifa is to move to Sonapur.

Perhaps the kindest interpretation of The National is as a kind of landlubbing in-flight magazine for Abu Dhabi. We learn that Abu Dhabi is a magical place (isn't magic illegal in the UAE?) and how praiseworthy the UAE military is, and how preservation-worthy the UAE national identity is, and how failed reviled liar former British prime minister Tony Blair is silver-tongueing a few sheikhly backsides, but does anyone really care?

The truth of The National is that it is an Abu Dhabi government-owned, Abu Dhabi government-funded, Abu Dhabi government-run, Abu Dhabi government-promoting Abu Dhabi rag. It may be well-written and an interesting read for that. But that doesn't make it a news publication of international calibre, which given the quality of its staff is very sad.

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The Village Voice

A heated debate is taking place on Dubai Media Observer over Dubai's media freedoms and human rights and so forth, which it seems worthwhile to respond to.

Part of the problem in Dubai is that far too many senior officials have no perspective when it comes to local press versus international coverage. They have a very "village green" attitude, and will obsess over a perceived impertinence in a local rag read predominantly by Jumeirah Janes and Tecom commuters while ignoring serious social and political problems that get picked up by global heavyweights such as the FT and the Economist.

Around the time of the 7Days=Satan era (when the paper quite innocently published an interview from AFP with Sheikh Khalifa, and the Arab papers - clearly acting out of spite or on official instructions - beat it up into some great "insult" to Khalifa when anyone with half a brain could see that 7Days was actually trying to suck up rather than offend) we held a media training session with officials from a supposedly world class international financial institution.

The aim was to coach them for international media, since what the FT and the Times and the WSJ print about Dubai is aeons more critical than what 7Days with its Lime Tree-Jumeirah Jane readership prints.

But these officials were simply obsessed with 7Days. They kept repeating: "but they cannot print these things". It's hard to be certain to this day if they even knew what "these things" were, if they had even (ever) read 7Days, just that it represented some huge nebulous insult to them according to the majilis grapevine.

No matter how much we tried to position 7Days to them as a very minor, "village gazette" style rag and emphasise the importance of having a wider perspective, these important, educated officials just couldn't see past their own garden fence. Dubai has so much self-importance contained in such a small village-style society that too many senior people - people who really matter for the country's future - are missing the bigger picture.

Part of the reason that the US ports decision was so stunning to many people here was because Dubai - like other upcoming cities, perhaps - believes its own hype to a dangerous extent. Dubai is not as much on people's radars as we as sandlanders are led to believe. Sure, people notice The Palm and the Deathspire but they don't think about it every day of their lives as they go about their business in Peterborough or Wisconsin. But the bad stuff: they remember that quite a bit more.

How many glitzy mega projects does it take to blot out a toddler camel jockey? How many World's Biggest Whatevers does it take to erase unpaid, indentured labour? It is impossible to say. But certainly more than Dubai has got at the moment.

So until the dishdashes-that-be understand the difference between 7Days posting an expat whinge about bad traffic in Barsha, and the New York Times printing 1000 words about human rights abuses, it is impossible to foresee any speedy or significant improvement to media standards or media freedoms in the UAE.

Kiss my assininity

Dr Al Kabban - surely the Horace Rumpole of justice in the UAE. The tale begins when some poor, innocent donkey (or perhaps onager, or even an abridged Assyrian) loving Filipino decides to advertise his passion on his car - and in a generous fashion too, inviting others to share in the love. Nonetheless, he rapidly finds himself in the dock on a charge of lewdness:

"The Public Prosecution charged the Filipino, J.J., with breaching public decency when he posted a 'kiss my ...' sticker on his vehicle windshield."

Step in the valiant Dr Al Kabban! Raising his sword of erudition and literacy, he slashes through the flimsy arguments of the minimalist-vocabularied prosecution:

The suspect hired Dr Al Kabban who told the Cassation Court: "The Appeals Court considered that '...' meant 'posterior' and tried our client as if he committed a lewd act in public without supplying any translation. Meanwhile, the word ... has different meanings, according to English dictionaries, such as donkey, dumb, stubborn or to ridicule someone.

"Al Mawrid English-Arabic Dictionary lists the same definitions. The Appeals Court also failed to ask the suspect whether he understood the sticker's meaning."

It is rather touching that Gulf News now finds itself unable to print the letters "ass". Despite the new era of media freedom so sincerely promised to us by all the many visionary dishdashes-that-be, this is actually a new piece censorship. For Gulf News has happily sprinkled asses around on plenty of previous occasions.

Other measures

It would be lovely to hail this as a landmark victory for press freedom in the UAE:

Abu Dhabi/Dubai: In a victory for freedom of the press in the UAE, His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, yesterday issued instructions that journalists in the country will not be jailed for doing their work.

The announcement was made by Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Foreign Minister and Chairman of the National Media Council (NMC).

Shaikh Abdullah said Shaikh Mohammad issued instructions that no journalist is to be jailed for reasons related to his work, adding that there are other measures that may be taken against journalists who break the press and publication law, but not jail, WAM reported.

Except for the fact that "other measures" sounds infinitely more terrifying than a free stay at the Al Wathba Hilton*.

*rated 7 stars by DTCM. For holiday bookings and special offers please contact http://www.uaeprison.com

Behind bars in Bahrain

Worrying events on the Island of Two Seas. where Mahmood Al Yousif, aka the Blogfather, is being sued for libel by a Bahraini government minister. Mahmood criticised Mansour bin Rajab and his department over heavy flooding in December.

Now the minister claims his "feelings are hurt".

While we all shed a thousand tears for the wounded soul of this sensitive government personage, it's a stark reminder of the utter lack of legal freedom of speech in the Gulf, however much newspapers push boundaries on a daily basis. That gem of legal history, the UAE Publications Law, is quite clear on the issue:

Article 70

No criticism shall be made against the Head of State or Rulers of the Emirates

Article 84

It is prohibited to malign a public official, or anybody occupying a post in the public prosecution, or assigned to perform a public job. The writer shall not be held responsible if he proves he did so in good faith.


The divine right of kings: to rule without election; to misrule without question.

"Electronic pimps"

"Farewell forever, Mother, I sent an SMS to a vulgar TV channel and have just triggered the apocalypse."

Forget Iran and the Mad Mayor's nukes, the greatest threat to the UAE's national security is interactive TV channels, according to Dubai Police Chief Lt Gen Tamim in his speech "Negative Media threaten National Security":

The police chief warned that if they are not stopped, "every house will lose a son, every mother will lose a daughter, and every house will lose stability. Media ministers and Arab rulers must take up the issue of interactive TV channels."

He said there is a "psychological error" in the minds of the group of people who run such channels, as they do not mind spreading corruption in the society with the aim of destroying it. He said anyone who sells his beliefs, religion, reputation, family and himself, finds it easy to sell his country.

One small SMS for man, one giant treasonous societal meltdown for sandlandkind.

Cell Block G is happily unpolluted by such televisual perversions, having no satellite dish nor cable nor TV aerial. But God forbid Lt Gen Tamim ever stumble across the internet in his quest for purer morals.

Positively imbecilic

A great surprise for many hacks throughout the sandlands who erroneously believed their profession to be about reporting the truth, providing information, and exposing injustice and wrongdoing.

Apparently their job is actually to "project a positive and true image of the country", according Youssef Al Hassan of the Emirates Institute of Diplomacy:

"Hassan said media and the ministry are responsible for projecting a positive image of the UAE and there should be some kind of cooperation between them to carry out the duty. The seminar also discussed weak points in the UAE media. “We need more transparency in our media and we should know what is the exact image we want to deliver to others about us,” Hassan said."

Hassan, journalists couldn't care less about the "exact image" you want to project. That's not their job. It's your job and the job of your PR companies and spin-men. It's the media's job to cut through your crap and find the dark rot behind the diamanté exterior. So if the media doesn't swallow your spin, bad luck. There's always Emirates Today.

7Days, seventh hell

The rumours continue to fly over popular free UAE tabloid 7Days: is it going to be shut down? Has it disappeared for good?

7Days has had a chequered past. It began life as arguably the worst, most puerile and ill-written weekly newspaper the world has ever witnessed.

Then it went (six) daily, and by some miracle, was transformed into a decent and amusing little rag. Its letters page became a phenomenon: a kind of literary qahwa-house for gossip, mudslinging and general exchanges between expats, locals and a host of amusing fake-letter writing trolls. Who can forget "Maria Metcalf" and the labourers disturbing her Jumeirah coffee mornings? Or Penny Francis and her homophobic Ladies' Circle?

Things progressed, culminating in the purchase of a 60% stake in 7Days by UK-based Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail and Metro.

Then suddenly, something went very, horribly wrong. 7Days had withstood many buffetings and high winds over the course of time, but never such a storm as this. The trigger? Bizarrely, a supposedly light-hearted, international feature about women's assertiveness training in Russia, unfortunately titled "Bitch school". For some reason this was a huge insult to local culture. That article has since been deleted from their site, but the same story can be found in this Telegraph article. Fairly innocuous one would think.

The next bizarre furore was over an interview with UAE President Khalifa, reprinted from WAM and AFP copy. To the average expat, it was a positive, serious article and an important and useful opportunity to read a translation of his Highness's words, given the original article was printed in Arabic in a London newspaper. But to the Arab press, 7Days had committed some kind of earthshattering outrage where Khalifa misquoted and utterly insulted. That article stayed up for longer, but has now been deleted, its Google cache can be seen here.

Three Arab papers - two of which are owned by rival Dubai government-owned media group AMG - raged against 7Days in their editorials and called for an advertiser boycott of 7Days. 7Days, which had apologised profusely and even fired someone over the Russian article, was absolutely bewildered, as were most of its readers, and it is interesting to note that it has not been forced to print an apology for the article.

Then 7Days starts disappearing. It has allegedly been banned from Emaar properties. Various advertisers pull out. The distributor quits. Rumours fly that it has been shut down. Conspiracy theories abound. According to the latest sources, 7Days has found a new distributor, and deliveries are returning to normal.

The question remains: why? Why is there suddenly an orchestrated campaign to shut down a newspaper that could have easily been closed over numerous, far more obviously controversial articles at many times in its history?

Could it be that someone has finally realised the significance of having an independent newspaper in the UAE owned by a very powerful international group? If so, they need to think a bit further about how that powerful group might react if its new acquisition is crushed and killed.

"British Trash"

What would the reaction be if British-owned newspaper 7Days had reviewed an Arabic restaurant, and used the term "Arab trash" to describe local diners?

But of course it's fine for Dubai government-owned newspaper Emirates Today to review (or slag off for several hundred ignorant words) Gordon Ramsay's restaurant Verre and insult British people.

Shaggy dog story

An associate relates a rather disturbing anecdote concerning a prominent, much reviled dishdash, who we'll refer to as Bin Jamal. The story starts with Bin Jamal racing down the highway at breakneck speed with his beloved dog in the front seat.

Unsurprisingly, there was an accident, the car flipped, and Bin Jamal lost consciousness. His minions rescued him and took him back to Dubai, and as soon as he came round, he demanded to know where his dog was.

"You left the dog out in the desert!" he accused them.

"Sir, he wasn't with you, he must have run off after the accident."

"Go get him immediately!!!"

So they did. They found the poor pooch wandering around near the crash site and brought him back to Bin Jamal, who immediately began beating the poor animal senseless, screaming: "How dare you leave me to die like that!"

Bin Jamal then demanded his minions take the dog outside and shoot him, which of course they did.

the secret

The thought occurred that RSS subscribers and readers may not have seen the ad for the secret, a new email newsletter being sent out in association with Secret Dubai diary. It contains a weekly/fortnightly dose of Dubai-related intrigue, adventure, scandal, and *useful* links. It will be as juicy as available gossip allows.

Anyone interested can sign up here, in the right hand column. Content submissions, from rumours to classified information, are also very welcome.

If you have any problems signing up (for example the confirmation email never arrives), just drop a comment on the blog and you can be added manually. The mailing list provider, YourMailingListProvider, has strict anti-spam policies and will not sell your email address. You can also unsubscribe at any time.

UAE banned books list

The UAE Banned Books list: everyone has heard of it, but no one really knows what is on it. Education minister Sheikh Nahyan says no book should be banned, but pretty much every new publication, such as Musharraf's Memoirs, has to go through the censors first.

One of the most notorious and desirable forbidden tomes is Robin Moore's 1977 blockbuster Dubai:

"Dubai. The hot spot... Where adventurers play the world's most dangerous games... Gold, sex, oil... and war."

Plus ça change, but sadly, "Dubai" has been out of print for decades. The rumour is that Sheikh Rashid was so appalled by its contents, and the accuracy of its portrayal of the Creek, gold smuggling, tribal politics and so on, that he bought the rights to it, to prevent further publication. Happily the novel sold so well at the time that endless second hand copies are available for a dollar or less. Whether one can legally import it is another matter - safer, perhaps, to borrow a dog-eared copy from a Jumeirah OBE that falls open at the juiciest pages (the lurid 1970s-style sex scenes, or the Arab orgy).

Whether "Dubai" is on the banned list or not, it's interesting to note that the UAE is more progressive in allowing certain books than several European nations. Mein Kampf is flying off the shelves, leaving Oprah's Book Club in its dust.

Seven star shootout

Great excitement in the sandlands today, with an alleged fatal shoot out at the Burj Al Arab:

DUBAI - A Russian millionaire was killed in an alleged shootout, while another man was seriously injured in the incident that took place at the Burj Al Arab Hotel here in the small hours yesterday.

The victims, according to a hotel source, were guests. Unconfirmed reports said the millionaire was staying in one of the suites. Two men, known to him, entered his suite and shot him dead in the course of a drunken brawl, these reports said.

But more thrilling than the actual report has been a day of vanishing stories and changing details, as well as various unprintable information arriving from various sources. A brief timeline:

Thursday am - KT prints the above story
Thursday midday - KT removes the story from its site
Thursday afternoon - KT publishes another story, claiming a Syrian, not Russian, died
Thursday afternoon - KT pulls that story too
Friday early morning - 7Days prints a more detailed account

This time there's no gun, and no Russian millionaire, but the details - of a fatal diamond heist - are even more gruesome:

"The Russian men were really big and banged Rhami’s and Illiyas’s heads together literally. Illyas’ head has swollen and has almost doubled in size,” the friend added.

The Burj needed something like this, it was getting a bit faded and old-hat. Now its drama and mystique are back. The world's most expensive - and the world's most thrilling - hotel.

Dear readers

"Dear readers, the ousted editor had gone wrong all the way through his reign. He has, most importantly, antagonised the people in the five departments bordering his office like no other editor in the sandlands ever did. It is clear that such was the kind of mis-governance that has led to this week's coup.

"Considering the extent of chaos that existed in the newspaper in recent times, marked by escalating quaintisms, grammar that was later declared "unendurable", loss of any sense of journalism or decent writing whatsoever, and call for a new editor by this time last decade, the situation was tailor-made for a coup, and the top sandlands brass has stepped in only to set things right. The promise is that they would hand over power to a new editor within two weeks and literacy restored in a year’s time.

"Dear readers, the glee in the media and elsewhere in the aftermath of the coup is proof that the editor had lost popular support and the people didn’t want him to lead them. No wonder then that he chose to run away from the country. But, there will be no escape. His wrong words will continue to haunt him. It will also not do if he tries to justify illiteracy, in which he himself has come under a cloud, as part of public life. That is not what the people expected of an editor of a major national newspaper."

Spiel and spin

The summer is over and we are not saved any longer from the endless deluge of press releases that pours every second into the inboxes of hacks across the sandlands, making one yearn for the more comatose time of Ramadan ahead. To make things easier for the doubtless frantic PR bunnies, beavering 24/7 over their typewriters in a fever of spin, hyperbole and downright mendacity, here is a brand new tool, the UAE Press Release Generator © v1.0:

Kretinous editorial

It's been twelve hours now: twelve long, tortured, painful hours of brainwracking and bewilderment, but it is time to concede defeat. If anyone has a micro iota of a clue what Mohammed A R Galadari's (henceforth "Marg") editorial in today's Khaleej Times is about, could they please send their answers in immediately by cyber-postcard. There are no prizes, just peace of mind.

The editorial starts by talking about a case with zero apparent relevance to the UAE. The confession of a murderous paedophile, with form as long as Sheikh Zayed road, will be thrown out of a Florida court due to wrongful police procedure.

Now the normal moral one might draw out of this, were one given to the ghastly Victorianesque sermonising so beloved by the KT, would perhaps be: "if police don't follow proper procedure, dangerous villains may get away with their crimes".

But no. Marg interprets this as: "THIS is a victory for the people and cause of justice."

It's highly doubtful that the average Floridian is jumping around celebrating victory and justice over this legal loophole, but it's obviously excited Marg. We move on. Next comes a little paragraph of patronising baby-talk where Marg explains US law to his "Dear readers". Thanks Marg.

Then we get to the crux of the brainfuck:

"Dear readers, this interesting case also reminds me of our own force, Dubai Police. "

How? How exactly does US police buggering up procedure in the case of a murderous paedophile remind Marg of Dubai coppers?

We finally arrive at several paragraphs of hyperbolic sycophancy extolling the wonders of the Dubai police. Clearly this is the sole point of the entire editorial: Marg is wastamongering "truly inspiring police chief" Lt Gen Tameem. Clearly Marg felt that he couldn't just praise Dubai police by finding a few impressive examples of their prowess. Instead he has to hang his fawning on some irrelevant, disturbing, negative incident that Dubai police would be highly embarrassed to be connected with.

Breaking the news

It's always amusing when yet another poor fool launches himself into the market here with all sorts of patronising, grand statements of bringing "western journalistic standards":

"Our paper will publish a higher proportion of self-generated stories and we can do it better [than the existing business coverage]," said [Frank] Kane.

What Mr Kane fails to realise is that people have tried to do this time and time again. Yes - standards here are shit. Yes - there is a limited talent pool polluted by ignorant and untrained and mediocre and failed hacks from east and west. But there are also significant numbers of "western-style" journalists - including Arabs and Indians, many of whom have worked in London and New York and elsewhere - trying to raise standards. And at nearly every hurdle they fall.

Why? Because at the end of the day, the last thing any of the Dishdashes-That-Be want here is a truly free press. That's why government interference with supposedly independent papers is skyrocketing. That's why certain stories are blacked out here. That's why editors from the (ultra-tame by any western standard) are continually being pulled up over negative stories or topics. It's also why copy from state news agency WAM is cut-and-paste verbatim.

It's one thing being MEED, or Arabies Trends, or the BBC and carrying with you a certain amount of immunity. It's quite another thing to bring out a local daily paper and expect to be allowed to be the FT. Incredibly Terrible Publications, or "ITP" as we fondly call it, is one of the biggest and most powerful media groups here. Yet its editors have been forced to pull many stories and publish endless apologies across various titles.

Luckily for Mr Kane, his editor is significantly more savvy about the reality of the sandlands:

"It won't be easy. I don't think you can take a western journalistic model and implant it into the United Arab Emirates," said Mr Neil. "We will be operating in a different environment and we are not there to change society. That's up to the citizens there.

Spinning the week

What a fantastic week it's been!

MoE treats visitors to night-time shopping experience

Government grants free holiday to 20,000 expat secretaries

Radio listeners win a free trip to Dubai

3,500 workers hold a big celebration in Sonapur

Supermarkets offer exciting variety of prices

Bonfire fun for bachelor boys

Kind-hearted cabbie gives lady free ride to government hotel