More bad news for Brand Dubai

I've just been reading an AFP story in the Sydney Morning Herald, the headline being "Dubai's beaches face a stinking problem"

After the original plethora of positive stories with everything presented in glowing terms, we're seeing more and more of these negative reports. From the living and working conditions of labourers to the whale shark to the beach romp jail sentences to the beach pollution issue.

So much of Dubai's success in future depends on tourism that it must be causing concern in high places.

The story begins like this:


Dubai's beautiful beaches have been making headlines because of a couple who allegedly had sex by the sea, but a more pervasive nuisance from washed up sewage threatens to deter tourists.

For several weeks some of the emirate's fabled beaches have been covered with the stinking contents of septic tanks as Dubai suffers the consequences of its frantic and poorly controlled development.

The foul effluent, which threatens to damage Dubai's image, highlights one of the paradoxes of the emirates -- it can build the world's tallest tower and six-star hotels but has not constructed the sewage works it needs.

New apartment blocks and neighbourhoods are rising everywhere at a record pace, but infrastructure is dragging behind.

For example, the city still has no main drainage system, hence the need for tankers to collect the contents of septic tanks and transport the waste to the emirate's only sewage treatment works at Al-Awir, out in open desert.

It is of course all to do with the thing I complain about endlessly. Lack of or incompetent planning.

I was actually intending to start this post about here, with another, much less dramatic, example of incompetent planning. The Herald article was on the same subject so I started with that instead.

My little example is in Jumeirah Beach Residence, along the very pleasant area known as The Walk.

Completed, attractive areas are being dug up by the holescaping gangs.

As I've said many times before, this creates inconvenience, it adds unnecessary noise & dirt pollution, it obviously adds costs.

In The Walk many recently finished perfectly good kerb areas were being dug up, jack-hammers blasting away.

I couldn't understand why, but now I see. They forgot to include wheelchair access ramps. So now they're putting them in...



Other areas, also complete and looking good, have been jackhammered away and huge holes have been dug.

It looks to me as though they'll eventually be water features. Water features they didn't think about before they'd finished the construction.



It isn't just one forgetful or incompetent individual, there's a long line of people responsible for this.

The executives giving the original briefing, the designers, all the people in the chain who approved the designs up to senior executives who signed off on the plans, the people who approved various stages of the work. No-one said "What about the access ramps?" No-one said "We need a fountain at the bottom of the steps."

Only after all the work is finished are these things raised.

The problems we face were avoidable. All of them. It needed, still needs, planning.

But there isn't any.



The Sydney Morning Herald article is here.

PS to 'Hope' post

I wasn't going to post a follow-on to my 'Hope at last' posting, but comments left on it have changed my mind.

In that post I expressed my fear for the safety of President-elect Obama. I put that fear into context by stating the fact that the US is a violent country. I also stated the fact of the extent of gun ownership.

Comments on the post took us into the whole gun control debate, although that wasn't the point of the post.

However, as we were taken there I thought I'd draw your attention to a report I've just been reading on the surge in gun buying in response to Barak Obama's election.

A few lines from it:

"I was selling guns before I even opened the door," said George Horne, owner of The Gun Room. "It's gone completely mad. Everyone is buying everything I've got on the shelves. Sales have been crazy."

One customer left with two new assault rifles and said he had already bought 30 weapons since Obama began his campaign for president. "And look at this," he said, unwrapping a black rifle from a plastic cover. "I'm not talking BB guns."

Jerry Stehman told an endless wave of customers at his Jerry's Outdoor Sports store in Grand Junction to come back in two hours to pick up their firearm purchases. For the past 10 days, Stehman said, customers have been gathering cases of ammunition and multiple guns.


And here's how they view their President-elect:

The Grand Junction pawnshop is decorated with bumper stickers: "Obama 08" with hammers and sickles on each end, "Obama for President of Afghanistan" and "Don't Be a Victim. Buy a Gun."

"We don't know where this character is coming from or what he's gonna do to us," Stehman said of Obama. "But I can tell you it's been good for business."

Buying weapons is almost as easy as buying groceries:

By midday Wednesday, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation's "Insta- Check" background check — required for the sale of a firearm and typically about 8 minutes long — was jammed with waits lasting more than two hours..


The quotes are from this article.

Metro pedestrian bridges

The pedestrian bridges from Metro stations across Sheikh Zayed Road are being put in place.

This one is between Ibn Battuta Mall and Dubai Marina, going across from the station...



This one is across from Media City...



They seem to be constructing them in sections at the side of SZR in and swinging them into place.

Presumably, people not using the Metro but needing to cross SZR will be able to use them too?

Hope at last

Barak Obama is President-elect.

He seems to be full of confidence for the future but in reality it would have been a good election to lose. It's something of a poison chalice because the breadth and depth of the problems facing him must be unprecedented in American presidential history.

The catastrophic George W Bush presidency has left such an unbelievable mess both in America and around the world that it will probably take more than one term, even more than the two terms which Obama may have, to get us all back to where we need to be.

Just think of the problems the extreme ideology of the far right Bush years have generated.

The collapse of the financial system, the world in recession, the US with trillions of dollars of debt, the erosion of liberties with the illegal snooping on Americans, state-sponsored kidnapping and torture, the junking of the Geneva Conventions, the erosion of international organisations such as the UN, the illegal, immoral and counter-productive invasion of Iraq, chaos in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Israel/Palestine issue worse than ever, the irresponsible use of robots and drones as weapon platforms which have killed hundreds of innocent people, unilateral attacks in friendly ally countries, the world a far more dangerous place than it was when Bush came to power, the encouragement by divisive wedge politics of racism, bigotry and xenophobia.

And so much more.

And added to the disastrous policies, the breathtaking utter incompetence of the way the policies were carried out, from Iraq to Afghanistan to New Orleans.

A lot of people are not going to like what I'm going to say, but it's not opinion it's fact.

Don't blame it all on Bush.

So many people say 'It isn't America's fault, it's the government'. Well, who put the government there? As unpopular as saying it may be, the American people must take their share of the blame.

As must the media. For example, Time magazine made him Person of the Year in 2004.

Incredible as it may seem, they said: For sticking to his guns (literally and figuratively), for reshaping the rules of politics to fit his ten-gallon-hat leadership style and for persuading a majority of voters that he deserved to be in the White House for another four years, George W. Bush is TIME's 2004 Person of the Year.

After the first four years of seeing exactly what their President was doing, about 100 million eligible voters couldn't be bothered to vote in 2004. Those who did voted to give him him another four years. He won 31 of the 50 states. Over 50% of voters agreed with his policies and the way they were carried out and voted for more of the same.

In 2004 over 62 million Americans voted for a continuation of the catastrophic George W Bush administration.

That's an awful lot of people who must take their share of responsibility for the disasters created by Bush in the last four years.

Even in what is being depicted as an Obama landslide, with at this moment as I write 338 electoral college votes to McCain's 168, a broader look at the figures shows that 21 states have voted Republican. Senator McCain has over 55 million votes, which is 47% of votes counted.

Fifty-five million people, and counting, have voted for a continuation of the disastrous policies of the last eight years and for a possible President Palin.

Unbelievable.


Hope for the future, and fear.

The hope is that President Obama can at least begin to repair the damage, to start on the work needed to bring a fairer society, to re-establish America's standing in the world, to move away from the extreme ideology that's blighted the world for the last eight years.

My fear, my real fear, is for the safety of the new president.

Here's more that a lot of people are going to froth at the mouth over but again it's not simply my opinion. Here are some facts.

The US is a violent country awash with firearms. It's worse than the 'lawless' tribal areas on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border because the over 200 million firearms (yes, over 200 million) in American society include many state-of-the-art military weapons.

Violent? According to the FBI there are over 16,000 homicides every year. That's about two murders every hour of every day of every week of every year. It's the death toll of 9/11 every five weeks.

America is home to many terror groups. In recent years we've seen domestic terror groups from the far left and the far right and racist groups. And many disturbed, violent, heavily armed individuals.

We've seen the Oklahoma bombing, which killed at least 158 people including 19 children and injured over 850. We see regular mass murders at schools such as Columbine. We've seen anthrax being sent through the mail.

We've seen the shooting of President Reagan and Governor George Wallace, the killing of President John F. and Robert Kennedy and of Martin Luther King.

This cultural violence and aggression has been adopted by the government for at least the last six years, so extremism has been encouraged by government example.

Just last week we saw the arrest of two armed white supremacist skinheads for plotting to murder Obama.

So I have a real fear for President-elect Obama's safety.

He has so much to do, such huge problems to solve and I firmly believe he's the best chance we have. If I were a religious person I'd be praying for his safety and his success.

And to the 62 millon Americans who at last count have voted for him, thank you.

Get ready for traffic chaos.

You think Dubai's traffic is bad now? Just wait until the final work on the Creek extension starts!

The RTA has announced the final extension of the Creek from Business Bay to rejoin the Gulf near Jumeirah Beach Park.

This final stage is only just over 2km long...but it crosses Sheikh Zayed Road, Al Wasl Road and Jumeirah Beach Road.

A report in Gulf News says that this stage will be carried out in three phases and will be compete by the end of 2010. I hope by 'three phases' they mean that only one road at a time will be affected.

Bridges have to be built, which means some major diversions, which in turn means major chaos.

Just think about SZR. Twelve lanes of traffic, six in each direction, with a 100kph speed limit, to be diverted around a massive bridge that has to be built.

Is there room for the diversion? I suppose there must be but I can't picture it.

From Business Bay the waterway will continue across SZR near Dubai Metroplolitan Hotel and the Emirates building, alongside Safa Park to cross Al Wasl Road, then straight out across Beach Road to the sea near Jumeirah Beach Park.

For those last two crossings surely some villas are going to have to be demolished - not just for the waterway but also for the diversions as the bridges are being built. Both roads are dual carriageways, Beach Road being six lanes and Al Wasl being four.


The story, photos and a map are here.

ID Card update

An update on the ID Card story I've posted about a couple of times.

I went to the Al Barsha EIDA office this morning and it was far from being the unpleasant drama that I've been reading and hearing about. And a far easier experience than dealing with the website!

All I took, as instructed, was my passport and the registration form/bar codes I'd printed out from their website. And cash for the Dh100 per year fee plus Dh20 delivery charge.

I went at 9.30am and found a parking space right outside. Only two people in the queue at Reception, so I was dealt with within a minute or two.

The Emirati lady looked at my registration form printout and passport and asked if I had an appointment. I didn't because all the stories have been that it's a waste of time, you still wait for hours. She asked if I had time to wait, which could be two hours. I said I would, she gave me a numbered ticket and directed me to the waiting area.

What a difference it is these days from the old government offices - Immigration and the like. Actually not so old, it's only two or three years ago that it was a free-for-all in run down buildings that had long ago seen their best years.

This is a new building, clean, smart, comfortable seats, good signage and the number system rather than the rugby scrum system.

My ticket was timed at 9.32 and at 10.04 my number was called.

A pleasant, friendly Emirati lady entered my details into her computer, translating my English form into Arabic and correcting the mistakes the website had insisted on including. Two of her colleagues came through, she showed them my Australian passport and we had a chat about Australia, laughed and joked about them wanting to visit and staying with me there.

Then into the next room to have my photograph taken and on into a third office for fingerprinting. Emirati men this time and as they were as pleasant and friendly as the ladies. And they were using what to my non-tech mind seemed to be very modern equipment - the digital camera set up and linked direct to the computer, the fingerprint machine also linked direct to the computer. None of the old black ink pads to be seen.

One hour after arriving I was told it was all finished and the card would be delivered to me.

And I must add a point about interaction with the staff. There's always a lot of negative comment about Emiratis, particularly those working in government offices, and the way they deal with expats, but I must say that I've very rarely had a problem. My experience has been that the majority are pleasant and friendly, as they were here.

One final observation - the queue at the typing office was fairly long and growing all the time. So although using the website to pre-register is frustrating I suggest it's better than the typing office option.

Colours of Singapore

Going through my photos from our last visit to Singapore for my earlier posts there were these which I thought I'd post because they show the vibrant, happy colours you'll find across most of the city.

It's well known as a green city of course. Being in the wet tropics, and just about on the equator, the plants grow almost uncontrollably.

So many cities have uprooted and replaced them with concrete, but not Singapore - these are in the main tourist area of Orchard Road...





There are also the colours that are very much part of the culture. We were there just after National Day and during one of the many festivals, so there was plenty of vibrant colour decoration, in shops, streets and on many of the buildings...

Even without decoration, the shops are colourful because of the items they display and sell...

The temples are ornate and beautifully decorated

And even without decoration, the streets can be colourful with traders' umbrellas...

Colour is very much a part of the city.