Dubai: What are those Sheiks up to? And then there is slave labour

"There are, however, two basic truths about Dubai which, predictably, have not found their way into market speculation or newspaper analysis. The first is that Dubai may soon find itself a satellite not of its Abu Dhabi capital but of India. The biggest merchants in Dubai are Indian – they run the gold market, even the bookshops in Sheikh Mohamed's playpen – and west India is only two hours' flying time away. In fact, until 1962 – and you have to be an oldie to understand the emirates' economic world – the Indian rupee was the currency for most of the Gulf, including even Kuwait."

Who says? None other than veteran journalist and author [30 + years living in Beirut] Robert Fisk.

Read his full analysis, in The Independent, of what is going in what seemed like unassailably rich Dubai.

In a piece in the same newspaper, Johann Hari takes a stick to the image of Dubai - and it's not a pretty picture!

"Dubai is finally financially bankrupt – but it has been morally bankrupt all along. The idea that Dubai is an oasis of freedom on the Arabian peninsular is one of the great lies of our time.

Yes, it has Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts and the Gucci styles, but beneath these accoutrements, there is a dictatorship built by slaves.

If you go there with your eyes open – as I did earlier this year – the truth is hidden in plain view. The tour books and the bragging Emiratis will tell you the city was built by Sheikh Mohammed, the country's hereditary ruler.

It is untrue. The people who really built the city can be seen in long chain-gangs by the side of the road, or toiling all day at the top of the tallest buildings in the world, in heat that Westerners are told not to stay in for more than 10 minutes. They were conned into coming, and trapped into staying.

In their home country – Bangladesh or the Philippines or India – these workers are told they can earn a fortune in Dubai if they pay a large upfront fee. When they arrive, their passports are taken from them, and they are told their wages are a tenth of the rate they were promised.

They end up working in extremely dangerous conditions for years, just to pay back their initial debt. They are ringed-off in filthy tent-cities outside Dubai, where they sleep in weeping heat, next to open sewage. They have no way to go home. And if they try to strike for better conditions, they are beaten by the police."

Those wretched settlements: Israel PM's spin

Not for the first time have the Israelis said no more settlements. It's all a fiction. The latest so-called freeze is anything of the sort.

The Age newspaper's Middle East correspondent puts the so-called freeze into context:

"For 10 months, Netanyahu says, Israel will impose a residential housing construction freeze in the West Bank.

So does that mean the hammers will fall silent immediately? Far from it.

According to Netanyahu's plan for a settlement freeze, construction on 2500 partially built housing units in the West Bank can be completed.

So can another 500 new housing units in the West Bank announced earlier this year.

This isn't even a slowdown on last year. In 2008, according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics, there were 1647 new housing starts, and 1389 new housing starts in 2007.

In East Jerusalem, where the Palestinians hope to make their capital, Netanyahu says no limits will apply."

Over at Prospects for Peace, Daniel Levy also reflects on the spin [some would, rightly, say on- going lying] and the development of the settlements:

"Netanyahu also repeated the totally (meaningless)commitment of no new settlements or land confiscations (meaningless because since 1993, the official policy is no new settlements yet via expansion, new neighborhoods and outposts, the West Bank settler population has grown from 111,000 then to over 300,000 today, and because although the built-up area of settlements constitutes only 2% of West Bank land, double that amount is slated for growth, and a total of 40% comes under the Settlement Regional Councils, therefore land confiscation issue is a red herring)."

Soulmates.... and the Iraq deal [War] "signed in blood"

The Inquiry into the Iraq War might have just got underway in the UK, but it has already led to some "interesting" evidence.

The SMH reports this rather startling revelation:

"The personal relationship between Tony Blair and George Bush was so strong the former US President felt his British counterpart was the ''only human being he could talk to'' and other world leaders were ''like creatures from outer space''.

The details of the friendship between the leaders emerged yesterday when the former British ambassador to the US Christopher Meyer gave evidence to the inquiry into the Iraq war.

Sir Christopher, who was in the US on September 11, 2001, and before Iraq was invaded in 2003, said the two men got on extraordinarily well, and he remembered the then US secretary of state, Condoleeza Rice, telling him Mr Bush felt understood by Mr Blair.

''I remember it was after they had a very good weekend together and so did the wives, and the press conference afterwards, the Colgate moment, didn't do justice to the nature of their relationship,'' he told the inquiry.

''They met at various meetings from time to time. It was Condoleeza Rice that told me that the President said he felt the only human being he could talk to was Tony … the rest were creatures from out of space.'"

Meanwhile, The Telegraph/UK reports on this evidence from the former UK Ambassador to the US:

"The two men were alone in the ranch so I'm not entirely clear to this day what degree of convergence (on Iraq policy) was signed in blood, if you like, at the Crawford ranch.

"But there are clues in the speech Tony Blair gave the next day, which was the first time he had said in public ‘regime change'. He was trying to draw the lessons of 9/11 and apply them to the situation in Iraq which led - I think not inadvertently but deliberately - to a conflation of the threat posed by Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

"When I read that I thought ‘this represents a tightening of the UK/US alliance and a degree of convergence on the danger Saddam Hussein presented'."

Good for you....good for the planet

Now here is a way to help yourself and the planet - at the same time.

The Montreal Gazette reveals all:

"Pedestrians and cyclists should be made king of the urban jungle, according to an international study showing the big benefits of "mass active travel."

It suggests money should be diverted way from roads to make walking and cycling "the most direct, convenient, and pleasant options for most urban trips." Pedestrians and bikers should also get "priority" over cars and trucks at intersections.

The study is one of six reports on the "health dividend" of combating climate change published in the medical journal Lancet Wednesday.

The reports say that enormous changes are needed to slow global warming, but show that reducing carbon dioxide emissions will be good for people's health. Millions of deaths could be averted by getting people out of cars, breathing cleaner air and eating healthier food."

Post that Cairo speech? Zip!

From on a piece on FP "Fulfilling the Promises of Cairo":

"On June 4, U.S. President Barack Obama traveled to Cairo's distinguished Cairo University to deliver an historic address to the Muslim world.

According to a Pew Research Center public opinion poll released this summer, the euphoria that initially accompanied his speech has mostly dissipated in the region. There is a clear improvement in public opinion of the United States in certain influential Muslim countries, including Obama's former home, Indonesia, and confidence in the president himself is high. However, Obama's personal popularity has not translated into major improvement across the board in attitudes toward the United States.

Given that it may take much longer for the administration to offer up major foreign breakthroughs that will mitigate Muslim resentment against America, the White House should consider a policy of diplomatic, economic and social engagement to protect the president's down payment with the Muslim world."

Is she really the one?

Credit to Mike Lukevich

Talk - with Hamas!!!

Who would have thought it? No lesser person than the one-time head of Israel's Mossad, says that his country ought to be talking with Hamas.

In an interview on Australia's ABC program PM, Efraim Halevy said:

"Well as you know I am on record for the last six years saying that Hamas should be part of the solution not part of the problem.

In the last two weeks two developments have taken place, a, the former minister of defence and chief of staff General Mofaz has come out openly and said that in certain circumstances people should talk to Hamas. And in a recent poll which was carried out last week, at the end of last week in Israel, a majority of Israelis believe that Israel should talk to Hamas.

So I am no longer a lone voice on this. The timing of such an event of course is contingent on when it would be of interest to both sides. I think that it will be in the end in the interest of both sides and I think in the end Mr Netanyahu will talk to Hamas in one form or another."

Read the full interview here.

Now its Blackwater in Pakistan

Veteran and well-respected journalist Jeremy Scahill, writing in The Nation, reveals in "Blackwater's Secret War in Pakistan" that the infamous Blackwater [of Iraq "fame"] is now up to no good in Pakistan:

"At a covert forward operating base run by the US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the Pakistani port city of Karachi, members of an elite division of Blackwater are at the center of a secret program in which they plan targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, "snatch and grabs" of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan, an investigation by The Nation has found. The Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help run a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the well-documented CIA predator strikes, according to a well-placed source within the US military intelligence apparatus.

The source, who has worked on covert US military programs for years, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has direct knowledge of Blackwater's involvement. He spoke to The Nation on condition of anonymity because the program is classified. The source said that the program is so "compartmentalized" that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence."