Abu Dhabi and Dubai Blog

From the Toronto Star, Waheeda Harris visits the marketplaces of Dubai:

The path is narrow, and the vendors crowd me as I peer into the small shops. From floor to ceiling, the rich shades of the spices beckon me, from the brown shades of cumin and cinnamon to the bright red of saffron and the deep black of pepper and clove.

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http://www.thestar.com/Travel/article/592365

Earlier this week [Canadian author], Atwood, 69, elected to bow out of the event after receiving reports that organizers had banned the launch of a novel there by British author-journalist Geraldine Bedell. Called The Gulf Between Us, the novel reportedly has a character who is both a sheik and gay, with an English boyfriend.

However, in an e-mail yesterday, Atwood said “none of the stories we have heard so far about the [alleged banning of the Bedell novel] have been 100 per cent accurate.”

http://business.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090219.WBBooksblog20090219172912/WBStory/WBBooksblog

An in depth piece from the Guardian on the sheen that is wearing off in Dubai as economic problems arrive there too.

But banks have stopped lending and the stock market has plunged 70%. Scrape beneath the surface of the fashion parades and VIP parties, and the evidence of economic slowdown are obvious. Luxury hotels are three-quarters empty. Shopkeepers in newly-built malls are reporting a drop in sales. In Dubai you expect to see a Ferrari parked beside a Rolls-Royce. But not, as is the case now, with scruffy For Sale signs taped to the windows.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/13/dubai-boom-halt

Black smoke billowed hundreds of feet into the air after the Maltese tanker struck a “feeder vessel” – a ship that shuttles cargo containers from big ports to smaller ones – about five miles from the Jebel Ali Port.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5702939.ece

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You’ve heard of the Burj Al Arab, and the Atlantis, but what about the Dubai Holiday Inn? As times get tough perhaps the era of comfortable budget travel in the UAE has finally arrived.

Dubai has proudly touted its image as a travel hotspot that caters primarily to wealthy jet-setters from across the world. However, the emirate is beginning to realize that in order to attract more tourists it needs to diversify its offerings to appeal to a wider scope of travellers, especially in light of the financial downturn.

http://www.ameinfo.com/183939.html

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Less than on hour’s drive from Dubai, that city on steroids, is a magical oasis, where desert animals thrive and have no fear of man. Fittingly, the first creature we see as the gate closes behind us is the oryx, the antelope that gave the 225-square-kilometre Desert Conservation Reserve its Arab name. That 225 square kilometres is five per cent of the Dubai Emirate’s total land area.

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http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Dubai+nature+reserve+oasis/804417/story.html

In similarity to a previous story from Dubai, Abu Dhabi’s civil authorities are now carrying out evictions on multi-family villas, allegedly for safety reasons.

Abu Dhabi Municipality launched a week-long campaign against makeshift homes on the weekend, but it has been clamping down on partitioned accommodation since late last summer. While many families have found themselves without anywhere to live, often at short notice, the municipality insisted that a formal policy of keeping only one family in each home did not exist.

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090203/NATIONAL/97623614/1119