Abu Dhabi and Dubai Blog

The financial crisis and now two criminal cases that have generated critical headlines in other countries have demonstrated that the emirates remain an absolute monarchy, where institutions are far less important than royalty and where the law is particularly capricious — applied differently based on social standing, religion and nationality, political experts and human rights advocates said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/world/middleeast/22uae.html

Even as the site was being excavated more than five years ago, during the halcyon days of the Dubai miracle, the Emirates construction business was disillusioning. Dogged by human and civil rights violations, the Pakistani, Bengali, Indian, and Chinese workers who poured the reinforced concrete, put in place the support beams, and manned the high cranes that still dominate the Dubai skyline were often subjected to unhygienic, overcrowded living quarters, unsafe working conditions, and withheld wages.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/currents/81082807.html