Abu Dhabi and Dubai Blog

Home prices in the once red-hot Middle East boomtown of Dubai plunged 41 percent in the first three months of 2009 as the global economic slowdown raised concerns about job security and dried up financing, according to figures released Tuesday that suggest nearly two years of gains have evaporated.

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/04/28/ap6348187.html

A video tape smuggled out of the United Arab Emirates shows a member of the country’s royal family mercilessly torturing a man with whips, electric cattle prods and wooden planks with protruding nails.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=7402099

Rihanna could be returning to the stage soon. The singer, who has kept a relatively low profile since the alleged February 8 altercation with her then-boyfriend Chris Brown, is in talks to put on a show next month in the popular Middle Eastern resort locale of Dubai.

With modesty, and a subtle boost to Dubai’s languishing image she stated that “this is another example of how Dubai tourism is attracting the best of the best and is one of the world’s hottest destinations.”

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1609391/20090416/rihanna.jhtml

Dubai was meant to be a Middle-Eastern Shangri-La, a glittering monument to Arab enterprise and western capitalism. But as hard times arrive in the city state that rose from the desert sands, an uglier story is emerging. Johann Hari reports

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html

As former Chechen-Russian military commander is gunned down in Dubai, there is speculation on the possible role of the current Chechen president, implicated in a series of targeted killings of political enemies.

Sulim Yamadayev, 35, an ethnic Chechen who was a holder of the Hero of Russia medal, was shot three times in an underground garage in Dubai on Saturday, police said. It is thought he died from his wounds after falling into a coma. Yamadayev is the latest in a series of foes of Ramzan Kadyrov, the 32-year-old rebel-turned-president of Chechnya, to be murdered in recent years.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/30/former-russian-commander-assassinated

Federal prosecutors are disinclined to allow the actor to travel overseas again for work after learning that, the last time he was allowed to do so, Snipes took a sojourn to the United Arab Emirates for the gala opening of the $1.5 billion Atlantis the Palm hotel in Dubai.

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b106127_wesley_snipes_feeling_heat_from_party.html

Three reasons why Dubai’s doom is greatly exaggerated:

First, the very fact that almost all of the emirate’s labour is foreign is a boon. Simply put, there will be no long lines at the unemployment office. There will be no public or parliamentary debate over how to help those who are now out of work. If you lose your job and you’re a foreigner, you’ll be on the next plane to wherever you came from in the first place. If you happen to be one of the 250,000 working Emiratis (not even half of whom are in Dubai), then you won’t lose your job to begin with, or you’ll be re-assigned or given some government post. For Dubai, just like the other small Gulf sheikhdoms, the economic crisis does not automatically translate into a social issue.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/mar/17/credit-crunch-dubai

“Holding hands in public, dancing, kissing, nudity and playing loud music in public are now considered inappropriate behaviour in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.”

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25191521-5012895,00.html