DUBAI: Government freezes debt repayments amid fears of global recession backlash

The chairman of Dubai's Supreme Fiscal Committee would like the world to know that despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, everything is under control.

"Our intervention in Dubai World was carefully planned and reflects its specific financial position," said Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, following Dubai's surprise announcement Wednesday that it would freeze its own debt repayments in order to restructure Dubai World, its biggest investment holding company.

"This is a sensible business decision," said Maktoum, adding that Dubai's economic fundamentals are sound and ensure it will remain an attractive regional market.

Dubai's creditors, along with most of the global banking and financial community, seem to disagree. Oil prices dropped and world markets suffered steep losses amid widespread fears that Dubai's latest financial woes could cause a global economic backslide just as many markets were showing signs of recovery. In the United States, Wall Street opened with sharp losses.

"You can't just say to the world: 'I don't want to pay my debts,' " David Buik, senior partner at BGC Partners, told the BBC. "There is no income coming in from any of these properties. I think this is shocking P.R."

DUBAI: Now, she can look pious in hijab and cool in her shades

Want to observe Islamic dress code while staying trendy in Dubai and Saudi Arabia’s scorching desert heat? 

Put on a pair of gold encrusted BQ shades --  the world’s first sunglasses especially tailored for piously dressed women in the Persian Gulf.

The brand's name BQ comes  from the word burqa --  a face-covering harness worn by women in the Persian Gulf region in nomadic times. BQ's debut collection features modern replicas of the traditional accessory in the form of large, dark aviator-style sunglasses.

Behind the line is London-based design firm Fitch branch in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It hopes BQ will become a hit among young fashionable women in the region by mixing trends with tradition.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Authorities target book piracy in raids across the country

Fearing that the United Arab Emirates might turn into a haven for intellectual property scofflaws, authorities are implementing tough new measures to keep pirated book traders at bay. 

Over the last months, the UAE's Ministry of Economy along with police forces in Dubai and Sharjah and the Arabian Anti-Piracy Alliance have carried out a series of raids suspected of book piracy across the country.

The task force is said to have so far busted three major traders and locked them up on charges of violating copyright law. Several book shops were shut down in the raids, while others were let off with fines, read a news release published by local media.

The raids turned out to be fruitful. A wide variety of pirated books were apparently retrieved in the operation.

“They were a combination of fiction, non-fiction as well as textbooks. Pirates target everything,” Scott Butler, head of the AAA told Abu Dhabi's The National. 

IRAN: Book says U.S. spies pump Dubai visa applicants for intel

The CIA stepped in to prevent the United States from closing a consulate in the Persian Gulf city-state of Dubai, arguing that it was a gold mine of human intelligence from Iran.

That's according to a new book, “City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism,” by former Associated Press correspondent Jim Krane.

The State Department tried “more than once” to shut down its consular services office in Dubai for budget reasons.

But it ran up against the resistance of senior intelligence officials. 

For decades, they'd been gleaning precious information about Iran by grilling hundreds of Iranian visa applicants, according to the book.

The CIA several times over the years managed to convince the State Department to make cuts elsewhere, Krane writes in the book, released in the U.S. this week. 

Iranians applying for U.S. visas in the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai are “monitored, interrogated and, sometimes, recruited into spying on their own government” by Iran specialists and Farsi speakers working for the CIA or other American agencies, the book says. 

Those with Iranian military or government backgrounds are asked to return time and again, with agents “pressing them to collect more and deeper details,” while holding out the possibility of a U.S. visa so they can visit friends and family or consider emigration, Krane writes. 

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Government bugs BlackBerrys with spy program

When BlackBerry users in the United Arab Emirates were urged to download what they thought was a routine software upgrade, they had no idea that by doing so they were installing a surveillance program that gives the state-controlled service provider Etisalat unfettered access to their personal mobile devices.

After finding out, over half of Etisalat’s customers, many of whom conduct sensitive business on their BlackBerrys, say they intend to cancel their contracts immediately, according to a poll conducted by Arabian Business and published by local tech-news website itp.net, which has been following the story closely.

The spyware was traced to SS8, an American company specializing in what it calls "lawful interception."

On Tuesday, the Canadian company that makes BlackBerry issued a statement denying any connection to the bugged application.

“Independent sources have concluded that the Etisalat update is not designed to improve performance of your BlackBerry, but rather to send received messages back to a central server,” the statement read.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: Education is latest addition to Abu Dhabi's master plan

Abu Dhabi is looking to bolster its educational credentials, opening New York University's newest campus next fall alongside cultural landmarks such as the Louvre Abu Dhabi and a new Guggenheim on Saadiyat Island.

NYU Abu Dhabi is one of several ambitious projects that the emirate has funded as part of its  2030 Initiative, a multibillion dollar plan to put itself at the forefront of several industries. Abu Dhabi has been propelling its profile more than its neighboring emirate Dubai, a glittery symbol of oil-funded development in recent years. 

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EGYPT: Justice for the corrupt

Egypt’s rich and politically connected, often floating above the law with manicures and arrogance, have not fared so well these days.

Hisham Talaat Mustafa, a burly billionaire with ties to the ruling regime, was sentenced to the gallows last week for arranging the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Suzanne Tamim, a talented, but troubled Lebanese pop star. She was found with her throat slit in her high-rise Dubai apartment in July.

Mustafa’s verdict followed a seven-year prison sentence given in March to Mahmoud Ismail, the owner of a huge bank account and a dilapidated ferry that sank in the Red Sea and killed more than 1,000 passengers in 2006. Ismail, who fled to London following the incident, was sentenced in absentia and most likely will not do any jail time.

DUBAI: Police announce arrests of thousands of pimps, prostitutes

In a city-state that imports most of its human capital, from upper management to unskilled labor, it's no surprise that sex trafficking and forced prostitution have also flourished alongside (and sometimes inside) Dubai's luxury hotels and glittering skyscrapers.

In December 2007, however, the Dubai police responded by raiding two dozen brothels and detaining hundreds of suspects in the biggest prostitution sting to date.

At the time, Police Chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim told the Associated Press that the Dubai government had "declared war on human trafficking."

Since then, police in Dubai have arrested 2,713 sex workers and 107 female pimps as part of an ongoing campaign against vice, according to a recent report in the Saudi-based Arab News.

DUBAI: 'Manly' women considered menace to society

We've all heard about the financial crisis hitting  Dubai and the United Arab Emirates' economy: real estate prices plummeting, herds of professionals getting laid off and flocks of shopping-obsessed tourists disappearing.

In this economic mess, the oil-rich United Arab Emirates has set its sights not on unscrupulous bankers or speculators, but bizarrely on women said to act and dress in a masculine way.

The government of the United Arab Emirates, a confederation of kingdoms torn between the conservative Muslim society and Western influences, is dead serious about “protecting” society against the growing number of women said to dress, behave and speak like men.

In fact, the ministry of social affairs a few days ago launched a campaign called “Excuse me, I am a girl," directed against what they described as the "fourth gender," according to media reports. The language is seen as a euphemism for lesbians.