Turning the desert fertile is part of the UAE’s national mission statement. Unsurprisingly, the country has acquired a serious chemical-fertilizer habit. Nitrate levels in the groundwater and crops have become a cause for alarm in some regions and so the government has made the wise decision to start backing organic farming methods. But the underlying question remains: can desert farming ever be economically viable - let alone sustainable?
The Samosa just published an article I wrote after visiting an organic farm in Shahama, near Abu Dhabi, this summer. It was an eye-opening experience - one that has made me even more curious about the UAE’s dream of turning the desert green. More to follow on this.
Posted 10 months, 1 week ago at 7:33 am. Add a comment
I just discovered Brownbook, a three-year old magazine based in Dubai, which was recommended to me by a friend. He told me it reminds him of Monocle, and its neat but playful manner certainly suggests that the team behind it has taken a thorough look at some of the more off-beat up-market titles in the West (i-D, Frame, Mark and Mono.Kultur maybe?) and come up with a MENA spin on them.
Editor-in-chief Rashid Bin Shabib says: “Our focus is to look at Middle Eastern agendas and Middle Eastern culture and find out what is important in the region. (…) Everything exported from the Middle East is always about conflicts or mega-projects. It’s never about skiing in Tehran or surfing in Yemen or a new movement in the Sahara region.”
Content-wise and visually it’s a joy - especially when held up against some of the other mags that originate here in the UAE. The editorial line is decidedly apolitical, but the Agenda section is full of edge-skimming stories about contemporary life across the Middle East, written by a roster of international correspondents. This is social reportage of the Monocle-variety, but with a lower degree of elitism.
Plus they produce Podcasts, most of which are excellent.
With so many international titles out there, it’s not easy to set a new benchmark. But Brownbook appears to be making the cut. As more local writers, designers and artists get (back) into regional media, Brownbook could well accomplish the fine-tuning of its regional style. If it can sustain its current editorial and production values, it may even plant the seed for a more authentic, witty and aestethical cosmopolitanism in the region’s media.
The magazine is distributed internationally and is available in UAE, KUWAIT, QATAR, SAUDI ARABIA, BAHRAIN, BELGIUM, THAILAND, AUSTRALIA, CANADA, FRANCE and LEBANON. Selected retail outlets:
EGYPT
-The Townhouse Gallery
-Diwan Bookstore
PARIS
-Colette (Rue Saint Honore, Paris)
MILAN, ITALY
-10 Corso Como
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
-FAMOUS APE (17 rue de la rôtisserie)
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
-ParisTexas
BARCELONA, SPAIN
-The Rent Shop
AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
-Athenaeum Nieuwscentrum
JAPAN
-BALS Store, Tokyo
INDIA
-Bombay Electric (10 Reay House, Mumbai)
SINGAPORE
-Anthropology (Raffles City Shopping Center)
Posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago at 10:32 am. Add a comment
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) don’t do anything halfheartedly. Superlatives and hyperbole have become a second language to those involved in the many record-breaking projects that are underway in the country.
Now the UAE has embraced sustainability and is pumping billions into research and initiatives to advance green technologies.
Abu Dhabi is the epicentre of the UAE’s gigantic green drive, which came as a suprise to many. After all, the UAE are among the world’s leading oil and gas exporters.
But in the last decade the country’s long-term economic strategy has focused on diversification and the cultivation of non-oil dependent industries such as tourism, media, finance and now, sustainable technologies.
Much of this is due to the legacy of the late President His Highness Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, who ruled the UAE for more than 30 years and set forth an agenda of religious tolerance, economic reform and protection of the environment.
Masdar City, a living sustainability laboratory currently under construction, is now the centre piece of Abu Dhabi’s environmental strategy. The city will house up to 40,000 residents and employ 50,000 more, but produce no carbon emissions and no waste whatsoever. It will cost US$ 22 billion and is scheduled for completion in 2016. Masdar is the biggest single investment in sustainability to date.
According to Sam Nader of the Masdar Initiative, the project’s aims are „integrating various applications of existing renewable technologies, the cultivation of an innovative academic and business community and the generation of significant intellectual property in order to position Abu Dhabi as a world leader in renewables energy and sustainability.“
Unsurprisingly, the world media have lapped up the story and have bathed the UAE in green limelight.
But some experts have pointed out that initiatives such as Masdar have not yet changed much.
“The numbers must be put into perspective. They are spending welcome billions of dollars on renewables but trillions are still going into climate-changing oil economies. The future is the sun and renewables but there is no time to wait for this revolution,” Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, told The Guardian.
The 420,000 residents of Abu Dhabi remain among the world’s greatest emittors of greenhouse gases, according to the World Resources Institute.
Posted 1 year, 4 months ago at 1:32 pm. Add a comment
Blood money (diyyah) is derived from Sharia law, which forms part of the UAE's constitution. (Photo by Moha' Al-Bastaki)
Within a week of judge Dr Abdul Wahab Abdool calling for a change in the Unites Arab Emirates’ (UAE)blood money (diyyah) law, which regulates compensation payments for the families of people killed in accidents, The National has published several stories outlining confusing and potentially controversial aspects of the law.
Diyyah is an ancient Sharia law, according to which a person who causes the accidental death of another must compensate the family of the deceased. In the UAE, diyyah is set at Dh 200,000 (US$ 54,000) for an adult.
On 3 May 2009 a pregnant mother who lost her child in a road accident was ordered to pay diyyah for the foetus. The bereaved mother must now pay Dh 1,000 (US$ 270) for causing the accident and Dh 20,000 (US$ 5,400) in legal diyyah for the death of her own baby - one tenth of the diyyah for adults.
The Dubai Traffic Court released a statement that confirmed that this was the first ruling of its kind and argued that diyyah was due because the mother had not exercised due care and diligence while driving.
Chief traffic prosecutor Salah Bu Farousha told the National: “This may be the first case of its kind and may appear unusual to some, but the case highlights the fact that an unborn foetus also has rights as any human being.”
Diyyah is a traditional and much misunderstood law. Its original intention was to reimburse families for the lost future earnings of a relative killed in an accident.
At the moment, the UAE’s more conservative muftis are known to award only half the amount if a woman is killed – in accordance to the way diyyah was awarded at the time of prophet Mohammed. At the same time, more liberal muftis support equal diyyah for men and women.
“There is a conflict in the constitution in this area,” Dr Abdool told reporters. “On one hand it calls for the equality between men and women; on the other hand it calls for the implementation of the Islamic Sharia law. Courts that have ruled women receive half the value of men relied on the Sharia law, while courts who applied equality relied on the constitutional right to equality between men and women. So legally speaking, both are right.”
Another complex aspect of diyyah was highlighted by the story of Sophie Francis, a British expat living in Dubai, who accidentally ran over a labourer from Afghanistan in December 2006. She was arrested and taken to a police station where she was held until her family paid the diyyah of Dh200,000 (US$54,000).
The money was for the family of the deceased, whose only form of identification was the handwritten business card he had on him at the time of the accident. He was not carrying a wallet and the courts were unable to establish why he was so far from his workplace that day.
The man apparently jumped out infront of Francis’ car as she drove towards Dubai Mall of the Emirates. There was no time to brake and the man died instantly.
Francis was later found not guilty by the court, meaning her family was reimbursed by her insurance company.
Only 20 when the accident happened, Francis was distraught when she found out that poor labourers who feel they have nothing to lose are known to resort to jumping in front of cars.
“It happens,” Francis told The National. “They have no money, they are ashamed to go back home and they want to leave something for their families.”
Diyyah, while being an integral and time-honoured part of the legal code in many Arab countries, appears to be in need of a 21st century update.
“More precise laws need to be adopted on a federal level to set this straight once and for all and avoid confusion,” argued Dr Abdool.
On 16 April 2009 the UAE’s supreme judges recommended to the UAE’s Judicial Co-ordination Council that equal diyyah should be paid for men and women. But it could be some time yet until the law is actually changed.
Posted 1 year, 4 months ago at 11:35 am. Add a comment
I just came across this on YouTube and it blew me away. Below is a clip from this year’s Million’s Poet, the Arab take on Britain’s got Talent.
Poetry is a popular artform in Arab countries, where poets are veritable celebrities - an alien concept to most Westerners, myself included. Contestants competed for $1,361,207.64 this year, which was awarded to Saudi poet Ziyad Hijab bin Naheet (34).
I admit, my jaw dropped in wonder watching this clip of a fully veiled female contestant bringing poetry to primetime TV:
