mentalist

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/ge...y-boy-1.962573

Blue Cat

Norm_uk

Another heir to the throne...

N.

Meow

An heir and just how many spares?

Norm_uk

Enough to create interesting succession issues in the future...

N.

Spugsy

I'd be much happier if he'd decided to start making sure maids were treated well, or labourers, or the police didn't arrest anyone who bounced a cheque...that would be something to be pleased about, not that the fact that he's had yet another kid.

Boomhauer

The problem Spugsy is that your brain is wired different to Sheik Mo's and others like him. I was watching a US MSNBC program on how serial killer's brains are biologically different to a normal person. And Sheik Mo like most natives in this part of the world, is incapable of showing empathy and compassion to anyone outside of their tribe/ethnic group.

After some media spotlight and lawsuits, Sheik Mo and Co. gave a pathetic $1.4 million to Bangladeshi child camel jockeys who were trafficed to the UAE and enslaved. Thats $1.4 million to be shared between 879 children. Even for a country as poor as Bangladesh, that figure is disgustingly pathetic. The below Dubai blog and the Al Jazeera video report the compensation to be around $1.43 million, though AJ does not mention how many children this sum covers just that the chap in the report would get $10k.

http://www.anadubawi.com/dubai_discu..._camel_jockeys



The above Beeb report states $9 million, but the BBC also says this is just lost wages compensation for the child jockeys.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6187811.stm

Lesson here is, if you are GCC Arabs you are free to enslave poor Brown/Black children , some as young as 3 years old!, and if human rights pressure demands some action, you can toss some crumbs of bread towards the children and everything is A-OK

The boy in the AJ video says that he was malnourished and if he didn't stay underweight, he was given electric shocks! Some credit to AJ for reporting on it, though one wonders if it was only because ignoring it would have been too blatant for a purported News corp., so they decide better to have a say in how this news is reported. <---Yes I am bloody cynical of any Arab TV news, especially one that is just part of the foreign policy arm of the Qatari Royals. Disgusting how the Bangladeshi Foreign Affairs Minister is toading up to and congragulating the Dubai government on their compensation.

The Bangladeshi elite/government share as much of the blame for turning a blind eye and or facilitating the human trafficking. Wouldn't want to jeopordise remittances, wouldn't want to upset a fellow Muslim country and why give a toss about poor people (Muslim,Hindu or othe religion) in Bangladesh as they would be from lower castes compared to the elites.

Spugsy

Yep, this is what I mean when I've had enough of it over here - it's just a little bubble where you can live well and get paid loads of money, it's not real life.

Unfortunately I've saved only a little so have a savings plan to work to before we can head off.

Norm_uk

I think a lot of us feel the same way, balancing between work and the fact that it really is rotten in way we haven't seen in the West since the start of the Victorian period (and to their credit they ended slavery with no outside pressure decades before anyone else and a century before most of the Middle East).

Best thing we can do is lead by example and hope change comes. Ultimately our best revenge will be when our scientists come up with an oil alternative and the region will find no one wants to do business with them unless they buck up their ideas.

N.

Spugsy

Amen to that.

Millhouse

Ended it, or simply exported it? The west is a major beneficiary of forced or exploitative labour and we do nothing to stop it. We are lucky not to see it but we do support it.

I do find this whole 'this is shite, I can't wait to leave' discussion somewhat tiresome. No one forces anyone (well the whining british expats) to stay here, so your very staying 'even for the short term to get some money' is acceptance of the status quo.

You're right on the oil though - if we ever find an alternative (which to be honest is only fusion and we are nowhere near it) then this region would be closed down over night.

Spugsy

Oh I admit it mate, it's a nice place, earn good money, sun always shines but I disagree with almost everything that I see going on - so I can't complain because yes I'm being hypocritical by staying here, and yes it sometimes makes me feel bad but there you go.