Special report: How Dubai got serious

September 30 2010 - Reuters (This is a good read!)

"Once filled with the cacophony of cranes and construction laborers, Dubai today hums to the work of a quieter crowd. The brash Gulf emirate, renowned for extravagant real estate projects and flashy living, has turned into a city of auditors.

As they pore over the detritus of last year's debt crisis, the city-state's accountants and lawyers face a task as huge as Dubai's ambitions. The emirate's flagship firm Dubai World has agreed to repay $25 billion of debt -- borrowings that nearly brought down the emirate's economy.

The auditors' task is to investigate exactly where the money went, who lined whose pockets, and what other financial landmines might lie in store. Forensic audits at state-linked firms, such as Dubai Holding, are part of a wider corruption probe that has targeted senior figures from Dubai's boom years.

But even as the accountants work to get to the bottom of the financial mess, Dubai is changing. Its rescue last year by Abu Dhabi -- details of which Reuters reports here for the first time -- has encouraged the city-state to become more conservative, both politically and socially. Dubai's crisis prompted a shift of power to the rulers in Abu Dhabi, the wealthiest of the seven states that make up the United Arab Emirates.

Now a chastened Dubai is recovering some of its confidence as it seeks to convince international investors it can deliver now where last year it failed.

Questions remain. With Dubai's old guard at the helm rather than the young high-flyers who many blame for the crisis, can Dubai ever achieve the sort of growth it once boasted? Or, given that the economy depends so heavily on trade and tourism, could it be tempted to return to the excesses of the past?

"The Dubai growth model that was talked about so much and propagated in the media -- all that has changed now," says Christian Koch, director of international studies at the Gulf Research Center. "The crisis forced Dubai to take on a much more realistic approach."

Abu Dhabi's ascendancy began in the wake of 2008's global credit crunch. Reports about debt trouble in Dubai's flagship companies had been circulating within government from as early as 2005, though most people seemed happy to ignore them. In 2008, the end of a six-year oil-fueled boom burst Dubai's real estate bubble while the global financial crisis left the emirate unable to refinance looming debt obligations.

To help Dubai support its state-linked firms, the national central bank, which is based in Abu Dhabi, had bought $10 billion in Dubai bonds in February, 2009. But Dubai, which has little oil of its own and had embarked on a series of massive building projects to promote its trade and tourism, had much bigger problems.

Chief among them was Dubai World, which was struggling to pay its debts. Dubai World's lenders had been quietly rolling over loans since early 2009 and the state-linked company hoped to renegotiate terms, extend maturities and keep paying interest as it worked out a restructuring.

But that plan depended on knowing how much government support the company could obtain. Over the summer and through the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the state committee set up to support Dubai's corporations was ominously quiet on the matter.

On November 25, when Dubai's liabilities had reached $59 billion, or nearly a quarter of the United Arab Emirates' federal Gross Domestic Product, officials finally sounded the alarm. The definitive story of how the rescue came together may never be written, but Reuters has pieced together some of the key details of those days.

At 6 p.m., as many Emiratis and expats were winding down after work, the Dubai government summoned advisers and senior Dubai World executives to the offices of government lawyers Latham & Watkins. Government officials told the gathering that they had sought a stay of payment on Dubai World's debts.

"No-one had anything to say," says one person who was present. Like most people involved in the rescue, they refused to be identified, either for fear of tarnishing their reputations or because they remain involved in the process and are not authorized to speak publicly.

"The announcement was a disaster for Dubai. They were told 'don't worry, Argentina has done this, Venezuela has done it. People forget and they start lending again.' But what they didn't take into account was that those are real economies. This is not a country.

"Dubai relied on global goodwill, if you will, and that was shattered."

The first repayment to be affected -- a $3.5 billion Islamic bond from Dubai World's real estate company Nakheel -- was due on December 14. But those in the meeting knew the payment was one that Nakheel, a developer of islands shaped like stylized palm trees and a map of the world, would never be able to make.

A former adviser to Dubai World puts it succinctly: "Nakheel was a pyramid scheme, basically. They took money from selling one big project, one palm island, and used it to pay for another."

The silence in that Dubai meeting became the standard setting over the next few days. Despite rumors in the global markets of a looming default, no official came forward to explain the situation until November 30. Financial markets looked to December 14 as a major test; bondholders, including aggressive hedge funds, smelled blood.

There was another option: Abu Dhabi. Officials in Dubai began hammering out a proposal to put to the larger emirate on how to deal with the looming default. On the evening of December 13, the night before the payment was due, they agreed on what the final proposal should say. Crucially, it would not involve a full repayment of the bond.

"Nakheel was a big massive shock," says a source familiar with the restructuring. "Dubai went to Abu Dhabi and said, we have this company called Nakheel that's so messed up it could take our whole economy down, and nobody knew about it.

"Nakheel's books were so screwed up it wasn't even funny."

That evening, the weather in Dubai took an apocalyptic turn. Clutching the proposed deal and other documents, a banker from Moelis & Co, a U.S. investment bank that was advising Dubai, climbed into a waiting helicopter and took off for the capital.

Expecting him in Abu Dhabi were officials of the highest level, including Sheikh Mansour, half-brother of the ruler of the UAE and one of the most influential people in the federation today.

Rain and wind lashed the windowpanes of Dubai International Financial Center as the officials huddled, waiting. The banker had been instructed to call his team as soon as he left the Abu Dhabi meeting. Three hours on, there was still no word from him.

"We were so nervous, none of us had eaten all day," says the source familiar with the restructuring.

The phone call never came. Instead, they heard the returning helicopter. Landed, the banker was whisked off into a meeting room to confer with the two top officials of Dubai's Supreme Fiscal committee. Finally, the rest of the team were called in.

To everyone's astonishment, Abu Dhabi was offering to pay off the bond in its entirety.

"Abu Dhabi said, let's just pay this thing off until you come up with a better plan," the source familiar with the restructuring says. "They always said we are happy to help, we just want to see a plan."

With hindsight, perhaps the officials need not have been surprised. Rightly or wrongly, lenders had always assumed Dubai World's government links would ensure repayment. Dubai later stated that its government had never backed the debts of state-linked firms such as Dubai World, and blamed investors for not reading the small print. But lenders put the blame firmly on the government.

In the UAE, ruling families keep their private lives out of the public domain aside from major weddings and funerals, and questions about who's really pulling the strings make intriguing gossip. But from a creditors' viewpoint they are crucial, because the buck stops with the highest guarantor.

It's common practice in the Middle East for borrowing to consist of loans signed with a nod and a wink on a 'name lending' basis.

In Dubai "in a sense the red line, the differentiator between the trader and the government institutions, became very murky," says Mohamed Yasin, chief investment officer at CAPM Investment in Abu Dhabi.

It's still uncertain how much Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, knew about the growing debt crisis. Some of those involved say he was only informed of the magnitude of the debt problem very late in the game. In his rare comments on the crisis, Sheikh Mohammed has maintained a stiff upper lip, saying the problem has been overcome.

"No-one knew the magnitude of what was owed, then the complexity of it," the former adviser to Dubai World says. "A lack of experience -- and ego -- made it hard to admit defeat."

The emirate's transformation into a boom town had relied on a generation of Emirati executives armed with big ideas and Western business degrees. Dubai's model involved 'soft support' -- free land, a high-profile appearance at the opening -- for people who came up with a project and funded it themselves. So they specialized in leverage to build "real estate, real estate, real estate, but with a different flavor or headline," says Yasin. State-linked firms borrowed at an alarming rate, with little oversight or coordination. Corruption was rife.

"Nobody at the time was going to the Dubai government and saying, 'this borrowing is happening based on the assumption that you are going to settle if we don't pay the money,'" Yasin says. "Who assumed that model? it was the lender."

So ultimately Dubai's debts were accrued on the assumption that in the event of distress, the government -- or big brother Abu Dhabi -- would pick up the tab. When Dubai's government distanced itself from the problem, it gave the larger emirate responsibility -- and power.

In return for saving its 'kid brother' from the embarrassment of default, Abu Dhabi's authority quickly became apparent. In what was seen by some as a gesture of humility, in January Dubai's ruler named the world's tallest structure Burj Khalifa, in honor of Abu Dhabi's ruler and the UAE president, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan.

Seasoned UAE observers say the more outlandish rumors that circulated in the months after the Dubai World debacle -- that Abu Dhabi would swoop in and seize Dubai land and assets or that the ruling families were embroiled in interpersonal rivalries -- were always nonsense.

"The ruling families have no illusions whatsoever about what the role of each one is, who is the big guy and who is the second in line and so on," Yasin says. "In my opinion, it was the middle management, the second tier, the business people, those who are not related to the ruling families but who work for them, who generated these ideas."

Sometimes Abu Dhabi doesn't have to throw its weight around because Dubai has realized what it needs to do without being told.

The document for Dubai World's debt restructuring, seen by Reuters and agreed to by most of its creditors this month, outlines the city's plans to sell assets over eight years to generate as much as $19.4 billion and lists "investment assets" such as stakes in luxury retailer Barney's, Dubai-based Atlantis Hotel, and casino operator MGM Resorts International among those that could be included. Ports operator DP World is among the "strategic assets" which may generate up to $11.8 billion if put on sale.

Dubai's government has tightened the leash on borrowing for state-linked companies. Where previously, they were able to borrow unchecked, now they need to jump through a whole series of hoops before being given the green light for a loan.

Almost two-thirds of Dubai World's debt is held by six banks, four of them British: HSBC, Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland, Standard Chartered, and local lenders Emirates NBD and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank.

Has Dubai's payback gone beyond finances? Some observers believe so.

A U.S. ally, the United Arab Emirates has taken a tougher posture toward Tehran over the past year, under increasing scrutiny from Washington but also out of concern of the risks of a nuclear Iran on its doorstep. Dubai, which has a substantial population of Iranian expatriates and last year generated $5.8 billion in re-exports to Iran, has followed that lead.

Since a new round of United Nations sanctions against Tehran was agreed in June, the UAE central bank has asked financial institutions in the federation to freeze accounts belonging to dozens of Iran-linked firms, and a number have been closed down.

Ships visiting the UAE's ports are undergoing much more stringent cargo checks.

"I think (the crisis) has been good on a federal level, for example in terms of foreign affairs," says the Gulf Research Centre's Koch. "The emirates are working much more closely together. There is certainly a clear commitment in terms of implementing and meeting the requirements of the U.N. sanctions against Iran, and this effort is more centrally controlled."

Christopher Davidson, a historian at Britain's Durham University, goes further. "After November we saw a huge shift in what Abu Dhabi feels it can do on the international stage with regard to Iran and how close it can position itself with the United States," says Davidson, who believes that would not have been possible before the debt crisis, because Abu Dhabi would then have had far less leverage over Dubai.

"We've seen some incredibly hawkish comments which do everything to undermine Dubai's business links with Iran, so Abu Dhabi is in full control of the UAE foreign policy."

Not everyone shares that view. Some, including David Butter at the Economist Intelligence Unit, think the change simply coincided with a toughening of the international community's stance toward Iran.

Still, Dubai's ongoing debt problems mean the emirate has little power to deviate from Abu Dhabi's line. There is also no doubt that the Gulf Arab region as a whole is seriously concerned about the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran. A rising number of countries have announced big new purchases of weapons in the past year, including Saudi Arabia which plans a $60 billion arms deal with the United States. Analysts say the six Gulf Arab states could spend as much as $100 billion in coming years to overhaul their armed forces.

Back in Dubai, there are signs confidence is beginning to return. Developer Nakheel, whose near-default propelled Dubai's banker on the November chopper ride to Abu Dhabi, has said it will begin building again next month.

After a year away, Dubai's government has returned to bond markets, launching a dual-tranche $1.25 billion bond. Early talk indicates the issue is heavily oversubscribed.

"The hard work has been sorting out Nakheel and Dubai World, and investors are more positive on Dubai because of its strong relationship to the rest of the UAE and as the legacy issues have been or are being addressed," says Aviva fund manager Jeremy Brewin in London.

Dubai World's debt repayment agreement on September 10 "draws a line in the sand to a significant part of the debt restructuring story," says V. Shankar, chief executive of Standard Chartered's Middle East, Africa, Europe and the Americas operations. "There are issues still to be sorted out with Dubai Holding but I think on the back of this, Dubai has a powerful tail wind."

Dubai seems focused on its core operations of logistics and trade. It recently opened the first phase of Maktoum international airport -- part of Dubai World Central's so-called "aerotropolis" complex, a shipping, air and road hub.

"Whilst no government can rule out future issues, we believe the most significant restructuring is behind us," a government representative responded to emailed questions.

Advisers to Dubai say Abu Dhabi is no longer as closely involved in its neighbor's financial affairs as immediately after the debt crisis. At the peak of the Dubai World turmoil, Dubai representatives were meeting with their Abu Dhabi counterparts on a weekly basis. These meetings have been scaled back to become, as one adviser put it, "courtesy" updates.

The government has embarked on a big push to create corporate governance structures, and most of its high-profile young executives are gone, sidelined in a putsch last November. Some, such as the head of Dubai's flagship Dubai International Financial Center, fell prey to corruption probes. Into their place have come more trusted, established and older names pushed aside during the boom years but now back in favor.

"The only criteria now is 'personal hygiene,' people who are clean," says a long-time Dubai observer, declining to be identified so he can speak freely about a sensitive topic. He argues that some of the old guard's lack of experience in modern finance may make them poorly equipped for the task of rebuilding Dubai's companies. Strategic, "bold, hairy, audacious" initiatives are needed, he says.

"Right now, it's the blame game."

There is no doubt Dubai needs to encourage entrepreneurship, and continue to give ambitious Emiratis who do not come from wealthy families the chance to make their own fortunes. Its past model is now cited as one of the causes for the endless real estate projects that led to its debt crisis, but parts of it may have to be reinstated if Dubai is to grow. How easily could Dubai slip back into its bad old ways?

"They believe that now the problem is solved," says the former Dubai World adviser, who is critical of creeping complacency just a year after the crisis. "The problem is not solved, they still owe the same amount of money. They will have to pay the same amount, only a little later."

Even with its wings clipped, the emirate is still making big plays. In July, Emirates airline -- one of Dubai's crown jewels and already the biggest customer for Airbus A380 superjumbos -- placed an order for 30 Boeing 777 jets in a deal worth potentially more than $9 billion.

"Everything is now very conservative, it's meant to be based on in-depth analysis of actual sectors," says the source familiar with the restructuring. "Given the chance, Dubai will take it to the same level as before. They will always try to go as far they can with something.""

Canada - September 2010

29 September 2010

US mergers put pressure on American

29 September 2010

First it was Delta and Northwest to form the new Delta. Then it was United and Continental to form the new United. And this week Southwest announced the acquisition of AirTran.

So who is left on their own. American Airlines (parent is AMR Corp) and US Air, and some stand alone LCCs such as Jet Blue and Virgin America.

For  American Airlines the outlook is getting murkier. Experts say American needs a merger partner and may already be losing a competitive edge.

American will soon be the lowest of the big three US carriers. It will be harder to maintain and win the corporate travel marketplace who gravitate to the carriers with the most extensive route networks.

Dallas-based American has long argued that it does not need a merger to survive and thrive, saying it has confidence in its huge international network to lure premium travelers. But its international network is now being matched by United and Delta.

United Airlines plans to close its $3.17 billion all-stock purchase of Continental in the next few days, forming the world's largest carrier.

Meanwhile Southwest surprised the US airline industry last Monday with news that it would buy AirTran for more than $1 billion in a bid to expand into lucrative East Coast markets. The deal makes sense for both carriers. Importantly it gives Southwest access at last to Atlanta where Delta will come under threat.

There are of course cost savings from back office and management consolidation in all of these mergers.

But American is not seeing these benefits and there really is no one left who fits.

Behind-the-scenes efforts by American to find a partner may underline a growing recognition that scale does matter in the capital-intensive industry.

In 2008, American apparently held merger talks with US Airways (LCC.N)and alliance talks with Continental just after the Delta/Northwest merger.

But a merger is too hard to consummate for now because of American's relatively high labor costs and open contracts with its unions, experts say. The carrier has long complained it has the highest labor costs in the industry.

US Airways has its own challenges. It has yet to fully integrate its labor groups following its 2005 merger with America West Airlines.

JetBlue Airways (JBLU.O) and Alaska Airlines (ALK.N) also could be good fits for American Airlines and might be on its M&A radar, analysts and bankers have said. Alaska really is too small to add much value to American.

American entered an agreement with JetBlue this year allowing passengers to connect with one ticket to American's international flights from New York and Boston.

American frequently spotlights its efforts to beef up international alliances to attract premium travelers. American, British Airways (BAY.L) and Iberia (IBLA.MC) won approval from the U.S. government in July to create a joint business governing flights between North America and Europe. But all three airlines have problems with unions, and high operating costs.

Meanwhile, American and Japan Airlines (JALFQ.PK), Asia's largest carrier by revenue, hope to win regulatory approval for closer cooperation on transpacific routes. But there will be little left of Japan airlines after its restructuring.

The carrier also plans to concentrate service in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth and Miami, all markets with heavy business traffic. These initiatives will pave the way for more than $500 million of annual revenue and cost benefits, the company said.

And then there was the rumour of Emirates taking a major stake in American. Just a rumour!
 

Is he really Ed the Red ?

25 September 2010

It was always likely that a Miliband would be the next Labour leader. It would not be Ed Balls - he was too close to Gordon Brown. But the surprise is that Ed beat his older brother David.

Ed Miliband was born on Christmas Eve, 1969, the younger son of influential Marxist intellectual Ralph Miliband and teacher Marion Kozak. His father, a Polish Jew, had fled the Nazis on the last boat to England from Belgium.

The brothers, David is four years older than Ed, grew up in a home that was filled with political chatter as intellectuals came and went, often calling on the boys to pitch ideas and join the debate. Among their parents' friends was Tony Benn – whom Ed worked for as an intern.

The couple sent their sons to nearby Haverstock Comprehensive, in north London, a school that has been described as Labour's Eton. There they met Oona King, the former Labour MP who this week missed out on her chance to run as Labour's candidate for London mayor.

Ed says his experience of studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was very different from David's. It was there that his activist streak grew. He has described his favourite four weeks at university as the time he was involved in a rent dispute with the college – claiming that "politics always motivated me more than academia".

There was a brief stint as a television researcher before he went to work for Harriet Harman (who had called the Observer's Andrew Rawnsley to ask if he would recommend the bright, young, leftwing man who had worked with him).

Miliband junior went on to work at the Treasury with the chancellor and was soon an undisputed Brownite. In the days that the relationship between the two camps - the Brown and Blair supporters - became most strained Ed was seen as the one person who could span the warring tribes – perhaps down to his relationship with his brother. He had also dated Liz Lloyd, who had worked for Blair and was a close friend of James Purnell.

Ed and David remained close and even lived in flats in the same house in Primrose Hill, north London, near to where they had grown up. The older Miliband became an MP and Ed spent a year lecturing at Harvard university.

The decision then to follow his brother once again this time into parliament was a difficult one. Friends said that even then Ed was wary of being in his brother's shadow.

That was soon to change. After being elected as MP for Doncaster North in 2005 he rose quickly through the ranks of the Labour government. In 2008 he was appointed as secretary of state for the newly created Department of Energy and Climate Change.

But the new labour leader has a significant challenge ahead in part because of the nature of the campaign he fought and the sections of the party from which he drew much of his support – the unions and the left. The rightwing press is already preparing havoc on "Red Ed", whose campaign was seen as being well to the left of David's.

Equally unnerving for the new leader will be the knowledge that he won the support of fewer Labour MPs than his brother.

Ed Miliband won because he had the support of most of the major unions. That will not go unnoticed with the Murdoch press and the Daily Mail, which strongly support David Cameron.

Unless Ed Miliband distances himself from those in the union movement he will face an onslaught of negative headlines. Suggestions that the unions abused their position in the voting process will add fuel to the fire.

The Labour Party got elected under Blair as New Labour, a party of the centre ground. Blair distanced himself from the unions, and reduced their power.

Ed Miliband, however, has declared New Labour dead.

As for the shadow cabinet, Labour MPs elect members of the shadow cabinet and then it is left to the leader to allocate portfolios within it. At least six members must be women, according to new rules agreed by the party.

One of Ed Miliband's biggest problems will be what to do with Ed Balls, who is certain to be elected. Balls ran a strident campaign for the leadership, pegged to a fierce opposition to spending cuts that made Ed Miliband's look mild by comparison. Balls will want to be the next shadow chancellor.

Harriet Harman (the current acting leader) will also be looking for a top post, perhaps shadow home secretary.

And what about elder brother David. David was seen as the likely leader for most of the campaign. Does he want to be in government. Can he work for his younger brother? Or will David decide to serve for a short time for the sake of outward unity and then peel off in a year or so to a job in Europe or the US, or out of politics altogether?

Allies of David said last night that he would take several days to decide what to do – and that he might not decide to take a shadow cabinet job at all. Many of his supporters think this might be best for him and his brother.

The good news about the new labour leader is that he is scornful about Clegg's Lid Dem party and has shown no sign of wanting to reach out to it.

In one interview during his leadership campaign, Ed Miliband said he wanted to help Liberal Democrats become an endangered species. Of course if the Labour Party cannot win a future electoral majority it may just need friendly Lib Dems is a coalition.

Miliband junior has an urgent need to dispel talk about his legitimacy. The only solution is to start strong and do well. If he does, questions about this contest will melt away. His first big test comes with his leader's speech to the party conference on Tuesday.

The clocks are striking thirteen

25 September 2010 - BKK magazine's view of the future - it would be funny - except that it is plausible!

"The year is 2014, the month is September. Last weekend, there was no march to mark the 2006 military coup. It’s been illegal for more than three people to gather for as long as we can remember. Plus, the army’s new anti-riot guns that simultaneously fire tear gas and play the national anthem at ear-splitting levels have proved pretty effective at discouraging would-be offenders. They’re also darn expensive, but what the heck, the military budget has doubled since 2010, just like it did between 2006 and 2010. Anyway, Dr. Pornthip has promised they don’t cause any real lasting damage to people’s feelings, as long as you don’t watch the clips on YouTube.

Not that anyone can watch YouTube anymore. Even 3G has become a distant memory since the country switched to a text-based intranet where only the government and licensed sources can post material. BK lost its publishing license in 2012 over a roundup of the best clinics to get penile augmentation. The story made a passing remark on how maybe the generals might stop buying big useless toys if they got an extra inch. They didn’t think it was funny.
Elsewhere, things are looking up. Cambodia now hosts gCircuit (gay tourists stopped coming to Bangkok after police threatened to raid the party in Sep 2010) and its casinos are packed. Last year, the number of visitors to Cambodia overtook Thailand’s for the first time. Vietnam’s industry is steaming ahead, too, and they’ve bought up any Thai businesses that weren’t already Chinese-owned. Vietnamese is now the second most studied language after Mandarin. Chào!

We’re still tight with Burma, but the junta kind of spoiled things a couple of years ago by holding a free election and respecting the results, making our system increasingly isolated. We, of course, never got around to those elections. The spate of terrorist attacks on BTS stations in Aug 2011 extended the state of emergency indefinitely. Abhisit, his ideals shattered, eventually stepped down and was replaced by a retired general appointed by the CRES, disappointing those who thought Abhisit’s cute nephew would get the job.

Things in the South are so bad, there are threats of military intervention by the UN. But Thailand is confident Russia will veto it, since we ended up sending Victor Bout back to Moscow along with a big order for some lovely new weapons. All in all, life in Bangkok is not that bad. Malls are busy, even if we often settle for the lesser-quality Made in Laos products, and traffic is so jammed people are walking a lot more. One complaint you do hear a lot, though, is people talking about the good old days. “You didn’t have homeless people sleeping in front of CentralWorld,” they recall."

Canada' G20 cost!

23 September 2010

Canada's PM was pitching today for a two year seat on the UN's security council. This seems a little ironic for someone who yesterday voted to abolish Canada's long gun registry - more on that below.

Meanwhile in the House of Commons in response to a question by Liberal MP Dan McTeague it was revealed that mosquito traps, flagpoles, mass casualty kits and new digital cameras were just a few of the costs behind Ottawa’s $1 billion price tag to host the G8 and G20 summits this past summer.

While controversy has swirled about the cost, new documents offer some details on how the government rung up such a big bill as it prepared to host the world in Muskoka and Toronto.

The expenses include $42,585 for tactical medical kits and mass casualty kits; $207,900 for solar lighting; $74,898 for defibrillators; and $439,186 for portable potties.

Another $333,831 was spent on “personal outdoor kits,” described as sun screen, insect repellent and hand sanitizer.

The government spent $107,749 on new Nikon cameras, include the D300s, a high-end digital camera.

Hotel accommodations also drove up the price, from the Super 8 in Barrie, Ont., to Deerhurst Resort, where the G8 summit was actually held last June.

Moving people wasn’t cheap either — bus charters cost more than $2.5 million.

Other gems include $2.8 million for rental cars for the RCMP; $1.4 million on communications "cabling;" $14,000 on glow sticks and $85,000 for accommodation and snacks at Toronto's swank Hyatt Regency hotel.

Something tells me that Canada's tax payers are less than impressed.

Registering your gun should be law

23 September 2010

I have to register my car to drive it on the roads. I also have to pass a test to ensure that I drive that car responsibly.

So in a country where it is legal to own a gun it makes perfect sense to register the ownership. There are some things you have to take responsibility for.

Yet the ruling Tory party in Canada tried to abolish the registry (at least for rifles and shotguns) in the Canadian parliament yesterday. The good news is that Canada’s  opposition parties narrowly defeated the plan to ease gun controls by abolishing a long-gun registry.

The abolition motion was defeated 153 to 151 by a combination of the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois.

Prime Minister Harper said after the gun-registry vote that "the people of the regions of this country are never going to accept being treated like criminals, and we will continue our efforts until this registry is finally abolished".

Mr Harper, whose electoral support is heavily concentrated in rural areas and western Canada, has been vowing to close the registry since the Tories took office.

The registry, administered by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, was set up by a Liberal government nine years ago. It was costly to set up but that cost is sunk now and the running costs are low.

The big issue for critics is that they see the registry as an intrusion on the civil liberties of hunters, collectors and other gun owners.

In an ironic twist for a party that promotes a tough on crime agenda, the Tories’ plan met stiff opposition from police forces. Police lobbying helped persuade several opposition members of parliament to reverse their earlier support for the motion.

Toronto’s Bill Blair, speaking for Canada’s police chiefs, calls the registry “vitally important.” It is especially helpful for the police to know, for instance, whether a gun is in a house before they answer a domestic violence call.

In the final days before last evening’s vote, Conservative rhetoric about the gun registry became increasingly shrill. Backbench Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner, author of the bill to kill the registry, accused her opponents of “want(ing) to put hunters and farmers in prison.” She also derided them for saying the registry is helpful in combatting domestic violence. “Nobody is even saying it stops crime any more,” she said, as if domestic violence is not a crime.

Will the registry stop all crime committed with long guns (including domestic violence)? Of course not, any more than registering cars and licensing drivers have stopped reckless or drunk driving. But the registry remains a useful tool in the war against crime, and the burden on gun owners to register is less onerous than on car owners.

Thank goodness for common sense.

Why the Games must go on

23 September 2010

Cancel the Commonwealth Games now and they are over forever. The Commonwealth if not already broken would be trashed by the embarrassment of the Indian hosts.

I will accept that there is some apprehension among athletes and officials about the state of readiness of the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. But it is premature and the positioning speeches of politicians, the withdrawal of some athletes and the offence shown by certain media are harmful to the image of sport.

For all of India’s real advances and growing world influence, it remains a developing nation. The decision to hold the XIX Commonwealth Games in New Delhi was for that reason never without some risk, as was the case with other games awarded to other developing countries.

The recent World Cup in South Africa was a success despite widespread concerns. The Beijing Olympics were a significant success for the host nation. The decision to award Brazil the 2016 Olympic Games has also provoked some hand-wringing. Assigning international sporting events to developing countries, even major emerging economies, presents challenges unlikely to be found in any developed country.

India has recently delivered enough high profile projects on time to suggest that it would, albeit at the 11th hour, host a successful Games. The new Terminal 3 was delivered early and under budget. The new metro is a great success.

Sport is not the sole playground of developed countries, it belongs to all peoples, those from rich countries as well as from poor ones.

To pretend or expect that the entire world is as tidy and efficient as some developed countries is to deny something fundamental about humanity.

Through sporting history part of the test of athletic achievement in international sporting competitions has been to overcome the hardship of differences such as elevation, air quality, weather extremes and organizational chaos, and still to triumph.

Officials from participating countries are already on the ground in New Delhi assessing the conditions, not only the condition of the facilities following the collapses of a false ceiling in the weightlifting venue and a pedestrian footbridge, but other safety and health concerns such as the threat of dengue fever.

Obviously, if they agree that there is a serious threat, then urgent steps need to be taken, but any decision must be informed.

Sadly two athletes on Canada’s Commonwealth team, archers Kevin Tataryn and Dietmar Trillus, have already chosen to follow the lead of a few other athletes by announcing their withdrawal.

It is all a bit rich from the Canadian athletes and media who bristled at any criticism of their Winter Olympics in almost tropically wet Vancouver earlier in 2010.

World discus champion Dani Samuels of Australia has pulled out of the Games because of security and health concerns, as did England's world triple jump champion Phillips Idowu. Four other champions have quit due to various reasons, including injuries.

Triple Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt of Jamaica is the highest profile athlete to skip the event. The Games may be permanently devalued.

Bangkok's Human Rights Blunder

21 September 2010 - Wall Street Journal editorial

This was published on 15 September.

"For a government that hasn't yet held anyone accountable for killing scores of pro-democracy protestors, backtracks from elections and silences opposition media, the best kind of press coverage is no coverage at all. Which makes Thailand's decision to curtail free speech at the nation's biggest foreign press club more than passing strange.

The irony is that Paris-based Vo Van Ai and Penelope Faulkner weren't even interested in speaking about Thailand. Instead, they had booked the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Bangkok to release their NGO's report on human-rights abuses in neighboring Vietnam. The club has played host to the Dalai Lama, Malaysia's Anwar Ibrahim and Burmese pro-democracy activists, among others. The event was advertised on the club's website for weeks.

Yet when Ms. Faulkner tried to board her flight Sunday, she was told Thai immigration had blocked her trip. Mr. Vo was denied entry a few days earlier. The government didn't want the club "used as a base for activities to be undertaken undermining friendly countries," a Foreign Ministry spokesman explained to us in an email this week.

Hanoi's rights abuses are certainly embarrassing for a country that's striving to join the global economy, although it's unclear how a small NGO's report could "undermine" the entire country. The regime has a long history of locking up dissidents and severely curtailing political speech—a record which has gotten worse in recent months as the Communist Party gears up for its fifth Congress in January.

Thailand's political direction is equally worrying. The government of Abhisit Vejjajiva has tried to put a good face on its continuing military crackdown on pro-democracy advocates. But there's no solid commitment to hold elections anytime soon, nor to lift the state of emergency in the north and northeastern provinces.

Meanwhile, there are signs that part of the "red-shirt" pro-democracy movement may be turning militant. Police found three unexploded bombs in Bangkok last week, and the red shirts are holding protests there this weekend to remember those killed in May's protests. The longer Thai leaders deny democracy, the more their people will want it."

An unfortunate precedent has been set - what happens for instance when the FCCT wants to debate the the Burmese so - called elections.

A long way from Emirates

18 September 2010

A long way away from Dubai there is a very different airline. Yellowknife based Buffalo Airways. Now the airline is the subject of a docu series showing on Global TV in Canada. The web site is www.icepilots.com

The show summary follows:

Ice Pilots NWT is a 13-episode real-life docu-series about an unorthodox airline in the Canadian North. Yellowknife-based Buffalo Airways flies WWII-era propeller planes – big old aircraft built by "Rosie the Riveter" that have remained virtually unchanged over the years. Rookie pilots defy bone-chilling temperatures to fly cargo and passengers through blizzards, breakdowns and transatlantic journeys. It's an impossible job in a merciless place.

New recruits come to slog it out on the ramp in -30°C weather to earn a chance to fly planes that most airlines scrapped long ago. Classics like the Douglas DC-3 and DC-4 and the Curtiss C-46 Commando – the very planes that once ferried troops and supplies in WWII.

Few newbies make it. As they compete to rise up the ranks, they cope with ice storms, forest fires, treacherous landings and legendary owner "Buffalo" Joe McBryan's famous temper.

Buffalo Airways is literally a lifeline to the North. As Joe's son Mikey McBryan puts it: "You can't separate the North from flying. It's the same thing." Without Buffalo Airways, food and supplies wouldn't reach the many northern communities cut off from the rest of the world during the long, harsh winter.

This season on Ice Pilots NWT, viewers will follow a treacherous transatlantic journey in the middle of winter as crews attempt to deliver two Canadair CL-215 waterbombers to their new owners in Turkey. The problem? These aircraft are not designed to fly in winter conditions and are not configured for flying over larges bodies of water. Getting there proves to be a daring feat.

Viewers will also watch the drama unfold as pilots fresh out of flight school pay their dues as "rampies," anxious for a chance at flying. Rampies load cargo, sweep snow off the wings and log hours as flight attendants, competing fiercely with one another for the next coveted co-pilot position. Friendships among pilots are also tested as they compete for enough flight hours to make captain. By the end of the season, someone will be leaving Buffalo Airways.

Ice Pilots NWT gives viewers a rare look at life "North of 60." With the economic downturn, a dwindling supply of specialty aviation gas and the high cost of flying vintage aircraft, the very future of Buffalo Airways hangs in the balance.
 

This turbulent and troubling priest

18 September 2010 - The Guardian

So the Pope is in Britain. He is not making many new friends. He does not even appear to be there to make peace. And for this Pope - above all else - sorry does seem to be the hardest word.

Which is a shame. There are 5 million Catholics in the UK who will be proud of his visit and who will listen and learn.

Yet even before the tour started, the Vatican's leading expert on relations with the Church of England compared arriving in multicultural Britain to landing in a third world country, and talked of an "aggressive new atheism" abroad in the country.

Thank you Cardinal Walter Kasper. In the end his gout prevented him from flying to the third world.

Pope Benedict may even be right to worry about Britain - and some other counties - as a nation of atheist extremism and aggressive secularism. He argues that the exclusion of God has damaged public life. In front of the Queen in Edinburgh the Pope militant atheism to the collapse of social and moral values. In his address, the Pope spoke of "a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society". That was unfortunate. Leave the Nazis out of any discussion. It will only confuse the message. Just note that during the second world war Nazi Germany's closest allies were Catholic Italy, Catholic Croatia and Catholic Vichy France. Officially neutral but actually very pro-German were Catholic Spain and Catholic Ireland.

The implication of his world view is that the Catholic Church is the only acceptable beacon of moral rectitude in a sea of depravity and sin. Yet many people of other faiths and even of no faith are models of decency and altruism.

Conversely, some Catholic priests have committed appalling sins, as recent history has shown.

This Pope is not in any sense a modern man. He believes that there is only one Christian church – his – which represents the word of God. He was quite clear yesterday about the difficulties that the ecumenical path of unity between the Catholic and Anglican churches has encountered and continues to encounter. Further, he believes that there is only one one spiritual source – again his – from which all our values derive. He is attacking not only the Reformation, the separation of church and state, but the very basis on which a secular society is built.

It is therefore unfortunate that the Catholic church can still influence and sometimes inspire. There is much that the Catholic Church has wrong: opposition to condoms, abortion and equal rights for homosexuals.

The Pope's church covers up sex abuse scandals and has no intent to apologise for them; the Pope has now say that he feels sorrow for those who were abused; not that he and his church are sorry. It is a very different message.

It cannot be a co-incidence that there has been a huge drop in catholic church attendance in England and Wales. Just maybe Pop fort-in-mouth needs to see that the behaviour of the church and its priests plays a part in alienating people?

A little less preaching and a bit more humility might help the next state visit of a pope.

Bouncing briefly back
The country is roaring back after its political impasse. But for how long?
17 September 2010 The Economist

A rebound in export-led growth has unleashed a bull market all over South-East Asia. Stockmarkets are at levels not seen since the 1997 Asian financial crisis. And Thailand, the origin back then, is doing better than most. Its economy grew 9.1% between the second quarter of 2009 and the same period this year, albeit after a poor 2008-09. Thai stocks and the Thai currency, the baht, are trading at their highest for years (see chart). The IMF predicts full-year growth of 7%, ahead of Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Thailand’s recovery is all the more remarkable considering its political backdrop. Four months ago, the army quashed a revolt by red-shirted protesters barricaded into Bangkok’s commercial hub. The violence left 91 people dead and scared away tourists and investors. Bangkok remains under a state of emergency and a string of bombings there and in the northern city of Chiang Mai have rattled the public. The red shirts plan demonstrations on September 19th, the anniversary of the 2006 coup that deposed their leader, Thaksin Shinawatra, as prime minister.

Yet the damage to the economy has been far smaller than expected. The financial centre of the country may have been closed but exports of cars and electronics were unaffected. Tourists have returned in search of beaches and bargains. Investment continues to trickle in.

Recovery strengthens the hand of the prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, who must call elections by the end of 2011. Growth, backed by a spurt of spending on welfare schemes for poor Thais, may persuade him to go to the country early. So far he has ruled it out, but the timing looks propitious. His opponents in the pro-Thaksin Pua Thai party are divided over who should lead it. The red shirts have lost their leaders, who are either in jail or on the run.

But there are hurdles. Mr Abhisit’s Democrat Party faces two charges of financial irregularities in the Constitutional Court, which has the power to dissolve the party or ban its officers. A verdict on the first charge is expected by November. Rifts within the ruling six-party coalition, hammered together in December 2008, seem to be growing and Mr Thaksin, for all his flaws, remains a potent symbol for millions of disaffected Thais.

It is also premature to count out the red shirts, who draw on a deep well of anger at the ruling elite. The security forces have used the state of emergency to suppress red-shirt media and public gatherings, though demonstrators have begun to flout the rules. Until the emergency in Bangkok is lifted, “we don’t know how real is the opposition,” says Supavud Saicheua, of Phatra Securities in Bangkok. Stockmarket exuberance is a poor gauge of the national mood, given how few Thais are investors (120,000 active accounts at the Stock Exchange of Thailand, in a country of 67m). Most investors belong to the elite that helped install Mr Abhisit. They want to believe he can win over the rest of the country using government largesse. It would not be the first time the stockmarket said more about what people wanted to believe than what they ought to believe—remember the Asian financial crisis?

Merging for necessity?

16 September 2010

We flew yesterday from Houston to Vancouver on Continental. In a year's time I will not be able to write that. The flight will be on United; the plane will apparently keep Continental's colours. And the CEO of Continental will be the CEO of the merged airline. The airline HQ will be in Chicago. And the folks in Houston do not like that.

After the recent Delta and Northwest combination further mergers were inevitable. Now only US Air and American exixt of the "old" airline names. And American has already taken over the remnants of TWA and US Air took over American West. But no one really wants to merges with US Air - something of the ugly duckling of US aviaition and American is forging its own path with a tie up with British Airways and Iberia.

So what does the United and Continental merger mean. Well there is always a winner and a loser in a merger. Delta survived; Northwest died. In this case United is clearly the winner even if the first CEO is from Continental.

But do not ask the crews what is happening - no one is telling them anything. Typical.

Yet the Continental CEO, Jeff Smisek, pompously introduces the airline's safety video by saying that he has the best pilots, best cabin crew and best mechanics in the industry. Well if that is the case why does he want to merge with someone that by default must be inferior?

The merger will happen. Shareholders of Continental and United airlines are expected this Friday to take one of the last significant steps needed to merge the two airlines. Boards of both companies have set special stockholder meetings, at Continental's headquarters in Houston and United's in Chicago, to vote on the $3.2 billion deal.

The companies expect approval and say their transaction should close Oct. 1. Vote results will be announced shortly after the 11 a.m. EST meetings. The biggest task then remaining will be getting unions on board with the plan. Not easy if you are not talking to the crews.

Discussions were under way Wednesday in Denver among representatives of the airlines and of United and Continental chapters of the Air Line Pilots Association. Unlike the 2008 merger of Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines, Continental and United executives did not line up union agreements ahead of time.

Six unions represent United employees, accounting for more than 80 percent of the 46,600 employees. United is in negotiations with all six unions for new agreements.

About 60 percent of Continental's 41,000 employees are spread among four unions. Continental is in contract talks with two of them -- pilots and mechanics. It has a tentative agreement with a third, maintenance technicians and related employees, represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. It has already ratified an agreement with its dispatchers.

Union representatives from both airlines told lawmakers earlier this year that they thought a merger would be best for the airlines.

More recently, the pilots' union said it wanted Continental and United to return jobs that have been outsourced to regional airlines, a potentially sticky issue.

Talks with pilots on a joint collective bargaining agreement began Aug. 10. The two sides agreed that if they haven't made significant progress by Oct. 12, they will petition the National Mediation Board for help.

How does the transaction work; UAL Corp. will issue 1.05 shares for each Continental share. UAL stockholders will vote Friday on whether to issue shares to Continental shareholders and amend the company's certificate of incorporation. Continental stockholders will vote on the merger plan itself. On the day they legally combine, Continental and United will become subsidiaries of a holding company called United Continental Holdings Inc. Stockholders will have shares in the holding company.

The winner - United. Effectively it is taking over Continental. No bad for an airline that only a few years ago was in Chapter 11 - again.

The companies eventually need to get a single operating certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration, which they expect in hand by the first half of 2012.

The Houston view in simple; that this would have been a stronger deal if the Continental name had been kept, if Houston had been named as the headquarters city and if Continental leadership had remained as the sole occupant of the left seat in the corporate cockpit. Humbug ?

United is buying Continental, not the other way around. Continental used up most of its influence in negotiations in getting Smisek named CEO.

Travelers should start seeing the effects of the United-Continental merger in about eight months, although the airlines have so far released only sketchy details on the changes in store.

"Customer Day One" -- the launch of shared services between the carriers -- will occur sometime in the spring. At that point, the airlines' reservation systems will need to talk with each other and airport kiosks must be able to check in each others' passengers.

It will take at least a couple of years for all systems to be transformed so they function as one airline. It will take longer to create a new culture for the airline. The two airlines will share a common management team, led by Smisek. But they will continue to operate as separate airlines until they receive a common operating certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration.

For the time being, Continental customers will continue to check in at continental.com, go to a Continental agent to check a bag, go to a Continental gate and board a Continental aircraft. United customers also will deal with United as though nothing had changed.

The airlines anticipate some customer confusion because the news media will be reporting that they have merged. So they plan to deploy workers at airports and increase signs to help travelers.

Workers will continue to get their paychecks from separate airlines. But they will start receiving a joint employee daily newsletter.

With a single operating certificate from the FAA the merged carriers will then have common manuals, maintenance procedures, safety training and aircraft.

The airlines expect joint collective bargaining agreements to be in place. With that, pilots can fly and flight attendants can crew the combined United's aircraft - planes from either of the former carriers' fleets. But it is likely that there will be distinct fleets within the airline. For instance United has an airbus fleet; continental is boeing and embraer.

The merged airline will be the dominant carrier at San Francisco, Denver, Houston, Newark and Chicago. This will be the dominant US domestic and international carrrier. But there will be pain along the way. Merging seniority lists will be a nightmare. And there will be redundancies. There have to be cost savings from this merger. Else why do it?

And for the customer - less choice; higher fares; fewer flights. All dressed up as a better frequent flier plan and ease of connection etc. The opportunity will be for Southwest and JetBlue to fly routes against the new merged airline.

EK's cost cutting eats into customer service

14 September 2010

It is a 16 and 1/2 hour flight from Dubai to Houston.

And with a 9.05 departure most customers are unlikely to have eaten before the flight.

But the accountants' cost cuts are beginning to take their toll on Emirates service.

The hot croissant that might have been the best part of the breakfast service appears to have been replaced by a lump of cold stodge in a cellophane bag.

The toothpick has gone. So when the stringy chicken gets in your teeth at the at start of a long haul to Houston forget trying to do anything about it.

The so called as you like it buffet service mid flights is a piece of pizza or nothing.

Why is this a big deal - it was the little things that made Emirates better than most of the rest. That distinction is quickly disappearing.

So if the food is nothing to shout about what is left. The In Flight Entertainment. Emirates Digital widescreen ICE offers a huge collection of movies and TV. But any regular flyer will be disappointed at the lack of new content. Many of the TV dramas have not been changed in a year. And the films. A few new films are added each month; but they are chosen with little imagination. Maybe new content is more expensive to add?

Did Dubai hire Klass for her name?

13 September 2010

Klass and Dubai. They do not really go together. Myleene Klass.The British pop star turned face and body of Marks & Spencer and others has just been made the “celebrity face of Dubai”, joining cricketer Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff, who has been doing the job for some time.

Flintoff makes sense. Dubai is trying to promote itself as a sports centre. There are many people here who are cricket - mad.  And he is an affable, decent family man. And, more importantly, he, his wife and three children actually live in Dubai. His children go to school here. He’s got friends and a life here.

He is a credible spokesperson for Dubai.

Miss Klass, however, has apparently ‘visited regularly ’. So, too, have many other B-list celebrities.

There is another problem. She is a single mother. If she had her child in Dubai as a single mother she would potentially have ended up in jail, and almost certainly deported.

Plus is she travels here with her fiance they should be sleeping in separate accommodation.

Could they not find someone more appropriate? Someone who lives in Dubai or has a genuine link to the emirate besides a few years of five-star Christmas holidays?

Ideally someone a bit more local? Someone who lives here, works here, owns property or a business here?

In her first job as the “face of Dubai”, Klasse has been staying at the five-star Jumeirah Beach Hotel while filming a promotional video for Meydan City – Dubai’s new horse-racing “destination”.

Her first sound bite is a story about how safe she feels in Dubai compared to England, news that she went sight-seeing in a seaplane, and the insight that her daughter, Ava, thinks the Burj Khalifa is a spaceship.

So she is living a life of a very small exclusive minority. I bet she is not shopping in Karama. She told the National: “There’s a beautiful accessibility about Dubai, which is why I keep coming back and bring my family back. You don’t have to be an oil baron to come out here.” A quick tour of the workers' accommodation might be revealing. Out of sight and out of mind I guess.

In the end the “face of Dubai” is an unmarried, not very well known, mother, who is sharing a room with a man who’s not her husband. Others have been jailed for less.

No wonder people get confused.

9/11 anniversary: Charged with hate

Pastor Terry Jones and other members of the lunatic fringe are doing Osama bin Laden's work for him

11 September 2010 Editorial The Guardian

"When Andy Warhol predicted in 1968 that in the future everyone would be world-famous for 15 minutes, he could not have meant Pastor Terry Jones. The idea that t he world's media has been hanging on every word uttered by a low-rent bigot with a gun – who has been mulling over whether to burn 200 copies of the Qur'an today – is grotesque. Hillary Clinton, David Petraeus, Robert Gates, the presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan and lastly Barack Obama himself have all been sucked into the media maelstrom created by the pastor with a dodgy past and 30 congregrants. And the circus is not over yet. Jones plans to fly to New York to discuss the proposed location of the Islamic centre near Ground Zero with the New York imam Feisel Abdul Rauf.

Whether or not this meeting takes place – and last night the pastor was still threatening to burn the Qur'ans if it did not – the damage has already been done. A protester was shot dead after a crowd of 10,000 converged on a German-run Nato base in north-eastern Afghanistan. Thousands of Indonesian Muslims demonstrated outside the US embassy in Jarkarta. President Obama has said and done the right things, neither reacting too soon – and thus inflating the importance of the pastor – nor too late. But the vulnerability of America's image in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the possibility that it would be recast by the lunatic fringe of Christian fundamentalists at home, is all too real. The pastor may be the most extreme version of it to date, but he is symptomatic of a larger trend, particularly in Florida. In May a mosque in Jacksonville was attacked with a pipe bomb, and a mosque south of Miami was attacked twice last year, once with gunfire. The pastor may have been condemned by Sarah Palin, but anti-Islamic rhetoric has begun to creep into the words of some Republican political candidates in the state.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is planning to distribute 200,000 copies of the Qur'an under an initiative called Learn, Don't Burn. Its spokesman, Ibrahim Hooper, said that the group's research shows that when people learn about what it is they are supposed to be hating, intolerance lessens. This is the right reaction, even if it feels at the moment like trying to hold back an incoming tide. There are around 7 million Muslims in the US, but no one knows for sure as they are as ethnically and culturally diverse as America is itself. This community is already fully integrated. Reactions such as seeing the headscarf as a symbol of "sharia by stealth" will, if allowed to continue unchecked, reverse this process.

As we report today, growing numbers of Muslims who have lived in America for most of their adult lives, whose children do all the things American kids do, are enduring a backlash of hostility and suspicion on the ninth anniversary of al-Qaida's assault on New York and the Pentagon. Islam is thus portrayed not as a faith but an invading system of government and justice. Mosques are not religious centres but the outposts of "radical Islam". While this mood is driven by politics in an election year, Republicans do not have to drill that deep. After nine years of incubation, anti-Muslim sentiment has burst on to the scene. Ignorance triumphs, and as the Tea Party activists are discovering, if you lie often enough and loud enough, it works. Nearly one in five Americans suspect that their president is secretly a Muslim.

Europe has got very little to teach America on this score, and about the last person it should be exporting to New York to speak at a rally today to oppose the Manhattan mosque plan is Geert Wilders, the virulently anti-Islamic Dutch political leader. The one thing European leaders should be telling America is not to go down the path that Holland, Switzerland, France and Austria have trod on this issue, each in different ways alienating the very communities on which their intelligence services depend to defend them against al-Qaida's plots. The pastor is doing Osama bin Laden's work for him."

Qatar extends Thailand flights

9 September 2010

While Tim Clark talks about 90 A380s not being enough for Emirates expansion Qatar Airways has expanded its reach in Thailand by introducing Phuket as its second destination, adding a third non-stop flight from Doha to Bangkok and extending its services from the Thai capital to Vietnam.

Emirates already has four flights a day from Dubai and Etihad two a day from Abu Dhabi.

Qatar Airways on Oct 12 will add Phuket to its growing network with a daily flight operated via Kuala Lumpur, becoming the first Middle East carrier to serve the southern Thai resort island.

Beginning on Nov 1, Qatar Airways will also begin flights from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, with three flights and four flights a week, respectively. This will be a turnaround added on to the new Bangkok flight which is its third daily non-stop service between Bangkok and Doha.

Neither Emirates nor Etihad is serving Vietnam, a fast-growing market in Asia, while Qatar Airways has already been flying from Doha to Ho Chi Minh City.

Ninety is not enough

9 September 2010

Emirates, the world’s biggest airline by international traffic, said the 90 Airbus SAS A380 superjumbos it’s buying won’t be sufficient to meet the carrier’s projected demand.

The aircraft “are well spoken for and frankly, the way things are going for us at the moment, the 90 certainly won’t be enough,” President Tim Clark told Bloomberg yesterday in a phone interview. “Demand for our services seems to be continuing to grow apace. We’re moving forward very robustly.”

The carrier, already the biggest customer for Airbus’s largest plane, has expanded its traffic sixfold in the last decade by connecting international passengers through its Dubai hub. Emirates is also the biggest operator of Boeing Co.’s 777 long- range airliner.

Emirates has 12 Airbus A380s in its fleet, with another three to go into service by November. Deliveries will restart in September 2011, with the carrier receiving the remaining planes through November 2017.

The one issue that holds back Emirates is the pace of development at Dubai airport, which last year handled 41 million passengers to rank as the 17th-busiest hub in world.Clark estimated that the airport, growing at about 15 percent a year, will handle as many as 100 million passengers by the end of the decade.

“There is no point trying to bring airplanes at a time when you have no place to put your passengers,” Clark said.

Dubai is developing a second airport, Dubai World Central- Al Maktoum International, which opened to cargo carriers in June and will start serving scheduled passenger flights in March 2011 (if they can find an airline to fly there). The government aims to make Al Maktoum the world’s busiest airport, with eventual capacity for 160 million travelers, and Emirates will eventually shift its base there.

Al Maktoum will need 10 to 15 years before enough carriers have moved there to make it Dubai’s main airport, Clark said.

Emirates’ ability to maintain expansion may also depend in part on competitors in the Persian Gulf region that are pursuing a similar strategy, said Andrew Lobbenberg, a London-based aviation analyst at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc.

Qatar Airways Ltd., half-owned by the state, has orders and options for more than 170 Boeing and Airbus planes to build up its base in Doha, about 235 miles (380 kilometers) west of Dubai. Etihad Airways, government-owned by Dubai’s neighboring emirate of Abu Dhabi, also has expansion plans. Although I have written elsewhere about the likelihood of an eventual merger of Etihad and Emirates...to be called Emirates!

The expansion of the three airlines has helped boost traffic in the Middle East by 19 percent in the year to August, making it the fastest-growing region in the world this year, according to data compiled by the International Air Transport Association.

Strange events around a TG bomb scare

9 September 2010

We are two days away from the 9th anniversary of the 9/11 attack on the USA. So you would expect security around the USA to be at a high level.

So why was a Thai Airways flight with a possible bomb threat allowed to approach and land into LAX as scheduled. Why wasn't it diverted to a remote air force base away from one of the USA's biggest cities.

On the flight from Bangkok a message was found by a Thai male passenger that read ''Bomb on plane''. It was scrawled with a pen on a lavatory mirror on flight TG794 from Bangkok about four to five hours before its scheduled arrival time in Los Angeles, said Surapol Isarakura na Ayutthaya, head of crisis management at THAI.

This is even more bizarre - according to the Bangkok Post US officials were notified of the threat about 90 minutes before the flight's scheduled arrival, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said. That is at least two hours after the Thai crew were alerted to the threat. What were they doing for two hours?

The aircraft left Bangkok at 7.30pm on Tuesday carrying 171 passengers and 18 crew. Despite threat it continued to LAX and landed at 8.51pm on Tuesday.

The jet then taxied to a remote area of the airport where passengers and crew members exited and were interviewed by authorities, luggage was screened and the plane searched.

''No evidence has been found to suggest a credible threat to the aircraft,'' Ms Eimiller said.

The FBI is now investigating to determine who was responsible for making the threat but so far there have been no arrests.

Most of the passengers on the flight were not aware of the bomb threat during the flight, a normal procedure to avoid panic, Mr Surapol said. Hmm. I think I would want to know that I was about to be delayed for hours in a remote part of the airfield where I would be interrogated and my bags searched.

THAI board chairman Ampon Kittiampon and Transport Minister Sohpon Zarum said THAI had supplied all information on the flight including security checks, names of passengers and their belongings to US authorities in Los Angeles to be used in their investigation.

The pilots of flight TG794, following consultations with THAI management in Bangkok and US aviation authorities, decided to continue with the flight until it reached its destination, he said.

Did the crew immediately assume that there was no real threat; did they wait tow hours before informing US authorities?

Something is not quite clear in the details that have been made public.

EK A380 in Manchester scare

9 September 2010

It is hard to tell what happened to the Emirates A380 on landing at Manchester on Tuesday - but there is a consensus that the captain flew a go around.

According to a report in Aviation Herald, the incident occurred when the superjumbo arrived as flight EK17 from Dubai; the plane appears to have landed hard on runway 05R, prompting the crew to go-around.

The aircraft landed safely around13 minutes later, but was unable to depart for its scheduled return flight EK18 on Sep 6th and left Manchester the following day after a delay of 24 hours.

A passenger reported that the approach had been very bumpy, stated the report. The airplane touched down on its main gear very hard, the crew subsequently initiated the go-around without lowering the nose gear. The captain explained they went around because of the strong easterly gusting winds.

Emirates confirmed that the aircraft’s wheels did briefly touch down on the runway before the aircraft climbed away before returning and landing normally. "This manoeuvre is entirely routine," an Emirates spokesperson confirmed to ArabianSupplyChain.com.

Well it is not that routine; normally a go around commences before the planes wheels are in contact with the runway.

One rule for some....again

7 September 2010

This would be funny - except that I doubt the UAE government sees the irony in it.

The Gulf News is reporting that the UAE government will take tough action against retailers engaged in monopolistic practices and those selling sub-standard products under a new consumer protection law that is being finalised.

Where shall we start - maybe with government monopolies - Etisalat and Du and DEWA.

Dr Hashim Al Nuaimi, director of the Consumer Protection Department at the Ministry of Economy, said the government will also target price manipulators. "The new version of the Consumer Protection law will fill the gaps of the old law and strengthen the penalty provision and ensure enforcement," he said.

The amendments will tackle issues relating to consumer rights, responsibilities and liabilities and specify penalties to be imposed for commercial malpractices, he added.
Al Nuaimi remarked that although the penalties provision had existed since the inception of the consumer protection law, the government now aims to step up its drive against violators.

The last hour of UPS 6

5 September 2010

UPS B744F N571UP flight UPS6 letf Dubai for Cologne at 18.52 on the evening of 3rd September.

It was a warm and muggy evening but it sis reasonable to assume that there was nothing unusual about the preparation and departure for a short six hour flight to Cologne,

As with all 747-400s there were two operating crew onboard. Captain Doug Lampe of Louisville, Kentucky, and First Officer Matthew Bell of Sanford, Florida.

Captain Lampe, 48, has been with UPS since 1995. First Officer Bell, 38, has been with UPS since 2006. Both crewmembers flew out of UPS’s Anchorage, Alaska pilot base.

The aircraft, tail number N571UP, was just three years old, entering UPS service off the Boeing production line in September 2007. The airframe had flown 9977 hours, completing 1764 takeoffs and landings. It was up to date on all maintenance, having just completed a major inspection in June 2010.

But something went seriously wrong. The plane was climbing out of Dubai and under the control of Bahrain Center overhead the Arabian Gulf about 120nm westnorthwest of Dubai.

Other crews in the vicinity heard the the airplane reported a fire in the cockpit. Doha was about 100 miles ahead and Dubai about 120 miles behind. The crew chose to try and reach Dubai.

They reported they were unable to read their instruments and were unable to change frequency asking for frequent updates on their altitude and speed from ATC. They were vectored for a straight in approach to Dubai's runway 12L.

But the approach was too high and too fast for a landing. ATC offered a diversion to Sharjah or join a right hand downwind for another visual approach to runway 12L at Dubai.

The airplane crashed onto fairly empty space west of Dubai Silicon Oasis and the Al-Ain Highway (E66) about half way between Emirates Road (E311) and Outer Bypass Road (E611) at about 19:45L (15:45Z). This is south west of Dubai airport. There was a massive fire. And little but charred debris remains as you can see in the picture above. Both crew perished in the crash.

A full enquiry is under way. A fire onboard inevitably suggests that the plane was carrying some hazardous materials either on the lower of main deck cargo hold. But we will have to wait for the full report.

Fire and smoke in the cockpit must be every flier's nightmare. Perhaps the only good that will come from this tragedy is recommendations on how cockpit safety may be improved in the event of a fire. Everyone's thoughts are with the families and friends of the crew.

Tony Blair's Journey

5 September 2010

Andrew Rawnsley's verdict: The cliches and pop psychology will make you grimace, but Tony Blair's memoir is also remarkably candid – except when it comes to Iraq

5 September 2010 The Observer

It is Tony Blair's boast that he wrote every word in longhand "on hundreds of notepads". That I believe. He was the most brilliant communicator of his era as a platform speaker or television interviewee, but he can be a ghastly writer. Anyone thinking about taking this journey needs to be given a travel advisory: much of the prose is execrable.

A Journey by Tony Blair Buy it from the Guardian bookshop Search the Guardian bookshop
No cliche is avoided. Loins are girded, leashes are strained at, die are cast, lights appear at the end of tunnels and wounds are rubbed with salt. The Vatican is "an amazing place". Princess Anne "is a chip right off the old man's block". Princess Diana "captured the essence of an era". Derry Irvine is "like the proverbial dog with the bone". Many of the chapters are as badly planned as the invasion of Iraq. There are abrupt jumps from this year to that and back again. He will launch into one subject and then suddenly lurch off in an entirely different direction. The text is littered with the apology: "Anyway, I digress." Sentences begin with redundant clunkers: "Funnily enough…" or '"Needless to say…" One paragraph concludes: "Blimey, get a life." Another ends: "blah, blah, blah." There are passages that read like a Craig Brown parody in Private Eye. Of Condoleezza Rice, Blair writes: "She is also a classic example of the absurdity of people with experience and capacity at the highest level not having big political jobs after retirement from office. But that's another point!" There is a smattering of scenes with Cherie that will be strong contenders for the Bad Sex award. By page 544, he is inviting us to join him on the toilet. "I like to have time and comfort in the loo."

I could say that it is a pity that Tony Blair did not employ a ghostwriter to prettify the prose and organise his recollections more elegantly. I could observe that he is straining after the faux-intimate style of the autobiographies of footballers or models, and that was only to be expected from the politician who turned himself into Britain's first celebrity prime minister. Funnily enough, as he would write, the direness of much of the prose helps to give this autobiography some of its authenticity. The book has a kind of integrity. I say kind of because it is a rare political memoir – and this is not one of them – that is unflinchingly candid. He is slippery on inconvenient facts and passes over issues that are too painful to confront. He is not always reliable about either chronology or detail. Events and relationships are sanitised.

That said, this is a more honest political memoir than most and more open in many respects than I had anticipated. He is compellingly candid about how scared he was when he first became prime minister. He was masterful at masking his fear from the public, but it prevented him achieving as much with his first term as he might have done. Even after many seasoning years in office, his "demons" still urged him to "run away". I am sure many politicians harbour such feelings, but no former prime minister has ever been so open about it. Talking about his strengths, he describes himself as a "manipulator". He is unusually direct about his calculations, even when they don't reflect well on him, and his motivations, albeit in a pop-psychological way that frequently makes you wince. So long as the subject area is not Iraq, he is often brutal with himself about his mistakes. He admits to stretching the truth beyond "breaking point" to secure a settlement in Northern Ireland. Even when the lies are told in a noble cause, few politicians are honest enough to admit that they sometimes feel compelled to be deceivers.

The book adds little to what has already been written about his relationship with Gordon Brown. We had already gathered that he found his friend turned rival "strange" and "maddening" – and much worse that he does not say – but for complex reasons could never bring himself to deal with the chancellor who relentlessly sabotaged his premiership. The TB-GBs were fiercely denied when some of us started to expose their uncivil war long ago. It is useful nevertheless to have further corroboration supplied by Blair himself. One of his most important confessionals – and this reflects worse on him that it does on the other man – is that he knew that Brown would be a disastrous prime minister but did nothing serious to seek an alternative outcome.

This is not a bitchy memoir. That reflects the nature of a man who tends to look for and try to exploit the good in other people rather than the bad. That trait equipped him to woo both Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley for peace in Northern Ireland, which was a plus. On the negative side, he still can't see what is wrong with Silvio Berlusconi. There is no resiling from his admiration for George Bush, who is lauded as a man of "genuine integrity" and "a true idealist". He finally admits that he wanted Bush to win a second term, an extraordinary position for a Labour prime minister to have got to and the most vivid example of how Blair was bent out of shape by that alliance. He struggles to account for the terrible consequences when he hitched his liberal interventionism to Bush's crude neo-conservatism. The Iraq chapters are the least revealing. They are unlikely to change anyone's mind.

In his early years in office, he was often called a chameleon. He has tried to make sense of his career by defining himself as a leader who started out as a successful populist who was too eager to please and matured into a statesman prepared to be a hated "minority of one" for the causes that he believed in. Hence the title. I finished his autobiography still thinking of Tony Blair as a kaleidoscope. He can be charmingly self-deprecating one moment, and repellently vain the next. Banalities tumble across these pages, but there are also thoughtful and significant meditations about modern politics. This autobiography, like its author, has many faces: important and infuriating, trite and profound, cynical but also optimistic, world-weary and yet often quite naive, racked with anxieties about some things and evangelical in his certitudes about others, intellectually lazy and confused about many issues but more often than not utterly clear-sighted when it comes to the big ones. When he says the world is a place of contradictions, Labour's longest-serving prime minister is really talking about himself.
 

Is Bangkok under lockdown?

3 September 2010

Bangkok appears to be under near lockdown tonight but no one seems to be quite sure why?

Many bars and clubs are closing early. BTS stations are under heavy guard. The Nation reports that there are threats/rumours of sabotage and assassinations.

So the military response is to put over 460 locations across Bangkok on high alert today.

Royal palaces, key government buildings, power plants and public transport will receive special protection from the Centre for Resolution of Emergency Situation (CRES), the body set up to monitor security since unrest in April.

Thousands of police, soldiers and city officials will swell Bangkok's security presence so that streets can be patrolled around the clock, starting late Friday.

"Government will mobilise thousands of personnel from the armed forces and police, both in uniform and plain clothes," CRES spokesman Major General Piya Uthayo said.

He said 130 locations, including those already targeted, were considered extremely high risk and continual patrols would operate within a 400 metre (1,320 feet) radius.

A further 198 places, such as the homes of key public figures, have been placed on a second level of high alert and will have checkpoints guarding access.

A third level of alert will be enforced at 136 locations such as banks and department stores, which will receive additional training for their private security staff.

Bangkok authorities now plan to upgrade thousands of security cameras across the city, boosting storage capacity so that images can be saved for one month.

Five bombings in little over a month, leaving one dead and thirteen injured, have unnerved Bangkok residents still recovering after April and May's "Red Shirt" protests.

The blasts -- at targets including Thailand's national TV centre and an apparent repeat attack at the King Power duty-free shopping outlet -- have also raised doubts over the speed at which emergency laws can be lifted in Bangkok.

The capital is one of seven areas still under the special rules introduced on April 7 as a response to the Red rallies that later left 91 people dead and about 1,900 injured in clashes between protesters and the army.

I hate to be such a cynic but the rumours, and even the so called grenade attacks (which generally do little damage) all seem designed to justify the state of emergency; to keep the infamous CRES in place; to keep the red shirts under unlimited arrest; to delay any PAD prosecution and of course to delay for as long as possible an election that the Democrats may neither win or even be allowed to participate in.

Emirates' funding

2 September 2010 - Bloomberg

Emirates, the world’s biggest airline by international traffic, needs more than $28 billion through 2017 to expand its fleet of Boeing Co. and Airbus SAS jets, almost double the amount raised since 1996.

Financing requirements for the 12 months through March 2011 will be $1.3 billion, and total about $27 billion for the following six years, Gary Chapman, Emirates’ president of group services in charge of finances, said in an interview in Dubai.

Emirates, which will take delivery of two aircraft each month for the next six years, operates a fleet of 150 jets and has firm commitments for a further 203 planes. The carrier, which is building up a fleet of 90 Airbus A380 aircraft with 45,000 seats, is using its base in Dubai to create a global network to compete with Singapore Airlines Ltd., Air France-KLM Group and Deutsche Lufthansa AG.

“With the activity that we have coming up, we’ve got to leave no stone unturned,” Chapman said yesterday from his office overlooking Dubai International Airport. The financing plan is “substantial because it’s pretty close to double what we’ve done in the previous 14 years.”

Since starting operations 25 years ago, government-owned Emirates has raised $21.6 billion to finance its expansion, according to the carrier’s web site. It has done this via operating leases, export credit agencies, commercial asset- backed debt and non-conventional sources such as Islamic funding.

Emirates is weighing “all customary financing vehicles” including going to the capital markets, Chapman said. The airline is also looking at enhanced equipment trust certificates, a debt instrument that allows a carrier to take possession of an asset and pay for it over time, the executive said.

“In an ideal world we’d like to get about 85 percent financing” from debt and the remainder from equity, he said.

About $30 billion of debt from Gulf-based companies will mature in 2012 and needs to be refinanced, according to Moody’s Investors Service. Of this, U.A.E. entities make up two thirds.

“It could be quite a crowded time for Emirates to get funding,” said Khalid Howladar, a Dubai-based senior analyst at Moody’s. “That said, Emirates is one of the strongest pillars of the regional economy with pretty solid cashflows and growth prospects. So dependent on timing and pricing, investor demand should be high.”

Emirates may repay some bonds or look at rescheduling them depending on financing costs, Chapman said. It has about $5.3 billion of outstanding debt, including a $500 million bond arranged by HSBC Holdings Plc that’s due in March and a $250 million bond due in June next year, according to the carrier’s financial statements. Emirates doesn’t have a debt rating.

“We’re looking at our options, but you have to set it against the fact that we’re sitting on a cash pile of about $3.4 billion,” he said. “We have the flexibility. We’re not going to be pushed into a corner.”

Dubai World, one of the emirate’s three main state-owned business groups, on May 20 reached an agreement with its creditors to restructure $23.5 billion of loans. The company’s announcement on Nov. 25 to delay repaying loans sparked a plunge in stocks around the world and the largest increase in emerging- market bond yields over U.S. Treasuries in four weeks. The cost to protect against a default by Dubai doubled.

While the airline hasn’t been immune to the impact of the rising costs, Emirates’ standalone credit risk is looked upon “very favorably,” Chapman said.

In June, Emirates ordered 30 Boeing 777-300ER aircraft valued at $9.1 billion and 32 Airbus A380s valued at $11 billion.