RAK Airways to relaunch (again)

30 June 2010

RAK Airways, the almost never off the ground airline of Ras al Khaimah, one of the UAE's seven emirates announced today that it will re-launch services before the end of this year, following a hiatus of more than 12 months.

Sheikh Omar Bin Saqr Al Qassimi, chairman of RAK Airways, said that the exceptionally tough market conditions, created by the global economic turndown, had forced the young airline to suspend schedule services in May 2009.

"We are now ready to make a strategic re-entry into the market," he said in a statement.

"We have a lot of exciting new plans, which will be unveiled soon. Omar Jahameh, our recently appointed CEO and his team are finalising the details of our flights to destinations in the Gulf, Africa and the Indian Sub Continent," he added.

He said the decision to re-launch the airline was part of plans to boost tourism in the emirate.

This airline has started and failed before. RAK is an hour's drive from Dubai's international airport. Sharjah Airport, well served by Air Arabia, is even closer to RAK. It is hard to see how RAK Airways can succeed.

Spies are (among) us

29 June 2010

There are few things more entertaining than good spy fiction except maybe real spy stories.

So today's arrests on 10 alleged Russian spies in the USA are a great reminder that the cold war enemies are still frosty. It really is just like an episode of BBC TV's "Spooks" series.

The simple details are that the FBI arrested 10 alleged Russian spies on Sunday in Yonkers, Boston and northern Virginia. Five of the suspects appeared in court yesterday. An 11th suspect was arrested today in Cyprus and then bizarrely released on bail.

The FBI alleges that this ring is an 11-strong team of "deep cover" agents who are said to have spent almost 20 years integrating themsleves into American society.

The FBI operation represents the biggest penetration of the SVR (Russia's External Intelligence Service) communications in recent memory. The FBI read their emails, decrypted their intel, read the embedded coded texts on images posted on the net, bugged their mobile phones, videotaped the passing of bags of cash and messages in invisible ink from one agent to another, and hacked into their bogus expenses claims.

An intercepted message from the SVR to two of the alleged spies outlined their mission. "You were sent to USA for long-term service trip. Your education, your bank accounts, car, house, etc – all these serve one goal: fulfil your main mission, ie to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in US and send intels [intelligence reports] to C [Centre]," said an intercepted message, according to the indictment.

The Russian foreign ministry described the charges as "baseless". Caught it would seem with their knickers down Moscow has suggested that the arrests were a deliberate attempt to undermine the recent improvement in US-Russian ties. "We believe such actions are ungrounded and have unseemly goals," the Russian foreign ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said.

In reality there can be little doubt that both the US and Russia have long term spies in eachother's countries Apparently the FBI had been following this group for 10 years. Which does beg the question of why make the arrests now? The main Russian embarrassment will be that their people were exposed before they ever achieved anything.

The alleged spy ring is accused of trying to gather information on US nuclear weapons, American policy toward Iran, and the CIA, and many other subjects. The arrests follow a "multi-year" investigation, the FBI said.

Court papers, running to 55 pages published by the New York Times and now also by the Guardian, show the details of the charges.

Those charged lived as ordinary suburban "couples working ordinary jobs, chatting to the neighbours about schools and apologising for noisy teenagers," according to the New York Times. Some of the four accused couples, including residents of Montclair, New Jersey, and Yonkers, even had children together to make their cover more realistic, according to the New York Daily News.

Oleg Gordievsky, an ex-deputy head of the KGB in London who defected in 1985, told AP that he reckons there are up to 50 couples operating under deep cover in the US.

The Cambridge Chronicle's Wicked Local website spells out the cover story of two of the alleged spies, Donald Heathfield and Tracey Foley.

NorthJersey.com has profiles and details of the arrests of another of the alleged spy couples, Richard and Cynthia Murphy.

"They couldn't have been spies. Look what she did with the hydrangeas," 15-year-old Jessie Gugig quipped to the New York Times after the arrest of the Murphys. That has to be the best reaction from a neighbour so far.

The Court Papers are detailed in the New York Times and include information such as the following: "Illegals use many methods to exchange information with each other, including brush-passes, short-wave radio operation and invisible writing, use of codes and ciphers, including the use of encrypted Morse code messages, the creation and use of a cover profession.

Upon completion of their training in Russia, illegals are generally provided with new, false, identities - known as their 'legend'. Illegals sometimes do degrees at universities, obtain work and join professional assocaitions. They often operate in pairs, placed together under the guise of a married couple. Illegals who are placed together and co-habit in the country to which they are assigned will often have children together - this further deepens an illegal's "legend'."

Several of the alleged spies claim Canadian citizenship. The Canadian Press reports, via the CBC: "The defendants known as Donald Howard Heathfield and Tracey Lee Ann Foley claim to be born in Canada, while Patricia Mills claims to be a Canadian citizen, court papers filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York showed. [Christopher] Metsos also claims to be a Canadian citizen.

One of the alleged spies reportedly used the birth certificate of a Canadian infant who died in the 1960s, but it's not clear what documents supported the citizenship claims made by the other accused."

Most tellingly the reds aren't just under the bed; they have been in it for years?

Can Emirates beat the Germans?

29 June 2010 - from Der Spiegel online.

Well England could not do it; maybe Emirates Airline can; but in the mirky realm of regulatory affairs rather than on a football pitch.

After the massive new A380 order was unveiled at the Berlin Air Show this month it is no surprise to see Dubai-based airline Emirates is now lobbying German politicians for more landing rights in the country as part of its massive expansion drive. Its German rival Lufthansa, worried about losing market share, is resisting, but Emirates hopes that its recent record order of 32 A380s from the European manufacturer Airbus will help to concentrate decision makers' minds.

The Dubai-based airline Emirates is pushing for additional takeoff and landing rights at German airports. The new lobbying effort comes just three weeks after Emirates announced it would buy 32 new A380 airliners from European plane consortium Airbus in a massive new order.

Emirates has set out its case in a 12-page position paper that was sent last week to around 100 aviation experts, politicians and decision makers and that has been obtained by Der Spiegel newspaper. The airline explains that it would be extremely beneficial for German cities like Berlin and Stuttgart, which the airline does not currently serve, to have Emirates connections. In addition to trying to woo German officials, Emirates also strongly attacks its German competitor Lufthansa in the document.

In its own recent position paper, Lufthansa, which is Germany's largest airline, warned of negative consequences should Emirates advance further into the German market. The German carrier is afraid its hubs Frankfurt and Munich would come under massive pressure if Emirates started transporting German passengers to long-haul destinations via its hub in Dubai. Lufthansa argues that expansion by Emirates could cost jobs in Germany.

Emirates claims that such concerns are unsubstantiated. The airline stresses that it is helping to secure tens of thousands of jobs in Germany, including for pilots and Airbus workers. Emirates executives also strongly reject the accusation, made in the Lufthansa paper, that they would try to win market share from other airlines "at any price."

The Dubai carrier's lobbying move comes as part of the airline's rapid expansion plan. Emirates is posing increasing stiff competition to the three main airline alliances -- SkyTeam, Star Alliance and Oneworld -- and has been lobbying for more traffic rights in Europe and Canada.

Analysts say that the timing of the announcement of the A380 order, which was made public at the Berlin Air Show on June 8, was deliberate and was intended to emphasize the importance of the airline's order for manufacturing jobs in Europe. Emirates' European competitors accuse the Dubai-based airline of receiving unfair advantages in the form of state subsidies.

Dubai's DAE postpones airplane deliveries

29 June 2010

In all the euphoria of Emirates Airline placing new airplane orders with Airbus and potentially with Boeing I had forgotten that state-owned Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE) three years ago placed orders for some 220 new aircraft both manufacturers.

Amid Dubai's financial woes it appears that DAE (which is a start up aircraft leasing company) is to seeking to postpone its order.

Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE) is owned by a number of Dubai state-owned investment vehicles and a number of Dubai’s leading companies have been forced to reduce their debt burdens in the wake of the financial crisis. This has included state-owned DP World announcing that it would delay a share listing in London whilst it restructures.

Meanwhile DAE has $800 million of debt to refinance by next year and is facing weak demand for leased planes due to the aviation downturn.

One option for DAE is to sell or give its purchase rights to Emirates, the national airline of Dubai. Which is a bit like the left hand feeding the right in Dubai and is net zero gain to the manufacturers.

If it were to cancel its orders, DAE Capital, which handles DAE's aircraft purchases and leasing activities would pay significant penalties. Postponement or transfer of the deliveries avoids paying penalties.

DAE ordered 118 aircraft from Boeing in 2007 and 100 planes from Airbus, the paper said, adding that deliveries of the A320s should have started already.

Les Echos (a French newspaper) also said Robert Genise, DAE Capital's chief executive, may leave the company, having announced last year that the $1 billion sales target for 2010 would not be reached before end-2013.

That may lead to s significant exodus of the management team known by insiders as FoBs - Friends of Bob.

FA are a conniving bunch of no-hopers

29 June 2010

They are not called the FA for nothing. This out of touch organisation of dusty and murky individuals is now trying to wrangele its way as chealy as possible out of he contract that they signed with Fabios Capello.

First they sign a contract with Capello that allows them to remove him atfer the World Cup The contract also allowed Capello to walk away after the tournament. Then, because of a successful qualification campaign they remove that clause and extend teh contract to 2012.

So to get rid of Capello will need a compensation payment of soemwhere between approx gbp10 million.

So what does the FA do, they put Capello through the indignity of an announcement that the governing body will take two weeks to decide whether it intends to retain him.

The FA want to remove Capello after England's 4-1 defeat to Germany in the second round of the World Cup finals. They have attempted to buy themselves time yesterday in the hope that in the interim Capello will be approached by a club – which would mean that the FA were spared paying him £10m compensation to leave. The two weeks also gives the FA the time to find a successor for this poisoned chalice of a job.

The FA seem to see no fault in their part. Yet Engalish football is run by the FA, the Premier League and the Football League. It is a shambles of conflicting objectives.

Sir Dave Richards is the chairman of the FA's newly-formed Club England body. They really know FA.

Capello was advised that he had to say he wanted to continue as England manager in order to be in a position to get the full payout in the event of the FA finally sacking him. His key aide, general manager Franco Baldini, is also thought to be on his way out and is wanted by a number of clubs.

England re-enact a drama of failure

A brutal pattern reasserted itself here as German youth flourished and English maturity tipped over into obsolescence - Paul Hayward in The Guardian

28 June 2010

"Only the details and the venues change in the story of how England impersonate a serious international power. In the last 10 years alone that conceit has been exposed in Charleroi, Shizuoka, Lisbon, Gelsenkirchen and now Bloemfontein. The men of 1966 can pack their diaries with yet more heroes' dinners and brand-ambassador spin-offs because 44 years of waiting could be just the start.

England have still not beaten a top‑flight nation in World Cup combat since the Bobby Moore-Geoff Hurst generation exploited home advantage in the country's one and only appearance in the final of an international tournament. A brutal pattern reasserted itself in the Free State as German youth flourished and English maturity tipped over into obsolescence. Mesut Ozil and Thomas Müller – flag-bearers for a more thrilling German style of play – pushed a whole crop of English household names into permanent shadow.

The Frank Lampard-Steven Gerrard generation have had failure's nail banged into them and it shows. Deep in their minds a voice must cry out that success at World Cup and European Championship level is simply beyond imagining. The temptation across the English game must be to retreat to the sanctuary of the Premier League, with its Super Sunday clashes between empires of debt. These expeditions in the Three Lions livery are only a trail of tears.

Five of England's starting XI in this second-round match had played in Champions League finals. Pressure and expectation are written into their daily lives. With England, though, their talent evaporates, their sense of self collapses. They look tight and ponderous and tactically illiterate.

Germany played dazzling football in bursts and adjusted their pace and pattern of play to suit the circumstances. They worked out how to win the game and reach a quarter-final. Two counter-attacking goals in four minutes showed up England's defensive naivety and wooden pursuit of an equaliser after the goal-that-never-was: the best indictment yet of Fifa's neanderthal prejudice against goal-line technology.

In the Wimbledon fortnight a simple machine can say whether a tennis ball has crossed a white line. Here in football's biggest competition Fifa tells men their lives will be defined by what happens on the World Cup stage and then denies them the equipment that would make those definitions fair. For the outcomes of World Cup games to be shaped by this prejudice brings the sport into disrepute, if that isn't an oxymoron. But this legitimate gripe will not conceal England's ineptitude in allowing Germany to counterattack their way to a crushing victory and so extend the hurt inflicted in 1970 and 1990.

Germany have advanced further than England in every World Cup the two nations have contested since 1966. Capello's team didn't lose to a history book, however, they folded in the here and now against a side with an average age four years lower. On a shallow, Premier League-warped reading of the team-sheets they would have feared the gifted Ozil, 21, and Müller, 20, and known all about Lukas Podolski's fierce shot and Miroslav Klose's exceptional international goalscoring pedigree (50, now, which is one more than Sir Bobby Charlton's England record).

Yet English players who have faced Barcelona and Real Madrid in Champions League combat cannot have felt that Germany were an unstoppable historical force. They will have played the names in front of them, which makes their demise all the more frightening. Germany brought zest and zip and cunning to their attacking play. England advanced in lumpen 4-4-2 formation without any of Germany's geometrical cleverness.

A recurring truth is that the way football is played in England (or by English players) is not conducive to international success. In Africa's first World Cup, specifically, they won one of their four fixtures – 1-0, against Slovenia – scored three and conceded five. Insiders say the campaign hit psychological turbulence when Robert Green committed a pub keeper's error in fumbling Clint Dempsey's shot in the USA game. There was, by all accounts, a collapse of faith that the win over Slovenia only partially restored.

In the 21st century alone England have seen the bail sail over David Seaman's head in Japan (2002), successive penalty shoot-out defeats to Portugal (2004 and 2006) the non-qualification debacle of Euro 2008 and a promising qualifying campaign unravel here in South Africa. Regression is the tale of Capello's first World Cup as a manager. Quarter-finalists in 2002 and 2006, England stumbled out of Group C in second place and lost to the first big-name team they came across To think they had recovered some of their poise in Port Elizabeth with the escapology routine against Slovenia was no idle hope. For the first time since they arrived in their purpose-built compound near Sun City the players relaxed and seemed to see beyond Capello's patriarchal strictness to a more fulfilling experience. Finally they joined the World Cup. The benefits of experience were starting to become apparent and the team had assumed a more promising shape, with Gareth Barry screening the back-four, James Milner excelling on the right and Jermain Defoe seeming sharp and eager alongside Wayne Rooney, who, at 24, leaves here still without a World Cup goal.

Rooney's sole imprint on this great competition remains the stud marks he left on the groin of Portugal's Ricardo Carvalho four years ago. Given his precocity, Brazil in 2014 will be his last chance to impress the judges in an England shirt. Rooney improved against Germany: his first touch and link play were sharper, more aware. But over the four games he was a phantom of his real self. The English culture managed to deliver its best player to a tournament hollow and semi-detached.

In the calamity catalogue we file Rio Ferdinand's knee injury in the first training session, Ledley King's breakdown inside 45 minutes of the USA game, the Green goalkeeping howler and John Terry's failed insurrection. It was fashionable to say at least England were not like France. In retrospect it would have been more fun to go out like the French, with eruptions everywhere, than concede two goals on the counter-attack when the score was still 2-1. Can England not press for an equaliser more intelligently?

Over the three weeks Ashley Cole, John Terry and Glen Johnson performed creditably (though Johnson left his rear-view mirror back at base again yesterday); Lampard was mostly innocuous, Gerrard was again wasted on the left and Joe Cole under-used. Aaron Lennon and Shaun Wright-Phillips were passengers. Michael Dawson, Stephen Warnock, Joe Hart and Michael Carrick were all denied a kick. All will flee the Royal Bafokeng complex glad to have escaped this eternal wheel of fire.

Capello toured the shires in search of fresh talent and found none. Ashley Young, Gabriel Agbonlahor and even Theo Walcott were discarded. The manager was surely right to conclude that English football's nursery is not producing fruit. National coaching programmes and strategic planning are not the English way. Feeding the Premier League monster is the only show in town. The Football Association, where a vast power void now prevails, throw money at 44 years of frustration by importing first Swedish then Italian expertise and locking themselves into expensive long contracts.

Feel better now? Each time the mantra is that we need to be honest about the true state and standing of the England football team and we never are."

Woeful England over run by Germany

27 June 2010

Germany 4 England 1

More on my world cup blog

Dubai World Central opens for business

27 June 2010

Dubai on Sunday joined an elite group of two-airport cities when Dubai Airports officially opened Dubai World Central – Al Maktoum International (DWC) for cargo operations welcoming flights operated by Rus Aviation, Skyline and Aerospace.

When completed, DWC will be the largest airport in the world with five runways, four terminal buildings and capacity for 160 million passengers and 12 million tonnes of cargo.

The first phase of the airport will feature one A380 capable runway, 64 remote stands, one cargo terminal with annual capacity for 250,000 tonnes of cargo and a passenger terminal building designed to accommodate five million passengers per year.

“Phase I is the first step in a long infrastructure development project that over time will see our new airport transformed into the world’s largest global gateway and a multi-modal logistics hub that plays an increasingly integral role in the ongoing economic and social development of Dubai.” said Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, president of Dubai Civil Aviation Authority and chairman of Dubai Airports.

“It is a proud day for Dubai and an auspicious occasion for the future of global aviation,” he added.

Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports, said, “Although it is a long term project, the need for a second airport in the near to mid-term is clear.”

“Dubai International currently has capacity for 2.5 million tonnes of cargo while volumes are expected increase 48 per cent to 3 million tonnes by 2015. On the passenger side we expect to see numbers skyrocket from the 41 million that passed through Dubai International in 2009 to 98 million by 2020 and 150 million by 2030,” he pointed out.

Griffiths said the new airport’s facilities and connectivity to the Jebel Ali Port and Jebel Ali Free Zone by a bonded road was being acknowledged by early adopting airlines.

“We are delighted with the response from cargo operators who are seizing the opportunity. DWC opened today with 15 cargo airlines signed up and we expect that number to increase steadily over the next few months,” he added.

Cargo carriers that have signed up to operate into DWC include Aban Air, ACI, Aerospace Consortium, Aviation Service Management, Coyne Airways, EuroAsian Services, Gatewick, Ramjet, Reem Style, Rial Aviation, Rus Aviation, Sonic Jet, SunGlobal, Skyline and United Aviation Services. Airline operational start dates vary but will occur gradually over the coming weeks.

The airport’s opening was preceded by the presentation of the official aerodrome certification for DWC to Sheikh Ahmed from Saif Mohammed Al Suwaidi, director general of General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA)

Labourers left to starve

27 June 2010 - 7 Days newspaper - Dubai

"Hundreds of labourers languishing in a UAE camp have been abandoned by their employer left to live off meagre food donations, surrounded by sewage and with no gas or electricity.

The men have not been paid in months and many look malnourished as they barely have enough to eat. They are staying at a remote camp in Al Sajaa Industrial Area, on the outskirts of Sharjah.

The company they work for appears to have gone out of business and now grocery firms will not deliver because of unpaid bills, sewage tanks go un-emptied and electricity and water have been cut off.

Poor conditions at labour camps are not uncommon in parts of the UAE, but the sheer level of squalor at this site was particularly shocking.

When 7DAYS visited the camp yesterday, the men were crowded around a fire made from scraps of wood, cooking the few morsels they could find.

The stench of sewage filled the air.

One of them, Subhiman K Appu, said: “It is so hard to cook food using firewood. It is just too hot outside. We desperately need our pay and better living conditions. My family back home are also struggling badly.”

One of his fellow workers, Badrul Muneer, added: “Toilets are overflowing.

There is no drinking water. The garbage has not been collected for many days.

“All we want is for the government to send us back home - and to get the money that is due to us.”

The workers, from India, Bangladesh and Nepal, said they had not been paid for up to seven months.

The only generator at the camp has run out of diesel, forcing the men to sleep in the open as it is too hot inside their cramped huts.

One worker said he had contemplated suicide.

The Indian Consulate said the men are employed by Portland Technical Marine Service, a labour supplier for construction firms.
It told 7DAYS that one of the partners in the firm has absconded while another is in Sharjah Jail over money issues.

7DAYS tried to contact Portland Technical Marine Services but none of our calls to their offices in Sharjah and Dubai were answered.

The mobile phone of one of the partners was also switched off."

Thailand recruits convicted felon to promote tourism

27 June 2010

Thailand has recruited US TV cook Martha Stewart to film cooking shows in the kingdom as part of a new campaign to draw more female tourists, media reports said Friday.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand has allocated a 10-million-baht (312,500-dollar) budget to enlist Stewart's help in promoting the country's travel industry, which has been hard hit this year by political turmoil, the Bangkok Post newspaper reported.

The authority is now hoping that endorsement by Ms Stewart - who hosts a television show, writes books and publishes a magazine with cooking, decorating, gardening and other advice and projects for the home - would help bring tourists, especially women, back to the kingdom.

Stewart was named the third most powerful woman in America in 2001 by the Ladies Home Journal.

But what the Thais seem to have forgotten is that in 2003 she was indicted on 9 counts, including charges of securities fraud and obstruction of justice in 2003. She served five months in prison for lying to federal agents investigating the sale of shares shortly before they fell sharply in value. This was followed by two years of supervised release.

In 2008 Ms Stewart was refused a visa to Britain because of her criminal convictions for obstructing justice.

She is scheduled to start filming the series of cooking programmes in Thailand in September, the Bangkok Post said.

Strangely is was also around 2008 that the Democrats applauded the British government when Thaksin was banned from entry to the U.K. because of his conviction in the Thai courts.

Now another convicted criminal is taking their turn to promote Thailand? Though it is worth noting that insider dealing is less of a crime than a pastime in Thailand.

UAE lifts Thai travel warning despite SOE

27 June 2010

The UAE Foreign Ministry has cancelled its travel advisory warning citizens against travelling to Thailand after the security situation in the country improved, it was announced on Saturday.

The announcement was made by Sultan Al Ali, Director of the Department of Information Affairs at the Foreign Ministry.

Al Ali said the decision on lifting the warning was prompted by the improved security situation in Bangkok and other provinces in Thailand which has brought life back to normal in Bangkok. Tourism is now operating normally.

Earlier in April, the ministry had urged citizens not to travel to Thailand in view of the security situation and the declaration of the state of emergency in Bangkok.

However, Al Ali appealed to UAE citizens to exercise utmost caution when travelling abroad and urged them to register with the foreign ministry's Tawajedi (www/moft.gov.ae), a service aimed at offering assistance to UAE citizens in case of emergencies abroad.

Yet a State of Emergency remains in place which was decreed in Bangkok on April 7 and extended to cover 23 other provinces in the North and Northeast. Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban has repeatedly stressed that security threats remain, probably from wanted red shirt leaders who remain at large who might organise an underground movement, and from the possibility of haphazard use of violence, which would best be handled by the special powers extended under this decree.

G for gross waste of time and money

27 June 2010

It is Canada's turn to host the G8 and G20 meetings. As always the cost of these events far outweighs any long term benefit.

Toronto is in lock down The city has been taken away from its people - yet the people, through their taxes have to pay the bills.

Someone has to explain to me how kicking in the windows of the Bank of Novia Scotia or setting alight police cars is an effective protest against anything The worst that can be said is that Toronto suddenly resembles Bangkok from last month.
 

What is wrong with simply using a video conference. We are all being told to cut budgets and to pay increased taxes. We are all being warned of carbon emissions. Yet the G20 will have private jetted to Toronto; have an army of security with them and will have absolutely no interaction with the people whose city they are trashing for the weekend.

The official welcome and reception is at the famed Royal York Hotel on Saturday evening for leaders and their spouses. In the heart of downtown Toronto. They all have private jets. Fly somewhere remote - maybe Churchill or Whitehorse. There will be less damage done there.

The total cost to the Canadian taxpayer is estimated at $930 million spent for security at the dual G8 and G20 summits. Add to that significant losses in the retail and services sectors after the lock up and closure of downtown.

More pictures from the Toronto Star

Singapore spray painter gets caning sentence

26 June 2010

As usual Singapore has ignored international concern and maintained its strict legal code in dealing with a Swiss man who not only spray painted two Singapore subway carriages but also revealed embarrassing gaps in local security.

Yesterday Oliver Fricker was sentenced to three strokes of the cane and to five months in jail for breaking into a train depot and spray-painting two metro carriages.
He had earlier pleaded guilty to the May 16 offences, which alarmed authorities in the tightly controlled city-state.

Fricker's supposed accomplice, Briton Lloyd Dane Alexander, is still at large. He is believed to have fled to Hong Kong.

The pair spray-painted the words "McKoy" and "Banos" on the two carriages, the signature of train vandals whose works are praised in the international sprayer-scene.

I have no great sympathy for Mr. Fricker; he is an educated man who will have know what the laws and punishments are in Singapore. It just saddens me that a society as sophisticated as Singapore still uses punishments that belong in the Dark Ages.

Sadly this case only gets publicity because it involves a foreigner. The beatings will continue without publicity for Singaporeans committing similar offences.

Indeed Fricker probably did Singapore a favour  as the incident revealed worrying lapses in the city-state's security system. The government considers the metro to be a potential target for terrorist attacks.

The vandalised train went into service for two days because the operator's staff mistook the graffiti for an advertisement or an artwork, prompting the company to apologize for "serious security lapses."

The incident was reported to the police after the train appeared in a 27-second-video clip on the video sharing site YouTube.

Singapore's strict upholding of rules and punishment became famous when in 1994 the city-state caned US teenager Michael Fay for vandalism, despite appeals from the US for clemency.

Caning as a punishment dates back to the British colonial rule in Singapore. According to Singaporean law, caning is reserved for male criminals up to the age of 50.

Human rights organizations like Amnesty International have repeatedly condemned caning as a cruel and inhuman punishment.
 

Dubai's ambitions soar with new airport

25 June 2010 Adam Schrek Associated Press

In the desert beyond the skeletons of villas unfinished because of Dubai's economic slump, the home of the tallest building is preparing to open what could become another record-setter: an airport aiming to become the world's busiest.
Civic boosters envision Dubai World Central-Al Maktoum International, set to open Sunday, as one day growing into a mammoth transit hub of five parallel runways that could trump Atlanta's airport for the No. 1 spot. Where camels now graze, they see up to four terminals handling more travelers than the world's No. 2 and 3 airports—Chicago's O'Hare and London's Heathrow—combined.

Big ambitions die hard here. Yet the airport and surrounding development—with a projected price tag of more than $32 billion—are a gamble for a city-state whose soaring aspirations have been eclipsed by its struggle to pay for them.

Dubai has proved skeptics wrong before, growing its current airport from a lowly wind-swept airstrip into one of the world's busiest international transit hubs in a few decades. What is unclear now is whether the sheikdom—one of seven city-states that make up the United Arab Emirates—can attract enough business to justify its appetite for a project of this scale.

"The name of this game is to be able to interconnect traffic from a wide range of regions and commercial centers," said Mike Boyd, an aviation industry consultant. "It's an open question if Dubai is going to be competitive" with other emerging global air hubs, he said.

The new airport, which will grow in stages over the next two decades, was planned well before the economic meltdown revealed serious problems with Dubai's finances. The emirate is still wrestling with more than $100 billion of debt. It has yet to finalize a deal to repay lenders stung by credit problems at its government-owned Dubai World conglomerate. Concerns are also mounting at other state-linked companies.

Much of the debt piled up because of megaprojects that, like the new airport, promised to be the biggest or the best—one-of-a-kind feats designed to make Dubai stand out on the global stage and bring in cash.

But as the credit crunch deepened, Dubai's vast network of state-owned companies suddenly found themselves scrambling to pay the bills, spooking global markets with their debt load and inability to pay.

That hasn't derailed the airport plans, even if Dubai's debts remain a key concern for bankers and bondholders.

Officials say it remains a vital piece of infrastructure that will ensure the emirate retains its crown as the region's transportation and logistics hub. Dubai is already home to the region's busiest sea port and airport.

"There's no suggestion of scaling back," Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths said in an interview this week. "The world can now sit back and see that Dubai is really taking the lead in this sector."

Although Dubai's existing airport is among the world's busiest, it operates below capacity. Griffiths argues the new airport is nonetheless needed because the existing one is being bogged down at peak times. That's why construction cranes are hard at work building an additional concourse at the existing airport, Dubai International, even as increased attention falls on the new Al Maktoum International, named for Dubai's ruling family.

"The strategy is to run ahead of time ... rather than wait until things become more constrained," said John Strickland, a consultant who follows the aviation industry. "It's just good fortune they're able to do this. Others will be very envious."

Ultimately, the new airport is designed to handle up to 160 million passengers and 12 million tons of freight each year. Assuming it can drum up enough business, it would eclipse Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world's busiest passenger airport.

Atlanta handled just over 90 million passengers in 2008, according to the most recent annual statistics from the Airports Council International trade group. That's well over double the 37.4 million passengers that passed through the tax-free shopping corridors of Dubai International that year.

Dubai International is growing fast, however. Preliminary figures show passenger numbers shot up 9 percent to 40.9 million in 2009.

Driving much of the traffic is rapidly growing Emirates airline, a state-owned carrier that has emerged profitable and relatively unscathed from Dubai's debt crisis.

It shows no signs of slowing down. Just weeks after Emirates unveiled a whopping $11.5 billion order for 32 more Airbus A380 planes, on top of the 58 it had previously requested, it confirmed plans to order more planes at next month's Farnborough International Airshow. Its recruiters are busy searching for 3,000 new cabin crew and more than 700 pilots as part of the company's growth plan.

The idea is to eventually shift Emirates' operations, and possibly the rest of Dubai International's, to the new airport sometime next decade. For now, Emirates is staying mostly put at its existing base—a strategy analysts say makes sense because it is more efficient.

That leaves Al Maktoum International looking elsewhere for customers. Griffiths, the former boss of London's Gatwick airport, acknowledges it will be years before his new airport really takes off.

Only one runway has been built—part of the $820 million investment Dubai's airport company estimates has been made in the new airport so far. The total project, including vast business and residential complexes nearby, is expected to cost over $32 billion.

Initially, it will only handle cargo flights, like the Emirates airline Boeing 777 freighter that landed on a test flight last Sunday. The first passenger terminal isn't slated to open until March.

Ten airlines have signed up to operate at the new airport, Griffiths said. But days before the debut, he was unwilling to name one that would be flying there when the doors open Sunday.

"We're not expecting it to be a massive runaway success," he said. "To create such a large facility is going to take some time. ... It's by nature a fairly long-term ambition."

EK confirm that they will place a new airplane order

24 June 2010

It is a little bizarre to confirm that you will be placing an airplane order in a month's time. But there has been a lot of speculation about Emirates Airline's plans for Farnborough - and a new order from Boeing has always seemed likely.

So today Emirates confirmed that it will make new plane orders at the July Farnborough Airshow.

"Emirates will be announcing new aircraft orders at the Farnborough Airshow. Details of the order including number of aircraft and the manufacturer will be disclosed at the show," a company spokeswoman said .

Emirates in June placed a record $11bn order for 32 superjumbos with Airbus, bringing the airline's Airbus orders to 90 aircraft.

So here is the current gossip on what that order might be:

15 more 777-300ERs, some of which are already on the production line, ie. these were planned for other carriers but Emirates has now acquired the booking slots. This could mean the first one arriving in as soon as 2 to 3 months. Expect more US long haul to follow.

Also some new 777-200LRs. I suspect this depends on long range route plans to the Americas.
 
A formal undertaking as launch airline for an extended range ER.

And as an outside hunch I think there may be a commitment to the 787.

And if you want the real outside bet how about 747-800s?

The Runaway General

23 June 2010

The runaway general and head of the US armed forces in Afghanistan has a meeting with President Obama today which may end his military career.

Update - General Stanley McChrystal Relieved of Duty with General David Petraeus taking over in Afghanistan.

The US magazine Rolling Stone has set Washington's news agenda for the week by running this explosive profile of America's senior commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal.

It is a great article; honest and revealing. But it was not well received in the White House after criticism of Obama, Biden and others in the administration.

The article says that "the general's staff is a handpicked collection of killers, spies, geniuses, patriots, political operators and outright maniacs...(who)  jokingly refer to themselves as Team America, taking the name from the South Park-esque sendup of military cluelessness, and they pride themselves on their can-do attitude and their disdain for authority. After arriving in Kabul last summer, Team America set about changing the culture of the International Security Assistance Force, as the NATO-led mission is known. (U.S. soldiers had taken to deriding ISAF as short for "I Suck at Fighting" or "In Sandals and Flip-Flops.") McChrystal banned alcohol on base, kicked out Burger King and other symbols of American excess, expanded the morning briefing to include thousands of officers and refashioned the command center into a Situational Awareness Room, a free-flowing information hub modeled after Mayor Mike Bloomberg's offices in New York."

The conclusion is depressing.  "After nine years of war, the Taliban simply remains too strongly entrenched for the U.S. military to openly attack. The very people that COIN seeks to win over – the Afghan people – do not want us there. Our supposed ally, President Karzai, used his influence to delay the offensive, and the massive influx of aid championed by McChrystal is likely only to make things worse. "Throwing money at the problem exacerbates the problem," says Andrew Wilder, an expert at Tufts University who has studied the effect of aid in southern Afghanistan. "A tsunami of cash fuels corruption, delegitimizes the government and creates an environment where we're picking winners and losers" – a process that fuels resentment and hostility among the civilian population. So far, counterinsurgency has succeeded only in creating a never-ending demand for the primary product supplied by the military: perpetual war. There is a reason that President Obama studiously avoids using the word "victory" when he talks about Afghanistan. Winning, it would seem, is not really possible. Not even with Stanley McChrystal in charge."
 

The end of Emirates Business 24/7

23 June 2010

It is the end of the road for Dubai's endlessly optimistic Emirates Business 24/7. The newspaper that barely even noticed the financial crisis and its impact on Dubai.

Dubai Media Incorporated (DMI) confirmed that it will close the print edition of the newspaper in mid-July, a statement from the government’s media office said Wednesday.

An electronic version of the newspaper will be developed “to provide quick information and analysis in various domains,” the statement said.

In October, DMI took control of daily newspapers Emirates Business and its Arabic equivalent Al Emarat Al Youm after a resolution from ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

It is not a secret that the newspaper has been losing money. Expect significant redundancies and a skeleton staff to maintain the web site using agency copy and press releases.

A fatal loss of face?

22 June 2010 - Time - Hannah Beech

"Portugal's 7-0 massacre of North Korea got me thinking about death. Not the metaphorical kind. As I watched North Korea's coach Kim Jong Hun prostrate himself for having abandoned the Winged Horses' tight defensive posture in favor of an ill-fated offensive campaign, all I could think was is this guy gonna get executed when he returns to the Hermit Kingdom? Or, at the very least, disappear into the bowels of some labor camp where twigs and leaves count as dinner?

It's not a completely crazy question. This is a nation where Dear Leader Kim Jong Il and his henchmen have killed people for far slighter transgressions than a rout on the football world stage. For the first time ever, the Portugal-North Korea match was broadcast live on North Korean television. Imagine the toe-curling embarrassment in Pyongyang when Portugal deposited North Korea in deep, deep kimchi. Leading up to the World Cup, Coach Kim told the world: “Perhaps there is no other team in the world who would be fighting with the same dedication to please the leader and to bring fame to their motherland.” A displeased Dear Leader and World Cup infamy surely wasn't what Coach Kim was imagining.

Up until the Portugal match, North Korea was an unlikely World Cup darling. Slotted in the Group of Death along with Brazil, Ivory Coast and Portugal, North Korea managed a very respectable 2-1 loss to Brazil in its opening game, despite being the lowest-ranked team in South Africa. In its only other World Cup appearance, back in 1966, North Korea shocked Italy to reach the quarter-finals. (In an echo of this year's World Cup, North Korea's 1966 hopes were eventually dashed by Portugal.) More recently, North Korea has managed a few Asian football thrashings of its own, most notably in 2005 when it defeated Guam 21-0.

North Korea isn't the only place where soccer is a deadly serious pursuit. In 1994, Colombian defender Andrés Escobar was killed in Medellín soon after his World Cup efforts were marred by an own goal in a match against the U.S. And then there's Somalia, where Muslim extremists last week killed two football fans for daring to watch World Cup matches, despite a ban on all such trivial entertainment.

You've got to hope that skipper Kim, who reportedly gets coaching tips from the Dear Leader himself, will redeem himself in North Korea's last match with the Ivory Coast. Luckily, some of his charges are ensured safety after the World Cup. They are players of Korean descent who were born and raised in Japan—and can return there after South Africa. (Even today, some ethnic Koreans in Japan—some of whom were conscripted as laborers early last century and still face discrimination—send their children to private schools that teach North Korean ideology.) But what about the others, including 23-year-old goalkeeper Ri Myong Guk, who was nominated as Asian Footballer of the Year in 2009? His given name means “bright country,” surely a patriotic flourish by his parents. I have a feeling his future back in North Korea won't be quite so bright."

Will Emirates order more Boeings?

22 June 2010

Emirates is still talking with Boeing about its plans to develop a 777 replacement; and is also hinting that more big twinjet orders could be in the offing. Could there be a Farnborough announcement in July.

The Dubai carrier’s all-widebody fleet totals more than 140 aircraft, with a further 168 on order. Its backlog only includes 18 Boeings at present - the remainder are from Airbus - mainly 350s and 380s.

A rollover will begin in February 2011 when Emirates starts phasing out 68 older widebodies – A330-200s, A340-300/500s and 777 “Classics”.

Phase-out of the airline’s 777-300ERs begins in 2017, and while its A350-1000s are potential replacements, Clark confirms solutions from Seattle are in the mix.
“We’ve told Boeing we need to look at something that has the legs, the lift and economics of today’s -300ER but with the A350-1000’s predicted fuel burn.”

Clark concedes there is no guarantee Boeing will decide to develop such a new big twin, but says that “if they do it somewhere between 2017 and 2020” the airline would consider it, “otherwise we’ll have to think again about the -300ER replacement”.

Reconciliation the Thai way

22 June 2010 - Bloomberg

"Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s efforts to reconcile the country are drawing criticism from opponents who say the process leaves them out and won’t lead to concrete changes.

A month after an army assault ended 69 days of anti- government protests, Abhisit has appointed at least four committees that will study constitutional changes and investigate violence that left 89 people dead.

No one on the 19-member panel to study the constitution represents the protesters’ views and the man charged with leading the reconciliation effort is Anand Panyarachun, a 77- year-old two-time appointed premier who first took power after a 1991 coup.

“Abhisit’s plan excludes the opposition totally,” Chaturon Chaiseng, a Cabinet member under ex-leader Thaksin Shinawatra who spoke at the protests, said by phone. “The people he picked mostly supported the coup and the present constitution, which is the fundamental problem.”

Rival groups with different visions for governing Thailand have battled on the streets since the army ousted Thaksin in 2006. Failure to reconcile those interests may lead to a repeat of violence that has deterred investors, said Paul Chambers, a senior research fellow at the University of Heidelberg in Germany.
he past decade. “If the plan turns out to be mere fluff, those upcountry will get angrier.”

The instability has made Thai stocks the third-cheapest in Asia after Pakistan and South Korea, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Thailand’s SET index has risen 9.7 percent this year, against a 14 percent decline over the previous two years, as investors took advantage of bargains.

Vietnam, which drew one-fifth as much foreign investment than Thailand in 2006, attracted more in each of the past two years, according to the Manila-based Asian Development Bank.

The political turmoil has “weighed on investment and perception of risk in Thailand,” said Supavud Saicheua, managing director of Bangkok-based Phatra Securities Pcl, Thailand’s second-biggest brokerage.

Thaksin, who fled a two-year jail sentence for abuse of power in 2008, is calling for the reinstatement of the 1997 constitution under which he won office. He lured the poor in the country’s northeast with improved health care and cheap loans, and his allies mobilized that support in the latest rallies against Abhisit.

Abhisit announced on June 18 that Anand, who was appointed prime minister by the military in 1991 and again by the monarch after bloody street protests the following year, will lead a forthcoming national reform panel. The process will outlive the government, which has 18 months left in its term, Abhisit said.

“I told the Thai people that it’s time we reconcile, drawing our hearts as one for reform,” the prime minister told foreign investors on June 18 in Nonthaburi outside Bangkok. “I will do my best to arrange for all voices and all ideas to be heard.”

Abhisit’s plan has five main points that are “equally important,” he said. They are amending the constitution, investigating the protest violence, protecting the monarchy, regulating the media and addressing economic disparities.

The pro-Thaksin red shirted protesters, hailing mostly from poorer parts of Bangkok and the agrarian northeast, call for a return to the rules in place before he was ousted. Their yellow- shirted rivals, composed of more well-to-do royalists in Bangkok and from the south, mostly prefer the post-coup constitution, which empowers appointed bodies at the expense of elected politicians.

Under a clause in the post-coup constitution, a party can be disbanded and its executive board banned from office for five years if one member is found guilty of a crime. Since the coup, courts have disbanded four political parties, including the two composed of Thaksin’s allies that won the past two elections.

In April, Abhisit, 45, came under the system’s spotlight as well when the Election Commission, a Bangkok-based independent regulator, filed two cases contending that the party should be disbanded for accepting an illegal donation and for making campaign posters that were 10 centimeters narrower than regulations allow.

The dissolution case against Abhisit’s Democrats is an “obstacle” to changing the constitution because neither his party nor the opposition will act on the matter until the court gives a verdict, said Chaturon, one of 220 mostly pro-Thaksin lawmakers serving five-year political bans.

Disbanding the Democrats “would lead to another election sooner,” said Kanin Boonsuwan, a law lecturer at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University who helped write the 1997 constitution. “On the other hand, if the party isn’t disbanded, there will be more political chaos.”

The panel of 19 academics reviewing the constitution includes four original drafters. Three others, including the chairman, served in the junta-appointed legislature. Another member, Banjerd Singkaneti, drew a rebuttal from the Israeli Embassy in 2006 when he was quoted in the Bangkok Post saying that Thaksin was worse than Hitler.

“It’s a very worrying sign when they ask the guys who wrote a bad constitution to study ways to reform it,” said Noppadon Pattama, a former foreign minister and spokesman for Thaksin."

“It’s hard to believe there is going to be some genuine move toward any real constitutional changes,” said Chambers, who has published research on Thai politics for t

Fix the cheating

21 June 2010

There is little that is worse than watching a professional footballer roll around in faked agony attempting to get a fellow professional sent off.

It happened yesterday. It happened today. The Swiss player Valon Behrami's got today's red card for a nonexistent elbow into the face of Arturo Vidal It was a deception of the worst kind, the West Ham player the victim of play-acting comparable to Abdul-kader Keïta's faking to get Kaká sent off in Brazil's match against Ivory Coast.

The game was settled in the 75th minute when all three of Chile's substitutes combined for Mark González to head the decisive goal but it was Behrami's dismissal, after half an hour, that shaped the pattern of this match and, for that, it felt like a tainted win.

Behrami had been projecting his arms backwards as he tussled for the ball with Jean Beausejour and then Vidal but he did not swing his elbow, as alleged, and it was the worst kind of play-acting that saw his opponent throw himself to the ground, clutching his face in apparent agony, while his team-mates crowded around the referee, Khalil al-Ghamdi, to campaign for a red card.

There had been no contact with Vidal's face whatsoever but the sham worked. Ghamdi consulted with one of the linesmen and then reached for his red card and, after that, it was inevitable that a side with Chile's penetrative passing would make the extra man count.

The player sent off gets a one game suspension. The play-actor gets no punishment.

The only solution - use video evidence after the game. Hold a hearing with the player and his manager. And if found guilty of cheating - and this is cheating - then ban the player for two games. That will stop the cheats.

Will Emirates Business 24/7 survive?

21 June 2010

Dubai-based newspaper Emirates Business 24-7 may cease publication at the end of June, according to reports in Dubai today.

Although managers at the paper have told staff they don’t know what is happening, insiders say editorial staff are uncertain of their future.

Four members of staff have been asked to resign over the past month, and more resignations and redundancies are expected before the end of June.

From July 1, the future of the paper is unclear. Several scenarios have been circulated within the newspaper and outside. The title could close altogether; it could become an online publication only, either on a permanent basis or as part of a staged shutdown, or it could be relaunched with more of a lifestyle focus, possibly under new management.

Reporters have apparently been asked to shift the focus of their stories away from the pure business angle the paper has taken since it was relaunched in its present guise in December 2007. The paper initially launched as Emirates Today two years before. They have been asked to gear their stories to the website, and some staff have been receiving extra online training.

The daily business title is published by Awraq publishing, a subsidiary of government-owned Dubai Media Incorporated (DMI). Until October last year, it was published by Arab Media Group (AMG).

The newspaper's financials must be poor Gulf News has a near monopoly on classified advertising. And EB 24/7 has been too uncritical to be of use. Rehashing press releases is not inciteful journalism.

Is Qatar Airways growing faster than Emirates?

21 June 2010

Qatar Airways, a state-owned carrier, plans to operate on six new routes in Europe and Asia starting from October 2010.

The airline announced new routes to Budapest, Bucharest, Brussels, Nice, Hanoi and Phuket.

The Doha-based airline will phase in the route expansion over a four-month period with daily flights to Phuket commencing on 11 October. The Phuket flight will operate via Kuala Lumpur. The details of that route are unclear as Phuket is on the way from Doha to Kuala Lumpur.

On 1 November Qatar Airways will add the Vietnamese capital Hanoi to its global network with four flights a week via Bangkok. The new route will support existing services to Vietnam’s commercial centre and largest city of Ho Chi Minh City, where flights will also be stepped up from four-a-week to daily.

From 24 November the carrier’s European expansion drive continues with flights operating three times per week to the French Mediterranean city of Nice. This service will operate via Milan.

In 2011 Qatar Airways launches four flights a week to the Romanian capital of Bucharest, starting on 17 January. The services continue on to Budapest. I hope passengers do not get confused.

On 31 January Qatar will start five flights a week service to Brussels, home of the European Parliament.

By 2013, Qatar Airways plans to serve 120 key business and leisure destinations worldwide with a modern fleet of 120 aircraft. Today, the airline’s fleet stands at 84 aircraft, flying to 90 destinations across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and North America.

This week also sees the introduction of South America into the airline’s network of routes with the launch of flights to the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo continuing to the Argentine capital Buenos Aires.

Over the past six months, the carrier has introduced flights to Bengaluru (Bangalore), Copenhagen, Ankara, Tokyo and Barcelona.

Revile not reconcile

21 June 2010

The news from Bangkok is either hopeful or gloomy depending on your position.

Bangkok residents are happy - they are back shopping. But political reconciliation is impossible when the Thai government continues to use all of its means to pursue the red shirt leaders, their backers and their supporters.

The CRES continues to operate and apparently run the country - while the State of Emergency is still in place. Web sites are blocked. Financial details of transactions by alleged red shirt supporters are published without any respect for financial/banking privacy.

Most of it reads like a smear campaign. There are few facts; but there is a lot of suggestion and innuendo. For instance, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban said on Monday that there have been meetings of red-shirt supporters of the United front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) in Thailand and overseas, and therefore the emergency decree cannot be revoked. But there are no details of these alleged meetings.

Mr Suthep, who is in charge of security affairs, claimed that some groups of people were preparing to incite fresh violence after the emergency law in Bangkok and other provinces is lifted.

Again - no evidence. “The imposition of emergency law has helped curb unrest, but these groups are looking for an opportunity for incitement,” he said, reminding the good shoppers of Bangkok of their dependency of this army backed coalition government.

The deputy prime minister also said there are no confirmed reports that some Red Shirt leaders have already fled Thailand, while ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra never ceases his attempts to attack the Thai government via his Twitter homepage

There have been reports that the Thai government is tracking up to 150 billion baht used to fund the recent red shirt rallies in Bangkok. How much !? 150 billion baht is 150 thousand million baht. Say 20,000 baht per protestor - that would fund 7.5 million people.

Now operating the rallies for two months was expensive; but not that expensive..

The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) has gathered 83 names of persons and organisations suspected of having unusual transactions as well as red shirt sympathies to DPM Suthep. Yet Suthep said that the investigation of financial transactions is not meant as intimidation of anyone, but is a process which will examine the accounts for nine prior months to determine whether they were connected to the 'terrorism' of the Reds.

Not intimidating at all.

But the Thai government has found the solution it needs through the readjusted of its feng shui at Government House. Six potted plants of one species were placed on the lawn in front of the Thai Ku Fah Building, opposite its entrance, where Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva enters the Government House compound.

The placement of plants there is believed to avoid and drive away bad luck. It is also believed the bright colours of the plants, yellow and green, are to enhance luck and prosperity and to create unity as well as bringing out the honest and boost charisma.

No red plants. No surprise!

First flight into JXB

21 June 2010

Emirates' freight division SkyCargo has performed the first operational flight into Dubai's Al-Maktoum International Airport, ahead of its formal opening on 27 June.

The Boeing 777 freighter, operating flight EK9883 from Hong Kong, landed at Al-Maktoum at 16:50 yesterday.

It enabled testing of air traffic control processes, airport manoeuvring, ground-handling and security as well as communications between various agencies.

Emirates Sky Cargo will retain its cargo hub at Dubai International but expects that the new airport will play an increasingly important role initially for spot cargo operations and eventually for scheduled freighter services.

Dubai's civil aviation authority will carry out a review on 24 June to finalise the airport licensing process.

Al-Maktoum International is the centrepiece of the Dubai World Central project and is intended to become the largest airport in the world, with five runways and four terminals capable of handling 160 million annual passengers.

But when it opens towards the end of this month the airport will initially have a single runway and be used only for cargo flights. Passenger flights will be introduced at the end of March next year, to coincide with the IATA summer schedule.

Although the airport is opening late, Dubai Airports chairman Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al-Maktoum says the Emirates flight marks an "important milestone, not only for the airport's certification process, but as another step towards achieving Dubai's vision to become the pre-eminent centre for aviation worldwide".

The first phase of the airport's development will include a terminal for 5 million passengers and a freight centre for 250,000t of cargo.

Emirates says that the freight operations at the airport will benefit from a dedicated bonded road to the port of Jebel Ali.

Fly Dubai does Turkey

19 June 2010

flydubai, Dubai's first low cost airline, has expanded its route network with the start of flights to Istanbul in Turkey. This is the young airline's 18th destination.

Flights to Istanbul are available from AED450 one-way including all taxes and one piece of hand luggage. Operating five times a week, FZ751 leaves Dubai at 1855hrs and lands in Istanbul's Sabiha Gokcen Airport at 2250hrs local time. The return flight, FZ752, departs at 2335hrs arriving in Dubai at 0500hrs local time.

Passengers have the option to purchase checked-in baggage in advance at just AED60 for the first piece and AED150 for the second, weighing up to 32kgs, subject to availability. Checked baggage at the airport is also strictly subject to availability and passengers are advised to book online early to secure the space, as only pre-purchased baggage can be guaranteed.

Note that the flight goes to Istanbul's second airport - on the Asian side of Istanbul and some distance from the city although there is a bus service.

Predictably hopeless at the Cape of No Hope

19 June 2010

When will the English media and fans wake up and realise that their football team really is not that good.

They arrived at South Africa through a very straightforward qualifying group - and without being that impressive they did get results.

Now after draws against the USA and more embarrassingly against Algeria England look short of ideas and passion. Last night's 0-0 in Cape Town was hoorible.

"The pressure of the World Cup does not help, probably," said Capello adding that "Rooney didn't play like Rooney." For gbp6 million a year we might expect something more inciteful.

Bizarrely after the US/Slovenia draw England can still progress simply by beating Slovenia. And I suspect that they will and that the USA and England will still qualify from this group.

The English newspapers are vengeful:

"What a load of Roobish!" said the Daily Mirror, while the Guardian's verdict was: "No spark, no spirit, no hope".

"There can be no excuses, this was as bad as it gets," said the Sun, which had little sympathy for Rooney's complaint about being booed off the pitch by fans at the end of the match.

"Drab, dreary, depressing, disjointed, at times desperate and, overall, dull as ditchwater. Thanks England. No wonder you were booed off the pitch by your own fans last night," the tabloid added.

"Woeful England at point of no return" was the headline in The Times.

"Cape Clowns" was the Daily Mirror's verdict on the match in Cape Town.

There was one piece of good news: David James brings sure touch to England's ragged ranks

All may be forgotten next Wednesday if England beat Slovenia - but this was truly awful.

RIP Andy Ripley

17 June 2010

Former England international Andy Ripley has died from prostate cancer at the age of 62.
Back row forward Ripley won 24 caps for England in the 1970s and was part of the successful British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa in 1974.

He did some remarkable charity work - even when his illness was well advanced.

I read a recent interview with Andy Ripley in the Times - inspirational and brave. he said to Paul Kimmage "I am scared of death because its all then over isn’t it? And I love life. I love the people in it, twitting about, all the things that make you laugh, make you cry. I know I have said this to you before but I’ve just had a brilliant life so for that reason I am scared of death because it will be taken away.”

He wrote in 2007:

Dare we hope? We dare.

Can we hope? We can.

Should we hope? We must.

We must, because to do otherwise is to waste the most precious of gifts, given so freely by God to all of us. So when we do die, it will be with hope and it will be easy and our hearts will not be broken.
 
Dubai Properties ex-chairman released

15  June 2010

The Dubai prosecutor’s office announced that it has released Hashim Al Dabal, the ex-chairman of state-owned Dubai Properties LLC, after he made a payment of 130 million dirhams ($35.4 million) following an embezzlement investigation.

Think about this for a minute. He stole millions and got caught. He was sentenced to prison. Then he re-paid some or all of the money and was released! Not much of a deterrent to corporate fraud is it.

Al Dabal is still being investigated for abuse of power, according to an e-mailed statement send to the Gulf News from the government’s media office. He was arrested last year on suspicion of fraud at Dubai Properties; the company responsible for among other things, Business Bay - including Executive Towers.

In May, Omar bin Sulaiman, the former governor of the Dubai International Financial Center, was released from prison after he returned 51.5 million dirhams. Bin Sulaiman, who was dismissed by Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum in November and arrested in March, is the highest-ranking official to be caught up in the anti-corruption drive started after the emirate’s boom-to-bust.

Who would be a goalkeeper?

13 June 2010

Indonesian man seduced by cow

13 June 2010 - thanks to Xinhuanet

An Indonesian young man claimed that he was seduced by a cow into having sex, according to The Jakarta Globe on Sunday.

Gusti Ngurah Alit, 18, was caught having sex with a cow by his neighbor on last Sunday, which has caught a sensation among locals.

Alit said he did not see a cow but a beautiful young woman. "She called my name and seduced me, so I had sex with her," he said.

In order to cleanse his village, Alit was forced into marrying the cow on Friday – he was bathed and the cow was drowned in the ocean.

During the ritual, Alit passed out for overstrain and it was unclear whether vows were exchanged before the cow was killed.

Alit had to pay 2,000 old coins as a traditional punishment while the village chief paid the owner of the cow 5 million rupiah (545 U.S. dollars) in compensation.

Thaksin and Me

13 June 2010 - Reuters - Andrew Marshall - this is a worthy read for anyone interested in current Thai politics:

"Like many foreign correspondents, as a result of my reporting on Thailand’s political crisis I have frequently been accused of naïveté, breathtaking stupidity, and a total inability to grasp the complexities of the situation.

That’s OK. Even my closest friends regularly call me an idiot. And they are usually right.

But the international media have faced other accusations: that we have been duped and brainwashed by some fiendishly effective propaganda campaign launched by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, or worse, that we have been bribed by him to peddle damaging lies about what is going on in Thailand.

This is ludicrous nonsense. Those who think that it would be possible for Thaksin to bribe the entire foreign press corps operating in Thailand to misrepresent the situation clearly have a very limited understanding of how the global media industry works. And those who think that journalists who have risked their lives for the principles of fairness and honesty could be bought off by a fugitive former tycoon clearly have very limited insight into human nature.

But rather than point out all the numerous flaws and fallacies in the arguments of self-appointed experts on the subject, here instead is a story about Thaksin and me.

I arrived in Bangkok for the first time in May 2000, as deputy bureau chief for Reuters. The country was slowly emerging from the pain of the 1997/98 Asian crisis, and a new political force had recently burst onto the scene — Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai party (the name he chose for his political vehicle seems particularly ironic now, in light of the bitter divisions and hatreds that have since erupted in Thai society).

I covered Thaksin’s political rise, his campaign promises and the January 2001 elections in which Thai Rak Thai swept to power with the most seats ever won by a single party in Thailand.

Nowadays, Thaksin is portrayed in Thailand as an evil genius, a shadowy mastermind with vast wealth who is almost singlehandedly dragging the country towards catastrophe and ruin. But in his first few months as prime minister, Thaksin was very different from this caricature. Far from appearing to be an evil genius, he gave the impression instead of being not particularly smart at all.

A series of gaffes and blunders dented his image, and things went from bad to worse when a senator of doubtful sanity claimed to have found an incredible hoard of gold and U.S. bonds left behind by the retreating Japanese army at the end of World War Two, stashed inside a train carriage surrounded by the skeletons of Imperial Army soldiers who had committed hara-kiri and hidden deep in a cave near Kanchanaburi.

Most of the country took these claims with a pinch of salt. Not Thaksin. He was so excited he rushed to the cave in a helicopter and later announced he would make use of a friend’s satellite to pinpoint the location of the treasure.

What made the issue important was that hanging over the early months of the Thaksin administration was a looming Constitutional Court decision on whether the prime minister should be barred from politics for five years for concealing some of his wealth. This was a difficult test of Thai democracy – it was quite clear to anybody who looked at the evidence that Thaksin had tried to hide some of his assets, and he had even made enormous share transfers to his maid and chauffeur. But he had also just won the biggest election victory in Thai history. Would the judges really be willing to ban a prime minister who had massive public support, even if he was guilty of the charges against him?

This meant that despite his overwhelming electoral mandate, it was critical for Thaksin to avoid blunders that undermined his popularity as this could embolden the judges to rule against him.

I made this point in an analysis on April 19, 2001:

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra faces a mounting risk of being flung from office over graft claims as the strong public support that has been his most effective shield takes a battering from a series of gaffes.

Thaksin’s defence against the accusations of the National Counter Corruption Commission (NCCC) must be fought on two fronts – not just in the halls of the country’s Constitutional Court, but also before the wider jury of public opinion.

Suddenly both battles look to be going against him. ”One thing is for sure, the honeymoon is over,” said the head of research at a foreign brokerage in Bangkok. “The climate has changed very quickly.”

The analysis went on to discuss some of Thaksin’s recent missteps, including the Japanese gold hoax:

The latest blow to Thaksin’s credibility came from the farcical saga of a mythical World War Two treasure trove.

A maverick senator said a multi-billion-dollar hoard of gold and U.S. bonds left behind by the retreating Japanese army had been found in a remote jungle cave. It was not the first time he had made such claims and newspapers treated the story as a joke.

But Thaksin took the reports seriously enough to fly to the cave by helicopter on Friday, and senior government ministers said the haul could be valuable enough to pay off the 2.8 trillion baht national debt and rescue the crisis-hit economy.

Amid a chorus of jeering headlines, the government later admitted the find was almost certainly a hoax. The Nation daily said Thaksin had exposed himself to “international ridicule”.

The following morning, as usual, I grabbed a taxi near my apartment in Soi Somkid to head to the Reuters bureau in the U Chu Liang building on Rama IV. The driver was listening to a phone-in talk show, and while my Thai language ability was very basic back then, it was clear that callers were phoning the show to express their anger about something. They were clearly not happy, not happy at all.

I started listening more closely when I heard somebody mention Reuters.

I started listening even more closely when I heard somebody mention Andrew Marshall.

And while I could not understand what they were saying, I could tell they were not phoning the talk-show to say what a great guy I was. Two words I did know were “ไม่ดี” (no good) – and people seemed to be saying that a lot.

I arrived in the Reuters bureau to find ashen-faced staff looking at the front page of Matichon newspaper. Slap bang in the middle of the front page, in giant letters, was the headline “Foreign media calls Maew an international clown”.

Maew is Thaksin’s nickname. The foreign media, in this instance, was me.

And while I had not of course called Thaksin an international clown, it seems Matichon had translated my article rather loosely, and had seized on the quote from the Nation that Thaksin had exposed himself to international ridicule.

If this had been published in 2010, I would have been hailed as a hero by most of the Thai media, and there would be a Facebook group with thousands of members called “We hate Dan Rivers but we love Andrew Marshall”.

But this was 2001. Most Thais supported Thaksin and even those who didn’t were not amused to learn that some upstart foreign reporter had allegedly called their prime minister a clown.

My boss was in a state of panic. The phones in the newsroom were ringing off the hook. A letter arrived from the government, denouncing my reporting. Almost the entire population of the Kingdom of Thailand, it seemed, was very cross with me.

As the day wore on, things got worse. Thaksin was questioned by Thai reporters who wanted to know what he thought about Reuters calling him a clown. As is by now widely known, Thaksin is not a big fan of journalists, unless they agree with him without fail 100 percent of the time. He is also not very good at dealing with criticism. And he gets annoyed fairly easily. All of these personality traits were amply demonstrated in Thaksin’s colourful comments about me, which were then replayed over and over again on the many televisions that are constantly monitored in the Reuters Bangkok bureau. My Thai colleagues helpfully kept up a running commentary of translations of Thaksin’s comments: “He just said Andrew Marshall is a disgraceful journalist… He said if he has time he will come to Reuters and beat you up… The foreign media are conspiring against Thaksin, he says, and you are involved…”

The next day, the story continued to dominate the TV and newspaper headlines. The front page of Naew Na newspaper from April 21said “Thaksin threatens to beat up Reuters after they rub salt in his wounds.”

I have the dubious honour of being probably the first journalist, either Thai or foreign, singled out by Thaksin for public criticism. As we know by now, I was by no means the last.

Thaksin never did come to beat me up. But over the next couple of years, I managed to annoy him with my reporting many more times. I covered Thaksin’s surprise acquittal by the Constitutional Court, after a couple of judges changed their vote at the last minute, allegedly after pressure from powerful figures. I reported on the sustained intimidation of the media, both Thai and international, as they increasingly came under attack. I covered the relentless erosion of the institutional checks and balances Thailand had put in place to prevent abuse of power, as one by one they were sabotaged and rendered toothless. I watched the Muslim insurrection in southern Thailand grow steadily more intractable after a series of policy missteps. I reported on the extrajudicial killing of hundreds of alleged small-time narcotics dealers, while powerful drug lords continued to operate unscathed. I watched corruption flourish.

In late 2002, with war in the Middle East looking inevitable, I was assigned to Kuwait to prepare for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Later, after Saddam Hussein was overthrown by American forces I became the Reuters bureau chief in Baghdad. I lived there for two years as the country spiralled into escalating bloodshed and chaos, and as conditions for journalists became frighteningly extreme. Our reporting was frequently denounced and attacked, most commonly by U.S. officials who insisted the rebuilding of Iraq was going well and who resented the fact we covered the shocking violence that ravaged the country , and the appalling incompetence and corruption that characterised the early years of the occupation. It was sometimes stressful to be in charge of a Reuters bureau out in the “Red Zone” in the middle of a viciously dangerous city, facing enormous pressure and scepticism from armchair experts thousands of miles away who accused us regularly of bias and dishonesty. But I learned that good reporting almost always offends powerful people somewhere, and almost always attracts anger and criticism. The only response is to do your job extremely well, to hold on to your values and principles, and stand by your story.

Every two months or so I got a break from Baghdad, and I would often spend it in Thailand. Some of my best friends in the world are there, and back then it was a place I could go to rest and recover after the stresses and dangers of Iraq. It still felt like a haven of peace, in those days. So I witnessed Thailand’s gathering storm, as social and political divisions became wider, and the “yellow shirt” movement was born, and a bloodless coup ousted Thaksin but failed to heal the country’s wounds.

Since 2008 I have been back in Asia, as Reuters chief correspondent for political risk, with a beat that spans the whole continent from Afghanistan in the west to Japan and Australia and New Zealand in the east. Of all the countries in Asia, the one that has seen the most precipitous decline in the past few years is, without any doubt, Thailand.

A once-booming “Asian tiger” is becoming the region’s basket case. The economy has been doing surprisingly well despite the political chaos – Thailand has the most export-oriented economy in Asia after Hong Kong and Singapore, and is getting a massive boost from a surge in demand as the region emerges from the global economic crisis. But in the longer term, the damage will be severe. Tourists have been scared away en masse. And more seriously, foreign multinationals have written off the country as a location for new investment projects. Thailand’s politics have always been fairly tumultuous, but until recently investors could safely ignore the periodic coups and upheavals, knowing they would not undermine Thailand’s competitive advantage. No longer. This crisis has been very different, with the airports paralysed by the “yellow shirt” blockade in 2008 and downtown Bangkok occupied by “red shirt” protesters this year, culminating in the tragic events of April and May when Thais were killing Thais on the streets of their beautiful capital. The death toll was at least 88, including my colleague Hiro Muramoto, a Japanese cameraman for Reuters killed while filming clashes between protesters and soldiers on April 10.

It is almost certain that there will be many more deaths in Thailand before this crisis is resolved.

And hanging over everything is the issue everybody is aware of but nobody can speak of fully in public: Thailand’s widely beloved King Bhumibol Adulyadej is old and frail, and his likely successor is as divisive a figure as Bhumibol is unifying. And by explicitly taking sides during the current political crisis, some of Bhumibol’s family members and advisors have endangered the future of the monarchy in Thailand.

It has been heartbreaking to watch Thailand’s decline. It must be infinitely sadder for proud citizens of Thailand caught in the middle of it.

Yet there seems to be a pervasive attitude of denial among many Thais, particularly the middle and upper classes in Bangkok. Their view tends to be that Thailand remains a harmonious Land of Smiles in which everybody knows their place in society and happily accepts it. And they seem to believe that this state of affairs can continue indefinitely, were it not for the baleful influence of Thaksin, trying to stir up trouble in paradise for his own selfish ends. Thaksin, they argue, has duped and bribed the Thai peasantry in the north and northeast of the country to forget their place, to lose sight of the fact that their purpose in life is to cheerfully and uncomplainingly service the needs of the rich. They think that if he can be stopped, by any means, however unethical, Thailand can return to this idealised state, and everything can go back to normal.

This is clearly a delusional point of view. Yet domestic attempts to challenge it are being rigorously censored, and international journalists like me who suggest that maybe the situation is more complex are told that as foreigners, we are incapable of understanding the complexities of Thailand, and that we have also probably been bribed or brainwashed by Thaksin.

So let me spell it out. As should be clear by now, Thaksin Shinawatra and I are not the greatest of friends. I have no illusions about who he is or what he stands for. I am well aware that he is no democrat. And there is considerable evidence that his role during the events of April and May worsened the violence in Thailand and prevented a peace deal from being reached.

But to believe the crisis is just a story of Thaksin versus Thailand, and has nothing to do with social justice, democracy and equal rights, is to totally misunderstand what is happening. Those Thais who dismiss the red shirt movement as nothing more than a rabble of witless peasants who have no understanding of the concepts of democracy and fairness, who have no legitimate grievances, and who have been paid or duped into backing the sinister machinations of Thaksin Shinawatra, are displaying exactly the condescension and double standards and contempt for the poor that they claim do not exist in Thailand.

Thailand is a beautiful country that is being torn apart by severe social injustices, entrenched corruption, double standards, censorship, militarism, a refusal by the elites to accept the consequences of democracy, and creeping authoritarianism. It is, of course, a complex and difficult situation, not easily reduced to black and white (or red and yellow) and full of nuance and shades of grey. But refusing to acknowledge the key problems and grievances at the heart of the crisis is no way to solve it.

If there is one thing that I learned from the story of Thaksin and me, it is that one of the most important things we can do as journalists is to call a spade a spade, to acknowledge the elephant in the room, to point out that the emperor has no clothes.

If we see a steaming pile of buffalo dung, it is our duty to say clearly that it is a steaming pile of buffalo dung. However hard the rich and powerful try to convince us it is a dazzling crock of gold."

Abhisit's democratic choice

12 June 2010  Asia Times

Thailand is sliding towards de-facto military rule and it is not clear that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has the will or power to turn back the authoritarian tide. A sustained state of emergency has given security forces extraordinary powers to detain suspects without trial, censor the media and ban public gatherings, powers the top brass have flexed after last month's dramatic crackdown on anti-government protesters encamped in the heart of Bangkok.

One military insider contends that the Center for the Resolution of Emergency Situations (CRES), which was formed to handle the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) protest group's street protests, is morphing into a sort of ''shadow government'' to Abhisit's democratically elected coalition. There is no sign since the protest's dispersal that the CRES plans to disband. The insider says it is putting in place structures to sustain its influence over the country's administration.

Three weeks since the military moved decisively on May 19 against the UDD, a crackdown against the group's leaders, organizers and supporters has widened, with an emphasis on areas of the country that remain under emergency rule. According to diplomats and human-rights advocates, it is unclear how many people have been arrested and detained, and under what conditions they are being held. The government has acknowledged holding over 400 people; one local rights group claims as many as 100 people have gone missing since May 19.

"We believe that more have been detained than the government has acknowledged and that the army has let it be known that they plan on doing things their way. And the army has a long history of disappearing people in Thailand," says one representative of an international rights organization. The rights representative contends that the military and police are keeping two separate lists of detainees and that crackdown in the provinces is a "black box".

Emergency rule allows for suspects to be held for 30 days before they must either be charged or released - meaning the deadline for many suspects is fast approaching. Abhisit indicated on June 6 that emergency rule would remain in place indefinitely to guard against UDD-aligned armed elements that his government considers “terrorists”. Fanning those fears, exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, the UDD's symbolic leader, said after the crackdown that angry UDD supporters might in future resort to "guerilla tactics".

Several UDD leaders, including Thaksin, have been accused of "terrorism" for their alleged association with armed militants who launched grenades and exchanged gunfire with security forces at the UDD's protest site. Officials believe that the shadowy armed wing was also responsible for a series of mysterious bombings that coincided with the UDD's protest activities and began soon after the Supreme Court ruled to seize US$1.4 billion worth of Thaksin's personal assets on corruption charges.

An estimated 89 people were killed and more than 1,800 injured in protest-related violence that began on April 10 and culminated in the May 19 crackdown. The government and UDD have blamed one another. Abhisit's government initiated this week an independent probe into the killings and injuries and the premier has indicated that he would take responsibility if troops were found to have violated internationally accepted rules of engagement. It is not initially clear, however, that the military's top brass share that sentiment.

Already the opposition Puea Thai party has questioned the impartiality of the panel's government-appointed head, a former attorney general who was assigned by the post-2006 coup military appointed administration to investigate Thaksin's government's alleged human-rights abuses, including a "war on drugs" campaign that is said to have resulted in as many as 2,200 extrajudicial killings. That inconclusive probe, however, resulted in no prosecutions or convictions of security forces or politicians.

Several independent observers believe that the military was responsible for the majority of the UDD protest-related killings, including the shooting deaths of two foreign journalists. However, it is unclear if troops used disproportionate force in dealing with what at least one foreign interlocutor characterized as an "armed rebellion". Many diplomats and analysts are now weighing whether the UDD has the capability or intent to follow through on Thaksin's veiled insurgency threat.

With its top leaders either in detention or in hiding and its chief financiers' faced with asset freezes, there are indications that the UDD is in disarray. Yet one UDD organizer who spoke with Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity indicated that a second generation of UDD leaders was biding its time until the government lifted emergency rule to launch new rounds of protests, including in north and northeastern provinces where the UDD's grassroots support is strongest.

Hardline UDD leaders, including Arisman Pongruangrong and Suporn Attawong, have reportedly fled to Cambodia and, according to the UDD organizer, are now involved in planning the next phase of the UDD's resistance. They have reportedly joined forces with exiled UDD strategist Jakrapob Penkair, who told foreign media after the military's suppression of an earlier UDD protest in April 2009 that the group was prepared to launch an underground "armed struggle".

Analysts now wonder whether the UDD plans to use Cambodia as a command base for a hit-and-run style insurgency in bordering northeastern Thai provinces, similar to the low-intensity campaign Muslim rebels have waged from Malaysia to destabilizing effect in Thailand's three southernmost provinces. UDD protesters torched provincial halls and other government installations in four northeastern provinces in the wake of the May 19 crackdown in Bangkok. Nonetheless the government excluded several northern and northeastern provinces among the 23 it first placed under curfew.

Skeptics believe that Thaksin's veiled insurgency threat is for now posturing aimed at enhancing his negotiating leverage vis-a-vis the government. During secret talks between Thaksin and government negotiator Sukhumbhand Paribatra held in mid-April in Brunei, Thaksin lobbied for the return of his diplomatic passport and access to the hundreds of millions of dollars not confiscated by the Supreme Court ruling, according to a government source familiar with the discussions which were organized by a Swedish parliamentarian interlocutor.

(During a June 1 press event in Bangkok, Sukhumbhand would neither confirm nor deny whether the negotiations took place, but diplomats and other international mediators have confirmed that they did. Public recognition of Thaksin's participation would seemingly undermine his recent disavowals of having any influence over the UDD's activities.)

Some analysts believe that the greater threat to stability comes from the UDD's attempts to sow divisions along factional lines inside the military. Questions remain unanswered about the identity of the black-clad assailants who fired assault rifles and M-79 grenades at security forces from the UDD's side of the protest site. Initial speculation in the wake of the men-in-black's first emergence on April 10 pointed to renegade Rangers, or tahahn prahn, loyal to Thaksin ally and former army commander and prime minister General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh.

Certain diplomats now believe, judging by the fighting skills they exhibited, that the black-clad fighters were more likely paid mercenaries with experience as Marine SEALS or the air force's secretive anti-aircraft unit and links to the military's pre-Cadet Academy's Class 10 faction. In light of their alumni ties to Thaksin, many Class 10 soldiers were sidelined or demoted after the 2006 coup and on their retirement last year joined forces with the Thaksin-aligned opposition Puea Thai party.

Former Queen's Guard soldiers, including army commander General Anupong Paochinda and deputy army commander General Prayuth Chan-ocha, have since been on the promotional ascent - often at the expense of professional soldiers attached to less royally decorated army units. Some analysts have speculated that the seemingly systematic promotion of army royalists aims to ensure a smooth royal succession from 82-year-old King Bhumibol to his heir apparent son, Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn.

However, the anticipated transition from the moderate Anupong to the more hardline Prayuth later this year is expected to accentuate intra-military disenfranchisement because Prayuth could potentially serve for four consecutive years in the army's top spot. A known palace favorite, Prayuth has already positioned many of his Class 12 allies for top-level promotions in this year's reshuffle.

Since April, Prayuth has asserted greater influence over the CRES, reportedly in reaction to Anupong's refusal to take a tougher tack against the UDD. Passions apparently came to a head after the April 10 melee where exchanges between armed protesters and troops resulted in 26 deaths, including five soldiers. Among the fallen was palace favorite Colonel Romklao Thuwatham and two other soldiers who were expected to fill key positions under Prayuth's command.

When the military moved decisively on May 19 against the UDD, King's and Queen's Guard units appeared side-by-side at a press conference broadcast on national television as the operation unfolded. Some analysts believe that the symbolic show of royally decorated unity was orchestrated to counter rumors of dissension among the ranks after days of firefights that killed scores of protesters and a handful of troops. However, during the military's operation against the UDD's protest site there was no indication of a breakdown in command authority, according to one well-placed diplomat.

The ongoing crackdown against the UDD is being viewed in some royalist quarters as a measuring stick of regional commanders' loyalty and effectiveness. Second Army Region commander Lieutenant General Weewalit Chornsamrit, who oversees security in the northeastern region, has passed the test with flying colors, according to one military insider. The First Army Region Commander, Lieutenant General Kanit Sapitak, charged with Bangkok's security, has reportedly come under fire from Prayuth for his perceived hesitant response to the UDD.

Some believe the top brass has deliberately played up the notion that the UDD represents a threat to the royal crown to shore up military unity. In the lead-up to the May 19 crackdown, Abhisit claimed without providing detailed evidence that the UDD secretly aimed to topple the monarchy - an incendiary accusation in Thailand's political and legal context. UDD leaders have strongly denied the allegation, including in a little red bilingual question-and-answer book distributed towards the end of their protest.

But its clear from the ongoing crackdown on UDD supporters, including an academic who has been released and a newspaper editor who is still in detention, that the military is exercising emergency powers to identify and target perceived threats to the crown. With the combined threats of a possible Thaksin-fueled insurgency and an alleged plot to topple the monarchy, Abhisit will be hard-pressed to roll back any time soon the military's discretionary powers.

Abhisit has relied heavily on the military because of his lack of control and trust in the police to maintain law and order. There have been instances where he has pushed back against military might. According to one person close to the premier, Abhisit threatened to step down in April amid speculation that Prayuth might stage a "half coup" that aimed to oust Anupong while leaving Abhisit's coalition government in place. He is also known to have resisted hardline military and royalist voices that wanted to crack down on the UDD's protest earlier, according to diplomats.

In reply to a journalist's question at a May 29 press conference on whether he ever considered resigning over the loss of life during the May 19 crackdown, Abhisit said he would take personal responsibility if the independent probe initiated this week found him guilty of wrongful loss of life. He emphasized that he has tried to find a "peaceful" solution to the country's crisis and underscored his long personal history of pushing for democratic reforms as an elected politician.

To signal a return to democratic normalcy, Abhisit returned to work at Government House after spending nearly two months at a Bangkok military base due to concerns for his personal security. He has indicated plans to stay the course of his "reconciliation roadmap" and floated anew the potential for dissolving parliament and holding elections before his term is up at the end of 2011.

But there are emerging doubts that Prayuth and his soldier allies would be willing to risk an election result that saw Abhisit ousted, a Thaksin-aligned government installed and the military's recent record opened to tougher scrutiny.

Obama has not learned the lessons of Bhopal

11 June 2010 - The Guardian

"While Barack Obama is lambasting BP for spreading muck in the Gulf of Mexico, he should perhaps pencil in a date with the people of Bhopal when he visits India later this year. While 11 men lost their lives on BP's watch and the shrimps get coated with black stuff, the chemicals that killed thousands of people in Bhopal in 1984 are still leaching into the ground water a quarter of a century after a poisonous, milky-white cloud settled over the city.

The compensation – some $470m – paid out by Union Carbide, the US owner of the plant and now part of Dow Chemical, was just the cash it received from its insurers to compensate the victims, a process that took 17 years. But it's one rule for them and another for anybody else.

Obama wants "British Petroleum" to pay back every nickel and dime the Deepwater Horizon disaster costs. To make sure BP gets the message, the president says he back Congress plans to retrospectively raise the liability limit for claims from $75m to $10bn. That's real money.

While foreign companies in the US are shown the big stick, Washington offers a big shield for its multinationals abroad. In the case of Bhopal, it was the US that blocked India's requests to extradite Warren Anderson, the former chairman of Union Carbide who accepted "moral responsibility" for the accident until a short spell in an Indian jail changed his mind. This week saw just the prosecution of local Indian managers – 26 years after the event.

That was then. Surely India, which says it is an emerging power that wants to shape the world, would be able to stand up to the United States today? And wouldn't a more moral president see that foreign lives are as precious as American ones? Apparently not.

India's still playing a craven toady to a US that is ruthlessly pursuing an agenda where commercial interests are put above the lives of others. Delhi has stripped a flagship nuclear bill of a clause that allowed companies to be sued for negligence in the event of a – God forbid – accident.

It is bizarre to see a leader of the developing world offer up its citizens' lives cheaply to secure investment from foreign companies and governments. Under the civil liabilities for nuclear damage bill, central to a deal with the controversial nuclear pact with the US, costs for cleaning up a catastrophic failure would end up being paid by the Indian taxpayer.

Sure, India is desperate for the nuclear deal – which will see it become the only nonpermanent member of the UN security council to keep its atomic weapons and trade in nuclear know-how. But at what price? Today we know.

Washington made it clear it wanted India to set the bar low on liability – so that shareholders of large US corporations would not be forced to pay out for sloppy, deadly mistakes. So any future victims in India would be left at the mercy of the country's justice system, like those poor souls who lost lives, loved ones and their health and were condemned to spending years lost in the courts with little to show but false hope.

Delhi had argued that international suppliers would not be willing to enter the Indian nuclear market without such a bill. But has Russia been willing to do so. And Germany accepts no cap on nuclear liability. In the US the nuclear lobby accepts a liability set at $10bn.

In Bhopal, what happened in the years after was a bigger scandal than the original accident. Although Delhi was cackhanded, the US bears most of the blame. Unlike BP, Washington did not threaten US companies for deaths in the past and is actively working to ensure they evade responsibility in the future. Obama's administration has not learned the lessons of history. It means we are doomed to repeat its mistakes."

Brits turn on Obama

10 June 2010

This is the letter sent by one of Britain's top business figures to US President Barack Obama in protest against his criticism of BP and its CEO over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Dear President Obama,

Please forgive this open letter but your comments towards BP and its CEO as reported here are coming across as somewhat prejudicial and personal.

There is no doubt that BP, as a UK PLC, is totally committed to do everything possible to contain the oil leak and meet all its obligations in the USA.

The existing CEO is the best person to deliver that effort and has made that personal commitment and made himself available in the USA.

In your words, "he has taken the heat" and not hidden in his office. The real response has been total. You could argue a poor PR performance, but BP are not alone in that.

There is a sense here that these attacks are being made because BP is British.

If you compare the damage inflicted on the economies of the western world by polluted securities from the irresponsible, unchecked greed and avarice of leading USA international banks, there has not been the same personalised response in or from countries beyond the US.

Perhaps a case of double standards? Deep sea oil exploration was pushed forward as part of a USA oil security strategy as have a number of foreign policy initiatives in key areas in the world where we are standing shoulder to shoulder.

Whilst we all recognise the seriousness of the situation there is a need to put some balance back into the situation.

Many of us applauded your promise of a new approach to politics, USA foreign policy and world leadership.

Both you and the CEO of BP are caught up in the resolution of issues dealing with the emerging risks of strategies that you did not necessarily determine.

The immediate issues are very challenging but are best solved working together in a more Statesman like way.

The leak may take time to fix, and it will be, but Afghanistan and Iraq will take much longer.

We can all agree that the first and absolute priority is to stem the leak. Perhaps the second one is to ensure the reputation of the Presidency outside the USA is seen as objective, balanced, able and capable of taking the heat when under pressure.

We liked the Obama we saw at your election, can we have more of it please.

Yours sincerely,

John Napier

Mr Napier is chairman of insurance group RSA.

Thai inmates' world cup

10 June 2010 - From AFP

"South Africa and Mexico played out a hard-fought 1-1 draw on a muddy, rain-soaked football pitch Thursday in front of cheering fans who pounded drums and banged cow bells.

But it wasn't the opening match of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. That contest begins on Friday in South Africa.

It was the opening clash between inmates participating in Thailand's "World Cup 2010 Behind Bars" at Bangkok's Klong Prem Central Prison.

"It's wonderful -- a fun day," said Mitchell Blake, 43, from Sydney, who said he had been jailed for 17 years in Thailand after being caught with four kilos (about nine pounds) of heroin at Bangkok's Don Muang airport.

"It's not often that we get to enjoy things like this," he said, cheering from the sidelines.

The event, which was also held in 2006 and 2002, features 18 seven-player teams, including traditional powerhouses like Germany, Argentina, France and Brazil.

The players are selected from the prison's population of about 1,000 foreigners from 45 different nations, and can represent countries other than their own. Thai inmates make up the numbers when needed.

The tournament is designed so that when the prisoners leave, "they can be disciplined and good people", said Preeda Nilsiri, 59, commander of Thonburi prison who helped organise the event. "I believe sports can unify people."

Visitors were asked to check in their mobile phones and wallets at the prison gate and some guests were frisked upon entering.

As the opening match got underway, a handful of guards in protective riot gear stood at one end of the pitch, while other security officials wearing dark blue uniforms patrolled the courtyard, wielding batons.

Marinus Parlevliet, 56, an inmate from Holland, was filling in for the South African side.

"It's a positive thing, for people to get out and play football," he said.

But "in Holland, we never play in these conditions," he said, when asked about the pitch, which had several large puddles and little green grass.

Cheering inmates and dignitaries assembled for the opening ceremony, where transvestite inmates decked out in fishnet stockings, silver hot pants, and feather headdresses performed choreographed dance numbers to thumping music.

Inmates carted in a gleaming replica of the World Cup, and there was even a marching band comprised of musicians from Thailand's youth correctional system.

"It's a change to our normal life," said Greg Cannarozzi, a 28-year-old spectator from Paris who has served three years for a drugs offence and is due to be released next year.

"It's just something different. Nothing changes here, so when we go outside, it's something special," he said.

The referees shrugged off the potential risks of overseeing matches involving convicted criminals.

"There are no differences between being a referee here and being one outside. It's just important to be fair," said Saman Rungiratanon, an academic at the Department of Corrections. "I'm not nervous. I feel normal."

In any case there were no signs of trouble as inmates made the most of their precious time out of the cells.

"When I'm outside, I'm happy," said Obi Titus, 34, from Nigeria, the scorer of Mexico's lone goal, a neat finish at the far post from close range.

South Africa equalised in the second half, however. The crowd erupted, and the event's announcer screamed "Bafana Bafana" -- the nickname for the South African team -- over the loudspeaker system.
 

Obama's Bopal lesson

9 June 2010

There is something deeply disquieting about Americans - responsible for the world's worst ever industrial accident at Union Carbide in India - lecturing a British company on responsibility.

Lets go back in history a little:

Over 25 years ago 40 tons of highly toxic methyl isocyanate (MIC) was released from a Union Carbide plant in the central Indian city of Bhopal — killing thousands in a matter of hours and over years, rendering hundreds of thousands seriously ill and causing genetic defects in yet-to-be-born generations.

It was not until this week that a local court announced its verdict. It held eight former employees of Union Carbide India Ltd guilty of criminal negligence and sentenced seven of them to two years in prison and a fine of $2,100. (The eighth defendant died during the course of the 23-year trial.)

The convicted former employees were out on bail — of just $500 each — in less than two hours. Union Carbide India, which no longer exists, was fined less than $11,000.

Warren Anderson, was at the time the American CEO of Union Carbide, the U.S. parent company. He is now 89 years old. Arrested by Indian police when he visited the disaster site, he was released on bail and flown quickly out of the country.

He continues to be a fugitive from Indian law and hence has not been tried. He is believed to be living comfortably somewhere in New York state. At the same time, no one has been assigned responsibility for cleaning up Bhopal's ground zero, which researchers and activists say continues to leach toxic chemicals into the groundwater, used by thousands of families.

Investigations over the years have shown that the Bhopal plant design was faulty and that there was next to no emergency preparedness — issues that the parent company in the U.S. apparently knew about, according to the groups that conducted the studies. The company was operating in India with standards unacceptable in the US

At present we do not know why BP's rig exploded, killing 11 people.

But Union Carbide's plant exploded, killing thousands, because the ageing safety systems were simply turned off instead of being replaced.

BP has accepted responsibility and is spending huge sums of money in an attempt to stop the flow of oil. BPs CEO is grilled by the media daily. He is grille dat senate hearings on Capitol Hill.

But  Union Carbide never accepted responsibility and made no attempt to address the environmental damage. Many Americans livelihoods and health may suffer because of the spilt oil. In Bhopal more than 120,000 people still suffer from ailments, many due to the subsequent leaks of chemicals from the abandoned site.

For all the US rhetoric it appears that BP have taken a very different approach to their moral and legal responsibilities than did Union Carbide, now owned by Dow Chemicals.

Beyond the 11 people killed aboard the exploding oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico no one has yet died from the consequent oil spill. Yet an American president is now in a verbal and ass kicking war with a British multi-national and all political guns are blazing.

I guess if it is not on America's door step they really don't care.

Emirates A380 order is a game-changer

9 June 2010

Emirates Airline’s huge A380 order yesterday means this is the current fleet number: as at Jun-2010. The direct and indirect implications of this order and the airline's growth plans are very significant.

Source: Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation & Ascend

By the end of 2017 Emirates will have a fleet of 90 AirbusA380s flying in and out of its current Dubai hub. In addition 70 A350s will start arriving from 2014, peaking in 2017 and 2018 with 18 deliveries each year. Some of the A350s will replace older A330s and 777s. Though since the A350 has not flown yet there must be some concern whether this delivery schedule can be met.

But this will not be Emirates last order. I expect them to place new 777 and 787 orders at the Farnborough air show in July. One concern the airline must have is that their route expansion in 2010/2011 is restricted by the lack of available new planes. It would not be a surprise to see them take some short term leased planes to move ahead on route expansion.

There was concern that EK would have trouble filling 58 A380s. Now it will have 90. Where will they all go? The existing ten A380 planes fly to Heathrow (2 daily), Paris, Seoul, Sydney and Auckand, Toronto, Bangkok, Paris and Jeddah. Manchester and Beijing will be added this year.

By 2017 those A380s could be flying London (4 or 5 a day), Manchester(2 a day), Birmingham, Paris(2), Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich, Moscow, Rome, Milan, and through Dubai to Seoul(2), Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore(2), Sydney and Auckland(3), Melbourne(2), Brisbane, Beijing (3), Shanghai (2), Guangzhou. In Africa the A380 will probably be seen in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Lagos and Nairobi.

Regional routes with higher density (say 650) seat A380s will fly to Bombay, Delhi, Bangalore, Cairo, Beirut, Jeddah, Riyadh and Baghdad.

ULR versions of the A380 will fly to San Francisco (2), Los Angeles (2), Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago, New York(2), Miami, Houston and Atlanta.

The one thing evident about Emirates strategy is that it knows how to fill planes and move people from point to point via Dubai. Emirates is also the de facto carrier for all Indians, at home and overseas. Take any flight from Dubai to Canada or the USA and 90% of the passengers are Indian. That all makes sense given the growth of the Indian economy and the global spread of NRIs.

Emirates will have a harder problem doing the same in China where three strong domestic airlines as well as Cathay Pacific will seek to be the main carriers for China's growing wealth.

But the additional capacity offered by Emirates A380s will make it increasingly difficult for older flag carriers such as British Airways and Lufthansa to compete on certain routes.

Air France-KLM lost €1.56 billion last year and BA has lost nearly £1 billion in the past two years. Meanwhile Emirates reported a profit just shy of US$1billion last year and expects to exceed that this year.

The expansion of services through the Gulf has made some traditional routes operated by BA, Virgin Atlantic and other European carriers uncompetitive. The “Kangaroo Route” from Europe to Australia via Singapore or Bangkok has been particularly affected by the arrival of Emirates, Etihad and Qatar — the three Gulf carriers. Most european airline have pulled out of the kangaroo route relying on feeder traffic from airline alliances.

Analysts believe that there is a new global aviation order emerging, in which traditional flag carriers such as BA will have to concentrate on a few profitable long haul routes, such as London to New York. Their services to Asia and Africa will be charged at a premium because the flights will be non-stop rather than through a Middle east hub.

The Gulf carriers, led by Emirates, will offer much cheaper flights to these regions, but passengers will have to connect through Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Doha.

For a businessman based in London, the BA premium may be worth paying as flying direct will save time. However, for people in other cities in the UK it may be more convenient to fly to Dubai rather than connecting through Heathrow. Emirates offers flights from Dubai to Glasgow, Birmingham, Newcastle and Manchester, which will be served by an A380 from the start of September.

Many European carriers do not fly to the range of Asian, African and Indian destinations offered by Emirates; which makes EK the best option for many travelers from say Prague or Hamburg to the Far East and Australasia.

The size both of the order and of the eventual size of Emirates Airline itself is significant enough is all a part of the airline industry's transformation from a heavily regulated, nationalistic anachronism to something approaching a real business. Airlines are no longer a national necessity.

This is how Emirates would grow based on existing delivery dates.

Emirates delivery dates all aircraft (pre latest order): Jul-2010 to Jul-2016

Source: Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation & Ascend

The game changer is that EK will be so large that competitors' business plans will be reshaped by it. The fact that the order was made under the nose of one of Emirates' main detractors, Lufthansa, was particularly telling as Lufthansa has campaigned hard against giving additional traffic rights to Emirates - including Berlin, which must now happen soon for EK.

After all German Chancellor Angela Merkel was at the signing ceremony. She knows this order guarantees jobs for many years to come in a depressed and heavily indebted German economy.

The Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation wrote that "this is more than a political victory for Emirates. It shifts the fulcrum of economic arguments underlying liberalisation. If the A380s are to be used effectively, the airline will need greatly expanded access to new markets."

The value to the ailing European economies of having created and save skilled manufacturing jobs far outweighs any remaining flag carrier pleas for protection.

And the timing could not be better financially. Richard Quest on CNN suggested to Tim Clark that EK had negotiated a 40% discount on list prices for the new order.

Indirectly; Dubai benefits with ever more passengers on stopovers. The malls might even get busy. The travel and tourism sector here will flourish. The MICE sector will be supported by all the new capacity It may even help the ailing property sector.

Hiring and training will be critical for Emirates over the next few years. This presents many new career opportunities.

Emirates own route network will need to expand to feed passengers to Dubai and onto its big jets. Expect additional flights on existing routes and a decent number of new destinations.

The dedicated A380 concourse at Terminal 3 will need to be operational by 2012 to accommodate the growth is airplane and passenger numbers.

And the eventual move to the new Al Maktoum airport after 2020 will be a necessity. Maybe earlier. With only a 2 runway operation the existing DXB is already over crowded at peak times. Many of the newer flights will need to operate as a third or fourth daily wave of arrivals and departures.

Exciting times for Emirates; but if I was doing long term planning at say Thai Airways or Singapore Airline or one of the old European carriers I would be thinking very carefully about what my airline will look like in 2010 and where its focus should be.

How Obama lost me over oil hypocrisy

8 June 2010

President Obama was the great hope for US politics. Articulate; engaging and looking to bring the USA back into world affairs. Looking to make friends rather than encourage enemies.

But he has lost me over the BP oil spill in the Gulf

Sorry but for a nation that lives by oil the anti-BP ranting is out of hand.

the final straw was when the president said in a “Today” show interview yesterday that he wanted to “know whose ass to kick,” and that he would have fired BP chief executive Tony Hayward over certain comments Hayward made.

Obama cannot have it both ways. He cannot declare BP solely responsible for the spill and deny the federal government’s culpability or ability to stop the spill — even as he says the company is “acting at our direction” — and then talk about firing or beating up this person or that one because of it.

Americans have long believed that their constitution gives them the right to fill their gas-guzzling Chevvies up for just a few dollars. They view cheap oil as their birthright, consuming 25% of the world's supply despite having only 5% of its population.

With the need to avoid an ever-increasing dependence on Middle East oil imports, US administrations have encouraged the exploitation of indigenous resources no matter how potentially disastrous this might be. Deep-water drilling in offshore waters, notably the Gulf of Mexico, was always likely to cause serious problems and the risk of oil leaks.

BP operates in the Gulf of Mexico because it has a rich seam of oil which is relatively cheaply produced for the vast US market. So long as the US remains addicted to cheap oil it needs BP and the other explorers to pump it up to feed their enormous gas-guzzling cars.

So long as BP drills in deep waters, there will always be enormous risks, risks which cannot always be anticipated. For the moment, more than a third of the world's energy comes from oil, a proportion unlikely to change much in the next few decades. The only other big, untapped supplies in the world are also in deep water, such as those in the Barents Sea. To demonise BP for doing its job – with everybody's approval – is cheap.

The politicians have taken tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from a company, as Obama did from BP and its executives in 2008, and is now talking about kicking their asses. Very presidential?

Barack Obama has also taken to referring to BP as "British Petroleum", simultaneously distancing his administration from an overseas company and using the full name in the manner of a teacher disciplining an errant schoolboy. Note to Mr. Obama - BP plc is a multinational corporation and has not been called British Petroleum since 1998, when it merged with Amoco (American Oil Company).

And Mr Obama it was an American company, Transocean, that supplied the Horizon rig and hired the contractors on the project. Transocean is the world's largest offshore drilling contractor and has the longest experience of this kind of oil exploration. During this disaster, it managed to get more than a hundred people safely off the rig, and this is a tribute to its record. The central fact is that this rig hit a major blowout, probably a tight gas pocket, and the blowout preventer failed.

Since coming to office Obama has talked up the powers of the federal government and now he seems paralysed to act in an emergency.

The oil spill is first and foremost a tragedy for the Gulf and its people. But drilling activities have been forced by the environmental lobby and successive governments into the very places they are most difficult to control. So maybe this is not the time to act shocked and outraged when things spin out of control.

At the moment the Obama policy appears to be little more than finger waving and ass kicking. He would be better served by helping to solve the problem, avoid its recurrence and accelerate research on alternative sources of power.

So far Mr Obama deserves nothing more than a fail grade.

EK's bold A380 purchase

8 June 2010

The question that is even bigger than the A380 itself is where do you send 90 of these mega jumbo jets.

Emirates took delivery of its 10th A380 this week Its 11th is due soon. There are no new deliveries due until 2012.

Today Emirates added a further 32 A380s to its existing order of 58. By comparison no North American airline has ordered the A380. BA has ordered a handful. Cathay Pacific has not ordered the new jet.

The Dubai-based carrier confirmed the agreement at the ILA Berlin Air Show today. The deal is worth $11.5 billion at list prices. It is unlikely that EK paid list price.

The plan is to have all 90 of the superjumbos in its fleet by the end of 2017

“Emirates and our passengers are big fans” of the A380, said Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, the chief executive officer of the airline. He is right. Compared to the cramped 777s the A380 is a pleasure to fly on.

The airline has been working to add Berlin as a destination to its networks. Now the German authorities have to let them in. German Chancellor Angela Merkel also attended today's ceremony announcing the order. Airbus, based in Toulouse, France, also has major production facilities in Hamburg, and the order announced today will help support 20,000 jobs, Emirates said.

The A380s will be used on routes where Emirates wants to add capacity. The smaller A330s and 777s will be sued to serve new routes that will be added to the network.

EKs A380s already flies to Toronto, Paris, London, Jeddah, Bangkok, Auckland and Sydney. By the end of 2010 it will also fly to New York, Manchester and Beijing. With Shanghai starting in early 2011. Expect the A380 routes to expand to other US destinations with an extended range A380; on short haul flights with a high density load to India and some of the GCC countries eg Cairo and the Lebanon; additional flights to Sydney and Melbourne and to more European destinations. 

Today EK already has 48 more Airbus 380s, 70 Airbus 350s, 18 Boeing 777-300s and 7 Boeing air freighters on order. At the Farnborough airshow in July EK is likley to place additional Boeing orders for 777s and 787s.

Fall out from Gaza flotilla raid

8 June 2010

The Israeli army action on the high seas last Monday brought international condemnation on Israel and its military. The criticism was far louder than that heard after the army crackdown on red shirted protestors in Bangkok. Yet the Israeli action resulted in nine deaths; the Thai crackdown in at least ninety deaths.

Yet the circumstances are quite similar.

Not unlike Thailand there is no middle ground here. In the Arab world it is clear where fault lies. Like Thailand there was a heavily armed military against allegedly meek and mild protestors who had right on their side.

But the reality is not as simple as that. The basic details are:

On Sunday May 30 a flotilla of six ships headed for Gaza from rendezvous off Cyprus. The flotilla was seeking to take aid directly to Gaza breaking Israel's four year old blockade - on which more later.

Hours later about a dozen Israeli naval vessels set sail from Haifa and Ashdod to intercept the convoy in international waters.

On Monday May 31 about 120 km (75 miles) west of Haifa, the flotilla ignored calls for the ships to turn around or be escorted to Ashdod. Israeli commandos boarded each vessel. Five of the six ships were commandeered swiftly with few injuries, but on the Mavi Marmara commandos were overpowered by protesters who beat them with clubs and also wield knives. Israeli forces regained control in fighting which saw nine Turkish activists shot dead.

On Tuesday June 1 682 activists from more than 35 countries on the flotilla were taken to a detention center at Ben-Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv and then deported.

With nine of its citizens killed Turkey accused Israel of "state terrorism," recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv and demanded Israel lift the blockade. Relations between the once-close allies have now reached virtual breaking point. Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc says Turkey will downgrade ties with Israel to "a minimum."

Israel has now rejected a proposal by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for an international investigation into the raid and says it had the right to launch its own inquiry.

But this is hugely political and mired in centuries of history. It also reflects a major shift in Turkey's political focus Largely rejected by the EU, Turkey is increasingly turning to its Arab neighbours. It no longer needs or courts a strong relationship with Israel; and it is willing to test its relationship with the USA.

It has proven a diplomatic bonanza for the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at home and abroad. In nearly 24 hours, it was able to get the U.N. Security Council to officially condemn the acts resulting from Israel’s operation. This provides further evidence of its growing ability to exert influence internationally.

Turkey has clearly demonstrated a willingness to pursue its interests vigorously, assert them publicly and risk confrontation if necessary. It has no qualms about shedding diplomatic-speak. The days of the compliant NATO ally who performed as respectfully requested are over.

I have no doubt of Israel's right to exist as a nation at peace. I also have no doubt that there are elements in the Gaza strip whose sole intent is the destruction of the Jewish state. The ruling Hamas are extreme and most Arab countries do not deal directly with them.  But the trouble with the blockade is that it hurts 15 million people; not the few extremists who shelter behind the population.

Will this escalate? Ggiven the new found kinship between Iran and Turkey the answer is that at a minimum their will be further tests of the blockade. Iran has warned that it could send Revolutionary Guard naval units to escort humanitarian aid convoys seeking to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza – a move that would certainly be challenged by Israel.

Netanyahu has defended Israel's right to maintain the blockade by arguing that without it Gaza would become an "Iranian port" and Hamas missiles would strike Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Israel's undeclared aim is to weaken or bring down the Hamas government.

Iran and Israel have had no diplomatic relations since the 1979 revolution and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regularly predicts the disappearance of the Jewish state as well as denying the Holocaust.

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, has proposed a commission of inquiry headed by the former New Zealand prime minister Geoffrey Palmer, who is an expert in maritime law. The commission would include representatives of Israel, the US and Turkey. All nine activists killed in the operation were Turkish; one held joint US citizenship. Israel rejected any UN investigation.

And there is part of the problem. Israel, rather like the Thai government, has decided that if you are not with them you must be against them. And both governments appear concerned at just what evidence might be produced by an independent investigation.

Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, was more explicit: "We are rejecting an international commission. We are discussing with the Obama administration a way in which our inquiry will take place," he said. This is bad news for Obama; who now more then ever needs to be seen to be distancing himself from more conservative Israeli leaders.

At a minimum Israel needs to relax the blockade. Significantly, the US has added its voice to calls for a new policy, with the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, describing the current siege as "unsustainable".

Britain's shadow foreign secretary, David Miliband, described the isolation of Gaza as "a stain on policy right across the Middle East". "I think there have been a series of deadly and self-defeating actions by successive Israeli governments in respect of Gaza," he told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show.

There seems to me little doubt that there were elements on the flotilla who were deliberately seeking to provoke a reaction. The Israelis took the bait and now have to deal with the international condemnation that has followed the killings. They are ever more isolated; friends of Israel are distancing themselves and there are new and strong alliances being forged between Islamic nations.

 Gaza Flotilla Raid on Wikipedia

Nakeel's bizarre PR

7 June 2010

In a bizarre press announcement yesterday Dubai World's property arm Nakheel announced that it has started paying contractors owed less than 500,000 U.A.E. dirhams ($136,240).

The company will also resume work on short-term projects within weeks.

So anyone owed more than AED500,000 still gets nothing. This of course means all of their serious creditors and sub contractors get nothing (yet).

Nakheel’s projects were at the heart of Dubai's problems. Improbable. Excessive. And often badly, and according to the courts in some cases criminally, managed.

The state owned developer owes hundreds of millions of Dirhams to consultants and contractors. Contractors typically pay their subcontractors and suppliers “if and when” they are paid themselves.

So Nakheel's sub AED 500,000 creditors are likely to be smaller amounts due to direct suppliers It is embarrassing. The company is paying small debts first and then announcing it like some wondrous achievement allowing a glorious restart of stalled projects.

Those projects will not move. Their big consultants and contractors who should be paid first, and who are not being paid, will not start work until they are paid. 

What was so depressing is how the Dubai Media - 103.8FM and Emirates Business 2/7 among them simply run this news as though it is good news without any questions or inquiry. Surely as another commentator rightly said this is no more than an "embarrassing admission that Nakheel doesn’t have the money to settle the serious claims."

The question is how many other Dubai companies are treating their suppliers in the same way?

The roots of Thialand's turmoil
6 June 2010 - The Asia Society

By Bertil Lintner

BANGKOK, June 4, 2010 - Soldiers in the streets and protesters clamoring for democracy—we've seen this before in Southeast Asia, but was Thailand's recent unrest really a clash between the "the haves" and the "have-nots" as depicted by an almost unanimous chorus of foreign media? As battles between anti-government protesters and the military killed 85 people and injured 1,402, a Western academic claimed that "the farmers of Thailand have stood up." It was supposed to have been a more or less spontaneous uprising by society's poor and disadvantaged against the urban elite in Bangkok.

Superficially the scenes may have looked similar to the 1988 protests for democracy in Burma or perhaps even the 1998 uprising in Indonesia which led to the fall of Suharto. But there are fundamental differences between those events and Thailand's "Red Shirt" protest movement—the popular name for the grouping officially known as the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD). The list of casualties speaks for itself. Of those killed, 11 were soldiers and policemen, as were 411 of the wounded. Unlike pro-democracy movements elsewhere, the UDD had its armed units and was far from the "non-violent" force it purported to be. The UDD also became infamous for its attacks on the media. Several journalists, both Thai and foreign, were threatened by UDD thugs and, on May 19, personnel at a local television station had to flee for their lives when the mob set fire to their building, apparently "dissatisfied" with the coverage they were getting.

This should have come as no surprise: anyone who had visited Red Shirt rallies would have been struck by the language used. Although "democracy" was a catchphrase, the rest of the message was one of intolerance and even hatred of anyone who did not agree with the protesters, often peppered with obscenities. And there were always armed men around, dressed in black fatigues.

It should also not be forgotten that the movement was launched on March 12—two weeks after Thai courts had seized $1.4 billion of assets held in Thai banks of the family of Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister who was ousted in 2006 and is wanted for multiple counts of corruption. But he must have had significant amounts of money saved elsewhere, because a local Red Shirt leader in Thailand's rural northeast told the German press agency DPA on May 23: "Thaksin spent hundreds of millions of baht to sponsor the protest." Apart from funding from Thaksin, now in exile in Dubai, the Red Shirts are believed to have also received financial backing from other extremely wealthy families allied with him.

And although tens of thousands of people from impoverished parts of the Northeast were mobilized to take part in the protests, it is significant that there is not a single representative of disadvantaged sections of society in the UDD leadership. The main leader, Jatuporn Promphan, served as secretary in the ministry of natural resources and environment in the Thaksin government and, in 2003, he and other officials ordered over 1,000 police to retake a large tract of land in the south, which had been taken over by poor farmers. They accused the government of leasing the land to big palm oil producers instead of redistributing it to the farmers. Jatuporn then defended the police action, saying the protesters were "armed" and "broke the law." During his years in power, Thaksin himself tried to stifle the media, silence critics of his regime—and launched a vicious "war on drugs" which claimed more than 2,000 lives in extrajudicial executions.

The clash in Thailand should be described as a clash between two oligarchies. On one side, the traditional elite consisting of the old Sino-Thai plutocracy that for years have enjoyed a symbiotic and mutually beneficial relationship with the military, bureaucracy and monarchy—and the new nouveau-riche elite that began to emerge during the Vietnam War era, when the economy took off and culminated in the boom of the 1980s. Lacking the political connections of the old elite, Thaksin and his business associates built up their own power base through a string of populist policies, which won many admirers in certain parts of the country. However, the political confusion among many of the Red Shirt followers is demonstrated in a UDD Chiang Mai café: on the wall hang side by side portraits of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Che Guevara—and Thaksin.

Significantly, however, the Red Shirt movement has remained a largely regional phenomenon, mainly in the northeast. UDD influence in the central plains is considerably weaker and virtually non-existent in the south. In those parts of the country—strongholds of Thaksin’s sworn enemies, the Yellow Shirts—there are also many poor and disadvantaged people.

Rather than being the "class war" that the UDD likes to talk about, and the Western media seemed to believe it is, it is a conflict between old and new money which is also pitting poor as well as rich in different parts of the country against each other. This divide is a serious problem which any Thai government and serious political force would have to address —and not take advantage of for their own respective political agendas.

Whatever the outcome of the present crisis, the future of Thai democracy does not look good, nor does the prospect of national reconciliation. In fact, a country that only a few years ago was seen as a pillar of economic and political stability risks becoming a failed state. This frightening scenario can only be thwarted if Thailand gets solid, independent state institutions that can handle a crisis like this one—and bridge the gap between various elites as well as different parts of the country and society’s rich and poor.

Bertil Linter, a journalist and author based in Thailand, is an Asia Society Associate Fellow.

California Dreaming

5 June 2010

Faye Wong - Chungking Express - 1994

Rulers of the new silk road
The ambitions of the three Gulf-based “super-connecting” airlines are bad news for competitors but good news for passengers
5th June 2010  From The Economist print edition

"The view from Tim Clark’s office in Emirates’ new headquarters should strike fear into the hearts of rival airline bosses in Europe and America. Across the way is Dubai Airport’s Terminal 3, which opened without a hitch six months after the botched start-up of Terminal 5 at Heathrow, London’s biggest airport. Both terminals can handle about the same number of passengers—a little under 30m a year—and both were designed and built for the exclusive use of their incumbent flag carriers. But there the similarities end.

Whereas T5 was shoehorned into a cramped site, T3 covers three times as much space. And whereas the Heathrow terminal will never get any bigger, T3 will soon be the largest building in the world by floor space, thanks to a new concourse dedicated to Emirates’ growing fleet of Airbus A380s. When that opens in 2012, the terminal will be able to accommodate 23 of the leviathan aircraft on stand at the same time and handle 43m passengers.

About 42m people a year pass through the airport’s three terminals now, according to Paul Griffiths, Dubai International’s chief executive. Earlier this year it became the world’s third-busiest international airport (see chart 1). With passenger growth running at an annual rate of nearly 20% and capacity planned to reach 90m in the next few years, it will not be long before Dubai overtakes Heathrow.

Even as the existing airport grows, just up the road work on a new, much larger one, costing $50 billion, is gathering pace. When Al Maktoum airport at Jebel Ali is finished in the early 2020s (cargo flights will begin this year), it will be by far the biggest in the world, with five parallel runways and an annual passenger capacity of more than 160m. Emirates will move its entire operation there and the old airport will probably be sold for redevelopment. One of Mr Griffiths’s biggest headaches is deciding how much to invest in assets at the existing airport that are likely to have only a very brief shelf life.

The ambitions of two other Gulf emirates are equally extraordinary. In Qatar, Doha International airport, about 200 miles from Dubai, will open in 18 months’ time with a capacity of 24m passengers a year, rising to twice that in 2015 (see chart 2). Abu Dhabi’s airport, about 45 minutes’ drive from Jebel Ali, aims to increase its capacity to 20m in 2012 and to 40m a few years later. Thus within five or six years there will be more capacity at these three Gulf airports than there is now at Heathrow, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Frankfurt combined. Are these merely grandiose vanity projects, fuelled by more money than business sense? Or do the new airports—and the linked ambitions of the three emirates’ airlines—reflect a fundamental shift in global aviation power?

Probably a bit of both, but much more of the latter. To see why, look at the seemingly unstoppable rise of Emirates, which has provided the template for both Abu Dhabi and Qatar. It began 25 years ago when Gulf Air, a politically contrived joint venture between Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Oman and Qatar, decided (inexplicably, in retrospect) to cut back its services to Dubai, which was already the region’s transport and trade hub. Dubai’s then ruler, Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, responded by asking his younger brother, Sheikh Ahmed, to launch a rival airline. With $10m of start-up capital, a couple of leased aeroplanes (a Boeing 737 and an Airbus A300) and two formidable British aviation executives (Maurice Flanagan and Mr Clark), Emirates was born. After losing a little money in its second year of operation, it has made a profit ever since and doubled in size every three or four years.

Wholly owned by Dubai’s sovereign-wealth fund, it is now one of the world’s most powerful airlines, with 138 planes, all wide-bodied, and 140 more, including 50 A380s, on firm order. Some recession-hit rivals have deferred or cancelled orders, but Mr Clark complains that he can’t get his hands on the new aircraft quickly enough. He sees no problems financing them and is negotiating for even more. By around 2020, Emirates expects to have a fleet of more than 400, dwarfing the long-haul capacity of any other airline. From Dubai, it flies to more than 100 destinations in over 60 countries, reaching every continent.

Sheikh Ahmed, Emirates’ chairman and chief executive, described the last financial year as the airline’s “toughest”. Yet profits rose more than fivefold, to nearly $1 billion, helped by lower fuel prices and other cost cuts. Passenger numbers went up by 21% to 27.5m (see chart 3). Seat load factors improved by more than two percentage points to 78%, even though capacity (measured by available seat kilometres) increased by a fifth. In the same period Air France-KLM, Europe’s second-biggest carrier, made a loss of €1.56 billion ($1.93 billion); embattled British Airways (BA) lost £531m ($758m).

Rivals allege that the secret of Emirates’ success lies in all manner of unfair and hidden subsidies (of which more later). But Mr Clark, the airline’s president, and Mr Flanagan, still there at 82, as executive vice-chairman, insist that it is simply a very lean, well-run airline blessed by its location and Dubai’s pro-aviation policies.

Those policies stem from a conviction that aviation could act as a spur to Dubai’s economy, by facilitating trade, financial services and tourism. At Sheikh Ahmed’s prompting, the government has implemented a highly liberal open-skies policy, encouraging other countries to open routes to Dubai and allowing Emirates to build its network. It has streamlined immigration and visa policies, making it easier for people to pass through or to stay. It has made sure that airport and air-traffic-control capacity have kept ahead of demand. And, unhindered by airport curfews in Dubai and flying mainly long-haul routes, Emirates has one of the world’s highest fleet-utilisation rates: its jets are in the air for about 18 hours a day.

An enthusiastic Mr Griffiths, who has been in his current job since 2007, contrasts his time running Gatwick, London’s second airport, with what happens in Dubai. At Gatwick, he says, “if you wanted to do anything, it involved negotiating with large numbers of different stakeholders: the relationship with the airlines was usually adversarial and local councils were hostile to any expansion of the airport.” In Dubai, government, the industry and consumers’ interests are aligned. “The government’s approach is to say, ‘Whatever you do, don’t restrain aviation in any way.’ To make a major decision here, there are probably no more than four or five people who are needed in the room.”

Location underpins Emirates’ business model. As Aviation Strategy, an industry newsletter, says, the region is a natural “pinch point” between westward and eastward routes. Sheikh Ahmed describes it as being in the middle of the “new silk road”. Nearly 2 billion people live within four hours’ flying time of the Gulf and twice as many within seven hours. Since the arrival of ultra-long-range airliners in the mid-1990s in the shape of the Boeing 777 (for which Emirates is the biggest customer), any two big cities on Earth can be linked via Dubai with no other stops.

Next, Emirates has built a strong presence in “secondary” markets, such as Manchester and Newcastle in Britain, Hamburg and Dusseldorf in Germany or Kochi and Kolkata in India, neglected by airlines like BA, Lufthansa and Air India, which focus on their own hubs. A passenger flying from, say, Manchester to Tokyo may not care whether he changes planes at Heathrow or Dubai, particularly if Emirates can offer a nicer time in transit, a cheaper ticket and a better in-flight experience.

Emirates has also thrived by entering markets in the rest of the Middle East, Africa, South-East Asia, India and Latin America that had hitherto been poorly connected to the global air-transport network because of over-regulation, the absence of a strong local flag carrier and the indifference of established airlines. Mr Clark says: “We had a hunch. As wealth creation spread through emerging markets, more and more people would want to fly.” Emirates has also exploited the growing market for freight to and from such places. Cargo, much of it carried in the belly of its passenger jets, brings in almost 20% of revenue, one of the highest shares in the industry.

Finally, having started with a clean sheet, Emirates has a flat management structure and the kind of flexible, highly productive workforce that carriers such as strike-torn BA and high-cost Lufthansa can only dream of. Although its pilots and engineers are paid at globally competitive rates, most cabin crew and ancillary staff are recruited on lowish wages from the subcontinent and South-East Asia. A locally based aviation consultant says that flight crews are worked right up to the regulatory limits. Like other workers in Dubai, Emirates’ employees do not pay income tax, which means that gross salaries can be much lower than at European and American rivals. Staff costs at Emirates are around 15% of overhead, against well over twice that for a typical American or European network carrier, says Mr Flanagan.

While Emirates grew and prospered, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, both with far more oil wealth than their pushy neighbour, looked on with a mixture of admiration and envy. Qatar broke from Gulf Air in 1993, having become convinced that the joint venture could not serve its needs, but did not begin to develop its airline as a rival international carrier to Emirates until Akbar Al Baker, a young Qatari, was appointed chief executive in 1997.

Half owned by the Qatari government and half by “private shareholders” (mainly the royal family), Qatar Airways has 82 aircraft, but 180 on order, including five A380s and 80 brand-new A350s, for which it is the launch customer. It is also one of only six airlines to be awarded five stars for the quality of its service by Skytrax, a market-research firm specialising in aviation. Though held back a bit by a delay to the opening of Doha’s new airport, Qatar Airways is poised for rapid growth. In June it will add Barcelona, Buenos Aires and São Paulo to the 90 routes it already serves.

If Mr Al Baker is at all worried that the market may not be able to absorb so much new capacity, he doesn’t show it. He says that he and his local rivals are all growing at double-digit speed and that passenger numbers and yield show no sign of flagging. He thinks there is so much demand in the region that “conventional capacity discipline” is not required. He expects to need 70% of the slots at the new airport and that 75% of his passengers will be in transit there before heading to other places. When pressed, though, he says there will be “at least two survivors” among the three Gulf “super-connectors”. He adds: “I am very confident of the operating model we have and we are now very profitable.”

However, he promises that whatever his competitors may do, he will not dump more capacity on the market than it can bear. Aviation analysts agree that Qatar controls costs better than any of its rivals, even Emirates.

The new kid is Abu Dhabi’s carrier, Etihad. Set up in 2003 by royal decree, it claims to be the fastest-growing airline in the history of commercial aviation. An $8 billion order for new aircraft in 2004 was followed by the biggest ever at the Farnborough show in 2008. Worth about $43 billion at list prices, it included 100 firm orders, 55 options and 50 “purchase rights”. James Hogan, a bullish Australian who used to be chief operating officer at BMI (a British airline now owned by Lufthansa), ran Gulf Air for four years before being plucked by Abu Dhabi’s government in 2006 to oversee the expansion of Etihad.

Although in many ways Mr Hogan is following the model established by Emirates, there are differences. Abu Dhabi sees the airline as just one part of what it calls its “Plan 2030”, an ambitious attempt to use its huge oil wealth to turn the capital city of the United Arab Emirates into a global hub for transport, financial services and tourism that will be home to 3m people—more than three times its present population. This approach contrasts with the more laissez-faire style that fuelled Dubai’s astonishing boom and subsequent dramatic (if seemingly fairly brief) bust.

Etihad wants to be known for its quality as much as its size. Mr Hogan says: “Although no airline has ever ramped at the same speed as us, my mandate is not to build the largest airline, but the best in class.” He has made impressive strides in a short time. Etihad has won several international awards for the experience it offers its “guests”, as it likes to call its passengers, and it gives every impression of being a well-run airline that understands what it takes to become a leading brand. What Mr Hogan will not say, however, is whether he is meeting the financial targets set for him by his government shareholder. “I have to make money,” he says, “but the financial crisis and the H1N1 pandemic pushed our break-even out beyond this year.”

According to the always active Gulf rumour mill, Etihad lost $1.2 billion last year and Mr Hogan, under pressure to cut costs, may be looking for a dignified exit, perhaps to become the next director-general of IATA, the airline industry’s trade body. He insists that his deep-pocketed owners are in it for the long haul, but the biggest obstacles in the way of Etihad’s ultimate success are sitting on its own doorstep in the shape of mighty Emirates and the new mega-airport at Jebel Ali.

Abu Dhabi’s oil wealth makes it more than capable of financing its grand plans, which include the Ferrari World theme park, due to open soon, a branch of the Guggenheim museum and world-class hotels with worryingly green golf courses. But the place lacks the commercial vibrancy that has propelled Dubai’s sharp-elbowed aviation industry onwards and upwards. The airport company, ADAC, in particular, seems provincial and a bit dozy compared with its slick counterpart in Dubai. The next phase of the airport’s expansion—a huge $6.8 billion midfield terminal—is said to have hit design problems.

Whatever Etihad’s local difficulties, the threat from the Gulf to international network carriers in Europe and America and even the Far East (where future airport growth is more constrained and geography less helpful) is real and growing. With tiny populations of their own, they are competing directly for passengers that some other airlines seem to think should be theirs by right. Complaints about unfair competition are becoming more strident as network carriers that have seen their short-haul businesses fall prey to low-cost airlines now fear something similar happening to their long-haul operations.

In the vanguard of the campaign to blacken the reputation of Gulf carriers is Lufthansa, the most powerful airline in Europe and a prime consolidator in the industry. The list of allegations is long and predictable. The oldest canard is that the Gulf airlines must get subsidised fuel because their government owners are sitting on lots of oil. In fact, Emirates, Etihad and Qatar all pay slightly more for fuel at their home bases than at some of the international airports they fly to because of the lack of refining capacity in the region.

Another is that neither they nor their employees pay tax. That is not quite as significant as it seems. In practice, many European and American airlines pay little tax because they roll over losses from cyclical downturns to reduce their liability in good years. And a corollary of no income tax in Dubai is the lack of social services for expatriate workers. Emirates stumps up about $400m a year to provide schools, health care and accommodation for its staff.

Among other charges made against the Gulf airlines is that they receive government subsidies to finance aircraft orders and that they get favourable deals on landing and other airport charges at their home hubs. Not every Gulf airline is the same, but aircraft are mostly financed in the normal way using international banks, leasing firms and official export-credit organisations in America and Europe. Lenders may reckon that governments stand behind the loans, but the airlines claim that no sovereign guarantees are on the table.

Nor can most European and American network carriers argue they have never received state support, whether as pension-fund contributions or through the farce of operating for years under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. As for airport charges, at Dubai International the 126 other carriers that use the airport pay the same fees as Emirates, which by international standards are not especially low. Another whinge from the European airlines is that from 2012, when Europe’s emissions-trading scheme includes airlines flying to and from European destinations, their non-stop services will be disadvantaged because the Gulf airlines will pay the tax only on one half of a two-leg service. But the European Commission is sceptical whether the extra costs are large enough to make “carbon leakage” a real issue.

For passengers, at least, the arrival of the Gulf super-connectors is unalloyed good news: more routes, lower prices and better service. In particular, the opening of entirely new networks to big, fast-growing but previously underserved cities in emerging economies is both a feature and a stimulant of globalisation.

There are good reasons, such as the scarcity of land and local environmental objections, why cities like London and New York no longer wish to accommodate ever-expanding mega-hub airports. If Dubai, Qatar and Abu Dhabi want to put aviation at the heart of their economies by taking the spillover from growth-constrained airports in developed countries and by building networks that European and American carriers, obsessed with stifling competition through mergers and alliances, could not be bothered with, they deserve not brickbats but applause."
 

The End of Brand Thailand

5 June 2010 - Newsweek

How mismanagement and mistakes turned a high-growth democratic paradise into a violent mess.

For years Thailand was synonymous with images of paradise: it was a thriving democracy with a 1997 Constitution that enshrined protections for human rights. It was an economic powerhouse that posted some of the world’s highest growth rates in the 1980s and early 1990s, withstood the late ’90s Asian financial crisis, and grew by 5.3 percent in 2002 and more than 7 percent the following year, as the rebound from the crisis took shape. Investors and tourists bought into the image of a tranquil kingdom of lush beaches and mountains, welcoming people, and stable politics—a “land of smiles” so alluring, it drew more than 13 million tourists per year. Thanks in part to the “Amazing Thailand” ad campaign—featuring glittering temples and stunning women—Bangkok ranked No. 1 in readers’ polls of the best cities in Asia by Travel + Leisure and Condé Nast Traveler magazines.

And now? Brand Thailand is shattered. Over the past two months, clashes in Bangkok between the security forces and protesters clad in red have killed at least 80 people, gutted some of Bangkok’s most important economic institutions, including the stock exchange and the largest shopping center, and destroyed the image of peace and tranquillity. The critical tourism industry, which accounts for as much as 8 percent of GDP, is gasping, at a time when regional competitors like Cambodia and Singapore are trying to steal Thailand’s visitors. Of the nations once touted as the Asian tigers, or tiger cubs, including South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, only Thailand is disintegrating. Its once vibrant democracy is now widely viewed as an ungovernable and failing state. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva seems eager to postpone elections, and the last two elected governments were tossed out by undemocratic methods anyway. In its 2010 report, Freedom House scored Thailand as only “partly free” and ranked it among thuggish regimes like Burma for political rights. The U.S. State Department, which praised Thailand in 2000 for free elections and peaceful transfers of power, now chronicles its extrajudicial killings and its limits on freedom of speech and assembly.

In part, the recent upheavals are a result of longstanding political and economic grievances that have come to a head in urban riots, pitting largely rural supporters of exiled prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra against the generally Bangkok-based and wealthier backers of Abhisit. There are deep regional and class divides at work here, but that does not mean this collapse was inevitable. In the past decade Thai leaders, like the CEOs of companies losing ground to upstart competitors, made a series of poor decisions that left their country playing catch-up to neighbors like Vietnam, China, and even Indonesia, once a basket case.

One misstep was a failure of long-term thinking. During the good years, neither Abhisit’s Democrat Party nor Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai Party, which first took power in 2001, invested enough in overhauling an archaic education system, which emphasizes basic literacy and rote memorization. Taiwan, Singapore, China, and India invested in university education, English-language instruction, and higher-value skills, and as a result managed to build innovative companies with a global outlook, and sizable English-language outsourcing industries. But Thailand’s government and its major business groups remained wedded to lower-value manufacturing for foreign companies. Unlike China or Singapore, the government failed to create effective incentives to help Thai companies improve their workforces and expand globally. Large Thai conglomerates, historically protected by tight ties to government leaders, moved slowly to embrace real international competition, even as Thailand inked free-trade deals with China and other Southeast Asian states.

The failure was obvious. Thailand’s scores on the TOEFL exam, the test of English skills for students heading to university, now consistently rank among the lowest in Asia. No Thai-owned companies have emerged that compare with the Taiwanese computer giant Acer or the Indian IT giant Infosys. And as China gobbles up more and more low-end manufacturing, high-tech firms ignore Thailand. Intel built a $1 billion chip-assembly plant in Vietnam, a country that in the 1980s and 1990s lagged far behind Thailand. Last year Taiwanese manufacturers pledged to invest billions in Vietnam, compared with just $200 million pledged in Thailand, according to the Associated Press. Because Thailand has been unable to move into higher-value industries, and has been incapable of using government spending to prop up the economy indefinitely in an era of global financial crisis, its growth rates over the past four years have tumbled badly, from 5.2 percent in 2006 to 4.9 percent in 2007 to 2.5 percent in 2008 and minus 2.3 percent last year.

Meanwhile, Thai leaders chose not to preserve the core of its appeal to tourists. Neighboring Singapore enacted strict environmental-protection laws, and even in heavily industrialized South Korea, former Seoul mayor and current president Lee Myung-bak oversaw the replanting of millions of trees around the capital city and the cleanup of the metropolis’s major stream. Thailand let one natural wonder after the next become overdeveloped by resorts and condo complexes, undercutting an important element of the Thai brand. In a 2008 report, the Washington-based National Geographic Society looked at Phuket, historically Thailand’s premier island resort, and found that its “original charm as an astonishingly beautiful, unspoiled, and culturally rich destination has been completely lost.”

Over the past decade Thailand’s leaders failed even more miserably to preserve the peace. Thai politicians once seemed to have a unique knack for compromise. After violent clashes between the Army and demonstrators roiled Bangkok in 1992, both sides retreated, allowing a caretaker government to be formed, democracy to be put back on track, and the economy to muddle through largely unaffected. Not anymore. After big wins in the elections of 2001 and 2005, Thaksin, an autocratic CEO before entering politics, started running Thailand like the ultimate boss. He gutted theoretically independent institutions like the courts, the civil service, and the Bank of Thailand, promoting his loyalists and using public speeches to demean these institutions, which had helped stabilize Thailand for years. The opposition’s response further undermined Thai institutions. Rather than fight back at the polls, opposition leaders convened massive demonstrations that ultimately sparked a coup in 2006, forcing Thaksin into exile.

Thailand had seen many coups, but most had ended in compromise. Not this time. When a pro-Thaksin government was elected again, in 2007, anti-Thaksin yellow-shirt protesters shut down Bangkok; after Abhisit’s government replaced a pro-Thaksin government in 2008, the red shirts poured out into the streets in an attempt to force Abhisit to step down. The result of this incessant brinkmanship is a furious Thai population ready to explode at any change in the political status quo, making compromise much harder.

While Thai leaders were trying to centralize power in their own hands, their Asian rivals were moving the opposite way. In Indonesia, the government has devolved more authority from Jakarta, in order to tamp down local grievances. Even authoritarian China has granted greater powers to local officials. In Thailand, after the 2006 coup, leaders replaced the progressive 1997 Constitution with one that provided an amnesty for the coup leaders, made the Senate less democratic, and tried to quiet unrest by strengthening central authority in Bangkok. These decisions backfired, first by a widening of an already-spiraling insurgency in Muslim-dominated southern Thailand, and then in the red-shirt protest movement, both of which resent the growing power of Bangkok. Yet Abhisit continues to bulk up the capital, and now uses an emergency decree to restrict civil liberties and allow the security forces to crack down harshly on protest.

As Thailand struggled, many had hoped that Thailand’s most important leader, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, would intervene. A constitutional monarch who wields significant political power, he had long been perceived as a neutral party. But the pro-Thaksin red shirts apparently no longer trust him.

Can Thailand’s brand be repaired? Other cities and countries have managed to restore even more seriously damaged images, though it took time. Belfast, once synonymous with IRA bombings, now has developed a reputation as an up-and-coming cultural destination. Bogotá is starting to be recognized as a model of urban planning, now that Colombia is getting control of its murderous drug cartels. But the key factor in Northern Ireland and Colombia—statesmanlike leadership—is currently absent in Thailand. Abhisit has offered to address some of the protesters’ grievances, boosting government spending in the new budget by more than 20 percent and reassessing the Constitution, which might result in restoring elements of the 1997 Constitution. But his economic plan copies some of Thaksin’s populist but divisive plans to redistribute wealth to the countryside. There is no serious plan to reform the education system, revive Thai competitiveness, or restore the environment. Abhisit also seems unable to do anything to reduce the power of the military, and after the current commander in chief of the Army retires in September, his likely replacement, Prayuth Chan-ocha, is known to be much harder-line. With the king ailing—he has been in the hospital for months—the revival of the monarch’s role as mediator seems unlikely. And without a true statesman, the revival of brand Thailand seems far off.

Joshua Kurlantzick is fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.

21 years on

4 June 2010

Today marks the 21st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, and as usual the successors to those Chinese Communist Party leaders – who ordered the People’s Liberation Army to open fire on their own people – will do everything in their power to ensure the day passes unmarked and unnoticed.

In Hong Kong thousands will gather in Victoria Park to commemorate the crackdown on pro-democracy and student protests in Beijing.

In Beijing most people have moved on. 21 years is a generation. The protestors from 21 years ago are now the parents of middle class families that have benefited from the huge growth in China, especially its cities, and their new found prosperity.

Meanwhile Hong Kong has a separate legal system from China as part of the deal that returned the former British colony to Chinese rule in 1997, and it remains a centre for dissident activity because of its keen commitment to free speech.

It would not hurt China now to open up its history books and acknowledge to its people and the world the events of 21 years ago.

There is also the annual letter from the Mothers of Tiananmen who lost their children at Tiananmen asking why the Party can’t bring itself, even at twenty-one years remove, to re-evaluate the massacre and the lives of the protestors and let the healing process begin.

There may have already been an attempt to test whether China is ready for change: on Tuesday, a Chinese newspaper published a cartoon that showed a boy's drawing of a row of tanks moving toward a solitary figure. It was an apparent reference to the famous photograph of a lone man holding up a tank convoy on a Beijing street.

The cartoon in the Southern Metropolitan Daily was quickly pulled from the newspaper's website, apparently underlining official nervousness over depictions of the Tiananmen protests. But it is already in widespread circulation.
 

The characters on the board say “School Newspaper”, while in the top left corner the torch of liberty (taken from the Liberty statue erected by the students in 1989) burns brightly while a diminutive Chinese flag flutters in front of half-opened gates that appear to point in some way to the future.

The day after the cartoon was published, the newspaper issued a disclaimer, saying that any resemblance to the events of 1989 was purely coincidental. Nonetheless, it took the cartoon off its website: "To avoid negative connotations, we pulled the picture off voluntarily," a customer service representative of the paper, which is based in Guangdong province, was quoted as telling Radio Free Asia.

Perhaps the main point being made is that history should not be whitewashed and forgotten. Young people in China should know what happened and – for better or worse – the Party needs to acknowledge the killings, even as it seeks to justify its actions in the name of enabling the prosperity and stability of the last 21 years.

Human Rights Watch issued a call this week for the Chinese government to open up about the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

"The government has failed to publish verifiable casualty figures, quashed all public discussion of June 1989 and continues to victimize survivors, victims' families, and others who challenge the official version of events," it said in a statement released by its New York office.

Good or bad, it beats propaganda

Perhaps the outrage should also be directed at the government to compel it to provide a framework and basis for unbiased local coverage.
4 June 2010 The Bangkok Post

Since the now infamous open letter to CNN, outrage among certain groups of Thai people has grown and their bloodlust appears to be reaching a crescendo.

``It is so biased,'' claimed one Facebook message, which echoed the sentiment expressed by many netizens. ``It is irresponsible journalism,'' railed another.

Yet as more and more statements and open letters have been made against the US Cable News Network in particular, and other foreign media outlets in general, the storm seems to be worsening rather than subsiding.

Among the more ludicrous statements are accusations (without base) lobbed at CNN anchor Dan Rivers, of being biased and engaged in foul play. This is against a man who has won awards for his coverage, the very same person who has spent the past six years reporting from Thailand.

But as the dust settles in Bangkok and the political fallout has yet to be measured, Thais who are full of bloodlust for the ``biased international media'' should stop clamouring and do some introspection with a little bit of perspective.

When violence first broke out on April 10 and international and social media began focusing on the battles at Kok Wua and Din Saw road, mainstream Thai television was busy sharing with the general public the screaming of antagonists in that evening's soap operas.

The absence of hard news (or the prevalence of kiddy game shows and lakhorn) was even more noticeable when running battles occurred around around Din Daeng and Bon Kai. On May 19, the only channel showing continued live streams of both the build-up and eventual crackdown on the red shirt protest was Thai PBS.

When the arsonists targeted CentralWorld, it was on CNN and BBC (as well as Twitter and Facebook) that the first images were shown.

Yes, Western media have their share of problems. Certain media outlets have adopted the Fox News method of approachable journalism, building up tiny cults of personalities around famous correspondents. One might deplore this as sorry journalism, but as Fox consolidates a major market share in North America it is understandable why the modus operandi has been adopted.

It is fair criticism that names like O'Reilly and Anderson Cooper (and for older audiences Geraldo) have dominated the story more than the story itself.

It is also fair criticism to say that sensationalism has sadly become the norm rather than the exception.

But to roundly accuse the ``evil Western media'' as being ``bought and paid for'' is petty and laughable.

If anything, the failings of both local and foreign media have propped up social media as the outlet of choice among news junkies and casual observers alike.

For the first time in Thailand there is a live stream of events by professional and student journalists as well as bystanders caught on the ground. Admittedly, sometimes that stream is incoherent, and social media should always be passed through a filter, but at Wat Pathumwanaram on the night of May 19, it was the constant tweeting of an embedded journalist _ among other things _ that helped prompt higher calls for a cease-fire in the area.

And while Western media might have its failings, one wonders why the people calling for its head are the same people who resort to watching it. Instead of scrutinising the cable outlets, if the ire is so great, why not turn to local media?

The answer, of course, is that because there is not much to turn to. If foreign journalists are biased, then local television verges on government propaganda.

So the next time Thais start writing open letters to Western media and getting indignant, perhaps the outrage should also be directed at the government to compel it to provide a framework and basis for unbiased local coverage.

The next time we are irate and launch a tirade at the ``evil Dan Rivers'' perhaps that zealotry and vengeance should be directed at those responsible for the utter lack of credibility of local news outlets and the press censorship that has prompted us to watch ``the horribly biased Western media'' in the first place.

Cod Satrusayang is a writer and blogger based in Bangkok.

More property woes for Dubai

3 June 2010

Dubai home prices may drop 20 percent further as properties under construction are completed, Credit Suisse said, adding to a consensus that the market has further to fall.

“We expect asset prices to stabilize by the end of 2011 or beginning of 2012, depending on how quickly the supply is absorbed by the market,” Ahmed Badr, the Zurich-based bank’s analyst in Dubai said in a research report. Oversupply will probably peak in 2011, he said.

Dubai went from being the world’s best-performing real estate market to the worst within a year as the financial crisis strained financing for mortgages and forced out speculative buyers. Colliers International estimates 41,000 residential units will enter the market by the end of 2010, mostly in the low- to mid-income markets, according to a May 9 report. Home prices have dropped more than 50 percent since mid-2008.

A drop of 20 percent more would take average prices to about 837 dirhams ($227) a square foot, based on Credit Suisse’s current price estimate of 1,046 dirhams. Deutsche Bank AG analyst Nabil Ahmed expects prices to reach 850 dirhams by the end of this year. UBS AG analyst Saud Masud predicts a drop to about 600 dirhams. Badr said prices will fall by a minimum of 15 percent.

“We are still seeing a very low number of transactions,” Deutsche’s Ahmed said by telephone today. “No one is getting financing from the bank. There are still some people keen to buy at these prices, especially in central locations where they think the floor has been reached.”

Prices in neighboring Abu Dhabi are about 20 percent higher than in Dubai and rents are 45 percent more, Badr of Credit Suisse said in the note. He predicted that the gap will narrow as the emirate is also affected by new supply coming onto the market.

The demise of Thailand

3 June 2010

Advice to foreign investors - don't. Advice to tourists - come but with caution; head to the beaches and not the cities The violence is not over

Advice to foreign residents; have an exit plan

The Thai refrain is that "foreigners don't understand Thailand." This has to stop. Maybe the only thing we dont understand is why TV networks show game shows and soap opera while people are dieing of the streets.

The Thai media got to tell the FCCT tonight why the foreign press is wrong and the heavily censored Thai press is correct. One commentator on Twitter simply said afterwards that the "FCCT panelists showed such ignorance, hatred, racism, sexism, elitism that no one would ever believe them (except in Thailand)."

Dr Sumet Jumsai – Architect, artist and social commentator - was reported as saying of the  reds: "How can you negotiate with barbarians?" adding that the reds were probably worse than Nazis

So reconciliation looks ever more remote.

And even the Nation is clear that there are huge shortfalls in decent behaviour and reconciliatory efforts on both sides.

Murder in the name of reconciliation

3 June 2010 - The Nation

"Two weeks after the May 19 military crackdown on mostly unarmed red-shirt protesters and the burning of more than 30 spots in Bangkok, it appears as if it all took place for nothing. Those who hate continue to hate, while those who wanted the red shirts to be punished got what they wanted. Yet there's been no reflection.

Of the 89 killed since April 10, most were red-shirt protesters. The movement continues to be cracked down upon and intimidated with arrests under the emergency decree - all in the name of national reconciliation.

Talk of reconciliation is empty if you shut the ears, eyes and mouths of those very people you claim you want to reconcile with and arrest those who call for a small protest outside an emergency-ruled area, as happened to Chulalongkorn University history lecturer Suthachai Yimprasert. He was arrested and released after a week, while his "co-conspirator", Somyos Prueksakasemsuk, the leftist editor of "Voice of Taksin" magazine, who does not have the status of academic, remains a political detainee.

One human-rights activist ranted that even in the aftermath of the darkest day in modern Thai history - October 6, 1976 - the names of those arrested were made public. This time, two weeks after May 19, we still don't have such a list.

Also, how long will Bangkok and the 23 other provinces be ruled under the emergency decree? Should it continue for another month, or until the next general election is held late next year? We are now at the mercy of the Abhisit Vejjajiva regime and those behind him who are deeply insecure and addicted to the idea of emergency rule in order to sustain an illusion of political normalcy.

In this climate of "reconciliation", transparency, rights to political assembly and due process of law are gone, as arbitrary arrests and censorship under the emergency "law" becomes the new norm. One disturbing "truth" is the story behind the death of six people at Pathum Wanaram Temple.

Though Abhisit told the lower House that an "independent" committee would be set up to find out the truth, the government's statement, released in English and dated as early as May 20 - one day after the tragedy - purportedly stated with absolute certainty that it was "a well-planned operation on the part of the armed group who knowingly took advantage of the temple's designation as a safe area …".

So why the need for a committee when "the definitive truth" is already readily available a mere day after the incident? I think the government's failure to fly the national flag at half mast even for a day to mourn the loss of lives is probably the most sincere reflection of the authority's sentiments. The fact that most red-shirt leaders failed to come up with even a single sentence to express a sense of contrition for those who lost their lives , properties or were undeservedly affected is equally inexcusable.

Many people, be they red or non-red, were left to deal with the pain and sorrow by themselves. A red-shirt contact said on Tuesday that many fellow members of the movement upcountry felt that they have no place to stand. Their mass-media outlets have all been shut down, while their arch-enemies - the yellow shirts - are taking great pleasure in their defeat. For many, death seems to be the only way out.

Some red shirts from the cities have visited their fellow protesters upcountry to sympathise, while others are learning how to shoot so they can seek revenge.

Back in Bangkok, a hundred small notes mourning the burning down of the Siam Theatre were left at the site. Only one of these notes expressed condolences for those who were killed - the rest were more disturbed that a fire had consumed their favourite movie theatre."
 

The Nation versus Robert Amsterdam

2 June 2010

I was trying to avoid Thai issues - but I am thoroughly enjoying the current war of words bewteen Robert Amstaredam , on nehalf of his fugitive client, and the Nation newspaper.

Given my view that neither the Nation or Amsterdam have much credibility they probably deserve eachother.

Thai media fiction

2 June 2010

from Twitter this afternoon:

Dan Rivers CNN: Reports of my meeting the PM utterly wrong. I am in Seoul on assignment. Shows you can't believe everything you read in Thai papers!

MCOT :  US Senator Jim Webb, CNN's Dan Rivers meet PM at Government House; controversial CNN report on Red Shirt protest expected on agenda

TAN network: CNN's Dan Rivers denies meeting with PM this evening, saying he is in Seoul on assignment

Veen_NT: US senator and CNN anchors/reporters Dan Rivers will meet PM Abhisit Vejjajiva. Panitan said the PM accepts the 'requested meeting".

Dubai Holding reports big loss

1 June 2010 - from Bloomberg

Dubai Holding Commercial Operations Group LLC, the real-estate and hospitality company owned by the emirate’s ruler, reported a full-year loss of 22.8 billion dirhams ($6.2 billion) after property prices plunged in the Gulf’s trade and tourism hub.

The loss attributable to shareholders compares with the previous year profit of 10 billion dirhams, Dubai Holding Commercial said in a statement to Nasdaq Dubai. Impairment charges for the year surged to 22.5 billion dirhams from 7.6 billion dirhams in 2008, while revenue dropped to 9.5 billion dirhams from 13.2 billion dirhams.

“Dubai Holding Commercial’s portfolio of companies have endured a challenging year,” Chief Executive Officer Ahmad Bin Byat said in the statement. “The key initiatives undertaken place us in a strong position, enabling Dubai Holding Commercial to shift in line and adapt to current market conditions.”

Dubai World, one of the emirate’s three main state-owned business groups, on May 20 reached an agreement with a group of creditors to restructure $23.5 billion of liabilities. The holding company’s announcement on Nov. 25 that it would seek to delay repaying loans sparked a plunge in developing-nation stocks 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.

Dubai Holding LLC, Dubai Holding Commercial’s parent, and its units owe banks $12 billion and have begun talks to roll over some loans, a person with knowledge of the matter said on May 10. Dubai International Capital LLC, an investment unit of Dubai Holding with a $1.25 billion loan due in June, sought a three-month extension on some of its payments on May 27.

The group is considering the rollover of maturing loans, sale of certain assets and renegotiation of trade and contractors’ claims as the company’s cash flows have come under severe pressure, the company said today in the statement.

”The holding company has confirmed its willingness to provide such financial support as may be required to manage the process and has confirmed that it has access to funds from the Dubai Financial Support Fund for the specific purpose,” it said.

Dubai in February last year created a $20-billion sovereign bond fund program to help companies suffering from the global credit crisis and property slump. The United Arab Emirates central bank subscribed to the first $10 billion tranche, while Abu Dhabi and its state-controlled banks picked up the rest.

Dubai Holding Commercial’s $500 million floating-rate note due February 2012 traded at 78 cents on the dollar at 9:59 a.m., down from 77.65 cents yesterday, according to BNP Paribas prices available to Bloomberg. The price has surged 72 percent since reaching a low in December.

The Dubai government and its state-owned companies have racked up $109.3 billion of debt, according to International Monetary Fund estimates, as the emirate pursued a drive to transform itself into a tourism, trade and financial services hub. About $15.5 billion of that is due this year, the IMF said.

Dubai Holding Commercial is a party to two pending litigations with customers who are seeking a combined 2.97 billion dirhams in claims, the statement said.

”The final resolution of this arbitration filing will not have a material impact on the group’s financial position as the lease contract was cancelled by the Group due to the customer breaching payment terms as per the lease contract.”

Du sends in the cavalry

1 June 2010

UAE telecom operator du on Tuesday announced that it will be bringing the FIFA World Cup to TV customers at a price of AED299.

Reacting to growing concerns among its customers who were becoming increasingly frustrated about how they would access action from the tournament, du said it was providing coverage at discounted prices.

In a statement, the telco said the current market price for the FIFA package was AED370, AED75 more than the du price.

du's coverage of the FIFA World Cup on Al Jazeera Sports channels will be on four dedicated Channels - Al Jazeera Sport Channel +9, Al Jazeera Sports +10, Al Jazeera Sports HD and Al Jazeera Sport World Cup, with some of the major matches being broadcasted in High Definition format.

du customers will be able to view Al Jazeera Sport channels and FIFA World Cup matches in both English and Arabic, the company added.

To subscribe to the World Cup package, du customers need to log on to www.du.ae/worldcup, or visit du shops.

The FIFA World Cup 2010 starts on June 11 in South Africa, and will see approximately four billion viewers watching on their TV screens across the globe.

Farid Faraidooni, chief commercial officer, du, said: “du is committed to providing top-class home entertainment to add a little enjoyment and good sporting fun to the lives of people in the UAE.

"We are pleased to be offering our du TV subscribers a great FIFA World Cup package through Al Jazeera Sport Channels, which enables football fans to enjoy full coverage of the event, hassle-free, in different languages, and in standard and High Definition formats."
 

Censored Thailand

1 June 2010

One of the problems of being in Bangkok at the is time is that i do not get access to all the news I woudl normally read and see - I only see the news that my nanny - the CES - wants me to see.

New Mandala highlights the following - "Those of you who have been reading New Mandala for at least a couple of weeks will recall that one of our posts (this one here) was recently blocked in Thailand. Since yesterday we have been receiving sporadic reports that this photo-essay by Nick Nostitz is also blocked in the kingdom.

It is only a few days ago that Nick himself talked to Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva about his recent experiences photographing in Bangkok and, in particular, the shooting of Red Shirt protesters at Rajaprarop."

All of the links are blocked in Thailand.

CNN on the shootings in BKK - yes it is Dan Rivers !