America's Cup still in court

30 November 2009

America's Cup champion Alinghi of Switzerland told a New York court this week that it has the right to face American challenger BMW Oracle Racing in the Persian Gulf port of Ras al-Khaimah, United Arab Emirates.

The Swiss asked the New York Supreme Court's Appellate Division to overturn the lower-court ruling that RAK is ineligible to host the best-of-three showdown beginning Feb. 8 because the 19th century Deed of Gift prohibits racing in the Northern Hemisphere between Nov. 1 and May 1.

Alinghi also asked that that match be delayed until May if the court doesn't reinstate RAK in February. That would allow its choice of RAK to comply with the Deed of Gift.

Alinghi spokesman Lucien Masmejan said that if the Swiss are rebuffed, they'll face the Americans in Valencia, Spain, in February.

The bitter rivals hope for a quick decision from the panel.

The Swiss have had their 90-foot catamaran, Alinghi 5, in the Persian Gulf port since late September. Although the boat has not been visible on my last two visits to Al Hamra.

BMW Oracle Racing's trimaran, known as BOR 90 and soon to be renamed USA, has been in San Diego since last fall. The Americans will finish their sea trials on Friday and then prepare their 90-by-90-foot boat to be shipped overseas.

Even as they pressed on with their appeal, the Swiss announced two weeks ago that they were preparing to race in Valencia. They also floated Australia as a possible compromise location.

The Swiss say RAK officials have committed $120 million for infrastructure to host the mammoth boats and their shore crews. When the choice of RAK was announced in August, Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi was quoted as saying it was "a great moment for us" to host the competition for the oldest trophy in international sports.

This would be a good decision for the UAE.

EK to slow 380 deliveries

30 November 2009

Flight International is reporting today that new details have emerged of Emirates' Airbus A380 delivery schedule over the next three years. These reveal that the airline has pushed back fleet expansion and will not receive any of the superjumbos for almost a year after the end of 2010.

Speaking at the Dubai air show, Jim Moravecek, outgoing president of the 50/50 General Electric/Pratt & Whitney joint venture Engine Alliance, said that Emirates, which is the lead GP7200-powered A380 customer, had delayed deliveries: "Emirates will have 15 A380s by 2010 and then defer for a little while."

Emirates has already revealed that due to production hold-ups its A380 fleet will not reach 15 units until late 2010.

After that Emirates shipments are not expected until late 2011 or 2012 when the fleet will rapidly doubleng over around 18 months to 30 aircraft.

Emirates has taken five A380s since its first arrived in July 2008. Its sixth, which is due before the end of November, is one of the ex-Airbus development airframes. Nine more deliveries are due through to late 2010.

There is some sense in this with the expansion of Terminal 3, necessary to support the larger fleet of A380s, unlikely to be completed until sometime in 2011.

Thailand Update - 30 November 2009

The United Arab Emirates would ask fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra to leave the country if he uses it as a base for attacking the Thai government, Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya's assistant Panit Vikitset said on Sunday.

He said the country would allow the ousted premier to stay as a businessman or a normal citizen.

The implication is that the UAE sees no grounds to keep Thaksin out of its country. So Thailand's extradition attempts are floundering.

"It is the responsibility of the Interpol to track Thaksin down," Panit said. Why would Interpol be interested? You have to laugh - it really is not hard to find him. Thaksin posted pictures today from his visit to The Mall of the Emirates last Saturday evening! Makes Panit sound foolish.

Panit is still insisting that Thaksin has changed his name to 'Takki Shinegra' in his foreign passports after the name 'Thaksin Shinawatra' did not appear in the arrival lists of many countries.

Thaksin earlier posted a Twitter message, rejecting the news that he was using a new name.

Meanwhile the traditional birthday eve address by Thailand's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej scheduled for Friday, Dec. 4, has been postponed indefinitely, the royal palace said on Monday. No reason was given.

The king's birthday address is normally given to an audience of dignitaries, including cabinet ministers and foreign diplomats, and broadcast to the country.

King Bhumibol, the world's longest-reigning monarch, turns 82 on Dec. 5. He has been ill in hospital since September 19th.

A trooping of the colour military parade in Bangkok, due to begin on Dec. 2 to celebrate the king's birthday, has also been postponed indefinitely, the office of the king's principal private secretary said in a statement.

The palace statement said Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn would meet with diplomats on Dec. 8 as part of the birthday celebrations.

Does Emirates have the solution for Heathrow?

29 November 2009

Emirates has joined the debate over the third runway at London's Heathrow airport. And their contribution needs a serious debate.

The bitterly contested third runway at Heathrow will probably never be built. Nor will a second runway at Stansted. And nor will the mythical Thames Estuary airport.

But London is already too busy. It is losing its lead position in Europe to more efficient airports such as Amsterdam. There is simply no capacity for long term growth at Heathrow.

Emirates solution - airlines can adopt a new landing approach involving thousands more night flights per year.

The Emirates plan is called the "Eco-Approach" and requires flying into the airport at a steeper angle which would reduce noise while cutting carbon dioxide emissions by reducing the need to stack flights.

In a proposal to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the UK's aviation regulator, Emirates claims that it will mean "no need for a new runway at Heathrow".

Tim Clark, president of Emirates, said the new landing approach would provide an extra four hours of flights (there is a night time curfew at Heathrow) and would only require a £2m investment in a new navigation system at the airport.

In January the government gave its blessing to plans for a third runway, which will increase flights from 480,000 a year to 702,000. But the conservatives do not support the new runway; the public enquiries would last forever and the runway would not open for many years.

Under the Emirates proposal both runways would be used for take-off and landing simultaneously in contravention of current limitations. But this is practised at many airports and is not done at Heathrow simply for noise reasons.

Pressure from the aviation industry and wider business lobby to expand Heathrow without building a new runway is likely to increase with the prospect of an electoral victory next year for the Conservative Party, which has vowed to oppose a third runway.

The CAA said it had received the proposal but it would require close study because it requires changes to the airspace around Heathrow.

A veteran campaigner against Heathrow expansion said predictably that residents would oppose the proposal vigorously. How many of these residents in fact make theor living from the airport and related services.

Current noise restrictions limit the airport to 16 flights between 11.30pm and 6am. Under the Emirates proposal the extra four hours of flights would land during the night-time curfew. Presumably changing the curfew to midnight to 04.30am or similar.

Heathrow's owner, BAA, sounded under whelmed by the proposal. The BAA said this would not ease the airport's capacity problems during the day adding that the airport has no plans to operate additional flights during the night.

Emirates did cautioned that the steep flight approach, which involves descending into the outskirts of Heathrow at a 5.5 degree angle rather than the usual 3 degrees, is subject to further trials and can only be carried out safely by the new generation of airliners including the Airbus A380 superjumbo and the yet-to-be-launched A350 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Emirates carries 23 million passengers per year but its Heathrow services are set to expand rapidly as it adds more than 50 A380s to its fleet.

Sharjah's aviation heritage

28 November 2009

I have been rereading Alexander Frater's book Beyond the Blue Horizon where in 1986 he retraced the old Imperial Airways route from Croydon/London to Brisbane. Part of that journey involved traveling through Bahrain, Dubai, Sharjah and Muscat. in 23 years these cities have changed dramatically.

In 1932 the first airport in the Gulf was opened in Sharjah, and was used as one of many staging posts for commercial flights flown by Imperial Airlines en route from Britain to India.

The airport was known as Al Mahatta and has now been replaced by the modern Sharjah airport, However the old city centre site has a museum in the airport's buildings to show the importance of the airfield in the history of aviation and in the development of traditional society in the Emirate of Sharjah.

The museum holds four of the original propeller planes, fully restored, in the hangar alongside the original refueling tanker.

In 1932 Sheikh Sultan of Sharjah offered a site just to the southeast of his city. The RAF built a runway on an area of hard, flat sand running northwest to southeast, and Imperial Airways built a resthouse in the form of an open square courtyard with accomodation in the enclosed wings, and a massive fort-like structure in one corner for control of the air traffic and a wireless station.

Imperial Airways passengers in their Handley Page HP42s en route between London and India stayed overnight here from October 1932. During World War 2 the RAF made Sharjah into an airbase and they continued to use it until the 1970s.

A new control tower was built next to the fort and a new terminal followed in 1968. But the rapidly growing town of Sharjah was now too close, and a new airport opened in the desert south of Sharjah in 1977. The runway at RAF Sharjah become King Abdul Aziz Street, now right in the town centre.

The picture below shows Sharjah airport in 1976, with an arrow for where the museum is now located. The old borders of the airport are easy to trace, and the runway is visible as King Abdul Aziz Street.

The four aircraft in the main display area are supposed to be original Gulf Aviation machines, although apparently they are not.

There is a  Heron, A DC3, an Anson and a Dove. 

The nose and cockpit of Comet R2 XK655 were recently added to the collection representing the first commercial jetliner to come to Sharjah.

The museum is  open daily. Time for me to make a visit.

Tiger has the blues

28 November 2009

Late last the late news was full of stories about Tiger Woods being injured in a car accident at this home in Florida. Reliable news agencies were talking about serious injuries. It took 12 hours before the police released any news about the incident and that was vague.

What was he doing driving out of his home at 2.30 in the morning? How do you get facial lacerations from backing into a fire hydrant that is outside your house.

There is more to this story and one online site is reporting that prior to the accident Woods and wife Elin Nordegren had an argument.

There have also been reports in the National Enquirer that Woods has been cheating on his wife with actress Rachel Uchitel, a New York socialite. True or not the rumours have been spreading.

At any rate, as time passes, more details about the Tiger Woods car accident will arise.

One story is that the argument got heated and she scratched his face up. Woods beat a hasty retreat for his SUV and said his wife followed behind with a golf club. As Tiger drove away, she struck the vehicle several times with the club and he backed into the hydrant. Oops.

The police have said that his wife used a golf club to smash the back window to get Woods from the car. He backed into a hydrant at a speed slow enough not to deploy the airbag. Why would his wife smash the back windshield to pull him out of the car when she easily could have opened a side door?

Maybe he was heading out for a little floodlit practice?

Tiger has been out of sorts for some time. On the professional golf circuit in recent weeks one question has been asked repeatedly: “What is wrong with Tiger Woods?”

At the HSBC Champions tournament in Shanghai three weeks ago, the world No 1 was miserable. Instead of selling the game to huge Chinese crowds he appeared irritable. Undoubtedly, he lost the PR battle with his old adversary, Phil Mickelson, who milked the crowds for all he was worth. The crowds were exuberant. But they got no acknowledgement from their hero. 

A week later in Australia his appearance fee pulled in vast crowds in what was a sell-out for a normally lacklustre event and he went on to win the tournament. But his victory was overshadowed by a fit of pique in the third round when he tossed his driver away in disgust only for it to fly over the heads of spectators and into the crowd.

So all is not well with Tiger.

Down but not out

27 November 2009

I have been thinking about silver linings. And in some ways a night out yesterday was reassuring. A year ago the Jumeirah Beach Walk did not exist.

Last night it was a heaving mass of people. They go there for the long promenade walk with restaurants, shops, cafes that pour out onto the paved sidewalks.

Sure it was a holiday. But it is like this every weekend.

There are two new hotels there ready to open including a new Sofitel. The beachside Hilton is there already.

And today the malls were packed and the roads full as people took advantage of the long holiday and the special holiday sales.

There is a huge amount of told you so about Dubai's financial mess. There is little doubt that the city grew too quickly. That greed took over from regulation. That short term gains mattered more than long term sustainability.

Brand Dubai went global as well investing in assets as diverse as the Cape Town's Waterfront, Barney's clothing store in New York and the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas.

Sure there are some people enjoying Dubai's malaise. But it is also true that Dubai has managed something of a miracle in a region beset by violence and social disintegration.

Dubai's bold growth comes from engaging the world - and in particular the West - through the development of tourism and promotion of the City as a global player alongside London, New York and Paris.

Dubai sought to be an example in the Arab world, exposing the region to outside influences (and some of its vices) and creating a welcoming environment for business and leisure.

The vision must have created an impression across Arabia as it has largely been copied by Abu Dhabi, Qatar and even conservative Saudi Arabia albeit on a more modest (and wiser) scale.

But great vision also requires execution and effective management. There was no transparency and public scrutiny. No effective corporate governance. It was a greed drive free-for-all.

Dubai's model is built around importing demand and services from the rest of the world. There is the smallest of domestic markets. With no domestic demand, every sector of the economy had to be imported - from media conglomerates to services. The the financial crisis hit a year ago and as the world contracted, so did Dubai.

But what Dubai started, others will continue to copy. Going first can be a disadvantage.  Watch Abu Dhabi, driven by more conservative growth and with the safety net of massive oil deposits.

The holiday and a feeble media mean that many questions remain unanswered. Keeping investors informed and having international finance privy to problems was the only way to mitigate the fall-out from the present position.

Yet there are towers full of international PR companies in Dubai who could have helped. But the instinct of the authorities was not to trust foreigners to manage their news. Strange.

Dubai might be down - but it's certainly not out. A powerful Arab nation integrated with the rest of the world acting as a financial and cultural hub is unlikely to be allowed to fail by either the UAE authorities or the western lenders and governments. But there is a great deal of work to do to restore credibility and confidence.
 

Thailand update - 27 November 2009

Fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra wants the government to spare him legal punishment. In return, he will put an end to protests against it, says a Puea Thai Party source.

The move was part of a strategy laid out by Thaksin, as conveyed by politicians who visited the ousted prime minister in Dubai recently.

Any negotiations would proceed on the condition that Thaksin would be spared the two-year jail term which he fled overseas last year to avoid.

Thaksin's 76-billion-baht assets seizure case, for which a court verdict is expected in January, would also be up for negotiation.

If they reached a deal, rallies against the government would cease and the Democrat-led coalition government could remain in power.

Meanwhile on Twitter Thaksin urged Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to visit Dubai and eat camel meat.

"I would like to invite Khun Abhisit to eat camel meat here so that he will have a better understanding," Thaksin posted on his twitter page at 4 am Bangkok's time.

Better understanding of what? The local diet ?

Who is being tacky?

November 26, 2009

Someone is misleading us - but who. Does Thaksin have a Takki alias. The government says yes; Thaksin say no. Who do you believe?

Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra blasted the Foreign Ministry yesterday over the alleged alias he is supposed to use on his passฌports given by foreign countries, saying the ministry had sunk to its lowest point.

Vice foreign minister Panich Vikitsreth said on Wednesday Thaksin's name on passports issued by Nicaragua, Uganda and Montenegro had been changed to "Takki Shinegra".

In a Twitter note on his webฌsite yesterday Thaksin said a well-known person like him did not need to change his name.

"A person like me is too well-known to hide. It's useless for me to change my name since many people know me. I walk in department stores in any country [and] many people come to greet me," he said.

"I still use my old name but don't say I would have a sexual transplant. It can't be helped, as you guys are so stupid to revoke my Thai passport, so you have no way to trace me through nonThai documents.

"Don't challenge me to show my passports. I won't, since you would fake them electronically, 5555," Thaksin said in his note.

Panich insisted that he had evidence to prove Thaksin had changed his name in passports issued by Nicaragua and other countries.

"We got the information from reliable sources but I can't disclose them," he said. That does not give the government minister much credibility. Show us the evidence to support your allegation!

"We are confident that Thaksin travelled in other names since we have checked with countries he visited, but did not find his name," he said.
 

Dubai gives holiday shocker to financial markets

26 November 2009

[Breaking news - late night - A senior Dubai government official, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum, chairman of Dubai's Supreme Fiscal Committee, said he understood the concerns in the markets, but that "decisive action" was needed to address Dubai World's debt problem. Note that the Sheikh is also President of the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, Chairman and Chief Executive of Emirates Airline and Group.]

Timing is everything and this is bad. Until yesterday the financial markets expected Nakheel (part of government owned Dubai World) to redeem its Islamic bond when it matures in two weeks.

Recent comments from Dubai government VIPs reinforced the expectation that debts would be paid on time.

But yesterday Dubai World announced that it is asking creditors to defer payment for at least six months.

The significance of this bond is that it is the world's largest Islamic financial instrument and has been long considered as a benchmark of Dubai's ability to meet its commitments.

The markets will also be unimpressed by the timing of the announcement which was made after the close of the local stock market on the eve of the Eid holiday. Most offices are now closed until December 6th. So for the next week there will be neither comment or clarification. Globally there are questions whether the request for a delay amounts to a repayment default.

The effects of this announcement are global: the dollar has risen in Europe driven both by fear of a debt default by Dubai World as well as talk of intervention by the Bank of Japan and suspected intervention by the Swiss National Bank. The FTSE also struggled after the Dubai announcement; shares in London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) were under pressure today amid fears that the state-owned Borse Dubai could sell its 22 per cent stake in the FTSE 100 company.

The situation in Dubai also weighed on the banking sector across Europe. BNP Paribas (BNPP.PA), Banco Santander (SAN.MC), Barclays (BARC.L), Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX), Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE), HSBC (HSBA.L), and UniCredit (CRDI.MI) were down between 2.7 and 4.6 percent. European banks face potential losses on an estimated $40 billion in exposure to Dubai. Property shares also fell on the Dubai worries: Britain's recovering commercial real estate market could be scuppered if the Dubai government was forced to hold a firesale of its international real estate.

The FTSE had its biggest daily fall since March 2009 based largely on fears over Dubai's financial security.

Even in Chile stocks ended 2.2% lower on dubai debt restructuring news.

The US markets are closed for thanksgiving but in Toronto the TSX is down sharply on Dubai World debt repayments.

In one of the first signs that Dubai's problems could hurt global fund-raising efforts for its neighbors, Saudi-backed Gulf International Bank pulled a bond sale due to priced this week.

Dubai's move will likely lead to a reassessment of the riskiness of debt issued by the region's sovereign-linked firms.

This is all about credibility; it is the right things to do; a restructuring of corporate Dubai is long overdue; but investors had been reassured by local officials for months that the city would meet all obligations on its $80bn (£48bn) of gross debt in spite of recession and a real estate crash.

The local newspapers are all trumpeting an announcement that Dubai had raised $5bn from two Abu Dhabi banks. The $5bn was only half the amount expected and it was poor to see it trumpeted as good news in the local media.

Earlier this month Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, the Ruler of Dubai, told an investor conference that "the second tranche of the bond programme will be well received and it will be used to meet current and future obligations."

But two hours later the Department of Finance announced that is is asking for a standstill until May 30 on all financing to the heavily indebted Dubai World and its troubled property unit Nakheel, which is due to pay back $4bn on an Islamic bond on December 14.

As part of the requested deferral Dubai also announced a restructuring of the government holding company, which oversees ports operator DP World, the UK-based P&O Ferries and troubled investment company Istithmar.

A spokeswoman for the department of finance said the government intended to ask all bondholders to extend until May. But the government said no decision had yet been made on how to deal with investors insisting on repayment in December.

Bond markets reacted sharply to the news. Standard & Poor's and Moody's Investors Service yesterday downgraded the ratings of all six government-related issuers in Dubai following news of the repayment delay.

Looking for a possible explanation it just maybe that the debt standstill is a trial balloon floated to gauge investor reaction to a voluntary restructuring of Dubai World’s debts. But if that is the case the announcement should not have been on the eve of the UAE's longest holiday.

The confusion ahead of a four-day holiday is such that some conspiracy theorists even believe the move was somehow foisted on Dubai by Abu Dhabi, tightening the purse-strings on upstart Dubai.

The timing really could not be worse; there was a sense of returning optimism as hotels filled up, business confidence rose and a feared expatriate exodus failed to materialise.

And why the need to defer payment. In February Dubai raised $10bn in bonds from the UAE central bank in the first half of its $20bn sovereign bond programme in an effective bail-out from the oil-rich capital. The yesterday, Dubai raised $5bn of the second $10bn tranche from National Bank of Abu Dhabi and Al Hilal Bank, two institutions with strong Abu Dhabi government holdings.

Dubai's department of finance managed to raise almost $2bn in Islamic bonds last month in a move that had also shored up confidence.

It is unclear whether the Nakheel sukuk (due in December) restructuring process will be voluntary, which would give creditors the option to extend, or involuntary, which would force bondholders to extend and trigger a default and potential legal action against the government.

The restructuring announcement leaves many open questions. If creditors have no choice but to extend, then this will constitute a default. Clearly the government has to clarify these issues.

Dubai World has also appointed global accountancy group Deloitte to help with its financial restructuring. Again this should have happened many months ago. Not days before the first major repayment is due.

Deloitte restructuring veteran Aidan Birkett will be spending plenty of time in Dubai now that he has been appointed chief restructuring officer to Dubai World.

Mr Birkett, who remains managing director of Deloitte's corporate finance, has spent 25 years in corporate finance, advising on business turnarounds and restructurings including MyTravel, Metronet and Gate Gourmet.

In the short term what can Dubai do? A review of the tax regime is likely but will not provide immediate cash inflows. But the Dubai government could be forced to hold a firesale of its international real estate if creditors to two of its flagship companies reject proposals to defer near-term debt obligations until May 2010.

Dubai's international assets comprise landmarks such as the Grand Buildings close to London's Trafalgar Square, the Mandarin Oriental hotel in New York and the Victoria & Albert Waterfront complex in Cape Town, South Africa.

Another option to raise cash - is to hasten the public listing of cash making assets - such as Emirates Airline.

There was also an expectation in the local financial markets that, in the end, the federal government in Abu Dhabi would stand by all of Dubai's bad bets. Last night's announcement indicates that Abu Dhabi is not planning to meet Dubai's debts.


Links to the international media follow:

NYT. Dubai Fund Asks for Stay on Debt Payments.

WSJ. Dubai Debt Woes Turn Ugly After It Seeks Standstill Deal

The Times. Dubai World and properties built on sand.

Daily Telegraph. Dubai recovery hopes hit by debt 'standstill' call.

FT. Dubai shock after debt standstill call

REUTERS Q and A

Dubai, the member of the United Arab Emirates federation in deep financial straits, is struggling to meet debt obligations of up to $80 billion.

On Wednesday, the government said it will ask creditors of its flagship firms Dubai World and property group Nakheel for a debt standstill as it restructures the Dubai World group.

WHO RUNS DUBAI?

Each of the seven emirates is run by its own ruling family, many of whose members have substantial business interests. Dubai is ruled by the Al Maktoum family. The line between personal property of rulers and Dubai "state" ownership is blurred.

WHAT ARE DUBAI'S MAIN COMPANIES?

Dubai government owns three major corporate entities, Dubai Holding, run by Mohammed Al Gergawi; Dubai World, run by Sultan bin Sulayem; and the Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD).

Last week Dubai's ruler reshuffled the board of ICD, which manages his wealth, bringing in two of his sons as directors and removing Gergawi and Mohamed Alabbar, chief of Emaar Properties.

WHICH MAJOR FIRMS DO THEY OWN?

Dubai World, Sheikh Mohammed bi Rashid al-Maktoum's investment vehicle, includes shipping giant DP World and developer Nakheel, which is behind the famous man-made palm-shaped islands which came to define Dubai in the minds of many around the world during the boom years.

Dubai Holding includes property developers Sama Dubai, Dubai Properties and Tatweer, which are all being merged with Alabbar's Emaar -- part of ICD. ICD also includes key entities involved in running the emirate, such as the Dubai Electricity & Water Authority and the Road and Transport Authority, as well as Dubai Aluminum (Dubal) and the flagship airline group Emirates.

DUBAI WORLD CAN'T MEET DEBT OBLIGATIONS?

Most of Dubai's debts, which have been exposed by the financial crisis, have arisen through Dubai World. Wednesday's announcement came about because the conglomerate wanted to delay repayment of a $3.5 billion sukuk bond due on December 14.

WHAT HAS ABU DHABI DONE?

Abu Dhabi, ruled by the Al Nahayan family, has not stepped in to directly bail out Dubai, which would carry direct political implications for Dubai's freedom of maneuver as a maverick member of the UAE. Dubai, for example, maintains wide trade links with Iran despite ongoing tensions between the UAE and the Islamic Republic over a territorial row and Iran's nuclear plans. A more influential Abu Duabi might want to curb such ties. The federal central bank, based in Abu Dhabi, has bought $10 billion from a $20 billion bond program announced by the Dubai government earlier this year. On Wednesday two Abu Dhabi banks bought another $5 billion worth of the bonds.

WHAT ABOUT ABU DHABI'S FINANCES?

Abu Dhabi is where most of the UAE's oil is located. The UAE, with a population of less than 5 million, is the world's third largest oil exporter and has the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. Its assets are thought to be worth around $500-$700 billion.

Very Tacky

25 November 2009

According to the Thai government ex Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has used a new name in his passports issued by some African countries. This was reported by Thai Vice foreign minister Panich Vikitsreth on Wednesday.

Thaksin's name in passports issued by Nicaragua, Uganda and Montenegro has been changed to "Takki Shinegra," he said.

The Thai government has revoked Thaksin's diplomatic passport issued during his premiership. He was believed to have an ordinary Thai passport. Some African countries have apparently issued him a passport to facilitate his travels.

Panich said Thaksin's new name may cause problems for Thailand's attempt to bring him back to face two-year jail term on charge of corruption.

"Problems can happen when we ask foreign countries to extradite him. We name him in our request as Thaksin Shinawatra but when those countries check his presence, they would not find him because he used different name," Panich said.

The name is great - it sounds like a Japanese manga character.

The Uganda passport is a new one - I had not heard about that before.

Better Off As We Are

By Jason Schneider - www.exclaim.ca

24 November 2009

It's easy to take something for granted when it becomes as integral to your cultural identity as an accent or even the changing seasons. For nearly 25 years, the music of Blue Rodeo has held such importance for thousands of Canadians. No other band, not even the Tragically Hip, has been as widely embraced, and in turn has naturally embodied so many sensibilities shared throughout the nation. But just as a clear definition of a Canadian sound remains elusive, so does the sound of Blue Rodeo. Firmly rooted in the traditions of folk, country and early rock'n'roll, they have, in spite of their evolution over the course of a dozen albums, been instantly identifiable, whether the voice leading the band belongs to Greg Keelor or Jim Cuddy. Theirs is a classic rock'n'roll bond, one built upon a simple dream, which now has given birth to its own community within Canada. It can't be over-emphasized, then, that Blue Rodeo's latest album, The Things We Left Behind, easily ranks among their best. It's also perhaps the band's most ambitious offering. With 16 tracks spread over two discs ― and four sides of vinyl ― Keelor and Cuddy push their songwriting in new directions, while never losing sight of what has always made their work great: the chemistry that only occurs when they, and the rest of the band, perform together. It's hard to conceive of where Canadian rock would be without them.

1971 to 1977
Jim Cuddy (born Dec. 2, 1955 in Toronto) and Greg Keelor (born Aug. 29, 1954 in Inverness County, NS) meet while attending North Toronto Collegiate. Cuddy is quarterback of the football team, while Keelor is on the defensive side. Cuddy's immediate post-graduation plans entail driving west with friends in a renovated school bus, and when one passenger pulls out, Keelor takes his place. The bus breaks down in Saskatchewan, whereupon Keelor finds work in Lake Louise and Cuddy heads to Banff. There, Cuddy meets an aspiring country/rockabilly singer named Robin Masyk, who later lands in Toronto under the name Handsome Ned. Masyk's example gets Cuddy performing in coffeehouses, while Keelor learns guitar by studying Gordon Lightfoot and Everly Brothers songbooks. Cuddy enrols at Queen's University in 1975, but keeps in touch with Keelor, now that they share a similar musical passion.

1978 to 1980
Back in Toronto together and inspired by local punk bands the Demics and the Mods, Keelor and Cuddy form the Hi-Fis, a power pop quartet. That band record a single, "I Don't Know Why (You Love Me)," for their manager's Showtime label, which drums up some interest within the city. They are approached by Ready Records, home to new wave acts Blue Peter and the Spoons, but the deal falls through when the Hi-Fis cannot find more gigs outside of their limited circuit. "A lot of partnerships are forged in failure," Cuddy says today. "We were actually quite happy doing what we'd been doing, even though we hadn't had a lot of success. When we started, everybody embraced the fact that we had two singers. Some people leaned more toward Greg's stuff, some more towards mine."

1981 to 1983
Cuddy's girlfriend (and future wife) Rena Polley is accepted at a New York City theatre school, and he opts to move there with her. Keelor follows suit, knowing that his old friends Michael Timmins and Alan Anton are also there with Hunger Project, the band that will become Cowboy Junkies. Cuddy and Keelor form Fly To France, with a revolving line-up recruited from Village Voice ads. The pair cross paths with a New Zealand outfit called the Drongos, and enlist them to help record a demo consisting of "Try," "Outskirts," "Rose-Coloured Glasses," and "Floating." Every label roundly rejects it as too soft. Their ex-pat Canadian manager Howard Wiseman introduces them to his younger brother Bobby, who studied avant-garde piano at York University. Their initial jams together are the few bright spots in an otherwise frustrating period. Keelor, who works as a waiter, suffers severe homesickness, and eventually convinces Cuddy to return to Toronto, a decision the latter instinctively feels is a mistake.

1984
The pair first hires drummer Cleave Anderson, whose resume includes stints with Toronto bands the Battered Wives and the Sharks. Another one-time Shark, bassist Bazil Donovan, answers an ad placed in NOW magazine, and gets the gig without an audition based on Anderson's recommendation. With Wiseman also on board, they start seriously building a repertoire out of Keelor and Cuddy's original material. By now the pair are writing separately, with Keelor's songs taking on a more pronounced twang. He credits this to a new fondness for Patsy Cline, as well as Elvis Costello's 1981 country covers album Almost Blue, which partially lends the new band its name, Blue Rodeo.

1985
Blue Rodeo plays its first gig on Feb. 12 at the Rivoli in Toronto. Two nights later they open for Handsome Ned at the Horseshoe Tavern. It's the first real indication they get that Ned is at the centre of a roots music revival within the Toronto club scene ― mainly instigated by disillusioned former punks. Following their next gig, a disastrous multi-band affair at CBGB in New York, the band confirms its allegiance to Toronto, where a potentially large audience seems ready to accept them. Keelor states, "Let's just say that Gordon Lightfoot and Ian Tyson invented the thing that we do. They were writing songs in Toronto in the early '60s, and that vein really took off. Then there was a bit of a drought during the early '80s. I'd agree that we in some ways replanted the seed, or picked up the torch for whatever that style of music is." Although Cuddy and Keelor's harmonies are a focal point, audiences are also drawn by the unique styles and personalities of the other members. Specifically, Wiseman's incomparable musical ability becomes a key component of the overall Blue Rodeo aesthetic.

1986 to 1987
Warner Canada's Bob Roper, one of the execs that had rejected Keelor and Cuddy's first demo, offers Blue Rodeo a deal after following their progress over the previous year. Their manager, John Caton, brings in long-time Rush producer Terry Brown for the first album, Outskirts, released through Risque Disque, a subsidiary label Caton and Brown have set up with Warner. The band isn't overly happy with Brown's approach in the studio, and the initial reception for Outskirts is tepid. The album, overall, has a dark, meandering feel, with several tracks featuring extended Wiseman solos. This theme is reinforced by the late addition of "Underground," written in honour of Ned, who died of a heroin overdose a week before sessions began. The band's fortunes change dramatically with the release of the second single, Cuddy's soaring ballad "Try," which is accompanied by a stylized video courtesy of his connections within the Toronto film industry. The band embarks on its first large-scale tour, opening for k.d. lang, and with airplay of "Try" driving album sales, several members are faced with Blue Rodeo now being a full-time career. "Jim had a job doing props for a commercial house all through that period," Keelor explains. "I even think he took a vacation to make the record. Cleave had a job too. And Jim had a child. Jim could really put in the hours ― he used to work on commercials all day and then play a show that night, and do that day after day. The success allowed him to commit to the band, so in that sense it did solidify our partnership."

1988 to 1989
Keelor forms side project Crash Vegas with girlfriend Michelle McAdorey, and Daniel Lanois' sister Jocelyne. They record at a Hamilton studio called the Lab, built by Daniel, and operated by his protégé Malcolm Burn. Eager not to repeat the experience of Outskirts, Keelor invites Burn to produce the next Blue Rodeo album, Diamond Mine. "We really wanted to change things because we didn't like how the producer took so many liberties with the sound of the band," Keelor says. "While I was driving Dan to the train station one night and picking his brain, he basically said, 'You know, you don't have to record in a studio.' So we got Doug McClement to bring his recording truck to a theatre on Donlands [in Toronto] and set up there. It just felt so much more like making a record ― we were in this great theatre with huge ceilings, and Malcolm was recording it. He was a little nuts too, in that he didn't want anything to sound standard or normal. That was really fun." Diamond Mine earns rave reviews and an edited version of the eight-minute title track becomes an immediate rock radio staple. Yet, just prior to its release, the band faces its first big challenge when Cleave Anderson leaves, not wishing to give up his job at Canada Post. Mark French replaces him in time for their first headlining theatre tour, but soon after manager John Caton quits the business citing both health and financial concerns.

1990 to 1991
Blue Rodeo sign with well-connected American manager Danny Goldberg, who immediately shifts the band's focus toward the U.S. market. The timing seems right ― even actress Meryl Streep is a fan. She requests that they appear as a wedding band in her movie Postcards From The Edge. For the third album, the group is paired with Dwight Yoakam guitarist/producer Pete Anderson, who insists on tightening up their sound for U.S. radio. Cuddy says, "Because of the success we had in Canada we just assumed the same thing would happen in the States. Gradually we discovered, boy, they really think differently down here. They do not like the fact that there are two, sometimes divergent, voices, and that sort of brought us up against the very idea of the band." Unsurprisingly, Casino turns out to be a mixed bag; although it is a hit in Canada, the expected U.S. breakthrough doesn't occur. Compounding this is Wiseman's growing frustration. He had been disappointed by Cleave Anderson's departure and felt marginalized during the Casino sessions. With Wiseman's exit now inevitable, the band begins preparing for wholesale changes. One of Wiseman's final tours includes an April 1990 show at the Toonik Tyme festival in Iqaluit. Although they are praised for being among the first prominent acts to play the Far North, the trip goes sour when two members are arrested for marijuana possession after a sniffer dog search at the airport. The charges are dropped a year later when a judge decrees the search was illegal under the Charter of Rights.

1992
The band opts to self-produce Lost Together. Mark French is given his walking papers early in the process, and the drum stool is handed over to Glenn Milchem, a much in-demand veteran of the Toronto scene. His well-rounded style immediately adds new depth to Blue Rodeo's sound. They also invite Cowboy Junkies pedal steel guitarist Kim Deschamps to the sessions and he soon becomes a full-time member. Wiseman agrees to play on the album as a final gesture, and closing track "Angels" fittingly ends with a solo piano coda. "[Bobby] definitely wanted to do his own thing, and he didn't like that Jim and I were suggesting what and what not to play," Keelor says. "On the first couple of records he played whatever he wanted, really, with a suggestion from us once in a while, but we eventually got a little too involved in that department for him." Touring begins without a replacement keyboardist, but after 40 shows, both they and audiences aren't happy with the guitar-heavy sound. Through auditions they hire James Gray, another Toronto scene vet, whose father Jerry was a founding member of pioneering Canadian folk group the Travellers.

1993 to 1994
In reaction to the more aggressive approach that characterized Lost Together, Keelor and Cuddy each start writing acoustic-based material. In keeping with the laid back vibe, they bring Doug McClement's recording truck to Keelor's farm near Peterborough, ON where Five Days In July is laid down amid a party atmosphere. One of the prominent guests is Sarah McLachlan, who winds up singing on three tracks. The band debuts the entire album a few months later during its annual Ontario Place concert in Toronto, and its subtleties are missed at first. Keelor and Cuddy themselves had not intended Five Days to be much more than a pleasant side trip, but sales continue to climb throughout 1994 on the strength of singles "Five Days In May," "Hasn't Hit Me Yet," and "Bad Timing," the last another patented Cuddy ballad. Five Days becomes Blue Rodeo's most successful album to date. "We had this run from Outskirts to Lost Together that now kind of symbolizes the band we were ― the band that played the Horseshoe, and wrote songs and played them [in that spirit]," Cuddy says. "Then, all of a sudden we had to do something different, not because we felt like we'd run out of ideas, but because we were just so fucking tired. When we made Five Days In July we also discovered that this could all be a lot more fun than we were letting it be. It opened up a whole new set of possibilities to us."

1995 to 1996
The band reconvenes at Keelor's farm to record the follow-up to Five Days, although this time conditions are much different. They choose to work in winter, without a recording truck, and the confined atmosphere plays on the psyches of all members. Keelor is already in a fragile state, having just learned he had been adopted as a baby. Things come to a complete halt when Keelor suffers a serious fall, which triggers the onset of diabetes he experiences while driving to Nova Scotia in search of his birth mother. "I was so spaced out all the time that I never would have noticed any diabetic complications," Keelor says. "But when I fell from that loft, my head was fucked up, my ribs were fucked up, and the diabetes kicked in big time. When it finally got diagnosed, my blood sugar was 45, when it was supposed to be between four and seven. You're supposed to go unconscious at around 40." When Nowhere To Here finally appears in September 1995, the moody tone set by Keelor's lengthy opening numbers "Save Myself," and "Girl In Green" surprises many fans, in spite of McLachlan again guesting on both. The album is certified double platinum in Canada, still less than half of Five Days' total sales. A disappointing first-time headlining show at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens confirms the rising tensions within the band. Following the tour, Keelor and Cuddy agree to spend time apart. In October 1996, Keelor's longstanding support of First Nations people comes to the fore again when Warner releases Pine Ridge: Songs For Leonard Peltier, an album Keelor compiles to benefit the jailed Native activist. It includes tracks by McLachlan, the Tragically Hip, author Michael Ondaatje, and many other notable Canadian names.

1997 to 1998
Keelor studies with a guru in India, and on the flight back decides to channel his recent personal upheavals into a solo album. Gone, recorded with McLachlan's frequent producer Pierre Marchand, is quiet and meditative, and Keelor plays select intimate club shows to promote it. Cuddy tests the solo waters as well, although he stays on more familiar ground, forming a band that features Crash Vegas guitarist Colin Cripps and fiddler Anne Lindsay as the principal players. Cuddy works on All In Time over the next year ― roping in Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and Jay Bennett as guests ― but by the time it is released, Blue Rodeo has already finished Tremolo, an admittedly tentative return. "Tremolo was a completely treading-water record," Cuddy says. "We could not attempt anything difficult, because we weren't even sure we could get along. Just the fact that we could make a record was good enough at the time. When I hear those songs now I realize they were underdeveloped, but that's just what that album is. We were lucky that we could just do it. That's not a high point for us, but surviving all that stuff allowed us to ramp up again."

1999 to 2001
The Tremolo tour yields the double live album Just Like A Vacation, although its appearance continues to suggest that Blue Rodeo are coasting. Keelor's health remains a deep concern. As they start work on The Days In Between, Keelor's diabetes puts him in the hospital for ten days, and he remains bedridden for another month. "There were probably a few months where I was just not functioning," Keelor says. "So when we came back to that record, I just didn't have too much to give. I love the demos, they're sort of experimental. But it's not my favourite Blue Rodeo record. I couldn't even sit down right now and sing one of my own songs off it." Once Keelor is able to work again, the band finishes the album in New Orleans with producer Trina Shoemaker. Upon its completion, Kim Deschamps departs and is immediately replaced by ex-Wilco pedal steel guitarist Bob Egan. Keelor develops a close association with the Sadies, who had recorded part of their second album, Pure Diamond Gold, at his farm. All of Blue Rodeo guest on their next album, Tremendous Efforts, with Keelor taking the lead vocal on the Elvis Presley nugget "Wearin' That Loved On Look." Blue Rodeo itself digs into the past by covering the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody" for Greatest Hits Vol. 1, and also revamping Casino's "After The Rain" with a horn section, a preview of things to come.

2002 to 2004
The band fulfils a long-held dream of building its own studio, the Woodshed, in downtown Toronto. It's immediately put to use for Palace Of Gold, a full-blown collaboration with the horn section they had employed the previous year. The album is easily Blue Rodeo's most engaging in recent memory, and Cuddy especially seems energized. "Jim had been listening to a lot of Stax [Records] stuff," Keelor says. "But Palace Of Gold was important in many other respects. We'd just opened our new studio and that was really exciting. The writing process was also a lot of fun, just thinking in terms of having horns as a part of the songs. We weren't very sophisticated at it, so it was a learning process. In the end we didn't integrate the horns as much as we could have, but at the same time it worked out pretty good." Palace Of Gold's title track is reworked by Keelor and the Sadies as "Stories Often Told," used as the centrepiece of their fourth album, which Keelor produces at the Woodshed. It's soon followed by The Unintended, a collaboration among Keelor, the Sadies, and Rick White of Eric's Trip, whose artwork now commonly graces Blue Rodeo's albums. That band becomes an outlet for Keelor's love of psychedelia, which is finding its way into his own songwriting more often.

2005
The band marks the 20th anniversary of its first show by reforming its original line-up for a one-off performance filmed by Ron Mann for the retrospective DVD In Stereovision. The package also includes a documentary on the band's origins narrated by author Paul Quarrington. In April, they release the stripped down Are You Ready, notable for "Rena," Cuddy's ode to his wife, and "Beverley Street," a song resurrected from the Diamond Mine sessions. It also marks the end of James Gray's tenure in Blue Rodeo. "For the 20th anniversary, I tried to make a big deal of it, but I don't think that was very natural for the band," Cuddy says. "[Are You Ready] was a very spontaneous record. We worked very quickly, and in a lot of ways it was the antithesis of doing something in a way that would have made it clear that this band has been together for 20 years. I don't think we neglected that record; I think that record was what it was supposed to be, but our goal was to capture performances and get the energy of the band on tape." On its heels, Keelor releases Seven Songs For Jim, a eulogy for his father, who died in 2003. It includes a radically different arrangement of Are You Ready's title track.

2006
All of the members concentrate on solo projects: Cuddy and his band release The Light That Guides You Home, featuring guest vocals by Kathleen Edwards; Keelor releases the psych-folk excursion Aphrodite Rose; Bazil Donovan polishes his long-gestating collection of country covers, Matinee, eventually released in 2008; Bob Egan collaborates with the Weakerthans' Jason Tait on The Glorious Decline, and Glenn Milchem releases Awkward Situation by his band the Swallows, while simultaneously working with Holy Fuck. Cuddy says, "Allowing everyone in the band, and certainly Greg and I allowing each other to do work on our own, is extremely necessary. We cannot work in tandem, in a group, in a partnership all the time. You have to at some points follow, from beginning to end, your own lead and initiative. You come back a much stronger collaborator."

2007 to 2008
With Bob Packwood, keyboardist in Cuddy's solo band, tapped to replace Gray, Blue Rodeo records Small Miracles. The album is launched with a series of unannounced acoustic performances around Toronto, and an acoustic set is incorporated into the subsequent cross-Canada tour. The final night at Toronto's Massey Hall is documented on the CD/DVD package Blue Road, released in October 2008. It also includes a documentary by director Chris Mills, featuring raw footage and interviews from the Small Miracles sessions. The year ends on a strange note, though, when Packwood abruptly quits the band. "We were doing sessions with Garth Hudson [of the Band] for his record," Keelor says. "Meanwhile, Packwood's father is on his deathbed. His father was the attorney general of Montana, appointed by Nixon, so obviously he was a big time Republican. Bob and his brother were hardcore, acid-eating Deadheads, so it's fair to say that he didn't have a great relationship with his father. Even as he was dying, Bob wouldn't go see him or talk to him. So we're there the first day recording with Garth, and for Bob this was like being with God or Moses ― his iconic father ― and he was just so happy. Then the next day, Jim's not totally prepared, but it's no big deal. We're sitting down to learn the music and Bob gets so pissed off that Jim doesn't know the song. They have this little flare-up, Bob runs out of the studio and we never see him again. The great irony is that Jim ended up playing piano on the song."

2009
Keelor produces Cuff the Duke's Way Down Here. It sets the stage for Blue Rodeo's next release, The Things We Left Behind, a dynamic double album that showcases all of the band's strengths. Keyboards are handled by Michael Boguski of Toronto band the Beauties, and Steve O'Connor of Cuddy's solo band. Cuff the Duke's Wayne Petti also makes significant vocal contributions. It's Blue Rodeo's most impressive work in years, and reconfirms their status as Canada's most important band of the past two decades. According to Keelor, "A record that I was listening to a lot this year was the third Big Star album. I loved the combination of the darkness and the orchestration on that record, and the songs have that certain melancholy about them. I find that a very pleasant place to be when people are that melancholic." In Cuddy's view, "We thought we had two records, one that could be like a 'daytime' record, and one that could be 'night time' with more moody pieces on it, or would be a bit more jammy. By the time we laid the songs out it seemed that idea would do a disservice to them, so we finally had to commit to doing a double record, with each disc being the traditional length of an album, 40 or 45 minutes. While we were at the point of deciding all of this, Thom Yorke made his big pronouncement that the album was dead, albums are boring, we'll never participate in that again, and we'll only be doing singles. That made us think there couldn't be a better time then to make a double album. If Thom Yorke said that, then we've gotta do the opposite."

The Essential Blue Rodeo

Diamond Mine (Risque Disque/Warner, 1989)
Outskirts is as impressive a debut as any Canadian band has ever made, but this second effort better captures the essence of the original line-up. Trippy and earthy ― often within the same song ― it set the standard for all future releases.

Five Days In July (Warner, 1993)
The group's most popular album can hardly be called a commercial sell-out. Like the Band's Music From Big Pink and Neil Young's Harvest, it contains uniquely Canadian communal traits that don't traditionally fall within the American pop music spectrum. The songs are pretty good too.

The Things We Left Behind (Warner, 2009)
While they have often been criticized for becoming stagnant, this latest release instead gives every indication of a career renaissance is underway. With all of its best attributes presented in wide-screen arrangements, the band proves it is still the undisputed ruler of its CanRock dominion.
 

Dubai Surrenders Autonomy as Crisis Bolsters Oil-Rich Abu Dhabi

24 November 2009 (Bloomberg)

"Until last month, a billboard at one of Dubai’s busiest roundabouts featured one photo, of Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The new billboard says “Long live our Emirates union” and also shows United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed al Nayhan.

Dubai’s financial woes have tamed the once-independent emirate and forced it closer to Abu Dhabi, which holds 90 percent of the U.A.E.’s oil. Sheikh Mohammed last week demoted three business aides and fired one. [see article below] All had been pivotal in the debt-fueled expansion of past years, requiring Dubai’s rescue with a $10-billion loan from the U.A.E. central bank.

The global financial crisis that swept into Dubai last year not only put an end to a construction boom that saddled it with $80 billion of debt. It may also mark a turning point in the U.A.E.’s history toward a stronger central state, which investors say will make Dubai a more attractive destination by bolstering its creditworthiness.

“Abu Dhabi is pumping 2.5 million barrels a day of oil, of course you want it and Dubai to be working together,” said Emad Mostaque, a London-based Middle East equity-fund manager for Pictet Asset Management Ltd., which oversees more than $100 billion globally. “They don’t need to compete against each other,” he said in a phone interview.

Mostaque said he is positive on Arabtec Holding PJSC, Drake & Scull International PJSC and Depa Ltd, all Dubai-based construction companies expanding into Abu Dhabi.

Sheikh Mohammed in February turned to Abu Dhabi, holder of the world’s sixth-largest crude reserves, for a $10 billion bailout. The central bank, which has its headquarters in the country’s capital of Abu Dhabi, bought the entire bond issue.

Dubai’s ruler is seeking an extra injection of $10 billion by the end of the year, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, chairman of the emirate’s Supreme Fiscal Committee, said Nov. 16. The bond would get “majority government” participation, Mohammed Ali Alabbar, chairman of Emaar Properties PJSC and a member of the Dubai Executive Council, said Oct. 9.

The renewed financial lifeline comes as Dubai and its state-owned companies have to repay $15.8 billion of bonds and loans maturing this year, $9.2 billion in 2010, $19.8 billion in 2011 and $17.3 billion the following year, according to a Deutsche Bank AG report in August.

The sheikhdom raised $1.93 billion last month from the biggest sale of Islamic bonds in the Gulf Arab region this year. It was made possible by investors’ confidence that Abu Dhabi stands behind Dubai, said Tristan Cooper, a Dubai-based Middle East sovereign analyst at Moody’s Investors Service.

“Assumed backing from Abu Dhabi and closer ties between the emirates bolsters investor confidence generally in Dubai and helps to attract foreign investment,” Cooper said by e-mail. Dubai’s $80 billion debts are equivalent to 100 percent of the city-state’s 2008 gross domestic product and nine times its 2008 revenue, according to Moody’s.

Since the start of the year, when Sheikh Mohammed launched a new Web site dedicated to his activities as prime minister of the U.A.E., he has been seen increasingly in public in that role. A front-page story on the Dubai-based Gulf News on Nov. 8 showed the Dubai ruler touring a new desert resort in Abu Dhabi’s Western Region with Sheikh Khalifa, who in addition to being president also leads Abu Dhabi.

The air show in Dubai this year was inaugurated by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the U.A.E. Armed Forces Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, brother of the president, alongside Sheikh Mohammed.

Dubai split from Abu Dhabi in 1833. It kept its independence thanks to the U.K., which pursued a policy of divide-and-rule in the Gulf emirates, according to the 2008 book “Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success,” by historian Christopher Davidson.

Though Dubai grudgingly integrated with Abu Dhabi in 1971 in a federation of seven emirates, it maintained a separate army until 1996, the book said. Only in the mid-1990s was a highway built between Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Sheikh Mohammed, 60, who became ruler of Dubai in 2006, accelerated his brother’s policy of diversifying the economy from dwindling oil supplies by transforming Dubai into a tourism and finance hub.

The emirate is building the world’s tallest tower and largest man-made islands in the shape of palm trees. This year it had to shelve plans to construct a new waterfront development the size of Hong Kong Island and “Dubailand,” a leisure park that would have been three times the size of Manhattan.

Home prices are down more than 50 percent from their peak in the third quarter of 2008, Deutsche Bank AG said on Nov. 5. Prices may drop as much as 30 percent more, UBS AG said Nov. 18.

“The whole strategy of diversification was a consequence of oil running out and wanting to keep their independence,” said Eckart Woertz, an economist at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai. “Now this diversification model is in dire straits and Abu Dhabi is the one that can help Dubai out.”

Dubai oil production began in the 1960s, reached a peak of about 350,000 barrels a day in the late 1980s and has now declined to about 80,000 barrels a day, said Dalton Garis, a professor at the Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi. The U.A.E. government says Dubai oil reserves will run out within 20 years.

On Nov. 9, Sheikh Mohammed said people who speculated about relations between Dubai and Abu Dhabi should “shut up,” at an investors’ conference in Dubai.

The ruling lines of both emirates are “the same family, not only that but the same tribe, the Bani Yas tribe,” he said. They “ruled many many tribes in the Arabian Peninsula for hundreds and hundreds of years.”

Eleven days later, the sheikh removed the governor of the Dubai International Financial Centre, Omar Bin Sulaiman, who had led efforts to transform Dubai into a Middle East finance hub. This came 24 hours after he dropped Mohammad al-Gergawi, Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem and Alabbar from the board of the Investment Corporation of Dubai, the emirate’s main holding company.

The centralization of the U.A.E. “could be the price Dubai has to pay for the Abu Dhabi bailout,” said Woertz. “This might cause some bruised egos here and there.”

Thailand Update  -24 November 2009

The Bangkok Post has been taking a more balanced editorial line recently that now allows criticism of the 2006 coup leaders, of the PAD and of current government. This does at least provide a balance to the ranting Nation newspaper. Today's editorial commentary on coup leader General Sonthi Boonyaratkalin is printed below.

The comments on Sonthi's rather belated conversion to political democracy are interesting. Where was this criticism of his actions in 2006? The article highlights are mine.

The coup of course was justified by accusations that Thaksin was using his position as PM to enrich his family and his friends (under cover of helping the poor for getting their vote). For western eyes it was abuse of human rights that probably caused even greater animosity to his government.

Even now, three years later, the courts are prosecuting Thaksin in part to legitimise the coup that eventually brought the Democrats to power. Meanwhile the red shirts continue to call for change and call for democracy. Many red shirts do not like Thaksin. The yellow shirts justify their actions by demonising Thaksin but miss the calls for change. The yellow shirts claim to speak for all Thais; if you are not a yellow shirt then you must be pro-Thaksin and anti-monarchy. This is nonsense. The polarisation of the two groups and the vehement rhetoric suggests that we are not far away from violent clashes.

The government is trying to keep control by invoking the ISA across all of Bangkok from 28 November to 14 December. Visitors should consider this before making their travel plans.

Coup-maker flirting with democracy

The Bangkok Post - Editorial Pages.

"If political scientists are correct in their estimate, General Sonthi Boonyaratkalin already set Thailand at least 12 years back with the coup he led - a disastrous transgression against democracy which he said took him only a day or two to plan.

It has been three years and Thailand is still reeling from the consequences of the general's act, with no end in sight. The country is like a big ant's nest that was poked with a big stick. The nest may not have crumbled yet, but the terrified ants are still running around in all directions, fighting something they don't quite know what, unable to regroup.

With traces of the damage he caused still evident everywhere we look, Gen Sonthi, now retired from his military profession, has the temerity to declare that he is entering politics as head of the Matubhum Party.

I am sure Gen Sonthi has his reasons for coming out of retirement and making a U-turn to join the process of democracy he toppled. I am also sure other people have their reasons why he shouldn't have. I myself have many reasons why the old soldier should just fade away. No matter what good or bad intentions he has, Gen Sonthi should stay in his retirement and stop bothering with our state of politics. His presence in "democracy" will likely achieve nothing but disgrace - for him, for us, for the "motherland" he has adopted as the name of his party.

Gen Sonthi may not appreciate the irony but I am sure many others do. There are some hundred politicians who have been banned from politics because of a clause in the constitution drafted by people hand-picked by the coup-makers. Whether the ban is justified or not is not the issue here. The real irony is Gen Sonthi himself led the Sept 19 coup to seize power from a civilian, elected government. His act was against the law. That is why he had to tear up the 1997 constitution. My question is, would the irony be too much if the man who broke the law and brought down a constitution gets to run in an election which many others do not because they are barred by the law?

Gen Sonthi may have believed that his coup against Thaksin was for the good of the nation. He did say this during an interview: "If there had not been that coup, I can't imagine what the situation would be like today." Indeed, there is no way of knowing what this motherland of his would be like today had there been no coup, because back then three years ago the then-army chief made that fateful decision to roll out the tanks and grab power. What we do know, however, is if the general thinks he has made Thailand a better, cleaner or freer society, then he is wrong. He has failed, and miserably so. The endless protests, social division and continued instability which make Thai people feel as if we're standing at the edge of a bubbling volcano, are evidence of his spectacular failure in themselves.

The plain truth, which surprisingly the daring general has failed to grasp, is there is no room in democracy for a coup-maker. The two things are antithetical. If you believe in democracy, then you don't stage a coup, and vice versa. The general can't have his coup and eat it, too. After all, the act of staging a coup d'etat is a severe violation of democracy. In a sense, Gen Sonthi may be compared to a man who severely abuses a woman, putting a gun to her head, ordering her to leave the house and tearing up the document that binds them together. After some years have passed, Gen Sonthi has moved on. Little battered Miss Democracy has also moved on, unsteadily and awkwardly as abuse victims do. And now, after some years, when some wounds are still feeling fresh and the scar tissues not yet fully formed, Gen Sonthi has come back and asked if he can have another chance. Things are different now, he reasons. This time, he will be a perfect gentleman and comply with the rules set by democracy.

How can Miss Democracy believe him? No, in the name of democracy, nobody should trust that the general will play nice and not try to take power into his own hands this time. Gen Sonthi has done enough for his "motherland". There is no place for him in the coming election. His only viable future is to fade away."

Atiya Achakulwisut is Editorial Pages Editor.

Emirate to Tokyo from 28th March 2010

23 November 2009

Emirates has unveiled plans to launch direct services between Dubai and Tokyo which will be the 102nd destination for the Dubai based carrier.

At present, Emirates operates to Japan with a daily service to Osaka which was launched seven years ago.

Starting 28th March 2010, Emirates will fly non-stop to Tokyo five times a week on every Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The service will be operated by a state-of-the-art Boeing 777-300ER aircraft offering a three-class configuration of eight First Class Private Suites, 42 Business and 304 Economy Class seats.

EK 318 will depart Dubai at 02:50 and arrives Tokyo Narita at 17:55. The Monday flight will be popular with the crews, especially Japanese crew, as it will require a 3 night layover. Although the flight will likely operate daily at a future date.

EK 319 will depart Tokyo Narita at 21:40 and arrives Dubai at 04:35 the next morning. The flights have been timed to offer convenient connections to Emirate's passengers in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Emirates’ longstanding partnership with Japan Airlines will be expanded to include a code share on the new Dubai-Tokyo-Dubai services. The flights will be identified with the Emirates ‘EK’ code as well as with Japan Airlines ‘JL’ code.

Emirates will also leverage the 23 tonnes of belly-hold cargo capacity for trade between Japan, the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia.

Emirates Woman of the year is from EK

23 November 2009- The National Newspaper

It was a day of contrasts for Maria Conceicao. It began with her driving through the slums of Dhaka on her way to the airport in the Bangladeshi capital.

The shacks and rubbish that lined the road were once a shock, but, nearly five years after first encountering them, she knew the place well.

Hours later, Miss Conceicao was in Dubai, accepting the award for Emirates Woman of the Year, surrounded by the glitz and glamour for which the city is known. “Coming from the slums of Dhaka to such a lavish, glittery event, well, it was different,” said Miss Conceicao, 32.

The award was in recognition of her work on the Dhaka Project, which Miss Conceicao, a flight attendant for Emirates Airline, founded in 2005 after witnessing the city’s poverty during a stopover. There are 90 staff members and many more volunteers working to bring Dhaka out of the slums.

“I couldn’t understand how, only four hours away from Dubai, people could live like that. It was haunting me, so I decided to do something,” she said.

The expensive dress and shoes she wore to accept the award last Tuesday were borrowed – her own dresses were sold long ago to raise money for the project.

Miss Conceicao was nominated in the humanitarian category. She won both that and the overall title after a vote by readers of Emirates Woman.

“We are extremely proud of Maria,” said the senior editor of the magazine, Faye James.

“Maria has worked tirelessly around the clock to raise money for the Dhaka Project, running six marathons and even selling every dress in her personal wardrobe. She is a unique spirit who selflessly has put herself into the lives of others.”

Miss Conceicao was born and raised in Portugal, the youngest of eight children. Before arriving in the UAE, she also lived in Italy, Switzerland and Britain.

Her job sent her to many exotic destinations, but it did not prepare her for what she came across on one fateful stopover in Dhaka.

“I don’t have words to describe it,” Miss Conceicao said. “When I reached Dhaka, I had only flown to Europe and parts of Asia, with very nice airports, where everything is clean. In Dhaka it is total chaos. As you come out of the airport, there are all these people begging. The smell, the taste, it is completely different from anything I had experienced.”

The 45-minute ride to the hotel gave her an education in real poverty. Women with babies hanging off their hips and handicapped people stretched out their hands, begging for money. Dirty children sold things by the side of the road.

When Miss Conceicao reached the five-star hotel she was to spend the night in, she asked the concierge what there was to do in the city.

“He told me the only things to see in Dhaka were the orphanages,” Miss Conceicao recalled.

“So I told him, ‘OK’. I had never been to an orphanage.”

Miss Conceicao visited a centre for handicapped children and the nuns who ran it asked if she would go with them to the local hospital.

“I went along for the experience, but when I went to the hospital that was the moment that I decided I had to do something,” she said.

“Windows were broken. The hygiene was next to none. Dogs and cats wandered around the hospital. “The doctors look liked they were not in a hospital but an abattoir. They had bloodstains all over their white dress. It shocked me.”

Patients were crowded on to the floor, unable to afford beds. Some lined the corridors. Many were too sick to care for themselves and were left in the detritus of their illness.

“It is just so repugnant. I couldn’t understand how people could go to that place to get better. These people don’t need to die to go to hell because they are already there, in a living hell.”

She returned to the hotel, but could not stop thinking about what she had seen that afternoon.

The next morning she climbed on to the bus to go back to the airport, listening as her fellow passengers complained about the city. “I was listening to them, thinking that they probably had never left the hotel. They had not seen what I had seen,” Miss Conceicao said. “They were moaning about how the food was not nice in the hotel, about how eating at a five-star hotel would be risking food poisoning. That revolted me.”

One month later, Miss Conceicao took her annual birthday holiday in Dhaka, determined to help. When Miss Conceicao asked the hotel concierge for directions to the slums, he sent a bellhop named Rajid to go with her.

“I wanted to visit the slums to see why these kids beg on the street,” she said. For days, she walked with Rajid, soaking in the unfamiliar sites and speaking to people, trying to learn the causes of their misery.

“People live in huts. They cook on the floor. There is nowhere to put the rubbish so it ends up in the water, and this is where they bathe, where they find water to drink and to cook with.”

Rajid told Miss Conceicao the situation bothered him, but he and his friends did not know how to change it. She decided to talk to them.

“The day when I met those four Bangladeshi boys, we started to talk about poverty – why these people were in the slums and how we could help. The Dhaka Project started with that desire to help.”

Every month after that, Miss Conceicao would fly to the city and distribute whatever she had been able to get people to donate. She asked friends, relatives and even passengers on her flights for food, nappies, milk, clothes, soap, and whatever else they could spare.

In July 2005, Miss Conceicao was given her first monetary donation. It allowed her to send 29 children to school. Now, her charity has opened a day-care centre, a nursery, a primary school and a secondary school.

“The Dhaka Project is not only a project that is helping the children, we are really helping the whole community,” she said. To allow children better access to the school, the volunteers built roads. There was no clean water so they dug three wells for drinking water. There is now a small dental centre and a medical centre.

“When I first got to this area, there was no proper waste removal system, so we set up a system,” Miss Conceicao said.

“If you went there four years ago you would have seen rubbish everywhere and, because of that, the kids would be sick because it spreads disease.

“We bought 100 water drums around the community [for waste] and paid people to empty them twice a day.”

The waste removal project took six months to organise but it has paid off. On Thursdays, the children go into the community to explain how it works and why it is important.

“They are the future generation, so we have to start to teach them. Now, it is one of the cleanest places in the city,” Miss Conceicao said.

She hopes to expand the project into Brazil, which will bring about its own unique challenges.

Both endeavours will come under the organisational umbrella of The Catalyst, and can be found at www.catalystorg.blogspot.com

Miss Conceicao’s award comes at a good time for the Dhaka Project because, since the financial crisis, donations have dried up.

While money is always appreciated, she welcomes whatever help people can offer.

Emirates Airline, the Meridien Hotel group and Arabian Explorers have all agreed to hire the fathers of some of the schools’ pupils. This helps to break the cycle of poverty that forces children into the same situation that their parents are in. “Anytime there is a big problem in the family, they remove the kids from my school and force them to work in a garment factory,” Miss Conceicao said. “The parents need a proper job that enables them a minimum salary, to stop them from sliding further into poverty.

“If I only had one wish it would be that corporations come forward and if they have any jobs – as office boy, security guard, maintenance, room attendants, or in the laundry – please contact me.”

The Dhaka Project website is here.

Behind the scenes in Dubai

22 November 2009 - Bloomberg analysis

"Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum consolidated his hold on the debt-laden emirate, downgrading powerful figures behind the city-state’s boom that turned to a bust.

Sheikh Mohammed on Nov. 20 sacked the governor of the Dubai International Financial Centre, Omar Bin Sulaiman, who had led efforts to transform Dubai into a Middle East finance hub. A day earlier, he dropped Mohammad al-Gergawi, Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem and Mohammed Ali Alabbar from the board of Dubai’s main holding company, the Investment Corporation of Dubai. The three were at the forefront of a construction drive that began in 2002 and collapsed last year after the global financial turmoil engulfed Dubai.

The announcement, which follows the replacement in May of Nasser al-Sheikh, former director of the emirate’s Department of Finance, heralds greater consolidation of so-called Dubai Inc., the web of competing, state-owned companies that Sheikh Mohammed used to accelerate the diversification of Dubai. Dubai is struggling under $80 billion of debt amassed in the process.

The replacement of the DIFC governor is part of efforts to improve the efficiency of government institutions and companies, and “consolidate the emirate’s growing importance as an international center for finance, business, trade, tourism and all services,” Mohammed Ibrahim Al Shaibani, director-general of the ruler’s court, said in an e-mailed statement on Nov. 20.

This needs to be accompanied by greater transparency and better coordination between the various state-run companies, said Tristan Cooper, a Dubai-based Middle East sovereign analyst at Moody’s Investors Service.

“It’s difficult to read too much into the personnel changes at this stage, but it would be encouraging if it helped to improve coordination and information flow within Dubai’s large and disparate public sector,” Cooper said by e-mail.

The Dubai Financial Market General Index tumbled today to its lowest level in two months, losing 2.6 percent to 2,073.66. Abu Dhabi’s measure slipped 2 percent to its lowest since Sept. 2.

Bin Sulayem is chairman of Dubai World, a state-run holding company that has about $59 billion of debt and other liabilities. It controls property developer Nakheel PJSC, which has had to cancel plans for a new waterfront development the size of Hong Kong Island. Nakheel has to repay a $3.52 billion bond maturing in December.

Istithmar PJSC, the investment company controlled by Dubai World, may lose control of the W New York Union Square hotel in Manhattan at a foreclosure auction next month by holders of the mezzanine debt on the property. Dubai International Capital LLC, a private equity investor controlled by the emirate’s ruler, is said to be offering junior lenders a 40 percent stake in Almatis, a maker of alumina products, in a debt-for-equity swap.

Al-Gergawi is chairman of Dubai Holding, which owns developers including Dubai Properties LLC, Sama Dubai LLC and Tatweer LLC. Tatweer has put on hold a project to build “Dubailand,” a Disneyland-style leisure park that would be three times the size of Manhattan. Alabbar is chairman of Emaar Properties PJSC, the largest developer in the U.A.E., which is building the world’s tallest tower.

Dubai’s real-estate market was the worst affected by the global financial crisis. Home prices have tumbled about 50 percent from their peak, and may drop another 20 percent this year, Deutsche Bank AG said in June.

The emirate will study the viability of projects more closely in the future, Sheikh Mohammed said Sept. 9. “We’ll be more careful now,” he said.

The actions of Dubai’s ruler may also be aimed at helping him shore up his position with regard to the wealthier neighboring emirate, Abu Dhabi, said Jean-Francois Seznec, a professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in Washington.

Abu Dhabi, which has 90 percent of oil in the U.A.E., holder of the world’s sixth-largest crude reserves, bailed out it’s fellow emirate in February with a $10 billion Dubai bond issue subscribed entirely by the U.A.E. central bank. Dubai is seeking to raise another $10 billion, a significant portion from the federal government in Abu Dhabi. The government is in the final stages of preparing the second half of the bond issue, Alabbar said on Nov. 20.

The cost of protecting Dubai bonds from default rose 3 percent to 313 basis points on Nov. 20, five-year credit-default swap prices show. The contracts, which get more expensive as perceptions of credit quality worsen, traded at 287 basis points on Oct. 20, the lowest in 12 months, Bloomberg data show.

Sheikh Mohammed is trying to salvage his business empire by merging assets, said Christopher Davidson, a professor at Durham University in the U.K. and author of the 2008 book “Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success.” “The ruler’s main government-backed companies are on the verge of bankruptcy and rapid centralization of these bits and pieces is needed to hold them above water,” he said by phone.

In June, Emaar said it was in talks to combine with Dubai Properties, Sama Dubai and Tatweer as it aims to control the supply of new buildings amid a glut of homes.

Alabbar shrugged off his removal from the board of the investment body. “As business goes on, all organizations restructure,” he said Nov. 20. Al-Gergawi didn’t pick up his mobile phone and Bin Sulaiman and Bin Sulayem didn’t respond to interview requests via their spokespeople.

Ahmed Humaid al-Tayer, the new governor of the DIFC, which is home to regional offices of banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Deutsche Bank AG, said yesterday he would pursue the same strategy as his predecessor. Al-Tayer is also chairman of Emirates NBD PJSC, the U.A.E.’s biggest bank by assets, and remains a member of the ICD board along with Al Shaibani, the head of the ruler’s court. The other four board members are Sheikh Mohammed, two of his sons and his uncle.

The four sidelined Dubai powerbrokers have to some extent been made scapegoats, according to Simon Henderson, an expert on the Gulf monarchies at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“They were given authority and access to capital and told to go out there and expand Dubai, they were given a license and latitude, and to that extent, they were obeying orders,” he said."

Dubai is a golfing winner

22 November 2009

Lee Westwood won the inaugural Dubai World Chamionship at the new Greg Norman designed Earth Course today.

And he did so by shooting a course record 64 on the final day to win by seven shots. It was a masterful performance.

But there was another winner this week - and that was Dubai. For all the doom and gloom that has surrounded post financial crisis Dubai seemed to lift for the week of the tournament.

For a brand new course it was in remarkable condition. The surroundings are years from completion. The course is buried in a building site. But it is an oasis. Originally designed as a resort course some major changes were required in order to make the course a championship test. The closing three holes are very strong and make for a very testing finish that can make or break a card.

The course sets up well on television; the building sites and unfinished properties are less evident. Dubai looked good.

There was no admission fee on any of the four days; so the crowds were large, knowledgeable and enthusiastic. the crowds also enjoyed the village facilities with food, bars, large tv screens, shopping, and entertainment for the kids.

Although the clubhouse is not yet complete the facilities for golfers and their entourage of coaches, caddies and families were very good. The practice facilities were excellent.

It was a good week for Dubai and a good week for the European Golf Tour.

Does Henry coach the PLA?

22 November 2009

It is possible that Thierry Henry has started to coach the PLA garrison based in Hong Kong.

Two People's Liberation Army teams Friday took part in the Oxfam Trailwalker charity race for first time since setting up garrisons in Hong Kong in 1997, when British colonial rule ended. But the army soldiers were accused today of gamesmanship and muscling their way to victory in the charity 100-kilometre race.

The Chinese team appears to have used the win by whatever means tactics that are now the hallmark of the French footballer and basketball player, Thierry Henry.

Their four-man teams finished first and second in the race around Hong Kong's rural New Territories but were accused of using a vast support crew and deliberately holding up rival teams.

Fellow competitors told the Sunday Morning Post newspaper the army teams had a support crew of "at least 50 people" and used large numbers of support runners to hold up other teams.

Usually, only two or three support runners are used per team to help carry food and drink in the toughest parts of the MacLehose Trail where the race takes place. Runners must compete in teams of four.

"Their support runners would keep trying to pass us and then slow down to delay us, while their team ran clear," Jeremy Ritcey of a rival team that finished fourth told the newspaper.

"They jostled us and put us off our stride," he said. "It looked like the whole PLA (People's Liberation Army) garrison was out there."

Oxfam event organiser Brenda Wong said she believed the Trailwalker event was not "all about winning" as it was a charity event.

There was no immediate response from the army. Its winning team finished in 12 hours, 17 minutes - or 25 minutes slower than the record set last year by a team of Gurkha soldiers.

Thailand update - 21 November 2009

The red shirts will begin their "showdown rally" on November 28 - a day earlier than previously planned, in a bid to "bring down" the government by the end of the year.

Thaksin’s initial expected outcome is a House dissolution followed by an election where his political party will get a majority of seats, and an amnesty will be granted to all sides, bringing the country back to where it was before the 19 Sept 2006 coup.

Red-shirt protesters will gather at Democracy Monument on Saturday week and stay there overnight before moving to Royal Plaza the following day when a rehearsal of the Trooping of the Colours was completed.

The red shirts claim that a massive one million people will join the rally. Protesters will also walk along important roads throughout Bangkok.

The red shirts will then disperse temporarily on December 2 to make way for ceremonies to mark His Majesty the King's birthday on December 5, and would re-gather after that.

The government will impose the Internal Security Act during the red shirts' rally, adding to the tension. This follows Democrat party claims that Thaksin Shinawatra will march across the border to lead an armed uprising.
 

The PAD have called for a rally of their own on 5 December; which leaves the potential for a significant clash in the city.

Former senior intelligence officials claim that the red shirt goal is to force the government to dissolve the House of Representatives before the Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Political Office Holders rules on the corruption case against Thaksin.

As much as Bt76 billion of Thaksin's assets rides on the verdict, which is expected sometime next month.

The prosecution believes it received a big boost on Thursday when a senior Securities and Exchange Commission member testified there was reliable evidence of massive shareholding concealment in the telecom business that Thaksin was supposed to give up on becoming prime minister.

The testimony, by assistant secretary-general Waratchaya Srimachand, corroborated findings by the Assets Examination Committee (AEC), whose origins have been decried by the Thaksin camp because it was set up after the September 19, 2006 coup.

Kaewsan Atibhodi, who led the AEC, has finished his testimony and expressed satisfaction with the prosecution's presentation. He said the case against Thaksin was built on three main arguments: Thaksin concealed his telecom shares while prime minister; the concealed shares belonged to businesses that benefited from his government's actions; and the laws prescribe "seizure of related assets" to punish such offences.

Kaewsan said what had been presented before the court included how the investigators established that Ample Rich, Win Mark and Thaksin's children were simply his nominees, while the fugitive ex-prime minister and his wife controlled a dizzying movement of shares of his telecom empire. The court has also been told how Thaksin not only controlled those shares, but also helped them increase in value through dubious state decisions.

The PAD rally from a week ago was alarming in its extremist nationalism. There is a full report here. Sadly Prime Minister Abhisit has never criticised their provocative, destructive remarks, let alone called for a partial state of emergency at their gatherings.

Meanwhile Abhisit is off to Chiang Mai in a week. The PM's Office Minister Sathit Wongnongtoey said authorities are keeping track of community radio broadcasts in Chiang Mai, which he said have repeatedly incited red shirt supporters to protest against Mr Abhisit's visit to the province on Nov 29 where he will attend a meeting of the chambers of commerce.

Meanwhile there was a red shirt event in Dubai last night - with a massive AED100 attendance fee. More details to follow if I can find out what happened and who attended.

The Asian Human Rights Commission is concerned at the use of the Computer Crime Act, which was brought to law by the military junta in 2006.

Just as a final note -  the King has been in hospital for over 2 months (Saturday September 19). And since Loy Kratong, there has been no news whatsoever of the King's health and well-being. Rumours are always more likely when there is no other news to turn to.
 

Hand Gaul - Henry's sleight of hand

19 November 2009 - The Australian

Thierry Henri - "I played it, the ref allowed it. It would have been better to do it another way, but I am not the ref."

"Hang your head in shame, Thierry Henry. You have done the football world, and yourself, a huge disservice.

You have helped to plunge another dagger in to the heart of fair play in a game already struggling to cope with the ridicule over the awful antics of players diving and pretending to be injured.

What sort of example do you think you are setting to the millions of kids around the world, many of whom worship you as a player?

What were you thinking when you deliberately handled the ball before crossing it for your teammate William Gallas to head home the goal that helped France draw 1-1 with Ireland and qualify for the World Cup finals in South Africa next year?

The reaction has already been swift. A number of former Socceroos have joined a chorus of international stars who have condemned the Frenchman.

Yes, sport is now a win-at-all-costs commodity, but do you have to stoop to cheating Thierry?

No-one can deny your wonderful skills as a player. Few in the world have been blessed with the sort of speed, silky skills, football intelligence and goal scoring ability that have marked what has been a stellar career.

But, in one moment of madness you have thrown it all away.

It won't matter how many goals you end up scoring in your career. It won't matter if you help France win the World Cup. You will forever be branded a cheat, in much the same way as the foul-mouthed Diego Maradona, who is now probably more known for his battle with drug addiction and the "Hand of God'' goal that helped beat England in a quarter final at the World Cup in Mexico in 1986.

When you sit back in retirement one day, when the cheers of the fans are long gone you will be left to ponder your action.

What if you had said to the referee you handled the ball? Maybe France would not have gone to the World Cup. We will never know.

What we do know is that you would have been looked at so differently had you had the courage to go up to the referee and tell the truth.

Instead you must now live with the consequences of your actions.

I'm sure it's not the way you would want to be remembered.

The incident will also again raise the spectre of video replays for match officials. Archaic FIFA, the sports world governing body, has point blank resisted any move for change in that area. It refuses move in to the 21st century.

But, surely, the time is ripe for some sort of video referral system. It may be the world's favourite sport but it needs to catch up with the rest of the sporting world, otherwise incidents like the Henry one will continue to blight the game."

The Sun newspaper - Henry is now the cheat who has handed Les Bleus a ticket to South Africa they did not deserve.


DWC day 1 tee off times

18 November 2009

Pairings for the first round of the Dubai World Golf Championship are based on individual positions in the standings for the race to Dubai - which leaves McIlroy paired with Westwood in the last group out. The most interesting pairings are the following - all times are Dubai time,

I like the Jaidee/Stenson pairing. Stenson is based out of Dubai in the winter months and is regarded as a local favourite. I suspect though that the early starters will get the best of the day; it will be warm (hot, hot, hot) for the later groups.

Comments on the course - at least the off the record ones - do not seem very flattering - adequate and uninspriring were two observations. And the stench from the pond on the sixth hole has been commented on by everyone. Augusta National famously uses blue dye to enhance their water features; Jumeirah should have resorted to Blue Toilet Block.

The Earth Course still sits amid a building site. The fairways are lined with half erected scaffold clad properties as the ambitious development to finance the Race to Dubai has been stalled by the global economic meltdown.

There is no clubhouse - instead, admittedly impressive, there are temporary structures to house players, caddies, officials and media. And very nicely too - the caddies are particularly chuffed with their leather sofas and excellent food.

In time it is likely that the course and surrounds could become a magnificent arena for the climax to the European Tour season when (and if) the building works are complete.

This will be a tough week. It is hot, dusty, humid. But there is some big money at stake.

Golf on a lunar landscape

18 November 2009

Some down to earth (no pun intended) analysis of the Dubai World Championship course that will be used for the first time this week. This report comes from the Guardian newspaper.

"The road to "Earth" course on the Jumeirah golf estate is long and dusty, the view from the bus resembling nothing so much as a lunar landscape. Magnolia Lane it is not, and nor is the venue for this week's Dubai World Championship likely to be mistaken for one of the game's more picturesque settings. Not for a long time.

The golf course itself will look presentable on television, but take a closer look and the cracks – literally – begin to show. On some fairways, sods of recently laid turf have yet to knit, leaving a patchwork effect. Running alongside those fairways, million-pound homes, many of them half-built, lie empty. At the 6th hole the pond in front of the green smells of something unimaginable. Meanwhile back at the clubhouse there is a shell of a building.

In May, Leisurecorp, the tournament sponsors, decided to put up a temporary structure. "It was becoming obvious that the deadline for the clubhouse was just too tight," says a spokesman. Six months later, on the eve of the tournament once billed as the richest in golf, it is equally obvious just how close the European Tour came to losing its flagship event before the first edition could be held. The climax of the Race to Dubai – formerly the Order of Merit – was launched with such fanfare it is no wonder the relief among the establishment is palpable that the caravan has reached its appointed destination.

"The vision for the Race to Dubai was perfect when it was announced [in November 2007] because back then Dubai was the place to be," says Pete Cowan, swing coach to many leading European players, including Henrik Stenson, and a long-time Dubai resident. "Like a lot of things here the dream probably got a bit too far in front of itself. When the economy went down, it was only natural that this place was hit harder than other places. But I think it will come back, and this week's event will help that process."

Guy Kinnings, the head of the European golf division for the IMG sports agency, is even more upbeat. "In the environment they have been dealing with I think what we have this week is absolutely exceptional," he says. "It is beholden on all of us that the guys in charge have done really well to get the place to where we are."

Kinnings makes a fair point. Since the global economic meltdown in the autumn of 2008 no place has suffered as badly as Dubai, which had set out to become the playground of internationally wealthy. When the rich suddenly found themselves substantially less rich, demand for what Dubai was offering dropped precipitously. Over last year property prices in the Emirates have fallen, according to some estimates, by more than 50%. The Dubai government, meanwhile, was forced to borrow money from its more affluent neighbour, Abu Dhabi, and reassess its more extravagant projects.

It was against this darkened economic backdrop that the European Tour spent an uneasy spring and summer waiting to see if its five-year, $50m (£29.8m)-a-year sponsorship deal with Leisurecorp, a government‑owned developer, would be honoured. The prospects did not look good when Leisurecorp was subsumed into another government-owned company, Nakheel, and the individuals who signed the original deal were no longer involved. At the Jumeirah golf estates initial work on two of the four planned housing developments – "Wind" and "Water" – were postponed indefinitely, while the completion date on the other two – "Earth" and "Fire" – was pushed back to 2010.

Rumours were rife throughout the summer that the Race to Dubai, along with the Dubai World Championship, was about to be cancelled. The speculation was finally ended in September when the European Tour confirmed a Guardian report that the prize money was to be cut by 25%, from $20m to $15m. Cue sighs of relief around European golf, although the good news came with some qualification. "We have been assured that our agreement is proceeding substantially as planned," the chief executive of the European tour, George O'Grady, was quoted as saying after a three-day visit to Dubai to meet senior government officials. "I will say that the press release was quite carefully worded," O'Grady conceded yesterday.

"The people in Dubai have every intention of fulfilling the contract they have with us, and lengthening it, but these are uncertain times. Am I relieved to be here this week? No. I would say I am delighted to be here rather than relieved. The good news is I have all the prize money in the bank and the facilities we have in place this week are superb. No one is hiding the fact that the economic downturn has gone on but they have delivered a suitable finale to the season. We think there are going to be a lot of spectators here over the four days and we think they are going to see an exceptional finish to the season."

On that last point at least, O'Grady has every right to feel optimistic. If the mood surrounding the off-course dealings in the Race to Dubai has been one of uncertainty, the atmosphere provoked by the golf being played, and the principal characters involved, has been one of steadily growing anticipation. Realistically, four players – Rory McIlroy, Lee Westwood, Martin Kaymer and Ross Fisher – have a chance to win the $1.75m bonus prize awarded to the player who finishes first in the season-long Race to Dubai, along with whatever prize money they win in this week's tournament (the winner receives $1.25m).

"Great golf and great competition is what the Race to Dubai is all about,'' says O'Grady. "It will be a week to remember." It may well be. However, the question is: will it be a week to convince the money men of Dubai to keep spending on European golf?"

And to show that politics and army life really are intertwined the former army chief who led the 2006 military coup that ousted Thaksin Shinawatra was named leader of a new political party, Matuphum (Motherland), on Wednesday. Gen Sonthi Boonyaratkalin, 63, said he accepted the leadership because the party's campaign platform was to restore unity to the country.

But doesn't Matuphum and the politicised PAD simply split the potential Democrat vote?

Thailand update - 18 November 2009

Thailand's hopes of a quick release for Sivarak Chutipong have been dashed.

Cambodian Defence Minister Tea Banh said the alleged spy will not be freed any time soon.

In a phone interview with the Bangkok Post, Gen Tea Banh said legal proceedings against the Thai engineer must be allowed to run their course.

More criticism in the Bangkok Post of Abhisit's handling of Hun Sen and Thaksin.

Puea Thai MP Jatuporn Promphan said on Wednesday that Cambodia has a taped conversation of Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya ordering the first secretary of the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh to get former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's flight plan for the Thai government. Mr Jatuporn said Cambodian authorities also had a tape of a conversation about the flight plan between the first secretary, Kamrob Palawatwichai, and Siwarak Chutiphong, the Thai engineer employed by Cambodia Air Traffic Services accused of spying for Thailand.

Mr Siwarak was arrested last Wednesday and accused of stealing Thaksin's flight plan. Mr Kamrob was expelled the following day. Mr Jatuporn said if the tapes were made available to other countries they would lose trust in Thailand, because this amounted to Thailand interfering in Cambodia's internal affairs. He called on Mr Kasit to clarify the matter.

And in a story that I thought might have quietly died police on Wednesday arrested a 42-year-old female doctor for allegedly spreading rumours about HM the King's health which resulted in a slump in Thai stock market in October.
 

Does Emirates need more A380s?

18 November 2009

Emirates is looking at placing an order for more Airbus A380s and other aircraft as the airline is reevaluating its fleet plans in the wake of the economic downturn and a changed schedule for the new Dubai International Airport.

President Tim Clark told AviationWeek that Emirates could use an additional 20 A380s on top of its existing order for 58 aircraft. Whether it goes ahead with its plans will depend greatly on whether Dubai International Airport can accommodate the additional aircraft at the existing facilities, and at the new Terminal 4, which is currently under construction.

One important reason behind the considerations is the delayed construction of Dubai's new al-Makhtoum International Airport in Djebel Ali. Although the first stage of the new site will be opened by next summer, Clark says it will take eight years for the facility to have been sufficiently expanded for Emirates' needs. But major construction work has been pushed back by Dubai's government because funding has proved difficult as a result of the global financial crisis. Dubai as a whole has pulled back significantly on many of its prestige projects such as two more artificial palm islands off its coasts and a new world's tallest building, Al-Burj.

If Emirates wants to expand further, it will have to use larger aircraft because DXB's two-runway system has limited capacity. "The reason why we initially ordered 58 A380s was because we could not fit any more into the existing infrastructure," says Clark. "We are now talking to the airport about how to accommodate more."

A new supplementary fleet plan is also evaluating if Emirates could pick up delivery slots freed up by other airlines. The airline would likely look at more Boeing 777-300ERs. Its existing order for 70 A350s might be changed, too. Today, the airline has signed up for 50 A350-900s and 20 A350-1000s, "but we might invert that" to increase capacity. Emirates is also looking at a letter of intent signed last year for 30 Airbus A330-300s and A350s. It was supposed to have been converted into a firm order by the end of 2008, but Emirates did not go ahead due to the economic uncertainty. But Clark said Airbus has reassured the airline that the deal is still in place from its point of view. Clark indicates that the A330s could end up being too small given the slot constraints at its home base.

Separately, Emirates may delay the phase out of aircraft that it was planned to start in mid-2010. Between 2010 and 2013, the airline wanted to get rid of its 29 A330-200s, all remaining 777-200s and 777-300s, as well as its A340-300s. That process could now start several months later in order to provide interim capacity.

Clark says Emirates would sell the 10 A340-500s it has because they have turned uneconomical with the high fuel prices, but there are no buyers. The carrier is no longer considering an order for the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental because it believes that before long the A380 can do the missions from Dubai to the U.S. West Coast.

Emirates currently has 53 A380s on firm order in addition to 70 A350s and 23 Boeing 777-300ERs.

Separately Paul Griffiths, CEO of Dubai Airports has said that Emirates Airline could shift its hub to the new Dubai Al Maktoum International in around 2020, when Dubai's new airport was capable of handling the air traffic.

Emirates will not run operations at both the airports, confirmed Griffiths, and would make the move once five runways, two terminals and the concourses were operational.

Thailand update - 17 November 2009

The red shirts plan their "showdown rally" against the government from November 29, which they expect one million people to join and the administration to be overthrown before the New Year's Day.

Jatuporn Phrompan, an MP from the opposition Pheu Thai Party who is a red-shirt leader, said Tuesday that the rally would be halted between December 3 and 5, when ceremonies marking His Majesty the King's birthday are organised, and would be resumed afterwards.

The Bangkok Post reports that Thaksin has complained that he cannot enter Thai airspace, his passport has been revoked, royal decorations are to be recalled and he has been stripped of police rank. What will they do next?

Meanwhile Thailand has a new hero, CATS employee Siwarak, defender of the nation's dignity and victim of a vicious traitors' plot. Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya has dismissed a report that a high-level Thai diplomat had met Siwarak Chotphong, who is accused of spying, at a prison in Phnom Penh.

Mr Kasit denied a Thai diplomat was allowed to meet the Cambodia Air Traffic Services engineer who is being detained at Prey Sar prison.

Mr Kasit said he had checked the report with the Thai embassy in Cambodia and believed the meeting did not take place.

His statement countered Cambodian foreign ministry claims that a Thai embassy official was allowed to visit Mr Siwarak, who was arrested on Thursday on charges of supplying details of fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's flight schedule to his country's embassy.

So someone is lying. But who?

The editorial page of the Bangkok Post has a more thoughtful analysis than many of the recent rants of both the Post and the Nation. Plemty of analyis but no solution which is summarised as follows: "It is clear Thailand must move on from this long period of protracted conflict and instability, but where to?"

Nirmal Ghosh of the Straits Times  interviewed Thaksin in Cambodia (the story is available from here). Thaksin says he would like to negotiate and find a compromise. But he is probably weaker after his Cambodia stunt; and I suspect that there are few in the Thai administration, led by Kasit and Suthep, who would offer a compromise to Thaksin. What if they gave him back his money - and said go away and never trouble us again?

How long will the UAE let Thaksin stay?

16 November 2009

Thailand is putting more pressure on the UAE over the continuing stay in Dubai of ex Thailand Prime Minister Thaksin.

The Foreign Ministry in Bangkok yesterday summoned the United Arab Emirates Ambassador to Thailand to be informed of Thailand's dissatisfaction related to fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The Thai government alleges that Thaksin has been using Dubai as a base for launching his political activities against Thailand.

The move came days after Cambodia turned down a request from Thailand for the extradition of Thaksin, who had visited the neighbouring country to take up a new role as an economic adviser. Thaksin spends much of his time in Dubai. Thailand has previously sought the UAE’s assistance but the two countries have not signed an extradition treaty.

Panich Vikitsreth, vice minister at the Thai ministry, told AFP that “we submitted information showing that the former premier has been located there.”  Since Thaksin twitters and post pictures of his stay in Dubai that will not have come as much of a surprise.

Panich added that “the ambassador responded very warmly to our information. He affirmed the UAE’s principle that it will not allow anyone to use it as a political base to attack other countries.” He said the details provided included an interview with British newspaper The Times, which had taken place in Dubai, and comments from a Thaksin aide who said the ex-premier left Cambodia for Dubai on Saturday.

The question is just how long the UAE will let Thaksin stay. There is so much noise on both sides now that even the UAE authorities must be feeling pressure to suggest that Thaksin establish a base elsewhere. Cambodia ?

Another Dubai Properties rant

16 November 2009

My dear reader will know that Dubai Properties are not my favourite people.

Originally the company had the nerve to send out a completion notice on 21 June 2009. I assume that was just an attempt to get some money in the bank.

Now; almost 21 months after our property was due to complete and 9 months after the extension that they were legally entitled to under the (there was no point in signing this) sales contract, the building appears to be due for completion.

But get this. If you have not booked your handover appointment by 26 November 2009 then your account may be marked delinquent. Better still; you are expected to turn up five minutes before your scheduled appointment. And if you do not turn up for that scheduled appointment then you will begin to accrue late payment charges from the appointment date.

I understand the need for an efficient handover process but these people have not even thought to apologise for being 21 months late.

And anyone who has a look at the building site that we are supposed to move into before the end of the year must wonder whether this place is habitable. The public facilities are not complete, no gym or pool etc. The two floors of shopping space are still a mass of construction. Landscaping. Brown mud. Road access. A temporary cart track.

Best of all Dubai Properties has appointed Salwan LLC as the Property Manager. And a full six month service charge has to be paid in advance on completion; together with a security deposit of the same amount. ie 12 months management fees get paid in advance.

And who owns Salwan LLC. Dubai Properties. This clearly was not put out to tender.

Never again - and all I can say to anyone who wants to do business with these people is that you have been warned.

At the Dubai airshow

16 November 2009

The five day Dubai airshow started yesterday. It is now the third biggest such show in the world - and certainly the biggest show outside of Europe.

The afternoon flying display lasts from 2pm until about 5pm - with a short break at about 3.45pm for Emirates to get its afternoon departures off the fround with some 10 flights leaving very quickly off runway 30R.

Yesterday's flying show was bookended by the French and Italian display groups; the Italians stole the show with a spectacular display.

The flying order yesterday was:

Patrouille Acrobatique de France
Rafale
F16
F22
Super Mushak - Chinese jet trainer
Alenia Aermacchi M346
Catic L15
PC21
HAP Tiger
Airbus A380
Typhoon
F15E
C-27J Spartan - An Italian cargo plane that almost does aerobatics.
Frecce Tricolori

Some interesting people to chat with at the show. There is a big display of the planned new Maktoum International Airport at Jebel Ali - which is now due to open on June 27th 2010 with its first runway operational. The initial flights will be cargo; though there will also be a small passenger terminal - not a terminal for small passengers !

Long term with five runways and 120 million passengers the old DXB airport will have to close and EK will move its operations to the new airport. It will make for a major shift towards Abu Dhabi for the business and commercial hub of Dubai.

Sharjah is seen as major short term competition for the freight business with a second runway expected there.

Out in the display area a Canadain registered private 737-500 has been parked and is for sale. Low mileage for a 1990 airframe. It is available for US$24.5 million. And is owned by the family owners of the company that acquired Reuters. As a private sale the agents were not keen to disclose the previous owner.

Qatar had a new 777 on display and Etihad have a 340-600. You can tour either airplane. Given that this is Emirates territory I just wonder if EK should not also have one of its planes in the static park.

Fly Dubai had their latest 737 on display but only for one day - as it is flying today and making money. Thanks to the crew for water and a muffin. See - low cost is still friendly.

And a big hallo to the US Air Force team who were great fun to chat with yesterday as we stood and watched the flying display.

Etihad plans to upgrade its economy class - including going from 9 across to 10 across seating - how on earth is than an upgrade - other than to airline profit?

Pictures from the first day are here.

Thailand update - 16 November 2009

The government is ready to arrest fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra if he enters Thailand, travels across the Thai border or flies over the country's territory, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban warned on Monday.

Mr Suthep urged Thai people to call on Cambodian government advisor Thaksin to return to Thailand to fight his corruption charges so problems in the country would end. I hope Suthep does not really think that the return of Thaksin to Thailand and his trial would seriously end all the problems in Thailand - that is too naive.

The People's Alliance for Democracy delivered a six-point statement attacking convicted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen at a major gathering in Bangkok yesterday.

Sondhi Limpthongkul said the PAD would hold another gathering on Dec 5, His Majesty's birthday. Mr Sondhi later led a candlelight vigil in reaffirming allegiance to the King and the royal family and calling for the "annihilation of "traitors". No half measure there !

As for the apparent grenade attack backstage at the PAD rally PAD leader Sondhi Limthongkul decided to up the stakes claiming that Gen Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, the Puea Thai Party chairman, and Gen Panlop, also a Puea Thai member, might be behind the attack. It was a single guy on a motor bike. The red shirts would have nothing to gain from such an attack; and indeed would lose a lot of goodwill. Chavalit is too shrewd an operator to be that daft.

Thailand update - 15 November 2009

The Nation newspaper is using scare mongering tactics. I suspect ASTV and the Manager use a very similar approach in their Thai language media.

The Nation quotes a so called respected social critic Prawase Wasi who warned the government yesterday not to fall into a trap set by fugitive ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra and Cambodian leader Hun Sen, who were "in a temporary alliance for some purposes". Prawase, a Magsaysay Award winner, said he suspected Hun Sen's trump card would be to lead his country into a war with Thailand in order to deflect the public's attention from his faults.

The Nation drags out these people as though they are somehow plausible. But this is the same Dr. (medical) Prawase who in 2006 said that people from all demographic groups must band together and act as ''social vaccine'' against the insidious spread of the Thaksin regime, which has infected society like HIV-Aids. He actually wrote 'do not forget that the 'Thaksin regime' is like the Aids virus which destroys immunity. It can mutate rapidly to avoid being wiped out.'' So we know that his shirt is very yellow!

Meanwhile Deputy Prime Minister Sanan Kachornprasart said yesterday that he expected the row between the two countries to worsen, with the Cambodian government likely to expel all Thai diplomats in Phnom Penh and order the closure of the Thai Embassy there.

He urged Thais to view the Cambodians with kindness as Thailand is like an adult while Cambodia is a child. Thailand has more population, greater military might and economic power, he said.

And making more noise was the Thai (PAD supporting) foreign minister reported in the AP and AFP as follows:

AP: Thaksin "is using a helping hand from a neighboring country as a tool to overthrow the monarchy and the Thai government," Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said Friday in Bangkok.

AFP: "Thaksin feels he must destroy Thailand and collaborate with Hun Sen."

Back in the gossip department singer Siriwimol ''Mai'' Charoenpura likes older men, but denies she has a thing going for family friend Thaksin Shinawatra.

As the fugitive former leader dropped in to Cambodia to take up a controversial post as economic adviser, Mai told journalists that she had caught up with Thaksin during a Middle East stop-over three months ago. Mai and her mother met Thaksin and his former wife for a meal and a spot of shopping.

Voranai in the Bangkok Post has had enough - and maybe he really does speak here for the silent majority:

"Don't we all have better things to do than to bicker over one man? For example, I would like to see peace in the three southern provinces. I would like for the powers-that-be to hurry up and finish dividing the cake, so that I can use the 3G mobile service before Laos starts using 4G. I would like the authorities to get the names of politicians from Rakesh Saxena. I would like the environment to be cleaned up in Map Ta Phut. I would like education reform, political reform, social reform and the eradication of poverty. I would like developments in democracy, human rights and liberty. The list goes on and on and on. Pardon me for being greedy for my country; I would like so many things on Thailand's Christmas wish list this year.

But every minute, every hour and all the manpower; every news space, every mental space and every emotional space the leaders and people of Thailand spend on getting bent out of shape over a fugitive politician and a former Khmer Rouge cadre hugging each other like a Village People reunion is every minute, every hour and all the manpower; every news space, every mental space and every emotional space away from the true and real urgent needs of the Kingdom of Thailand."


Thailand update - 14 November 2009

Fugitive prime minister Thaksin Shinawtra has late Saturday morning left Phnom Penh for Dubai.

After all the fuss I wonder if he will go back to Cambodia?

On Friday morning, Thaksin played golf with Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen in Siam Reap. After that he welcomed about 70 MPs of the opposition Puea Thai Party and a large number of red-shirts from Thailand.

The Bangkok Post reported that Thaksin Shinawatra won plaudits from local businesspeople and high-ranking state officials responsible for the economy for his model to reduce poverty in Cambodia.

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An army of Thai and foreign reporters this morning flocked into Rong Kruea border market in Sra Kaew province to wait for Puea Thai MPs who went to see ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in Siem Reap yesterday.

The opposition MPs are scheduled to return to the eastern border province at about 11am on Saturday, after seeing Thaksin leaves Cambodia for Dubai.

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Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is using Cambodia as a political base to topple the government, Thepthai Senpong, spokesman of the Democrat Party leader, said on Saturday.

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And the Economist has its say - without really adding anything new.

Thailand update - 13 November 2009

Thirty-seven MPs and senators on Friday submitted a petition to Parliament President Chai Chidchob asking Ramkhamhaeng University to revoke the honorary doctorate in political science it conferred on Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.

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The Wall Street Journal is concerned that Thaksin's new role in Cambodia will jeopardize his standing in the country he still hopes one day to lead, analysts say.

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In a tit-for-tat exchange on Thursday, Cambodia expelled a top Thai diplomat and Thailand reciprocated.

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A Thai man, Siwarak Chothipong, a 31-year-old employee of the Cambodia Air Traffic Service, which manages flights in the country, has been arrested and accused of stealing Thaksin's flight schedule and sending it diplomats at the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh. The Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said on Friday that Siwarak is not a spy and that the Foreign Ministry is taking care of him.

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Thaksin Shinawatra was due to meet supporters on Friday after a round of golf with Cambodia's prime minister. The Bangkok Post is reporting that about 50 MPs of the Puea Thai Party travelled to Sa Kaew's Aranyaprathet district and crossed the border into Cambodia on Friday to visit their boss Thaksin Shinawatra in Siem Reap. The MPs were led by Chiang Mai MP Surapong Towichakchaikul. Mr Surapong said in a telephone interview that he and fellow Puea Thai MPs had arrived in Cambodia and would have a dinner with Thaksin at a hotel in Siem Reap and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen would also join them.

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Of course the government still tries to stir the nationalist cause and anti-Thaksin sentiment:

The Nation (always exuberantly anti Thaksin) says that Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya accused on Friday ex-Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra of using a helping hand from a neigbhouring country as a tool to overthrow the monarchy and the government. I dont think Thaksin has ever said that he wants to overthrow the monarchy. His Times interview talks of reforming some of the institutions around the monarchy. "The only problem now is that Thaksinocracy is still alive,'' Kasit said, referring to the term Thaksin's critics use for his allegedly corrupt style of rule.

***********************************
And to add to the fun: The Thai Deputy Prime Minister Suthep said Friday that the authorities would not allow Thaksin's private jet to fly over Thailand's sky on his way out of Cambodia following the arrest of a Thai mechanic on spying charges.

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And this is interesting: written by Derek Tonkin who was British ambassador to Thailand from 1986 to 1989. He was second secretary at the British embassy in Phnom Penh from 1961 to 1962.

"As regards Thaksin himself, opinions in Europe are mixed. On the one hand, he enjoyed an unchallenged mandate from the Thai electorate, but was forced out in a military coup which induced even the United States to show its displeasure. Such a democratic mandate commands sympathy and support in Europe. On the other hand, Thaksin’s ruthless policies against local Islamic extremists in the south, his support for the use of police violence against alleged narcotics dealers in the north and the use of his financial clout to dominate the media and silence critics led to serious concerns about the extent of his abuse of human rights. Few, though, were all that concerned by the sentence passed on him for financial corruption, not that the charges might not have had merit, but because in that case many thought that a majority of the financial and commercial establishment in Thailand could well have cases to answer."
 

Golf balls are humanity's signature litter

13 November 2009 - via CNN.com

Research teams at the Danish Golf Union have discovered it takes between 100 to 1,000 years for a golf ball to decompose naturally. A startling fact when it is also estimated 300 million balls are lost or discarded in the United States alone, every year. It seems the simple plastic golf ball is increasingly becoming a major litter problem.

The scale of the dilemma was underlined recently in Scotland, where scientists -- who scoured the watery depths in a submarine hoping to discover evidence of the prehistoric Loch Ness monster -- were surprised to find hundreds of thousands of golf balls lining the bed of the loch.

It is thought tourists and locals have used the loch as an alternative driving range for many years.

With an increasing number of golf balls discarded each year, the Danish Golf Association devised a number of tests to determine the environmental impact of golf balls on their surroundings.

It was found that during decomposition, the golf balls dissolved to release a high quantity of heavy metals. Dangerous levels of zinc were found in the synthetic rubber filling used in solid core golf balls. When submerged in water, the zinc attached itself to the ground sediment and poisoned the surrounding flora and fauna.

Course manager for the Danish Golf Union, Torben Kastrup Petersen, said the scale of the problem is unknown: "There has been very little research on the environmental impact of golf balls, but it's safe to say the indicators are not good. We are planning to collaborate with environmentalists in America to conduct more tests to fully explore the extent of the problem."

Local government ministers in Scotland have also complained about the level of golf ball littering. UK lawmaker Patrick Harvie told CNN: "From the moon to the bottom of Loch Ness, golf balls are humanity's signature litter in the most inaccessible locations."

And he's not wrong. On February 6, 1971, astronaut Alan Shepherd was filmed taking a swing with a six iron on the surface of the moon. According to Shepherd, the balls flew off in the distance and landed a few kilometers away. Although the balls were left for future golfers to discover, it is believed the extreme temperatures on the surface would have dissolved the balls many moons ago.

In many cases, removing a partially degraded ball from a lake or woodland area could result in further damage to the wildlife. So what is the solution? Harvie had this advice: "Keep your balls on the fairway or invest in a stock of biodegradable balls."

BA and Iberia to merge

13 November 2009

British Airways and Iberia, the Spanish flag carrier, have announced a deal to create Europe’s largest airline. This follows on from the merger of Air France and KLM about two years ago.

The merger by the two loss-making companies will off another round of cost-cutting at both airlines to save £360 million a year. Jobs are likely to be lost at head offices in London and Madrid, in maintenance facilities and in the sales forces.

The combined airline will carry 62 million passengers a year, making it Europe’s largest, although the budget company Ryanair may exceed that figure this year.

BA will be incorporated in Madrid and chaired by a Spaniard, Antonio Vázquez. Presumably the Spanish HQ is driven by tax considerations. The headquarters and stock market listing will be in London and Willie Walsh, BA’s chief executive, will head the merged group.

Iberia’s board of directors in Madrid agreed the terms of the deal yesterday and BA’s directors signed the deal last night, ending 16 months of talks over who should run the combined airline and how much shareholders should own. A holding company will be set up and the two airlines will continue to operate as separate entities within it.

Passengers are unlikely to notice much difference initially but integration could mean Spanish crew and pilots working on BA flights, and in time a balancing of flights between the major hubs of Madrid and London.

The most significant impact will be financial since the larger company will be able to strike better deals when buying fuel, aircraft and other supplies. BA lost £292 million in the six months to September 30; Iberia lost £224 million in the first half of the year.

Ryanair decribed the merger as looking like two drunks stumbling along propping eachother up!

It is clear that both BA and Iberia need to save money if they are to survive. Already in BA 4,900 jobs will go by next March.

The combined airline will also hope to generate additional revenue by offering passengers an expanded route network. BA is strong on transatlantic routes from Heathrow and on routes east to Asia, while Iberia is strong into Africa and South America.

BA shareholders will own 56 per cent of the new group and Iberia will get the rest. Investors showed enthusiasm for the deal yesterday as BA’s share price climbed 15p, or 7.5 per cent, to 215p and Iberia was up 12 per cent.

The combined airline will be worth £4.5 billion, just behind Lufthansa, which is Europe’s most valuable airline at £4.6 billion.

The real strength of the merger will really only be known if a truly global airline can be formed by merging the new company with American Airlines.

Northwest goes viral

12 November 2009

You have to feel a bit sorry for the Northwest pilots - but there is some fun humour at their expense: and to be honest, the publicity is probably not doing the newly merged airline any harm at all.

For a start - a song - Tweetin on a Jet Plane

And a cockpit picture!

Thailand update - 12 November 2009

At least 100 members of Rak Chart (Love the Nation) 52 group led by Kraiwan Kasemsing on Thursday morning demonstrated against the Cambodian government and prime minister Hun Sen in front of Cambodian embassy in Bangkok, Wang Thonglang police said.  “Hun Sen has looked down upon Thailand by appointing ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as an economic adviser,” Mr Kraiwan said. I guess that makes a change from Thais looking down on Cambodia which has long been a national pastime!

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The English language newspapers are reporting a meeting between Hun Sen and the press. Some interesting comments.

On Abhisit - "What is he afraid of? I am the prime minister of Cambodia who received two-third of the vote and how much vote did Abhisit received or did he stole his seat from other people? If so how do you expect to respect you?" Hun Sen notes that "I have been working in politics when the Thai prime minister was still a child."

The Bangkok Post writes the above paragraph as follows:

"I am Prime Minister of Cambodia who has received two-thirds of the vote in the Cambodian parliament. How many does Than Abhisit have? You've stolen somebody else's chair to seat yourself in. You claim other people's property as your own. How can we respect that?"

On Abhisit's problems - "Abhisit is faced with all kinds of problems. He could die from it. He has problem with all his neighbours, including Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia and Myanmar. Moreover, he has problem with the yellow shirt, the red shirt and the blue shirt and the white shirt. Even the yellow shirt are not united among their own kind. What due respect does Cambodia has to give Thailand? Appointing Thaksin has nothing to do with Thailand? I have told Abhisit that Thaksin is my friend. Friend don't betray friend."

On Thailand's judicial system- "There is nothing in the Thai judicial system that is worth respecting. In the past Khieu Samphan, Nuan Chea was residing in Cambodia before they relocate to Cambodia. (RAS - something is wrong in the Nation's translation - one of the countries is Thailand.)This was not only a violation of international laws and norms, Thailand even endorse Khmer Rogue and the peace process. I want the Thai people to know that the government don't even respect international law and so how can we even respect Thai judicial system?"

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Meanwhile Thaksin will leave Cambodia tomorrow to return to Dubai. The question is when will he go back?

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The New York Times has a summary of the dispute.

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Meanwhile Thaksin has been meeting red shirt supporters in Siem Reap. I wonder how he feels. So close to home. But unable to go there.

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This evening saw the first diplomatic expulsions - Cambodia asks first secretary at Thai embassy in Phnom Penh to leave in 48 hrs after Bangkok cut aid. Thailand reciprocated. That's more like it - feels like the cold war. The Brits would send home a few Russians who would then do the same thing to the Brits.

Blaming the Demons

11 November 2009

Problem solving Thai style.

There have been many problems at Bangkok's new airport. But the source of those problems is being addressed. Twelve “demon statues” at Suvarnabhumi airport believed to have brought bad luck to shopkeepers will be moved at a cost of one million baht. Expensive !

The guardian spirit statues will be shifted from the inner zone of the passenger terminal to the check-in area to “improve morale” of people working at the airport.

Maybe they will not improve the lot of the passengers checking in at the new airport.

So why have the shopkeepers suffered. Fewer passengers. The Bangkok Post reported that international arrivals are down 30% this year compared to last for the 10 months to October

Why fewer passengers. An airport occupation; negative widespread reports of customers being accused, falsely or otherwise, of shoplifting; the ever prolific rogue taxi operators; the annoying gangs of unofficial tour guide touts; a King Power monopoly that means prices are better downtown; baggage handlers forced to wear uniforms with pockets sewn to prevent pilfering?!

Airports of Thailand (AoT) president Serirat Prasutanond has performed in person a Brahmin ritual in the airport terminal before the relocation of the twelve yaksa.

Why blaming corruption, greed or incompetence. It was the Demons.

Emirates may look to buy more planes amid downturn

11 November 2009

Hinting at possible new orders next week Emirates president Tim Clark says his airline may look to buy more planes despite the recession that has forced other carriers to cancel and defer contracts.

Emirates may look to buy more planes from Airbus and Boeing despite the recession that has prompted many other carriers to cancel and delay contracts.

Airline president Tim Clark said the current fleet was operating “flat out” and existing orders have been allocated to new services, prompting the Dubai- based company to assess the ability of Airbus and Boeing to source extra planes.

“We’re sounding out who’s got more just in case we decide to go ahead,” Clark said in an interview with newswire Bloomberg. “The fleet order we have in place is probably not as big as it needs to be.”

Clark didn’t say how many more planes might be required.

However, in a recessionary economy it is likely that Emirates can source some very attractive prices.
 

Emirates mulls more Airbus A380s despite delays

11 November 2009

Emirates airline, the biggest buyer of the "superjumbo" Airbus A380, said today that it is considering increasing its order for the double-decker plane despite delays on existing orders.

Emirates airline Chairman and Chief Executive Sheik Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum told reporters the Dubai-based carrier is looking to boost its order beyond the 58 it has already requested—the most booked by any airline.

"We are considering that, actually," he said when asked about additional orders ahead of next week's Dubai Air Show. "We're actually looking at the market as very positive for the next few years ... We are always one of the first-movers to take advantage of the market."

For the time being, however, Emirates says it is facing delays with some of the A380s it has already requested. Just five of the "superjumbo" planes have been delivered to Emirates so far.

The carrier said that it had been due to receive three A380s between November and December 2009, but delivery of each has been pushed back by a month. The airline expects to have 15 A380s in service by the end of 2010.

Thailand update - 11 November 2009

There is simply too much happening in the power struggle taking place over the future of Thailand.  There are very few blogs, websites and moderate voices calling for restraint. Instead we have a mixture of hyped up nationalism and vitriolic threats.

So rather than produce a series of reports I think I will try just a daily summary of the main news stories.

The Thai Ambassador to the UK has written to the Editor of the Times newspaper.

The Straits Times rather dramatically reports that Thaksin could start a war.

There are also reports that the PAD are mobilizing again. On Sunday the PAD will “stage a major rally to show its dissatisfaction with Thaksin Shinawatra’s interview with the online edition of The Times of London about the monarchy and Cambodia’s appointment of him as economic adviser…”.

The government is not invoking the ISA. The ISA appears to be reserved for red shirt rallies only. The yellow shirts are government supporters so no ISA is needed. Despite the fact that they occupied the airport a year ago. The PAD propose to "send a message to the world community that Thai people were loyal to the monarchy and denounce Puea Thai Party chairman Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, Thaksin and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen for having trodden on the dignity and integrity of Thailand.”

Chamlong Srimuang “called for retired military officers to turn up at the rally to protect the monarchy.”

Sean Crispin has written a comprehensive analysis in Asia Times

Not the Nation has this satirical piece which wonderfully shows just how bizarre this whole subject is.

The Thai government and media confirm that a lese majeste complaint has been made against Thaksin and Richard Lloyd Parry, the Editor of the Asia edition of The Times, which published the Thaksin interview in which he referred to the monarchy.

That makes so little sense. The Editor of the Asia edition of The Times is a British citizen and I think is based in Tokyo. What a waste of time. It might play well in the domestic media. No where else.

Thaksin is playing against Abhisit and his government and supporters. He is on their door step. But the best they can do is accept a complaint of lese-majeste. The trouble is that this use of the King's name and health and of the royal family by both sides is no more than political manipulation by both sides which undermines the monarchy that they claim to be defending.
 

Siamese spat

11 November 2009 - Editorial - The Times

"On Monday The Times published an interview with Thaksin Shinawatra, the ousted Prime Minister of Thailand. As a result of his comments about that country’s Royal Family, part of the Times Online website has been blocked in Thailand. Thaksin and this newspaper’s Asia editor could also, theoretically, face up to 15 years in jail. The Thai laws of lèse-majesté have always been excessive. They now look childish, too.

To those unversed in the peculiarities of the Thai system, Thaksin’s alleged offence may be hard to discern. He did not abuse the Royal Family, or even find fault with them. Instead, he merely discussed the link between the monarchy and Thai politics, and speculated as to how the landscape might change if the much revered king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, should one day die.

King Bhumibol is the world’s longest-serving head of state and is admired in Thailand for the stabilising role he has played during his six decades on the throne. He is also 81, and has been in hospital for the past seven weeks with suspected pneumonia. This should not have been inflammatory stuff. Thailand is an exciting, modern, forward-looking nation, but nothing jars with this quite so much as the antiquated prohibition against discussing the monarchy in anything but the most fawning and platitudinous terms. At times, the country can seem less like a constitutional monarchy and more like a personality cult. This benefits nobody, not even the royals themselves.

Indeed, in this as in so many things, King Bhumibol himself is a beacon of good sense. “The King can do wrong,” he reminded the Thai people, in an address on the eve of his 78th birthday. “If we hold that the King cannot be criticised or violated, then the King ends up in a difficult situation.”

In recent years, the King has found himself in such a difficult situation a number of times. The Royal Family themselves do not invoke the law of lèse-majesté , but when citizens bring charges on their behalf the police are obliged to investigate. Earlier this year the King pardoned an Australian author who had been sentenced to three years in prison owing to a 100-word passage in a novel that sold seven copies. More often, they are exploited as a means of silencing dissent, imprisoning dissenters or of cowing domestic and international journalists. The BBC’s respected correspondent Jonathan Head has found himself investigated for lèse-majesté on several occasions. This is a petty law, which only opens Thailand up to ridicule.

In Thaksin’s words, either way, one finds neither criticism nor violation of the monarchy. Instead we find something that the Thai Establishment regards as equally taboo — the mere acknowledgement that some in the royal circle may have some involvement in Thai politics. That this should be publicly unutterable in any 21st-century nation beggars belief, let alone one with the potential and ambition of Thailand.

In his interview, Thaksin spoke of how influences in Thai public life may change, should King Bhumibol be succeeded by the Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn. We wish the King a speedy recovery, but whatever the future holds, Thailand can only benefit from a free and frank discussion of its own system of government. Scrutiny need not entail disrespect."

A380’s stellar performance undermined by ongoing technical issues: operators
By Max Kingsley-Jones - Flight Global

10 November 2009

Two years on from its service debut, operators have told Flightglobal that the Airbus A380 has proved itself to be a crowd pleaser from a passenger point of view but suffers some frustrating technical problems.

This week's Flight International features our exclusive A380 in-service report, in which launch customers Emirates, Qantas and Singapore Airlines provide no-holds-barred overviews of the double-decker's performance, while Airbus, Engine Alliance and Rolls-Royce give feedback on their experiences.

The general verdict is that the A380 has delivered a significant operational boost to the airlines' marketing teams and has equalled or bettered performance guarantees but continues to experience technical delays caused by problems that Airbus acknowledges it should have got on top of by now.

"We're busting our seams on the A380, this aeroplane is a peach," says Emirates Airline president Tim Clark, who adds that performance has beaten the manufacturer's guarantees. "The faster the A380 flies the less fuel it burns," he adds.

This is echoed by Qantas group executive operations Lyell Strambi who says the aircraft has "met or exceeded" all the guarantees.

The airlines are united in their praise for Airbus's support, which executive vice-president Tom Williams admits is running at a "heavier level" than envisaged at this point in the programme.

The A380 has suffered the usual gremlins that crop up during early operations, such as problems with sensors and some component failures. However, the single most frustrating technical issue centres around the warning system, which SIA and Emirates believe is too sensitive, and results in misplaced fault messages.

Clark blames the problem on "overcomplex" software that has dragged down the technical despatch reliability from the 98.5% target to the "96-97%" level.

Airbus says it is working hard to address the problem and raise the TDR to the target level, which Williams expects will be achieved by mid-2010.

SIA, which has the largest A380 fleet and was the type's first operator two years ago, says it has suffered some "teething problems" with its Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines, which has prompted a number of unscheduled changes.

R-R's head of marketing for Airbus programmes, Richard Keen, says that SIA's "very precautionary approach" to its A380 operations, with regard to any possible operational risks, "necessitated an extra engine change or two".

However, he adds that all the teething problems have been "closed out or contained" and that the Trent 900's "disruption index" is running at 99.8% - in line with a mature Trent product.

The full report on the A380 in service is on the Flight Global web site here.

Taking Stock of Bangkok

Wall Street Journal - Editorial

This is a useful editorial. In all the fuss about Thaksin's visit to Cambodia and his interview with the Times, there is a danger of forgetting those arrested in questionable circumstances for their alleged involvment in spreading rumours that impacted the SET in mid October.

10 November 2009

"Thailand's 2006 military coup left its mark on the country in a lot of ways: Years of political instability and crippling street protests and violence, for a start. But some of the most insidious changes are only now revealing themselves, such as the effects of the very first law the junta's assembly passed after taking power, the Computer Crimes Act.

Last week three Thais were arrested under the act and charged with posting rumors online that threatened "national security"—specifically, rumors about the health of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 81, who has been hospitalized since Sept. 19 (authorities say his health is improving). Police allege a link between the postings and a 7% drop in the Thai stock exchange Oct. 14 and 15.

This isn't the first time this law has been applied: the editor of a political Web site was arrested in March after a reader posted a comment critical of the monarchy. The editor has been released on bail and the case is still under investigation. In April, a blogger was convicted of violating the Computer Crimes Act and Lese Majeste laws—and sentenced to a decade in jail. The Thai Netizen Network, a Bangkok-based advocacy group, estimates around 10 Thais have been arrested under the Computer Crimes Act so far.

Proponents argue the act is necessary to combat online pornography and online crime, areas previously overlooked by Thai laws. But the law also punishes, with jail terms of up to five years, anyone who "inputs into a computer system false computer data in a manner that is likely to undermine national security or to cause a public panic."

Last week's arrests show what a broad net that clause casts over Internet users. One person arrested—a former bank executive—told reporters that she had translated a Bloomberg article about the market decline into Thai and posted it online. Another worked at a local securities firm, and the Stock Exchange of Thailand is currently investigating accounts linked to his clients.

We don't know whether any of these people violated Thai laws. But we do know that their arrest sends a powerful message to all Thais about the risks they face for posting information online. This is stifling not only to political discussion, but also detrimental to investors at home and abroad who rely on that information to make investment decisions.

Many analysts say that the stock market dip in October took place because of an information vacuum about the health of the King; in such an environment, rumors spread quickly. But the solution is to have more information, not less."

Thaksin faces lese majeste complaint

10 November 2009

Things are moving fast in Thailand and it is hard to keep track of the news there or the various actions and announcements.

What is sad is that there appears to be no room for considered dialogue. There is just reaction and over-reaction.

It also appears to be the case that some of the Thai language press translations may have used more inflammatory words in Thai than their English equivalent in the interview.

The Siam Samakkhi Group on Tuesday filed two complaints alleging lese majeste with Dusit police against former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and two other people.

The complaints were lodged on behalf of the group by senators Somchai Sawaengkarn and Warin Thiamjarat, Gen Somchet Boonthanom, former chief of the secretariat of the Council for National Security, and Lt-Gen Nanthadet Meksawat, former deputy chief of the national intelligence coordination centre.

The first complaint was against Thaksin and Richard Lloyd Parry, the Asia editor of The Times, which published the Thaksin interview in which he referred to the monarchy.

The second was against Jai Ungphakorn, a former lecturer of Chulalongkorn University who fled the country after being charged with lese majeste, and the website redsiam.net for disseminating articles alleged to contain lese majeste.

The question really is where exactly is the lese majeste in the interview?
 

Thaksin to sue Times Online

10 November 2009

The Bangkok Post is reporting that ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra will apparently file defamation charges against the Times Online for reporting a story that he had insulted the high institution, according to Suchart Lainamngern, deputy spokesman of the opposition Puea Thai Party.

“Thaksin has assigned his lawyer, Noppadon Pattama, to study ways to take legal action against the foreign online website for false reporting”, Mr Suchart said.

He insisted that Thaksin has never insulted the monarchy as accused of.

According to Mr Suchart, Thaksin believed the Democrats were trying to destroy him by accusing him of disloyalty to the high institution to provoking nationalism sentiment among Thai people. The attempt was aimed at covering the government’s failure to resolve economic problem of the country.

The deputy spokesman went on to say that Thaksin has accepted the job as an economic advisor to Cambodian government only to help resolve poverty problem in the neighbouring country.

Tiger Airways to Hong Kong

10 November 2009

Singapore's Tiger Airways plans to start twice daily services to Hong Kong from 1 February 2010.

"Hong Kong's status as a tourist and business destination, the demand for low fares and the ongoing success of Tiger Airways across Asia mean that now is the time for growth," says Rosalynn Tay, managing director of the low-cost carrier's Singapore operation.

Tiger Airways, in which Singapore Airlines has a 49% stake, will compete on the Singapore-Hong Kong route with SIA, Cathay Pacific, and United Airlines, as well as low-cost rival Jetstar Asia.

The airline has a fleet of seven Airbus A320s and two Airbus A319s.

Desert kingdoms – how the Gulf’s network carriers are riding out the storm
By Max Kingsley-Jones - Flight Global

10 November 2009

"Amid the worst global downturn in modern times, one region has stood out as a pillar of strength where the flag-carrier airlines have stuck with growth plans and added new aircraft galore.

Over the past 10 months, as the major airlines in Europe, Australasia, the Pacific Rim and the Americas have put their brakes on fleet expansion amid serious falls in passenger demand and yields, Emirates, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways - the flag carriers of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar respectively - have carried on their breathtaking fleet and network growth.

Between them the three airlines have already introduced more than 20 new widebodies this year, with at least 10 more to come before 2009 is out. Meanwhile, a major new low-cost carrier has also launched operations from Dubai.

The Gulf may appear to be the region that defies the laws of gravity, but it has not been all plain sailing. The airlines all confess to suffering serious yield problems, which have seriously dented their revenues. Dubai in particular - so long the powerhouse of the region - has had to rein in its ambitions for an all-new global hub and is focusing on growing its airport Dubai International.

Etihad boss James Hogan says that his airline has not escaped the gloom either, suffering the "double whammy" of the tough economic cycle and the swine flu pandemic, but has still continued with the planned introduction of 11 new aircraft. "We're an industry that is used to shocks - last year we had to absorb the fuel price and focus on our costs. This year has been unusual - we've had the recession and the pandemic."

Akbar Al Baker, chief executive of Qatar Airways, says it has been "a very unlucky and unprecedented two years" for the industry. "First the oil price inflation, then the financial crisis then H1-N1 [swine flu]," he says.

Emirates is the oldest and biggest of the region's global network carriers, having launched in 1985 and carried 22.7 million passengers in 2008 - more than its two local rivals combined. The airline, which took over the mantle from the Middle East's previous standard bearer Gulf Air a decade ago, boasts an all-widebody passenger fleet that totals 130 aircraft, and a network of more than 100 destinations.

Qatar Airways, which launched its current guise in 1997 with Al Baker at the helm, carried in excess of 12 million passengers in its 2008-9 financial year and has a fleet of almost 70 aircraft.

Abu Dhabi, like Qatar, was once a member of the Gulf Air consortium, but pulled out to focus on its own airline, Etihad. Set up just five years ago, Etihad may be the baby of the bunch but carried six million passengers in 2008 and expects to grow to nine million this year. By the end of the year its route network will comprise 57 points and its fleet 50 aircraft, which like Qatar Airways, is a mix of single-aisle and widebodies. Hogan took the helm in October 2006, having previously been head of Gulf Air in Bahrain.

None of the carriers has backed off in the face of the economic downturn. As Hogan points out, data from the International Air Transport Association shows that traffic during the first eight months of 2009 in every region has been in decline, except one - the Middle East.

"This region has outperformed the industry every month since January on RPKs, seat factor, etc," he says. However, he adds that the downside to the region's apparent resilience is that competitors from other areas have been "focusing on this part of the world".

Al Baker says that Qatar Airways, which is adding aircraft at a rate of more than one a month, is "not going to stop our growth plans. We still have a lot of traffic rights we can utilise."

It is the same story at Emirates, where "our growth, in terms of aircraft induction, continues apace", says Clark. "Passenger growth is running at around 18% over this time last year."

However, the turmoil of 2008 has taken its toll on the airline, which suffered an 80% fall in net profits to 982 million dirham ($268 million).

Despite the downturn, the Dubai carrier has "stuck to its guns", retaining its plan to take 22 widebodies in the current financial year, which ends on 30 March 2010. The airline has five A380s in service, with a sixth due to arrive this month.

"We've got 10 to come by the summer of next year," says Clark, although he adds the caveat that the deliveries still suffer "niggling delays", which makes longer-term planning problematic. "Beyond next summer we're keeping our fingers crossed [on the A380 delivery schedule]," he says.

On top of the A380 influx, Emirates is adding one Boeing 777 a month so that by the summer of 2010 its passenger fleet will be up to about 145 widebodies.

From September 2010, Emirates will begin to roll over some of its older aircraft, beginning with its A330-200s, the oldest of which have now been in the fleet for a decade. A total of 58 aircraft will gradually be replaced, including 29 A330-200s, eight leased A340-300s and 21 777 Classics.

Clark says he felt obliged to continue with new deliveries because the alternative - telling Airbus and Boeing he did not want to take the aircraft that were sitting on the ramp in Toulouse and Seattle - would "push half the aerospace industry out of work. We had a legal - almost moral - obligation to the supply chain to continue what we were doing."

Emirates decided it would "tough it out" and keep growing, with the prerequisite that it must "stay in the black, cash positive, and the brand and product in good shape". But Clark confesses that adopting this strategy in the early days of a downturn in the absence of any firm economic data can be risky.

"It's like navigating a nuclear submarine in the dark without any aids. We knew we had $60 billion worth of aircraft coming in, and we didn't actually know what was going to happen," he says.

But while passenger volumes have remained strong, "it's what the passengers are paying us that is a problem", says Clark.

Qatar Airways has faced similar problems, says Al Baker. "Our biggest challenge is holding our yield. There is a downward pressure because our competition in the region is getting very aggressive, just to keep passenger numbers without looking at the bottom line, which is a very foolish way of conducting business," he says.

The airline will have introduced around a dozen new aircraft during 2009 and next year will take nearly 20 new 777s (including its first two 777 Freighters). These aircraft will be for expansion, either going on to new routes (Sydney and its first South American destination, São Paulo, are among the plans for 2010) or replacing A330s on existing routes and allowing the Airbus twinjets to be redeployed. It is also adding new A320s and A321s, equipped with a new generation of seats and in-flight entertainment.

Like its neighbours, the bulk of the 160 aircraft Qatar Airways has on order are widebodies. These include both next-generation twin-aisles, the 787 and A350, for delivery from 2011 and 2013 respectively, as well as five A380s, which are due to start arriving four years from now. Although not all the aircraft are for growth, Al Baker says the airline "will not start replacing the current fleet before 2011 or 2012".

The airline serves 82 destinations and has added three new routes this year, with its first Australian destination, Melbourne, coming on line in December. While traffic using the airline's Doha hub from Europe is key to this new market, Al Baker says he is also targeting local business. "There is a lot of demand from our region," he says.

Etihad's ambition is to carry nine million passengers this year, putting it 16% up on 2008. However it will then begin "a degree of consolidation", says Hogan. The airline has added 11 aircraft this year, including A320s, A330/A340s and a 777, but will take just four aircraft next year and "three or four" in 2011. "Then at the back end of 2012 we start to receive the first of the 100 aircraft we ordered at Farnborough last year through to 2017."

The first of 10 A380s are scheduled for 2012. "These had been due to arrive now, but in early 2007 we pushed them back because we were concerned we'd be adding too much capacity too soon."

The airline is riding the boom in its hometown, "which has stayed open for business in the downturn" and which accounts for 52% of its traffic, says Hogan. "That's a reflection of what's happening here. Over the next seven years, as part of Abu Dhabi's '2030 plan' there are ongoing projects that add up to $200 billion - these include the Yas Marina Formula 1 race track, infrastructure, light rail, hospitals schools etc. At the same time, more and more companies are coming and setting up their businesses in the capital."

The same is true of Qatar's capital Doha, which is undertaking major development projects and will have a brand-new international airport within four years. The country is also flush with the revenue from its huge natural gas reserves, and aims to become the world's capital for gas-to-liquid petroleum production.

Clark concedes things have not been so rosy in Dubai, which was until recently the region's commercial Mecca. Although Emirates has always had its hub-and-spoke network at the centre of its business strategy, it found that during the boom times, Dubai's origin and destination traffic had been so lucrative that it tweaked is strategy. "The premium cabins had been generating yield levels that I never thought I'd see in my career", says Clark. "So we turned off other parts of the business."

But this lucrative O&D traffic began to diminish in 2008 as Dubai's real estate and financial services businesses "started taking a pasting", says Clark, and the airline focused more on its transit business. The effect was that "the number of people travelling in business and economy declined by 3-4 percentage points, but yield went down further because they were paying less".

Etihad saw strong yield growth until 2008, but this year it has declined in some segments back to 2007 levels, says Hogan. And global economic gloom aside, he points to the swine flu pandemic as being harmful to its local business. "Middle East traffic is down 36% this year. People in the region didn't travel, and the home market is normally the higher yielding market, which has put all the airlines in the region under pressure," he says.

Al Baker agrees on the effect of swine flu. "The H1-N1 pandemic has put undue pressure on the airline industry because a lot of people have decided not to travel".

Hogan says that while Abu Dhabi's inbound loads have remained strong, outbound traffic "hasn't been where it was in previous years", but he is confident that business will be back next year.

The effects of the downturn and the pandemic meanunit fares have declined due to discounting to stimulate traffic. Hogan also thinks the timing of the A380's arrival has not helped the industry's overcapacity problem. "If ever there was a time not to get A380s, it was right now," he says.

Clark wonders whether the industry overreacted in the early part of the year and cut prices too far. "At the end of last year, nobody knew what was going on, and everybody lost their nerve. Maybe history will say we beat ourselves up too soon on this. I've been leaning heavily on our pricing and we've seen a 22% increase in prices in the past five months - and we've still got high seat factors."

The yield declines this year mean that Etihad will struggle to achieve its revenue target, says Hogan, and this has been compounded by the fact that the airline has been growing its route network with seven additions in 2009. "The normal rule of thumb is that it takes three years to get to breakeven."

This means it will get be tough to reach the target of breaking even in 2010. "We've got a three-year rolling plan and I've got one challenge - revenue. Everything else is under control and positioned to accelerate."

Al Baker says that despite the woes, Qatar Airways has been "very profitable" in three of the five months of its current financial year, which began on 1 April. However, he does not project what the impact of the downturn will have on the airline's full-year performance.

Cargo is an important part of all three airlines' businesses (they all operate widebody full-freighters), so the collapse of that market has added to their woes. Cargo volumes were 35-40% down at the beginning of this year, and yields fell dramatically, says Clark. "We dealt with the collapse very quickly by selling our two A310 freighters. And fortunately deliveries of our 747-8Fs have been delayed due to the programme slip."

However, the airline went ahead with the introduction of new 777Fs as planned and now has two in service.

Qatar Airways Cargo operates three A300-600 dedicated freighters and Al Baker says that although the market has been "down big time with some people" the airline is "still doing well" as its exposure is limited. "Having a small fleet, we can very quickly move capacity to where there is demand."

The first two 777Fs arrive in 2010, by which time Al Baker expects the market to have rebounded, he says. "I'm also expecting that having large volume freighters will enable us to capture a large amount of market that currently goes to other airlines."

Etihad's freight arm, Crystal Cargo, has a couple of A300-600Fs, and in August next year will be the first airline to take the new 64t payload A330-200F. "We're starting to see cargo come back," says Hogan.

All the airlines have sought to offset their revenue shortfalls with better cost control. For Emirates and Etihad in particular this has meant a recruitment freeze, although both are beginning to thaw.

At Emirates, this entailed "tending to the house and cleaning it up", says Clark. "In recent years we'd been chasing our tails trying to meet the demand and we'd lost sight of what we should have been doing in the company improving our processes in the electronic age. It wasn't about cutting jobs, but about stopping recruitment and letting attrition take its natural course."

Hogan says Etihad's youth gives it the advantage of starting with a clean sheet of paper. "We're a 'new-wave' carrier without the burdens of a legacy carrier, and we're not subsidised," he says, adding that much of the business's needs are outsourced, meaning there are not unwieldy "legacy" departments in-house dealing with areas such as IT and so on.

As part of Emirates' cost drive, Clark says that the 2009-10 budget had a "zero base - meaning anything that anybody wanted had to be signed off by me, and that got everyone thinking".

Clark hopes the airline will get close to his 16% unit cost reduction target for the current financial year. "We'll be 12% down - hopefully a bit more. This will mean that costs at the end of the year will be flat or down a bit, despite our 14% fleet growth. And when we grow next year, I expect the costs to come down again."

With Etihad poised to ride the recovery wave, Hogan awaitsthe "famous green shoots". He says: "It's like surfing: waiting for the wave. As the market turns, Etihad is in great shape to accelerate. People have to travel to do business. The market,at some stage, corrects."

Clark does not share the view of carriers from other regions that the world's air travel market is in "total collapse, that there has been a paradigm shift in the global economy and that there will never be any more business-class passengers".

While he accepts that the world is "resetting to 2002-3 and growing at about 2-3% [gross domestic product]" a year, Clark believes that the world's population remains "aspirational".

Clark says that while "people have reset to the way things are now - they definitely tasted the good life, and one way or another they'll want to get back there".

So given the clear determination of the Gulf's three well-funded and ambitious global airlines, the legacy network carriers will face an ever greater challenge to retain their hub traffic as the market recovers.
 

Dubai's airports have growing ambitions
By Murdo Morrison - Flight Global

10 November 2009

Cynics might joke that the reason Dubai airport has been doing so well recently is the mass exodus of expatriates who came to get rich quick in the city's soaring property and construction sectors. But talk to Paul Griffiths, the man in charge of Dubai's international airport, and his biggest headache is not a rapidly departing customer base, but how to cope with passenger growth projected to rise 14% next year. And this at an airport that, despite a 1 million m2 (10.76 million ft2) new terminal being added last year, is often bursting at the seams.

Dubai has seen traffic triple in eight years to an expected 40.5 million passengers in 2009, seven out of 10 of them in transit. Despite the economic problems that have beset the statelet, the airport has withstood the global downturn better than most of its competitors. "We are very fortunate to be the only major international airport recording growth at the moment," says Griffiths. Although Emirates - responsible for two-thirds of Dubai International's traffic - has been the main driver of its expansion, the airport caters for more than 125 carriers, serving 210 destinations.

As chief executive of Dubai Airports, Griffiths is also responsible for Al Maktoum International, the seven-runway colossus slowly emerging from the desert at the port of Jebel Ali and part of the planned giant Dubai World Central logistics and commercial development.

Al Maktoum International will enable Dubai to go on growing, with total passenger numbers through the emirate's airports projected to top 100 million in the early 2020s. The first (Airbus A380-compable) runway and passenger terminal will open next year and a modest 1 million passengers are expected to use it during 2010.

Both airports will operate in parallel next decade, with the proximity of the port and a large logistics infrastructure likely to entice cargo operators to Al Maktoum International initially. Griffiths says the current airport will continue to expand. "We are under orders [from Dubai's ruler] not to create a situation where we are constraining growth through lack of capacity," he says. "We will go on investing until we maximise use of both runways [at Dubai International]. At the moment we have around 55 movements an hour, but we reckon we can cope with 63. This is likely to become a problem by the end of the next decade."

What happens before then is open to question. Although the relocation of Emirates to the new airport is part of the long-term vision, this now seems a more distant prospect, with the flag-carrier unlikely to move until Al Maktoum International can handle its entire operation. "One thing is clear - Emirates won't have a split-hub strategy," says Griffiths. "They will only move once they can move their entire business and they don't have to make that decision right now."

Griffiths, a Briton, joined Dubai Airports in 2007 from UK operator BAA, where he was responsible for London's Gatwick airport, and the two roles could hardly be more different. While most European airport owners face a quagmire of planning constraints, environmental opposition, regulation and often hostile media, Dubai's rulers 20 years ago identified aviation as one of the foundations on which the emirate's economic success would be built.

They began planning accordingly, with an open-skies policy and a blueprint for one of the world's biggest hubs. "We take the decision to build now and add capacity now, rather than wait until it is too late," he says. "One great advantage is not having to deal with endless bureaucracy. Look at the 16 years it took to build [London Heathrow's] Terminal 5 and they added no new runway capacity."

Also, while many European airports and their main tenants are constantly at war, it helps that Dubai Airports and Emirates, although independent of each other, have the same long-term vision. "[Emirates chief executive] Tim Clark and I have an understanding of each other's role," says Griffiths. "The size of the prize is so big if we get this right. You'd struggle to find that sort of co-operation around the world. It does help having the same boss."

 Blue Rodeo delivers classic roots-rock

10 November 2009
The Ottawa Citizen - The Things We Left Behind - Blue Rodeo (Warner)

Canadian roots-rockers Blue Rodeo have hit a nice creative stride in the last few years, and it's good to see the momentum carry through on their latest studio recording.

Released today, The Things We Left Behind contains two albums worth of new songs, a motherload of music in this era of downloadable singles.

Happily, it doesn't feel bloated.

There are just eight songs on each album, and the studio tinkering is minimal. Most songs are based on the acoustic guitars and harmony vocals of co-frontmen Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor, with judicious use of strings and piano.

On the first disc, the songs range from the grand ambitions of the title track, an anthemic processional by Keelor, to Cuddy's swaggering, Stones-like Sheba and Keelor's epic Million Miles.

But the second disc, my favourite, is where you'll find some of the best tunes, including the Beatlesque Candice, a Keelor rocker called Wasted, Cuddy's sad And When You Wake Up and the psychedelia-tinged Venus Rising.

Given an extra layer of vocals provided by Cuff The Duke's Wayne Petti, who sings on most of the tracks, you'll be reminded of Crosby, Stills and Nash, as well as the Eagles, Beatles and Stones.

In other words, it's classic Blue Rodeo.
 

True or false

9 November 2009

Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra issued a statement on Monday saying the report on an interview he gave to a reporter from The Times was a "complete distortion", causing misunderstanding and confusion for readers and Thai people generally.

The interview, with Asia editor Richard Lloyd Parry, was published by TimesOnline today.

"It (the article) was a complete distortion of my interview. The falsified article has caused confusion among the readers and the Thai people. The headline made by Timesonline is not true. I never said that in the interview," Thaksin said in the statement.

The former prime minister said his interview did not offend any institutions. On the contrary, during the interview he defended the monarchy as being above politics and said Thai people adore the institution. Nobody should implicate the monarchy with politics, he said.

"I am very upset with the way Timesonline treated my interview. This happened despite the fact I stressed to the interviewer that the monarchy is highly placed and delicate and that he should report exactly what I said.

"Therefore, I condemn Timesonline for publishing this false and confusing article.

"I would like to repeat again that my family and I are loyal to His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen and, like all Thai people, ready to sacrifice our lives to protect the monarchy."

It appears to be the headline to the accompanying article that has caused the concern. Thaksin will probably find it difficult to refute the content of the interview itself. It is fair to assume that the Times has a tape of the interview and that the transcript is accurate.
 

Rejected Kraft bid lacks sweetener

9 November 2009

Kraft Foods went hostile in its pursuit of Cadbury today when it launched a formal takeover offer worth £9.8bn that was swiftly rejected as "derisory" by the British company's board. But the offer is nothing for investors or the British chocolate firm to get excited about.

Based on Kraft's share price on Monday, the offer is worth about 9.8 billion pounds ($16.4 billion). Kraft said the bid represented a substantial premium to the unaffected share price of Cadbury. But, based on Kraft's shares, which have fallen in the last few months, the offer is worth less than the initial bid Kraft made in September, one which Cadbury had rejected as "fundamentally undervaluing" the company.

The Cadbury business appears to be fundamentally sound at the moment after it posted an underlying sales increase of 7% in the third quarter. But Kraft can afford to wait the required six months before coming back with another bid because no one else has come out of the woodwork to bid for the British company.

Several months ago there had been much talk of Nestle and Hershey joining forces to launch a counter proposal to Kraft. But Nestle's announcement earlier this month of a $3 billion share buyback suggested the Swiss company didn't intend to use its spare cash on acquisitions. 

Hershey  has also been quiet on Cadbury while Unilever ruled itself out of the bidding last week.

The American food giant is offering to pay 300p in cash and 0.2589 Kraft shares for each Cadbury share. These are the same terms as those offered two months ago, disappointing those who had hoped for a better offer.

Analysts had argued that Kraft would have to offer 800p a share to win Cadbury, and some believe Kraft could yet raise its offer.

The process is likely to be drawn out and Kraft will probably come back with a higher offer, although not as high as some are speculating about.

Thaksin continues to raise the stakes

9 November 2009

The Thai media and establishment will once again say that Thaksin is paying the foreign media for his continuing news coverage.

But he does know how to use the media and like it or not he is still a significant political figure and a news story in his own right.

Hence his interview published today with the Asia Editor of the Times newspaper. You will need to search online for this. The comments following on from the Times article are vitriolic. It does look like there are a lot of PAD members who are Times readers!

I still think that his alliance with Hun Sen and acceptance of an advisory job was misguided. Even Thaksin's supporters may regard this as an unpatriotic alliance with an old enemy.

Thaksin recently appointed, as chairman of Puea Thai, former prime minister and ex-army chief, Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, Within days of Chavalit joining, dozens of retired -- but still influential -- police and military officers had flocked to Puea Thai. The question is do they support Thaksin's Cambodian role or will they now distance themselves from Puea Thai.

For Cambodia, while the Thaksin role appears provocative, it is in part a reaction to the Thai Foreign Minister, Kasit Piromya, who prior to his appointment referred to Cambodians and Hun Sen in the most inflammatory and racist terms. This is the same Kasit who played a leading role during the PAD seizure of Bangkok's international airport a year ago, for which he has offered no apology. His appointment by Abhisit was inexplicable.

Bittersweet weekend for Cadbury

8 November 2009

Will they or wont they? Kraft foods has to decide by 5pm tomorrow whether to mount a formal and hostile takeover for Cadbury.

And the fate of Cadbury as a proudly independent confectioner, and the security of hundreds of jobs in the UK and Ireland, may hang on critical decisions taken this weekend by American billionaire investors Warren Buffett and Nelson Peltz.

The ageing investors are both major shareholders in America's largest food conglomerate, Kraft Foods.

Cadbury brands include Dairy Milk, Creme Egg and Bassett's Liquorice Allsorts. Investors have expressed concern at the possible sale of one of Britain's best known brands. There are also union concerns over job security.

Kraft's brands include Kenco and Maxwell House coffee, Oreo biscuits, Jacobs, Terry's Chocolate Orange and Toblerone, as well as cheese products such as Philadelphia and Dairylea.

Kraft announced in early September that it maintained an acquisitive interest despite Cadbury's decision to spurn a takeover approach valuing the chocolate, sweets and gum group at £10.2bn or 745p a share.

The price was "unappealing", chairman Roger Carr had explained, although the market sensed a deal in the making and sent shares in Cadbury rocketing almost 40%. Since then, movements in Kraft shares and a slight weakening in the pound have eroded the value of that initial offer. Cadbury shares have also eased back – down 4p at 758p on Friday night – but investors remain confident Kraft will deliver a sweetened price tomorrow morning.

Rosenfeld's last public message on Cadbury came last week during a Kraft trading update. "We continue to review the options by speaking to shareholders of both companies and assessing the potential financing options."

Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway investment company is Kraft's largest shareholder, with a 10% interest in the business, but also brings to the table one of the most successful investment track records in consumer goods companies. The ownership of US firm See's Candies and a major stake in Coca-Cola have been among Buffett's longest-held investments, helping make him the world's second-richest man, according to Forbes magazine.

Buffett also played king-maker in the $23bn acquisition last year of chewing gum firm Wrigley by family-owned Mars, the owner of Pedigree Chum, Snickers and Uncle Ben's. The combined group leapt over Cadbury to become the world's largest confectionery group, effectively forcing the Bournville-based firm to prepare itself for consolidation.

Peltz meanwhile has a major shareholding in both Kraft and Cadbury and has, publicly, given management at both firms a hard time in recent years. His agitation for strategic shake-ups at Kraft, and last year at Cadbury, were in both cases quickly followed by management action and disposals, though both Rosenfeld and Cadbury's

Although there are no details the US firm has indicated it expects to find $625m of cost savings from a link-up with Cadbury. Some analysts put the figure as high as $1bn, with factory closures a strong contributor. Factory closures and redundancies seem inevitable.

Whatever the commercial logic for a merger of Cadbury and Kraft, there remains uneasiness at the presence of Royal Bank of Scotland on Kraft's nine-strong list of banks earmarked to provide debt financing for any deal. Its potential involvement has attracted controversy given the political pressure for it to focus on lending to British companies.

Less controversial, but also ironic, is the involvement of Barclays on Kraft's side. It is earmarked as joint lead debt underwriter alongside Citigroup and Deutsche Bank despite the bank's board including former Cadbury boss Sir John Sunderland. Sunderland, who largely shaped Cadbury's corporate growth for decade, spent 40 years at the firm and was appointed chief executive in 1996.
 

Japanese contractors owed billions by Dubai firms

8 November 2009 - The National

"Japanese builders are owed billions of dollars on projects that include the Dubai Metro and Palm Island, according to a top diplomat and leading contractors from the country.

Japanese builders have played a pivotal role in Dubai’s construction boom, spearheading work on the Dh28 billion (US$7.6bn) Metro and helping to build Nakheel’s palm-shaped islands off the emirate’s coast.

But as the global financial crisis brought many projects to a standstill, an increasing number of foreign companies, especially builders, have reported payment problems mainly linked to Dubai developers.

“Some Japanese construction companies are facing very serious debt problems as Dubai can’t pay,” said Seiichi Otsuka, the Japanese consul general in Dubai. “Some companies engaged with the construction of the Metro are facing some payment issues.” He said companies were also owed money by Nakheel.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), a part of the giant Mitsubishi Group, and Taisei Corporation, one of Japan’s largest contractors, are among those firms affected by non-payment on contracts that date back years in some cases.

MHI led a consortium of five contractors, including four Japanese companies, that was awarded a Dh12.45bn contract in May 2005 to plan and develop the Metro’s Red Line. The following year, the same Mitsubishi-led consortium won a Dh4.08bn contract to build the Green Line. Other members of the consortium were Mitsubishi Corporation, Obayashi Corporation and Kajima Corporation of Japan, and Yapi Merkezi of Turkey.

Ten of the 29 stations on the project’s Red Line opened in September, with the Green Line expected to be operational next year.

“MHI executed the construction of the Dubai Metro and some other contracts and we are still awaiting payment,” said Koji Okamoto, the general manager of the Middle East office of MHI in Dubai. The company has contracts in the Middle East valued at $150bn.

Taisei is believed to be owed several billion dollars across a number of projects in Dubai and elsewhere outside the UAE.

The company is still awaiting payment from the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) for completed projects including Doha Road near the Burj Dubai and the Arabian Ranches interchange. It is owed funds from Nakheel for the Gateway Towers and vehicular tunnel projects on Palm Jumeirah, in addition to several infrastructure schemes on Palm Jebel Ali and Almas Tower at Jumeirah Lake Towers.

Taisei is also owed money for its construction of Nakheel Hotels’s Djibouti Palace Kempinski, the second phase of which opened earlier this year in the east African nation.

Limitless, an arm of Dubai World, is believed to owe funds to the contractor for work on its Downtown Jebel Ali scheme. In 2007, Taisei secured a Dh1.3bn contract to construct four buildings in the east quarter of the development.

The Japanese government has not discussed the payment issues with the Dubai Government, nor has it intervened with financial assistance to those companies affected, Mr Otsuka said.

“We are in a position to push both sides to make an amicable solution,” he said. “So far, we have not been officially requested by the Dubai Government to explore so-called public financing. But if they try to involve the [Japanese] government we would have to give serious consideration to such a request.”

Mr Otsuka said it was difficult to put a figure on the outstanding debt as some payment was due shortly.

Foreign contractors operating in Dubai continue to report payment problems despite moves to ease liquidity through a $20bn bond programme. Half of that has already been raised and Dubai has announced plans to borrow the second $10bn.

The UK Association for Consultancy and Engineering estimated earlier this year that as much as Dh3bn was due to contractors. Nelson Ogunshakin, the chief executive of the association, said last month a “substantial” amount of that figure was still outstanding.

The same month, Lord Davies, the UK minister of state for trade, called on the companies to ensure outstanding payments were settled.

“It is inappropriate to reveal details about our arrangements with contractors as we respect the confidentiality of our business exchanges,” said a Nakheel spokesman. “We remain committed to working in partnership with our contractors over the long term.”

A spokeswoman for Limitless said: “As is the case with businesses across the world, we have discussed arrangements with some suppliers. At the same time, we are being as flexible as possible with our own clients, sub-developers at Downtown Jebel Ali, by continuing to agree new payment schedules for investors who are committed to developing there.”

RTA officials were not available for comment."

Thailand's urban-rural split

"The nation is divided and in deadlock. Nothing is likely to be resolved until the ailing king is succeeded" - Thitinan Pongsudhirak

Sunday 8 November 2009 The Observer

"The recent hospitalisation of King Bhumibol Adulyadej has brought Thailand's most daunting question to the fore. The country's wrenching political struggle over the past several years has, at bottom, concerned what will happen after the ailing 81-year-old king's reign, now at 63 years, comes to an end.

Thailand's endgame is being shaped by several key events: the military coup of September 2006, the current military-supported constitution and election in 2007, street protests and seizures of Government House and Bangkok's airports in 2008, the army-brokered coalition government of the prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, that has ruled since January this year, and the Bangkok riots in April. At stake is the soul of an emerging Thailand, with far-reaching ramifications for developing democracies elsewhere as well as the broader international community.

Thailand's colour-coated crisis pits largely urban, conservative, and royalist "yellow" shirts against the predominantly rural "red" columns of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. For much of Thailand's long economic boom of the past two decades, wealth resided mostly in the Bangkok metropolitan area, a boon to the burgeoning urban middle class, but deeply resented by the rural majority.

While the rural population had more than enough to eat, their economic opportunities and upward mobility were limited by a shoddy education system and docile state-run media that fed them soap operas and official messages. For a nobody to become a somebody, all roads led to Bangkok and its prestigious prep schools and universities. Thailand's farms became increasingly alienated from the urban elite. Thaksin recognised this urban-rural divide and shrewdly exploited it, upending the elite consensus that had long prevailed.

That consensus rested on a nexus of the military, the monarchy, and the bureaucracy. Military rule and putsches stemming from factional infighting among generals were the norm until the early 1970s, when university students overthrew a military dictatorship and opened up democratic space. Parliament, political parties, and politicians then came and went alternately with military coups, which invariably suppressed the maturation of democratic institutions.

The rural-urban divide wedded the grassroots rural population to upcountry patronage networks and vote-buying, while elected politicians reaped their rewards through corruption and graft. In turn, the military stepped in from time to time – once every four years on average since 1932 – ostensibly to suppress corruption, but retarding democratic rule in the process.

All this changed when Thailand promulgated a constitution in 1997 that promoted political transparency and accountability and government stability and effectiveness. Its logical but flawed outcome was the triumph of Thaksin and his once-invincible Thai Rak Thai party, which became the first to complete a full term and be re-elected – by a landslide in 2005.

Thai Rak Thai's populism featured income redistribution, cheap healthcare, microcredit schemes, and a dazzling array of policy innovations that ushered Thailand into 21st-century globalisation. The direct connection of Thaksin and his party to the electorate bypassed and threatened the established trinity of institutions that had long called the shots in Thailand.

Thaksin and his cronies handed the establishment an opportunity to strike back by abusing power and profiting personally from it. A billionaire telecommunications tycoon, Thaksin presided over the trebling of his family's assets in the stockmarket. He also engineered an extrajudicial drug-suppression campaign that claimed many lives.

Thaksin's sins are voluminous, and became the basis of the rise of his yellow-shirted opponents, the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), which entered the electoral arena as the New Politics Party. The PAD spent much of last year demonstrating against the two successive Thaksin-nominated governments that arose from the December 2007 election, reinvigorating Thai Rak Thai's anti-PAD red-shirted allies, the National United Front of Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD).

After more than three years, Thailand's crisis has become a knotty saga. Abhisit's pledges of reform and reconciliation in the wake of April's riots have made little headway. The PAD wants to maintain the 2007 charter. The UDD favours reinstatement of the 1997 constitution. Enraged by a sense of social injustice, the reds rail against the establishment's double standards, while the pro-establishment yellows have hunkered down for a battle of attrition.

In the process, what had been a pro- and anti-Thaksin fight has gradually become a pro- and anti-monarchy struggle. The rigidly hierarchical forces of the establishment are insecure and fearful of what will happen after the king dies. Lèse majesté cases alleging insults against the immediate royal family are on the rise. Many thousands of websites challenging establishment interests and deploring post-coup machinations have been blocked.

Thaksin's appeal splits the reds. Many repudiate his corruption but, in challenging the post-coup status quo, have no recourse except to use him as a rallying symbol. Likewise, all yellows find Thaksin's misrule intolerable, but not all are fanatical royalists. A stalemate has taken hold, with the denouement likely to be reached only after the royal succession.

A new consensus is imperative if Thailand is to regain its footing. That consensus would have to be based on mutual recognition and accommodation. The reds will need to distance themselves from Thaksin's abuses of power as much as the yellows will have to accept some of Thaksin's policy legacy, particularly grassroots opportunities for jobs, education, and upward mobility."

Thitinan Pongsudhirak is professor and director of the institute of security and international studies, faculty of political science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok
 

EK route rumours for 2010

8 November 2009

The 2010/11 operating plan will be about A380s spreading across the network. From the end of September some of the older A330s will begin to be phased out. Here's a few snippets.

By the end of next year Emirates expects to have 17 A380s operating (7 by end 2009 and a further 10 delivered next year)

The EK017/018 DXB-MAN-DXB will see the A380 deployed, and at the same time First class will be introduced. This follows the opening of the Emirates lounge at MAN. Planned phase in by 2Q 2010.

EK059/060 DXB-HAM-DXB may also get the A380 in 2010.

From a discussion forum in Hong Kong there us a suggestion that EK will fly A380 to Hong Kong via Bangkok from May and upgrade its direct Hong Kong - Dubai service with B773ER from existing B772ER?

All rumours!

Thaksin overplays his hand

8 November 2009

The polls in the BKK press are nonsense; but they do reflect a sentiment that suggests that Thaksin has played a poor hand

Even his supporters must be concerned at Thaksin's alliance with one of the country’s traditional adversaries, Cambodia and Hun Sen.

Chavalit’s maneuvering with Hun Sen before APEC worked well, and Thaksin got the headlines at the ASEAN meeting.

Thaksin knows better than most how to play the nationalism card. It is easy to rally public opinion (which could include Thaksin’s own supporters) against countries like Cambodia, Myanmar, and Vietnam.

By accepting the position as an economic advisor to Hun Sen, Thaksin has given the government and its backers more ammunition to portray him as a real traitor.

This distracts from the Thai government's own confused policy on Cambodia especially over recurrent border disputes.

It is unclear what Thaksin can gain from a complete breakdown in relations with Cambodia but that may be where the countries are heading.

Thaksin’s strategy may easily backfire. he has potentially united the anti-Thaksin elements like never before and alarmed many of his own supporters.

Another yellow shirt revival

8 November 2009

One year on from their occupation of the Bangkok Airports is it time for the PAD to caues more havoc?

The PAD (People's Alliance for Democracy) is now trying to persuade Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to cancel more contracts with Cambodia.

As well as supporting the Thai government's decision to cancel a memorandum of understanding between Thailand and Cambodia on an overlapping maritime area in the Gulf of Thailand the PAD is now trying to persuade the Thai government to cancel more contracts with Cambodia, including all aid projects.

This canceling of international agreements sends out a poor message. Can Thailand be trusted when they sign an agreement? Actions against Cambodia suggest that if something happens that Thailand disagrees with the Thai government may renege on the agreement.

The PAD are still widely seen as the power behind the government and they will stop at nothing to keep Thaksin and his cronies out of power including closing down airports and damaging Thailand's reputation overseas.

It is worth being cautious in planning Thai vacations as the high season approaches.
 

Thailand's poll manipulation disease

8 November 2009

The Bangkok newspapers are happily reporting a recent poll which reported that Bangkok was voted the no. 1 most attractive city in Asia.

Just one small problem. The poll was conducted in Bangkok, among 500 foreign tourists.

As if 500 interviewed tourists in Tokyo would have chosen Bangkok.

The survey was conducted from 31 October to 1 November 2009 among some 500 foreign tourists visiting Bangkok.

Lies, damned lies and statistics.

Getting their man

November 8th 2009 From The Economist print edition

"It took 13 years for Thai justice to catch up with Rakesh Saxena, an Indian-born banker who fled to Canada in 1996. Once there, Mr Saxena (pictured left) dug in his heels during what became Canada’s longest-ever extradition case. Eventually, on October 30th, all his appeals exhausted, Mr Saxena arrived back in Thailand to face criminal charges over his role in the insolvency of Bangkok Bank of Commerce (BBC) in 1996. The sorry tale of BBC, which was milked by bank executives and politicians under the nose of regulators, was, in retrospect, a dry run for the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis that began in Bangkok.

For Thailand, putting Mr Saxena on trial provides a bookend of sorts to the crisis. It also threatens to ensnare several politicians aligned to the present government who had dealings with BBC and may prefer Mr Saxena’s silence. Prison officials have made a show of securing his cell to prevent anyone getting to him. Regulators hope to tie up loose ends from BBC’s collapse under the weight of $3 billion in bad loans. Its president was jailed in 2005 for fraud. But many others escaped censure.

Mr Saxena’s return was soon eclipsed, however, by recriminations over another sort of financial shenanigans. On November 1st two Thais, both share analysts, were arrested and charged for spreading false data under a 2007 computer-crime law. A third man was detained on November 3rd. Police say more may follow. The arrests follow a 7% fall in Thai shares over two days in October sparked by rumours that King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who was admitted to hospital in September with flu, was in bad shape (or, according to some whisperers, dead). This was proved wrong when he later appeared in public.

Naturally, market regulators wondered if something fishy was afoot. But the public evidence against the two analysts is unconvincing. Using pen-names, both separately posted factual reports on the market crash on October 14th on two political websites, both of which have had run-ins over their mentions of the royal family. That makes them a convenient place to look for subversion.

But their postings went up after the stockmarket had closed—hardly a smoking gun. One suspect said she had simply translated a Bloomberg news report. She even asked readers not to comment on it as the topic was too sensitive, according to the webmaster. Meanwhile, the Thai Securities Exchange Commission says it has begun its own investigation into unusual share transactions, including orders placed by brokers in Hong Kong. They may yet turn up some chicanery. But the arrests made so far appear to be less about financial irregularities than about free speech stifled, once again, by Thai royalists.

Mr Saxena argued long and hard that Thai justice was neither free nor fair. He certainly knew how to play Canada’s judicial system, lodging umpteen appeals, while living under a luxury version of house arrest in Vancouver that was said to be saving taxpayers’ money. Armed with a phone and a computer, he made astonishing forays into murky global businesses. These included financing a never-completed coup in Sierra Leone, investing in a failed bank in Austria and attempting to buy the passport of a dead Yugoslav. Lawsuits seemed to dog his every move.

Canadian police rumbled the passport scam. Britain’s parliament investigated the 1997 coup plot, hatched by British mercenaries. The idea was to install a friendly president who could secure bauxite and diamond mines, if Mr Saxena stumped up $10m. Britain’s then foreign secretary, Robin Cook, called the plan “quite mind-boggling” and its backer “an Indian businessman, travelling on the passport of a dead Serb, awaiting extradition from Canada for alleged embezzlement from a bank in Thailand.” The thwarted fugitive may see himself as a martyr to globalisation."

Fictional dross from the Nation

7 November 2009

One of my readers was clearly impressed by the Nation newspaper's gushing praise yesterday of Prime Minister Abhisit:

"The popularity rating of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva tripled after his decisive action of downgrading diplomatic ties with Cambodia, according to an Abac Poll survey released yesterday."

You need to use google translate on this page or to read it in Thai:

The poll was conducted between October 25th and November 5th. Thaksin's appointment was on 4 November and the Ambassador withdrawn on 5 November. So the poll which was realeased on 6 November had nothing to do with Thaksin's appointment or the downgrading of relations with Cambodia.

The poll came after the ASEAN summit where Hun Sen had said that Thaksin would be welcome in Cambodia and that his court sentence had been politically motivated.

So the poll asked "Are u aware of news that the Cambodian leader gave an interview attacking the Thai judicial system?" Well of course people will say yes to that and the survey indicated (no surprise here) that the Thai people would support the government in any response to any provocation from Cambodia.

It was not a poll on Abhisit's popularity nor was it a poll on breaking off diplomatic relations.

The Nation's headline and story is hugely and deliberately misleading.

The lessons from how our children learn

6 November 2009

I have been in Hong Kong for four days with my 12 year old boy and for the first time I have been able to see how he and his classmates learn and share knowledge.

And it is remarkable.

There are lessons in how they work for many companies that could be implemented now.  There are also some significant messages about what the businesses of the future will look like.

Firstly Microsoft may not have so long to live. The school is a Mac school; most of the better schools in Hong Kong are Mac schools. And they have no interest in ever, ever buying anything from Microsoft.

Collaboration is how they work. But it is not over coffee in a meeting room; or over their lunch sandwiches.

They spend hours online every night. In I-chat they can have four separate video conversations running at the same time. They share documents on google documents or on a school intranet.

This allows them to do everything from writing and composing songs to completing maths tasks.

They use skype for language classes; where they create buddy systems with overseas schools and they can chat from laptop to laptop. Alex's Chinese speaking buddy is at a school in Taiwan.

They cannot write; handwriting is dead - and see no purpose for it beyond a signature.

They see anywhere as their office. They are completely mobile from the bathroom to the bedroom.

They multitask. Eating is an interruption. And therefore is done with the laptop and a portable television close to hand.

They don't watch cartoon network; they learn from the discovery channels and absorb a reasonable amount of news.

So what does all this mean?

Well many companies are not yet this interconnected. Many senior people in companies are still very protective of "their" work; their ip if you like. Sharing documents implies a level of trust and shared credit that many companies have not yet fostered.

Some businesses, mainly tech, have already got there. But this must extend to lawyers, accountants, journalists, government, arts and design, writing, theatre and tv....the list is endless.

I did a video conference for a company to London recently. Some six people were needed to try and get the conferencing unit running; then we only had video and no sound. So we had to do a telephone conference separately for the sound.

Our 12 year olds would not tolerate that sort of mess.

There is also a sense that they pick who they want to collaborate with. And that with the right team they will be happy sharing the credit; the whole team pulls its fair share.

Between my father's generation and mine there was honestly little change in the way we were educated. Lots of repetition. Lots of working away on your own. Lots of memorising. And lots of exams rather then continual assessment.

But between my generation and the current school generation the difference is profound and will change the way we work, learn and collaborate. Learning now uses a remarkable mix of human input and guidance and best available technology. The Mac pc has replaced thousands of text books and lined paper pads.

Now we need to learn from our children or they may leave us far behind.

Emirates half year profit boost

6 November 2009

Emirates Airline produced a very interesting set og half year numbers yesterday which show how the airline has responded to the financial crisis.

The Dubai-based airline said that first half profit more than doubled, boosted by passenger traffic gains and cost cutting. Net profit rose 165 percent to AED752m ($205m) in the six months ending September 30, from AED284m ($77m) in the year earlier period.

But the biggest cost cutting will have come in fuel prices which the airline can take little credit for.

But revenue declined 13.5 percent to AED19.8bn ($5.4bn) in the period, and the company said it could take one to two years before demand for air transport picks up.

The simple explanation - there are more flights and therefore more passengers but yields are down.

The decline in revenue largely reflected lower passenger and cargo yields, the company said.

Cost cutting and lower fuel prices contributed to a 15.8 percent decline in total cost expenditure, which came in at AED19.0bn ($5.2bn).

Capacity measured in available seat kilometers (ASKM), grew by 22 percent, while passenger traffic measured in revenue passenger kilometers (RPKM) was up 21 percent.

The passenger seat factor declined 1.3 percent to 77.5 percent. The fall is remarkably small which suggest that the fare price reductions have been enough to keep people flying.

Emirates said it raised aircraft financing of AED3.3bn ($0.9bn) in the period.

The company’s cash position as of September 30 was AED6.7bn ($1.8bn), compared to AED7.4bn ($2.0bn) six months earlier. This was after funding an ongoing capital expenditure programme that included pre-delivery payments for new aircraft on order, building projects in Dubai, and an upgrade of the interiors of some of the existing fleet.

Emirates' current fleet size is 139 aircraft. The airline has taken delivery of eight new wide body aircraft since the beginning of the financial year, with another 10 new jets scheduled to be delivered before March 31.
 

Riled Thailand's response

5 November 2009

The following press release was issued by the Thai Ministry of |Foreign Affairs in Bangkok. The Thai government have withdrawn the Thai Ambassador to Cambodia.

How long before the Cambodians respond by withdrawing their Ambassador from Bangkok?

How far will this be allowed to escalate?

Press Release:

"Royal Thai Government’s Position Regarding the Recent Appointment of Pol. Lt. Col. Thaksin Shinawatra as Adviser to the Royal Government of Cambodia.

Following the recent appointment of Pol. Lt. Col. Thaksin Shinawatra as economic adviser to the Royal Government of Cambodia and personal adviser to Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen and the decision to deny any request for extradition of Pol. Lt. Col. Thaksin in accordance with the Extradition Treaty between Thailand and Cambodia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wishes to state the following:

1. The Royal Thai Government has conveyed to the Royal Government of Cambodia on several occasions that bilateral relations between both countries should take precedence over any personal relationship.
2. Actions taken by the Royal Government of Cambodia involving Pol. Lt. Col. Thaksin cannot be separated from relations between the two countries. As Pol. Lt. Col. Thaksin is a fugitive in a criminal case and is still active politically in Thailand, such actions inevitably affect the sentiment of the people of Thailand.
3. The appointment of Pol. Lt. Col. Thaksin as economic adviser to the Royal Government of Cambodia and personal adviser to Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen is therefore seen as interference in Thailand’s domestic affairs and failure to respect Thailand’s judicial system. It puts personal interest and relations before the national interests of the two countries.
4. Therefore, the Royal Thai Government cannot stand idly by and has to take into consideration the sentiment of its people. Any action taken by the Royal Thai Government is to make known to the Royal Government of Cambodia the resentment of the Thai people.
5. The aforementioned action of the Royal Government of Cambodia has thus compelled the Royal Thai Government to review its relations with Cambodia and to take the following measures:
5.1 Recall the Thai Ambassador to Phnom Penh.
5.2 Review all existing bilateral agreements and cooperation projects made with Cambodia.
5.3 Review ongoing cooperation that the Royal Thai Government has extended to Cambodia. It is with regret that the Royal Thai Government must undertake such a review as it has always been the Royal Thai Government’s commitment to cooperate with Cambodia for the development of the Cambodian people’s livelihood and to narrow the gap between Cambodia and other ASEAN member countries."

Wie to draw crowds in Dubai

5 November 2009

Michelle Wie, one of the brightest stars in the world of women's golf, will headline the field in the Omega Dubai Ladies Masters which will be played at the Emirates Golf Club from December 7 to 12, 2009.

Rather bizarrely - and prematurely - Miss Wie was named in a 2006 Time magazine article as "one of 100 people who shape our world."

Omega have signed up as title sponsors of the golf in DUBAi events, which also includes the Dubai Desert Classic and the Ladies Masters. Coincidentally Miss Wie is also an Omega brand ambassador. So the sponsorship package presumably covers her appearance.

The field of 108 players includes Laura Davies, Sophie Gustafson, Gwladys Nocera, defending champion Anja Monke and Anna Nordqvist, who will formally seal her European "Rookie of the Year' award in Dubai.

Wie is ranked 15th in the world and turned professional in October 2005.

'golf in DUBAi' is backed by Omega as the title sponsor and Dubal (Dubai Aluminium) as the sponsor while BMW, CNN, Emirates Airline, Emirates NBD, Gulf News, Jumeirah Golf Estates, Jumeirah Hotels, MasterCard and wasl are co-sponsors in its drive to showcase the emirate's vibrant golfing scene to a worldwide audience.

Another Burj Dubai delay

5 November 2009

Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world, will now not open until January 4 next year.

Only a month ago it was announced as opening before the year end. Now the opening will coincide with the four-year anniversary of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum becoming the ruler of Dubai.

Developer Emaar had planned to open the the iconic tower on December 2 which is the National Day of the UAE.

And by open then mean that some floors and access will be open - but the full building and the offices and commercial space will open later in 2010.

Riling Thailand

5 November 2009

Cambodia said yesterday that it had appointed fugitive former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra economic adviser to premier Hun Sen in a move that adds to tensions between the countries.

The appointment was announced on state television almost two weeks after Hun Sen first riled Thailand by offering safe haven to Thaksin, who was ousted in a coup in 2006 and is living abroad to avoid a jail term for corruption.

"Thaksin has already been appointed by royal decree... as personal adviser to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and the adviser to the Cambodian government in charge of economy," said a government statement read on television.

"Allowing Thaksin to stay in Cambodia is virtuous behaviour...good friends need to help each other in difficult circumstances," it added.

The statement went on to call charges against Thaksin "politically motivated" and vowed not to extradite him if he "decides to stay in Cambodia or travels in and out of Cambodia in order to fulfill his duties".

Ties between Cambodia and Thailand have been difficult since June 2008 amid an ongoing border conflict over land surrounding an 11th century temple, which has claimed several lives.

Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban said that the appointment was an internal matter for Hun Sen's government but it would push for the extradition of billionaire Thaksin if he sets foot in Cambodia. He also added that "it is not a surprise. Cambodia has previously hired other foreigners as advisers and it did not cause us any problems. We don't have to worry too much."

Hunting the rumour writers in Thailand

4 November 2009

The Bangkok Post reports that police are planning to arrest two to three more people on suspicion of spreading rumours about His Majesty the King's health that caused a sharp fall in the stock market by 7.2 per cent on Oct 14 and 15.

The police arrested two people last week and another on Tuesday this week. They have been charged under the 2007 Computer Offences Act of posting misleading information which could pose a threat to national security.

Also related to this case the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology has told Internet Service Providers to deal with offending websites.

The MICT has contacted the ISPs which provide services to the websites where the first two people charged are alleged to have posted [Prachatai and Fah Diew Kan] and informed them that if they still allow these websites which have had records of being ‘subversive to national security’ to continue, the Ministry will close down those ISPs.

It does look as though the bigger picture is to target web sites perceived to be critical of the current administration.

Pol Maj Gen Panya Mamen, deputy chief of the CIB, said investigators would look into whether the website was directly involved in spreading the rumours.

He said the webmasters would be called for questioning and would face prosecution if they were found to have failed to stop the posting of false information causing harm to the country.

Police sources said an investigator has gone abroad to gather information. Pol Col Phisit Pao-in, deputy chief of the Economic and Cyber Crime Division, is thought to have flown to Singapore as the rumours could have been started overseas.

flydubai backs Baku

3 November 2009

Unable to fly to its chosen Indian destinations flydubai appears to have had to accelerate some of its other network plans.

The latest announcement from Dubai's low cost airline is that  it will launch flights to the former Soviet Union.

Airline chiefs said they will start flights to the Azerbaijan capital Baku on November 20.

flydubai says that Baku is the airline's first route into Asia and a prime opportunity because of its rapid expansion as a business and tourism centre.

Azerbaijan is bordered by Russia to the north, Georgia to the north-west, Armenia to the west and Iran to the south.

Baku is an ancient trading post with a colourful history including rule by the Persians and Peter the Great.

At the beginning of the 20th Century, the Azerbaijan oilfields produced more than half the world's oil, an accolade only shared in history by the United States.

War of words

3 November 2009

The Cambodian Ambassador to Thailand wrote this rather strong letter to the Nation newspaper after its recent diatribe against Prime Minister Hun Sen. The writer's description of the Nation as a "junky and vulgar newspaper" is sadly spot on !

"Editorial coverage of Hun Sen is not fair

Published on November 3, 2009

I am writing to you as a response to the editorial of your newspaper on October 25, concerning Samdech Techo Hun Sen, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia. After reading your editorial, I must say that your newspaper has become a junky and vulgar newspaper. It has completely lost its value as a newspaper of a civilised country.

I wish to draw your attention to the following points, where your editorial committed the most serious mistakes which could not be forgiven:

First, what kind of a statement is it, when you said "You can take the man out of the jungle but you cannot take the jungle out of the man..." This is a great insult to our great leader, Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen. It is a gangster-like statement. By insulting a leader of a neighbouring country, you have become a tool for escalating tensions between the two countries.

Second, when you stated that the "...Cambodia premier thought he was still leading some Khmer Rouge faction ..." You are absolutely dead wrong. It was Samdech Techo Hun Sen, who struggled and brought the demise of the Khmer Rouge. Prime Minister Hun Sen could have done it much earlier, if a neighouring country had not given shelter to the Khmer Rouge. It was also Samdech Techo Hun Sen who brought the Khmer Rouge leaders to the Extraordinary Chamber of Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).

Third, Prime Minister Hun Sen is very much a humble and gentleman leader, who is a virtuous and moral man, especially vis-a-vis his friend. By doing so, he does not interfere in the internal affairs of any country, and does not in any, engage in " ... rubbing more salt on open wounds". The politics should be solved by the Thais themselves.

Fourth, Prime Minister Hun Sen did not permit "... himself to be part of a cheap ploy by ... Thaksin to steal the spotlight from a major international event", as you have wrongly alleged. You need to better learn about Samdech Techo Hun Sen. He does not need to appear in the Thai media. He only wants to be clear to everyone on what he will do.

Fifth, Prime Minister Hun Sen does not need any attention or recognition at all during the 15th Asean Summit. He came to Hua Hin with good will and sincerity to contribute to making the Asean Summit and related meetings a great success. Prime Minister Hun Sen has been in power for a long time now. Prime Minister Hun Sen was elected to power once again, with more than two-thirds of the votes, and with full backing of his own political party, the Cambodian People's Party (CPP).

Sixth, Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong rightly stated at the East Asian Summit in Hua Hin, on October 25, that the new members of Asean have been making great progress. And you said that the development of Cambodia "... would not count for much in terms of achievement in this day and age". Reading your editorial, most readers would think how ignorant you are. I think that you would not want to contradict the prime minister of Singapore.

Seventh, to state that "... Cambodia continues to be one of the most corrupt countries in the world" is to essentially engage in this politics of finger-pointing. One for Cambodia, three for ... For sure, Cambodia has less corruption than in its neighbouring country. Even an idiot knows this fact.

Eight, again, here is another dead wrong or manipulated fact of this cheap newspaper editorial. To be politically correct, it was Prime Minister Hun Sen who wanted the Khmer Rouge tribunal to be set up by signing the agreement with the United Nations, which brought the former Khmer Rogue leaders to trial under the current ECCC. And it was him who ordered the arrest of the Khmer Rouge leaders who are now put on trial.

Ninth, Prime Minister Hun Sen does not resent Asean at all, as he is being accused of by your vulgar newspaper. On the contrary, since joining Asean in April 1999, Cambodia, under the wise leadership of Samdech Techo Hun Sen, has made tremendous contributions to Asean. Everyone in Asean knows quite well the role and contributions of Cambodia to Asean.

Finally, by allowing His Excellency Thaksin to come into Cambodia, Samdech Techo Hun Sen only keeps his spirit of virtue and loyalty to his friend under any circumstances that his friend is in. But this is not only for His Excellency Thaksin, and is also not by "mutual admiration" and "twisted minds thinking alike", as you have falsely alleged.

AMBASSADOR OF THE KINGDOM OF |CAMBODIA TO THAILAND"
 

Thailand's Panda TV

3 November 2009

Who needs political TV? Who needs Thaksin TV.

Instead Thailand brings you Panda TV - The Panda Channel is a newly launched offering from True Visions in Thailand (on channel 18 for those interested).

Panda cub Lin Ping was born on May 27th in the northern city of Chiang Mai and is the first panda to be born in Thailand.

You can buy Lin Ping postcards, key chains, stuffed toys, magazines and a books, and now you can keep an eye on her and her mother Lin Hui 24 hours a day, even from the Internet here.

DSI believes SET attacked with coordinated efforts

2 November 2009

The Nation - remember this was in the Nation - and is therefore more liable to be sell serving rather than reliable reports that the ongoing investigation by the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) has suggested that there were coordinated efforts to attack Thai stock market with inauspicious rumours.

"The efforts involve persons, juristic persons, local news agencies and foreign news agencies," DSI director general Tharit Pengdit apparently said on Monday.

Is the DSI director general making suitably nationalistic statements for domestic PR purposes or does he really believe his conspiracy theory? Does he really think that foreign news agencies - presumably Bloomberg in this case - were involved in a coordinated attack of the SET?

I think this is just noise; but if us is what credibility does the DSI have?

MPs say happiness is a warm gun

2 November 2009

The Bangkok Post is reporting today that more than a hundred Thai MPs have applied to buy firearms and licences to carry them freely.

They say being armed will make them feel safer in the highly charged political environment. 

The Provincial Administration Department has offered MPs the opportunity to buy guns and obtain a licence to carry it everywhere. Why would they do this? The secretariat of the House of Representatives issued a letter to MPs with details of the offer.

MPs will be able to buy guns at special prices - about half the market price, a letter circulated to all MPs stated.

The types of guns available include Smith & Wesson, SIG Sauer and Glock.

The privilege to carry firearms is normally given only to civil servants under the Interior Ministry such as police officers and Provincial Administration Department officers.

Puea Thai Party MP for Roi Et Sakda Khongphet, chairman of the lower house committee on House of Representatives affairs, said the committee asked the Provincial Administration Department to consider including MPs as part of the gun purchase privilege. He said the reason proposed to the department was that politics was heating up and MPs needed guns to protect themselves.

Apparently most orders have come from opposition MPs who unlike their government counterparts have no personal military or police guards.

Democrat list MP Kraisak Choonhavan, however, said he saw no reason for MPs to carry firearms, which he described as a symbol of conflict and violence in society. Rather wisely he added "If those MPs feel unsafe without a gun, how can ordinary people feel secure about their lives?"

Never a truer word. We expect politicians to enact laws that keep us safe; we expect them to behave within the law rather than to roam the land like modern day cowboys.

Bangkok arrests make little sense

2 November 2009

As I type this there is a Bloomberg alert on my screen - Hong Kong Stocks Drop as Home Sales Slump; New World, HSBC Fall.

Should there now be arrests on traders and news writers in Hong Kong.

Of course not. The Hong Kong market fell today. Bloomberg then phones around the traders and brokers to find out why the market fell; and then writes its news story.

This is exactly what happened in Bangkok on 14/15 October. The trouble is that Bloomberg's reporters quickly found that the SET had declined dramatically on concerns about the king's health.

That's how stock markets work. And it is also why automated trading systems have triggers in them which ceases market trading if indices fall by a significant percentage.

Stock prices move based upon market news and speculation.

But the Thai authorities were concerned that the markets were damaged by false rumours of the King's health. They have now charged two people, Katha Pajariyapong and Teeranu Vipuchanin, both with finance industry backgrounds. They were arrested and taken to a Bangkok police station on Sunday before being released on bail.

Katha, who works at KT ZMICO Securities and Teeranu, 43, a former executive at UBS Securities, were charged under a computer law, accused of damaging national security by posting false information on the Internet.

Teeranu Vipuchanin, a 43-year-old former stock trader, was arrested at Bangkok's international airport after returning from a trip overseas. She told reporters after her arrest that she translated an article from financial news and data provider Bloomberg LP, which attributed the market's decline to rumors about the king's health, and posted it online. "Everybody on that day wanted to know what caused the market to fall," Ms. Teeranu said.

"The two were arrested on arrest warrants issued by the criminal court on charges of violating the computer act," said Police Lieutenant General Thangai Prasjaksattru, chief of the central investigation bureau.

If convicted they could face up to five years in jail and a 100,000 baht (2,985 US dollars) fine.

He said the pair had admitted to putting information on the Internet, some of which was taken from a report by financial news agency Bloomberg News.

"They confessed to posting on the net and some was translated from Bloomberg," Thangai told Agence France Press. He said that the company itself was not under investigation.

Theeranan told reporters "I translated a news article because people should know why the stocks fell. I posted the news after the stocks had already fallen. She also had to denying that she had been paid to post the article.

The Thai bourse plunged 8.22 percent at one point on October 15 over rumours about the health of the king, the world's longest reigning monarch, prompting the government to launch an investigation.

Thangai, the police investigation chief, said that more arrests were expected.

None of this really makes any sense. Part of the government concern appears to be that the articles were posted to website considered to be critical of the government and its supporters.

But both people were acting on the basis of information that was already available to them from a reputable international news agency.

It is hard to see how the bankers’ arrest can be based upon allegations of undermining of national security. The issue is not where did the rumours finish but where did they start.

There is a significant difference between reporting the news impact of a rumour and creating the rumour itself. And their is an even bigger gap to simply translating someone else's news report. That really is old news for markets that move in seconds not hours.

Blair should never be EU president

1 November 2009

I am not even sure there should ever be an EU President But if it has to be - the it cannot be Tony Blair, not now, not ever.

It is clear that France and Germany - Europe's unlikely bedfellows will between them annoint the European Union's first full-time president and although Mr Blair has never publicly declared himself a candidate for the presidency it has been the worst-kept secret in Brussels that the job interested him and that Britain's Labour government backed his cause.

The EU presidency will run for 30 months. The position is unelected; and for many Europeans, unwanted.

But now Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor, has implicitly ruled Mr Blair when she told reporters on Thursday night that she would prefer the first president to come from one of Europe's smaller countries.

The British campaign suffered another blow when José Luis Rodríguez, Spain's prime minister, and José Sócrates, his Portuguese counterpart, indicated that they did not support Mr Blair.

Still more opposition came from Belgium and Luxembourg.

Blair is damaged goods. His alliance with the neo Conservatives of GW Bush that led to the invasion of Iraq is still widely seen as damaging and misguided. Blair will be  the central figure in the secretive Chilcot inquiry (into the Iraq War). The central issues are whether he took Britain to war in Iraq on evidence which he knew or suspected was false, and whether he sacrificed British national interest, and indeed lives, to the Bush administration's desperate need to go after "something really big" in order to assert American military supremacy after 9/11.

The reality has to be that Tony Blair deceived us on weapons of mass destruction and there should be accountability. He lied to his cabinet, to his government, to parliament and to us.

Blair also ignored Europe. He sided completely with Bush and America and paid no attention for instance to Jacques Chirac's opposition, or the millions of sensible people who marched through the capitals of Europe pleading with Bush and Blair to listen to them.

But the Brits do not want to be frozen out of the new European hierarchy; if there is not a Brit as president then how about a Brit as the EU's foreign policy leader. No nation can hold both positions at the same time. The EU foreign policy job will represent EU governments, serve as a European Commission vice-president, and control a big worldwide staff along with considerable financial resources.

The UK's existing foreign minister, the young and smart David Millibrand, is widely considered a good candidate. But if he ever has ambitions to lead the Labour Party and becone UK Prime Minister then this would be an ill-advised move for him.

Actually there is another key reason for disqualifying any Briton from holding the EU Presidency.  The UK is not in the Schengen Agreement, nor part of the Euro currency zone. These should be pre-requisites for anyone to lead the continent.

So who are the other presidential candiates; two leaders have indicated they would accept the job if it were on offer - Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg's prime minister, and Paavo Lipponen, Finland's former premier.

The names of three other men are also circulating - Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch prime minister, Herman Van Rompuy, Belgium's premier, and Fredrik Reinfeldt, prime minister of Sweden, the present holder of the EU's rotating presidency.

The pivotal players in the choice which is likely to be finalised at a special summit, perhaps on November 10 or 12, will be Ms Merkel and Mr Sarkozy.

Germany, the EU's biggest country and largest contributor to its budget, is not putting forward a candidate for the EU presidency or foreign policy post. This gives Ms Merkel scope to act the part of a stateswoman interested only in what is best for Europe.

As for Mr Sarkozy, a supporter of Mr Blair for many months, he has made it clear that he and Ms Merkel would support the same candidate - whoever that might be.

If I had to choose someone who understands Europe, diplomacy and who might give this role a credibility that goes beyond that of an unelected official - Chris Patten -  gets my vote.

EK winter schedule update

1 November 2009

Big news for followers of EK heading for Bangkok.

The fourth daily Bangkok flight is confirmed and there is also a third daily flight to Sydney.

Dubai – Bangkok EK374/375 is a new daily service from 3 December 2009 operated with a 3 class 777-300 and an evening departure from Dubai and an early morning departure from Bangkok.

Departure from Dubai is 23.10 arriving the next day in BKK at 08.10. The late night departure from Dubai allows evening connections from EK's Middle East network.

The return from BKK leaves at 09.35 and arrives the same day at 13.05. The arrival is well timed to connect with most of the afternoon departures to Europe.

Dubai – Jakarta Additional service, EK358/357 is now in effect, increased from 7 to 10 weekly. Additional increase throughout winter.
EK358 DXB1025 – 2130CGK 77W 136
EK357 CGK1745 – 2300DXB 77W 136

25OCT09 – 28NOV09 Day 136
30NOV09 – 28FEB10 Day x247
from 01MAR10 - Daily

Dubai – Sydney Planned 3rd Daily service, EK414/415 from 01DEC09, sees following adjustments:
01DEC09 – 31DEC09 Day x246 (Day x357 from SYD)
from 01JAN10 – Daily
 

EK A380 flight changes

31 October 2009

Emirates is amending some of its planned new Airbus A380 services, presumably to fit around aircraft deliveries. Details are as follows:

Dubai – London Heathrow:

The planned 2nd Daily A380 service, EK003/004, is postponed until 16 January 2010. The original plan was 4 weekly from 1 December 2009 then increasing to Daily by 1January 2010.

Dubai – Paris CDG

Planned A380 service on EK073/074 is now brought forward to 3 January 2010, instead of 1 February 2010.

3 January 2010 – 14 January 2010 Day 247
from 15 January 2010 – Daily

Dubai – Rome Planned A380 service from 28 March 2010, cancelled.

Dubai – Seoul Planned A380 service pushed back from 1 December 2009 to 14 December 20009.

14 December 2009 – 26 December 2009 Day 135
from 27 December 2009 – Daily

Cash at risk on delayed projects

31 October 2009

It is likely that many real estate projects in Dubai which developers claim are on hold have in fact been cancelled due to the collapse of the UAE’s property market.

Sadly developers do not want to admit this because then they will have to return investors’ money, industry observers say. And where is that money?

It is likely that some (many?) developers will be unable to repay investors when projects are finally cancelled, with the prospect of buyers losing millions of dollars.

Billions of dollars worth of developments were launched during the UAE’s real estate boom, which had seen property prices close to double by mid-2008 from the start of 2007.

The boom was driven by speculation and easy credit, with developers funding the construction of projects through off-plan sales.

When the global financial crisis gripped the country’s real estate market prices plummeted as financing and demand dried up, leaving developers unable to fund construction.

Many developers have put projects on hold or have said they are reviewing projects, but few have come out and outright cancelled projects. In the meantime the government has been consolidating its own real estate companies.

There is little transparency and such regulation as there is arrived too late. The number of real estate projects in Dubai cancelled or on hold stood at around $408 billion in September, up 18 percent from $346 billion in April, according to the Kuwait Financial Centre.

The Centre, also known as Markaz, said it expects cancellations to rise further in Dubai due to the continued lack of financing and uncertain economic outlook.

UAE real estate regulations vary from emirate to emirate, but currently there are no laws governing how long a project can be on hold before a developer must refund investors’ money.

In Dubai, the UAE’s most developed real estate market, authorities are in the process assessing which projects are unviable and should be cancelled, with the findings due out before the end of the year, according to the Real Estate Regulatory Agency (RERA)

Developers are not allowed to cancel projects in Dubai without the approval of RERA and the Dubai Land Department, RERA said, adding that if a developer does get approval to cancel a project it would have to reimburse investors.

Investors have become increasingly vocal in voicing their concerns about delayed projects, calling on developers to transfer their investment to another project or refund their money. Even contracts that might have repayment clauses in them do not need to be repaid under UAE law.

Larger companies such as Emaar Properties and Nakheel have set up schemes that allow buyers to swap their investments between projects, but smaller developers lack the project portfolio to offer an alternative, analysts say, leaving investors at risk of losing their money. So instead of the property that you wanted you do not get your money back but can have a property that may be of no interest to you.

Frankly there is little that has been done here to protect investors. An escrow account law came into force in mid-2007 requiring developers to hold buyers’ money in a special bank account until the completion of a project. But it was too late. Many projects had been launched prior to the law, and other emirates were even later in introducing similar regulations.

Too many hands in the Dubai till

31 October 2009

I had to laugh when I read of the charges against the Chairman of Dubai Properties. This is a government owned business. What were these people thinking. Sheer greed in a booming economy with no controls. regulations or accountability.

According to reports in The National newspaper, there are at least 11 court cases under way involving allegations of fraud in Dubai, while 34 company executives have either appeared in court to answer charges or are due to do so.

About $950m is alleged to have been stolen or used as bribe money, according to files from public prosecutors that give the first overview of the anti-corruption campaign.

Since March last year, lawyers appointed by the Dubai Government have been investigating executives from some of the emirate’s leading property and financial firms.

The first round of last year’s high-profile arrests and charges included top executives of three listed firms: Deyaar, Dubai Islamic Bank and Tamweel, the Islamic home lender. A second round concentrated on property developers.

Sama Dubai, now a part of the government-owned Dubai Holding, was the focus of an investigation last August, when four of its executives were detained.

In a separate case, a top executive of a developer was charged with allegedly defrauding 3,700 investors of more than Dh900m.

And two Australian executives of the Dubai Waterfront project (a Nakheel project - also government owned) are accused of defrauding the Sunland Group, obtaining Dh44m in illegal profits and giving false information about the ownership and value of a plot of land. The two were granted bail in Dubai earlier this month.

All of this arose from a massively booming economy with no effective corporate governance and legal system; and in reality it still is not there. At least the arrests that have been made even within the ranks of some of its largest companies have raised local awareness of the need to regulate these companies; but high-profile arrests have not turned into high profile sentences.

Ultimately, the need to attract and retain foreign investment may become the biggest incentive for regional governments to ensure that anti-fraud measures remain a top policy priority.

If Dubai is to be an international business center things like enhanced corporate governance, transparency and accountability are not just important; they need to be real and effective.

TTV testing on Sunday

31 October 2009

Noppadon Pattama, legal advisor to deposed prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra said that Thaksin TV will make a test broadcast of two television channels at noon on Sunday. Apparently his internet delivered TV could have up to 100 channels.

As an internet delivered service you can safely assume that the Thai government will be looking to block access.

"The first channel is called “O Channel” which will run programmes on the “One Tambon, One Product” or OTOP schemes initiated by the Thaksin government”, Mr Noppadon said, adding that this channel will be for boosting sales of the OTOP products to help the economy.

According to him, the second channel is “Clever Channel” which will be a channel for supporting Thai students in education aspect and enabling them to stay competitive in the international community. This channel’s educational programmes will be supported the Thai Kom Foundation.

Mr Noppadon said from Sunday, all Thai people can directly contact the ex-premier via SMS and his twitter website. Strangely he never replies to me !

Noppadon told the government not to panic as Thaksin runs his TV channels for the benefit of the country and Thai people without any political purpose. He insisted the move will not affect national security.

The perils of buying property in Dubai

31 October 2009

Sadly I did buy from Dubai properties. In February 2007 I bought a two bedroom apartment off plan in teh Executive Towers development at Business Bay.

I wanted a first home for Tai and I; that we would live in for at least two years before we decided whether to stay in Dubai or move on. The building was reasonably well advanced and due to complete in quarter 1 2008.

Of the purchase price 10% was paid on booking; and a further 60% during 2007. The remaining 30% is due on Completion Date.

The building is still not ready to be occupied. Maybe by year end but I suspect quarter 1 2010; two years late. So what was supposed to take one year to complete has take three.

And not a word of apology or regret. And not even a notification from the company of the new completion dates or the delays.

Now, you might ask, is there any sort of compensation? Or can you get your money back?

Well in theory yes according to the contract. In reality under UAE property law - not a chance.

Relevant Clauses:

5 Ascertaining the Completion Date

5.1 It is recorded that the Anticipated Completion Quarter referred to in paragraph 7 of the Particulars represents the Quarter in which it is presently expected that the Completion Date will occur. The Seller reserves the right to postpone the Anticipated Completion Quarter by a further two Quarters calculated from the end of the Anticipated Completion Quarter, provided that the Seller shall advise the Purchaser of such postponement before the commencement of the Anticipated Completion Quarter.

This means that Dubai Properties could move the completion quarter to Q3 as long as they told me !

12 Default and Termination

12.1 If the Purchaser has fulfilled all his obligations in terms of this Agreement and the Seller is unable to achieve a Completion Date within six (6) months of the end of the Anticipated Completion Quarter, without prejudice to the provisions of Clauses 5.1 and 13, the Purchaser may on thirty (30) days written notice to the Seller terminate this Agreement and, upon termination, the Seller shall refund all amounts paid by the Purchaser to the Seller on account of the Purchase Price. The Purchaser shall have no further claim against the Seller for any damages, compensation or costs,

This means that if they had not completed by the end of Q1 2009 (one year late) DP was obliged to refund all amounts that I had paid provided that I gave 30 days written notice of termination.

The notice of termination was greeted with complete disdain by Dubai Properties who have no intention of refunding any investor's money. The contract really is worthless. There is no protection for the investor under Dubai law. My suspicion is that later contracts did not have these cancellation clauses in them.

So maybe we will move to the new apartment early next year. But it will leave a bitter taste of disappointed dreams.

The state of Dubai's construction sector

31 October 2009

In Dubai the roads seem busy again and the armies of labourers are back on some of the city’s building sites. Whatever the reality nobody thinks the UAE is about to turn back into the rocket economy that imploded so dramatically at the end of last year.

The downturn in the UAE came suddenly, particularly in Dubai, but the signs are that recovery will be more tentative. It is likely that the emirate will remain a regional hub for financial services, tourism, transport, trade and exhibitions. But it will have to deal with competition from Doha and Abu Dhabi.

The projects that are restarting are mainly in Abu Dhabi; these include a mixed-use project called Tameer Towers on Al Rheem island in Abu Dhabi, which has a project value of 7bn dirham (£1.2bn); a 400m dirham project to build a headquarters for the municipal government of Abu Dhabi’s western region; and a residential project of up to 1 million ft2 by developer Bloom Properties in Abu Dhabi.

New projects are getting under way as well. Arabtec, the UAE’s biggest contractor, which employs 42,000 people, has just won a number of deals. These include the 638m dirham Silverene Twin Towers, a residential scheme at Dubai Marina for Cayan Investment & Development; the Onyx development, a 686m dirham office scheme on Dubai’s Sheik Zayed Road; and the Nation Towers, a 1.6bn dirham mixed-use scheme on Abu Dhabi’s Corniche seafront.

Even in Dubai things are moving again. There are a number of hospitals, hotels and lots of infrastructure projects moving forward. There is also a lot to do in areas like Meydan and Business Bay.

It might not be surprising that Abu Dhabi is starting to pick up where it left off. After all, it has the world’s second largest combined reserves of oil and gas per head after Qatar, and the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund – thought to be worth $400bn.

Unfortunately, it’s a different story for Dubai, which has no oil, relies on lending to fuel its development and is presently weighed down with debt. Its government-related entities (GREs), including top developers, collectively owe between $80bn and $90bn, of which $50bn is due by 2012, according to credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s.

The question commentators are asking is whether Abu Dhabi will bail out Dubai. One indication that it might is the $10bn (£6.1bn) fund that it has already provided. This came when Dubai issued the first half of a $20bn bond in February, which was bought by Abu Dhabi’s central bank. Dubai is expected to issue the remaining $10bn imminently and recent reports suggest it may seek a further $6.5bn of medium-term notes.

But Standard & Poor’s, which has downgraded its ratings for a number of Dubai’s GREs, warns that February’s deal, which amounts to a loan, is “insufficient to meet its debt”. There are still concerns in the construction industry that the bond money has gone out of the country to pay debts owed to foreign banks rather than to contractors and consultants working in the emirate.

In the meantime contractors and consultants still go without their fees. Estimates are that UK engineers are owed £500m in the UAE as a whole, and Dubai’s main arbitration body is struggling to process almost £3bn of disputes. Some consultants say privately that they are being forced to accept discounts on their fees of up to 50%, and what money is handed over is arriving late. 

While business may be slowly moving again but there will not be rich pickings for anyone in the property sector. Margins will be lower for everyone. Financing will be tight. Contractors say those they are making on new contracts have fallen from 15-20% 18 months ago to 5-10% now. Agreed payment periods are 60 to 90 days. As for payment up front, this is either a low percentage of the price or zero. Indeed, many deals being signed presently allow the client to make no payment at all for the first 120 days of the job, which will make it particularly tough to buy resources at the start of a project, especially given the dearth of bank loans.

The new projects will also be more basic than those of the boom years. The ostentatious hotels and theme parks so characteristic of Dubai will become rare, one-off projects. The new projects are for Holiday Inn Expresses and Premier Inns. This is a good thing and puts some balance in the market.

How far the UAE will recover is open to debate, but it seems unlikely that demand for property will ever hit 2007 levels again. Last month a report from real estate agent Colliers CRE said 25% of Dubai’s properties were empty. The report added that about 340,000 units would be on the market in Dubai by the end of 2009 and another 34,300 would be completed over the next two years.

The developers are unscrupulous - in too many cases they have buyers' money for projects that will never start and then use those funds to pay their contractors and consultants for other projects.

Dubai Properties chief arrested

31 October 2009

From Bloomberg

"Hashim Al Dabal, chairman of Dubai Properties, has been arrested on suspicion of embezzlement at the company, the emirate’s attorney general confirmed on Friday.

“Mr Al Dabal is accused of abusing his position and earning millions in illegal profit,” Attorney General Essam Essa al-Humaidan said in a phone interview.

“We are questioning him almost daily and Mr Al Dabal indicated he is ready to answer questions without having a lawyer present.”

Last year, Dubai began an investigation into corruption in real estate companies, which benefited from surging demand after foreigners were allowed to buy property for the first time.

Several officials were arrested, including Zack Shahin, former chief executive officer of the emirates’ second-biggest property developer, Deyaar Development, and Adel al-Shirawi, former CEO of mortgage lender Tamweel.

Bloomberg calls to Dubai Properties offices seeking comment weren’t answered on Friday. Al Dabal hasn’t appointed a lawyer and only family and legal representatives are allowed to talk with him, al-Humaidan said.

Al Dabal was arrested about 10 days ago, the attorney general said. No arrangement date has been set and the investigation is continuing, he said. Under Dubai law, he can be held for 21 days, after which he must appear before a judge.

Dubai Properties is a unit of Dubai Holding, a group owned by the emirate’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. In August, Al Dabal was appointed as executive chairman at Dubai Holding’s newly created Property Vertical.

Emaar Properties, the UAE's biggest real-estate developer, said in June it was in talks to combine with Dubai Properties and two other state-controlled competitors, Sama Dubai and Tatweer.

The move is aimed at controlling the supply of new buildings amid a glut of homes that drove property prices in Dubai 50 percent lower.

Dubai Properties built Jumeirah Beach Residence, a 1.7km (1.05-mile) waterfront development that includes 36 residential towers, four hotels and retail space.

Emarat Al Youm earlier reported that Al Dabal had been referred for prosecution on suspicion of financial misconduct. It cited Yasir Amerey, the head of the financial supervision department at the Ruler’s Court.

Dubai Holding appointed Ahmad bin Byat as acting chairman of its real estate company, Zawya Dow Jones reported on Thursday, citing the company.

“Dubai Holding and all of its business entities are committed to the highest levels of corporate governance. As such we fully support the Dubai government’s initiatives to uphold these standards,” Zawya Dow Jones quoted the company as saying in a statement."

As an extra note the Gulf News reported that at least two suspects are being questioned by police for alleged financial irregularities at Dubai Holdings.