That ol' H1N1

A few days ago the Health Ministry, in an article regarding whether schools should be closed, noted that the number of cases of H1N1 in Qatar was around 450 with about five new cases being reported every day. That would mean at this time there are around 470 cases, averaging 33.6 cases for every 100,000 people. I believe there has still only been one death though, which is good news as it means that the virus is still relatively mild.

33.6 per 100,000 is starting to approach the rate of cases in most western nations:

In Canada that would represent around 10,700 cases,
In Britain that would represent 23,400 cases,
In the United States that would represent around 100,000 cases

One can hope that the rate of new cases in Qatar will peak soon and start declining. I am assuming it will be a couple of months before a vaccine reaches here.

As for school closures the Health Ministry advised that schools should remain open. The Ministry did issue an order that all barbers/hairdressers must wear masks while working, and when I went for a haircut yesterday sure enough all the barbers were wearing masks.

Switzerland

Okay, I'm back safe and sound.

I hate Switzerland -- in an envious way. It's green, pretty, clean, nice scenery, excellent Metro and train systems. Shame I don't live there but I'd need to be a millionaire to afford it. Switzerland is probably one of the most expensive countries on earth. Yep, more expensive than Paris I found. Just to give you an idea a super-sized Big Mac combo would cost you about US$13, and a 75 sq metre apartment is around $450,000. Lunch in a regular restaurant would be $30 at a minimum.

I spent my time in Basel for the seminar. I had heard that Basel was more of an industrial city so was not as impressive as other parts of Switzerland. Well if it is I wonder what the other parts of Switzerland are like because the city was pretty impressive to me. The old city, with its 14th and 15th century homes overlooking the Rhine River, was great to wander around. It reminded me somewhat of Bratislava.

I landed at the airport in Zurich and the train station was on the bottom floor of the airport so it was easy to catch a train to Basel, which was a little more than an hour away. My hotel was across the street from the train station and only about 150m from where the seminar was being held so it was really convenient. Even more surprising when I checked in they gave me a ticket which allowed me free use of all buses and trams in the city for the length of my stay! Does anywhere else in the world do something like this?

Whether was generally cool, in the mid-20s, and it rained a number of times which was great. I hadn't seen a decent rain for at least six months. The seminar organiser was a little amused that I wanted it to rain while I was in Basel. Even better, when it rained I was always in a cafe, bar, or in my hotel, so I was able to enjoy rain without being caught in it and getting soaked. English was widely spoken and in the occasional place where it wasn't my limited French was fine. I hope they pay waitresses and store clerks well because as far as I can tell you need to know at least three to five languages to communicate with most people who come into your store/restaurant: German, Swiss German, French, English, and Italian. I popped into a bookstore and was looking at their directory trying to decipher the German when a clerk walked up to help me and immediately shifted to English to point out what I was looking for (their English-language science fiction books).

I also found it amusing that local beer was around the same price as bottled water. Hmmmmm, should I have water or a Swiss beer? It was a tough call.

So I had a chance to wander around, took some pictures, and had a nice dinner in a Swiss restaurant in the old city courtesy of the seminar organisers. I bought some chocolate and cheese for home (no alcohol of course) and had an uneventful flight back. I miss Switzerland already.

Switzerland

Off on a business trip to attend a seminar at the Financial Stability Institute (FSI) in Basel Switzerland. The FSI is an educational centre for regulators initially developed by the Bank of International Settlements for educating banking regulators but has since expanded to providing seminars and training for insurance and securities regulators as well. I am attending a three-day seminar looking at reinsurance and other types of specialist risk transfer strategies.

I'll post again when I return. No chance I will be seeing Basel's most famous resident, Roger Federer, since he will be at the US Open. Shame, it would be really cool to be walking along a street in Basel and see him eating in a restaurant or something.

Mementos

At home I have a couple of shelves where I keep little mementos, photos, and other items that I picked up during my travels or are given to me as gifts. Looking at it now it is interesting to look at the items and recall their history:

• United Nations desk flag -- a souvenir of when I visited the UN building in New York
• two Remembrance Day poppies, British style. Can't remember where exactly I had picked these up, I have kept them so that I will have a poppy handy when it approaches Remembrance Day since they are not widely distributed here in Qatar
• pewter clamshell for holding business cards -- received in Dubai at a conference.
• Three Christmas cards from friends over the years, two from Doha and one from my friends Knut & Petra in Bermuda. My cleaner sometimes tapes them up on the wall of the shelf when he sees them loose there.
• One wooden recorder (the instrument), Slovakian. Given to me by my Slovak friend Martin as a going away present when I left Bermuda.
• Small Egyptian ankh, might be some type of soft stone like sandstone. From a merchant in Luxor.
• Empty box for holding a small wooden box for use as a business card holder. The wooden box is currently on my desk at work and has the faces of Chinese opera characters on the top. The empty box has a silk interior and is labelled " The World Congress of Scientific Inquiry and Human Well-Being: Improving Science Spirits and Building Harmony Society (no, I am not accidentally misspelling or missing any words). This was a science/critical thinking conference that I attended in Beijing in 2007.
• birth announcement of my friends Carrie and Kamahl's daughter
• stuffed toy, Panda wearing a blue silk Chinese apron -- purchased at the airport in Shanghai as I had some small bills of Chinese currency I wanted to get rid of.
• Goodbye card from the Bermuda Monatery Authority signed by the staff. Karen in the Communications Department made the card herself using pictures of me taken over the years at work functions and in the office (the cover is a picture of me sleeping on a couch in the breakout room, someone had made decaf coffee that day and not told anyone so by the afternoon I had a splitting headache from caffeine withdrawal!! I took some aspirin and lay down for a second on the couch. I fell asleep and people immediately called Karen over to take a picture)
• five pictures of family members, mostly of my niece but one photo of my brother's wedding. (I do have some pictures of my nephew Aiden but they are on the desk at work.)
• Small silver decorations (6-7cm) in two frames, one of a shisha that I received at a conference in Dubai, the other of an Omani dagger with a sheath, purchased in Oman.
• A tray containing items gathered from various Qatar Natural History Group field trips:
o five desert roses, ranging in size from 5 to 25 cm
o two fossilised shark teeth
o three fossilised shells about 2-3 cm in size
• carved wooden box, Nepalese -- given to me by my friend Mary when she stayed over in Doha for a few days on her way back to London from Nepal. She had been in Nepal teaching secretarial skills to teenage girls at an orphanage. I use the box for holding the contact details of various friends.
• Two iron spikes from the Al Boom restaurant in Kuwait City, a large wooden boat that now serves as a floating restaurant. They give you the spikes as souvenirs.
• A set of wooden salt & pepper shakers, purchased from a market stall in Poprad, Slovakia
• a small stone urn carved to resemble a canopic jar with the head of Horus. Purchased from a merchant in Luxor.
• A thin metal ashtray, carved with a picture of a camel in the desert and my name in Arabic -- from Tunisia. A Tunisian-French colleague got married there and brought these ashtrays back everyone in the office.
• . . . and a partridge in a pear tree! (just kidding)

As time goes on I'm sure I will add more things, and this does not include other items I have from Bermuda that I keep in another part of the apartment.

Warhol

Spent a bit of time on the weekend rereading what I consider one of the most bizarre, yet interesting, books -- The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and Back Again). Basically it is random musings from the King of Pop Art, and if he had lived in this decade it would probably be an internet blog. The guy's mind worked in very weird ways. Here's a sample, from three different parts of the book:

American money is very well-designed, really. I like it better than any other kind of money. I've thrown it in the East River down by the Staten Island ferry just to see it float.

I believe in living in one room. One empty room with just a bed, a tray, and a suitcase . . . . Everything is more glamorous when you do it in bed, anyway. Even peeling potatoes.

But being famous isn't all that important. If I weren't famous, I wouldn't have been shot for being Andy Warhol. Maybe I would have been shot for being in the Army. Or maybe I would be a fat schoolteacher. How do you ever know?


Now a lot of what he writes about I disagree with as he embraces materialism and fame, and sometimes borders on the obsession with brands and being rich, people looking rich, or how fascinating people who are rich and famous are (he must mention Elizabeth Taylor at least two dozen times). Of course, this type of thinking was the inspiration for his most famous works and I must admit a lot of his perceptions really hit the mark about American Culture. If you get the chance to track this book down, read it. You will probably finish it and wonder what his life must have been like. He really was on a completely different wavelength from most people.

Ramadan

The holy month of Ramadan has started. For the next 28 or 29 days Muslims will be fasting from sunrise to sunset, and all restaurants in Qatar will be closed throughout the day. For us non-fasters that means brown-bagging it to work every day, and not having any water or coffee at your desk. The ubiquitous snacks and candies that are in every office have been put away. On the bright side the traffic in the mornings is better than usual but you do not want to be on the road when the sun is setting -- that is when Muslims are racing home so that they can break their fast with their families. I always felt that the driving was a little nuts here but imagine it when most of the drivers have not had anything to eat or drink all day and are in a rush (more of a rush than usual). Don't go out onto the roads until after the sun sets!

Karis's Birthday!

It is my niece Karis's birthday today! Let's do a little photomontage to celebrate from when I was last in Canada.

There she is!


And there she is hugging Daddy!


And there she is at the mall, where she grabbed this and started exclaiming she was a "Hootchie Mama" (I am not kidding. I figured someone in the mall was going to call social services.)



Whew, what an exhausting day!



Happy birthday Karis! Have some cake for me.


Love, Uncle Glen

Weighing evidence

There's been a bit of press coverage recently in the US about people who people deridedly call "Birthers". These are people who believe that President Obama was not actually born in the United States and thus not eligible to be President. This is a criticism that came up during his campaign and the Obama campaign countered by releasing a copy of his birth certificate showing that he was born in Hawaii. Other evidence has also been presented such as the birth announcement in a Hawaiian newspaper, confirmation of his birth by the Hawaiian Government etc. Birthers have fired back that the birth certificate was faked (offering all sorts of analysis is to how they can tell it is fake), government cover-ups and so forth. Never mind that once his candidacy became a possibility you could bet your boots that the Republicans poured over every detail of his life to try to dig up dirt on him. If he had not been born in the US you can bet they would have announced it. Hillary's team would have gone over everything as well. Yet the Birthers persist to this day.

Recently an anonymous source sent a birth certificate to one of the more vocal Birthers claiming it was Obama's birth certificate issued in Kenya. This was quickly hailed by some Birthers as the "smoking gun", but research by others managed to track down its origin -- an Australian birth certificate that a man had posted on a genealogy website, which was altered with Obama's name, Republic of Kenya, and whatever other relevant tidbits of information was needed to create the fake certificate.


This ultimately gets to the point of what I want to say. In this world there are many proponents of alternative views, speculations, and theories about things. Occasionally they are right (Mpemba effect, Watergate) but more often than not the evidence just does not add up and it moves into the realm of conspiracy theories or pseudoscience (JFK assassination, Moon landing hoax, 9/11 conspiracies, Bigfoot, alien abductions, cold fusion). One of the hallmarks of when it moves into the latter is . . .


proponents never subject evidence that supports their view to the same level of scrutiny as evidence which opposes it.


So when Obama's birth certificate is presented and confirmed as legitimate by the Hawaiian government Birthers immediately pour over every square centimetre of the scan, accusing fakery, doing detailed analysis of folds, accusing the Hawaiian government of being involved in the cover-up, and all sorts of stuff. But the moment a certificate which supports their view magically appears, provided by an "anonymous source", it is immediately accepted at face value.

If you see that a group appears to not subject supportive evidence to scrutiny it is a yellow flag that it is some kind of crankdom.


The "intelligent design" folks can follow this as well. Thousands upon thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers exist whose contents support evolutionary theory and they are dismissed by creationists and ID supporters. But if one paper is published that may be construed as supporting their views it is immediately hailed as important and valuable evidence. Shelves of books about evolutionary theory are ignored but many creationists have no problem jumping on a single quote by an evolutionist which could be interpreted as supporting their view (and in fact the quote always turns out to be just an example of quote mining and is not what the speaker meant at all.)

It's sad, but it happens all the time. Best to keep an eye out for instances where people do not appear to be objective in analysing evidence, it could save you a lot of hassle in the long run.

Traditional food

In the last month or so I have had the opportunity to try a number of traditional cuisines. It was not that I was hunting them out per se it just happened that I attended dinners or functions where traditional food was served:

Scottish: One night I was invited to dinner hosted by my friends Carrie and Kamahl. Carrie is Scottish and the main highlights of dinner were black pudding , and haggis with a traditional whisky sauce. Now I had never tried either before so I thought it was pretty cool that I was going to get to try these things for the first time -- especially haggis, which has a reputation in North America as a strange and icky food only eaten by Scots. Not surprisingly both dishes were not weird and they tasted pretty good. Haggis has a lot of oats and barley in it so it does not have a strong meat taste. Far exceeded my expectations. If anyone has a chance to try haggis or a black pudding don't turn it down or wrinkle your face, it is actually good stuff. Would definitely eat them again. (Maybe I should get out to Scotland one day)

Qatari: I was also invited to a Qatari's house one evening for a casual dinner and then watch a movie. There were four of us at dinner which was held in a small separate building called a majlis. In Arab society male visitors are generally not invited into one's home, the host has a separate area outside the home where the men meet. Sometimes it would be a tent, but many Qatari families have built separate small buildings adjacent to the house instead. This majlis consisted of a carpeted area about the size of a standard North American livingroom with cushioned benches lining the walls, a couple of coffee tables, a television, air conditioning (of course), and a washroom.

While we chatted a servant came in and unrolled a large piece of plastic on the floor for the dinner as we would be eating on the floor. Dinner was rice, Arabic bread, and what could best be described as a mild shrimp curry. It's Arabic name escapes me, I'll try to find out. While Qatari food can be what westerners would consider traditional Arabic cuisine (Lamb on rice, kebabs, hummous, etc) there are also a number of dishes with roots in Indian cuisine. The Gulf countries had traded with India for centuries, to the extent that it was only in the last 40 years or so that Qatar ceased using the Rupee as their currency, so many of the Indian spices and cooking techniques were adopted into Qatari cuisine. We sat on the floor and chatted away while eating dinner, the Qataris used their right hand for eating and had graciously provided cutlery for us non-Qataris. Traditionally Arabs eat with their right hand, never the left (you use your left hand for, um, wiping and stuff when you go to the bathroom, remember in the old days there was not a lot of soap and water around in the desert so in the interest of good hygiene Arabs would always eat with their right hand and never touch food with the left). After dinner we sat back on the benches and were served tea and traditional Arabic coffee. Dinner was great as expected, while I had never had that particular dish before I have of course had Arabic cuisine a zillion times while I have been in Qatar.

[A blog post with more Qatari dishes can be found here]


French: naturally during my recent trip to France I had plenty of opportunity to eat French cuisine, primarily at the wedding reception but whenever I was in a restaurant in Paris I always tried to order French food. Coq le vin, foie gras, croissants and pain de chocolat, baguettes, stake tartare, chicken tarragon (is that French?), veal in a cream sauce, a variety of amuse bouche, I had all sorts of things. I can't say I had any bad food the whole time. Aside from the pastries I like meat with the sauces that are a cornerstone of French cuisine. Potatoes and vegetables were not as exciting. I still have no idea why French people tend not to be as overweight as Brits or Americans, if I was French I would be constantly eating meat and pastries.

H1N1 update

Did I say there are 43 cases? Sorry about that, the number is now 350. Geez, that's increased a little bit since last week . . .

H1N1 update

The latest H1N1 update is 43 confirmed cases and, sadly, the death of one Qatari man from the flu (though he may have caught the flu in the UAE then came back to Qatar). This puts Qatar around 3.1 cases per 100,000 people, still lower than in most Western nations. I expect cases will start ramping up for the next couple of months then the number of new cases will start to decline, much like in the West. The Qatari government hopes to have thousands of doses of vaccine when it becomes available, probably in October.

Back from Paris

Okay, I'm back! Had a great time in France.

The first three nights I was staying at that Chateau outside of Paris, sharing a room with the groom. Nice place, and it was great to be in the green countryside under comfortable temperatures. I was told when I returned to Qatar that there had been a major dust storm for 2-3 days so it was ironic that I was enjoying the clean air of the French countryside while all my friends and colleagues had to stay indoors because of the dust.

Now in France couples have to get married in a civil ceremony at the town hall. They are allowed to have a religious ceremony afterward but cannot have the religious ceremony until they had done the civil one (the priest needs to see proof that the civil ceremony was done). So the civil ceremony was on Friday and the wedding on Saturday. I did not attend the civil ceremony instead I took the train into Paris and wandered around the neighbourhoods south of the Seine, since I was going to be meeting the now civil-married couple and a large number of their friends for dinner that evening at a restaurant in Saint-Michael. Roamed through the graveyard near Montparnasse, finding graves of famous French people such as Jean-Paul Sartre, then had a snack in the Jardin de Luxembourg before walking on to the Notre Dame Cathedral to join the throng of tourists in the square in front of it. I didn't go in though, the lineups were way too long, so I went to the park behind the cathedral and chilled out for a while watching the people go by, munching on a baguette that I purchased at a boulangerie. (I know it seems like a stereotype to us North Americans but the French really do buy those long baguettes. Every morning I would see people with them).

Paris is such a great city to just wander around, the neighbourhoods look exactly like what Paris looks like in the movies. The city is fairly protectionist when it comes to big chain stores so while you do see the occasional McDonald's etc they are uncommon which allows independently-owned stores to set up. As a result everywhere you go there are interesting shops and cafes. I found a bookstore are dedicated to books about theatre and dance, tiny art galleries exhibiting various abstract works, a shop dedicated to Jules Verne and other authors from the period, and so forth.

After dinner we went back to the Chateau for a good nights sleep since tomorrow was the big religious ceremony. Amusingly the groom and I still shared the room which led me to bug him that while I was flattered I thought it was very weird that his first night of marriage would be spent sharing a room with me!

Well the groom was racked with nerves and apparently didn't sleep much that night (I didn't notice because I slept like a rock). Got him down to breakfast and made him eat something before he was off to get ready as he had to drive into the city. For the rest of us staying at the Chateau a bus was coming by later to take us directly to the Cathedral.

The Cathedral of St Alexander Nevsky is located about a five-minute walk north of the Arc de Triomphe in what appeared to be a small Russian neighbourhood since the two nearby restaurants were both Russian. We all waited around for about 20 minutes for the groom, bride, and the priests to show up, and then we all went inside.

Now a Russian Orthodox wedding ceremony is very different from a Catholic or Anglican one. Firstly, the Cathedral had no pews so everyone stands for the whole ceremony, though there were a few chairs along the side in case people needed to sit down. The couple enters the church together and are met at the door by two priests who after a couple of recitations places the rings on their fingers, so the couple get their rings at the beginning of the ceremony, not near the end like you would in a Catholic/Anglican wedding.

One of the priests was an older man and from the look of things was the head priest of the Cathedral while the other was a younger man in his 30s. Most of the recitations were sung and the younger priest had this amazing baritone voice almost like an opera singer, with accompaniment by a four-person choir near the altar. All of us attending the ceremony later remarked about it and it made me wonder if Orthodox priests are trained in singing.

The couple and the priests then walk further into the church where after a few more speeches (all of which were in a language I did not recognize, it certainly wasn't French, I was told later it was some form of ancient Slavic language) two crowns are presented and the best man and maid-of-honour hold the crowns over the couple's heads and have to do so for the remainder of the ceremony, including when the priest leads the couple around the altar three times.

[Needless to say in an Orthodox wedding brides shouldn't wear long trains since it would be nearly impossible for the maid of honour to hold the crown over the bride's head without stepping on her dress, something Katerina (the bride) clearly knew since her dress was ankle-length.]

There were more speeches and songs by the priests and a couple of times crown-holding duty was passed to other people attending the wedding to give the best man and maid of honour a break. Then the couple were led through a doorway to the nave of the church where the main altar is. I couldn't really see in the room (guests couldn't follow) so I'm not entirely sure what happened but they were back out in a couple of minutes. The crowns were returned and the couple left the church, followed by best man & maid of honour, then the groom's parents. The rest of us stood there waiting for the bride's parents to leave, figuring that was the proper etiquette, so we all stood there for about a minute until the best man came back to tell us that the ceremony is finished and we can go meet the couple now. oops.

Then we boarded the bus to take us back to the Chateau to get changed for the reception, which was in the Chateau de Breuil, about a 10 minute drive away from the Chateau we were staying at.

There were around 50 to 60 guests and for the first couple of hours we were all outside on a patio sipping champagne and eating amuse bouchées, including pan-seared foie gras. The bride threw her bouquet and since the bride did not have a garter a teddy bear was thrown instead for the men. Strange, but then again, that bear has done some crazy things. I did not manage to catch the bear. We then went inside to the dining hall for dinner. It was a lavish hall that one would expect from an 18th-century period drama -- 40 foot ceilings, paintings and frescoes adorning the walls etc. Really spectacular. There was great food served, lots of wine, and a few games. Apparently in French wedding receptions it is common to play games rather than have a lot of speeches (though the groom and the best man did give speeches, no one else did). The game I remember best was when they stood the bride and groom back-to-back and gave them each a placard with one side indicating the bride and another indicating the groom. They were then asked a series of questions (Who drinks more? Who will change the diapers when you have children?) and they had to flip their placards and we got to see if they agreed with one another, not unlike that old North American TV show "The Newlywed Game". To their credit all of their answers to important questions matched, including a diaper changing one (Him!!), which amused everyone greatly. I also recall that the ladies in charge of the games had also set a rope across the doorway from which hung a number of French postcards**. Guests were asked to pick a card, then on the back was a date sometime between now and the next year. Guests were asked to send the postcard back to the bride and groom on the date indicated so that the couple would have constant reminders over the next year of their wonderful wedding and the guests who attended it. I thought it was a great idea and took a postcard. It is with me at home and I will send it when it is time. For dessert there was a cutting of the cake. The cake was not a white tiered wedding cake commonly seen in North American weddings, it was a French one made up of a number of pastries stacked in a pyramid held together with I'm getting some sort of sugar-syrup. There were also a number of other cakes and desserts available, and a French Ska-Jazz band for the evening's dancing. I think I managed to get back to my room at the Chateau sometime after 3am. Not surprisingly, this time I had the room to myself.

I stumbled out of bed shortly after nine so that I would have time for breakfast before checking out of the Chateau. The groom still had a lot of stuff in the room so I made sure that his brother was aware of it so that they could move the stuff to another room just in case the groom was not available to pick it up before checkout time. I then shared a taxi with two other guests to the train station to grab the train to Paris, where I had booked two nights at a hotel near the Opera recommended to me by a French colleague. The room was not very big but I have been in smaller, and it was clean, on a quiet street, and the AC worked. For 95 Euro a night you couldn't ask for much better in central Paris.

I spent the next two days just wandering around. I do not go into any of the main tourist attractions like the Eiffel Tower because I had already done that two summers ago. I just liked wandering around, eating in cafes, and going to places like the steps of Sacre Coeur Cathedral to see the views of the city, sit on the bank of the Seine and watch the boats go by, walk down the Champ de Elyeses, or people-watch at the fountain at Jardin de Tuilleres. A lot of the restaurants recommended by my French colleague were closed because it was August the main holiday time for the French, so I had to settle for the tourist cafes. Food was still good though. All in all a relaxing couple of days.


** -- postcards of France, not postcards with "R-rated" themes (well, most of them weren't anyway)

Dat darn cat again

Here is the cat I was telling you about a few posts ago, Yuki. Watch out, beneath the cute exterior is a being of deceptive EVIL (like all cats).











See, I told you, it's all fun and games and suddenly the contract comes out. Never sign anything a cat gives you!

My friend doesn't believe me ... he's probably already lost.

Vacation time

I'm leaving this weekend on my next trip. My friend David is finally tying the knot so I'm off to the wedding...



... in Paris!!



Yep, I will be spending nearly a week in Paris to help out for a couple of days, attend the wedding, then wander around Paris for a bit.
It should be a blast, everyone is staying at a hotel outside of Paris, the Chateau de Villiers, which looks really nice seeing as how it was an aristrocat's home from whatever century. The wedding is being held in an Orthodox cathedral near the Arc de Triomphe. I have never been to an Orthodox wedding ceremony so it should be interesting. I wonder if the priest has one of those big long beards.

I will post more on my return.

Health update

Sorry for not posting much recently. Had a flareup of my repetitive strain injury recently so I have been laying off the computer. Bloody annoying. Not sure exactly why it happened, guess I just have to be little more careful.

Borders - part 2

Okay so I spoke to my Qatari friends about the border dispute, but in the meantime an anonymous commenter also left a lengthy discussion of the issue. Rather than have everyone click on the comment I will just copy what he said here:

Per Wiki, the treaty has never been ratified by the UAE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia_-_UAE_border_dispute
Also: http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2431

Historical Background

The origins of the tension go back two centuries to when the al-Nahyans of Abu Dhabi (now the rulers of the lead emirate of the UAE) and the al-Sauds, now the rulers of Saudi Arabia, were merely rival tribes. The al-Nahyan, then impoverished pearl-divers and herdsmen, accepted al-Saud dominance though they resisted the al-Saud's strict Wahhabi version of Islam. The focus of much of the rivalry was the Buraimi Oasis, a fertile jewel in an otherwise barren desert. Just over fifty years ago, Saudi forces seized the oasis, reportedly with the backing of U.S. oil companies that argued Riyadh had a territorial claim to it. When international arbitration failed, the Saudis were expelled forcibly by Abu Dhabi and Omani troops acting with British support.

In 1974, the newly formed UAE, led by Sheikh Zayed al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, agreed to a treaty in Riyadh with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia (the father of Prince Turki, now the Saudi ambassador to Washington; Faisal was assassinated the following year). Saudi Arabia was given a strip of coastline between the UAE and Qatar, and control over most of the discovered but then unexploited Shaybah Oil Field, along with 100 percent of its revenues. The Buraimi Oasis apparently was ceded to the UAE, where it is now known as Al Ain. "Apparently" is the operative word because a map published on the website of the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows Buraimi still to be in Saudi territory, along with several parts of neighboring Oman and Yemen (view the map). Indeed, this is the shape of Saudi Arabia represented in outline on the pages of Saudi passports.

Thanks for that Anonymous. I'm not sure about the wiki bit on ratifiction. I would find it odd that the treaty would not have been ratified yet still deposited with the United Nations. Why would the UN have an unratified treaty? Why has the UAE and Qatar abided by an unratified treaty for 35 years? (albeit possibly grudgingly)

One of my Qatari friends said that at the time Saudi was the big military power and other countries in the region ultimately did what they said. He thinks the Saudi army did move in and annexed the strip of land near Qatar, and that this occurred well before the treaty negotiations. He also thinks they controlled a segment of what is now the UAE (I think some land near the Strait of Hormuz?) and during the treaty negotiations gave the UAE the option to keep one or the other, with the UAE deciding to keep the land near the Strait. Saudi kept the segment in between Qatar and the UAE.

This story seems to agree somewhat with what is said about the Buraimi Oasis conflict.

Looks like I won't be seeing an easy drive between Qatar and the UAE any time soon. Saudi Arabia makes a reasonable amount of money charging fees to all vehicles crossing the border. Lose that strip of land and they would lose the revenue from any trucking traffic going between Qatar and the UAE, as well as the mineral/oil rights in that segment of the Gulf east of Qatar.

Borders

One of the downsides of when I lived in Bermuda is that you were in this small island nation and there was nowhere else to go. There were no other nearby islands or pieces of land so if you wanted to get away you had to fly somewhere. There was nowhere to drive except for the ~50 sq km that made up Bermuda so it was not long before you saw pretty much all of it.

Now Qatar is much bigger than Bermuda, I think ~11,000 sq km, but it borders only one other country -- Saudi Arabia. The United Arab Emirates is close to Qatar but there is about 25 km of Saudi Arabia in between the UAE and Qatar. So for me to drive to the UAE I would have to cross the border into Saudi Arabia, then cross the border from Saudi Arabia to the UAE. Needless to say Saudi Arabia is not a huge tourist destination which loves having foreign visitors drive-through for a couple of hours. To be allowed to drive through to the UAE I would need to get a visa from the Saudi embassy allowing me to drive on that small stretch of road to the UAE border. I am not saying that is impossible, many people have obtained the Visa and drove to the UAE and vice versa. It is just not a simple procedure so for most of us non-Gulf Arabs it is much easier to just fly to the UAE, Bahrain or wherever. Maybe one day I will get the Visa just to say that I have been to Saudi Arabia but until then Qatar is essentially an island much like Bermuda.

Now I always wondered why Saudi Arabia had this small stretch of land between Qatar and the UAE. I know that it was not always the case. You can occasionally find maps showing Qatar and the UAE having a connecting border, and I believe the map you see on Qatar Airways flights also shows the connected border. My understanding, but I do not recall where I got the story from, was that sometime in the 70s (Qatar and the UAE gained independence from Britain in 1971) Saudi Arabia just moved in with some troops or tanks or whatever and just took the land for their own. This seemed plausible to me as there were many border disputes between the Arab nations in the early days. It even made me speculate that it was one of the reasons why the US military base was conveniently placed near the road between the Saudi border and Doha, to discourage any further land grabs.

But yesterday I decided to do a bit of research to get more of the story. It appears that I may have an incorrect in my assumptions. Saudi Arabia and the UAE negotiated a treaty in 1974 giving Saudi Arabia that stretch of land. You can find a translation of the treaty here on this United Nations website.

Geez, you learn something new everyday. I guess that means that I will not be seeing an easier drive to the UAE any time soon.

Now there must be more to the story or else there would not be maps that still show the old border. Maybe Saudi took the land by force before 1974 and with its superior firepower "negotiated" the treaty? Maybe it is because Qatar was not part of the treaty negotiations and felt it should have a say in the matter? Maybe with the strip of land came some recently found oil reserves everyone now wants? I think I'll ask around and see what the Qataris know about it.

Them darn cats

While some friends are on vacation I have agreed to pop by every now and then to check on their cat. I'm not taking care of the cat, someone else is coming by everyday to feed the cat. No, my job is to play with the cat, to make sure it gets some petting and playtime every couple of days. Yep, I have play-dates with a cat.

Given that cats are known for keeping their own schedule I figured I would pop by the house and watch as a cat ignored me for an hour. But it looks like my friends knew what they were talking about, within minutes of me entering the house the cat came running down the stairs and jumped on my lap for petting. After that it happily stalked a ribbon I dragged around before settling back in my lap for more petting. Bizarre. Guess the poor thing was starved for attention after all. Maybe it helps that I'm mildly allergic to cats -- cats always know when people are allergic to them so go straight for them. A high school/college buddy of mine was really allergic to cats and it was just amazing how if there was a cat around we would know because it was usually attached to him. He was a cat magnet.

It is unfortunate but in Qatar there are so many stray cats. They are everywhere. I know so many people who have taken stray cats into their homes, and others who also capture them for spaying/neutering then releasing them back outside, but there are still stray cats everywhere. I think in my compound there are now six strays. Sometimes people adopt them (in the three years I've been here at least 11 strays have been rescued from my compound and put in homes), but within a few months more strays will have wandered in to replace them. It looks like 4-6 is the standard number of stray cats my compound can support.

I have some other theories about cats but I will save those for later. In the meantime I guess I will head to my friend's place and pet a cat for a while (she was a stray too).

H1N1 update

H1N1 cases in Qatar are now up to 23, but none are serious.

4th of July

In honour of American Independence Day, which is close to Canada Day, I figure I would give an analogy which might help non-North Americans with the difference in history between the two countries:



Father Britain had sons called America and Canada (though from different mothers, Canada's mother was France). America was the oldest one and grew up to be confident and rebellious while his younger brother Canada was the quieter more studious one, who almost always did what his father asked and didn't cause too much trouble. America started wearing leather jackets and smoking while Canada wore sweaters and liked helping his parents out in the yard.

As time went on America got more and more rebellious and kept getting into trouble because he wouldn't obey his father. One day they had a big fight on the front lawn which America won, bloodying the nose of his father, then he left home.

Canada stayed with his father and was shocked at what America had done. They even got into a brief tussle later on. But despite their differences the brothers had always been close and they quickly forgave one another. America continued his wild ways but didn't get Canada involved. It took a bit longer but eventually America also reconciled with his father, though America never returned home.

Eventually Canada grew older and he and his father agreed that it was time he left home and be independent. Canada left his father and set up his own home (but continued to ask his father for help every now and then and had his father over often for dinner). Canada remained close to his brother America and even assisted running some of his businesses, but never had the popularity of his brother. While they may look similar because they are brothers it surprised people who knew them how different they are from one another. Countries found Canada perhaps a little cold and distant, even a tad boring, but he was always polite and generally liked, kind of like a young Mr Rogers. America was tougher, wealthier, popular, and more exciting, like James Dean. Canada rarely got into fights while America was always getting into scraps with someone or another. (Canada may not have realised it but other countries knew that even though Canada was kinda nerdy if you messed with him America would come to his rescue, which is what kept that bully Soviet and his gang from hassling Canada too much.)

Today the brothers' friendship continues to be strong despite their ideological differences. America sometimes tries to get Canada out into the action, while Canada occasionally scolds America for not being nicer to others, like his friend Cuba down the road, but those are little more then jabs that brothers do to one another. Countries are nice to Canada but don't pay him much attention, while everyone pays attention to America even though many don't like him that much.

They will always remain close but will never entirely see eye-to-eye.



Happy 4th of July America.

Car registration - the Finale

[This post contains outdated information, I recommend going to my post of May 21, 2011 for the most recent information about car inspections]

The registration of my car is done and finished! Repairers were finished no problem and at no charge (yay warranty!). A friend of mine told me that the line-up at the testing centre is really short on a weekday morning so I gambled by not making an appointment and just showing up at eight in the morning. I was always under the assumption that you had 30 days after the expiry of your registration to get it renewed but at lunch the other day someone told me it was 20 days, any later than that and you get a QR1000 fine (US $270). Since he told me that on day 18 I figured I'd better turn up at the testing station the next day.

Sure enough there was only three cars ahead of me, and the friendly Algerian clerk was at his desk looking a lot better since he did not have 20 people crowding around him waving papers. I got my paperwork and the car tested in under 15 minutes. The car passed inspection (yay!). So then it was off to the Ministry of Interior desk, conveniently located at the mall across the street from work, where they renew registration cards. Gave him my old registration card, inspection papers, proof of insurance, and QR 100, and was rewarded for all of my time and effort with my brand new vehicle registration card.

And I have to do this rigamarole every year now! I can see why some people just choose to sell their old car and get a new one once their old one is three years old. Would definitely save a lot of hassle.


Anyway the car is okay for another year.

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day! I think I will celebrate by going to work. (*sigh*)

H1N1 update

H1N1 cases in Qatar are now up to 17, which in the grand scale of things is still pretty minor in that it represents around 0.9 cases per 100,000 people. (I think in Canada it is around 2.9 per 100,000). Given Qatar's small population though it won't take many more cases before its per capita average is on par with many European countries. All the cases have been mild and I do not think at this time there is any concern that more serious cases will appear.

Do the crime . . .

Just a quick H1N1 update - I believe the number of cases in Qatar is now at 15, which doesn't seem like much but on a per capita basis it means there are more cases here than in Japan. Everyone seems pretty "meh" about it though.

In other news, literally, I was looking through the paper today and there were three interesting articles about recent cases at the court:


A bus driver who was stealing fares (over time he took about $10,000). He got five years in jail.

A Filipino maid and her Indian lover who were on trial for the death of their newborn. She apparantly abandoned the baby in a dumpster after it was born, and had been hiding the fact that she had been pregnant from her employer. The coroner could not determine with certainty whether she had deliberately killed the baby so she was found not guilty in the death, but she and her lover were sentenced to three years for "illicit relations" since they were not married. Illicit relations is a charge that you see in the courts every now and then in this part of the world, authorities take things like that seriously and jail time for illicit relations is not uncommon.

Finally, a Lebanese man on charges of blasphemy. For some reason the online version of the paper doesn't have it but here's another example. I don't know what he said (and the article isn't saying) but it must have been pretty nasty -- he got seven years! Wow!


So the lesson to be learned here is that anyone reading this who is moving to the Middle East try to bear in mind that some of the laws are different in this region, and what might not be considered too serious in the West could get you in real trouble here. Blasphemy, illicit relations, even standing on a Qur'an can get you in real trouble. Remember, countries in the Middle East are Islamic nations and for civil crimes the legal system is based on Shari'a principles. None of that church/state separation as in the West.

Qatar education

The other day I was talking to some Qataris and the conversation went on to education. They commented that in Qatar the public education system wasn't very good and many Qataris nowadays are opting for private school for their children. I recalled similar problems in Bermuda with the quality of public education and wondered if there was a strange quirk about very wealthy countries that for some reason they struggle with their educational system.

Coincidentally I was later on the OECD website looking up some materials when my search found the PISA assessment for 2006. PISA is an assessment undertaken by the OECD every three years (the first one was in 2000) where thousands of 15 year-olds in OECD countries take a 3+ hour standardised test measuring their abilities in reading, mathematics, and science. It is one of the most comprehensive worldwide surveys, possibly the only decent worldwide survey, measuring the ability of students in some fundamental concepts of education. Though there have only been three studies so far most countries treat the results seriously. Media tend to take a keen interest in the results and then discuss with education ministers as to what the deficiencies are and where improvements are needed. And with every PISA survey more and more countries sign on to take part, even those that are not in the OECD. In 2006, fifty-seven countries took part, the 2009 one had something like sixty-seven. To my surprise Qatar had taken part in the 2006 survey, the only country in the Gulf to do so. I was impressed that Qatar would take part, I think it shows that the Education Ministry is taking these things seriously and wants to measure how its students are doing compared to international counterparts. Over 7000 children in Qatar wrote the test, which given at the time the population of the country was probably one million people it is likely that almost every 15 year-old in the public education system wrote it.

So how did Qatar do? Well, here's the base rankings on the three categories including some other OECD countries, (top 5 plus selected others):

Reading (56 countries)

1. Korea
2. Finland
3. Hong Kong
4. Canada
5. New Zealand
. . .
15. Japan
17. UK
18. Germany
23. France
33. Italy
39. Russia
. . .
54. Azerbaijan
55. Qatar
56. Kyrgyzstan

(for some reason there are only 56 countries on the reading list because the United States is not listed, why I don't know)

Math (57 countries)

1. Taiwan
2. Finland
3. Hong Kong
4. Korea
5. Netherlands
. . .
7. Canada
10. Japan
20. Germany
23. France
24. UK
34. Russia
35. USA
38. Italy
. . .
55. Tunisia
56. Qatar
57. Kyrgyzstan


Science (57 countries)

1. Finland
2. Hong Kong
3. Canada
4. Taiwan
5. Estonia
6. Japan
. . .
11. Korea
13. Germany
14. UK
25. France
29. USA
35. Russia
36. Italy
. . .
55. Azerbaijan
56. Qatar
57. Kyrgyzstan


So I guess the Qataris I spoke to were right as these are very surprising results for a country with such wealth. In fact I showed these results to a couple of them and they were not alarmed at all. They could not clarify specifically why results were poor however. Poor-quality teaching? Lack of parental involvement? Lack of discipline by students for studying? Class sizes too large? Curriculum lacks focus? I guess that is something for the Education Ministry to investigate - I hope that whatever it is they are undertaking reforms. Then again it would depend on the reasons why, I know that Qatari public schools do a lot of religious instruction in Islam and the Qur'an which would mean less class time on math and science (I don't know if that would impact reading scores since reading skills would be important for understanding the Qur'an). Anyway it would appear that Qatar has some changes to make.

Qatar's Education Ministry posted articles about the PISA study when it was published and had signed on to do the 2009 study, which was conducted in March, with even more students participating than in 2006. I see that as a positive sign that Qatar is taking the issue seriously and wants to see if whatever changes they have made have improved things. Dubai signed on as well for 2009 but no other GCC country has, including other UAE emirates.

As for Canada I am glad that it is doing very well in terms of the results, but I sure couldn't tell you why that is. I guess since I have only been through one educational system (Canada's) I can't really compare and contrast with what is done in other countries. The US education system appears to score poorly which is perhaps not too surprising as there has been a lot more criticism and discussion of the issue in the United States over the last 8 to 10 years, and major attempts by the government to rectify problems, such as the No Child Left Behind Act. I have not looked at the previous two studies to see if the US has shown improvement over the last six years.

Finland had the highest overall scores of any country in the world, again I'm not sure why. They solidly outscored other Scandinavian countries so they must be doing something differently. Neighbouring Estonia also has decent results, much better than the other Baltic states and Russia so I suspect they have then taking a page from the Finnish model.

If you're interested in the PISA study I highly recommend looking at the full reports at www.pisa.oecd.org. The reports are very long and detailed, have additional tables with further information, and also provide methodologies and examples of the questions. From looking around I even know that countries could get detailed reports by region -- Canada has published their results by province, probably on a Canadian Gov't website somewhere.


Look out for when the results of the 2009 study are published -- probably in early 2010.


(And if anyone from India is reading this your country does not take part in the PISA survey. Given the emphasis Indians put on education I'm surprised they haven't signed on. Pressure your government to get on board, I suspect India will have good results and PISA is a valuable way to identify possible weaknesses)

Car inspection - part 2

[This post contains outdated information, I recommend going to my post of May 21, 2011 for the most recent information about car inspections]


So after my recently tuned-up car failed inspection I went back to the garage to ask them (1) why one of my brakes didn't pass muster and (2) fix it.

"Oh, we don't do break inspections at this garage.", thanks for letting me know ahead of time!

"You need to go to the main shop. It is in the Industrial Area."
Where? The Industrial Area !?

Crap.

The Industrial Area is a vast area of streets on the western side of the city, and home to many of the labourers. I have heard that its population at any given point in time is around 75,000. It is notorious for being clogged with traffic and having horrible roads with tons of potholes, all of the heavy trucks and industrial equipment that roam the area really wear down the roads. A lot of people avoid going to the Industrial Area if they can help it, and to drive around there after it has rained (so you can't tell how deep the holes are because they are filled with water) is to risk damaging your car. Seriously, I have seen potholes there at least 18 inches deep! I haven't been in the Industrial Area in nearly 2 years.

So here it is six o'clock in the evening on a weekday and I need to go to the Industrial Area. I'm told the garage in the Industrial Area is open until 10 at night but not to bother going there this evening because "they will be booked solid".

So I thanked the guys, got into the car -- and immediately drove out to the Industrial Area. You see, my insurance was going to run out in three days and I had always been told that I can't renew the insurance unless I renew the registration, but I can't renew the registration until I have passed inspection, and I can't pass inspection until I get the problem fixed, so I did not really have a lot of time. I also wanted to get there before it got dark so I can see the potholes in the street.

Sure enough traffic in the industrial area was heavy and there were a few jams in a couple of places, but eventually I got to the garage. And of course the other garage was completely wrong, they were not booked solid, and they could look at my car tonight. Great!

But it will take at least two hours. Crap.

So I waited in their waiting room for two hours, reading their newspapers and watching TV, but to their word after about two hours they were done.

Bad news: I needed a part replaced to get the car up to specs.
Good news: it is covered under the warranty (which expires in four days)
Bad news: they do not have the part and it will take five days to get it here.
Good news: I can still drive the car though

So that means my insurance will have expired by then. Aaaaargh.

Well it has now been nine days and they have not called me to say the part is in. Not to worry, I will call them tomorrow. You see, whenever someone in Qatar says they'll call you when something is ready they rarely ever do. You need to call them. I'm not as concerned as I once was because I also went to the insurance company and got my insurance renewed. Rumour that I could not get my insurance renewed was wrong, I went to the insurance company and a renewed it -- no problem.

That's the other thing about Qatar, don't believe everything you're told about how things work here. Find out for yourself as you might be surprised. That's why I went to the insurance company even though everyone was sure I would not get a renewal/extension.

Now I just need to get the part fixed, get the car reinspected, then go to the Ministry to renew my registration. If there are further complications I will let you know.

H1N1 update

Well it took a lot longer than I expected but Qatar now has its first confirmed cases of H1N1. So far it is limited to three people all of whom recently travelled into Qatar. All are quarantined and are being monitored. Their symptoms are mild so there appears to be no risk that it will be something serious. Qatar has also tested about 70 other people and the remaining tests have been negative. Qatar was the last country in the Gulf region to have confirmed cases, all the other ones had confirmed cases about a week or so before so it was only a matter of time.

Because H1N1 has so far not been as serious a disease as once feared (with the vast majority of people experiencing only mild symptoms) everyone here in Qatar appears to be calm. Some companies are making employees work from home for a week if they have just flown in from areas with a high incidence of H1N1, but that is a sensible precaution. Why risk unnecessarily exposing your employees?

And I'm fine. I am scheduled to fly to Europe in six weeks so hopefully everything remains calm.

Car inspection

[This post contains outdated information, I recommend going to my post of May 21, 2011 for the most recent information about car inspections]


Okay, here's the car inspection story I mentioned briefly in my last post.

In Qatar after your car is three years old you have to get it inspected on an annual basis to get the registration renewed. It involves checking out the car and testing things like emissions and so forth, I wasn't exactly sure what was being tested. Some friends of mine had been through it before and apparently it was a nightmare and they had to go back multiple times. So with that in mind their advice was:

1) take your car in for a tuneup before you get it inspected to make sure it passes; and
2) have a woman take the car to the inspection, because she will be put ahead of the men in the queue.

Since I'm not married (2) was not an option since I assume they would check things like ID or registration, otherwise by now I'm sure some women would be charging money to take people's car for inspection.

So I went to the dealership garage and told them that I will be taking the car in for inspection, so to take a look at it. They told me that since I was close to my 15,000km service they would do that. One hour and $125 later that was done. Now I had to get it to the inspection area, which I've been told always had a really long queue.

Luckily my friend Serdar and his wife were also going to get their car inspected so we went together on a Saturday. The inspection area was a parking lot adjacent to a shopping centre, where an inspection garage had been set up next to a mobile trailer, which was the office. There were two lineups, one with about a dozen cars and another with about 40 cars. Turns out the short lineup was for people who had made reservations while the longer one was from people who just showed up. Since I didn't have a reservation I was in the long lineup. A security guard handed me a piece of paper with a number and another guy in line got out of his car to tell me that I need to go into the office to get my official paperwork. So I left Serdar with my car and went in.

The office consisted of a TV, a water cooler, about 10 chairs up against the walls, and a single desk at the far end with about 10 people crowded around it yelling and waving papers at the lone beleagured clerk sitting at the desk. I'm now used to this sort of thing so I started wading into the crowd as well but I guess the clerk was already at his wits end and just started shouting to everyone "Sit down! Sit down!" in both English and Arabic. So we sat down and he started calling numbers, the first one being about five before mine. So while I sat there waiting for my number to be called more people came in to crowd around the desk, which caused some of the people who were sitting to get up and go to the desk as well and before long we had another crowd of people waving papers at the clerk. Poor guy.

Eventually, after about 20 minutes or so, it was my turn. It turns out the clerk was a very nice Algerian man and we had a chat while he processed my paperwork. When he saw that I was Canadian from my registration he even spoke to me in French (Algeria was once a French colony so it is still widely spoken there) but switched to English once he realised I was not from Quebec. He also gave me a couple of phone numbers and told me to call one of them to book an appointment, otherwise I would be in line for at least four hours! Since the thought of being in an open parking lot in 45 degree heat for 4 hours was not appealing in the least I decided to heed his advice, but then the guy behind me told me that he had an appointment and he had been waiting for over an hour already. Ugh, this was not looking good.

Anyway I went out to find that after 25 minutes my car had moved all of about five places in line. Luckily Serdar had made an appointment for his car so his wife was in the short lineup with it and would probably be another 15 minutes. So we went to the mall next door and got coffees while we waited for her to finish. Meanwhile I called the numbers and managed to book an appointment for Monday afternoon.

Fast forward to Monday afternoon. I leave work to drive across town to the inspection centre, to find that the lineups were much shorter (protip for anyone in Qatar reading this -- go on a weekday). The security guard told me that I had to go in to get my paperwork changed since it had the wrong date on it but since there were not as many people lined up for inspection it was easier to get to the Algerian clerk and get my paperwork reprinted. So within about 20 minutes I had my car inspected.

... and it failed! One of the rear brakes did not meet the required standards.

So I was told that I had to go get it fixed and come back to get it reinspected all over again. Aaaaaargh!

Tune in next blog post for part two of this saga -- Glen goes to get his car fixed.

Financial updates

Sorry about the lack of updates, I've been really busy the past couple of weeks. I had a two hour presentation to prepare for work and on top of that I had to get my car inspected in order to get it to be registered. That in itself is a long story that I'll probably get to next post.

So how's the financial crisis doing in the Middle East? Well in Qatar the Government announced another support package to the local banks, buying out their real estate portfolios. This package is to the tune of 15 billion riyal (US$4 billion). And this for a country of around 1.5 million people! Needless to say this should keep the local banks out of trouble. Maybe the government was being generous because oil has climbed above $65 a barrel. I think the country created its budget for 2009 based on an oil price of around $40 a barrel so they must now be looking at a decent surplus this year.

In Dubai it is still more doom and gloom. It is hard to say what is the truth with all of the media reports coming out, one article has an "expert" saying everything has bottomed out and the real estate market will now climb, meanwhile UBS just announced it expects another 40% drop in real estate prices there before everything levels out -- and there have even been estimates that by the end of 2010 one in three properties in Dubai could be empty. I have seen a number of estimates that the population there will decrease 5-10%, with the biggest estimate being 17%. Imagine what your town would be like if 17% moved out over the next year! Anyway, all of these predictions seem to be just stabs in the dark, we will have a better idea in September when all of the expats return from summer holidays and put their kids in school. Once the school year starts it will become apparent just how many expats returned. Rumours of a " mass exodus" from Dubai in the summer still circulate but I think it has reached a stage where it is overhyped and will probably not be as bad as rumour makes it out to be (don't get me wrong it will still be bad but not as bad as the rumours think it will be). Qatar is not going through a downturn anywhere near as bad as what is happening in Dubai, and one report estimates Qatar will have the highest GDP growth in the world this year.

I guess I am kind of fascinated with what is happening in Dubai because it is like watching a train wreck in slow motion that you knew was going to happen. Property speculation can be nasty if you're not careful, basing a large part of an economy on property speculation is downright dangerous.

Hot

Man, it is hot. (Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking, "Really Glen, is it hot in the Arabian desert? Who knew?"). I mean that it is much hotter than usual for this time of year, odd since we had such a mild spring. The newspaper is expecting temperatures to reach 48°C today (118°F), and the temperature has been around that for the last week or so. On the bright side it is not humid so the heat is more bearable than it should be. Still it is not easy getting out and about. My car A/C struggles to keep the temperature tolerable, I still find myself sweating driving around.

Looks like GM might be going bankrupt. Good thing I warned a buddy of mine about that possibility, he was thinking of buying a Hummer earlier this week but I advised that he wait and see how the GM crisis pans out. The Qataris have been telling him to get a Toyota anyway (they love their Land Cruisers) but those are some of the most expensive SUVs here in the Middle East. Probably because they are in such high demand. I have heard a joke that the reason why there is a Japanese embassy here is because of all the business Toyota does with Qataris.

Otherwise things are staying pretty mellow. The Qatar Natural History Group is finished until October, Arabic classes end next week for the summer, and my next vacation is not until the end of July (Paris for a friend's wedding, isn't that cool?). Once the humidity kicks in it will be too hot to even go to Souq Waqif. Looks like a couple of months of reading books, watching DVDs, and wandering around malls.

I've been asked a few times how I can handle the heat, being Canadian and all, and I think the question comes from a misconception that Canada is always cool/cold. Most people are surprised to hear that where I grew up temperatures in the mid-30s were a regular occurrence in the summer. 40°C was rare but has happened. But that was a dry heat so more tolerable than the summer here. Oddly enough I think that the Canadian winters actually helps me tolerate the summer here. Canadians are used to spending three or four months of the year mostly indoors, going from your heated house to your heated car to your heated office/restaurant/mall. It is just like here in the summer only the temperature is reversed, going from your A/C'd house to your A/C'd car/office etc. I think people from temperate climates struggle more with the summer here because they are used to being able to go out any time of the year, so go stir crazy being stuck indoors for a few months. I'm not saying that summer here is fantastic but I tolerate it.

Amusingly, someone just left a comment on my very first blog post back in September 2006. Every now and then I get comments on an old post but of course this one holds the record (although they did admit themselves that they were late). Rather than respond in the post itself, I figured I would reply here. No sense in starting a comment chain on a nearly three year old post.

The comment was as follows...

there are not anti-science groups or whatever they call it in Qatar, at least by the muslims. infact, islam encourages science and knowledge, it is considered worship! except the thing that humanity began from apes, and I think most religion agree with it I guess.

Now islam encouraging science may be true at some points in Islamic history, in some Islamic areas, but I do not think any scholar of Islamic history would agree that throughout the Islamic period science was embraced.

Islam went through a period that some refer to as their "Golden Age" but the timing of it varies depending on the area we are talking about. It is true that from around the 8th to 12th centuries in areas like Syria and Iraq, maybe the 13th century in Egypt, and from as late as the 15th century in southern Spain, these Islamic areas generally encouraged inquiry and research. The leading thinkers of the time read and translated the Greek and Latin works from ancient Greece and Rome, added ideas from the Babylonians, Indians, and Chinese, and expanded on the knowledge they now had. For a time the Islamic world could have had reasonable claim to contain the most advanced societies in the world in fields like medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and optics (though I'm sure the Chinese would probably argue the medicine claim at the very least). Europeans flocked to centres of learning such as Cordoba to learn from Islamic scholars and many of the works by such scholars would form the backbone of Rennisance learning. Maimonides, Geber, Rauxes (sp?), were latinized names of some of these Islamic scholars. Many of the ancient Greek and Roman works that we have now exist only because they were preserved by Islamic scholars who had translated them into Arabic.

But after a while the Islamic empires faded. Wars, invasions, and a move towards religious conservatism eroded Islamic scientific learning and things soon stagnated. By the time of the Ottoman Empire Islamic science was in decline, while Europe took up the mantle. By the 19th century the once mighty Ottoman Empire and other Islamic areas could only marvel at the scientific and engineering achievements in Europe. Much of the medical knowledge gained in the early Islamic period had been lost to its discoverers. In some parts of the Islamic world people were doing things such as wearing verses of the Qur'an as charms to heal illnesses and ward off evil, or drinking water that Qur'anic verses had been immersed in as medicine. Qatar did not even have its first official school until I think the 1950s (not including religious instruction), and I suspect its first hospital was around the same time.

Of course that is now once again changing and one could even say that the Islamic world is moving towards a second "Golden Age" of scientific learning and achievement. Countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE are building science and technology centres, encouraging research on items such as stem cells, sending its young citizens to universities around the world while inviting other prestigious institutions to set up satellite campuses. The Islamic world now has dozens and dozens of universities with fierce competition for students to get into them. From documentaries I've seen on education in places such as Palestine and Lebanon high school students are very serious about learning, preparing for final exams that determine whether they get one of the precious spots in good universities.

And it is not just men, women also attend university and go on to careers in science. Qatar University typically graduates 1500 students a year and around 80% of them are women. One of my Qatari colleagues has sisters studying in the UK, and many Lebanese women have degrees from Canada, US, or France. My dentist is a Lebanese woman (or maybe Jordanian), and in the medical clinic I go to I figure about 30% of the doctors are Muslim women. I even remember back when I was taking chemistry one of the students in my upper level chemistry class was woman who recently moved to Canada from Iran. Remember everyone, most of the Islamic world is not like Taleban-controlled Afghanistan.

I wouldn't say that the Islamic world is on the cutting-edge of the sciences yet but perhaps with time we will be hearing more and more about scientific discoveries in the Middle East and other parts of the Islamic world. If an Islamic scientist, working primarily in the Islamic world in a university or research centre, were to win the Nobel prize in one of the sciences I think we could safely say that the second "Golden Age" has truly begun (maybe it has happened already, I have not combed the list of Nobel prize winners recently).

Do I think it is a good thing? Of course I do! Why would I want any society to reject science and learning? I would not care if one day every Nobel prize winner came from the Islamic world. Hopefully not because the West has descended into another Dark Age though.

Speaking of which it may be good that the Islamic world is moving towards learning in science because sometimes trends in places like the US worry me. Christian fundamentalism has been gaining strong footholds in the last few decades and in many parts of the US it has been affecting the quality of science education, especially in biology. When I went to conventions sponsored by the James Randi Educational Foundation many Americans I spoke to were definitely concerned about the impact fundamentalist Christians are having in their attacks on scientific learning. I have not seen religious anti-science attitudes here in Qatar anywhere near the extent one sees in North America. Hopefully now that Bush is out of the White House things will improve again -- the Bush administration definitely had some anti-science positions or interfering in issues such as biology, sex education, and certain aspects of NASA research. That recent court ruling against so-called "intelligent design" was also a positive step. And don't forget Obama rescinding the Bush restrictions on stem cell research. The US might be heading back to a more pro-science, pro-education stance. One can hope.

(btw humans are apes, genera Homo.)

Emir's Cup

Last week I went to the final soccer match of the year, the finals of the Emir's Cup. Since tickets were only QR 10 ($2.70) I figured why not, I had a good time at the Heir Apparent Cup a few weeks ago.

This time it was held at Khalifa Stadium, the largest stadium in Qatar and where the opening/closing ceremonies for in the Asian Games was held. What my friends and I weren't expecting was the large crowds in front of the stadium all going in to see the game. Signage was not very good and when we approached the gates into the stadium there would be a mass of people in front of it with police/security telling people they couldn't get in here and to go to a gate somewhere else. One attendant told us to go "east" to get in, so we started going east but it looked like hundreds of people were going in the opposite direction also looking for a gate so it struck us as a little odd that we would be sent in this direction.

Suddenly there was a big commotion up ahead. Someone had figured out that they could jump and grab a stairway railing to get up onto the stairs to the upper bleachers, so dozens of people started doing it as well. It was like a wave of white was flowing up the staircase railing (all the men were wearing white dishdasha). We stood around watching and my friend Vanessa pulled out her cell phone to record it. Then the police showed up with truncheons and chased after people, arresting one guy who climbed up on the railing as the police ran up. We watched as two guys dragged him away and cuffed him. As far as we can tell he was the only one the police arrested (poor guy, he was just the last person of about a hundred or so to climb up).

Anyway the gate near the stairwell was still crowded with people but we saw that a few people were being let in so we decided to try to get in here. We let Vanessa go in front of us -- she was the only woman in our group and we hoped security would be nice to her and let us in. Sure enough we were let through, while security was turning other people away and yelling at them in Arabic. It was a crazy scene, we couldn't figure out why there was all this hassle to get in. Once we got up the stairs we then realised what the issue was, this was the Family Section of the stadium. All the commotion was the police keeping out all the men who were not with women and children. The entrances the men needed to use were on the other side of the stadium. Organisers could have saved a lot of hassle by having signs indicating that those gates were for women and families only. Now we knew why Vanessa could get us in.

Anyway once you got in everything went smoothly. The stadium was packed but we were able to find seats and yes there were plenty of women there in their abayas to watch the game. The final was between Al Gharaffa and Al Rayyan (who lost in the finals of the Heir Apparent Cup on penalties) and both teams' supporters were out in force, waving flags and scarves in the team colours. His Highness the Emir was of course attending and video screens in the stadium showed his motorcade approaching then him walking in the stadium towards his seat. Naturally the game was not going to start until he had arrived.

While the first half of the game was okay the second half was excellent, Gharaffa had a man sent off so both teams went on the offensive because it was tied 1-1 and Gharaffa knew that with a man down they were unlikely to survive overtime. Gharaffa managed to get a penalty in the 80th minute and the guy missed it so the Rayyan supporters were joyously jumping up and down. But in the 90th minute Gharaffa managed to score an excellent goal which caused the other half of the stadium to jump up and down. There was no time left and Gharaffa won 2-1. The Gharaffa supporters around us were dancing on their seats, yelling and singing.

His Highness the Emir then shook hands with every member of both teams and handed the Cup to the winners. There was then a large fireworks display.

All in all we had a great time, I might have to start attending more Qatari soccer matches next season.

So... how is that financial crisis going?

I was reading the paper today and there were two articles discussing the impact of the financial crisis in the region. The first was about Dubai and how property prices continue to fall, in some parts of the city over 30% in just the last three months, not including any decreases before then. But before you think Dubai must be getting very cheap take a look at the prices being mentioned:

Renting a two-bedroom flat on the Palm Jumeirah, an island shaped like a palm frond and visible from space, was 14 to 33 percent cheaper in May than it was in March.

That puts annual rent at between Dh120,000 and Dh175,000 dirhams, or $2,723-$3,972 a month in May compared with $3,178-$5,901 in March.

Got that? Three months ago a two-bedroom apartment in an upscale neighbourhood could rent for as high as US$5,900 a month. A two-bedroom apartment!! So yes prices have plummeted to "only" $3,900 a month for the apartment, the cheaper ones for $2,700 a month. Gee what a deal, I'll take four please!

This is why I had said in my blog even two years ago that property prices in Dubai were heavily overinflated and I don't know how anyone who bought into that market seriously thought that prices were going to continue to increase 20 to 50% a year. Did they honestly think no one would mind paying US$5,000 a month to rent a small apartment? Did they expect that next year $6,000 a month would be reasonable? Or that an apartment that they bought at $400 a square foot would sell for $800+ a square foot three years later? Well, I guess for the last five or six years growth in property value of 20 to 50% a year was indeed how it worked in Dubai. I guess a lot of people thought it would last forever. Those people have now lost a ton of money.

From what I have read general expectations are that prices are going to continue to fall in Dubai for at least the rest of this year, possibly longer. They have got a long way to go yet before they get to what I would consider reasonably priced. There is a lot of speculation that there will be another mass exodus of people from Dubai in the summer who have just been waiting for the schools to finish for the year before moving out. If so rental prices will continue to plunge.


The other article was about deflation in Qatar. Prices have gone down a bit in the last quarter driven generally by rents and housing. I had not really noticed much of a decrease here but from the occasional snippet in the newspaper I guess rental prices have probably gone down 10 to 15 per cent. The cost to buy/sell property has apparently fallen more than that but almost all property here can only be purchased by Qataris (or maybe other GCC nationals as well) so it does not really have an impact on foreign investors. I think foreigners can only purchase property on the Pearl and Zigzag Towers and even those two developments are not completed yet. The Qatari government is probably breathing a sigh of relief that it did not get into property development to the extent Dubai did.

Rock

Whoops, I just realised it has been over a week since I last posted. I hope no one thought I had come down with H1N1 or something.

I have been reading This Is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin, a book about the science behind how we perceive music and what makes certain combinations of sounds pleasant or unpleasant to people. One part of the book amused me, in the mid-90s a prominent scientist, who was not familiar with rock music, had asked him to bring six songs that "captured all that was important to know about rock 'n' roll". The scientist also noted that he was familiar with Elvis Presley so Daniel didn't need to bring any of his songs.

While Daniel felt that no six songs could really cover all that was important to know about rock 'n' roll this is what he brought:

"Long Tall Sally," Little Richard
"Roll Over Beethoven," the Beatles
"All Along the Watchtower," Jimi Hendrix
"Wonderful Tonight," Eric Clapton
"Little Red Corvette," Prince
"Anarchy in the UK," The Sex Pistols

Daniel did admit that now he would probably make some adjustments to the list, but didn't say what changes he'd make.

So that got me thinking what I would have chosen as six vital rock 'n' roll songs. Here is what I came up with:

1) "Jailhouse Rock," while Elvis Presley was excluded from the original list I won't constrain myself that way; this is one of Elvis's quintessential rock songs;
2) "Great Balls of Fire," Jerry Lee Lewis. Another early-era choice: I would put Jerry Lee Lewis or Bill Halley over Little Richard for that early piano-rock sound;
3) "Shook Me All Night Long," AC/DC. While I am not the biggest fan of AC/DC this song is high-energy and it is difficult to not tap or sway to the beat. Narrowly beat out "Gimme All Your Loving" by ZZTop;
4) "Bodies," The Sex Pistols. I think the Sex Pistols deserve to be on the list but I don't think "Anarchy in the UK" is their most rock-like song. While the lyrics of "Bodies" leaves something to be desired the music has a better beat and faster tempo. I even think "God Save the Queen" would be a better choice then "Anarchy". (Of course I doubt the Pistols would ever identify themselves as a rock band but it's my list dang-it);
5) Any three songs in quick succession by The Ramones. Really I don't think you can pick just one song by the Ramones, the kick lies in how they go from one song to another; and
6) "A Hard Day's Night," the Beatles. A lot of their other early songs sound, to me anyway, closely related to the other rock acts of the late 50s and early 60s that the Beatles were inspired by. I think "A Hard Day's Night," has a more original sound.

Looking at my list it appears that fast tempo is my key criteria for a good rock song, which is why I think guys like Clapton and Hendrix didn't make my list.

What would make your list?

A(H1N1) flu update

Okay looks like I was wrong in terms of manifestation of suspected cases. So far there have been no suspected cases reported in the Arabian Peninsula, despite cases being detected in more European countries. Governments here are continuing to monitor the situation. The Gulf region's Ministers of Health met on Saturday to discuss the issue, and have met again today to possibly iron out a regional strategy.

Airports in Dubai and Sharjah have now installed thermographic equipment to detects signs of fever in arriving passengers. I expect Doha Airport will be following shortly. Qatar Airways is also having all of its flight staff wear masks on flights from the United States. The Government recommends people not travel to affected countries but has put no restrictions on doing so.

Otherwise it is life as usual. People still go to work and school, shop at the mall, attend football matches and so forth. Maybe there is a bit of tension about it but for the most part everyone is staying cool. With any luck people will continue the hand-washing habits after this is over so that other germs won't spread. I had a flu about a month ago and I would rather not the repeat the experience thank you.

H1N1 flu

Just a quick update on the H1N1 flu and its impact in the Middle East.

So far there are no suspected or confirmed cases in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is stopping flights from countries where the flu has been reported despite WHO suggestions that closing borders/airports is unlikely to stop the spread of the virus at this stage. No other Middle East countries have followed suit so far. UAE is banning pork products, and Egypt has called for at the culling of the approximately 250,000 pigs in the country. Why I'm not sure, this flu may have started from a mutated flu strain from a pig but is spreading by human-to-human transmission, not from pigs. The cull is unnecessary. Cooking meat would kill any viruses so banning pork products seems like an odd move as well. Anyway Qatar doesn't have to worry about banning pork products as pork has always been banned here.

With the WHO alert level at 5 I expect there will be further action in the region over the next coming days. I also suspect that we will see cases of H1N1 in the Middle East in the next three days. Cities such as Doha and Dubai are major air transport hubs and since the virus is in many countries in Europe, and suspected to be in India, it is likely that it is already in the region as the Middle East is a common midway stage for travellers going between India and Europe. My three-day estimate is because it takes time, 5-10 days, for symptoms to develop from a flu. Given the region where the flu originated from I don't think there will be many cases here since there would not be a lot of travel from Mexico to the Middle East. Tourist travel from Mexico is primarily to the US, Canada, and Europe, and the pattern of cases reflects that.

Otherwise the Qatari Health Ministry has been issuing daily bulletins to watch for symptoms and has advised people not travel to affected countries unless it is necessary.

As for me, I have been doing what WHO recommends and so should you: washing hands frequently with soap or those antibacterial hand cleansers (which despite the name will work against viruses if the main ingredient is ethyl alcohol, effective at killing viruses on the surface of your skin), coughing/sneezing only into tissues, and promptly throwing used tissues in the trash. Things in Qatar are calm, no one here is going overboard and locking themselves in their home, wearing masks or panic-buying. I do admit though that I am using tissues to open commonly-used doors, such as the door of the men's room at work.

If there are any other significant updates on the flu and how it is impacting the Middle East I will let everyone know.

News from Qatar

The title of this Qatari news article says it all:

Cross-dressing seen as a ‘serious menace to society’

Oryx

I forgot to mention that last weekend I went out on another excursion with the Qatar Natural History Group. This time we went out to a small nature reserve outside of Doha to see the endangered Arabian Oryx. Oryxs (Oryxes? Oryx? Oryxi?) once roamed across the entire Arabian peninsula but when rifles were introduced to the region their numbers started to decline. When four-wheel drive vehicles were introduced the remaining animals were quickly wiped out. By the 1970s there were only a few left in the wild near the Empty Quarter. These were captured to protect the species. Despite their extinction in the wild they are still considered one of Qatar's most important animals and is commonly used in logos (such as Qatar Airways) or mascots (2006 Asian Games).

Two Qatari gentleman who oversaw the reserve gave us a lecture about the Oryx. In response to their extinction in the wild Qatar and a couple of other GCC governments started conservation programmes where captive Oryx were kept on reserves and bred to increase their numbers. There are now over a thousand of them, but almost all of them are in captivity. About a decade ago a few hundred were released into an area between Saudi Arabia and Oman but poaching has reduced their numbers, so the GCC governments are reluctant to release any more back into the wild except in parts of Saudi Arabia. One of the gentlemen told me that the meat from one Oryx could fetch as much as $10,000 on the black market. This is more than the annual income for many Omanis so it is not too surprising that poaching occurs.

It is great that Qatar is making such efforts to protect the species but it looks like the Oryx will remain in captivity for a long time to come. Qatar is a small country so would not be able to sustain a population of free-roaming Oryx anymore -- I don't think there is enough space. Oryx are about the size of a large gazelle or antelope so would need a lot of desert to graze in.

Anyway my friend Serdar and I asked what we considered an important question -- are Oryx tasty? The Qatari gentleman answered without hesitation, "Oh yes, very tasty! That's why we ate them." he also mentioned that the meat was tough though so needed a lot of cooking. I had suspected as much, I figured Oryx would be similar to venison in terms of taste and toughness.

The Qatar Government also breed other types of endangered Arabian antelope and gazelle which are kept in three reserves throughout the country.

Mandated Requirements for Rap/Hip-Hop Videos

Flipping through the channels one day I wandered to one of the music video channels and watched it for a while. This channel seemed to be big on rap/hip-hop videos, not the type of music I'm really into but I was bored so I watched anyway. They haven't changed much over the years, the style and format is little different from a decade ago. I figure there must be a “hip-hop music video" set of requirements mandated by some union or another. But that's okay -- I've cracked the code!

Here it is:


Mandated Requirements for Rap/Hip-Hop Videos

Any video must contain at least five of the following six elements:

1) at least one performer must wear "bling", outrageously gaudy gold/diamond jewellery or accessories

-- this can include teeth jewellery (grillz)

2) at least one person in the video must be wearing a baseball cap slightly askew

3) there must be at least one scantily clad woman shaking her behind provocatively (bootie girls)

4) there must be one expensive car in the video (using another vehicle such as a yacht is acceptable but considered "avant-garde")

5) there must be at least one instance of "the show off", where the performer deliberately shows off a piece of merchandise or wealth to the camera. This can include:
• bling, especially grillz or diamond-studded necklaces
• the brand of shoes or other clothing they are wearing
• cash
• champagne

6) there must be a "posse", a bunch of people normally standing behind the performer looking tough and occasionally shouting "Yeah!", nodding their heads, or making gang symbols with their hands

• a big crowd of people dancing behind the performer is an acceptable substitute (but better if you have a posse as well)

• having a number of bootie girls dancing with the performer is considered meeting the criteria of requirement #3, not #6

• if the video features at least two performers [ex. XYZ featuring ABC and DEF] then requirement #6 is met if at least at some point in the video the other performer(s) are standing behind the singer performing the standard actions of a "posse" ("Yeah", nodding, etc). No posse is then required.

Seriously everyone, next time you see a hip-hop video remember this list and count the elements in it. I swear there must be videos where the guy is attending his mother's funeral and in the background there's scantily clad girls rubbing their butt up against a nice car like they're polishing it.