NEWS FROM THE UAE
SOURCE : THE NATIONAL
Dubai seeks to reduce road deaths
DUBAI - FEB. 18: Highway authorities are to mount a campaign this summer to cut the number of deaths and injuries on the emirate’s roads.
At the same time, the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) and Dubai Police are considering plans to ban heavy vehicles completely from Emirates Road during the day. The construction of rail lines into cargo depots, ports and distribution centres is also being looked at as a way of reducing traffic congestion.
Currently, Emirates Road is often clogged by huge convoys of lorries. The RTA said yesterday it was studying plans to ban heavy lorries from the route between 6am and 10pm every day, claiming the move would reduce the daytime traffic by 9,000 vehicles. They are already prohibited at peak times.
The authority said it would introduce a scheme this summer to cut speeding and improve road safety. Although it found that 85 per cent of road users in Dubai observe the speed limits, it said yesterday: “Speed is responsible for 80 per cent of road accident fatalities in Dubai.”
The Speed Management Scheme comes into effect this May. The plan is to set clear speed limits on the roads and around traffic diversions and to carry out awareness campaigns focusing on the risks of speeding.
The RTA is tracking traffic movement across the emirate through “site surveys, interviews and workshops”, it said.
Its statement quoted Mr al Tayer as saying: “The RTA has also developed a model plan to forecast the projected movement of heavy vehicles, and conducted several studies to identify the need for rail lines to transport cargos, as well as dry ports and cargo assembly and distribution centres.”
The RTA is also looking again at restricting lorry movements and timings. It has studied the need for some routes to be used by heavy vehicles only.
Currently, heavy lorries are banned from some roads between 6.30am and 8.30am, from 1pm to 3pm and from 5.30pm to 8pm.
Mr al Tayer added that more traffic would be diverted to both the Al Khail and Bypass Road during off-peak hours.
The ban of lorries on Emirates Road will be reviewed after the RTA finishes upgrading junctions and opening roads linking the route with the bypass.
Major Gen Khamis Mattar al Mazina, the deputy general commander of Dubai Police, said there should be lay-by areas where lorry drivers could park their vehicles and travel to and from the city centre by bus.
Freehold owners to get residency
ABU DHABI - FEB. 18: A federal law granting residency visas to owners of freehold property will be introduced within the year, a senior government official has disclosed.
The proposal, welcomed by property developers, will allow the owners to obtain a six-month renewable residency visa, regardless of their nationality or the size and value of the property, said Brig Gen Nasser al Minhali, the acting director general of the federal Department of Naturalisation and Residency (DNR).
Brig Gen Minhali said the aim was to create a unified visa system related to home purchases.
“It is a security organisational procedure,” he said.
“We do not want each emirate to develop procedures on its own, so we will unify it under the Ministry of Interior.”
Residency visas granted in the past would remain valid, he said. But it would not be possible to renew them until the federal law was implemented. He refused to reveal further details, as the law is still being studied.
Whatever the department’s stated aims, property market insiders said the introduction of a single property visa system for the whole country would benefit a housing market that has recently been less buoyant after several years of growth.
“We strongly support this proposal,” said Mohammed Nimer, the chief executive of Dubai-based MAG Group Properties, adding that the property market needed a boost.
A spokesman for Aldar, Abu Dhabi’s largest property developer, said: “We would welcome any clarification regarding residency visas for international property buyers, but it is too early for us to comment any further.”
The Dubai-based master developers Nakheel and Emaar did not comment.
In several emirates, including Dubai, prospective homeowners seeking residency have relied on property developers to act as sponsors for visas. The three-year visa, which allowed the holder to live in the emirate but not to work, was a significant incentive for many buyers, especially those from Iran, Pakistan and India.
There was confusion, however, over whether developers could actually guarantee these visas, as some promised, and whether the DNR would issue them. The situation was clearer in Abu Dhabi, where developers said there was not even the possibility of a residency visa for foreign buyers.
Industry insiders said a single nationwide system was vital in easing confusion over which emirate had which entitlement. This would help to restore confidence to the market, they said.
“It has to be federal; that way it carries weight,” said Mr Nimer, who added that the market would not fully recover until home finance became more readily available.
Vincent Easton, the sales director at Sherwoods Independent Property Consultants, esaid a single law would clarify an issue that had been “opaque for too long”. However, he and several other leading estate agents said the visas’ six-month validity was too short.
Liz O’Connor, the director of residential sales and leasing at Better Homes, said the proposal may encourage a few cash buyers to start thinking about purchasing. But she added: “Due to the short-term nature of the proposed visa this does not give buyers a sense of security if they are thinking of staying, moving to or retiring in Dubai, as property for many is a long-term investment.” Ms O’Connor added that many people in Dubai purchased property believing they would be granted a residence visa. In many cases, that had not materialised.
An official at the Dubai Land Department said the way visas were granted had been under review for some time.
Mohammad Sultan Thani, the department’s assistant director-general for excellence and organisational governance, said housing officials wanted to stop developers from being able to say they could “guarantee” buyers a visa – a claim that helped companies to sell properties, but was by no means assured and gave prospective investors false hope.
Dubai’s Real Estate Regulatory Agency last year criticised developers that promoted housing projects in this way, pointing out that all visa applications were subject to approval from the DNR.
A committee to examine the system proposed that the title deed for a freehold or long-term leasehold property would itself qualify a buyer to apply for a residency visa, cutting the developer out of the process.
Mr Thani said the proposed law would be better for landowners than sponsorship by the developer.
“At the moment, property owners can be sponsored by the developer, as if you were working for them, and your visa belongs to them,’’ he said. “But if there was a problem between you and the developer, it would have the power to cancel your visa.”
While admitting that the prospect of residency visas would be “very nice for investors”, he doubted people bought for that reason alone.
“For some nationalities it’s a motivating factor,” Mr Thani said, “but overall people buy as a long-term investment, to live in the property, to earn rental revenue or to sell for a profit.”
Marine life returns to the Palm
DUBAI -FEB. 18: UN scientists say that although the waters off Dubai’s coast will never again be what they once were, the Palm Jumeirah offshore structure is creating a new complex marine ecosystem despite years of disruptive construction work.
The United Nations University’s International Network on Water, Environment and Health, commissioned by the Palm developer Nakheel, compiled a report on the effects of the project.
They concluded that marine life is slowly returning to the coastline.
“They are developing into very interesting rocky reefs,” said the chief scientist behind the research, Dr Peter Sale, a marine ecologist.
Dr Sale is the assistant director of the United Nations University network, which has worked with Nakheel since early 2007. The goal of the collaboration is for the scientists to pursue a long-term environmental monitoring programme and a sustainable management plan for the waters surrounding Nakheel’s man-made islands.
Nakheel’s decision to build a series of structures along Dubai’s coastline has drawn criticism from conservationists opposed to the environmental cost of the projects, such as large-scale destruction of coral reefs and changes in water flows.
The Palm Jebel Ali, for example, is being built in a formerly protected area, the Jebel Ali Marine Sanctuary. The area was given legal protection in 1998 on the grounds that it housed one of the Gulf’s richest marine ecosystems, with 34 coral species and 77 species of reef fish. To mitigate the damage it has caused, Nakheel financed a scheme under which the Emirates Marine Environment Group, an NGO, transplanted corals elsewhere.
Despite initial positive results, the long-term benefits are still unknown.
Yesterday, the UN scientists acknowledged that the ecosystem that existed off Dubai’s coast has been lost forever.
“There are certainly going to be differences,” said Dr Ken Drouillard, associate professor at the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research and Biological Sciences at the University of Windsor, Canada, who participated in the study.
“Much more complex habitat characteristics were present in the past.”
Dr Sale said about 100 species of fish and 20 coral species have been recorded in the areas around the outward side of the breakwaters of the Palm Jumeirah.
“In 20 years’ time you will have a more interesting marine environment than you had before,” he said.
“There will be many conservationists who will disagree with me.”
But as population growth intensifies the pressure to build, conservationists will have to let go of “the idea that the world is going to be one big protected area that we do not disturb”.
“You will have to get rid of the people,” he said of the alternative.
The United Nations University study has important political implications for the future of artificial marine structures. If it is proven that productive communities can thrive around such structures, opposition to such projects in other emirates and countries will be weakened.
It is precisely because of these far-reaching implications that a UAE-based marine scientist has called for caution.
“This is not a straightforward issue,” said the researcher and policymaker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he works for a government department.
“Breakwaters will increase the possibility of erosion and bring sediment,” he said. Sediment will impede the growth of corals.
“There are two schools of thought on artificial structures. Some scientists think fish come to that area not because the number of fish has increased but because other habitats have been destroyed.”
A marine scientist who is familiar with the area and also spoke on the condition of anonymity said that while some species would fare better, others would be jeopardised. “What about other species such as green turtles that are dying?” he said.
Pollution, development and climate change are threatening the future of many ocean ecosystems. Stemming Decline of the Coastal Ocean, which Dr Sale compiled, says that by 2050, 91 per cent of the world’s coastlines will have been affected by development, much of it poorly planned.
“Shorelines are hardened, channels and harbours are dredged, spoil is dumped, and submerged and emergent land is moved. Patterns of water flow are modified, and pathways used by organisms in their movements from nursery to adult habitats and spawning sites may also be modified or blocked,” the report says. Businesses and governments can sometimes form “powerful allies in favour of coastal development even when it is environmentally and socially unsustainable”.
Dr Sale said that while it is legitimate for the report to be critical “because there have been lots of bad practices in many places”, the projects Nakheel have built and are building “are not impossible to manage sustainably”.
Dr Drouillard said some of the challenges to the project stem from the lagoon’s environment, with reduced wave action that which can promote algal blooms. The scientists have also identified sites where organic carbon is prone to depositing, causing a lack of oxygen in the water and resulting in fish kills.
Other pressures will appear as more and more people populate the islands. Preventing these problems from occurring will require “proactive monitoring” and a sustainable management plan, Dr Drouillard said.
Drug smuggling into jails still rife
DUBAI - FEB. 18: Drugs are being smuggled into jails despite searches of all visitors, the Dubai Police chief said yesterday.
An official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that 30 people were caught trying to bring drugs into prisons last year.
And a few weeks ago, a prisoner died of a heroin overdose. The official said all those caught were arrested and referred to the Public Prosecution. Five inmates are being tried on additional drugs charges.
The chief, Lt Col Dahi Khalfan Tamim, said police could not completely halt the smuggling of narcotics into prisons, which is a problem worldwide.
“No one is allowed to enter jail without being thoroughly searched. However, in some cases inmates or their visitors hide the drugs in places which cannot be touched,” he said.
“It is not an easy matter and the searches are made on a continuous basis. If an inmate is somehow able to smuggle drugs inside and uses it, then he should also be accountable for his actions.”
Lt Col Khalfan said prisoners came up with ingenious ways of getting drugs into prisons. In some cases inmates who go to clinics or hospitals for check-ups pick up narcotics left by accomplices in bathrooms or other places.
He said there had been no recorded cases of police officers or jail guards caught smuggling drugs into prisons, but that authorities would take such cases seriously: “If any such case arises where someone takes a risk like that then we will not leave them alone.”
The chief spoke at the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Bait Al Khair, a charity that supports former drug addicts and their families,
A 23-year-old Emirati recently died of a heroin overdose in a holding cell. The man’s family said he died four months after being arrested on a drug charge, but that he was never convicted by a court.
His brother said the family did not understand how he got the heroin inside a cell at the Al Rashidiya police station.
He said his mother and sisters visited him the day before he died and he appeared to be in good health.
“This is a very dangerous situation. Being held by police should protect you and not expose you to drugs that could kill you,” the brother, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said this week.