NEWS FROM THE UAE
Source : The National

 
97% feel safe in UAE

UAE - FEB 23: An overwhelming 97 per cent of people who live in the UAE feel safe, according to a YouGov survey commissioned by The National. The 1,097 respondents to the survey, conducted from February 9 to 15, also indicated that their personal experience with crime in the country is low.

For some, the nation’s reputation as a low-crime zone is evidence of the truth in the aphorism: “The devil makes work for idle hands.”

In the UAE, a country where the foreigners are here for only one reason, there are few idle hands.

“Why is everyone here in the first place? To work,” said Nadeen, a 27-year-old from Lebanon who works for Hyder Consulting and lives in Abu Dhabi.

“People are afraid that if they do anything illegal they will be deported. So they behave well.”

The Indian manager of a sports-car parts store in the industrial area of Musaffah, near the capital, said he closed the door of his shop only as “a formality”.

“I have never seen a crime here,” he said. “Even things like stealing. Everyone is following the rules. There’s no time for trouble.”

Dr Ahmad Alomosh, chairman of the sociology department at the University of Sharjah and a specialist in crime and families, said serious crime was not an issue to the vast majority of residents.

He said crimes tended to be limited to quarrels between people and minor personal assaults and thefts.

Another significant factor, he said, both in the fight against crime and the fear of crime, was the widespread use of technology. “The use of cameras and radars, and technology in general, are very important in fighting crime,” Dr Alomosh said.

In some emirates, majorities said they felt “very safe” 72 per cent in Abu Dhabi, 52 per cent in Dubai.

Perceptions of personal safety seemed linked to nationality, with 68 per cent of Emiratis and 67 per cent of Arab expatriates saying they felt “very safe”, compared to 55 per cent of westerners and 48 per cent of Asians.

Nevertheless, only negligible numbers from any group felt unsafe.

Not every statistic in the questions on crime was so positive.

A significant number of women, 14 per cent, said they had been the victims of sexual harassment, and more than a quarter of all respondents know a victim of sexual harassment.

A quarter of respondents said they had suffered verbal abuse or intimidation in public, ranging from 18 per cent of Arab expatriates to 35 per cent of westerners.

Seven per cent said they had been physically assaulted by a stranger twice as many Emiratis (14 per cent) as westerners and Asians (seven per cent) have been a victim.

More than one in 10 said their UAE bank account had been fraudulently accessed, with a quarter of westerners (27 per cent) claiming to have been victims, compared with 13 per cent of Emiratis.

Eight per cent said they had fallen foul of credit-card fraud.

But the clear majority (77 per cent) felt that, compared with other multicultural countries around the world, the UAE had a low crime rate.

Expatriate Arabs (83 per cent) and Emiratis (79 per cent) gave the highest marks to the UAE; westerners were slightly less sure 70 per cent felt the crime rate compared favourably to other multicultural countries.

Four out of five people said they felt safe walking alone after dark, though whereas in Abu Dhabi 50 per cent strongly agreed, this percentage was significantly lower in Dubai (38 per cent), Sharjah (36 per cent) and the other emirates (27 per cent).

Such confidence was also higher among men (52 per cent) than among women (18 per cent), of whom 32 per cent overall did not feel safe walking alone.

Among national groups, Emiratis (35 per cent) felt the least safe walking alone after dark in their own country, compared with only 11 per cent of Arab expatriates and 10 per cent of westerners. These two groups also felt the safest 88 and 90 per cent, respectively.

Predictably, perhaps, safety perceptions fell sharply when it came to the well-being of other family members and children. Only 44 per cent were comfortable with them walking alone after dark compared with the 80 per cent vote for personal safety and 47 per cent were distinctly uncomfortable.

Among national groups, most disquiet was expressed by Emiratis, 55 per cent of whom were uncomfortable with the idea of family members walking alone after dark, followed by Asians (52 per cent), Arab expatriates (41 per cent) and westerners (37 per cent).

Only a little over three-quarters of respondents (78 per cent) said they felt safe taking a taxi ride alone at any time of day or night. More women (37 per cent) than men (10 per cent) felt unsafe in a taxi.

New federal food law by the end of this year

 
DUBAI - FEB. 23: With tragedies behind and challenges ahead, the time is ripe for the new federal food law, and it will be in force by the end of the year, authorities said yesterday.

Four children aged eight or younger died from food poisoning in Dubai last year.

Even as the country’s emirate-by-emirate food regulations are brought under a single federal umbrella, Rashid bin Fahad, the Minister of Environment and Water, identified looming new risks to the food supply.

“Despite the development and advancement in food technology and manufacturing, we still face many challenges with regards to food safety, especially food-borne illnesses,” Mr bin Fahad said at the Dubai International Food Safety Conference.

“This is because of the change in consumer trends and difference in food regulations between different countries, as well as poor hygienic practices and abusing the use of pesticides, veterinary drugs, food additives and growth hormones.”

The new legislation, he said, would lead to better prevention of food-poisoning and more hygienic standards and practices.

He said Dubai Municipality would co-ordinate with health authorities and civic bodies from other emirates to draw up a unified action plan.

This plan will involve the training of hotel, restaurant and cafeteria staff on safe food practices as well as continued inspections of food outlets and penalising offenders.

“We hope to have the new food law in place by end of the year,” said Mr bin Fahad.

“We have already started the process and the committee responsible to form the law has already finished the first draft.”

At present, the municipal authority of each emirate has its own food-safety regulations.

The new legislation will apply to food producers, distributors and retailers, including restaurants and supermarkets.

The opening ceremony of the three-day food-safety conference yesterday came with an assurance by Mr bin Fahad that a consolidated, national approach would improve efforts to guarantee a safe food supply.

“Before, we have a lot of procedures and regulations but not unified under one law,” he said.

The World Health Organisation lists more than 250 food-borne diseases which are contracted by more than 30 per cent of the world’s population every year.

It estimates that 2.2 million people die annually from food-borne diseases.

Hussain Lootah, the director general of Dubai Municipality, said: “This conference comes at a time when the concept of producing one dish of food from one country is diminishing, as the component of one food could be produced in more than 10 different countries.

“This has put tremendous pressure on the food-control authorities around the world to ensure the safety of foods for the public.”

Murderer escapes from Sharjah prison for an hour

UAE - FEB. 23: An American man facing the death sentence in Sharjah Central Jail escaped from prison on Sunday night but was caught about an hour after breaking out, prison officials said yesterday.

It was not immediately clear how Shahid King Bolsen, sentenced to die in 2006 for killing Martin Herbert Steiner, got out of the detention facility. Sources at the prison said Bolsen offered heavy resistance when he was caught by guards.

Unlike Abu Dhabi’s Al Wathba Detention Facility, which is in a remote area, Sharjah Central Jail is in the heart of the city. It is surrounded by the Traffic Department, the Ramtha Stadium, residential areas and several schools.

“He went very far, but our guards caught him,” the source said, without specifying exactly how far he got.

Since the escape attempt, officials said, Bolsen has been held in solitary confinement, where he will not be allowed access to visitors or be able to call his family, all of whom are in the United States. The source also confirmed he has been placed under heavy security.

A representative from the American Embassy in Abu Dhabi was not able to comment on Bolsen’s situation because he had not signed a privacy waiver.

Bolsen pleaded guilty at his trial to “accidentally” murdering Steiner, a German engineer he met on the internet.

He put his body in a suitcase and hid it alongside Dubai Hatta Road. He was sentenced to death by Sharjah’s Criminal Court of First Instance. He has since been in and out of the courtroom in hopes of having his sentence reduced.

Bolsen’s case eventually was sent to the Federal Supreme Court, where a federal judge remanded the case back to the Appeals Court on June 1. He has not appeared in court since then.

The clerk of the appeal court in Sharjah said the court is waiting for his file form the Federal Court in Abu Dhabi.

Sharjah prison was built around 1975 and, according to the Sharjah Municipality, went through two weeks of maintenance in June 2008.

According to current inmates at the prison, a facility was set up in 2008 to create work, computer training and general rehabilitation for the inmates. The centre contains a small collection of books and daily newspapers.

A wife of one of the inmates said there is one television in the common area. The woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there are four people to one cell with two bunk beds. Officials declined to say how many prisoners are being detained there. Sharjah Police did not return calls.

Nashwa al Qubaisi, who represented Bolsen in the Federal Supreme Court, said last night that she was not aware of the incident.

The director of the jail, Col Sultan Abdullah Al Khaliali, declined to comment.

 
Fertility clinics in Dubai forced to dispose of embryos

DUBAI - FEB. 23:Couples who have frozen embryos stored in fertility clinics are being told the fertilised eggs will be destroyed now that a federal law banning the practice is being enforced.

Thousands of frozen embryos, which are used in some in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatments, are stored in clinics, with 5,000 at one centre in Dubai.

A federal law overseeing the licensing and regulation of fertility centres and banning the storage of frozen embryos was passed in 2008 but has not been enforced.

On Sunday, the Dubai Gynaecology and Fertility Centre (DGFC) announced that in line with the federal law it “will dispose [of] the fertilised eggs” stored at the facility.

All “concerned parties” were requested to contact the centre within a week.

The notice said the process of disposal would begin after one week and the centre would follow “recognised scientific methods”.

Those likely to have fertilised embryos frozen are childless couples or those who have undergone successful IVF treatment but wish to have the option of trying for another baby in the future.

The embryos are thawed when needed and implanted into the woman’s womb.

When the law was announced, the previous minister of Health, Humaid al Qattami, cited two fatwas, or rulings, from Dubai’s Islamic Affairs and Charitable Activities Department, and another from the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department.

He said the practice of storing frozen embryos should not be permitted because it could lead to “mixing lineage”.

Experts have dismissed the notion that embryos could be mixed up.

Yesterday, the DGFC released a statement to clarify the situation, assuring couples that the disposal procedure would not begin in one week and that there were “many considerations which need to be looked into”.

“The one-week deadline is for all concerned parties to ensure that they approach us to take an appointment for consultation,” the statement said. The message noted that most of its clients “have not enquired about their fertilised eggs for years”, some of which have been in storage for 18 years.

Tawam Hospital in Al Ain also stores thousands of fertilised eggs.

Officials said they expected to release a statement today.

The latest announcement is a blow to patients who hoped to use the fertilised eggs in certain in-vitro fertilisation treatments.

The Federal National Council voted in June 2008 to ban the storage of human embryos, but doctors called for clarification before they took any action.

The facilities that store the frozen embryos declined to say which government body issued the new order.

In October, the DGFC said an Emirati woman had given birth to a baby boy conceived using frozen eggs and that three other women were pregnant by the same technique.

Dr Samir Radi, the centre’s senior embryologist, said it was a “huge development” and the first birth of its kind in the Gulf region.