Question:
"Impressions of Dubai Hear additional interviews about the Gulf
emirate."
"Youssef Ibrahim, a freelance journalist, laments the lack of values in
Dubai."
"Indian Labor Consul Bawa Sayed Mubarak describes the struggle of
foreign workers in Dubai."
Answer:
"Blue uniforms hang out to dry at a labor camp at the edge of the city.
Armies of construction workers from the Indian subcontinent make an
average of $150 a month."
"But amid the high living, some foreign diplomats warn there is an
often
unseen dark side to Dubai. They say the city's economic miracle would
not be possible without armies of poorly paid construction workers from
the Indian subcontinent, most of whom are forced to give up their
passports upon arrival in the U.A.E. Some workers say they haven't been
home in years and that their salary has been withheld to pay back
loans.
Another side of Dubai is technically illegal but widespread:
prostitution.
"It is a sin city," Ibrahim says. "They don't like this name, but they
don't shrink away from the image, because it brings a lot of money."
In a bid to attract tourists, Dubai has opened the world's largest
indoor ski resort, where children slide down ice chutes and adults
slalom their way down a quarter-mile-long ski slope. It's the first
some
visitors from Dubai and other countries in the region have ever seen
snow.
The indoor ski resort is part of a much larger development boom that is
rapidly transforming what used to be a small trading port for gold and
pearls into a global center for international trade. Skyscrapers are
under construction, soon to join the gleaming towers that already rise
up out of the desert on the edge of the Persian Gulf. Developers tout
manmade island networks -- some shaped as palm trees, others as
continents -- just off the coast.
Dubai and the rest of the United Arab Emirates won independence from
Britain in 1971. Since then, Dubai's ruling family has carefully
invested its share of the country's oil money into developing duty-free
ports and infrastructure for tourism.
Egyptian-born Youssef Ibrahim, a veteran Middle East journalist who has
lived in Dubai for several years, says the city has "invented itself as
a hub -- a hub for everything. A hub for airlines, boats. A hub for
transient society that want to come for three, four, five years, make
some money and go away. And as a hub, it is a successful enterprise."
Dubai seems open to anyone who comes to make money. The result is a
society in which the majority of the residents are foreign, coming from
more then 160 countries around the world. Many foreigners find they can
make several times the salaries they could back home, and living costs
are relatively low.
But amid the high living, some foreign diplomats warn there is an often
unseen dark side to Dubai. They say the city's economic miracle would
not be possible without armies of poorly paid construction workers from
the Indian subcontinent, most of whom are forced to give up their
passports upon arrival in the U.A.E. Some workers say they haven't been
home in years and that their salary has been withheld to pay back
loans.
