Month: April 2008
Abu Dhabi to host one of world’s largest oil and gas events – ADIPEC 2008
Abu Dhabi to host one of world’s largest oil and gas events – ADIPEC 2008
posted on 01/04/2008
The Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference 2008, (ADIPEC), one of the largest oil and gas events in the world, will take place on November 3 – 6 under the patronage of President His HH Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
As the inaugural event for the newly completed Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC), the tradeshow will cover more than 85,000 square metres of indoor exhibition space, making this event the largest in ADIPEC history, organisers dmg World Media said in a press release issued Monday.
ADIPEC 2008 expects to host between 35,000 – 40,000 industry executives who are spearheading the growth and development of the global oil and gas industry.
With over 1,400 exhibitors from 55 countries, 18 national pavilions, ADIPEC is the only international oil and gas show with representation from major international and national oil companies (IOCs and NOCs), and operating companies besides manufacturers of related equipments.
ADIPEC 2008 is the leading event for industry professionals, experts and government officials to promote their business and services, network, as well as see for the first time the latest technologies and innovations for the coming year.
This year ADIPEC is of great significance to the organisers, supporters and sponsors as it builds on more than two decades of success. The gross area of exhibition space for ADIPEC 2008 has grown by more than 100 percent. In addition, the event will witness the most considerable gathering of key global influencers including oil ministers from the GCC. Within the four days ADIPEC will stage two unique events – Energy 2030 and the Energy Investment Summit. The Petroleum Institute, ADNOC, and ADIPEC will host Energy 2030, which will include a high level conference and technical theatres.
ADIPEC was first launched in 1984 and is fully supported by the UAE Ministry of Energy and ADNOC. The conference programme is produced by the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE Intl.). – Emirates News Agency, WAM
UAE, UNESCO sign MoU for joint cooperation
UAE, UNESCO sign MoU for joint cooperation
posted on 01/04/2008
Paris – HE Abdul Rahman Mohammed Al Owais, UAE Minister of Culture, Youth and Community Development, and HE Koichiro Matsuura, Director General of the UNESCO, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for boosting joint cooperation in culture, heritage and antiquities.
Under this memorandum, the UNESCO will provide the ministry with expertise and consultancy in the said fields. The signing ceremony was attended by HE Mohammed Abdullah Al Ghafli, charge’ d’affaires of the UAE to France, and HE Bilal Al Bodour, executive director of the ministry of culture, youth and community development. The signing of the MoU crowned three days of extensive talks between officials from the ministry and UNESCO over prospects for joint cooperation.
The scope of the agreement covered translating innovative works by UAE citizens through UNESCO publications, convening of intellectual symposiums and conferences on exchange of knowledge, cultural diversity and translation, holding training workshops for development of skills of UAE citizens at UNESCO and its specialised agencies and empowering woman and building her capacity in the fields of folklore and handicrafts.
Under the MoU, the UNESCO will tailor special programmes for preserving UAE heritage and identity and commission a feasibility study on establishing a national library and restructuring and management of UAE archives.
UNESCO experts will also offer technical assistance in the areas of registering UAE archaeological landmarks and nature reserves in the world heritage and nature sanctuaries records. Experts will also take care of the non-material cultural heritage. Cultural and artistic events and exhibitions will also be staged at UNESCO venue.
UNESCO Assistant Director General for Culture Francois Rivera thanked the UAE for the high confidence it reposed on the UN organisation and for concluding a long-term agreement with UNESCO. She said she sensed during her previous visit to the UAE an indomitable spirit of care lent by the government for culture.
She noted the UAE’s firm desire to preserve its heritage and identity in light of the dramatic modernising transformations of its society. She also praised the UAE for advancing and promoting Arab culture and heritage through the Sheikh Zayed Book Award and Sharjah Award for Arab Culture.
On his part, Al Bodour gave a presentation on the mission and role of the ministry. He reaffirmed the UAE’s firm desire to boost cooperation with the UNESCO. – Emirates News Agency, WAM
New emergency digit number to inform officials on illegals
New emergency digit number to inform officials on illegals
By Ahmed Abdul Aziz (Our staff reporter)KHALEEJ TIMES 1 April 2008
ABU DHABI — The Department of Following-up Illegals in the Federal Naturalisation and Residency Department (FNRD) will be soon setting up a new three-digit hot-line number to seek information from the public about the presence of illegals in the country.
Giving this information, Major Hilal Aida Al Mazrouei, Director of Department of Following-up Illegals, told Khaleej Times yesterday that the move is aimed at flushing out illegals staying in the country by receiving tip-offs from the public.
The number will be announced soon, he added.
“By setting up the three-digit hotline, we plan to enhance cooperation with the society wherein people could tip off officials about illegal workers or people who had ‘absconded’ from their sponsors,” said Major Al Mazrouei.
He said the FNRD is now working to intensify inspections of companies, farms, buildings and labour accommodations in order to weed out illegals.
“Two teams of officers will be working in tandem. One will generate information and carry out investigations and the second will move to arrest the illegals,” he said.
Regarding entering houses and farms, he said that the officers are not allowed to visit homes without the permission of the General Prosecution.
He, however, affirmed that companies can be inspected with the co-operation of the authorities concerned such as the Ministry of Labour and the Municipalities.
Many national and expatriate sponsors are wondering who will be held accountable in the case of detection of illegal workers or infiltrators.
“All sides are responsible and would be accountable under the law as we have recently arrested more than 40 housemaids who were illegally working and living in the same building. The building owner will appear before the General Prosecution Department for questioning,” said Major Al Mazrouei.
“Furthermore, if no absconding report has been filed, the maids agency and the sponsor will be held accountable under the law and would face a fine of Dh50,000 in the case of hiring or sheltering an illegal and Dh100,000 for hiring or sheltering an infiltrator,” he added.
As for illegals and infiltrators themselves, they will face a month in jail, subjected to eye-scan and deported with a ban on entry into the UAE.
Overseas Indian Centre to be opened in Dubai
Overseas Indian Centre to be opened in Dubai
By Riyasbabu (Our staff reporter) KHALEEJ TIMES 1 April 2008
DUBAI — India will soon open an Overseas Indian Centre in Dubai to facilitate legal, medical and financial counselling to its nationals based in the Gulf, said Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi.
Speaking to Khaleej Times over the telephone from India, Ravi said, his ministry has begun to implement the proposal and a similar centre has already started functioning in Washington.
“Dubai centre will have a director and supporting staff and it will work under the Indian Embassy. The centre will coordinate with Indian doctors, solicitors and financial consultants living in the region and facilitate services to the Indian expatriates,” Ravi said.
“I cannot say when the centre will open. We are working on it at the moment and we will start operations as soon as possible. The Centre will coordinate its activities with the Indian diplomatic missions in the Gulf,” he added.
“India had plans to start a similar centre in Kuala Lumpur to cater to the Indians based in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei but the plan has been stalled for now,” Ravi stated.
Elaborating the aim of the centre, the minister said, the centre will educate the Indians living in the region about their rights and obligations and ensure that they are not exploited.
He revealed that six posts have been created in Dubai under the Indian consulate to operate the centre and the staff will be professionals with legal, medical and financial expertise.
“The legal cell in the centre will run awareness campaigns among Indians about their rights and give advice to Indian citizens in case of disputes with employers.
“The medical cell will provide medical support, including psychiatric counselling, while the financial cell will provide financial advice on transfer of funds, savings and investments,” Ravi said.
The centre, Ravi said, will also focus on the issues of women and provide all the necessary assistance to them in times of need.
If you are illegal for less than three months, you can legalise your status
If you are illegal for less than three months, you can legalise your statusBy Ahmed Abdul Aziz (Our staff reporter)KHALEEJ TIMES 1 April 2008
ABU DHABI — If you are an illegal resident in the UAE or your driver or maid has an expired visa for less than three months you can go to the Naturalisation and Residency Department (NRD) and legalise the status without being penalised, according to Major Hilal Aida Al Mazrouei, Director of the Department of Illegals.
He told Khaleej Times that the work on following-up on illegal workers in the country will take a different shape as we seek the cooperation of all the sponsors in the society — nationals, expatriates and the illegals themselves – to weed out this problem.
The move will enable sponsors to legalise the status of their housemaids and domestic servants’ if their visas have expired. They can do this by going to the courts, which will waive the fines and legalise their status by renewing the visa or transferring the sponsorship.
In the past, one month was given as grace period to the sponsors to renew the visas of their workers, maids, domestic servants, relatives and dependants. However, the new decision now allows them up to three months.
Meanwhile, the NRDs countrywide have launched inspection campaigns to flush out illegals.
“We are on the move in the light of the directives of Minister of Interior Lt-Gen. Shaikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan,” said Major Al Mazrouei.
He added that the inspection campaigns teams arrested about 80 illegals yesterday in the capital.
Al Ain bans smoking in malls, restaurants
Al Ain bans smoking in malls, restaurants
By Lana Mahdi (Our staff reporter)KHALEEJ TIMES 1 April 2008
AL AIN — The Al Ain Municipality has decided to regulate smoking in all enclosed public places, including shopping centres, malls and restaurants.
Awad bin Hasoum Al Darmaky, Director-General of the municipality, said yesterday that the ban would be enforced from April 15.
Al Darmaky said the move is in line with the national campaign against smoking which is the main cause of several diseases.
He highlighted that the Public Health Administration, which is part of the Al Ain Municipality, will organise inspection campaigns to ensure that the decision will be enforced.
Al Darmaky said all malls, shopping centres, restaurants and all enclosed public facilities will be no-smoking zones.
Violators of the ban would face stiff penalties, he added.
The regulation is aimed at assisting people who want to quit smoking by creating a helpful environment for them and the passive smokers who suffer due to the bad habit of others.
It may be mentioned that the Al Ain Municipality had already banned smoking in the offices of its departments. The ban came into effect on April 1, 2007.
Email-related stress in the workplace is a growing problem
Email-related stress in the workplace is a growing problem By Carole Spiers, Special to Gulf News Published: April 01, 2008, 00:41
A few months ago, I singled-out emails as a growing workplace stressor, especially in the way they set up a permanent air of emergency.
Now a study by two UK universities (Glasgow and Paisley) reports that 30 per cent of workers feel actively stressed by the need to monitor and respond to emails, and only about the same number feel unaffected by it.
This confirms the status of email-related stress management as a specific agenda of its own, which ought to be high in the priorities of both IT and HR personnel.
One example of a joint-response by these two departments is the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). This is basically an internet Code of Conduct for employees, aimed at preventing activities that are either illegal, disruptive or a threat to security, and also takes in corporate rules of appropriate dialogue online, sometimes called ‘Netiquette’.
But this can be usefully dovetailed with IT by the blocking of Facebook, YouTube or those endless special offers that may distract people from their work, in addition to the main IT agenda of Content Filtering to block spam and restrict emails to work-related items only.
Like all sweeping regulations, this could be accused of penalising the responsible majority in order to control the mischievous few, and it may be claimed that the requirement to concentrate 100 per cent on work throughout the day is unnatural. Literally, you wouldn’t be able to send a short email to your wife at any time. Might this Big Brother intervention actually be causing more stress than it relieves?
Fortunately, the technology incorporates many features that can counteract email-related stress. That ‘air of emergency’ I referred to earlier, causing some people to check their messages up to 40 times an hour, is often rooted in anxiety that some important work emails may have been wrongly blocked.
Multiple-layer filtering enables ‘Whitelisting’ of trusted email senders’ addresses to ensure delivery. Also the technology is flexible enough to allow local rules at the discretion of management. You can allocate time and bandwidth quotas to each user, enabling access to leisure sites at particular hours. Another way round the problem is to block specific sites on the main network but provide free access on machines in the coffee area.
This reminds us that today’s workplace is a part-social arena, where most employees can and should be trusted to keep a sensible balance between working and socialising – a stress reduction factor in itself.
And if we can wean people away from checking the mail 40 times an hour (setting up a harmful syndrome called ‘false positive anxiety’), and seeing why a two-hourly check is usually quite adequate, we will have helped to encourage a more sensible and practical use of that unwieldy and imperfectly understood instrument, the Net.
Key points: Handling IT-related stress
Nearly a third of workers feel actively stressed by email demands
Content Filtering Technology can selectively block messages
Ideally, allow social emailing in the recreational zone of the office
– The writer is a BBC broadcaster and motivational speaker, with 20 years’ of experience as CEO of Carole Spiers Group, an international stress consultancy based in London.
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