Dubai: Expectation vs reality - BBC News

ask a lot of people if they've been to the Middle East and they'll say yes, Dubai, been shopping there, been on vacation there, it's cheeky, it's flashy, it's successful, but there's a lot going on below the surface in Dubai that we don't necessarily see often described as rich in oil no less than 5% of its GDP comes from oil it has a little gasoline but essentially it has achieved its success by diversifying into real estate aviation trading banking finance there are still people alive today who can remember the Old Dubai before the boom when it was low rise, where it was really just a port on the Gulf? building the world's Burj Khalifa at eight hundred and thirty meters and this transformation actually happened in the space of a generation largely thanks to the ambition of the previous ruler ship rashid al maktoum who developed

dubai

from b Being just a transit stop towards a destination, the son Sheikh Mohammed, the current ruler, then accelerated that development.

One of the problems that sometimes happens in Dubai is that people are drawn to maybe a total sense of relaxation. You have beaches, bars, night clubs, alcohol is free. available there and yet the actual rule of law of the place is quite strict and conservative. There is no freedom of expression at all there. Voice something against the government. there are many, many cases of westerners taking a wrong turn, getting arrested and finding themselves in trouble, such as publicly drinking a glass of wine in the suite or hugging and kissing a member of the opposite sex in 2018, there was a British PhD student who was doing a PhD in security in the United Arab Emirates was arrested and charged with espionage, he was finally released, but not until after five months in solitary confinement is there a paradox between the public face of Dubai, which is incredibly welcoming, very laid back and with many alleged human rights abuses, one of the most contentious issues about how unjustified all Arab Gulf states is cheap manual labor which is difficult in thousands and these people tend to come from the cited continent, to they are often ripped off the full amount of their salaries, they are held in terrible conditions, in many cases, there has been a lot of documentation about it, so, legal Mind you, federal NUI laws are very strict on this. but in practice these laws are often raised Dubai there is no doubt that it is a massive player on the global stage in terms of human development and aviation travel electronics green biotech innovation so it is a force to be reckoned with Keep in mind that sometimes it even reaches into itself and there will be large areas of real estate that are only half built and abandoned, but it takes risks and so far I think most people would say it's probably been worth it.