Time to Quit Using China as Our ATM

China and our other major creditors increasingly have the power to literally destroy our economy without destroying their own.


By Elizabeth Factor and Mallory Factor
- FOXNews.com
- November 18, 2009

This week in China, President Obama is practicing a new form of American diplomacy --assurance. With China now America's largest debt holder, the president is reassuring China that their investment in the U.S. economy is secure. In analyzing the president's visit, the American media seems to have suddenly realized that America has lost the upper hand in its relationship with China. But this has been coming for a long time.

President Obama is reassuring China that America is credit-worthy so that China will not dump our debt onto the world markets. But he is also trying to ensure that China will continue to purchase our debt in the future to pay for his elaborate government initiatives like the health care bill, cap-and-trade, and other spending programs. China holds over $1.7 trillion dollars of our currency and debt, which is well over 10% of our gross domestic product--how high can our indebtedness to China go? Hard as it may be to stop going back to our foreign lenders for more support, we are just piling more dirt on a mountain that is about to come down and bury us. America would suffer if it stopped borrowing from abroad, but paying the price later will be much more devastating.

From the U.S. perspective, China's investment in our debt and economy may seem to be just what our credit-starved American businesses and financial industry need. But while creditors may not always exert influence over the debtor nation's foreign policy, they have the power to do so if their holdings of currency or debt of the other nation are sufficiently large. The fact is that by borrowing so extensively from China and other nations, we have already significantly compromised our ability to promote democracy, the rule of law, human and civil rights reforms, and environmental policy--in China and around the world.

And China and our other major creditors increasingly have the power to literally destroy our economy without destroying their own. They can do this simply by refusing to buy our treasuries, agencies and currency, or worse, by dumping what they already own on the world market, which can be likened to a"nuclear option." Without enough demand for our debt, the United States would have to either offer huge interest rates to entice the remaining market into purchasing our debt or print more money leading to a crashing dollar and massive inflation. Although each of our creditors would suffer from the decline in value of our debt and currency, they would suffer less than we would.

The "nuclear option" allows a creditor nation to present its debtor nations with terms under which lending will continue. For example, China could press the United States to buy Chinese goods over the goods of other nations or could require us to open up our markets on terms unfavorable to the United States. China could use its economic influence over the United States to curb our support for Taiwan or other allies.

Anyone who does not believe that China has a far reaching geopolitical agenda should look at their former leader Deng Xiaoping's "24 character" strategy. Deng developed this policy in the 1990s to bring China back to the prominence and power on the global stage which it had enjoyed for over 3,000 years prior to domination by Europe in the 19th century. His policy consists only of 24 Chinese characters, and continues to be quoted--and followed--by the current Chinese leadership. It is as follows: "observe calmly; secure our position; cope with affairs calmly; hide our capacities and bide our time; be good at maintaining a low profile; and never claim leadership."

China's influence over its debtors' foreign policy is growing. In 2008, the UK, another profligate Chinese debtor, stopped advocating for a free Tibet and formally recognized the legitimacy of Beijing's direct rule over Tibet. And we are responding to their pressure also. The political reality is very simple -- it is hard to press for "change" in China when we need to be concerned about maintaining Chinese investment in our economy.

The solution to this critical problem is simple and yet extremely difficult to achieve: The United States needs to stop increasing its deficits. We need to bring them down, reduce our foreign borrowing and therefore, improve our global economic standing.

And, if we are not able to change the trajectory we have begun, then what? At some point--not too far in the future, America will have a meltdown. The world will stop lending us capital and investing in our economy, and the value of our debt will crash. Our financial pressures will change our American way of life-- in small ways at first and then, in big ways. Even our current reduced level of consumption--cars, electronics and consumer goods--will no longer be possible. And this crisis will lead to many unforeseeable shifts in our political alliances, domestic policies and business practices.

And it will no longer be the U.S. that will be speaking softly and carrying a "big stick." On his visit to China, the president went through the motions of addressing human rights and environmental issues to appease his base at home, but even he must realize that his remarks will have no impact on Chinese policy.

Soon, American presidents will not even mention human rights violations or other issues for fear of offending China or our other important creditors. We are already learning that we cannot promote democracy, civil rights, environmental policy, and a fair legal system to our creditors. At best, we may be able to preserve and defend these principles at home.

Instead of reassuring China, our president needs to be reassuring the people of our nation that he understands the connection between overspending and our future prosperity. Looming debt has made increases in spending simply impossible to consider and yet, Democrats in Congress and the White House seem to be throwing America "under the bus" with its rampant over-spending. President Obama needs to take steps immediately to halt our reliance on foreign borrowings and to ensure that America and our way of life are preserved.

Elizabeth Factor is an international tax lawyer and former investment banker.

Mallory Factor is the co-chairman and co-founder of the Monday Meeting, an influential meeting of economic conservatives, journalists and corporate leaders in New York City. Mr. Factor is a well-known merchant banker and speaks and writes frequently on economic and fiscal topics for news stations, leading newspapers and other print and online publications. Mr. Factor writes frequently for the Fox Forum and is seen regularly on Fox News Channel. Mr. Factor can be reached at mallory.factor@malloryfactor.com

Crucifix out, warming in

It's official – global warmingism has court-warranted standing as a religion

by Rex Murphy
Published on Friday, Nov. 06, 2009 6:45PM EST
Last updated on Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009 3:17AM EST

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/crucifix-out-warming-in/article1354734/

What was once venerated is now, in many ways, dismissed and even despised.

Matthew Arnold, the great Victorian poet, marked the turning moment. He had early intimations of “the way we live now,” a way largely evacuated of its Christian allegiances, certainly – in the public sphere – evacuated of the regard and respect that the profession of Christianity once automatically evoked.

“The Sea of Faith/ Was once, too, at the full,” he wrote, before going on in lines of immense power to record:

But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Arnold was more than a bit of a prophet. Blasted by the great cold winds of secularism and scientism, faith in the old sense, faith in Christianity in once or so-called Christian countries, is not only in decline and defensive. Faith is, at the public level, being actively pushed away, visited with dismissive scorn. At the same time, ideas, attitudes and “positions” that have never been seen under the rubric of faith increasingly seek the protections of “sanctified” belief.

What else to make of a human-rights ruling (no, not from one of our own restless engines of pseudo equity) from the European Court this week. According to this ruling, the crucifixes that hang in most Italian classrooms violate religious and educational freedoms. Yes, the cross in the Catholic country violates religious and educational freedoms. Is Dan Brown on the European Court?

A case was brought before this noble court (we know it's noble because it bears the banner of human rights) by a Finnish-born woman, an atheist, who complained that her children – in Italian classrooms, mind you – were “exposed” to crucifixes. Crucifixes in Italy – who would have guessed? It's like going to Newfoundland and complaining about wharves.

The court said this imposition might “disturb” children who weren't Christian and, to ward off a wave of trauma, ordered Italy to remove the crucifixes from its schools.

A case could be made that, whenever you hear of an action by a human-rights tribunal of any kind, you should mark it down that – quite likely – they are busy circumscribing the real rights or dignity of the various branches of Christianity, with a particular focus on Catholicism.

In this case, the European Court of Human Rights – in response to one complaint, from one atheist – told an entire country that has been the centre of world Christianity for 2,000 years to get rid of its most revered and cardinal symbol. It's the same old story: In the name of official tolerance, mandated intolerance.

At least the Italian authorities mustered something of an appropriate response to this insolent busybodyness. One government minister, Roberto Calderoli, loosed this volley: “The European court has trodden on our rights, our culture, our history, our traditions and our values.” Another minister noted that preventing the crucifix from being displayed is “an act of violence against the deep-seated feelings of the Italian people and all persons of goodwill.”

Meantime, in the country of Matthew Arnold's birth, another judge was busy passing an Alice in Wonderland verdict. This case arose from a wrongful-dismissal claim by a man of intense Green passions who said he was fired because of his global warming beliefs. The judge ruled that “a belief in man-made climate change … is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief” for the purpose of the Employment Equality (Religion and Belief) Regulations.

So there you have it: Global warming is a philosophical belief and, if you “genuinely” believe it, has the status of a religion. And will be zealously protected by some courts when an actual religious symbol is objected to by someone who “genuinely” does not believe in any religion.

I have no idea what this “genuinely” believing something has to do with the actual belief in question. Some people genuinely believe the details of An Inconvenient Truth. Is the Al Gore sermon now protected as an “article of faith”? A PowerPoint version of the Mosaic tablets?

I have long thought that the “ism” in environmentalism was a very worrisome suffix. All “isms” are thought-blockers, flags of ardent belief, signals more of passionate intensity than mature judgment.

Well, now it's official. Global warmingism has court-warranted standing as a religion. And a 2,000-year-old religion is banned from manifesting its most precious symbol in front of the eyes of trauma-prone atheists. Lord, have mercy on us. Please.

Is everything sacred – except religion?

Disciple of Secularism Turns Catholic

Vittorio Messori Speaks About His Own Conversion


By Nicolas de Cardenas

ROME, NOV. 12, 2009 (Zenit.org).- In his latest book, the author who interviewed many people, including the last two Popes, himself becomes the subject of an inquiry, leading him to reveal his story of conversion.

Vittorio Messori, author of "The Jesus Hypothesis" (1976), is the first journalist in history to publish a book-length interview with a Pope, the best-selling "Crossing the Threshold of Hope" (1994).

He also published "The Ratzinger Report" (1987), based on an interview with then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

In this interview with ZENIT, Messori talks about his latest book, "Por qué creo" [Why I Believe] (published by LibrosLibres in Spain), in which he is interviewed by Vatican expert Andrea Tornielli.

Part 2 of this interview will be published Friday.

ZENIT: At the beginning of the book, you seem very reticent to open your soul, although you have already accepted the challenge of addressing Tornielli's questions. Was it as hard as it seems for you to take on the systematic recounting of your conversion experience?

Messori: I have waited many years before responding. First, because I have written 23 books, all of religious research, but I always refused to recount my conversion.

My readers know that in my life there is a before and after. They know I wasn't born a Catholic and that I had a very anti-clerical and anti-religious education.

And they know that now I am a "Papist," an orthodox Catholic, and they are very curious to know how this happened. Why? What happened in my life?

I have passed from being anti-clerical to being a rigorous Catholic in thought, though not so much in life. Because I don't present myself as devout. I am like everyone else, a sinner who does many inconsistent things.

I have been very guarded about my inner life; I have not had the courage to talk about it.

Actually, conversion is a mystery and it is very difficult to talk about a mystery. My work is in words, I am a journalist and writer, I work with words. But it was very difficult for me to find the necessary words to talk about this mystery.

Finally, I decided to respond not only to the request of readers, but to that of this journalist, this colleague, Andrea Tornielli, who in my opinion is the best Italian Vatican expert, in addition to being a great journalist and writer.

Now I have decided for the first time to talk about it because my life is divided into two stages, passing from unbelief to faith.

ZENIT: The Spanish edition of the book "Why I Believe" has more than 350 pages, yet even with such an impressive exposition of your experience, a doubt remains. Can one truly encompass a person's mystical experience with the printed word? Is it possible to verbalize all the intellectual and moral change that a convert experiences?

Messori: This is one of the reasons why I always said no. I repeat, it is difficult to talk about mystery.

I'm not a mystic, I am not a visionary. I have always been a very pragmatic person, very concrete, very rational. However, there was a period in my life, of some two months in the summer, I don't know why, when I discovered a new dimension in which truth, which I thought did not exist in capital letters, became evident to me. It is in the Gospel.

I was a good student, I loved to study and I prepared myself not only to be a journalist but also a university professor. I had read very many books, but I had not read that small book that is the Gospel. I did not suspect that the Truth was in it.

Now I have continued to use my reason as before, but it is open to mystery. My teachers taught me to use pure reason, but I have discovered that by using it, at the end of reason one always comes to mystery.

In all my books I have sought to reason. I have not worked at preaching, spirituality, homilies. I try to help the reader to reason on faith and, at the end, to bet on the veracity of faith.

ZENIT: Although your conversion seems to be linked also to an "extraordinary event," you do not refer to it as a process of rational argumentation, or the seeking of objective reasons and historical principles for the credibility of the Church. What is your opinion of apologetics based not so much on the rationality of the faith as on individual experiences?

Messori: There is no contradiction between the two. The truth of the faith is understood by reasoning and living.

It is 40 years since my "fracture" and in that time I have reasoned and studied a lot, but above all I have lived and have found that the fruit of my reasoning made sense in a complete life.

The Gospel recounts that the disciples asked Jesus who he was. He did not give them sermons, did not offer them reasoning, he said to them: "Come, and follow me." Come with me, live with me and you will see that I am the Messiah.

Christianity is not a philosophy, it isn't an ideology. It is a meeting of two persons.

ZENIT: In the book one perceives a certain regret because of the abandonment of your former teachers, those who introduced you to the path of agnosticism. Did you feel betrayed by those who defended reason as the only possible basis, when that same rationality is the pivot of your coming to the faith?

Messori: For me faith was a surprise. I was not seeking it, I was fine. I had no religious worry.

I was satisfied with the secular and rationalist culture of my teachers. I did not wish to be a Catholic. The faith did not resolve the problems of life. On the contrary, it complicated life, because I come from a non-believing family.

I studied in a school that was more than secular, it was based in laicism. I prepared myself to be a journalist; I always had a great vocation, but [as] a journalist of political, social and economic affairs.

In my last year of university I had my life planned and I had to change the plan completely. My parents thought I had gone mad and my professors were afflicted and disappointed. They thought that "my thing" was related to a nervous depression.

How can a disciple of our secularism become a Catholic! It was very hard, because one can think at first that faith resolves all problems.

Of course I am very happy and glad to have problems, but in fact it was quite a rupture. In any case, I have had the good fortune to work for important newspapers such as "La Stampa," FIAT's newspaper, and also with "Il Corriere della Sera," always, however, writing about religious affairs, which is the opposite of what I planned in the beginning. In the end I found my place, but it was hard to change my plans completely.

ZENIT: Let us now address a question of current importance. How to you evaluate the fact that the European Court of Human Rights has just decided that Italian schools must remove crucifixes from the walls of their classrooms because their presence might disturb the children who are not Christians?

Messori: The concordat between the Italian state and the Church states that the crucifix must be present in schools and courts and this is perfectly in tune with the Italian constitution.

I am saddened because these officials [the judges] don't know anything, because for a long time the cross has been more than a religious symbol; it is a human symbol of justice, of suffering and of hope.

The position of laicism regarding the crucifix is absurd, because the denial of the Christian roots of Europe is not a sin against religion but against history. Without St. Benedict or the Medieval Popes, Europe wouldn't exist. It is a sin against history.

I am not scandalized because I believe that mass Christianity is finished. Jesus says that his disciples will always be a small group. I am not nostalgic for mass Christianity, for the Spain at the [time of the] Inquisition, for [a world in which] 90% of people go to Mass on Sunday.

As Benedict XVI says, I believe that we Christians must discover our own vocation.

ZENIT: Very many of your answers end by making a defense of "et-et" (this and that), in contrast to "aut-aut" (either this or that), as an essential characteristic of Catholicism; it is the idea that "everything fits" in the Church, an explanation of its unfathomable richness. However, where is the limit between what fits within the Church in some interpretation, and what doesn't fit because it is contrary to it?

Messori: The fundamental principle of Catholicism, to say it in Latin, is the "et-et," as opposed to the principle of heresy "aut-aut."

Let us think of Protestantism, which is an "aut-aut": Either the Bible or Tradition. Either Jesus Christ or the Virgin and the saints. Either grace or free will. Either Christ or the Pope. The heresy of Protestantism chooses either this or that.

Whereas the motto of the Catholic is "I want all": the Pope and the Bible, Jesus and his Mother, divine grace and man's liberty, the Gospel and the Church.

Now, I believe that a Catholic must discover this synthesis, of accepting everything that is good. This is very important because today there is much Catholicism subscribing to "aut-aut." The title of my next book will be "We Want All."

ZENIT: You are a defender of the rationality of the faith, of the existence of solid, almost scientific reasons for credibility of the Church, and at the same time a defender of miracles, a promoter of the Virgin's apparitions. A Catholic understands this well, but how do you explain it to an atheist?

Messori: There is no contradiction between faith and reason. There isn't a battle.

Faith is the point of arrival of reason used to the end. I am very grateful for what my university teachers taught me, though they later denounced me. I have not denounced them, because they taught me to use reason, and to be a believer does not mean to give up reason but to use it to the maximum.

I blame these teachers, [though] I esteem them, for having converted reason to an ideology, rationalism, which says there is nothing beyond reason. They must understand that there are things beyond reason that aren't against it, which encourages them to use it to the end.

I have written much on the apparitions of Lourdes and now I am finishing a volume on this subject. However, it isn't a book of supernatural explanations, but research on the historical plane of apparitions. In the end, I must bow before the fact that history researched in depth leads to mystery.

Half of my readers in Italy are believers, and the other half are not. The majority of the latter are not in agreement with my conclusions, but they are pleased to follow my reasoning.

What I try to demonstrate is that the Christian is not a cretin, he isn't someone who gives up the use of reason.

The Christian is one who using reason, breaks the walls of rationalism to come to a reality that is greater than our own reason.




[Translation by ZENIT]

Part I: http://www.zenit.org/article-27530?l=english
Part II: http://www.zenit.org/article-27536?l=english

Iraqi Christians: Long History, Precarious Future

Documentary Sends Cry for Help to the World

By Genevieve Pollock

ARBIL, Iraq, NOV. 6, 2009 (Zenit.org).- A new video documentary produced by Catholics in Iraq invites people to experience the history, culture, martyrs and struggles of one of the oldest Christian communities.

Hank and Diane McCormick, a missionary couple working in Northern Iraq, told ZENIT that the first episode of this five-part documentary can be viewed online by people worldwide who want to "meet" the Middle Eastern Catholics.

The video exposes stories about Christian martyrs of that region as well as Catholics -- bishops, priests and laypeople -- who are currently living there and working in schools, hospitals and other services. It incorporates scenes from the area's holy places, footage of ancient artifacts, glimpses of liturgical celebrations and local music.

Diane, who worked on the project as an assistant editor, explained that it was a joint effort of the Chaldean, Syrian, Maronite and Latin Churches, produced as a cry for help.

The message from the Catholics to the world, she said, is: "Help, help now while there is still large enough numbers for the rites to survive."

Diane continued: "They can clearly see the end to their existence within the next 10 years.

"Their departure is a loss, even for Muslims; an East without Christians would not be the same. They cannot cry out any louder for help from the universal Church."

Precarious

The video introduction reports that the situation of that region's Christian community, which dates its origin back to St. Thomas the Apostle, is presently "precarious."

"These Catholics cannot remain in their homeland of 2,000 years without assistance from their Catholic brothers and sisters" on other continents, it states.

The video, titled "An Open Door," offers "insight into the minds and hearts of Catholics living in Iraq."

It explains that their "peaceful nature and status as a minority too small to defend themselves have caused Iraqi Catholics to be targeted and made victims of war after war."

Thus, the number of Christians in the region has dropped from 1.5 million to some 350,000, and it is continuing to fall.

Hank, who served as cameraman and translator for the video, explained to ZENIT that the Church leaders are hoping that people will see this video and "come and help."

He stated that aid is needed in order to "build industry, build Catholic schools, minor seminaries, and hospitals, and adopt parishes inside Iraq, thus opening up communication between Iraqis inside and the world beyond."

"Catholics in the Middle East are neither terrorists nor refugees," the video explains. "They are people, individuals with a deep faith, rich heritage and courage."

Modern martyr

The first episode tells the story of Father Ragheed Ganni, a 34-year-old pastor in Mosul who was shot four times through the heart in front of his church in 2007.

On the video, a fellow priest shows the icon, with a bullet hole through it, that was in Father Ganni's pocket when he was killed.

"The situation here is worse than hell," the pastor had written in an e-mail to a former professor the day before he died.

In his honor, some 37 miles from where he died, Catholics established the Father Ragheed Ganni Medical Center, where volunteers work to distribute medicine free of charge to Christians and Muslims alike.

Doctor Ranna Enwyia, who works at the clinic, was a close friend of Father Ganni. She affirmed that the priest was constantly aware that his life could be taken at any time, and yet he was always working, "always happy."

"He taught us how to be happy," she affirmed.

The doctor recalled that the priest used to pray to God: "Even if I lose my life, it's okay, because it will be with you and for you."

She stated: "He taught me that I will live just once. So I have to make every moment of my life to be useful to the other. And if it is useful to the other, it will make me happy."

Enwyia works alongside Doctor Basman Gilal Marcos, a Catholic who, through the medical center ministry, came back to practice his faith after being away for 20 years. They serve hundreds of people that come each Friday and Sunday for medicine.

Hank explained that the impact of Catholics in that area comes from the schools, hospitals and services they provide. "Even in the midst of war they are succeeding," he added.

Father Rayan Atto, a diocesan priest who directs the medical center, tells stories on the video of how Father Ganni has been interceding for the project and aiding with "many miracles."

Compelling stories

As the documentary continues into other episodes, Bishop Jack Ishaak, dean of Babel College in Arbil-Ankowa, explains the rich heritage of the community's 2,000 years of history and the current role of religion in daily life. He and other prelates explore the Chaldean liturgy and its ancient roots in the Jewish rites from Jerusalem.

Episode three reveals how success in Catholic education is being translated into "security" for the future of Christians "living among 25 million Muslims."

The final episode presents testimonies of the Catholics who have been kidnapped or have been victims of crime and religious persecution, and their own explanations of "why they want to stay in their homeland of 2,000 years."

It calls on the global community to help provide opportunities to "enable Christians to shed their refugee status."

Hank noted that this project is "a response to the Church's call for ecumenism and the Holy Father's call to help Christians in the Middle East."

"Because of the wars and the civil violence," he said, "which is constantly shown on the news, people -- Catholics especially -- need to see the picture of Northern Iraq, and to see and hear the stories of Catholics in action."

Father Jean Abou Khalife, founder and director of TV Charity, an apostolate of the Lebanese Maronite Missionaries, took responsibility for producing the video.

The Chaldean Catholic Church, through St. Peter Chaldean Seminary in Arbil, took charge of the content and the directing.

The agenda

Diane explained that the video was "a cooperative effort among the Churches" that they hope will "promote the agenda" of the 2010 Synod of Bishops for the Middle East "through lay means."

She told ZENIT that the documentary's message, as presented by Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk, "mirrors the main points to be discussed in the Synod."

The Chaldean archbishop emphasizes the local Church's need to move from focusing on the past to preparation for the future, to center on identifying its vocation and mission in Northern Iraq today.

This is not something that the Iraqis can do alone, he noted, but it will be possible in communion with the universal Church.

Hank affirmed: "Our job is to raise awareness in the West of the dimensions of the problem, and then generate support for the building of schools, hospitals, clinics and more.

"Iraqi Catholics form a professional class. They have initiative, skills, and the desire to succeed. But the war has left them displaced and unemployed in an economy that cannot absorb their numbers.

"There has to be investment from the outside. The Church will use the Synod to do her part. And we lay need to do ours, which is to cooperate, donate, and sacrifice to help the Catholic community to survive in Iraq."

The first part of the video is currently available for online viewing, but with the completion of the other episodes, expected by the end of the month, a DVD will be produced for distribution.

--- --- ---

On the Net:

Online viewing of first part of An Open Door: www.charityandjustice.org

TV Charity: www.tvcharity.org

To order DVDs by email: anopendoor@tvcharity.org


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Pope Greets Nigerian Freed From Prostitution Slavery

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 4, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI today greeted a Nigerian woman who was recently freed from the slavery of prostitution thanks to the endeavors of the Community of Pope John XXIII.

The young woman represented the community at today's general audience in St. Peter's Square. She was at the Vatican with some 3,000 members of the group, commemorating the second anniversary of the death of the founder, Italian Father Oreste Benzi.

Father Benzi dedicated himself to the poor and least in society, and particularly to freeing people from the chains of prostitution and drugs. He created the Community of Pope John XXIII in 1968. It is now a private international association of pontifical right, with more than 600 centers in 25 countries, at the daily service of some 40,000 people.

On greeting the members of the community, Benedict XVI referred to the anniversary of Father Benzi's death and expressed his hope that "the fruitful spiritual legacy of this worthy priest will be a stimulus for you so that the providential work he began in favor of the least of our society will bear fruit in the Church and in the world."

"I am pleased to support you with prayer," the Pontiff assured.

On several occasions, Father Benzi introduced Pope John Paul II to girls and women the community had been able to free from prostitution.

--- --- ---

On the Net:

Community of Pope John XXIII: en.apg23.org/en/TheCommunity
Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-27446?l=english

US Bishops Praise Maine's Marriage Vote

Urge All to Respect Union of Man and Woman

WASHINGTON, D.C., NOV. 4, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The U.S. bishops are praising Maine's voters for speaking out in favor of the truth of marriage and repealing a state law that would have allowed same-sex "marriage."

Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville said this in a statement released today on behalf of the U.S. episcopal conference. The archbishop is also the chairman of the U.S. bishops' Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage.

In a statewide vote held Tuesday, 53% of voters rejected a state law that would have allowed for same-sex "marriage."

The law had been passed by Maine's legislature and signed by Democratic Governor John Baldacci, but opponents successfully petitioned to put the issue to a popular vote.

Maine is the 31st state to oppose gay "marriage" at the polls. Five states now allow the unions.

"The people of Maine voted to uphold the true nature of marriage as the union of one man and one woman," noted Archbishop Kurtz. "Marriage is an institution which precedes all others, whether political or religious. It deserves the state’s reinforcement and protection."

While the archbishop acknowledged that the Church's opposition to gay "marriage" is hard for some to accept, he urged "all to respect it."

The Church "stands for the basic rights of all people," he continued, and noted that it speaks out against discrimination or unjust treatment of any group of people.

But the issue of marriage, the archbishop explained, "has nothing to do with denying basic rights to anyone, though it is often framed in such terms."

Mom and dad

"In fact, protecting marriage is safeguarding the rights of our most dependent and vulnerable among us -- our children, who deserve to be welcomed as a gift of spousal love and not to be intentionally deprived of a mother and a father," Archbishop Kurtz said.

"Protecting marriage affirms the unique and indispensable roles of mothers and fathers, and recognizes the particular responsibilities that husbands and wives bear in society," he continued. "Protecting marriage affirms the permanent and exclusive love between a husband and a wife as a wonderful and incomparable good in itself which also is of great social and practical consequence."

"Their sexual difference, man to woman and woman to man, is real and valuable -- not a social construct, and not an aspect of the human person that may be disregarded at will and without cost," the archbishop added.

He called the "difference" of man and woman as not only "essential" for marriage, but also called it "the relational context for the formation of the human person."

"Sadly, the attempts to redefine marriage today ignore or reject the unique identity and gifts of man and woman," said Archbishop Kurtz. "Such a dismissal only fosters confusion about what it means to be human.

"Protecting marriage between one man and one woman is a matter of justice. It is a matter of truth. Law should be at the service of truth and justice. Laws based on untruths are unjust.

"Working for justice presumes that we work to preserve the true meaning of marriage."

Archbishop Kurtz invited all to work toward making marriages stronger, and to not attempt to redefine it: "Marriage must be protected and promoted today for what it is and what it is meant to be: the lifelong, exclusive union between husband and wife."

"There are many ways to uphold the basic human rights of all people," he added, "but sacrificing marriage can never be one of them."

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Yankees Win World Series

Posted By Jim Green On November 5, 2009 @ 3:47 am

Does anyone know what number championship this is for the Yankees, because I haven’t heard. Although I have heard more than enough about the figurehead owner who has been practically comatose all season!

OK, that bit of snark aside, I’m very proud of this team, and this championship is very gratifying. I also need to offer condolences to my Phillies fan friends. That’s a very tough champion you guys have, and I’m sure you’re proud too. A couple different decisions by Charlie Manuel and this series could still be going on — if not over in your favor.

But man, it was great to have the designated hitter back, wasn’t it? You can’t make a rash decision on whether or not to bring Hideki Matsui back based on one game — I’m sure Red Sox brass is wishing it passed on Mike Lowell instead of giving him a big contract after he won the 2007 Series MVP — but Matsui always struck me as the kind of guy who would have some huge Series moments if he ever got a second chance. And he was an easy Series MVP, because who knows how this game would have gone without him? Most of the rest of the guys who had been struggling continued to struggle, and you can make the case that the Yankees won this series for two reasons: Mariano Rivera, and Matsui owns Pedro Martinez. Matsui’s 2-run homer to get things going was huge, but the biggest hit of the night without doubt was his 2-run single in the third inning. Pedro, with help from a generous third-strike call against Alex Rodriguez, was one strike away from escaping a bases-loaded, 1-out jam. Considering the Phillies had already answered Matsui’s homer with a run in the top of the third, you have to figure they would have had all the momentum if they could have gotten out of the inning. But Pedro couldn’t figure Hideki out, even with two strikes. Huge hit.

Which brings us to Charlie Manuel. Sure it’s a classic second guess, but I — and I’m sure many of you — first-guessed this. J.A. Happ had to be in there to face Matsui in that spot. It was clear from the start that Pedro had nothing, and the only reason he got as far as he got was because the Yankees, other than Matsui, were doing a fabulous job of getting themselves out. Again, other than Matsui. I know Matsui eventually hit his 2-run double off Happ, but that doesn’t justify the decision to leave Pedro in the game with the team’s life on the line simply because his name is Pedro. Terrible decision on a night when Manuel should have been ready to empty the tank on everyone. Especially with the possibility of rain tomorrow and Cliff Lee starting in a postponed Game 7.

Andy Pettitte was decent. I know his start is going to be romanticized by a lot of people, and that’s OK. He’s done a lot to earn the love and respect he has from Yankee fans. And considering he was a 37-year-old man pitching on short rest, he could have been far worse. But all the walks were playing with fire, and he benefited greatly from the team’s — or more accurately Matsui’s — offensive outburst. Hey, he won the clinching games in all three rounds, and he’s one of three guys to be a key member on all five of the Yankees’ recent titles, and I was very glad to have him on the mound instead of A.J. Burnett in this game. At least he battled. And I’ll gladly have him back next season. It’s amazing how much things changed for him from the disappointment of 2008.

Hopefully if Pettitte does come back, the Yankees will have a usable fourth starter so he won’t have to go on short rest again. It’s really amazing that, in this era of specialized pitching, a team was able to win with three starters. So, yes, even credit to Burnett, who it should not be forgotten was outstanding in Game 2.

You know who else should not be forgotten? Damaso Marte, who with one series made that 2008 deadline deal pay off, regardless of how good Ross Ohlendorf and Jose Tabata turn out to be. He was fabulous. Fabulous to the point where I wanted Joe Girardi to leave him in the game when he was bringing in Mariano. How crazy is that?

But it was the right move, of course. Girardi deserves this championship, as, outside of starting Jerry Hairston over Nick Swisher in Game 2, he had an outstanding series. I think we saw a manager that was willing to learn and grow, even from series to series. And I’m now optimistic the day will come when I’m confident in him. Either way, he managed this team to the title, and no one can take that away from him.

Back to Mariano. It’s worth noting again how incredible he is. In fact, you just can’t say it enough. He’s the ultimate weapon in all of sports. From Joe Nathan to Brian Fuentes to Brad Lidge, we got a first-hand look at how difficult it is to fill the closer spot for other teams. As with Michael Jordan, we will never see another like him. Enjoy it, appreciate it, and hope — no pray — that he’s being serious when he talks about pitching five more years.

Even Joba, who I think we all can begrudgingly agree belongs in the bullpen, is not anywhere near as reliable as Mariano, as evidenced by his seventh-inning struggles. Still, he was very valuable to this championship run, as he was able to pick up the slack for the surprising failure of Phil Hughes, who should be back in the rotation next year.

Derek Jeter. I love the guy, but I get as sick as fans of other teams about the hyperbole surrounding him. That said, he had a superb World Series and postseason in general. He is fashioning a Yankee legacy that makes him an immortal name, and it’s well deserved. The fifth ring goes a long way toward cementing that legacy. Pettitte and Jorge Posada will always have a place in team history, but Jeter and Rivera are the immortals.

Ah, but there’s another immortal now, isn’t there? What more can be asked of Alex Rodriguez now? In his six-year Yankee tenure, he has won two MVPs and was the best player in the run to this year’s championship. I’m sure the monkey will never be completely off his back, because some people are just idiots, but he is likely the greatest position player you’ll see wear a Yankee uniform in your lifetime.

Can’t write the wrap-up for this Series, and season, without mentioning CC Sabathia. Aside from A-Rod finally getting hot in the postseason, the biggest difference this season was that the Yankees finally had an absolute horse they could ride at the top of the rotation. I have complete faith he would have done it one more time, but I’m glad we didn’t have to find out.

Well, I think that’s about it for now. It was a great season, but the best thing about baseball is that it’s a 12-month-a-year sport. We’re right around the corner from the season awards and the hot stove, and we’ll be all over that kind of stuff here. Thanks for taking the time to read, and I hope you keep coming back.

Enjoy the parade, and congratulations 2009 Yankees, world champions!

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Article printed from The Yankee Scrolls

URL to article: http://blogs.mycentraljersey.com/yankees/2009/11/05/yankees-win-world-series/

Abortion Clinic Director Converts During "40 Days"

National Campaign Claims 542 Lives Saved

By Genevieve Pollock

BRYAN, Texas, NOV. 3, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Abby Johnson, former director of a Planned Parenthood center, left the organization after watching a baby being aborted, and is now working with those who prayed for her conversion.

Johnson, 29, worked for Planned Parenthood for eight years until she watched, by an ultrasound transmission, a fetus "crumple" as it was vacuumed from its mother last September.

On Oct. 6, she quit her job as the Bryan center director. She walked across the street to the Coalition for Life, a pro-life group that was at that time joined with cities across the nation in a 40 Days for Life campaign.

David Bereit, national director of 40 Days for Life, told ZENIT that in the latest campaign, which ended Sunday, seven other abortion workers quit their jobs, and 542 lives were saved.

And "these are just the ones we know of," he added, summing up the immediate results from the campaign that united 212 cities across 45 states, five Canadian provinces and Denmark.

The 40 Days program actually began at the Bryan clinic in 2004, as a grass-roots prayer and fasting initiative. Pro-life workers have gathered in front of this Planned Parenthood center for six campaigns to date, keeping a prayer vigil around the clock for those considering and advocating abortions.

Bereit stated: "From that first campaign in 2004, we've prayed for Abby -- and for all abortion workers -- that they would come to see what abortion really is, and that they would leave the deadly business.

"In this case, those prayers have been answered. We are so proud of Abby's courage to leave the abortion industry and publicly announce her reasons for leaving."

He noted that this conversion story "demonstrates the importance of a constant, peaceful prayer presence in front of abortion facilities."

Breaking point

Johnson, who is now appearing on radio and television shows around the country, explained that she had a "change of heart on this issue," 40 Days for Life reported.

She stated, "Over the past few months I had seen a change in motivation regarding the financial impact of abortions and really reached my breaking point after witnessing a particular kind of abortion on an ultrasound."

"I just thought, I can't do this anymore; and it was just like a flash that hit me and I thought that's it," she told KBTX.com.

Johnson, an Episcopalian, described this moment as a "definite conversion" of heart, a "spiritual conversion."

Johnson also reported that although she originally got involved with Planned Parenthood because she wanted to help women, she had been having second thoughts because the center was changing its business model. "The money wasn't in prevention," she said, "the money was in abortion."

Johnson told FoxNews.com that she was actually instructed by her regional managers to increase the number of abortions performed to drive up profits.

"Every meeting that we had was, 'We don't have enough money, we don't have enough money -- we've got to keep these abortions coming,'" She said. "It's a very lucrative business and that's why they want to increase numbers."

Although Johnson's former place of employment only performed abortions on two days each month, every day the doctor was in, he could do up to 40 of these.

Now Johnson is helping women, but from the other side of the street. She began praying with volunteers outside Planned Parenthood, for those who were once her coworkers.

Power of prayer

Coalition for Life's director, Shawn Carney, affirmed: "It's truly been a testament to the power of prayer and the courage of Abby to leave a job she felt she could no longer do in good conscience.

"It has been a joy for all of our volunteers who have prayed outside of the clinic for the conversion of the clinic workers to witness that conversion actually happen."

Though Johnson has not yet found another job, she has been working closely with Carney and other members at the coalition.

Bereit explained to ZENIT, "Pro-life people are welcoming these former abortion workers with love and open arms."

He pointed to his organization's Web site, which has posted on its blog hundreds of notes from people worldwide who are expressing support for Abby.

Bereit stated that even one conversion will have far-reaching results. This will "certainly encourage other cities to conduct multiple 40 Days for Life campaigns, as well as to develop a regular prayer presence" even while the program is not going on, he said.

Bereit continued, "We are committed to press on until that day when no more women cry and no more children die."

He told ZENIT that two more campaigns are being planned for 2010, one during Lent, beginning Feb. 17, and another in the fall, Sept. 22-Oct. 31.

"In addition," Bereit said, "40 Days for Life is actively developing tools, training, and resources to educate, equip, and empower local pro-lifers to grow and expand the impact of their efforts."

--- --- ---

On the Net:

40 Days for Life: http://www.40daysforlife.com/

Coalition for Life: http://www.coalitionforlife.com/

Source: http://www.zenit.org/article-27428?l=english

The Dark Side of Dubai

The Dark Side of Dubai


Wednesday, 08 April 2009 07:02
by Johann Hari, Independent

Dubai was meant to be a Middle-Eastern Shangri-La, a glittering monument to Arab enterprise and western capitalism. But as hard times arrive in the city state that rose from the desert sands, an uglier story is emerging. Johann Hari reports

The wide, smiling face of Sheikh Mohammed - the absolute ruler of Dubai - beams down on his creation. His image is displayed on every other building, sandwiched between the more familiar corporate rictuses of Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders. This man has sold Dubai to the world as the city of One Thousand and One Arabian Lights, a Shangri-La in the Middle East insulated from the dust-storms blasting across the region. He dominates the Manhattan-manqué skyline, beaming out from row after row of glass pyramids and hotels smelted into the shape of piles of golden coins. And there he stands on the tallest building in the world - a skinny spike, jabbing farther into the sky than any other human construction in history.


But something has flickered in Sheikh Mohammed's smile. The ubiquitous cranes have paused on the skyline, as if stuck in time. There are countless buildings half-finished, seemingly abandoned. In the swankiest new constructions - like the vast Atlantis hotel, a giant pink castle built in 1,000 days for $1.5bn on its own artificial island - where rainwater is leaking from the ceilings and the tiles are falling off the roof. This Neverland was built on the Never-Never - and now the cracks are beginning to show. Suddenly it looks less like Manhattan in the sun than Iceland in the desert.

Once the manic burst of building has stopped and the whirlwind has slowed, the secrets of Dubai are slowly seeping out. This is a city built from nothing in just a few wild decades on credit and ecocide, suppression and slavery. Dubai is a living metal metaphor for the neo-liberal globalised world that may be crashing - at last - into history.
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* The Desert Blogger: Jamie Stewart's dispatches from Dubai

I. An Adult Disneyland

Karen Andrews can't speak. Every time she starts to tell her story, she puts her head down and crumples. She is slim and angular and has the faded radiance of the once-rich, even though her clothes are as creased as her forehead. I find her in the car park of one of Dubai's finest international hotels, where she is living, in her Range Rover. She has been sleeping here for months, thanks to the kindness of the Bangladeshi car park attendants who don't have the heart to move her on. This is not where she thought her Dubai dream would end.

Her story comes out in stutters, over four hours. At times, her old voice - witty and warm - breaks through. Karen came here from Canada when her husband was offered a job in the senior division of a famous multinational. "When he said Dubai, I said - if you want me to wear black and quit booze, baby, you've got the wrong girl. But he asked me to give it a chance. And I loved him."

All her worries melted when she touched down in Dubai in 2005. "It was an adult Disneyland, where Sheikh Mohammed is the mouse," she says. "Life was fantastic. You had these amazing big apartments, you had a whole army of your own staff, you pay no taxes at all. It seemed like everyone was a CEO. We were partying the whole time."

Her husband, Daniel, bought two properties. "We were drunk on Dubai," she says. But for the first time in his life, he was beginning to mismanage their finances. "We're not talking huge sums, but he was getting confused. It was so unlike Daniel, I was surprised. We got into a little bit of debt." After a year, she found out why: Daniel was diagnosed with a brain tumour.

One doctor told him he had a year to live; another said it was benign and he'd be okay. But the debts were growing. "Before I came here, I didn't know anything about Dubai law. I assumed if all these big companies come here, it must be pretty like Canada's or any other liberal democracy's," she says. Nobody told her there is no concept of bankruptcy. If you get into debt and you can't pay, you go to prison.

"When we realised that, I sat Daniel down and told him: listen, we need to get out of here. He knew he was guaranteed a pay-off when he resigned, so we said - right, let's take the pay-off, clear the debt, and go." So Daniel resigned - but he was given a lower pay-off than his contract suggested. The debt remained. As soon as you quit your job in Dubai, your employer has to inform your bank. If you have any outstanding debts that aren't covered by your savings, then all your accounts are frozen, and you are forbidden to leave the country.

"Suddenly our cards stopped working. We had nothing. We were thrown out of our apartment." Karen can't speak about what happened next for a long time; she is shaking.

Daniel was arrested and taken away on the day of their eviction. It was six days before she could talk to him. "He told me he was put in a cell with another debtor, a Sri Lankan guy who was only 27, who said he couldn't face the shame to his family. Daniel woke up and the boy had swallowed razor-blades. He banged for help, but nobody came, and the boy died in front of him."

Karen managed to beg from her friends for a few weeks, "but it was so humiliating. I've never lived like this. I worked in the fashion industry. I had my own shops. I've never..." She peters out.

Daniel was sentenced to six months' imprisonment at a trial he couldn't understand. It was in Arabic, and there was no translation. "Now I'm here illegally, too," Karen says I've got no money, nothing. I have to last nine months until he's out, somehow." Looking away, almost paralysed with embarrassment, she asks if I could buy her a meal.

She is not alone. All over the city, there are maxed-out expats sleeping secretly in the sand-dunes or the airport or in their cars.

"The thing you have to understand about Dubai is - nothing is what it seems," Karen says at last. "Nothing. This isn't a city, it's a con-job. They lure you in telling you it's one thing - a modern kind of place - but beneath the surface it's a medieval dictatorship."

II. Tumbleweed

Thirty years ago, almost all of contemporary Dubai was desert, inhabited only by cactuses and tumbleweed and scorpions. But downtown there are traces of the town that once was, buried amidst the metal and glass. In the dusty fort of the Dubai Museum, a sanitised version of this story is told.

In the mid-18th century, a small village was built here, in the lower Persian Gulf, where people would dive for pearls off the coast. It soon began to accumulate a cosmopolitan population washing up from Persia, the Indian subcontinent, and other Arab countries, all hoping to make their fortune. They named it after a local locust, the daba, who consumed everything before it. The town was soon seized by the gunships of the British Empire, who held it by the throat as late as 1971. As they scuttled away, Dubai decided to ally with the six surrounding states and make up the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The British quit, exhausted, just as oil was being discovered, and the sheikhs who suddenly found themselves in charge faced a remarkable dilemma. They were largely illiterate nomads who spent their lives driving camels through the desert - yet now they had a vast pot of gold. What should they do with it?

Dubai only had a dribble of oil compared to neighbouring Abu Dhabi - so Sheikh Maktoum decided to use the revenues to build something that would last. Israel used to boast it made the desert bloom; Sheikh Maktoum resolved to make the desert boom. He would build a city to be a centre of tourism and financial services, sucking up cash and talent from across the globe. He invited the world to come tax-free - and they came in their millions, swamping the local population, who now make up just 5 per cent of Dubai. A city seemed to fall from the sky in just three decades, whole and complete and swelling. They fast-forwarded from the 18th century to the 21st in a single generation.

If you take the Big Bus Tour of Dubai - the passport to a pre-processed experience of every major city on earth - you are fed the propaganda-vision of how this happened. "Dubai's motto is 'Open doors, open minds'," the tour guide tells you in clipped tones, before depositing you at the souks to buy camel tea-cosies. "Here you are free. To purchase fabrics," he adds. As you pass each new monumental building, he tells you: "The World Trade Centre was built by His Highness..."

But this is a lie. The sheikh did not build this city. It was built by slaves. They are building it now.

III. Hidden in plain view

There are three different Dubais, all swirling around each other. There are the expats, like Karen; there are the Emiratis, headed by Sheikh Mohammed; and then there is the foreign underclass who built the city, and are trapped here. They are hidden in plain view. You see them everywhere, in dirt-caked blue uniforms, being shouted at by their superiors, like a chain gang - but you are trained not to look. It is like a mantra: the Sheikh built the city. The Sheikh built the city. Workers? What workers?

Every evening, the hundreds of thousands of young men who build Dubai are bussed from their sites to a vast concrete wasteland an hour out of town, where they are quarantined away. Until a few years ago they were shuttled back and forth on cattle trucks, but the expats complained this was unsightly, so now they are shunted on small metal buses that function like greenhouses in the desert heat. They sweat like sponges being slowly wrung out.

Sonapur is a rubble-strewn patchwork of miles and miles of identical concrete buildings. Some 300,000 men live piled up here, in a place whose name in Hindi means "City of Gold". In the first camp I stop at - riven with the smell of sewage and sweat - the men huddle around, eager to tell someone, anyone, what is happening to them.

Sahinal Monir, a slim 24-year-old from the deltas of Bangladesh. "To get you here, they tell you Dubai is heaven. Then you get here and realise it is hell," he says. Four years ago, an employment agent arrived in Sahinal's village in Southern Bangladesh. He told the men of the village that there was a place where they could earn 40,000 takka a month (£400) just for working nine-to-five on construction projects. It was a place where they would be given great accommodation, great food, and treated well. All they had to do was pay an up-front fee of 220,000 takka (£2,300) for the work visa - a fee they'd pay off in the first six months, easy. So Sahinal sold his family land, and took out a loan from the local lender, to head to this paradise.

As soon as he arrived at Dubai airport, his passport was taken from him by his construction company. He has not seen it since. He was told brusquely that from now on he would be working 14-hour days in the desert heat - where western tourists are advised not to stay outside for even five minutes in summer, when it hits 55 degrees - for 500 dirhams a month (£90), less than a quarter of the wage he was promised. If you don't like it, the company told him, go home. "But how can I go home? You have my passport, and I have no money for the ticket," he said. "Well, then you'd better get to work," they replied.

Sahinal was in a panic. His family back home - his son, daughter, wife and parents - were waiting for money, excited that their boy had finally made it. But he was going to have to work for more than two years just to pay for the cost of getting here - and all to earn less than he did in Bangladesh.

He shows me his room. It is a tiny, poky, concrete cell with triple-decker bunk-beds, where he lives with 11 other men. All his belongings are piled onto his bunk: three shirts, a spare pair of trousers, and a cellphone. The room stinks, because the lavatories in the corner of the camp - holes in the ground - are backed up with excrement and clouds of black flies. There is no air conditioning or fans, so the heat is "unbearable. You cannot sleep. All you do is sweat and scratch all night." At the height of summer, people sleep on the floor, on the roof, anywhere where they can pray for a moment of breeze.

The water delivered to the camp in huge white containers isn't properly desalinated: it tastes of salt. "It makes us sick, but we have nothing else to drink," he says.

The work is "the worst in the world," he says. "You have to carry 50kg bricks and blocks of cement in the worst heat imaginable ... This heat - it is like nothing else. You sweat so much you can't pee, not for days or weeks. It's like all the liquid comes out through your skin and you stink. You become dizzy and sick but you aren't allowed to stop, except for an hour in the afternoon. You know if you drop anything or slip, you could die. If you take time off sick, your wages are docked, and you are trapped here even longer."

He is currently working on the 67th floor of a shiny new tower, where he builds upwards, into the sky, into the heat. He doesn't know its name. In his four years here, he has never seen the Dubai of tourist-fame, except as he constructs it floor-by-floor.

Is he angry? He is quiet for a long time. "Here, nobody shows their anger. You can't. You get put in jail for a long time, then deported." Last year, some workers went on strike after they were not given their wages for four months. The Dubai police surrounded their camps with razor-wire and water-cannons and blasted them out and back to work.

The "ringleaders" were imprisoned. I try a different question: does Sohinal regret coming? All the men look down, awkwardly. "How can we think about that? We are trapped. If we start to think about regrets..." He lets the sentence trail off. Eventually, another worker breaks the silence by adding: "I miss my country, my family and my land. We can grow food in Bangladesh. Here, nothing grows. Just oil and buildings."

Since the recession hit, they say, the electricity has been cut off in dozens of the camps, and the men have not been paid for months. Their companies have disappeared with their passports and their pay. "We have been robbed of everything. Even if somehow we get back to Bangladesh, the loan sharks will demand we repay our loans immediately, and when we can't, we'll be sent to prison."

This is all supposed to be illegal. Employers are meant to pay on time, never take your passport, give you breaks in the heat - but I met nobody who said it happens. Not one. These men are conned into coming and trapped into staying, with the complicity of the Dubai authorities.

Sahinal could well die out here. A British man who used to work on construction projects told me: "There's a huge number of suicides in the camps and on the construction sites, but they're not reported. They're described as 'accidents'." Even then, their families aren't free: they simply inherit the debts. A Human Rights Watch study found there is a "cover-up of the true extent" of deaths from heat exhaustion, overwork and suicide, but the Indian consulate registered 971 deaths of their nationals in 2005 alone. After this figure was leaked, the consulates were told to stop counting.

At night, in the dusk, I sit in the camp with Sohinal and his friends as they scrape together what they have left to buy a cheap bottle of spirits. They down it in one ferocious gulp. "It helps you to feel numb", Sohinal says through a stinging throat. In the distance, the glistening Dubai skyline he built stands, oblivious.

IV. Mauled by the mall

I find myself stumbling in a daze from the camps into the sprawling marble malls that seem to stand on every street in Dubai. It is so hot there is no point building pavements; people gather in these cathedrals of consumerism to bask in the air conditioning. So within a ten minute taxi-ride, I have left Sohinal and I am standing in the middle of Harvey Nichols, being shown a £20,000 taffeta dress by a bored salesgirl. "As you can see, it is cut on the bias..." she says, and I stop writing.

Time doesn't seem to pass in the malls. Days blur with the same electric light, the same shined floors, the same brands I know from home. Here, Dubai is reduced to its component sounds: do-buy. In the most expensive malls I am almost alone, the shops empty and echoing. On the record, everybody tells me business is going fine. Off the record, they look panicky. There is a hat exhibition ahead of the Dubai races, selling elaborate headgear for £1,000 a pop. "Last year, we were packed. Now look," a hat designer tells me. She swoops her arm over a vacant space.

I approach a blonde 17-year-old Dutch girl wandering around in hotpants, oblivious to the swarms of men gaping at her. "I love it here!" she says. "The heat, the malls, the beach!" Does it ever bother you that it's a slave society? She puts her head down, just as Sohinal did. "I try not to see," she says. Even at 17, she has learned not to look, and not to ask; that, she senses, is a transgression too far.

Between the malls, there is nothing but the connecting tissue of asphalt. Every road has at least four lanes; Dubai feels like a motorway punctuated by shopping centres. You only walk anywhere if you are suicidal. The residents of Dubai flit from mall to mall by car or taxis.

How does it feel if this is your country, filled with foreigners? Unlike the expats and the slave class, I can't just approach the native Emiratis to ask questions when I see them wandering around - the men in cool white robes, the women in sweltering black. If you try, the women blank you, and the men look affronted, and tell you brusquely that Dubai is "fine". So I browse through the Emirati blog-scene and found some typical-sounding young Emiratis. We meet - where else? - in the mall.

Ahmed al-Atar is a handsome 23-year-old with a neat, trimmed beard, tailored white robes, and rectangular wire-glasses. He speaks perfect American-English, and quickly shows that he knows London, Los Angeles and Paris better than most westerners. Sitting back in his chair in an identikit Starbucks, he announces: "This is the best place in the world to be young! The government pays for your education up to PhD level. You get given a free house when you get married. You get free healthcare, and if it's not good enough here, they pay for you to go abroad. You don't even have to pay for your phone calls. Almost everyone has a maid, a nanny, and a driver. And we never pay any taxes. Don't you wish you were Emirati?"

I try to raise potential objections to this Panglossian summary, but he leans forward and says: "Look - my grandfather woke up every day and he would have to fight to get to the well first to get water. When the wells ran dry, they had to have water delivered by camel. They were always hungry and thirsty and desperate for jobs. He limped all his life, because he there was no medical treatment available when he broke his leg. Now look at us!"

For Emiratis, this is a Santa Claus state, handing out goodies while it makes its money elsewhere: through renting out land to foreigners, soft taxes on them like business and airport charges, and the remaining dribble of oil. Most Emiratis, like Ahmed, work for the government, so they're cushioned from the credit crunch. "I haven't felt any effect at all, and nor have my friends," he says. "Your employment is secure. You will only be fired if you do something incredibly bad." The laws are currently being tightened, to make it even more impossible to sack an Emirati.

Sure, the flooding-in of expats can sometimes be "an eyesore", Ahmed says. "But we see the expats as the price we had to pay for this development. How else could we do it? Nobody wants to go back to the days of the desert, the days before everyone came. We went from being like an African country to having an average income per head of $120,000 a year. And we're supposed to complain?"

He says the lack of political freedom is fine by him. "You'll find it very hard to find an Emirati who doesn't support Sheikh Mohammed." Because they're scared? "No, because we really all support him. He's a great leader. Just look!" He smiles and says: "I'm sure my life is very much like yours. We hang out, have a coffee, go to the movies. You'll be in a Pizza Hut or Nando's in London, and at the same time I'll be in one in Dubai," he says, ordering another latte.

But do all young Emiratis see it this way? Can it really be so sunny in the political sands? In the sleek Emirates Tower Hotel, I meet Sultan al-Qassemi. He's a 31-year-old Emirati columnist for the Dubai press and private art collector, with a reputation for being a contrarian liberal, advocating gradual reform. He is wearing Western clothes - blue jeans and a Ralph Lauren shirt - and speaks incredibly fast, turning himself into a manic whirr of arguments.

"People here are turning into lazy, overweight babies!" he exclaims. "The nanny state has gone too far. We don't do anything for ourselves! Why don't any of us work for the private sector? Why can't a mother and father look after their own child?" And yet, when I try to bring up the system of slavery that built Dubai, he looks angry. "People should give us credit," he insists. "We are the most tolerant people in the world. Dubai is the only truly international city in the world. Everyone who comes here is treated with respect."

I pause, and think of the vast camps in Sonapur, just a few miles away. Does he even know they exist? He looks irritated. "You know, if there are 30 or 40 cases [of worker abuse] a year, that sounds like a lot but when you think about how many people are here..." Thirty or 40? This abuse is endemic to the system, I say. We're talking about hundreds of thousands.

Sultan is furious. He splutters: "You don't think Mexicans are treated badly in New York City? And how long did it take Britain to treat people well? I could come to London and write about the homeless people on Oxford Street and make your city sound like a terrible place, too! The workers here can leave any time they want! Any Indian can leave, any Asian can leave!"

But they can't, I point out. Their passports are taken away, and their wages are withheld. "Well, I feel bad if that happens, and anybody who does that should be punished. But their embassies should help them." They try. But why do you forbid the workers - with force - from going on strike against lousy employers? "Thank God we don't allow that!" he exclaims. "Strikes are in-convenient! They go on the street - we're not having that. We won't be like France. Imagine a country where they the workers can just stop whenever they want!" So what should the workers do when they are cheated and lied to? "Quit. Leave the country."

I sigh. Sultan is seething now. "People in the West are always complaining about us," he says. Suddenly, he adopts a mock-whiny voice and says, in imitation of these disgusting critics: "Why don't you treat animals better? Why don't you have better shampoo advertising? Why don't you treat labourers better?" It's a revealing order: animals, shampoo, then workers. He becomes more heated, shifting in his seat, jabbing his finger at me. "I gave workers who worked for me safety goggles and special boots, and they didn't want to wear them! It slows them down!"

And then he smiles, coming up with what he sees as his killer argument. "When I see Western journalists criticise us - don't you realise you're shooting yourself in the foot? The Middle East will be far more dangerous if Dubai fails. Our export isn't oil, it's hope. Poor Egyptians or Libyans or Iranians grow up saying - I want to go to Dubai. We're very important to the region. We are showing how to be a modern Muslim country. We don't have any fundamentalists here. Europeans shouldn't gloat at our demise. You should be very worried.... Do you know what will happen if this model fails? Dubai will go down the Iranian path, the Islamist path."

Sultan sits back. My arguments have clearly disturbed him; he says in a softer, conciliatory tone, almost pleading: "Listen. My mother used to go to the well and get a bucket of water every morning. On her wedding day, she was given an orange as a gift because she had never eaten one. Two of my brothers died when they were babies because the healthcare system hadn't developed yet. Don't judge us." He says it again, his eyes filled with intensity: "Don't judge us."

V. The Dunkin' Donuts Dissidents

But there is another face to the Emirati minority - a small huddle of dissidents, trying to shake the Sheikhs out of abusive laws. Next to a Virgin Megastore and a Dunkin' Donuts, with James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" blaring behind me, I meet the Dubai dictatorship's Public Enemy Number One. By way of introduction, Mohammed al-Mansoori says from within his white robes and sinewy face: "Westerners come her and see the malls and the tall buildings and they think that means we are free. But these businesses, these buildings - who are they for? This is a dictatorship. The royal family think they own the country, and the people are their servants. There is no freedom here."

We snuffle out the only Arabic restaurant in this mall, and he says everything you are banned - under threat of prison - from saying in Dubai. Mohammed tells me he was born in Dubai to a fisherman father who taught him one enduring lesson: Never follow the herd. Think for yourself. In the sudden surge of development, Mohammed trained as a lawyer. By the Noughties, he had climbed to the head of the Jurists' Association, an organisation set up to press for Dubai's laws to be consistent with international human rights legislation.

And then - suddenly - Mohammed thwacked into the limits of Sheikh Mohammed's tolerance. Horrified by the "system of slavery" his country was being built on, he spoke out to Human Rights Watch and the BBC. "So I was hauled in by the secret police and told: shut up, or you will lose you job, and your children will be unemployable," he says. "But how could I be silent?"

He was stripped of his lawyer's licence and his passport - becoming yet another person imprisoned in this country. "I have been blacklisted and so have my children. The newspapers are not allowed to write about me."

Why is the state so keen to defend this system of slavery? He offers a prosaic explanation. "Most companies are owned by the government, so they oppose human rights laws because it will reduce their profit margins. It's in their interests that the workers are slaves."

Last time there was a depression, there was a starbust of democracy in Dubai, seized by force from the sheikhs. In the 1930s, the city's merchants banded together against Sheikh Said bin Maktum al-Maktum - the absolute ruler of his day - and insisted they be given control over the state finances. It lasted only a few years, before the Sheikh - with the enthusiastic support of the British - snuffed them out.

And today? Sheikh Mohammed turned Dubai into Creditopolis, a city built entirely on debt. Dubai owes 107 percent of its entire GDP. It would be bust already, if the neighbouring oil-soaked state of Abu Dhabi hadn't pulled out its chequebook. Mohammed says this will constrict freedom even further. "Now Abu Dhabi calls the tunes - and they are much more conservative and restrictive than even Dubai. Freedom here will diminish every day." Already, new media laws have been drafted forbidding the press to report on anything that could "damage" Dubai or "its economy". Is this why the newspapers are giving away glossy supplements talking about "encouraging economic indicators"?

Everybody here waves Islamism as the threat somewhere over the horizon, sure to swell if their advice is not followed. Today, every imam is appointed by the government, and every sermon is tightly controlled to keep it moderate. But Mohammed says anxiously: "We don't have Islamism here now, but I think that if you control people and give them no way to express anger, it could rise. People who are told to shut up all the time can just explode."

Later that day, against another identikit-corporate backdrop, I meet another dissident - Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, Professor of Political Science at Emirates University. His anger focuses not on political reform, but the erosion of Emirati identity. He is famous among the locals, a rare outspoken conductor for their anger. He says somberly: "There has been a rupture here. This is a totally different city to the one I was born in 50 years ago."

He looks around at the shiny floors and Western tourists and says: "What we see now didn't occur in our wildest dreams. We never thought we could be such a success, a trendsetter, a model for other Arab countries. The people of Dubai are mighty proud of their city, and rightly so. And yet..." He shakes his head. "In our hearts, we fear we have built a modern city but we are losing it to all these expats."

Adbulkhaleq says every Emirati of his generation lives with a "psychological trauma." Their hearts are divided - "between pride on one side, and fear on the other." Just after he says this, a smiling waitress approaches, and asks us what we would like to drink. He orders a Coke.



VII. The Lifestyle

All the guidebooks call Dubai a "melting pot", but as I trawl across the city, I find that every group here huddles together in its own little ethnic enclave - and becomes a caricature of itself. One night - in the heart of this homesick city, tired of the malls and the camps - I go to Double Decker, a hang-out for British expats. At the entrance there is a red telephone box, and London bus-stop signs. Its wooden interior looks like a cross between a colonial clubhouse in the Raj and an Eighties school disco, with blinking coloured lights and cheese blaring out. As I enter, a girl in a short skirt collapses out of the door onto her back. A guy wearing a pirate hat helps her to her feet, dropping his beer bottle with a paralytic laugh.

I start to talk to two sun-dried women in their sixties who have been getting gently sozzled since midday. "You stay here for The Lifestyle," they say, telling me to take a seat and order some more drinks. All the expats talk about The Lifestyle, but when you ask what it is, they become vague. Ann Wark tries to summarise it: "Here, you go out every night. You'd never do that back home. You see people all the time. It's great. You have lots of free time. You have maids and staff so you don't have to do all that stuff. You party!"

They have been in Dubai for 20 years, and they are happy to explain how the city works. "You've got a hierarchy, haven't you?" Ann says. "It's the Emiratis at the top, then I'd say the British and other Westerners. Then I suppose it's the Filipinos, because they've got a bit more brains than the Indians. Then at the bottom you've got the Indians and all them lot."

They admit, however, they have "never" spoken to an Emirati. Never? "No. They keep themselves to themselves." Yet Dubai has disappointed them. Jules Taylor tells me: "If you have an accident here it's a nightmare. There was a British woman we knew who ran over an Indian guy, and she was locked up for four days! If you have a tiny bit of alcohol on your breath they're all over you. These Indians throw themselves in front of cars, because then their family has to be given blood money - you know, compensation. But the police just blame us. That poor woman."

A 24-year-old British woman called Hannah Gamble takes a break from the dancefloor to talk to me. "I love the sun and the beach! It's great out here!" she says. Is there anything bad? "Oh yes!" she says. Ah: one of them has noticed, I think with relief. "The banks! When you want to make a transfer you have to fax them. You can't do it online." Anything else? She thinks hard. "The traffic's not very good."

When I ask the British expats how they feel to not be in a democracy, their reaction is always the same. First, they look bemused. Then they look affronted. "It's the Arab way!" an Essex boy shouts at me in response, as he tries to put a pair of comedy antlers on his head while pouring some beer into the mouth of his friend, who is lying on his back on the floor, gurning.

Later, in a hotel bar, I start chatting to a dyspeptic expat American who works in the cosmetics industry and is desperate to get away from these people. She says: "All the people who couldn't succeed in their own countries end up here, and suddenly they're rich and promoted way above their abilities and bragging about how great they are. I've never met so many incompetent people in such senior positions anywhere in the world." She adds: "It's absolutely racist. I had Filipino girls working for me doing the same job as a European girl, and she's paid a quarter of the wages. The people who do the real work are paid next to nothing, while these incompetent managers pay themselves £40,000 a month."

With the exception of her, one theme unites every expat I speak to: their joy at having staff to do the work that would clog their lives up Back Home. Everyone, it seems, has a maid. The maids used to be predominantly Filipino, but with the recession, Filipinos have been judged to be too expensive, so a nice Ethiopian servant girl is the latest fashionable accessory.

It is an open secret that once you hire a maid, you have absolute power over her. You take her passport - everyone does; you decide when to pay her, and when - if ever - she can take a break; and you decide who she talks to. She speaks no Arabic. She cannot escape.

In a Burger King, a Filipino girl tells me it is "terrifying" for her to wander the malls in Dubai because Filipino maids or nannies always sneak away from the family they are with and beg her for help. "They say - 'Please, I am being held prisoner, they don't let me call home, they make me work every waking hour seven days a week.' At first I would say - my God, I will tell the consulate, where are you staying? But they never know their address, and the consulate isn't interested. I avoid them now. I keep thinking about a woman who told me she hadn't eaten any fruit in four years. They think I have power because I can walk around on my own, but I'm powerless."

The only hostel for women in Dubai - a filthy private villa on the brink of being repossessed - is filled with escaped maids. Mela Matari, a 25-year-old Ethiopian woman with a drooping smile, tells me what happened to her - and thousands like her. She was promised a paradise in the sands by an agency, so she left her four year-old daughter at home and headed here to earn money for a better future. "But they paid me half what they promised. I was put with an Australian family - four children - and Madam made me work from 6am to 1am every day, with no day off. I was exhausted and pleaded for a break, but they just shouted: 'You came here to work, not sleep!' Then one day I just couldn't go on, and Madam beat me. She beat me with her fists and kicked me. My ear still hurts. They wouldn't give me my wages: they said they'd pay me at the end of the two years. What could I do? I didn't know anybody here. I was terrified."

One day, after yet another beating, Mela ran out onto the streets, and asked - in broken English - how to find the Ethiopian consulate. After walking for two days, she found it, but they told her she had to get her passport back from Madam. "Well, how could I?" she asks. She has been in this hostel for six months. She has spoken to her daughter twice. "I lost my country, I lost my daughter, I lost everything," she says.

As she says this, I remember a stray sentence I heard back at Double Decker. I asked a British woman called Hermione Frayling what the best thing about Dubai was. "Oh, the servant class!" she trilled. "You do nothing. They'll do anything!"

VIII. The End of The World

The World is empty. It has been abandoned, its continents unfinished. Through binoculars, I think I can glimpse Britain; this sceptred isle barren in the salt-breeze.

Here, off the coast of Dubai, developers have been rebuilding the world. They have constructed artificial islands in the shape of all planet Earth's land masses, and they plan to sell each continent off to be built on. There were rumours that the Beckhams would bid for Britain. But the people who work at the nearby coast say they haven't seen anybody there for months now. "The World is over," a South African suggests.

All over Dubai, crazy projects that were Under Construction are now Under Collapse. They were building an air-conditioned beach here, with cooling pipes running below the sand, so the super-rich didn't singe their toes on their way from towel to sea.

The projects completed just before the global economy crashed look empty and tattered. The Atlantis Hotel was launched last winter in a $20m fin-de-siecle party attended by Robert De Niro, Lindsay Lohan and Lily Allen. Sitting on its own fake island - shaped, of course, like a palm tree - it looks like an immense upturned tooth in a faintly decaying mouth. It is pink and turreted - the architecture of the pharaohs, as reimagined by Zsa-Zsa Gabor. Its Grand Lobby is a monumental dome covered in glitterballs, held up by eight monumental concrete palm trees. Standing in the middle, there is a giant shining glass structure that looks like the intestines of every guest who has ever stayed at the Atlantis. It is unexpectedly raining; water is leaking from the roof, and tiles are falling off.

A South African PR girl shows me around its most coveted rooms, explaining that this is "the greatest luxury offered in the world". We stroll past shops selling £24m diamond rings around a hotel themed on the lost and sunken continent of, yes, Atlantis. There are huge water tanks filled with sharks, which poke around mock-abandoned castles and dumped submarines. There are more than 1,500 rooms here, each with a sea view. The Neptune suite has three floors, and - I gasp as I see it - it looks out directly on to the vast shark tank. You lie on the bed, and the sharks stare in at you. In Dubai, you can sleep with the fishes, and survive.

But even the luxury - reminiscent of a Bond villain's lair - is also being abandoned. I check myself in for a few nights to the classiest hotel in town, the Park Hyatt. It is the fashionistas' favourite hotel, where Elle Macpherson and Tommy Hilfiger stay, a gorgeous, understated palace. It feels empty. Whenever I eat, I am one of the only people in the restaurant. A staff member tells me in a whisper: "It used to be full here. Now there's hardly anyone." Rattling around, I feel like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, the last man in an abandoned, haunted home.

The most famous hotel in Dubai - the proud icon of the city - is the Burj al Arab hotel, sitting on the shore, shaped like a giant glass sailing boat. In the lobby, I start chatting to a couple from London who work in the City. They have been coming to Dubai for 10 years now, and they say they love it. "You never know what you'll find here," he says. "On our last trip, at the beginning of the holiday, our window looked out on the sea. By the end, they'd built an entire island there."

My patience frayed by all this excess, I find myself snapping: doesn't the omnipresent slave class bother you? I hope they misunderstood me, because the woman replied: "That's what we come for! It's great, you can't do anything for yourself!" Her husband chimes in: "When you go to the toilet, they open the door, they turn on the tap - the only thing they don't do is take it out for you when you have a piss!" And they both fall about laughing.

IX. Taking on the Desert

Dubai is not just a city living beyond its financial means; it is living beyond its ecological means. You stand on a manicured Dubai lawn and watch the sprinklers spray water all around you. You see tourists flocking to swim with dolphins. You wander into a mountain-sized freezer where they have built a ski slope with real snow. And a voice at the back of your head squeaks: this is the desert. This is the most water-stressed place on the planet. How can this be happening? How is it possible?

The very earth is trying to repel Dubai, to dry it up and blow it away. The new Tiger Woods Gold Course needs four million gallons of water to be pumped on to its grounds every day, or it would simply shrivel and disappear on the winds. The city is regularly washed over with dust-storms that fog up the skies and turn the skyline into a blur. When the dust parts, heat burns through. It cooks anything that is not kept constantly, artificially wet.

Dr Mohammed Raouf, the environmental director of the Gulf Research Centre, sounds sombre as he sits in his Dubai office and warns: "This is a desert area, and we are trying to defy its environment. It is very unwise. If you take on the desert, you will lose."

Sheikh Maktoum built his showcase city in a place with no useable water. None. There is no surface water, very little acquifer, and among the lowest rainfall in the world. So Dubai drinks the sea. The Emirates' water is stripped of salt in vast desalination plants around the Gulf - making it the most expensive water on earth. It costs more than petrol to produce, and belches vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as it goes. It's the main reason why a resident of Dubai has the biggest average carbon footprint of any human being - more than double that of an American.

If a recession turns into depression, Dr Raouf believes Dubai could run out of water. "At the moment, we have financial reserves that cover bringing so much water to the middle of the desert. But if we had lower revenues - if, say, the world shifts to a source of energy other than oil..." he shakes his head. "We will have a very big problem. Water is the main source of life. It would be a catastrophe. Dubai only has enough water to last us a week. There's almost no storage. We don't know what will happen if our supplies falter. It would be hard to survive."

Global warming, he adds, makes the problem even worse. "We are building all these artificial islands, but if the sea level rises, they will be gone, and we will lose a lot. Developers keep saying it's all fine, they've taken it into consideration, but I'm not so sure."

Is the Dubai government concerned about any of this? "There isn't much interest in these problems," he says sadly. But just to stand still, the average resident of Dubai needs three times more water than the average human. In the looming century of water stresses and a transition away from fossil fuels, Dubai is uniquely vulnerable.

I wanted to understand how the government of Dubai will react, so I decided to look at how it has dealt with an environmental problem that already exists - the pollution of its beaches. One woman - an American, working at one of the big hotels - had written in a lot of online forums arguing that it was bad and getting worse, so I called her to arrange a meeting. "I can't talk to you," she said sternly. Not even if it's off the record? "I can't talk to you." But I don't have to disclose your name... "You're not listening. This phone is bugged. I can't talk to you," she snapped, and hung up.

The next day I turned up at her office. "If you reveal my identity, I'll be sent on the first plane out of this city," she said, before beginning to nervously pace the shore with me. "It started like this. We began to get complaints from people using the beach. The water looked and smelled odd, and they were starting to get sick after going into it. So I wrote to the ministers of health and tourism and expected to hear back immediately - but there was nothing. Silence. I hand-delivered the letters. Still nothing."

The water quality got worse and worse. The guests started to spot raw sewage, condoms, and used sanitary towels floating in the sea. So the hotel ordered its own water analyses from a professional company. "They told us it was full of fecal matter and bacteria 'too numerous to count'. I had to start telling guests not to go in the water, and since they'd come on a beach holiday, as you can imagine, they were pretty pissed off." She began to make angry posts on the expat discussion forums - and people began to figure out what was happening. Dubai had expanded so fast its sewage treatment facilities couldn't keep up. The sewage disposal trucks had to queue for three or four days at the treatment plants - so instead, they were simply drilling open the manholes and dumping the untreated sewage down them, so it flowed straight to the sea.

Suddenly, it was an open secret - and the municipal authorities finally acknowledged the problem. They said they would fine the truckers. But the water quality didn't improve: it became black and stank. "It's got chemicals in it. I don't know what they are. But this stuff is toxic."

She continued to complain - and started to receive anonymous phone calls. "Stop embarassing Dubai, or your visa will be cancelled and you're out," they said. She says: "The expats are terrified to talk about anything. One critical comment in the newspapers and they deport you. So what am I supposed to do? Now the water is worse than ever. People are getting really sick. Eye infections, ear infections, stomach infections, rashes. Look at it!" There is faeces floating on the beach, in the shadow of one of Dubai's most famous hotels.

"What I learnt about Dubai is that the authorities don't give a toss about the environment," she says, standing in the stench. "They're pumping toxins into the sea, their main tourist attraction, for God's sake. If there are environmental problems in the future, I can tell you now how they will deal with them - deny it's happening, cover it up, and carry on until it's a total disaster." As she speaks, a dust-storm blows around us, as the desert tries, slowly, insistently, to take back its land.

X. Fake Plastic Trees

On my final night in the Dubai Disneyland, I stop off on my way to the airport, at a Pizza Hut that sits at the side of one of the city's endless, wide, gaping roads. It is identical to the one near my apartment in London in every respect, even the vomit-coloured decor. My mind is whirring and distracted. Perhaps Dubai disturbed me so much, I am thinking, because here, the entire global supply chain is condensed. Many of my goods are made by semi-enslaved populations desperate for a chance 2,000 miles away; is the only difference that here, they are merely two miles away, and you sometimes get to glimpse their faces? Dubai is Market Fundamentalist Globalisation in One City.

I ask the Filipino girl behind the counter if she likes it here. "It's OK," she says cautiously. Really? I say. I can't stand it. She sighs with relief and says: "This is the most terrible place! I hate it! I was here for months before I realised - everything in Dubai is fake. Everything you see. The trees are fake, the workers' contracts are fake, the islands are fake, the smiles are fake - even the water is fake!" But she is trapped, she says. She got into debt to come here, and she is stuck for three years: an old story now. "I think Dubai is like an oasis. It is an illusion, not real. You think you have seen water in the distance, but you get close and you only get a mouthful of sand."

As she says this, another customer enters. She forces her face into the broad, empty Dubai smile and says: "And how may I help you tonight, sir?"

Some names in this article have been changed.

Found on: http://1root.blogspot.com/2009/04/dark-side-of-dubai.html