NEWS FROM THE UAE
SOURCE : THE NATIONAL
Arrest after body dumped in desert
AL AIN - JUNE 08: A man has been arrested after an Indian businessman’s body was found in the desert near Al Ain International Airport, his family said yesterday.
Parappurath Moidu vanished on Sunday May 31, a day before his 60th birthday. The mutilated body of the married father-of-four was found on Thursday morning. Relatives said the discovery had followed the arrest. Police refused to give any details about the case, or even confirm the arrest.
The cause of death has yet to be confirmed, but family members said there were multiple wounds to the front and back of his head.
Mr Moidu, from the Malappuram district of Kerala, moved to the UAE 38 years ago and ran two restaurants and two grocery stores in Al Ain with his brothers Hamza and Hydros Haji.
Hydros Haji said he had been told by Mr Moidu’s staff that his brother had been expecting a visitor, with whom he was in talks to open a new canteen for labourers. Relatives said a man from Kerala had been looking for Mr Moidu on the evening of May 31 and the two had been seen getting into a car.
A close friend of the family, Kaludi Moideenkutty, 52, said: “We are all very shocked and sad.
“He went missing on Sunday. It was about nine at night, after prayers. He was working in one of the shops and it was very busy.
“Somebody came inside and said he wanted to talk to him. He was waiting in a car outside.
“The man in the car said he wanted to talk about a new contract.”
Naresh Suri, the president of Al Ain India Social Centre, said the man had been attempting to negotiate a deal to provide meals to labourers.
He said Mr Moidu had got into the car with the visitor.
“That was the last time anyone saw him alive. His phone was switched off and no one could get in touch with him.”
Mr Moideenkutty added: “The family were very worried and went to the hospitals to see if he had been admitted. Then they went to the police to tell them he was missing.
“We did not hear anything for some days and then the police found his body out in the desert, close to Al Ain airport.”
Yesterday afternoon family and friends gathered in Al Ain to help with the repatriation of Mr Moidu’s body. His wife and children were all in India at the time of his death.
Salim Babu, a friend of Mr Moidu, said: “He never hurt anyone, he was almost in semi-retirement, spending time here as much as in India.
“At any given time, he carried Dh5,000 [US$1,400] with him and we think that the killer may have struck him for the money.”
Referring to Mr Moidu’s relationship with the suspect, he said: “We don’t know if he knew him or not.
“No one had seen him before. He was most certainly not a customer at any of his canteens.”
Goodbye smells and scavengers
Men use a new rubbish bin located off Airport Road at Zayed the First Street. Ryan Carter / The National
ABU DHABI - JUNE 08: Smelly, overflowing rubbish bins blighted by scavengers will soon be disappearing in some parts of Abu Dhabi.
High-tech underground waste systems will eliminate the need for large rubbish bins in some of the most densely populated areas of the capital.
By the end of this week, homeowners in parts of Khalidiya will be able to drop their rubbish into shiny boxes instead of the old bins. The waste falls into machines underground that compact it.
The Centre of Waste Management – Abu Dhabi said each machine could hold 20 cubic metres of waste. “Each one of the new bins has storage capacity equivalent to that of 40 of the old rubbish skips,” said Majid al Mansouri, the centre’s managing director.
The new system is expected to reduce the number of skips and the problems of odour, litter and scavengers such as rats and cats, while cutting the number of journeys made by collection lorries.
Another 12 systems will be fitted by the end of June and more than 100 will be installed throughout the city by 2010.
The underground containers have sensors that send alerts to a central database when they are full. They can then be lifted out of the ground and emptied into collection lorries.
Because the waste is compacted, rubbish collection lorries will eventually make fewer trips around the city.
At present waste is collected three times daily. Once the new system is implemented, only one trip every two days will be necessary.
“This is not new technology,” said Mr al Mansouri, explaining that the system has been successfully used in Spain, Portugal, France and the UK.
The waste management centre has introduced some improvements to the system, including fitting it so that recyclables can be collected separately in future.
The city’s first three bins are expected to be in operation by the end of this week. Altogether 15 of them will be installed as part of the project’s pilot phase, costing Dh14 million (US$3.8m). These should all be in place by the end of June.
From the end of this month, the system will be installed at another 91 densely populated locations throughout the city.
“The centre is working on designing a new collection system for areas with low population density, which will be implemented in future phases,” said Mr al Mansouri.
In the city’s densely populated midtown, a trio of the old-style bins sits near the Garden Coffee Shop. Leizl Gustilo, 28, a cashier there, said any improvement in hygiene and decrease in smells would be welcome.
“It’s a problem because this is a coffee shop. Sometimes there are cockroaches,” she said. “This [the new bins] will be better.”
Initiatives to encourage the recycling of waste are to be introduced later. A sorting plant, which will separate recyclables from household waste, is on the cards, said Mr al Mansouri. He was not able to offer more details about when the new facility will come online.
With the absence of a recycling programme, Abu Dhabi’s waste has been ending up in landfills – wasting valuable resources that could be reused and taking up ever larger stretches of desert. There are more than nine landfills in the emirate, with the biggest, Al Dhafra, serving Abu Dhabi, receiving an estimated minimum of 20,000 tons of waste a day. The facility covers about 16 square kilometres and has been in use for 25 years.
On average, each UAE resident produces around 1.75kg of household waste daily, higher than most European countries. The German average is 1.6kg. However, through recycling and projects that convert solid waste to energy, Germany reduces the amount that goes to landfill by 40 per cent.
Recycling, besides helping to save landfill space and raw materials, often helps to save energy. This is especially the case with materials such as steel and aluminium, which can be recycled hundreds of times without losing quality. Recycling an item made of aluminium saves 90 per cent of the water and 60 per cent of the electricity it takes to make a new one.
Recycling paper can cut energy usage in half, while a ton of recycled glass saves the equivalent of nine gallons of fuel oil.
Public will have input on UAE laws
ABU DHABI - JUNE 08: The public will get the chance to view, comment on and help improve proposed laws before they reach the Federal National Council – in an unprecedented opening of the decision-making process.
A draft law on the Marriage Fund will be the first on which input will be sought from Emirati citizens, as well as those with what the state news agency WAM, the state news agency, described as an interest in the legal development of the UAE, before being discussed by the FNC’s committees.
The FNC Speaker, Abdul Aziz al Ghurair, said the council’s web portal would be used to publicise the draft law.
Adequate time will be allowed so people can learn the proposal and contribute their thoughts, opinions and suggestions on ways to make the law more effective.
The move is designed to create what WAM said was “improved rapport between the FNC and the citizens”.
It follows directives from Sheikh Khalifa, President of the UAE, and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
Fifty lorry drivers fined for worn tyres in just an hour
ABU DHABI - JUNE 08: Traffic police issued more than 50 fines to lorry drivers in just one hour yesterday morning as part of a three-month campaign to cut the number of vehicles with dangerously worn tyres.
Out of around 100 lorries that police stopped in front of Zayed Sports City, 53 were found to have tyre problems and were issued tickets. Most were fined Dh200 (US$54) for having severely cracked or degraded tyre treads and rims. Many of the drivers blamed their employers for not ensuring the safety of the vehicles, but police said the same excuse was typically given by lorry drivers who owned the vehicles in an attempt to avoid the fines. The campaign is deliberately being run during the summer months, when hot roads increase the risk of tyre blow-outs.
So far this year, four people have died and 46 have been injured in more than 25 such accidents in the capital, according to police. Last year there were 264 accidents nationwide linked to degraded tyres or replaced tyres left on the road, resulting in 22 fatalities and 238 injuries.
A time to tread carefully
As part of a road safety campaign, lorries passing Zayed Sports City on Musaffah road will be inspected every day for three months. Ryan Carter / The National
ABU DHABI - JUNE 08:When traffic police motioned for Basheer Ghussein to pull over, the 23-year-old Bangladeshi knew what was coming.
He was one of 100 lorry drivers stopped yesterday morning in front of Zayed Sports City as part of a nationwide tyre safety campaign, and it was the third time he had been checked in seven days. The offence: a set of worn tyres well past their expiry date.
The traffic officer, Abdulaziz Abdullah, paced around the lorry.
“There are cracks in the tyres, the lines are dissolving,” he said, pointing at the offending rubber. “They are all worn out.”
As Mr Abdullah handed the driver his ticket and told him he should change the tyres, Mr Ghussein smiled wryly and said: “When I gave my boss the two previous fines, he kept saying, ‘Tomorrow we will change the tyres’.”
For three months, all lorries passing Zayed Sports City on Musaffah Road between 8am and 9am every day will be stopped and checked. Yesterday alone, police issued lorry drivers with 53 fines in that hour, most for unsafe tyres.
The campaign coincides with the hottest part of the year, when baking asphalt increases the pressure in tyres, making them liable to blow out if they are not in good condition.
As well as the danger posed by out-of-control lorries that have suffered blow-outs, the debris can be a threat to other motorists.
“They are not like the [accidents] caused by normal cars. That’s why we’re focusing on them,” said Raid Abdullah, another traffic officer.
More than 4,200 fines have been issued to motorists with unsafe tyres so far this year.
“Look at this,” said Muhammad al Mazrouei, a traffic officer, after starting to check another lorry. “Even the cover [the outer layer of the tyre] was falling off. This is definitely going to be fined. “This is a usual practice in shops. Instead of having a new tyre, a driver would ask for a cover for the old one to avoid penalties.”
Col Ghaith al Zaabi, the traffic department director at the Ministry of Interior, has in the past urged municipalities to conduct regular checks on stores that sell or fix tyres to ensure they are appropriate to use. He also urged motorists to check tyres before buying them.
However, some drivers insisted the problem lay with their employers.
“This is not my responsibility,” said Muhammad Hussain, a Pakistani driver who works for Al Taj Company. “The company told me it was 100 per cent fit to go. I see there is a problem with them but nothing I can do.
“This other one is a new tyre but it has a small crack, I don’t think this one is a problem.”
When contacted by The National, Al Taj Company could not provide anyone to comment.
However, the officers said that even minor cracks could be dangerous. “They are risky,” said Mr al Mazrouei. “Drivers tend to keep their tyres to the last breath.”
Another concern is the tendency of some drivers to change their back tyres only, and ignore the middle and front set.
“This is also wrong and dangerous,” said Saeed al Kaabi, another traffic officer. “When a nail hits the middle tyres, that could cause a lot of harm.”
He points to a lorry at the checkpoint with new back and front tyres but horribly worn middle tyres. “Do you think this should use the road?”
Mr al Mazrouei added that fining drivers was for their own good. “A tyre that is so old could very well explode, given the hot weather and perhaps heavy luggage and speed.” That, he said, would put the driver in serious danger.
When police pulled over Nassibullah Shah and asked him about the tyres of his car, he said he had asked his supervisor to change the tyres.
“He told me to wait for a couple of days until I get it signed by the general manager,” he said.
“I insisted on him to change them and told him I was not responsible should anything happen because of him.
“They asked me to bring a quotation for a set of tyres. I did and I am still waiting for him to get it signed.”
According to officers, the excuse is a common one. “Drivers suffer from companies,” said Abudulaziz Hamdan Abdullah, another officer.
“A company would tell them: ‘Let it go. The tyres can go longer.’
“But it is the company that would pay the fine and the public that would suffer any consequences.”