This and That....

For those of you who are interested in news from this part of the world, there's another article about Freej, the UAE's first animated series. There's also another article about the new Warner Bros. theme park and hotel deal. For us the only positive thing about this is the last sentence in the article. Apparently the UAE has the world's highest saturation rate of cell phones or mobiles (as they're called here). There are about 7 million subscriptions and the country's population is approximately 4.4 million. We've never calculated the price of gasoline here but this article says that it's $1.56 USD a gallon (3.78 litres). That's more than I thought! Staying on the topic of money, the Canadian dollar (loonie) traded above the U.S. dollar for the first time since 1974. The loonie has risen 17% this year against the U.S. dollar which is the most of any nation in the world.

The next article talks about the Global Talent Index ranking countries Middle East low in attracting and producing talented workers. Yet another survey, this time by Transparency International, ranked Middle Eastern nations low on weeding corruption. The UAE is tied for 34th out of 179 nations. Not surprising to see Scandinavian countries dominating the top. Canada placed a strong 9th place.

On a more sombre note, there is an excellent op ed piece about Iran's President Ahmandinejad's visit to Columbia University.