Friday 16 July 2010

Dubai Zoo

Nie wiem czy ktoś się przedarł przez lekturę informacji praktycznych dotyczących UAE, ale pisałam tam, że miejscem, które absolutnie nie jest warte zwiedzenia jest dubajskie zoo. Powody są takie, że jest ono strasznie małe, zwierzęta pozamykane są w małych klatkach, jest tam smród i generalnie zrobiło na mnie bardzo złe wrażenie. No i dzisiaj na gulfnews.com jest artukuł jak to aktywiści protestują przed zoo. I bardzo dobrze! Zapraszam do lektury:

Dubai: Zoo's poor conditions were highlighted Thursday by two activists from the international animal rights group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) who marched down Jumeirah Beach Road with chimp masks and in striped convict suits.

Outnumbered by media and police in the midday heat, the tiny rally held at 1pm lasted barely a few minutes as the two protesters marched towards the zoo entrance with placards reading Zoos: Cruel Animal Prisons.

Two other Dubai-resident activists were on hand to distribute flyers. This was Peta's first anti-zoo protest in the Middle East.


Jason Baker, director of Peta for the Asia-Pacific region, and one of the dressed-up activists, said the non-confrontational rally ‘might be pushing the envelope more than usual' in terms of raising awareness on animal right's issues in the Middle East but the group's intention is to educate the public. It is not an act of aggression, said Baker.

Colonel Abdullah Ali Abdullah Al Gaithi, deputy director of protective and security department from Dubai Police called the protest a ‘public nuisance'. With no permission to protest granted, the Peta representatives were asked to leave immediately and put in a taxi.

"Without permission this is not allowed," said Al Gaithi. He added that permission for protests are not issued. "They should not be walking like this down the street with people in their cars watching like a cinema. We are educated. There is no need to stand in the sun here like this," he said.

No comment was available from zoo officials present during the protest, or the Public Parks and Horticulture Department at Dubai Municipality which manages the zoo.

Ashley Fruno, a Peta senior campaigner said permission to protest had been denied by the Municipality. "I think they expected us to be more confrontational than we were. I thought once they saw us, they'd shrug their shoulders and just let us hand out some flyers. We will come back, this won't stop us," she said at a coffee shop after the protest.

Peta's aim is to get Jojo, a chimp, relocated to a sanctuary. The primate spends the day ‘panting miserably', said Baker.

Before the demonstration he told Gulf News, Dubai zoo is "one of the worst I've ever seen. You can smell it from a block away — zoos don't usually smell that bad."

Baker said he had visited the zoo but does not know where the animals come from. "The pens are tiny and the animals have just concrete to live on. Most of the animals belong in temperate climates but here they pant all day in 50 degrees Celsius heat," he said.

Dubai Zoo was established in the late 1960's on a two hectare plot. Eighty per cent of the animals have been rescued from smugglers and placed there by customs.

"We've heard that excuse before," said Baker. "I can't imagine chimps in a worse situation." He added that Peta did not meet with the zoo or Dubai Municipality, nor do they plan to during their brief visit.

"Meeting with zoo supervisors rarely changes anything. They know how bad the conditions are. We don't want the zoo to get bigger land because that would lead to more animals — we just want people to realise zoos are not helping endangered animals."

Cramped conditions

UAE residents, Sangeetha and Sandhya Bhaskaran took part in the Peta protest yesterday to raise public awareness on animal rights, and the need for zoos to provide better care for caged animals.

"It is surprising, that of all the places, Dubai a city that boasts perfection in everything else has such a small and poorly maintained zoo," said Sangeetha, 25, from India.

Sandhya, 21, added that even calling it a zoo is ‘a stretch' because it is so cramped, hot and dirty and that "something needs to be done! The protest was not an act of aggression or an attempt to get the zoo shut down, but simply just to raise public awareness of how the animals are treated there," said Sangeetha. "This must have been misunderstood by officials," she added.

However, Sandhya said after the protest was stopped so quickly by zoo officials and the police, "it could show that they must have something to hide".

Monday 5 July 2010

Prezydent wybrany!

Dziś w Polsce odbyła się druga tura wyborów prezydenckich. Głosy rozkładały się dość równo, ale wygrał Bronisław Komorowski uzyskując ponad 52% głosów.
Ja osobiście bardzo się cieszę z jego wygranej, był to kandydat, na którego głosowałam i myślę, że jest to osoba, która będzie potrafiła reprezentować nasz kraj godnie. Oby jeszcze zrobił porządek wewnątrz kraju :)
Jeśli chodzi o kandydaturę Jarosława Kaczyńskiego, to uważam, że tak wysokie poparcie zyskał ponieważ ogromna ilość ludzi zagłosowała na niego przez współczucie, po niedawnej katastrofie w Smoleńsku. Być może się mylę, ale wskazuje to jak bardzo głupim narodem jesteśmy (mam nadzieję, że nikt się nie poczuje urażony). Nie twierdze, że nie miał dobrego planu na Polskę, ale nie czarujmy się - w ostatnich latach nakreślił bardzo wyraźnie swój wizerunek, którego to fanką się nie stałam.
Mam nadzieję, że dokonałam dziś dobrego wyboru. Czas to zweryfikuje...

Friday 25 June 2010

Happy Muslima - Reaktywacja

Wreszie postanowiłam reaktywować bloga i zapewne dłuższy czas będę pisać sama, ponieważ Majida jest w Dubaju, a ja jestem w Polsce :D Majida nie ma Internetu, a ja mam :) Mam nadzieję, że nie jest to słomiany zapał i blog znowu ożyje.
Jest kilka powodów dlaczego blog na jakiś czas zamarł:
Po pierwsze - miałam mało czasu.
Po drugie - miałam wypadek samochodowy (nie z mojej winy, żeby nie było, że niedawno dostała prawko i jeździć nie umie:P ) i nie miałam głowy przez jakiś czas do pisania bloga.
Po trzecie - przyleciałam do Polski 18 maja a tutaj jest mnóstwo innych rzeczy do zrobienia :D

W każdym razie ostatnie zawirowania i gorsze przeżycia chyba odeszły w dal - mam taką nadzieję inshaallah - tak więc wszystkich zainteresowanych proszę o trzymanie kciuków.

Foteliki samochodowe dla dzieci w Emiratach

No nareszcie! Ktoś się zajął tą sprawą bo już z własnego doświadczenia wiem (niestety), że to ratuje życie naszego dziecka. I czy to w Emiratach czy w Europie, proszę wszystkie matki aby nie zapominały o tym ważnym elemencie w samochodzie!

Abu Dhabi A recent survey to analyse mother's attitudes towards infant passenger safety measures showed that an alarming 82 per cent of postnatal mothers did not have car seats for their newborns.

The Corniche Hospital Infant Passenger Safety Survey (Chipss), consisted of 15 questions that were answered by 800 antenatal and postnatal mothers — focusing on which behavioural stage they were in — in order to educate them on the need for car seats.

"This initiative made us realise that mothers need a new born safety education programme about sudden infant death syndrome (Sid), promoting having newborns sleep on their back instead of their stomach, and to place infants in car seats," Amira Wali, Director of Public Health and Communications at Corniche Hospital, told Gulf News.

The Chipss results have encouraged the hospital to launch a newborn safety centre, where parents would be trained to properly fit and install the car seat, by a qualified child passenger safety educator.

To support this initiative, the National Health Insurance Company (Daman), has donated 7,000 car-seats.

Additionally, 45 car seats have already been distributed to the hospital. Before patients are discharged from the hospital, mothers are given a 45 minutes educational session regarding car safety education, which is part of the newly launched Johns Hopkins Medicine International's newborn safety campaign, titled the First Ride is a Safe Ride.

First step forward

"The aim of this project is to help parents take responsibility for their child's safety. This initiative is the first step in helping parents protect their children on the road for years to come.

"During the Chipss we held a series of focus groups with mothers, and found that many of them thought that babies six months or older could be placed in a car seat, others had the misconception that holding their baby in their arms was safer," Wali said.

She added: "We informed mothers that even at low speeds (60 kilometres per hour), a mother could not physically hold on to her baby in the event of a crash."

Car Seat Benefit

According to a traffic survey conducted by the UAE University earlier this year, securing a child in a child car seat and placing it on the rear seat of the car, could prevent:

  • 71 per cent of infant fatalities.
  • 54 per cent of toddler fatalities.

The UAE traffic laws dictate that children are to be securely fastened by seat belts in the rear seats of the vehicle, and children under ten years of age, are not allowed to ride in the front seat.

www.gulfnews.com

Monday 4 January 2010

Burj Khalifa otwarty!!

No i stało się! Moment, na który czekał cały świat! Najwyższy budynek na świecie, 828 metrów, 160 pięter, Burj Khalifa, został otwarty! Byłam osobiście aby obejrzeć ceremonię otwarcia. Za cel obrałam okolice Dubai Mall i Souq al Bahar - najlepszy widok na Burja. Ludzi było mnóstwo! Nic dziwnego bo w końcu to ogromne wydarzenie na skalę światową. Mimo, że całe show rozpoczęło się po 20-stej, to tłumy zbierały się już dużo wcześniej. Ja pojechałam o 17-stej i już ciężko było się dopchać. Wolałabym jednak oglądać transmisję w TV ale być tam w tym dniu daje wrażenia bezcenne.
Największą niespodzianką dla wszystkich byla zmiana imienia wieży, bo w końu do dzisiaj był to Burj Dubai....

A oto kilka zdjęć z ceremonii:













Żródło: www.gulfnews.com