Land earmarked for tourism purposes

Granting of land earmarked for tourism purposes in accordance with the usufruct for a period ranging from 25 to 50 years depending on the type and size of the project. Exemption from payment of rental value for a period ranging from 3 to 5 years according to the nature and type of the project. Rental value is estimated in accordance with the project's land area. Exemption from income tax for five years from the date of operating the project. The estimated annual rental value of lands is 300 Bz per square meter in Muscat Governorate and the Wilayat of Salalah, and 150 Bz per square meter in the remaining Governorates, Regions and in the Wilayat of Qurayat Source

Al Dhafra Festival

The Dhafra Festival is an annual event held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces.  It is an event inspired by culture and heritage. is a means of building bridges between the generations and of instilling a national identity and a love for heritage and culture in the hearts of the younger generations.

The Dhafra Festival also aims to:

• Preserve the authentic camel breeds of Asayil and Majaheem.
• Introduce Bedouin culture.
• Encourage cultural tourism.
• Create a market for the sale of camels.
• Create a market for dates, through innovative competitions.
• Revive and market traditional UAE handicrafts.
• Situate Zayed City in the Western Region as an international tourist destination.
• Activate economic growth in the Western Region.

http://aldhafrafestival.ae

Ownership opportunities for Non-Omanis

Ownership opportunities   for Non Omanis in Oman                                                

Non-Omanis(exclusive of GCC Nationals)are allowed to own the following types of real estate in the integrated tourism complexes approved by the government in the different governorates and regions of the Sultanate:

1. Built real estate (Whether villa, apartment or shop.)
2. Reclaimed plots

Conditions of ownership

• Individuals and companies who are granted land according to the law of the Organization of the Usufruct of the Sultanate’s land and wish to establish  an integrated tourism project can sell built units or land after obtaining the permission from Ministry of Tourism and after paying 10% of value of the built units or 20% of the value of the land to the Ministry of Housing, Electricity and Water.
• Land bought in integrated tourism projects should be built within a period of 4 years from the date of registration . This period can be extended for a further 2 years if compelling reasons have caused the delay. However the buyer cannot dispense of the land before the elapse of the above mentioned period.

Advantage of Owning in Tourism Complexes

1. Re-selling:The owner has the right to dispense of the built real estate at any time.
2. Inheritance:Real estate ownership can be transferred to the heirs of the owner according to the laws of the owners country of domicile.
3. Exemption from income tax:The investor in tourism sector is eligible for an exemption from income tax for five years , extendable for another period of 5 years.
4. Other advantages:
• In the unlikely event of real estate being expropriated for public use the owner is eligible for fair compensation in accordance with the regulations in this regard.
• The owner whose real estate has been expropriated is allowed to own another real estate.
• If a decision to expel the owner is issued, the owner has the right to dispense of the real estate according to the lows and regulations applied in the Sultanate.

Source

Chrome Event - 12/07/2010

chrome os event

Beauty has an address ~ Oman

Mutrah Souq موتره  سوق 

  Historical Remains of old Buildings QANTAB Beach

Oman’s Quriyat Dam

at Wadi Dayqah near Quriyat.

Abu Dhabi drivers get 5-10 minutes grace period

Department of Transport in Abu Dhabi has revealed its new law Mawaqif service, according to Sharjah-based Arabic newspaper Al Khaleej.

The new law gives to the users of Mawaqif to pay for the service in case the period of their prepaid ticket of parkin expires.

Meanwhile, users of the parking will be allowed a grace period of 5-10 minutes to pay the fee for a new  period for parking their cars.

Users could be fined up to Dh500 in the case of expiry of the parking period allowed in the ticket

Saadiyat Island Cultural District Exhibition

Island of Happiness

Saadiyat Island Cultural District Exhibition

January-01-2010 to February-25-2011

Saadiyat Cultural District Exhibition gives a glimpse of the future cultural plans for Abu Dhabi. The exhibition showcases the architectural designs and concepts behind museums such as Zayed National Museum, Louvre Abu Dhabi and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.

Open daily 10am-10pm, Emirates Palace, Abu Dhabi, entry is free.

Tel: 00971 2 6908207

Saadiyat Island

In 2006, Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA) took ownership of Saadiyat Island – a natural island just 500 metres offshore the capital, and decided to develop it into a signature destination with environmentally sensitive philosophies.

This aim was translated into a master plan originally devised by Tourism Development & Investment Company (TDIC), a company established by ADTA to develop and manage its tourism assets appointed in 2006 to further fine tune the master plan.

Saadiyat Island Master Plan

Saadiyat Cultural District: A world-class hub of
culture and art with a host of iconic museums.

Saadiyat Beach: A 9km stretch of pristine beach, interwoven
with five-star resorts and an oceanfront championship golf course
designed by golfing legend Gary Player.

Saadiyat Marina: The island’s commercial heart with business,
residential and retail areas. Also home to the island’s main marina,
with berthing for 1,000 vessels.

Saadiyat Promenade: Family-focused district with large
beachside boardwalks, family activity centres and residential homes.

Saadiyat Reserve: A nature reserve with a tidal championship
golf course nestled within clusters of mangrove trees.

Saadiyat Lagoons: Island homes surrounded by water, offering a
laidback boating lifestyle.

Saadiyat Retreat: Private homes and exclusive boutique resorts
hidden within a natural environment

http://www.saadiyat.ae/en/

Traditional UAE

customs

Customs and traditions are passed on from parents to children and in the long run they are inherited by generations. The people of UAE are known for their generosity, bravery and friendliness. They have a great legacy which they are still proud of, despite the speedy and tremendous transformation and development that took place in the society. The people of UAE have also adopted some of the various customs and traditions brought into their country by expatriates from all over the world. Although the UAE has become a cosmopolitan society, people still boast of the great heritage of their forefathers. It is the custom of the UAE people to entertain their guests warmly. They usually serve Arabic coffee to their guests as a gesture of respect and warm welcome. It is a symbol of generosity and hospitality. The Arabic coffee is made and served in very special way. Folk dances and other traditional sports are still highly appreciated by many people. Falconry, horseback riding, camel racing, boat racing and rowing are a few examples. Songs praising God are sung on special occasions to promote spiritual feelings and reinforce people's belief. The Prophet's Birthday, the Hijrah New Year and Isra & Meraj are some examples.

National Dress

National costumes of UAE are divided into two main categories: * The costumes which were used very long ago and are now out of fashion. It is not easy to find any of them nowadays. * Old costumes commonly used in the first half of the twentieth century. The present national clothes are a continuation of the old costumes of early Muslims. However, due to the cultural changes that have taken place in all the classes of the society, the national clothes, especially women's clothes, have changed significantly. The following is a brief description of the national clothes of women and men in the UAE. Women's clothes Women's clothes in the UAE look like the usual clothes worn by women all over the Arabian Peninsula. The dress, commonly called "Nafnoof" or "Al Goon" is a long variety that reaches down to the feet. UAE women also wear an embroidered "Kandoorah" whose style varies according to its embroidery, fashion or material. They also usually wear a "Sirwal" under the "Kandoorah". Women cover their head and face with a loose scarf called "Sheelah" or "Waqayah". Sometimes a woman would cover her face with a sort of veil called "Borgo" which is a special piece of cloth tied to the rear of the head and partly covers the face. She usually wears a black mantel to cover the whole dressed body and special shoes or sandals, too. Men's clothes Men all over the country nearly wear the same unified dress called “Kandurah”. Men usually wear as underwear a "Wezar" or "Wezarah" with which they wrap the lower half of their body. The head cover called "Ghottrah" is usually supported by a black or white "Kofiyyah" or "Eqal". Under the "Ghottrah" and the "Eqal", men usually wear a loose sleeveless cloak or mantle called "Bisht" or "Abayah". Men of all classes wear sandals on most occasions. 

Popular Arts

The UAE in general and Ras Al Khaimah in particular is well known for its folklore, folk music, folk dance and other traditional and popular art forms which embody and reflect the social, ethical and aesthetic values of the community. Traditional dances for example are meaningful movements played rhythmically to symbolize the common ideas and likes of a certain community. Al Wahabiyyah It is one of the oldest art forms of Ras Al Khaimah and is performed only here. The songs during this performance are divided into three sections. Drum players stand between two rows of performers comprising the band. One of the performers begins by reciting a line of poetry. He repeats it a number of times until the other performers have memorized it. Then he recites another line of poetry from the same poem. The first line is a start and the second is the astinato or pedal. The two rows of dancers rhythmically move forward and backward, a row bows and drummers keep drawing nearer to it for 10 minutes while moving their heads. The opposite row repeats the some movements as the drummers draw nearer to them as well. Dancers with swords and guns add charm to the show. This folkdance is usually performed on special occasions, feast days and at wedding parties.

National Food

The UAE kitchen is known for its delicious dishes and recipes passed from one generation to another. The following are some the most popular dishes and recipes in the UAE. Khammer (Leavened) Bread It is made of a flour paste mixed with water and dates. The mixture is left for a whole night. In the morning it is cut into round pieces. They are then spread into loaves and baked one by one on a "Tabi" which is either a pot or a frying pan made of iron. A mixture of water and eggs is put on each loaf to improve the flavour. Regag (Wafer-thin) Bread It is the most common sort of bread in the United Arab Emirates. A fairly soft paste is manually cut into pieces and spread into a frying pan or pot (Tabi). It is left on fire until the bread gets dry. The loaf is taken out of the Tabi with an iron or copper handle called Mehmas. Regag bread is usually eaten with butter and sugar. It can also be made into porridge or gruel. Chabab Bread It is made of a fine paste that can be scooped with a can and poured on a "Tabi" placed on a light fire. The paste should be spread before it gets dry. It should be turned upside down to get it evenly dried. Butter and sugar are put on the loaf to improve the flavour. Al Harees It is a very popular dish that undergoes a complicated process of preparation. It is costly as well. Al Harees is usually associated with wedding parties, special occasions and along with special meals during the Holy month of Ramadan. Al Harees is made up of ground wheat and meat. In the past, people used to sing a folksong called Allayah while grinding flour for the dish. Meat should first be washed and then mixed with ground wheat, boiling water and some salt. The mixture is kept boiling on fire until it is well cooked. Then it is poured into a special pot with a small neck called Berma and is placed into a hole for about six hours. The pot is then taken out and the mixture is stirred again. Finally some butter is added to the dish before it is served

text from 

http://www.raktourism.com/customs.html

( DO NOT Trust the suppliers that have the following features! - Question and Answer on Alibaba

DO NOT Trust the suppliers that have the following features! - Question and Answer on Alibaba

പൊന്മുടിയിലെ സൂര്യോദയം

ഇതൊന്നും ആരും കാണുന്നില്ലേ

According to Chapter Three of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, if any person beats, kicks, over-rides, over-drives, over-loads, tortures or otherwise treats any animal so as to subject the animal to unnecessary pain or suffering or causes, or being the owner, permits, any animal to be so treated; or conveys or carries, whether in or upon any vehicle or not, any animal in such a manner or position as to subject the animal to unnecessary pain or suffering, he [or she] shall be punishable by the appropriate fine, and repeat offenders may be imprisoned.
This Act also requires that watering arrangements en route be made and that sufficient quantities of water be carried for emergency. It further states that sufficient feed and fodder with adequate reserve be carried to last during the journey and that adequate ventilation should be ensured. The Act requires that lorries carrying animals be equipped with anti-slip flooring, padding on the sides and suitable rope and platforms. At Deonar, these laws are all ignored.

Links

Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

Search Results

1. [PDF] 

   The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960

Animal Welfare Board of India

Attingal Jn

Shipbreakers

Shipbreakers in Gadani beach, Pakistan

Ship breaking yard in India

ship breaking Bangladesh

United Arab Emirates: പാപനാശം

United Arab Emirates: പാപനാശം

പാപനാശം

മഴ

മഴ 

വിപ്ലവത്തിലെ കരിഞ്ഞ നക്ഷത്രം

games 2010 delhi theme song sound themes songs sounds music

Making of Terrorism.. Newyork times reveals the Real destiny

They are only intersted in terrorists from oil rich or mineral rich part of the world..

T

These  eyes asks 1000 questions to the worlds .. and the answers are starting here ....more will follow

U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan
Link to Original Page of NY Times
By JAMES RISENWASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.



Published: June 13, 2010


The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.

The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.

While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war.

“There is stunning potential here,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, said in an interview on Saturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.”

The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits dwarfs the size of Afghanistan’s existing war-bedraggled economy, which is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the United States and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion.

“This will become the backbone of the Afghan economy,” said Jalil Jumriany, an adviser to the Afghan minister of mines.

American and Afghan officials agreed to discuss the mineral discoveries at a difficult moment in the war in Afghanistan. The American-led offensive in Marja in southern Afghanistan has achieved only limited gains. Meanwhile, charges of corruption and favoritism continue to plague the Karzai government, and Mr. Karzai seems increasingly embittered toward the White House.

So the Obama administration is hungry for some positive news to come out of Afghanistan. Yet the American officials also recognize that the mineral discoveries will almost certainly have a double-edged impact.

Instead of bringing peace, the newfound mineral wealth could lead the Taliban to battle even more fiercely to regain control of the country.

The corruption that is already rampant in the Karzai government could also be amplified by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control of the resources. Just last year, Afghanistan’s minister of mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 million bribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine. The minister has since been replaced.

Endless fights could erupt between the central government in Kabul and provincial and tribal leaders in mineral-rich districts. Afghanistan has a national mining law, written with the help of advisers from the World Bank, but it has never faced a serious challenge.

“No one has tested that law; no one knows how it will stand up in a fight between the central government and the provinces,” observed Paul A. Brinkley, deputy undersecretary of defense for business and leader of the Pentagon team that discovered the deposits.

At the same time, American officials fear resource-hungry China will try to dominate the development of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth, which could upset the United States, given its heavy investment in the region. After winning the bid for its Aynak copper mine in Logar Province, China clearly wants more, American officials said.

Another complication is that because Afghanistan has never had much heavy industry before, it has little or no history of environmental protection either. “The big question is, can this be developed in a responsible way, in a way that is environmentally and socially responsible?” Mr. Brinkley said. “No one knows how this will work.”

With virtually no mining industry or infrastructure in place today, it will take decades for Afghanistan to exploit its mineral wealth fully. “This is a country that has no mining culture,” said Jack Medlin, a geologist in the United States Geological Survey’s international affairs program. “They’ve had some small artisanal mines, but now there could be some very, very large mines that will require more than just a gold pan.”

The mineral deposits are scattered throughout the country, including in the southern and eastern regions along the border with Pakistan that have had some of the most intense combat in the American-led war against the Taliban insurgency.

The Pentagon task force has already started trying to help the Afghans set up a system to deal with mineral development. International accounting firms that have expertise in mining contracts have been hired to consult with the Afghan Ministry of Mines, and technical data is being prepared to turn over to multinational mining companies and other potential foreign investors. The Pentagon is helping Afghan officials arrange to start seeking bids on mineral rights by next fall, officials said.

“The Ministry of Mines is not ready to handle this,” Mr. Brinkley said. “We are trying to help them get ready.”



In 2004, American geologists, sent to Afghanistan as part of a broader reconstruction effort, stumbled across an intriguing series of old charts and data at the library of the Afghan Geological Survey in Kabul that hinted at major mineral deposits in the country. They soon learned that the data had been collected by Soviet mining experts during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, but cast aside when the Soviets withdrew in 1989.

During the chaos of the 1990s, when Afghanistan was mired in civil war and later ruled by the Taliban, a small group of Afghan geologists protected the charts by taking them home, and returned them to the Geological Survey’s library only after the American invasion and the ouster of the Taliban in 2001.

“There were maps, but the development did not take place, because you had 30 to 35 years of war,” said Ahmad Hujabre, an Afghan engineer who worked for the Ministry of Mines in the 1970s.

Armed with the old Russian charts, the United States Geological Survey began a series of aerial surveys of Afghanistan’s mineral resources in 2006, using advanced gravity and magnetic measuring equipment attached to an old Navy Orion P-3 aircraft that flew over about 70 percent of the country.

The data from those flights was so promising that in 2007, the geologists returned for an even more sophisticated study, using an old British bomber equipped with instruments that offered a three-dimensional profile of mineral deposits below the earth’s surface. It was the most comprehensive geologic survey of Afghanistan ever conducted.

The handful of American geologists who pored over the new data said the results were astonishing.

But the results gathered dust for two more years, ignored by officials in both the American and Afghan governments. In 2009, a Pentagon task force that had created business development programs in Iraq was transferred to Afghanistan, and came upon the geological data. Until then, no one besides the geologists had bothered to look at the information — and no one had sought to translate the technical data to measure the potential economic value of the mineral deposits.

Soon, the Pentagon business development task force brought in teams of American mining experts to validate the survey’s findings, and then briefed Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Mr. Karzai.

So far, the biggest mineral deposits discovered are of iron and copper, and the quantities are large enough to make Afghanistan a major world producer of both, United States officials said. Other finds include large deposits of niobium, a soft metal used in producing superconducting steel, rare earth elements and large gold deposits in Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan.

Just this month, American geologists working with the Pentagon team have been conducting ground surveys on dry salt lakes in western Afghanistan where they believe there are large deposits of lithium. Pentagon officials said that their initial analysis at one location in Ghazni Province showed the potential for lithium deposits as large of those of Bolivia, which now has the world’s largest known lithium reserves.

For the geologists who are now scouring some of the most remote stretches of Afghanistan to complete the technical studies necessary before the international bidding process is begun, there is a growing sense that they are in the midst of one of the great discoveries of their careers.

“On the ground, it’s very, very, promising,” Mr. Medlin said. “Actually, it’s pretty amazing.”

Camel Market

Al Wathba is famous for the Camel Racing track,it is on the Abu Dhabi - Al Ain road, after baniyas. It has also a famous Camel market adjacent to it.

Here is some snaps from Camel Market.

 

   

 

 

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