Ridiculous story, ridiculous sentence

Death sentences for Briton and Syrian for drug dealing

Haneen Dajani

ABU DHABI // A 19-year-old Syrian and a Briton, 21, were both sentenced to death today for selling an undercover policeman Dh1,500 worth of marijuana.

After the verdict was announced, the Briton’s mother collapsed outside the Criminal Court while the Syrian’s mother tried to comfort her, telling her they could appeal the decision.

The two men were caught after a CID officer posing as a customer bought 20 grams of the drug. The officer had earlier bought Dh500 worth to test it and confirm it actually was marijuana.

A Sudanese man who was also a defendant, was sentenced to one year in jail and deportation for taking the drug, while a 17-year-old Emirati was sent for rehabilitation.

Previously in court, defence lawyers had attacked the credibility of the police investigations, because the witness said he did not know the address of the defendants.

He also said that the Syrian asked the Briton to get him the drugs from the car in Arabic, which lawyers said did not make sense.
Moreover, the two were speaking in English, which, they said, the CID officer did not understand.

Leaving letter in Indglish

Communication here can be a challenge. There is such an eclectic mix of nationalities, speaking so many different native languages, all trying to communicate with each other. The largest groups of non-English-first-language speaking nationals are from India, Pakistan and The Philippines. In their striving to communicate, a number of phrases seem to have become like an accepted pigeon-English.

There are plenty of other sites that have outlined these like a UAE-English-English-UAE phrase book, so I won't repeat fully here, but a few examples are:-

Maamsirrrr : Sir/Madam
Same same : the same
Not in station : on leave
Do the needful : do what is neccesary
Please revert : get back to me

Anyway, today I saw an email that came into our office from a staff member from one of our suppliers. He is leaving his company, for what reason I don't know - it can't be his fantastic communication skills! It is written in classic "Indglish". It's brilliant and I wanted to share it .....

Dear All, 

  

As a change in my professional environment , I am relieving from my job, by today. 

  Many thanks for all who has helped me to build up a career in the professional environment with lots of experiences. 

  As a part of my career if I has hurt anybody, it was with a good intention only & I never feel sorry for the same. 

  Whoever I found something bad I used to criticize as I believe that a dearest friend should be the biggest criticizer, without checking the designations, as basically all are humans only. 

  And if anybody felt if I had cruised them badly, please provide the proper reason & I will be on their feet. 

  Any way we will meet somewhere around, those who have seen me. Or didn’t have till. 

  Hope some will remember me as a good friend or you will do as a enemy also. Anyway thanks for the remembrance. I deserved that only. 

  Any body wishes to contact me can mail to xxxxxx@gmail.com , from here onwards, because I don’t have access to the official ID herein. 

  Thanks & Regards 

Feeling patriotic...

So here you go... 'av it!

Football mad

So we've made it through to the Quarter Finals. England play Italy tomorrow night. I have watched all the England games so far, despite the last few not kicking off until 22:45 here. All the games now kick off at that time. So I'll be off to Y Bar at the Yas Rotana again with a few mates to go and shout for my country. And if we win, it will be the age old rivals, Germany, in the Semis! Can't wait. Surely our time has come! And I hear Hodgson has been making sure the guys do plenty of penalty practice!

So in support and celebration I have decked out the front of the house. I had to. There was a house round the corner that had German flags all over it, so I can't let them have a free reign!

I think I will augment them with some Union Jacks and leave them up for the Olympics too!

Funky mosque

I saw this mosque as I was driving through Mohammed Bin Zayed City yesterday. Sorry about the quality, I took it with my BlackBerry. One day I will do an album just of mosques. I love the variety of architecture of mosques.