OT:UAE nuclear reactor fires up

[Jethro_uk]

and only last week they sent a probe to Mars.

[jon]

Praise be to ala for the insite (sic).....

[Andrew]

Which side of the Saudi/Qatar squabble are they on ?.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

Its very odd, since the chief researcher for the Mars orbiter is a woman. It often seems one law forsome another for everyone else in many Arab countries. Brian

[Jethro_uk]

I noticed that too. Presumably some Arab countries are less batshit than others ? Although let's not start assuming women have a fair deal in the west for comparison.

But it seems the UAE are certainly keen to advance and using some of that oil money towards it.

[Another Dave]

You're right. I did business in the UAE some 30 years ago and even then it was much more liberal than the rest of the Middle East. For example, and only if you weren't called Mohammed, you could get an alcohol drink licence entitling you to spend £70 a month on drink. Because nobody was allowed to profit from the sale of alcohol a bottle of Scotch cost £2!

Western women (Lebanese and Palestinian as well) didn't need to cover their heads or faces although all were thoroughly ignored when it came to queues. Skirts had to be of reasonably modest length but no worse than in many Catholic countries at the time.

I didn't do business elsewhere in the Middle East because of the drink restrictions (I had no teetotal employees) and because the other more liberal countries had no oil and therefore no money.

Another Dave

[tim...]

I thought Qatar didn't have any friends in the Gulf

[Jethro_uk]

I'm not generally well disposed towards the nuttier and more extreme Islamic regimes (Saudi Arabia being an example), but I am aware that as with "the West" there's probably a spectrum from 0 to 100.

Anyway, fair play to them. If the UK can't do space or nuclear, then at least we can enjoy countries that can.

[tim...]

Um:

Bahrain Kuwait Qatar