Technology and Innovation

Here's something interesting I found regarding the development of technology in the UAE, and more specifically the development of broadband internet within the Emirates. The Emirates Telecommunications Corporation, or etisalat, is going to be investing $15 billion over the next 5 years to expand the broadband network of the Emirates and other countries in the region.
The money being invested is going towards purchasing things like fiber optics cables, which increase the potential bandwidth of the network.
The UAE hopes to have 100% broadband penetration by 2012, and by doing so, hopes to expand markets such as banking and tourism. On top of hoping for complete penetration, the UAE government has committed to continuously expand the country's broadband capabilities.

FNC Elections Scheduled

The National Election Commission (NEC), an independent agency of the UAE goverment has released the schedule for the election cycle of the Federal National Council (FNC) this year, with the actual elections taking place on September 24th.
Surprisingly, the election process of the FNC is similar to that of the U.S. The biggest similarity is that, like the U.S., there is an Electoral College that actually votes for the representatives, but in the UAE, each individual emirate has its own Electoral College, and each is treated as a seperate entity.
The NEC is in charge of ensuring the legitimacy of the election, and also looking into any potential incidents of voter fraud. In fact the NEC is in charge of running the entire election process, including notifying the members of the respective Electoral Colleges of any additions or withdrawls to the candidate lists.

UAE Taking Note of Japan's Crisis

In the wake of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the Japanese coast last week, the government of the UAE is watching very closely as the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.
Since the UAE is beginning to develop a nuclear energy program, this crisis presents an unfortunate, yet very valuable learning experience as to how to bolster the safety of the world's nuclear plants.
Ambassador Hamad Al Kaabi, the UAE's permanent representative to the IAEA, made some comments regarding the possible lessons learned and how the UAE will move forward in the construction of their own nuclear power plants. According to Al Kaabi, it will take some time before effective conclusions can be met, as the crisis is still unfolding. However, with the UAE government set to build 4 nuclear power plants around the various emirates, the first of which should provide Abu Dhabi with power by 2017, and to have those plants produce 25% of the country's energy by 2020, the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation (ENEC) and the Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation (FANR) are going to do everything necessary to ensure that the situation in Japan doesn't repeat itself in the UAE.

UAE and Energy

Hello everyone,
This week is all about energy. The UAE government has planned to invest $74 billion in energy for the period of 2011-2015. This puts the UAE as the second largest energy investor in the region behind Saudi Arabia.
On a similar note, the UAE government has considered two options to meet their increasing energy demands that can't currently be met by the UAE's current output.
The first solution is a power link between the city of Dubai and Iran. Currently only a discussion, this power link would be placed beneath the sea floor and funnel energy directly into Dubai. It has been stressed that this link would only apply to "direct current," but would still help meet Dubai's growing power demands due to the increase in infrastructure still taking place.
The second solution is for the UAE to start a nuclear power program. Also currently just a discussion, the implementation of nuclear power is being explored throughout the entire Gulf Coast region of the Middle East. Ambassador Hamad Al Kaabi, the UAE's permanent representative to the IAEA has been, in a way, heading up the operation/ discussion for this implementation for the the developing GCCs. According to Kaabi, even solar, wind, and other alternative energy sources are only going to solve a part of the energy problem in the Middle East.