August 2009
DFSA MoU With South African Reserve Bank
The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) today entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Bank Supervision Department of the South African Reserve Bank.
The MoU was signed on behalf of the DFSA by Chief Executive, Mr Paul Koster, having been signed earlier in Pretoria by Mr Errol Kruger, the Registrar of Banks and Head of Bank Supervision at the South African Reserve Bank. Mr Koster said, “The Reserve Bank regulates banking activity in the Republic of South Africa, which is a leader among the continent’s economies and has some of the most significant and well established centres for financial services activity in the region. The Reserve Bank is one of the oldest central banks in the world and it continues to play a respected role as a banking regulator regionally and internationally.
The attraction of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) as the domicile of choice for South African financial institutions in the Middle East should be enhanced by this regulatory relationship. This initiative reflects each agency’s commitment to co-operation in relation to prudential oversight and inspections. It adopts the model for information sharing developed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and follows similar arrangements the DFSA has with other significant banking supervisors in the UK, Germany, France, the US, Singapore and China. It is also worth noting that the DFSA already enjoys a good working relationship with the Reserve Bank’s fellow financial regulator, the Financial Services Board of South Africa (FSB), having signed an MoU with the FSB in May 2008. In these recently turbulent times the importance of effective coordination and cooperation between banking supervisors cannot be overstated. We are looking for better ways of working together to resolve current problems and prevent their repetition. Agreements such as this will make a difference.Malayali infected with Swine Flu Faces Deportation from Dubai
A Malayali employee of a leading money exchange house in the UAE is facing deportation as the employer insist that the patient leave the country within seven days. The employee, in his early twenties from Calicut, was found infected with swine flu three days ago and has been referred to a government hospital in Dubai, which did not admit him for lack of space. The employee apparently got infected from the money exchange house itself, where thousands of customers visit every day for money transfer. "The high profile money exchange firm wanted to send the infected employee to India, after treating him for seven days. They instructed him not to return till further notice," said sources close to the patient. The company has been using the infection as a pretext to deport the employee, even though the UAE Government has not declared Swine Flu as an epidemic. "For seven days the patient will not be able to interact with even the close relatives and how can they deport him in such a critical condition," asked an aggrieved friend.
The patient is confined to a hospital owned by the same group and doctors can certify that the patient is able to travel. They are also arguing that insurance companies may not cover the disease for treatment, but local insurance companies are treating swine flu as any other normal flu. Apparently the patients friends and relatives approached the Government Hospital, where a panel of doctors will write to the Indian employer not to deport the infected patient to India. Indian employers are using the swine flu scare to get rid of unwanted staff and retrench surplus people. The UAE has not declared swine flu as an epidemic and there is no need to panic as the patient gets normal after seven days of anti biotic treatment. Deporting such patients back to India is not only a violation of human rights, but risking infecting others, the airline passengers and the people of Kerala... The exchange hose has several branches in the GCC and India and the group was in (bad) news for a high profile food poisoning case recently.....
Dh 1 million Kunooz Bonanza Real Estate businessman
Ali Salem Al Nuaimi, Ajman based Emirati real estate entrepreneur won Dh 1 million from Dubai Bank’s monthly millionaire cash prize draw. In April 2009, Al Nuaimi invested AED 100,000 in the Kunooz savings scheme. "My initial thoughts of opting for the Kunooz scheme was just to consolidate my personal earnings through a reliable and flexible savings programme, but I never expected to be rewarded so soon. This winning comes as a blessing in these uncertain times," he says.The Kunooz programme has a cash prize promotion--each multiple of AED 1,000 deposited in the Kunooz account makes the customer eligible for multiple entries into the draw for daily cash prizes of AED 30,000. For every multiple of AED 5,000 deposited, account holders also become eligible for entry into the monthly grand prize draw of AED 1 million. Dubai is a dynamic city and even in this turbulent times, it is creating millionaires...
Dubai Municipality seizes Dangerous fish from pet shops
The Veterinary Services Section of Public Health Services Department in Dubai Municipality launched an inspection campaign on stores that sell tropical fish and pet birds to ensure that they are free of the Piranhas fish. This kind of fish is hazardous to the public health due to its ferocity and voracious appetite for meat, and this campaign comes from the Municipality's keenness to achieve its mission towards the community by maintaining the Dubai Emirate's public health and to provide a healthy environment. Dr. Essam Sharaf , Head of Veterinary Services Section said that during the campaign, the Municipality confiscated the Piranha from pet shops as the value of seizures was AED2000, and those offending shops were giving warning.
The original home of this fish is located within the rivers and lakes of South America, and the word Piranha means (voracious) in the local language, there are twenty species of it, but only five types of species are considered dangerous, while the remaining species eat vegetables only. Pygocentrus nattereri, the Red Belly Piranha, is the most and dangerous popular Piranha, Sharaf added. Piranhas have a bulldog-like face with a very large lower jaw and many razor-sharp teeth, locals used those teeth as natural knife for cutting. However, those are normally about 15 to 25 centimetres long (6 to 10 inches), although reported individuals have been found to be up to 41 centimetres (24 inches) in length and the weight is 500 g and rarely up to 1500 gm, he said. He warned that this kind of fish is very dangerous and it should not be sold in store as tropical fish, and the fear of using it for other purposes and as it is known about the human nature to love the acquisition of dangerous things, but the biggest problem is in the lack of knowledge about its danger.
