Maybe I'm just too used to reading American news accounts, but it seems like everytime I read a story in the paper here, I am left with more questions than when I started.
For example, Emirates Today has a story about an "ATM scam".
1. There appear to be no ATMs involved in the story. How exactly is this an ATM scam? Did the victim withdraw more than 14,000 dirhams from an ATM? And even if he did, how does the way he got the money have to do anything?
2. The victim says that one of the thieves "approached him and asked if he could have a look at a large amount of money he had just withdrawn. The thief claimed he wanted to see the difference between genuine and fake UAE banknotes". So, the victim withdrew more than 14,000 dirhams from the bank and then just handed it over to some guy on the street so that he could look at it? Huh? Is this guy just really naive and trusting? Or is there some cultural gap between me and him?
3. The theives can't be named "for legal reasons" but you can run their picture with their eyes blacked out? And a really ugly picture too. When was this picture taken? Since the money is right in front of them, I'm guessing that the police did it. Couldn't they at least let the guy on the far right put on his "Just Do It" outfit too and comb his hair first?
4. What does a "search of their residence yielded different amounts of money" mean? Different from what? And doesn't that photo of the money look like, if you converted the dollars to dirhams, a lot more than 14,000?
This blog began as a description of our life in Al Ain, UAE (United Arab Emirates). Brn worked at the UAE University Libraries Deanship for three years and Bss homeschooled our four children, D, B, P, and O. After returning to the the USA for five years, we are living in Abu Dhabi now.
2 comments:
That's why I always put the word 'journalist' in inverted commas.
So many of the stories are incomplete, vague, word-for-word what an official said, or simply don't make sense. Like this one.
Oh, and quite often stories are denied the next day.
Well, if he noticed that 14,000 was missing when the money got handed back to him, he gave this guy much more than 14,000d to look at!
What an idiot, and what a fishy story!
Are those guys in their Nike pyjamas, or is Nike sponsoring the prison gear in Sharjah?
Something is rotten in the state of Sharjah!
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