United+Arab+Emirates

Middle East News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/default.stm

media type="custom" key="4611602" Anthropology: __UAE International Disputes__ In 2003, a boundary agreement was signed with Oman. However the entire border, including Oman's Musandam Peninsula and Al Madhah enclaves, have not yet published contents of their agreement and detailed maps. Today, Iran and UAE argue over the Tunb Islands and Abu Musa Island, which Iran currently occupies.

__Illicit drugs__ The UAE is a drug transshipment point for traffickers because of how close it is to Southwest Asian drug-producing countries. the UAE's is vulnerable to money laundering and informal banking remains unregulated.

__Trafficking in persons__ 10,000 women from sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, South and East Asia, Iraq, Iran, and Morocco are said to be victims of sex trafficking in the UAE. Women also migrate from Africa, and South and Southeast Asia to work as domestic servants, but may have their passports confiscated and face sexual or physical abuse by their employers. Men from South Asia come to the UAE to work in the construction industry, but may be subjected to conditions of involuntary servitude; where wages are sometimes denied for months at a time.

In an environmentally advanced move, the Ministry of Environmental and Water of UAE announced a plan to ban the distribution and use of plastic shopping bags citing their 'dangerous' nature. In 2008, 26,000 tons of plastic bags were manufactured in UAE with only 2,000 tons of biodegradable bags having been produced in that same period. Citing research establishing that one in every two camels die from eating plastic bags, the ministry is launching a campaign to change the public's image of these products and their harm to the enviornment.

[|Plan to ban plastic bags]

[|Weather in Dubai]

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