FNC rejects full foreign ownership of companies

Abu Dhabi: Overwhelming opposition by the Federal National Council to full foreign ownership of companies yielded an immediate response with the Government scrapping the proposal.

Members of the House unanimously rejected a clause in the draft companies law which would have allowed foreigners to fully own certain companies after a decision of the Cabinet.

They said the move would endanger the UAE’s national security, citing the country’s population’s structure in which “Emiratis account for less than 10 per cent”.

“If the move had been passed citizens would have left nothing to own and our parliament with its weak powers would not be able to change such a law,’ said Dr Abdul Rahim Al Shaheen, a representative from Ras Al Khaimah.

Source GulfNews.com

Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon 2013

The Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon takes to the streets of the emirate for the fourteenth time on Friday (Jan 25).

An elite field of world-class runners will join forces with enthusiastic amateurs as more than 2,500 set off in the marathon itself at 7am – closely followed by the competitors in the associated 10km Road Race and 3km Fun Run.

In all, around 20,000 runners are expected at the start line on Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Boulevard in the shadow of Burj Khalifa in Downtown Dubai for an event held under the patronage of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, Ruler of Dubai and under the aegis of the Dubai Sports Council.

To View the Route Map Please Click Here.....

UAE Public Holidays 2013

UAE’s public holidays in 2013:

Occasion	Date	Day	Duration (No. of days)
New Year’s Day	January 1	Tuesday	1
Prophet Mohammed’s Birthday (PBUH)	January 24	Thursday	1
Israa & Miaraj Night*	June 6	Thursday	1
Beginning of Ramadan	July 9	Tuesday	0
Eid Al Fitr*	August 8/9/10	Thu/Fri/Sat	3
Arafat (Haj) Day*	October 14	Mon	1
Eid Al Adha*	October 15	Tue/Wed/Thur	3
Hijri New Year’s Day*	November 5	Tue	1
UAE National Day	December 2/3	Mon/Tue	2
*Islamic holiday exact dates are subject to moon sighting and may differ from the date given

Hacker-Proof Your Password

How to create one you’ll remember, and computers won’t guess.

Don’t believe proclamations that the password is dead. Even with increasingly sophisticated software programs able to rapidly burn through an endless array of possible character combinations, the password is not only alive, but as important as ever.

“Passwords are the bane of our existence, but they’re here to stay,” says Hilary Schneider, president of LifeLock, an identity-theft protection company.

Think of the password as a mouse trap. As simplistic as it seems, there’s nothing out there more effective and straightforward for accessing sites likes your bank and favorite retailer. “A better system can be developed but it needs to be easy to use before it can have the widespread adoption to abolish the use of the password,” says Cameron Camp, a security researcher for ESET, an antivirus and Internet security provider. “If it’s not convenient, you won’t transact with the bank as much and the bank loses revenue.”

We’ve been told time and again how important it is to have tricky, unique passwords that are known to no one but ourselves. We should make them long and add numbers and symbols to fool the fraudsters combing the Internet for access to our records.

And we should always, always have different passwords for each site.

But apparently, we’re not listening very well. The annual compilations of “worst passwords ever” are numerous but remarkably similar in their results. Moreover, the top 25 or so passwords are held by an alarmingly large number of people.

Source: yahoonews.com

New Year holiday in UAE announced

Dubai UAE: Ministries, federal bodies and the private sector will have a holiday on Tuesday, January 1, 2013, to mark the New Year.

According to circulars issued by Humaid Mohammad Al Quttami, Minister of Education and Chairman of the Federal Authority of Human Resources, and Saqr Gobash, Minister of Labour. Work will resume on Wednesday, January 2.