Middle East becomes cheaper for expatriates

If you can put up with the occasional government crackdown, interruptions in Internet and cellphone service and a bodyguard following you around, then the Middle East has become a better place to work in the past year for expatriates, at least from a cost-of-living point of view.

Of 18 Middle East and North African (MENA) cities surveyed in March for cost of living relative to a benchmark of New York, all but two showed substantial declines from a year ago, according to a survey by the global human resources consulting firm Mercer. Among the biggest drops, Cairo fell 41 places to rank 128th among 214 cities covered in the global survey. Tehran dropped 27 places to No.130 and Dubai 26 places to 81.

A lot happened in the region between March 2010 and March 2011, but the decline in living costs for expatiates generally had more prosaic reasons than toppled leaders, mass protests and civil war. The biggest factor was that many of the region’s currencies are linked to the US dollar, sending costs down for expatriates living on dollar incomes, said Nathalie Constantin-Metral, a senior researcher at Mercer.

“As the dollar depreciated against other currencies, it pushed down relative costs,” she told The Media Line. “Other cities around the world have gone up in the ratings, while Middle East cities have gone down. If you look at the cost of living in local currencies, costs have remained quite stable.”

Although the list of top-10 top-cost cities was relatively stable, the expense of keeping someone housed, clothed, fed and entertained jumped in dollar terms in Australia, where the local currency gained 14% on the dollar in the year ending in March. Asian cities also grew more expensive because of the limited housing supply meeting expat standards. Latin American cities became costlier for expats due to a strong local currency in Brazil and high inflation elsewhere.

Mercer’s survey measures the comparative cost of more than 200 items, including housing – the single biggest factor – transportation, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment.

The only two MENA cities to show a relative rise in costs were the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh, which rose nine places to 135th, and Beirut, which advanced five to no. 75.

“Generally speaking, the cities in the Middle East are quite low in the ranking relative to New York,” Constantin-Metral said. ”In Riyadh, however, rental accommodation costs have increased quite a lot. There is rising demand and limited supply. In Beirut, prices for accommodation have also increased quite strongly and to a lesser extent so have prices of food.”

In fact, by global standards the Middle East is a relatively cheap place to live if you are collecting a dollar salary. By far the most expensive city in the region is Tel Aviv, but it ranks only 24th. After that, Abu Dhabi comes in at 67 and Beirut at 75. The big expatriate center, Dubai, ranks 81 in the Mercer survey. Four cities rank among the world’s cheapest, including Manama in Bahrain, Kuwait City, Doha in Qatar and Rabat, Morocco’s capital.

However, Constantin-Metral pointed out, the costs do not include security, which has likely become a bigger factor for expatriates living and working in the region this year.

The cost of living in Dubai for expats fell because of declining rents and a tepid economy still struggling to recover from the real estate and financial crisis that hit in 2008. Many tenants have been moving from larger units to smaller ones due to reduced household income and a “more cautious approach” towards household expenditures, Mercer said.

Jones Lang Lasalle said in a report that after sharp falls in 2009 and 2010, villa rents in Dubai grew 4% in the second quarter in certain “established areas.” But, it said, apartment rents continued to decline, by 1% in the three months and by 3% from a year earlier.

Cairo’s big 41-place drop in costs was largely due to the deprecation of the Egyptian pound that followed the mass protests and strikes that led to President Husni Mubarak’s ouster last February and the resulting sharp slowdown of the economy. The pound was down more than 8% at the end of March 2011, compared with March 2010.

But if it had relatively little impact on costs themselves, the Arab Spring did have some impact on collecting data for the survey.

The main factor attributable to the Arab Spring was in collecting data. Bahrain’s capital Manama was gripped by protests followed by a Saudi-led crackdown over the course of March, while in Libya civil war divided the country between government and rebel territories and paralyzed the economy. As a result, the data for Manama and Tripoli reflect September 2010 prices, except for accommodation, which is from March 2011, Constantin-Metral said.

Interestingly, even as relative costs are stable or in decline, Mercer says that the Middle East’s expat executives are in-line for pay raises this year. A survey of multinational companies in June said that across the region, which excludes North Africa but includes countries as far east as Pakistan, executives are set to increase compensation an average of 5.7%. Among the biggest increases will go to countries that have suffered violence, including Pakistan (13.5%) and Bahrain (6%), according to the Mercer estimates.

Egypt’s revolution is stuck in a rut

You could say our revolution has stalled. Or you could say a revolution is not an event, but a process – and that our process needed a push. As I write the revolution is once again gathering pace in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Arbaeen Square in Suez and Qaed Ibrahim in Alexandria, and streets and squares across Egypt. A march has been called for 6pm, and various escalatory activities are under consideration.

With hindsight, we left the streets too early. We were victorious, and yet we left with nothing. When we managed to push out Hosni Mubarak and the army took over, we should have stayed and demanded that power be vested in a government of the revolution. But we had no defined “leadership” that could speak on our behalf to the military, and we had no government in waiting ready to take power. But that was also the beauty of our revolution; our leaderless, authentic, grassroots, peaceable revolution.

We have ended up with Scaf – the supreme council of the armed forces – as acting president. Not a problem, except that they’ve stripped our caretaker cabinet of power. The interests of the revolution coincided with the interests of the highest levels of the army in one area: removing the possibility of Mubarak’s son Gamal coming to power. The revolution achieved that. Gamal Mubarak is in Tora prison, awaiting trial for profiteering, along with his brother and some members of his once extremely powerful parliamentary “strategy committee”.

The army promised to protect the people and implement the aims of the revolution. But really, with Gamal Mubarak out of the picture, the interests of the military top brass were with the continuation of the old regime, with perhaps some minor sprucing up. So first they tried hard to hold on to the cabinet that Hosni Mubarak had left in place, headed by General Ahmed Shafiq. When the people rejected that, the military accepted our candidate for caretaker prime minister Professor Essam Sharaf, but stripped him even of the power to change his office staff.

And so on every front the revolution has met obstacles. Our great aims cannot be achieved overnight – but our demands for “bread” and “social justice” can be helped along by some measures. Yet an attempt to impose tax on profits made by speculating on the stock exchange has been blocked. An attempt to halve the subsidy granted to fuels used in cement factories (which sell their goods at a profit of 65%) was blocked. Meanwhile, we are told that there’s no money to provide a minimum wage, and that no one can find out what the maximum – government employee – wage is in order to cap it. Our declared aim of “human dignity” requires the dismantling and restructuring of the ministry of the interior and the entire security apparatus that has humiliated the citizenry for so long. It hasn’t happened, and the ministry now refuses even to carry out normal policing duties. The hated state security service, which was meant to have been dissolved after protesters stormed its offices and seized files, has re-emerged as the “national security service”. And the unconstitutional central security forces have been redeployed on the streets. The 500,000-strong baltagiya – paramilitary forces, long in the pay of the interior ministry, who achieved their finest hour on 2 February in camel-mounted attacks on protesters – are still out there, wreaking havoc. The security situation discourages tourism, and so also holds up our economic recovery.

And we also have a raft of problems and issues created by the way the police – and now the military – have dealt with the revolution: we have some thousand shaheeds (martyrs) killed since 25 January; another 800 young people have been blinded by shots to the eyes; 1,400 have received disabling injuries; and a further thousand are missing – probably killed. Nobody – not one police officer, paramilitary thug or sniper – has been found guilty of these crimes. And yet the army, rushing in to arrest protesters or suspected trouble-makers, is quick to put them – young civilians – on military trial and sentence them. There are now more than 10,000 young people given sentences of one to five years by military courts.

The new wave of protests that is re-energising the revolution has as its impetus the demand for justice: trials for the Mubaraks and their retinue, and for the killers of our children. And a rejection of military trials for civilians. But at its heart is the desperate need to push our revolution out of the rut it’s in. Scaf has just announced that it will continue to run Egypt and warned anyone against attempting to vault to power. General Mohsen el-Fangari – who was acclaimed in February when he accorded our young martyrs a military salute – had shoes raised to him on Tuesday when he frowned and waved a finger in our faces.

We have now invited Scaf to share power with a civilian government: not, this time, a caretaker government, but a revolutionary government that will start the process of implementing the great social aims of the revolution, and that will oversee our progress to free and fair elections in the autumn. Our spirits are still high. We still believe the revolution will prevail. We are in a better place now than we have been for the last 40 years. The country, for all its troubles, is more at ease with itself.

Thousands of families have paid a terrible price for bringing us even this far. To begin to make sense of this sacrifice, we have to go further; we have to make sure this revolution works.

By Ahdaf Soueif

Parliamentary elections postponed to October or November

The Egyptian Parliament elections scheduled for September have been postponed till next October or November, state news agency reported on Wednesday.

It has been decided to hold the People’s Assembly and Shura Council elections either in October or November this year, MENA quoted an official source as saying.

“The ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is committed to the Constitutional Declaration announced in March, which requires the Parliament elections be held six months after the declaration, ” the official source said.

“So it means to start the election campaign before the end of September,” the source said.

The electoral procedure and campaign will take 30 to 60 days, which means the elections will be held in October or November, he added.

Major General Ismail Etman, a member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forced, announced on March 28 at a press conference that Egypt will hold the parliamentary elections in September.

Egypt army arrests Italian photographer

Egyptian soldiers detained an Italian national on Wednesday for taking pictures of a military building in Cairo, the state’s news agency MENA said.

“[The Italian national] was transferred to specialised units for investigation,” the agency said, but did not give details.

Under Egyptian law, it is forbidden for any one to take pictures of some state buildings, including military facilities or buildings belonging to the army and police.

Officials in the Italian embassy in Cairo were not immediately available for comment.

Earlier this week, four US nationals and an Egyptian translator were detained after taking pictures in the Suez Canal area .

An Egyptian military source said the four were still in custody of the military intelligence.

Egypt fires 100s of cops as protests grow

Egypt’s security chief fired about 700 police officers in a step to cleanse the much-hated force, the latest concession military rulers have made under pressure from protesters holding a sit-in in Cairo’s Tahrir Square for the past six days.

Widespread abuses by the police under the former regime were a key reason behind the protests that toppled President Hosni Mubarak in February. But the ruling military council that took over from him has been slow to hold ex-regime officials and police accountable for killing nearly 900 protesters during the uprising and other crimes.

With public frustration rising sharply, protesters resumed a sit-in in Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the revolution that was occupied day and night for most of the 18-day uprising. Protesters say the dismissal of 669 police officers was not extensive enough.

“These are just sedatives. We won’t be fooled,” said Walid Saoud, a 34-year-old protester among the crowd in Tahrir on Wednesday. He said the sit-in will go on because the protesters want to see a total restructuring of the police force, the main tool of political control under the previous regime.

Some are even accusing the ruling military council of trying to protect Mubarak and his former regime loyalists.

In another nod to demands by activists, the military is delaying parliamentary elections that had been expected in September, the state news agency said. The vote is now expected in October or November, the report said.

Many of the political parties that arose from the uprising want the delay so they can compete more effectively against better prepared and financed Islamist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

Despite the latest string of concessions, protesters appear more determined than ever to press their demands. Many are calling for the dismissal of the current Cabinet.

Dismissed officers

“Tahrir Square is the popular and legitimate monitor of the performance of any institution in Egypt,” Saoud said. “As we see it, there has been no change in the police ways.”

Interior Minister Mansour el-Issawi on Wednesday announced the dismissal of 669 high-ranking police officers including 505 major-generals – 10 of them top assistants to the minister. State TV said 37 of the dismissed officers face charges of killing protesters.

“This is the biggest administrative move … to bring new blood,” to the police force, el-Issawi said. He promised that “any police officer will be held accountable for any violation.”

How to deal with Egypt’s delegitimised police force, with nearly half a million members, has been a major testing ground for the interim government.

During the early days of the uprising, there were intensely violent clashes when police used force to try to hold back peaceful marches. A few days into the uprising, the police melted away from the streets mysteriously, leaving the streets to waves of looting and theft.

The force has not redeployed in full force since, and some blame police for the rising wave of crime in Egypt in the past months.

Activists say lack of security is the biggest challenge to meeting their demands to overhaul the system, including holding fair and free elections.

Magda Boutros, an activist and part of a team that launched a new initiative to reform the police force, said the measures introduced by el-Issawi fall short of expectations.

Deterrent message

She said her group estimates that at least 200 officers responsible for the killing of protesters and facing trials should have been dismissed.

“We can’t take one of Mubarak’s biggest problems and deal with it piecemeal. We need a comprehensive plan,” she said.

Mohammed Abdel-Aziz, a lawyer specialising in torture cases, said torture continued after the revolution. He is currently representing three who were abused by a police officer. Abdel-Aziz said the minister’s plan didn’t send a “deterrent” message to middle level officers.

Many fear a total shake-up of the ministry may lead to revenge from the ousted force, or a widening of chaos because of a leadership gap.

Ahmed Ragab, spokesperson for a pro-reform association of police officers, said restructuring has to be gradual and the new leadership must be given time.

Mubarak’s former security chief Habib el-Adly and six of his aides are currently on trial to face charges of ordering the killing of protesters. Mubarak himself is facing similar charges and his trial begins next month.

Protesters still in Tahrir lifted their siege of Cairo’s largest government building Wednesday, allowing business to resume there while staying camped out in the square to press the military rulers for faster change.

Threat in Cairo fails to halt renewed protest

The tens of thousands of Egyptians whose chants for change are ringing through Cairo’s Tahrir Square got a stern warning Tuesday from ruling generals not to disrupt daily life in what some activists are calling a second revolution.

The crowds again packing the symbolic square that was the center of the 18-day uprising in January and February defied the military council and staged a sit-in there for a fifth straight day, shutting down the heart of downtown Cairo and blocking access to a major government building.

Activists who once viewed the army as allies now accuse the military council of stalling on demands to bring police and former members of the regime to justice for abuses during former President Hosni Mubarak’s nearly three decades in power and for the deaths of nearly 900 people during the protests early.

“We either get their rights back, or we die like them!” screamed the crowd, alluding to the crackdown victims.

An estimated 30,000 people filled the square Tuesday, and tents and banners have sprung up again, giving the round-the-clock protest camp an air of the semipermanence it had in the winter.

The military issued a thinly veiled threat to use force. “All options are open to solve this situation,” military council spokesman Mahmoud Hegazi told reporters.

But the protesters’ new display of street power in recent days appeared to be pushing the military and interim government to act faster on reforms.

Interim Prime Minister Essam Sharaf said he planned to change many of the country’s provincial governors by the end of the month, weeding out Mubarak loyalists.

A day earlier, he said he would reshuffle the cabinet within a week. Interior Minister Mansour el-Issawi, said he planned this week to retire dozens of police commanders thought to have been involved in killing protesters.

Also Tuesday, Egypt’s state news agency said the Supreme Judicial Council would allow live transmission of the trials of Mubarak-era officials accused of corruption, as well as police officers charged with killing protesters. The footage will be relayed to screens installed outside courthouses for the public to watch, it said. Protesters have complained of a lack of transparency in the trials.

In another nod to protester demands, the military council said preparations for the once-postponed elections would begin Sept. 30

Egypt parliament vote may take place in November

Egypt’s parliamentary election may not be held until November, about two months later than originally planned, an army source said on Wednesday after some political groups called for the vote to be pushed back.

But the source said the registration of candidates would start in September, which he said meant the army was sticking to its commitment to start the handover of power to civilians then.

“Procedures for a parliamentary election will begin in September, possibly the middle of the month. That will involve registration of candidates,” the army source told Reuters.

“Then there will be a campaigning period, after which an election will be held,” he said. “This could take the voting till after September, possibly November.”

Egypt’s ex-premier, two ministers sentenced over corruption

The Cairo Criminal Court on Tuesday handed down sentences to former Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, former Interior Minister Habib El-Adli and former Minister of Finance Yousuf Botrus Ghali over car number plate case.

Nazif was given a suspended one-year jail, while Adli and Ghali were sentenced to five years and ten years respectively.

The three were also ordered to return to the state some 92 million Egyptian pounds (about 15.5 million U.S. dollars).

Nazif was charged with granting a German company a contract worth 92 million Egyptian pounds to manufacture car plates for the Interior Ministry, without using public auction as required according to law.

Adli had been sentenced to 12 years in jail in another corruption case in May. Ghali, who fled after the mass protests, had also been sentenced to 30 years in jail in a separate case.

Minimum wage set at LE708 per month

The Ministry of Finance on Monday raised the minimum wage by 59 percent from LE444 to LE708 per month for government employees. The precise wage is determined by an employee’s rank and number of years working.

In a statement on Monday, the ministry said the raise corresponds to LE9 billion, benefiting some 1.9 million government employees, in the new state budget.

The ministry also said the raise aims at narrowing wage differences between official ranks.

It also set an annual maximum wage of LE36,000 and a ceiling for extra bonuses and incentives.

Day Four as Tahrir Square Protests Renew

Monday was Day Four of massive protests that have again filled the streets around Cairo’s Tahrir Square, bringing traffic to a standstill and by some accounts, annoying Egyptians who just wanted to get on with their day.

No police or soldiers of any kind appeared to be present in the area, journalists on the scene reported.

More than 2,000 mostly young protesters vowed to continue the demonstrations until there is “change.” But other than calling for the jailing of all those responsible for the more than 840 deaths during the revolution earlier this year, they were not clear about what kind of “change” they really want.

“I will continue to protest until the demands of the revolution are met,” 23-year-old John Noshy told a Reuters reporter. “It is not fair that those who killed the protesters are still sitting in their offices… and have not been tried and sentenced yet.”

A banner hung at one entrance to the square proclaimed the passions of those within: “Revolution first and if needed we are ready to sacrifice with our souls and whatever is precious for the revolution to continue and not be stolen.”

More than 1,000 demonstrators were injured during clashes in Tahrir Square last month after police fired huge numbers of tear gas canisters at the mob, Gulf News reported.

Over the weekend, the government announced it had suspended all police officers who are accused of killing demonstrators during the revolution which toppled the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak

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