
Scheme to transform a remote island into the new Dubai - pmcpinto
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/11/the-bizarre-scheme-to-transform-a-remote-island-into-new-dubai-comoros
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anandr2013
I have often thought that for a lot of the countries in Africa (where land is
in abundance, for example a place like the DRC), creating mini
Singapores/Dubais/Monacos could be a viable, if ecologically disastrous, way
of economic development. The potential revenue would far exceed the necessary
infrastructure costs with land being free. The only thing they would have to
guard against is political instability.

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notahacker
Economist Paul Romer has some interesting, if provocative thoughts on that
idea, chiefly the idea of developing countries choosing to outsource the
administration of a parcel of their territory to institutions designed and
backed by more economically developed foreign powers.
[http://urbanizationproject.org/blog/charter-
cities](http://urbanizationproject.org/blog/charter-cities)

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SilasX
Not that it's a bad idea, but it does sound a bit like colonization :-p

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anandr2013
Hahahaa. As someone who has spent a couple of years of years in the DRCongo,
and comes from a colonised country (India), I am not sure how to slot this
(good,bad, bit of both). I think it's probably short/medium term good , but
long term bad. The ecological consequences alone suggest that it's long term
bad. The only problem is that having spent a lot of time there and now knowing
a lot of people from the country, I am biased towards short term good.

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jevinskie
Can somebody help me understand why the countries where Bidoon reside are so
hesitant to give them _some_ form of documentation? State actors shopping
around for citizenship for their residents just sounds so fishy. Do they not
want the Bidoon in their countries? If so, can't they simply be deported?

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meric
I think some of them have lived there for decades and did not know about
procedures for registering their citizenships when the country was formed. I
am not sure even the Arab authorities have the political power to deport
hundreds of thousands of people who were originally from their country, who
have no other place to call home. And if they were going to try do it anyway,
to where, Syria? I guess the foreign citizenship plan was to give these people
a citizenship in the Comoros, and in exchange give the people temporary visas
to stay in those Arab countries, and slowly phase them out because they don't
want to share the country's bounties with these people.

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jacquesm
According to the article the second phase of the plan was mass deportations
under a pretty transparent guise. That never happened though, fortunately. I
wonder if _any_ of the Bidoon ended up in the Comoros.

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hellofunk
Impressive, but at first I read this as the scheme programming language, which
would have been extra impressive!

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WildUtah
You can do that in Haskell, but it takes a truly expert level grokking of
monad category theory.

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wellyWellyWell
Why is Dubai such a talked-up place? Buildings and Islands, sure. Anything
else beyond... architecture?

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WildUtah
Stability, low taxes, relative openness, and easy work permits right in the
center of one of the very wealthy regions of the world. And the rest of that
gaudily rich region of the world is known for its nastiness toward foreigners,
intensely planned socialist economies, and violent volatility.

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lucaspiller
I lived there for a year, and yes this is pretty much it. Compared to the rest
of the Middle East it's a very stable and open place, it's mostly on par with
Western cities.

You can get a residence visa and open a company for around $20,000 which makes
it an attractive option for the rich to flee from whatever oppressive regime
they have at home. For Westerners the main attraction is no taxes and the
glitzy lifestyle.

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gotchange
"which makes it an attractive option for the rich to flee from whatever
oppressive regime they have at home."

Funny you're saying this about Dubai and the UAE in general when they're known
to be one of the most oppressive regimes in the region when it comes to
political freedoms.

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WildUtah
"one of the most oppressive regimes in the region "

Oh, I forgot about all the liberal democratic regimes in the region. You must
be talking about Saudi, Guitar, Jemen, ISIS, Quwait, Syria, Iran, Bahrayn.

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gotchange
At least get the name right first before you make your counterargument,it's
Qatar not Guitar. Second, for me the UAE as a whole fits very well in the list
you made and you can refer to Press Freedom Index [1] for more insight on its
ranking and the overall picture there.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Press_Freedom_Index)

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technomancy
First thought: will they be using Guile, Chicken, or Racket?

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smir
and second thought there; bizarre scheme .. is that a new one?

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TeMPOraL
It uses < > instead of ( ) so the code in it looks sorta like half-finished
XML document.

