Dubai, known mainly for its beauty and countless tourist attractions, is home to many activities such as bowling, cricket, surprisingly skiing and especially camel racing. Camel racing is one of the rarest activities in the world and one the few places it can be found is Dubai. Camel racing has been a part of the Dubai racing tradition for over 30 years now. The camel stables, which houses over 13,000 camels is very large and well cared for by over 3000 workers in different shifts. Khaleed, giving only his first name, used to be a sponsor for camel racing, “It is a very lucrative and interesting sport,” He said while walking briskly to his car “But I stopped sponsoring it a year ago because I have plans to move to another country.”

So many people sponsor the camel racing and enjoy the activity very much. There is one major problem though, the use of child-slaves as jockeys for these camel races is an act that has been going on for years even after a ban was put on such a bad practice.

            “Children from countries such as Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan were sold by their parents to feed themselves. They were then maimed and used as camel jockeys in the UAE” Sagir Kabir, A camel caretaker said. “I am saying were, because the practice of using slave kids has been banned and so it is very rare, if not completely wiped out.” It is now said that robot jockeys are used instead of children and these robots are very expensive and prestigious.

Beniko Hotaru, a long time importer of these robots says “We transport over 2000 robot Jockeys into Dubai every year, and these things are very expensive, but the buyers are willing to pay the high prices because there is no other choice and our robots are very effective.”

            Still there is scepticism about whether children are still being used as jockeys or not. The law against child jockeys was passed in 1993 and till today, the police and the Government of Dubai are strongly against the use of child slaves as jockeys or even on child slavery itself. Serious measures are taken to ensure that this practice is totally wiped out in Dubai. Still, many people find ways to use child jockeys for the camel racing, probably because they are seen to be more effective than the robot jockeys.

`           Adil Absa, a former child jockey, says “When the practice was banned, we were very happy, I remember feeling very happy but wondering what was going to happen next, since I was no longer a jockey. The practice has been banned but I don’t think it has been totally wiped out, I cannot believe that, I have even heard a few stories about this.”

            There are many people who, like Adil, are very sceptic about child jockeys being totally banned, but no one can be absolutely sure of it. The question still remains, whether child jockeys are completely banned and if not, whether it is a practice that will ever be totally wiped out of existence.

Video Assignment.


http://video.nytimes.com/video/2009/06/16/world/1194840995653/linking-gaza-to-the-outside-world.html?ref=egypt
http://www.monocle.com/sections/business/Web-Articles/Barbers-Tales/
   


After watching these two videos, i will talk about the voice, perspective, tone, pacing and structure and also the strengths and weaknesses of these videos.


There are two videos which will be reviewed, the first video is called "Linking Gaza to the outside world", while the second video is called "Barber's Tales". Both stories are very interesting and are told in very clear and understandable ways. 


LINKING GAZA TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD.


In the first video, the reporter was a make and he did not appear in the video. The story was told from the perspective of both sides but more from the perspective of the smugglers than from that of the opposition. The tone of the video was rather sombre and the reporter's tone was anything but cheerful, reflecting the message and the mood of the video. Also, the video followed a careful step-by-step process of how the smugglers operated and also showing the how these smugglers live. The video had a lot of interesting footage on the different people involved in this smuggling and how it is done, it also had very good footage of the different places in the region.


BARBER'S TALES.


This video, on the other hand, Had two reporters who did the voice-over. One reporter was a male and the other was a female, but like the first video, the reporters were not shown in them. The two reporters alternated between the four barbers, telling their stories in very interesting ways. The tones of the reporters in this video were cheerful and inviting, almost as if they were advertising the message of the story. This video, unlike the first one, had music in the background which made the story less serious than the first video. This second video is also more of a feature story than the first one. The news story was a softer one. This second story had more description about the people and places compared to the first video. This video explored four people in four different continents while the first video stuck to the people from a particular region. The video had a lot of footage, like the first video on all the different barbers and the reporters explained the different methods of all the barbers very clearly.


Both stories had clear explanations on the stories and each story passed two contrasting message across. One explaining the events that happen in a whole other place in the world and calling on the viewers to share and understand and make their own opinions, while the other inviting people to take a look at the interesting ways of a trade in four different geographical areas. Both videos were interesting and very clearly done.