Emirates Palace Hotel

Sunday 23rd October, Emirates Palace Hotel, Abu Dhabi

Me and my elite class, CE1, visited the GCC Economic & Financial Integration Forum (Opportunities & Challenges) on the morning of Sunday 23rd October. We registered and listened to the opening and welcoming speeches.

First of all, there was a speech by H.E Obaid Humaid Al Tayer, Minister of State for Financial affairs in the UAE.

After that, from 9.20 to 09:30 a.m. a speech of  H.E. Dr. Abdul Latif bin Rashed Alzyani, secretary general of the GCC. He started talking about the new economic & financial situation in the Middle East.      

From 09:30 to 11:00 the first session started to cousider economic and financial integration and international experiences, chaired by Dr Jassim Al Mannai, Director General of the Arab Monetary Fund.

The first speaker was Dr Abdul Aziz Aluwaisheg, Director General International Economic Relations GCC Secretariat. He spoke in English,  and he talked mainly about the historical developments and agreements made in recent years by GCC countries in their pursuit of freeing up trade and reducing tariffs in the GCC zone. At the end of the topic he said the Gulf citizens should enjoy this joint action.

The second speaker was Lukas Stemitsiotis, Head of Unit in the European Commission, EU, and he addressed the problems and challenges facing the Eurozone. These problems at the moment centre on Greece and the possibility of a Greek default on its debt, and are particularly acute and the Eurozone countries are still struggling to find a solution. He also noted that the eurozone countries are seeking to promote conferences and forums to combat the global financial proplems facing the countries of the world.

The third speaker was Dr Aladdin Rillo, Director and Chief Economist ASEAN Integration Monitoring Office. He spoke of the experiences of the Association of South East Asian Nations. He mentioned ASEAN’s Mutual Recognition Arrangements, already implemented for engineers and architects. He pointed out that ASEAN was different from the EU and the GCC in that 50% of ASEAN GDP is provided by the service sector. He said that the goal in his region was integration of capital markets, rather than a single currency. He pointed out that it was difficult for developed countries like Brunei and Singapore to share a currency with undeveloped countries like Laos and Cambodia. Perhaps this remark applies equally to the Eurozone. He said that in ASEAN the emphasis is on a single market and integration with the global economy. He stressed the importance of connectivity and equable economic development. He suggested that ASEAN was concentrating on integration of trade, while the GCC was leaning towards integration of finances. He was the briefest of the speakers and perhaps the one who dealt most with practicality rather than ideas and ideals.

Before the end of the forum speakers asked for some questions about new projects in the region and some suggestions.

The session closed at 11:00 with a general discussion which proved to be more of a number of isolated statements rather than a genuine debate.

FOOTBALL

There are a lot of sports in the world, but the most popular is football. Football is the international sport for all of the countries in the world.

Commonly  known as football or soccer, it is a sport  played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball. At the turn of the 21st century, the game was played by over 250 million players in over 200 countries, making it the world's most popular sport. The game is played on a rectangular field of grass or green artificial turf, with a goal in the middle of each of the short ends. The object of the game is to score by driving the ball into the opposing goal. In general play, the goalkeepers are the only players allowed to touch the ball with their hands or arms. The team that scores the most goals by the end of the match wins. If the score is tied at the end of the game, either a draw is declared or the game goes into extra time and/or a penalty shootout, depending on the format of the competition. The Laws of the Game were originally codified in England by the Football Association in 1863 and have evolved since then. Association football is governed internationally by FIFA (Federation International de Football Association)  which  organises  the FIFA World Cup every four years.

                                                                                                 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_football    

WORDS & MEANINGS

WORD	SYNONYM	ANTONYM
Happy	Joyful, glad, pleased	Sad, unhappy, depressed, down, heartbroken ,miserable, blue
shout	Scream, yell, shriek	Whisper
Clever	Smart, intelligent, brilliant, bright	Dull, stupid, idiotic dumb, dim, thick, cloddish
exciting	Interesting, thrilling	Boring, dull, uninteresting,
furious	Angry, mad, irate, enraged	Calm, mild, pleased,

THE TRIP TO THE NIAH CAVES

Thirty  years  ago ,Hedley, accompanied by his wife and his  elder daughter Kate, travelled from Brunei to the Niah caves in Sarawak, Malaysia. On that journey he faced a lot of problems; he travelled by car, ferry, boat and on foot. He reached the Niah caves when the sun set, at dusk. After that he stayed with his family in a government rest house. He enjoyed a lot with his wife and elder daughter and they saw the Niah caves, birds, bamboo poles, men climbing to scrape birds’ nests off the roof of the cave, in order to sell them to Chinese. After that long day they decided to return the next day. He said it was exiciting, different, an adventure and they were lucky to see the guys climbing the poles. Unluckily he grounded the car and lost reverse gear.