<HTML>Hi Don,
Ossama Bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia, not UAE.
I worked and lived in Saudi Arabia, based in Riyad, from 1980 to 1985. I also worked and lived in Oman, a neighbouring country, from 1973 to 1978; and Sudan from 1968 to 1980. You need to live and share with these people to understand them and their ways. They are good people, people just like you and I, who love their families and their children and their women as much as we do, perhaps even more. One thing that struck me, especially in Saudi Arabia, is the strong family bonds that exist, the way the women are protected and cared for, and the amazing bond that they have with their children. Sure, their religious practices are such that women are limited in more ways than one. I've never condoned this, but I also do not pontificate and condemn simply because they have different values and tradition.
Nothing, at least that you seem to be suggesting, is 'happening' to women in the UAE or elsewhere in Middle East. They are not being killed off or anything sinister like that. The statistics that you see are perhaps greatly distorted by the fact that huge numbers of male from other states, foreign workers mostly, have settled in these rich oil Gulf states. Also (at least for Saudi Arabia I know that much, there are still many nomadic people who, by definition, do not like censuses, particularly about their women. Whatever the underlining cause of these statisics, the rhetorical question you posed is without value.
Keep well.
RB</HTML>
