UAE Visit visa for immediate family member

Visit visas for immediate family members can be obtained by residents (called sponsors), whose monthly salary is not less than AED 4000 or AED 3000 + accommodation.

Validity of Visa:

Short term visa: 30 days

Long term visa: 90 days

No extensions are permitted beyond this period.

Fees

• Short term visa: AED 620 application fee + typing fees

• Long term visa: AED 1120 application fee+ typing fees

A deposit of AED 1000 to be paid, which can be reimbursed after your relative has left the country.

Documents Required:

• Typed Application form

• A copy of the sponsor’s passport & family member's passport

• 1 photo of the family member (may be required)

• Marriage contract attested from Ministry of Foreign Affairs or UAE Embassy (for sponsoring a wife or husband)

• Attested birth certificates (for sponsoring children)

• Relationship proof attested from the Embassy (in case relationship cannot be proved from family names in sponsor and relative's passport)

• Attested work contract if the sponsor is working in a private company or a salary certificate if working in government.

• Traveller Insurance.

Procedure:

1. Go to any authorized typing office & get application form typed.

2. Go to DNRD & submit along with your documents to Visa Section.

3. Send either original or copy to your relative. If only copy was sent, then deposit original at the airport or the DNATA counter at DNRD. It is advisable to deposit visa giving sufficient time for flight to land.

Dubai Network, a new social media networking website launched

January 21, 2011 -- Dubai Network, a new social media networking website was launched on January 14. It is the brainchild of W3informatics, an IT solutions company based in UAE.http://www.dubainetwork.com/

If you are tired of all the same old networking sites? Then Dubai Network is the best place to have fun and share ideas. The mission of dubainetwork.com is to connect people through a networking forum, where they can share their thoughts, pictures, videos and blogs.

Dubai Network is a social networking site designed to make your life more socialized and active. It helps you to establish relationships, providing the users the environment of face-to-face interaction with pictures and messages. The users can also start a new relation with the people whom they never met through Dubai Network. It is also a network which revives your school friendship or lost contact.

It is always easy in Dubai Network to find people who share your hobbies and interests, look for friendship, romantic relationship or establish new business contacts. You can also discuss the current events and happenings around the world by joining different groups. It is entirely up to you to decide what kind of people you want to get connected with and share your thoughts or joining a particular community depending on your interest.

Dubai Network, being youth-oriented and platform for healthy chat and sharing of thoughts doesn't encourage posting of unlawful, abusive, threatening, defamatory, vulgar, pornographic, profane or indecent information or material of any kind.

Posting or transmitting of any material containing virus or other harmful components is a strict no no in the website. Downloading any file posted by any other user of a Communication facility if you know, or reasonably ought to know, that the file cannot legally be distributed in such manner is also prohibited.Dubai Network from time to time, monitors or reviews the contents of its Communication Facilities.

If you are spontaneous and have a quick finger, then you could grab an opportunity to become a founder member of this fantabulous website.To join Dubai Network, register for free at dubainetwork.com and you can create your own profile right away. http://www.dubainetwork.com/

Dubai Civil Defense Plans to Enhance Emergency Response and Security with the Avaya Flare™ Experience

Dubai Civil Defense (DCD) has become the first government organization in the region planning to deploy the Avaya Flare™ Experience. The Avaya Flare Experience is an industry-first family of next-generation, real-time enterprise video communications and collaboration products and services that delivers unique collaboration capabilities and an intuitive end-user experience across video, voice and text.

On the sidelines of INTERSEC, the largest exhibition and conference for security and safety in the Middle East, officials from Dubai Civil Defense and Avaya announced plans to deploy Avaya Flare desktop devices at its Dubai headquarters and 15 centers across the emirate of Dubai.

As the government department responsible for protecting human lives and property during fires and other emergency situations, the groundbreaking Avaya Flare Experience can provide DCD with a uniquely compelling multi-modal collaboration experience that enhances the efficiency of its security and response systems by increasing communications and collaboration across DCD’s network. Offering quick and easy access to real-time communications and collaboration tools by eliminating the need to use different interfaces, the Avaya Flare Experience coupled with the Avaya Desktop Video Device will allow DCD branch officials to collaborate with headquarters personnel using desktop video, audio, web conferencing and instant messaging.

“In times of emergency, it is critical to reach out to officials closest to ground-zero. Face-to-face interaction enabled by the Avaya Desktop Video Device will enhance control in crisis situations and eliminate unnecessary travel between centers for briefings and other updates. As Dubai Civil Defense modernizes its communications approach to meet the safety and security needs of the Emirate, the deployment of the Avaya Flare Experience is as strategic as it is crucial,” said Major General Rashid Al Matrooshi – Director of General Department of Dubai Civil Defense. “Avaya is the first communications vendor to provide collaboration capabilities that will enhance our emergency response between the headquarters and centers, speed up inter-branch decision making, and drastically reduce our travel and administration costs.”

“With the Avaya Flare Experience, we can enable DCD with a breakthrough collaboration experience which will dramatically expand communications capabilities in times of crisis as well as enabling better and more cost-effective day-to-day communications across different centers. Streamlining these processes will help DCD to respond to emergencies and make faster decisions. This is the true value of the Avaya Flare Experience,” said Nidal Abou-Ltaif, vice president – Emerging Markets, Avaya.

DCD is planning on deploying the Avaya Desktop Video Device, a cost-effective desktop video collaboration endpoint, at the Dubai Civil Defense headquarters in Al Qusais, Dubai and each of its centers allowing heads of each branch to interact with the headquarters. In addition to HD video, it integrates with social media, calendars and email from a single user interface on a multi-touch device.

In addition to seamlessly integrating with DCD’s existing Avaya emergency response systems, the Avaya Flare Experience can consolidate tools such as a desk phone and video endpoint, to enable ad hoc, person-to-person collaboration for DCD officials. Deployment of the Avaya Flare Experience is planned to begin in the first quarter of 2011.

DCD has partnered with Avaya for over two years, relying on Avaya solutions for communications needs and the reliable and cost-effective management of its IP Telephony and notification systems network operations.

UAE Labour Minister issues ordinance in licensing and regulation of private employment agencies

UAE Labour Minister issues ordinance to create mechanisms to reduce certain malpractices that may occur as a result of recruitment operations

A new ordinance on the licensing and regulation of private employment agencies, limited the right of setting up a private employment agency to UAE nationals.

Saqr Gobash, Minister of Labour yesterday issued the ordinance, which also classified the activity of employment agencies into two categories, either the activity of "mediation" between the employer and the employee or the "temporary employment activity", recruiting work force and supplying them to prospective employers.

Besides limiting the right of setting up a private employment agency to UAE nationals, the ordinance also stipulated that every partner and signatory in an employment agency should be Emirati to be eligible for applying for a licence.

The ordinance also set mechanisms to ensure the rights of enterprises that rely in their operations on employment agencies and guarantees the rights of workers during and after the recruitment process.Private recruitment agencies, which are already licensed, have six months to rectify their regulations to suit the new regulations.

Operations

The ordinance included mechanisms to reduce certain malpractices that may occur as a result of recruitment operations, and stipulated a set of guarantees and commitments from the agencies including transparency during the entire process of employment beginning from the phase of recruiting from the worker's country of origin until the operations of the firm in which he will work.

Gobash said the new ordinance provides for enough transparency through giving the worker the opportunity to read his original employment contract which will be accredited in the UAE while he begins the employment.

He emphasised that the new ordinance also regulates the entire process of contractual work beginning from the labour supplying country until the labour receiving country.

The new decision prohibited any agency from importing workers with another agency or individuals inside the UAE or abroad unless that agency is licensed for this work according to the UAE law. The decision also made it clear that the workers of any agency may not work in other agencies.

Returning workers

The employment agency is also responsible according to this ministerial decision of returning workers to their countries on the agencies expense. The agency will also be responsible for any damage to others inflicted through the agencies activities. "We seek, through cooperation with our partners in the labour market, to deepen the reliance on agencies and recruiters to fill the jobs in firms," Gobash said.

Gobash pointed out that this is done to enhance the dependence on licensed private employing agencies to organise the mechanism of recruiting personnel from their original countries to the receiving country.

Rectify procedures

He added that the new decision has been set to rectify some negative procedures that take place in the first stages of the recruitment process at the sender countries side. The decision has also stressed the transparency issue for workers to be aware of the contractual items and provisions in their contract papers.

Gobash added that this decision comes in line with other decisions that have been issued recently aiming at empowerment of emiratisation and organising the labour market.

The decision also comes after a previous decision allowing labourer's transfer which led to an additional flexibility in the labour market, thus binding work owners and labourers in work issues alone.

Guidelines: Set of regulations

• The agency has to present a bank security cheque for Dh1 million to peruse its activities in temporary employment, and Dh300,000 for broker activities.

•None of the partners in the employment agency should have a police record of honour crimes, integrity, human trafficking or any other crimes pointed out in the work relations organising law.

•Those requiring a licence in this field must present a written commitment that none of the partners will be subjected to change unless there is an official and written approval from the ministry.

•Necessity of employing a full team in these agencies who have sufficient experience in this field.

•The agency owner or any of his partners should not be among those who have not paid their workers on frequent occasions, according to the wages protection system.

•The owner and his associates must not be among those who have bogus companies or who have violated labour housing rules.

•The agency owners will also be obliged to apply the UAE regulations and laws regarding the payment of the housing rents, and paying a security sum of Dh2,000 for every recruited worker, in addition to the payment of violation fees referred to in the Cabinet decree No. 27 for 2010, regarding the services offered by the ministry.

•The agency also has to guarantee that the overall number of workers employed by it at any time must be no less than 20 workers, for the time duration defined by the ministry.

The fees for the UAE ID card become the responsibility of the sponsor

Sponsors set to pay for employees' ID cards,ID to be linked to government services from April

Employers in the UAE will have to pay fees for the issuance of national identity cards for their employees when the ID is linked to residence in the country, according to the Emirates Identity Authority (EIA).

The national ID, an ambitious project launched by the UAE to ensure comprehensive data for its people, is expected to be linked to government services from April, two months ahead of the deadline for registration.

“The fees for the issuance of the ID card will automatically become the responsibility of the sponsor once it is linked to residence and after the enforcement of the unified application form,” EIA director general Ali Alkhouri told the semi official Arabic language daily Alittihah.

He said some major private sector firms in the UAE, including Al-Jaber Group, had already agreed to pay ID fees for their employees.

“As from April, government services to the public will be linked to registration and obtaining the ID card…during that period, we will work to link the ID electronically with six government establishments including the ministries of interior, labour, education, health, justice and higher education,” Khouri said.

Speaking at a seminar organized by Alittihad, Khouri urged citizens from the other members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to obtain the national ID card, warning that any delay could block their interests in the UAE.

He revealed plans to re-design ID registration centres with the aim of expanding their handling capacity to ensure all people in the UAE are registered on time.

He said the project would be completed within the first half of 2011, adding that the capacity of some centres would be more than doubled.“For example, the registration lines at Barsha centre in Dubai will be increased from six to 25 in February,” he said.