Recently came across two great blogs regarding two very exotic dance music meccas...

* Beatportal (beatports music news outlet) discusses digital piracy in the southern region w/ the upcoming South American Music Conference (SAMC). A global issue in electronic music, but is interesting with the historic dance culture and massive amounts of musical creativity through out the region....

READ HERE>>>> http://www.beatportal.com/feed/item/south-america-boom-or-bust1/

* GrooveSource Media covers the Dubai and its booming city of luxury. Everything is there, fake islands, indoor ski resorts, drugs, sex, prostitution, human rights, mega clubs, futurist skylines, a dark side...

from groove source media 2007>>>>
Known previously as a tiny, Muslim port of trade, this nouveau playground for the rich and ridiculously richer has become an almost unattainably lavish destination dance locale. Clubs, many of which dwarf those that revelers have experienced in their home countries, populate the city by the hundreds. Reports of almost unbelievable luxury from this clubbing paradise have helped plant this city of the future (replete with artificial islands and indoor skiing) into the imaginations of the club-hopping jet set. But are the bright lights and futuristic skyscape of this city on the world a distraction from darker cultural and human rights issues which run like oil in the underbelly of Dubai?

Several high profile cases have brought the delicate counterbalance between traditional middle-eastern values and western debaucheries that accompany global clubbing into focus. The consequence of these oppositional ideologies has been the arrest and imprisonment of many foreigners for drug and sex related offenses. Often what would be only a minor infraction in someone's western home country, can lead to a severe prison sentence in Dubai.

The city's zero tolerance policy for many of the west's most treasured vices makes the November 23rd arrest of Radio One's DJ Grooverider (on a charge of pornography and marijuana possession) come as little surprise to many, who saw such a circumstance as an eventuality for one of the artists who frequent the area. But Raymond Bingham (AKA Grooverider) was not the first notable westerner to dance his way into an uncomfortable position with the authorities in the United Arab Emirates.

MTV's Bam Margera and his new wife found out first person exactly how deep the ties between this new megatropolis and the ancient Islamic laws of the region run. The reality TV duo was strip-searched at the airport upon the mere suspicion that they could be smuggling drugs into the UAE when honeymooning in the futuristic destination in 2007. The pending outcome of the Grooverider case is sure to be an important and closely watched battle in the ongoing conflict between the values of the Dubai's decadent visitors and the old world ideologies of the Arabian Peninsula. The stiff sentences now under discussion as a result of the Radio One DJ's arrest can only bring more attention to Dubai's pesky human rights and civil liberties record.

While many clubbers are aware that this paradise is not governed by the same set of laws and ideas that structure much of western civic life, perhaps few realize how difficult life in Dubai can be for those who are not traveling guests of the city. The government is not democratically governed. In fact, citizens have no mechanism at all to change their government or political parties. There is no right of free assembly and the rights of workers are severely infringed upon. It is common practice for employers in the UAE to confiscate employees' passports during their employment to preclude employees from changing jobs or returning to their homes. There are ongoing reports of blue collar worker abuse pandemic to the United Arab Emirates, which resulted in riots of Asian workers at several construction sites. But Dubai's besmudged records violations aren't limited to infractions on basic civic and employment rights.

The most visible abuse of human rights in Dubai is also the UAE's most overlooked abuse. The unofficially condoned status of prostitution is especially ironic when compared to the severity of punishments for pornography. Dubai, like many popular tourist locales has become a destination for "sexual tourists." Indeed, the brothels in Dubai are often described as conspicuous by those who visit the Persian Gulf Coast. But few realize that the industry is supplied largely via the human trafficking and kidnapping of women via an elaborate international network. Perhaps, in a region known for the second class citizenship of women, it should come as less of a surprise than it does that when criminalizing vice, crimes against women (who are forced by the thousands into Dubai's prostitution rings) are overlooked largely. Women of Eastern-European and African origin are regularly kidnapped, beaten, raped and shipped to the same areas populated by continental clubbers. After being enslaved, they are offered as just another of Dubai's garden of delights to late night revelers with little notice or care on the part of those who travel there. But that may be changing.

The recent arrests in relation to other vice-related crimes are shedding new light on this destination. Tourists, now experiencing more issues with Dubai's laws, are posing tough questions about the overall social climate of Dubai. As travelers, wary of stories about harsh prison sentences, become less and less inclined to spend their money in a location where their way of life is not tolerated, many expect to see a change. Whether that change will come in the number of vacationers or in the laws of Dubai remains yet to be seen.