Anthony Shadid is a fine foreign correspondent. Read this piece on Dubai. I have read many articles on Dubai, in more than one language, and none are as good as this one. Notice that he tries to cover all the bases, and does not allow himself to be duped by the glitz. Notice that he wrote about the foreign workers, and their plight, and he even made a passing reference to the sleaze and prostitution of the city, sanctioned by the ruling family no doubt. Some elements were missing: like nothing about women, and not much about the politics of the royal family, and their foreign connections, and the politics of the UAE, or the presence of US. Also, the quotation attributed to Lebanese economist (and pro-Gulf regimes) Nasir S`idi, about absence of corruption in Dubai is just outright silly and false. But Shadid writes unlike most American foreign correspondent. He has become the resident correspondent-specialist: not like the roving and rotating US correspondent who pontificates on issues under the sun.