Here are some interesting figures about labourers AB found online this morning.

A total of 69 labour protests took place in the first six months of the year in Dubai.

Forty of these related to the non-payment of wages, nine for an increase in wages, and 20 over poor services and facilities.

Official figures show 263 complaints were lodged by labourers for non-payment of salaries, two for aggressive acts, 47 for visa cancellations, three for visa transfer, 21 for bad treatment and withholding of documents, three for other reasons.

The eighth annual Cityscape Dubai starts tomorrow.

Organisers say it is the “world’s largest real estate investment show” and that they are aiming to attract 80,000 people – 10,000 more than last year. Who knows if that’s going to happen, especially in these tougher financial times?

In the meantime, here’s a selection of our Cityscape Dubai 2009 coverage.

Interview: Rohan Marwaha, managing director of Cityscape

Comment: Cityscape 2009 - a reality check

Comment: The most important Cityscape yet?

Comment: Rohan Marwaha on Cityscape Dubai 2009

News: No Cityscape discounts offered to Emaar, Nakheel - organiser

News: Nakheel u-turn on Cityscape Dubai plans

News: Limitless not to attend this year

If you have any Cityscape news let us know.

At the time of writing, shares in Emaar Properties are down 10 percent in the first five hours of trading since it announced it would be acquiring Dubai Holdings companies Sama Dubai, Tatweer and Dubai Properties Group.

Investors are trying to absorb the complexity of the deal and, in the absence of hard facts about the future of the business, they are taking the obvious course of action: clear out of the stock until reliable information emerges.

Sama, Tatweer and DPG are private companies without published accounts. In essence, all three are holding companies - subsidiaries of the daddy of all holding companies: Dubai Holdings.

As such, they are the sum of their assets, rather than assets in their own right. To illustrate the intangible role of these companies, you only have to read their mission statements. For example, on Tatweer’s web site, it has a frequently asked question section that provides the following insight:

Question: What is Tatweer’s main strategy?

Answer: Tatweer will focus on leadership development to achieve business excellence and world class quality standards for all of its subsidiaries.

Tatweer will become a world class enterprise through value generation, customer focus and excellence for our people and stakeholders. In addition, it will focus on developing and diversifying the business portfolio by capitalising on market opportunities in existing and new sectors.

If anybody can find a statement with less meaning than this, please send it on a postcard to Arabian Business.

The assets under management by these holding companies are considerably more meaningful, but no easier to value.

Emaar has said that the combined companies will have assets worth a total of $52.85 billion. Not $52 billion, not $53 billion, exactly $52.85 billion - precision that suggests real mathematics and accounting is involved.

In its current trading statement, Emaar says that its assets are valued at $16.5 billion. The combined total for Sama, Tatweer and Dubai Properties is therefore $36.35 billion.

The value of Sama, Tatweer and Dubai Properties assets are therefore priced at more than double the value of Emaar’s assets.

Judge for yourself whether that calculation seems reasonable, by comparing the value of these assets:

The first thing that strikes me when comparing these lists of projects is that Emaar is considerably more diversified in terms of its geographic spread. Between Sama, Dubai Properties and Tatweer, only three projects are outside the UAE. For Emaar, the majority are non-UAE.

Real estate values are falling all around the world, but nowhere faster than the UAE. Emaar’s asset value should therefore be more robust than those of its new businesses.

The real question for investors is how to value these assets, what are the business plans of each project (cashflow, revenues, profits), and what will be their impact on the overall profitability and growth prospects of the group.

This would require a full time team of forensic accountants and researchers several years to evaluate.

Which makes it all the more surprising that a value of $52.85 billion has been established only moments after the news was released that these companies would be merging. I’m not saying that it isn’t $52.85 billion, but I expect I could make a case for $52 billion or $53 billion just as easily.

You do the maths, and let me know what you conclude.

Societies are best measured by how they treat their most vulnerable people.

How people are treated is, by definition, a qualitative and subjective measurement, particularly in a region like the Middle East where there is no universal welfare state that would provide hard figures on how much money the poorest people in any country receive.

But there are clues that point towards the attitude of the authorities, particularly towards construction labourers - widely held to be the worst-off people in a region where expatriate unemployment is not an option, and the indigenous unemployed are well-supported.

A recent report in ConstructionWeek, a sister publication to Arabian Business, compared the working hours of construction workers in the boiling hot summer months.

Until recently, labourers were expected to continue to work on building sites in the blistering afternoon heat of a scorching Middle East summer.

ConstructionWeek’s investigation found that four out of six GCC countries - Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and UAE - have a legally enforced work ban during the hottest hours of the summer.

Saudi Arabia and Oman have no downtime, a policy that has attracted criticism from organisations such as Human Rights Watch.

There are also variations between the countries that do enforce a work ban. For example, Bahrain insists workers down tools for four hours between noon and 4pm for all of July and August. Kuwait offers the same four hour rest period, but for June, July and August - an extra month. UAE has a shorter break: 12.30pm-3pm for July and August. Qatar’s break is 11.30am-3pm, for two-and-a-half months from June 15-August 31.

This got me wondering why the breaks are different, so I looked for other factors that might explain them. The obvious variable to consider is the weather.

Looking at the average maximum daytime temperatures from the months June-September across the GCC, it will come as no surprise that all countries are scorching. The hottest country of all is Saudi Arabia, with average temperatures peaking at 42 degrees centigrade in July.

UAE is next with 41.3 degrees in August. Oman is coolest with 37 degrees in July.

With a bit of number crunching, I have come up with a matrix that sheds some light on the question of which country gives its construction workers the most relief in summer. You can then draw your own conclusions on how this reflects on societies as a whole.

I have taken the total number of hours of relief labourers are given throughout those four months and divided it by the average temperature from June to September in every country. The results are what I will rather grandly call, the first Arabian Business Labourer Welfare Index.

Oman is the least hot country in the GCC; there is a case to be made that labourers can work normal hours in 37 degree heat. They certainly are required to do so in Kuwait, Qatar and UAE throughout September.

Saudi Arabia has no such excuse. It is the hottest country in the GCC, but still refuses to allow construction labourers to rest in the scorching afternoon sun. Human Rights Watch is correct to continue applying pressure for a change in policy in the Kingdom.

Of the countries that do allow labourers to rest, Kuwait emerges as the most compassionate by a considerable margin. Qatar and Bahrain are roughly joint second, and the UAE is by far the least compassionate with its searing temperatures, short break of only 2.5 hours per day, and duration of only two months.