The few civil society representatives who made the trip to Dubai were not impressed with what they found behind the veneer of modernity. Peter Bosshard, of International Rivers Network, discovered that migrant workers from south and south-east asia employed in the international convention centre are paid less than $150 per month for a 6 day week of 12 hour days with only a half hour lunch break. There are, of course, no trade unions. Combined with its reputation as a tax haven and its lack of fundamental rights and freedoms, Ann Pettifor of Jubilee Research was left wondering "what message Mssrs. Koehler and Wolfensohn were sending to the rest of the world by holding the conference there?"