Abu Dhabi and Dubai Blog

Animal rights activists target captivity of whale shark as cruel and unnecessary, but developers of South African apartheid era fame seem unperturbed.

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2008/10/30/rare_whale_shark_held_at_dubai_resort_making_waves/

A selection of proposed, and under construction buildings to grace the horizons of Dubai’s increasingly crowded skyline.

[Show as slideshow]

It is the second time in recent months that Emaar Malls Group has pushed back the opening of its most high-profile project, which will rank among the world’s biggest shopping centers and is a key component of the booming city’s development plans.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/10/29/news/ML-Dubai-Late-Mall.php

Families face eviction in Dubai as authorities make residence sharing illegal.

http://www.daijiworld.com/news/news_disp.asp?n_id=52811&n_tit=U.A.E.+%3A+Families++Sharing+Villas+in+Dubai+Defy+Evictions

As part of its efforts to reduce pollution and create alternative sources of energy to meet growing demand, the city of Dubai has launched a major initiative to harness solar energy.

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/008200810251631.htm

“We want to create a brand which has international importance. I believe this product has the power to become the sweet ambassador of Arabia born in Dubai,” Johann George Hochleitner, the man behind the idea, was quoted as saying by Abu Dhabi’s The National.

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080069839&ch=10/23/2008%205:30:00%20PM

An old, but in depth piece on Dubai development by socialist historian Mike Davis:

Welcome to a strange paradise. But where are you? Is this a new Margaret Atwood novel, Philip K. Dick’s unpublished sequel to Blade Runner or Donald Trump on acid? No. It is the Persian Gulf city-state of Dubai in 2010. After Shanghai (current population 15 million), Dubai (current population 1.5 million) is the planet’s biggest building site: an emerging dreamworld of conspicuous consumption and what the locals boast as ‘supreme lifestyles’. Despite its blast-furnace climate (on typical 120° summer days, the swankier hotels refrigerate their swimming pools) and edge-of-the-war-zone location, Dubai confidently predicts that its enchanted forest of 600 skyscrapers and malls will attract 15 million overseas visitors a year by 2010, three times as many as New York City.

http://www.newleftreview.org/?view=2635

A newly announced highrise for Jumeirah City in Dubai will dwarf the tiny Nakheel Tower and render the current title holder Burj Dubai woefully inadequate. Among the numerous features of its design which will stand out for their audacity and scale, its main elevator is to be a vertical “200km/h bullet train.”

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2008/10/the_plans_for_the_155milehigh_skyscraper_in_you_guessed_it_dubai-2.html

In a case that generated tabloid headlines and became the focus of a clash between Western permissiveness and Islamic values, a Dubai court Thursday found a British couple guilty of unmarried sex and sentenced them to three months in prison.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-sexonbeach17-2008oct17,0,1904186.story