Dubai opened the world’s tallest structure in a glitzy ceremony meant to put a brave face on crushing debt woes, leading some to wonder whether the tower is the emirate’s crowning glory or its last hurrah.
The US$1.5 billion tower reaches up 828m, 200 stories into the sky. It surpasses the next highest inhabited building, Taiwan’s Taipei 101, by more than 300m.
Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, renamed the tower Burj Khalifa in honor of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan, ruler of the emirate of Abu Dhabi, which has bailed Dubai out to the tune of US$25 billion in the past year.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
The bailout has fueled expectations that Dubai will make concessions or cede some commercial power to its wealthier neighbor, whose ruler is also president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Concerns about Dubai’s US$100 billion debt pile, which has made Dubai’s stock exchange one of the world’s worst performing, overshadowed both the ceremony and boasts by the builder, Emaar Properties, that the Burj heralds a new dawn.
“The worry for Dubai is that the event will be remembered as a second bout of hubris,” said David Butter, regional director for Middle East and North Africa at Economist Intelligence Unit.
The first bout was in November 2008, two months after the collapse of Lehman Bros, when Dubai spent US$24 million on the opening ceremony of the Atlantis Hotel, an event that did more to highlight a taste for extravagance than assuage fears that the economic crisis was not being taken seriously.
“You have to ask: ‘Why we are building all this?’ To bring quality of life and a smile to people — and I think we should continue to do that,” said Mohamed Alabbar, chairman of Emaar, the Arab world’s biggest listed developer.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
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