Dubai

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Four years ago there was nothing here but unbroken sea. Now there's Andrew Dukes and his luxury mansion — sitting on a palm-shaped, manmade island — the first of about 100 houses to open here.
"I got exactly what I paid for and I'm very happy with it," said Dukes, 43, a tanned Englishman who just moved into his colossal home on Palm Jumeirah, Dubai's greatest-yet construction project.

When finished, Palm Jumeirah will number about 120,000 residents and workers spending their days on an island made of rock blasted from nearby mountains and sand dredged from the bottom of the Persian Gulf.

Each of the 100 mansions sits on a half-mile long palm frond, packed in among dozens or sometimes hundreds of others. Sharing close quarters with his neighbors doesn't bother Dukes, formerly an executive with a London-based Internet company.

"Living in London you're absolutely on top of each other. So if you're English-European coming here, you think the plot size is more than adequate," he said.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Dubai | United Arab Emirates | Persian Gulf | Palm | Nakheel | Palm Jumeirah
Dukes paid around $1.36 million for his house just over a year ago. It is now worth almost twice that. He spends his days discovering uses for the large expanse of water that starts a few yards from his back door.

"I've been kayaking ... and I'm going to do windsurfing next," he said.

The first of Dubai's many ongoing mega-projects has literally changed the shape of the United Arab Emirates, re-contouring its coast with a new island mass that has altered sea currents and marred the once unbroken sea view from Dubai's natural beach.

The entire coastal development, led by Dubai government-owned Nakheel, includes three massive palm-shaped islands along with a cluster of 300 islets built in the shape of a world map. All are built mostly of bright sand dredged up from the seabed.

The largest of Dubai's ongoing reclamation projects, the Palm Deira, is still being raised from the sea floor. Nakheel claims that the Palm Deira will be the world's largest reclaimed island, with more than one million people eventually living or working there.

But that figure is called into question by frequent alterations in the island's design over the past two years.

Another island, the Palm Jebel Ali, is 90% reclaimed but building has yet to start on its homes, resorts and hotels. Only the smallest of the palm islands, Jumeirah, has begun to be populated.

Still under construction are the Palm Jumeirah's 32 hotels, monorail, water theme park, and the Trump International Hotel and residence tower.

The developments are central to Dubai's property boom. Properties on the Palm Jumeirah, the first to be opened, have skyrocketed in value after being sold and resold before even being built.

But the smaller islands of the third project — The World — haven't fared so well. Three years after their sales launch, just 45% of the islets have been sold, for prices ranging between $10 million and $45 million, Nakheel said.

The luxurious islands are part of a government plan to attract tourists and lure foreign cash into the tax-free economy. Dubai's government has identified tourism and real estate developments as key sectors to break the emirate's dependence on high oil prices to buttress its economy.

Other nations in the region, including Qatar and Oman, as well as the Emirates capital Abu Dhabi, are quickly borrowing from Dubai's model to develop similar, albeit less dramatic, plans.

The construction of the Palm Jumeirah has already created a national asset worth as much as $23 billion, said Nakheel chief executive Chris O'Donnell.

Despite its opulence and ambitions, few global celebrities have been lured to buy second homes in Dubai. British soccer stars, including David Beckham, have bought properties on the Palm Jumeirah, according to Nakheel's website.

Others are said to have taken a look. Nakheel's website claims pop star Michael Jackson, supermodel Naomi Campbell and actor Denzel Washington have shown interest.

The developers say the first 4,000 condos and homes sold on Palm Jumeirah went to citizens of the United Arab Emirates and other Persian Gulf countries. Britons accounted for about 25% of the buyers with the rest from 75 different nationalities, including several Americans.

Buyers are a mix of speculators, long-term residents and people wanting a vacation home, developers said.

Not all the residents of the Palm Jumeirah are mega-rich. One section serves as a labor camp for the thousands of construction workers who toil in the baking sun. They will gradually be moved out as the project nears completion in the next three to four years.

The project has not been without problems. A full year's delay was caused by settling of the island's new land. Nakheel solved the problem by adding more sand and hiring a Dutch firm to compact it with vibrating machines.

In June, a large fire broke out in a half-built apartment building, injuring three workers.

Some residents have complained about delays in getting their houses. Others complain that Nakheel is squeezing extra profits out of the island by packing in far more houses than their sales brochures showed.

A broad highway bridge links Palm Jumeirah to the mainland's road network. The monorail with four stops is due to be completed next year, according to Nakheel.

Plans call for five clubhouses, each with gyms, restaurants and shopping on the island. The main shopping center will be built at the tip of the trunk, where the Trump hotel will be located.

Nakheel puts the delays down to the massive engineering tasks they face in building an island like none before it.

"With Palm Jumeirah, which is unique in its nature, there are developments along the way, like the decision to vibro-compact the sand," O'Donnell said. "Most customers are understanding of the delays."

Aggravation has been tempered by the massive increase in house prices since the properties hit the market. Houses have tripled in value, at least. And as long as property values continue to rise, owners seem willing to put up with the inconveniences.

"I paid about 2.8 million dirhams ($760,000) three years ago, it's worth about 9 million dirhams ($2.5 million) now," said Dr. Ossama al-Babbili, a Dubai-based pathologist. "Every day I'm getting one or two offers, but I like to live here, it's beautiful."

O'Donnell points to the price increase as a sign of the venture's success.

"This is something people said couldn't be done," he said. "Well it's been done."

http://www.idea-sandbox.com/blog/2006/04/massive_planned_communities.html

http://www.designbuild-network.com/projects/palm-jumeirah/palm-jumeirah5.html

Never mind why U.S. oil giant Halliburton is moving to Dubai. That’s a whole separate discussion. From what I’m seeing on my four-day visit, this city is going to need more than a single U.S. oil giant to help it fill up all the new construction.

Although it’s the largest city in the United Arab Emirates, Dubai would probably need to attract at least ten major corporations with 300,000 employees to occupy all the buildings going up.

I came to Dubai with an open mind, to find out first hand what all the excitement is about. In a moment, I’ll tell you what I think about investing here. And I’ll tell you what I learned in Dubai’s gold market.

But let’s start with an overview …

Dubai Is Great for Business and Travel,
And Its Economic Numbers Reflect That

This city of 1.4 million people is a heaven for businesses! There’s no corporate tax (except for oil producing companies and branches of foreign banks) … no personal income tax … no capital gains taxes … and no withholding taxes.

Plus, there are no foreign exchange controls, quotas or trade barriers. The UAE’s currency, the dirham, is freely tradeable and linked to the U.S. dollar.

So all the right structural forces are in place to make this a booming city. And the numbers coming out of Dubai are certainly enticing:

Per-capita GDP is well over $30,000 … the highest in the Middle East and up there with the world’s top 25 economies.
GDP growth has been running at 13% annually since 2000.
Over the same period, the industrial and construction sectors have been rising around 30% a year.

You could say that Dubai has "arrived." Its port is now home to 120 shipping lines and 105 airlines, connecting 136 nations to the region. The Dubai International Airport is the second-fastest growing airport in the world, based on international passenger movement and cargo traffic.

No wonder Emirates Airlines is one of the most successful and profitable airlines in the world. It recently placed the largest order in aviation history for a total of $19 billion of new airplanes from Airbus and Boeing.

Dubai is the world’s fastest-growing tourist destination, with nearly six million visitors in 2006, and 15 million expected by 2010. The richest ones stay at the only seven-star hotel in the world, the famous Burj Al Arab, where one night costs more than $1,500.

The city has 14 million square feet of existing commercial space, and 98% of it is occupied. But another twenty-four million square feet of commercial office space is in the works!

The current pace of commercial office construction in Dubai makes it the largest and busiest new construction market in the world, even bigger than Shanghai, China! Dubai has more construction cranes per square mile than any other city in the world, new or old.

Just three of the enormous projects …

The Burj Dubai Tower: This, the most ambitious skyscraper in history, will reach as high as 800 meters (2,624 feet) when complete. That’s a whopping 300 meters higher than 101 Taipei, the tallest building in the world right now!

Dubailand: Set to become the most ambitious tourist destination ever created, Dubailand will be more than twice the size of the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. This mega-project theme park will cover three billion square feet!

The Dubai Mall: When completed, this will be the largest mall in the world, with more than 1,000 stores spread over two million square feet of retail shopping space.

There’s also something like $100 billion in residential developments going up, including hundreds of man-made islands in the shape of palm trees and one project called "The World," which is an entire seascape of man-made islands arranged to look like a map of the world.

It all sounds great …

But Here’s the Big
Problem I See in Dubai

Dubai’s boom is being driven by oil money, and an international gang of the rich and famous who are seeking a Middle Eastern paradise on the Persian Gulf.

None of this is being done by or for the common Arab, or the scores of construction workers and service employees that mostly come from Asia (the Philippines, in particular) looking for work.

In short, there’s a big divide between what’s happening in Dubai and the needs and desires of the resident masses.

What I’m seeing in Dubai differs dramatically from the events taking place in China, India or almost anywhere else in Asia. In those places, billions of people are just emerging from poverty. Here in Dubai, most people, including the working class, are already relatively well off.

That’s a huge distinction, and it’s recognized by almost everyone I spoke to here. I asked three separate taxi cab drivers, a half-dozen shopkeepers, and a few hotel employees what they thought of the situation in Dubai. They all said pretty much the same things to me:

"There’s way too much construction going on."

"The big money here is in for a fall."

"The elite here are out-of-touch with reality. So are the wealthy international business community, and the tourists."

As I said, most of the money building up Dubai is directly or indirectly oil money. It’s as if the ruling party in Dubai (the Maktoum royal family), and other wealthy groups within the UAE, have nothing better to do with their money but spend, spend, spend.

They say they’re aiming to diversify their economy away from oil revenues and into other forms of trade and tourism, but I have to wonder about their decisions. To me, it looks like there’s a lot of ego going into the projects here. I see wasteful spending, and big bets that a huge future is in the offing.

Mind you, I’ve enjoyed my stay here in Dubai. The climate is spectacular, the city breathtakingly clean, the people wonderful.

But there seems to be a big gulf between the rich and the not-so-rich in Dubai, and that worries me. They’re not on the same page. Contrast that with many parts of Asia, where the masses want to get rich, and the leaders are providing the means to do so.

Of course, there’s one thing that both the ultra-wealthy and the masses seem to agree on in Dubai …

Gold: Loads of It Being Bought
By Almost Everyone in Dubai

Dubai’s Gold Souk, an open-air market that contains some 500 gold shops, is the largest retail gold market in the world. An estimated 500 metric tonnes of gold, or nearly 18 million ounces, are bought and sold each year.

I got to the market at three in the afternoon, about an hour before the Islamic afternoon prayer session was to end. It was really exciting to watch the shopkeepers pour out of the local mosques and hustle back to their gold shops for the afternoon and evening trading sessions.

As the shops opened, gold buyers started pouring in by the masses. An hour after opening, almost all the shops I visited were packed with buyers.

Gold in Dubai is either 20k or 22k, and can be found in ingots ranging from roughly 1/10th of an ounce all the way up to incredible hand-crafted pieces of Islamic jewelry weighing a pound and costing tens of thousands of dollars.

But here’s the most important point: In the gold souks of Dubai, both the ultra-rich and regular citizens are buying gold. I watched wealthy businessmen, construction workers, and imams all snatching up the yellow metal.

When I spoke with two Muslim women covered head-to-toe in their blue burqas, one of them said, "Gold never goes out of style, whether it’s jewelry or bars. It’s really money."

I couldn’t have said it better, nor could I have met a more gracious lady. It’s rare for a devout Muslim woman to even acknowledge a strange man trying to talk to her, but she even took that picture of me in front of the gold shop when I asked her to.

I will visit Dubai again, perhaps next year. But if there’s one conclusion I arrived at during my visit here, it’s that I wouldn’t make any big bets on the area. There’s no doubt that it’s booming, but the funding is coming from the richest of the rich, and the projects are mainly for the rich. They are not backed by demand from billions of people.

I Wouldn’t Bet on Dubai,
But I Would Bet On Gold!

Gold’s recent performance has been terrific — it hit $673 last week, before falling back to $665. Right now, I expect it to enter a new choppy trading range between $645 and $670, lasting perhaps as long as another week.

But don’t let that bother you. In fact, consider buying on the dips! As long as the price of the precious yellow metal holds $610 on a closing basis, then gold’s next leg up is still forming. And I fully expect to see it back above $732 an ounce, its highest level in 27 years.

All the ingredients are in place. Record demand for gold continues. Meanwhile, available supplies are dwindling, as are new discoveries. On top of that, central bankers around the world continue to print money freely, depreciating their paper currencies in the process.

And then there’s the Iran situation. I’m sitting here in my hotel room, looking at the Persian Gulf, the coastline of Iran just 100 miles away. While I feel safe here in Dubai, I believe the Iran nuclear crisis is far from over. In fact, I expect it to soon go full tilt, especially after the recent Iranian detention of 15 British naval troops.

Bottom line: If you don’t own any gold, now looks like a good time to buy some.

Here's some interesting facts regarding Palm Islands of Dubai and how they made this island in open sea, just see below:

^ Due to its immense scale and unique shape, The Palm, Jumeirah and The Palm, Jebel Ali are visible from space with the naked eye.

The creation and development of The Palm is an unparalleled feat of design and engineering. The Palm is destined to be like no other place on earth.
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^ The brilliance of The Palm is both in its tribute to the date palm tree, referred to as 'bride of orchard', and in its ideal geometry for creating maximum beach frontage.

Each island will add 60 kilometres of shoreline to Dubai, increasing the UAE's beachfront by an extraordinary 166%.
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^ Rocks weighing a total of 7 million metre cubed (per island) are being brought in from sixteen different quarries throughout the United Arab Emirates.
The Palm comprises approximately 100 million cubic metres of sand and rock.
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^ If all the fill materials used to build one Palm island were placed end to end, a wall two meters high and half a metre thick could circle the world three times.
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^ Dredges play a prominent role in building The Palm. Sand is first dropped into place and piled at a specific angle of repose, ensuring it will hold its place.

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^ After the initial dumping of sand, a dredger brings the sand level to the surface with a process called "rainbowing", which literally sprays the sand into proper position.
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^ The Crescent surrounds the island and acts as a breakwater - able to withstand a 4m wave. It is built from the bottom up, beginning with the sand, geotextile fiber, small rocks, and then medium sized rocks, once above water.
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^ Expert Divers examine rock placement underwater to ensure correct positioning. Divers are also used to review placement of geotextile.

Over 100 studies from transportation, marina design and water supply to technology and civil works have been completed to assess and ensure The Palm's feasibility.
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^ Where do all the trees that the islands will require come from?
Over 12,000 Palm trees will be grown on a nursery in Jumeirah, Dubai.
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^ From crabs to shell fish, reefs, coral and rocks, the Arabian Gulf is full of marine life. The Palm will help stimulate its development by adding nutrient rich materials. Residents and visitors will delight in snorkelling, scuba and diving in this rich resource.
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Atlantis Hotel will be two towers with a total of 2,000 rooms, with two monorail stations linking it to the main stalk of the Palm Jumeirah. The first tower (28-storeys), The Royal Tower, will contain 1,200 rooms targeting luxury travelers, and the second tower (18-storeys) will contain 800 rooms targeting other travelers. The resort was designed based on the mythical lost continent of Atlantis, along with traditional Arabic design themes. It also maintains the icon of the Royal Towers in Atlantis, Paradise Island located in the Bahamas. The premises will include a 40 acre (162 thousand square meter) water-theme park, various water attractions, 86 thousand square foot (8 thousand square meter) two-storey conference center, 20 thousand square feet (1.85 thousand square meter) of retail space, an archeological attraction entitled The Dig. It is a joint venture between Kerzner International Limited and Istithmar PSJC and expected to be completed in late 2007.

Expected Completion Date - Late 2007
Real Estate Developer - Kerzner International Limited
Location - The Palm Jumeirah, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

PALM JUMEIRAH READY BY YEAR END

Palm Jumeirah is expected to welcome its first residents into their new properties by the end-2006.

Palm Jumeirah is one of three palm-shaped island developments stretching grandly out into the Arabian Gulf from Dubai’s coastline.

Palm Jumeirah is the world’s largest man-man island, taking more than 94 million cubic metres of sand and seven million tons of rock.

The first stage includes 1,350 villas on the eleven fronds of the island, and 2,650 apartments in 20 buildings on the east side of the truck.

An integrated handover period will begin from 30 November. This means that residents will be able to move in less than five years after its initial stage of reclamation in 2001.

Its developer, Nakheel, expect a further two to three years for the 32 hotels and West side of the trunk to be entirely complete.

The reputed real estate company will mark the arrival of the first residents by bringing one of the world's largest airships to Dubai from London. It has agreed a deal for the tour of 197 feet long, 250,000 cubic feet Skyship 600.

Approximately 5km by 5km in size, The Palm Jumeirah will create 560 hectares of land and add 78 kilometres to the Dubai coastline an increase of more than 100 per cent.

Sultan Ahmad Bin Sulayem, Executive Chairman, Nakheel, said: “The eighth wonder of the world is turning from a dream into a reality.”

The process of adding 78 kilometres of beach is under way, while eight of the 32 hotels on The Palm Jumeirah have begun construction, including the Taj Exotica Resort and Spa, which is planned for completion in late 2008 to early 2009. The first phase of Atlantis, The Palm, is scheduled to be completed by December 2008, claim developers.

The Golden Mile, which is located along the centre of the trunk overlooking the canal, is set for completion in the first quarter of 2008. The area will be an international shopping, office and residential destination covering approximately 60,000 square metres.

Construction has also begun on the Palm Monorail, which will take three years to complete and will serve as a transit system between the Gateway Station at the trunk of The Palm Jumeirah and the Atlantis Station on the crescent.

DUBAI WETLAND TO GET GLOBAL RECOGNITION

An environmental study conducted by the Ramsar Convention, an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable utilization of wetlands, is expected to confirm Dubai's Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary as the UAE's first internationally-recognized and protected wetland area, and the third such site in the six-member Arabian Gulf Cooperation Council (AGCC) states.

The study was commissioned by The Lagoons developer, Sama Dubai, as part of a joint initiative to evaluate the candidature of Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary as a Ramsar site. The Lagoons is also to set up an AED 10 million visitor centre at Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary in collaboration with Dubai Municipality.

There are currently more than 1600 Ramsar listed sites around the world and more than 150 signatories to the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance. Most of the sites are naturally occurring though many are formed through 'ancient' human intervention.

The Lagoons project considers environmental living as a core principle that is manifested throughout the development to ensure harmonious existence with the surrounding ecosystems.

It will offer freehold property with 100 per cent ownership to all nationalities. The project will be spread over an area of 70 million square feet. The Lagoons' will have seven beautifully landscaped islands, comprising of residential units, shopping centers, office buildings, and marinas.

Residents will have culture on their doorsteps in the form of Dubai's first Opera House. Other cultural elements will include a Planetarium, Museum, Art Center and Theater.

DUBAICARGO VILLAGE PERFORMANCE BY 2010

Dubai Cargo Village has seen cargo throughput grow at an average 15 per cent annually and is set to cross the 2 million ton (annual) mark by 2010.

Dubai Cargo Village completed 15 years of its existence on July 26, 2006, a period in which it has risen from being just another cargo facility to one of the best cargo centers in the world.

When it was opened in 1991 Dubai Cargo Village was ranked 61 internationally, but in the past one and a half decades the centre has made it to the top 20 list. In 1995, the centre had to carry out its first expansion project after cargo volume crossed 250,000 tonnes annual mark, four years earlier than the forecasts had projected.

The first expansion saw the Cargo Village's capacity expand by 100,000 tonnes annual to reach 350,000 tonnes. By 1998, the facility was capable of handling 500,000 tonnes annually, and last year the facility crossed the 1 million-ton mark.

In the first half of 2006, cargo movement went up considerably, registering a healthy 10 per cent increase over the first half of 2005. Dubai Cargo Village handled a total of 690,775 tonnes of cargo between January and June 2006, as compared to 627,704 tonnes in the first half of 2005.

The AED1 billion first stage of the Cargo Mega Terminal is already under construction while some parts of the phase are already complete. The Mega Terminal will eventually be able to handle an estimated 4 million tonnes of freight annually by the 2018.

The Cargo Mega Terminal 1, which will add another 1.2 million annual tonnes to the facility's cargo handling capacity, is expected to be completed by end of 2007. The terminal will be used by Emirates SkyCargo.

Dubai Cargo Village was the first to get an ISO 9002 in 1998, and since its opening has claimed as many as 20 awards, both at regional and international levels.

JANET SEALY PARTNERSHIP TEAM ON FAMILIARISATION TOUR

The Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing –Dubai Convention Bureau (DTCM-DCB) organized a six-day familiarization tour for a Janet Sealy Partnership (JSP) team to further consolidate Dubai's position as a MICE destination of choice.

The familiarization trip is in line with an agreement signed between JSP and the DTCM-DCB in December 2005 to promote Dubai as a Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) destination in Europe.

The DCB is bidding for conferences and conventions until the year 2020 keeping in mind the infrastructure and facilities that the emirate will have during this period.

Presently, Dubai has convention facilities of collectively 130,000 sq metres, offering space for more than 100,000 MICE guests. By 2008 the Dubai Convention Bureau is aiming at an additional 600,000 overnight stays by MICE visitors.

The Dubai Convention and Exhibition Centre has an exhibition capacity of 42,000 sq metres while the Airport Expo Dubai has a total floor space of more than 33,000 square meters.

As many as 80 five and four-star-hotels have more than 400 meeting rooms, complementing the outstanding exhibition and convention venues offered in Dubai. A variety of leisure activities and a wide range of sporting facilities – including skiing – make Dubai a MICE paradise.

DUBAI LAUNCH EXCITING SUMMER HOLIDAY PROMOTION IN KEY MARKETS

The Dubai Department of Tourism Commerce and Marketing (DTCM), in conjunction with leading hotels in five, four and three star categories and major overseas tour operators, has announced the launch of an exciting Dubai summer promotion that offers attractive holiday packages to visitors in key markets during the remainder of the summer.

The promotion – Dubai Loves Kids – runs until September 9^th and is expected to provide a shot in the arm to the emirate’s hospitality industry. The promotion has been worked out during a series of meetings that DTCM organised with the hotel industry representatives to review the market trends and ways to enhance number of visitors to Dubai during summer.

The DTCM Director General, Mr. Khalid A bin Sulayem, said: “The summer promotion is in line with our strategic initiatives to enhance the business levels of the emirate’s tourism industry. The promotion captures a large share of the market through its element of family holiday packages.

He added: “The promotion supports the tourism industry and forms part of the department’s continuous efforts to further popularize Dubai in overseas markets.”

The promotion focuses on major source markets for Dubai’s tourism industry – the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Arabian Gulf Cooperation Council (AGCC) states and India. In 2005, Dubai’s 409 hotels and hotel apartments played host to over 6.1 million guests, posting double-digit growth over the previous year.

A high-impact media campaign has been launched utilizing both the print and broadcast mediums in four languages – English, Arabic, German and Russian.

The participating five-star resort and city hotels are offering two children under the age of 12 years old free stay when sharing the room with parents. Also included is breakfast and either lunch or dinner for up to two children under 12 years sharing the room with parents in selected restaurants.

All beach resorts are strong supporting this promotion.

The participating four and three star hotels are also providing 50 per cent discount on food when guests use the F&B facilities, coffee shops, restaurants and other outlets of the host hotel or any participating hotels in this special promotion.

All reservations have to be made by the participating hotels’ Front Offices in advance. This applies to individual bookings not related to any packages or any airline special arrangement. Travel agents have been selected as preferred partners for the promotion in each market covered.

Shopping is just the beginning...
Shop for that new pair of shoes in a designer boutique, catch the latest Hollywood blockbuster with the luxury of a reclining seat, enjoy a mouth-watering meal with family or friends, brace yourself for an exhilarating ride at the shiny new Magic Planet, slalom gracefully down a ski hill...Now you can do all of these things and many more under one roof at the world’s first shopping resort – Mall of the Emirates. Read more about Mall of the Emirates.

Opening Hours:

Sunday - Wednesday: 10:00 am - 10:00 pm.

Thursday - Saturday: 10:00 am - 12:00 midnight.

Carrefour opens 9:00 am – 12:00 midnight everyday.

For general inquiries, please call us on (+9714) 409 9000

About Mall of the Emirates

Mall of the Emirates, the ultimate leisure, entertainment and shopping resort opened on September 28th 2005, and is the largest shopping centre outside of North America. Strategically located in the heart of what is now deemed ‘New Dubai’. This 223,000 square meter centre offers a full range of shopping, leisure, and entertainment.

Mall of the Emirates is home to over 450 retailers and also features a complete range of entertainment options including Ski Dubai, the first indoor ski destination in the Middle East, a two-level Magic Planet, the largest indoor family entertainment centre in the country, a 14-screen Cinestar Cinemas and the Dubai Community Arts and Theatre with a 500 seat-theatre and art gallery. It also has over 70 restaurants and coffee shops with everything from fast food to themed restaurants and exclusive dining alternatives.

This mixed use development will incorporate two hotels, including a 5-star Kempinski, which will offer over 900 rooms combined, a host of licensed restaurants, tennis court, swimming pools and spas.

By Car

Driving down Sheikh Zayed road, it is impossible to miss the Mall of the Emirates at the 4th interchange. Even if you haven’t been here before, you will see the distinctive Ski Dubai slope on the west end of the mall.

A new approach road provides direct access to the centre for people driving in from Dubai; coming from Abu Dhabi, simply follow the signs for the right turn to the mall just before the 4th interchange.

Over 7000 covered parking bays are waiting in a 4-tiered car park which provide direct access to the mall. Parking aisles are electronically monitored for spaces and individually barricaded when full for your convenience.

Colour coded parking aisles include distinct floor patterns, so that you can find your way back just as easily.

By Taxi
Taxis are easily available from all areas; fares from Bur Dubai should be about Dh. 40, from Deira about Dh. 50.

Taxis can be easily hailed anywhere in the UAE. You could also call for one at the following numbers:

Dubai Transport (Dubai)
Metro Taxi (Dubai)
National Taxi (Dubai)
City Taxi (Sharjah)
Al Ghazal Taxi (Abu Dhabi)
+9714-2080808
+9714-2673222
+9714-3390002
+9716-5333550
+9712-4447787

The Big Bus

The Big Bus Company runs the Beach Route from Deira City Centre every 30 minutes starting 10AM - 5PM. The tour takes you along the beaches of Dubai and makes the last stop at Mall of the Emirates. It is a hop-on, hop-off tour with tickets valid for 24 hours and you can take as long as you want at any one place.

The Palm Jumeirah is the smallest of the three Palm Islands (Palm Jumeirah, Palm Jebel Ali and Palm Deira). It is located on the Jumeirah coastal area of the emirate of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The unique man-made island is built in the shape of a date palm tree and consists of a trunk, a crown with 17 fronds, and a surrounding crescent island that will form a water-breaker.

The Jumeirah Palm island is primarily a retreat and residential area for living, relaxation, and leisure. It will contain themed boutique hotels, three types of villas (Signature Villas, Garden Homes, and Canal Cove Town Homes), shoreline apartment buildings, beaches, marinas, restaurants, cafes and a variety of retail outlets.

The Palm Jumeirah will contain over 25 of the top international hotel brands including Movenpick Resort Oceana Palm Jumeirah, Moevenpick Resort & Spa Palm Jumeirah, Antara, Fairmont Palm Residence, Radisson SAS, Hilton, Metropolitan, Shangri La, One and Only Royal Mirage, Starwood, Marriott, Oberoi, Kempinski, Chedi, Taj Exotica Resort and Spa, Anantara Resort, and Dusit. Other developments will include Al Basri Building, Al Habool Building, Al Anbara Building, Emerald Palace, Oceana, and the Trump Plaza and Marina Residences. Construction began on the Palm Jumeirah island in June 2001.

The Palm Golden Mile
Atlantis Hotel
Palm Trump Hotel & Tower

Tiara Residence
Fairmont Palm Residence
The Palm Grandeur

Lighthouse Hotel and Residence
Located on the crescent of the Palm Jumeirah, the Lighthouse Hotel and Residence's architecture was designed to capture the light of the rising sun and beam it into the complex's interior. The Lighthouse Hotel will contain 380 rooms and during the night, the roof will be lit and an arc of light will be projected across the Palm Jumeirah and the Arabian Gulf. The Lighthouse Residence will contain 200 two, three, four bedroom apartments available on 99-year leasehold. The Lighthouse Hotel and Residence is expected to be complete by December 2007 and is being developed by Al Sharq Development.

The Palm Residence (Al Nabat and Al Haseer)
These two residential apartment buildings, located on the eastern shore of the trunk of Palm Jumeirah, contain their own private beach and clubhouse. Designed in the Arab Eclectic style, fusing elements of the Arabian heritage with modern materials, each of its apartments will either have a sea or garden view. The Palm Residence is another IFA Hotels and Resorts development project on the Palm Jumeirah.

Marina Residences (Marina Apartments)
Located on the northern edge of the Palm Jumeirah's trunk, the Marina Residences will comprise of six luxury residential freehold buildings with 858 apartments and 12 penthouses. The development will also include 30 independent townhouses and be surrounded by picturesque landscaping and recreational areas.

Logo Islands
The Palm, Jumeirah will contain two identical artificial islands of 140 thousand cubic meters (4.9 million cubic feet) in the shape of The Palm's logo (a wispy palm leaf) on either side of its trunk. The islands will be personal islands for Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoom.

Edwards and Towers specializes in Dubai property sales and rentals on the Palm islands, the world’s largest artificial islands in Dubai. If you are looking to buy or rent properties in the Palm Jumeirah and the Palm Jebel Ali in Dubai, we have a wide range of properties you can choose from such as shoreline apartments, town homes, garden homes, signature villas, luxury homes, and much more. We also offer properties services that include rental services like short term and permanent long term vacation rentals as well as caretaking services for your Dubai home properties.

Arguably the fastest growing city, relative to its size, on the planet, Dubai's ambitions are staggering. Trying to maintain its Middle Eastern identity when only a minority of the population is Emirati is a serious concern. This city state is being built by foreign labourers and its wealth created by foreign workers. This page will bring you some of the more interesting news stores from Dubai and provide links to news, blogs and tourism websites.
Dubai has many admirers; there are also many who find its excesses to be to extreme and many who express concern about the wealth gap and the exploitation of foreign labour.

The articles and links here will represent both views. Of course, the best answer is to go and experience it for yourself.

The Orlando of the Gulf

22 June 2007

Widely touted as the Middle East's very own Orlando, Dubailand, a cluster of mega-billion-dollar projects, is gradually emerging across the desert sands of the booming Gulf emirate.

Faced with a dwindling wealth of oil, Dubai has taken on a new challenge of larger-than-life projects in line with its ambition to become the region's main business and leisure hub.

Already primed as a holiday destination, it is fast executing plans to build a host of new hotels, golf courses, malls and leisure facilities in order to more than double the number of tourists to 15 million by 2015.

Initially planned to cover an area of two billion square feet (185 square kilometres), Dubailand, billed as the "world's most ambitious tourism, leisure and entertainment project," is expected to be a sprawling three billion square feet. This would make it larger than the entire city of Orlando, Florida -- home to Walt Disney World, Universal Resort, Sea World and a variety of other attractions and hotels.

"Dubailand is going to be a city within a city," said Mohammed al-Habbai, chief executive officer of Dubailand, a subsidiary of the government-owned Tatweer.

"We are very confident in what we are doing," he told AFP. "I would say that most of our projects are on time."

Western-oriented Dubai's bid to position itself on the world tourism map has propelled it way ahead of its oil-rich conservative Gulf neighbours.

It already prides itself on the sail-shaped Burj Al-Arab hotel and building three palm-tree shaped islands off the coast, where the ambitious island project in the shape of a world map has fast become yet another landmark.

On Monday, Dubai also announced its 100-million-dollar purchase of the Queen Elizabeth 2, one of the world's most majestic cruise liners, which it plans to turn it into a luxury floating hotel berthed at one of the palm islands.

A model version of Dubailand still shows its vast barren surroundings, which in three years time will be awash with even more golf courses, theme parks, mega-malls and residential towers.

"This area will definitely be completely different by 2010," when three million visitors a year are expected to Dubailand alone, said Habbai.

The entire 24-project venture, not scheduled for completion before 2025, is estimated to cost 235 billion dirhams (64 billion dollars, 48 billion euros), 60 percent of which is expected to come from private investors.

This does not even include the mammoth 'Bawadi' project, announced in 2006 as the world's largest hospitality and leisure development consisting of more than 50 themed hotels with 60,000 rooms, almost double the number currently available in Dubai.

In May, the emirate's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, seen as the driving force behind Dubai's phenomenal economic growth, announced doubling the value of Bawadi to 54 billion dollars.

One of its hotels, AsiaAsia, tipped to be world's largest with 6,500 rooms, will be developed by Tatweer, with 45 percent of Bawadi already agreed upon with private investors, Habbai said.

Tatweer is part of Dubai Holding, a conglomerate owned by the government of Dubai which oversees mega-projects in the emirate, currently experiencing a burgeoning property boom.

In the throes of constructing the world's highest building, whose ultimate height remains a closely-guarded secret, Dubai also plans to house a Great Wheel, whose size will rival that of the London Eye observation wheel.

Dubailand will also house the world's largest transparent snow dome and a Universal Studio theme park, announced in March by Tatweer.

The latter will be part of a 2.2-billion-dollar Universal City Dubai, comprising 4,000 hotel rooms and some 100 restaurants.

Along with Tiger Woods Dubai -- a 25-million-square-foot golf course and community featuring palaces and mansions by September 2009 -- Universal City will be the only Dubailand projects funded by Tatweer.

Taking it one step further, the Falcon City of Wonders will boast replicas of the Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

Aqua Dunya is also expected to be one of the world's largest water parks.

Several stadiums are being constructed in Dubailand's Sports City and a comprehensive Motor City is taking shape around the currently operational Dubai Autodrome.

Despite the frenetic expansion, Habbai dismissed fears of saturation in the market, which currently faces a hotel room shortage in peak periods.

"Dubailand is going to create a new segment in the market for leisure and entertainment," now mainly focused on beach and shopping holidays, he said.

Grandiose shopping malls are also well in the making in Dubai, a member of the seven-strong United Arab Emirates.

Tatweer announced in May a 2.7-billion-dollar deal with Al-Ghurair Investment to develop a four-million-square-foot mall in the Bawadi retail zone.

And the Mall of Arabia, expected to open its first phase in early 2009, aims to extend to become the world's largest at 10 million square feet.

Dubai cosmopolis
Dubai, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, is unique: a city whose decentred multiplicity informs and accommodates everything it touches, from the role of Islam to that of global capitalism in the region. Faisal Devji presents an acute analysis of a place where tradition functions not to forge a non-existent nationality, but to accommodate and naturalise change. In this, he suggests, Dubai is a global city of the post-national future. From openDemocracy.

By Faisal Devji for openDemocracy (20/04/07)

As the images of planes crashing into the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center were relayed across the world on 11 September 2001, throngs of shoppers stopped to watch this spectacle on the television monitors of Dubai's many malls. Surrounded by American fast-food outlets, and clutching just-bought items of American fashion like the baseball caps that are worn with Arab robes, these spectators cheered as if they were American fans watching a sporting event. What did this celebration mean for the prosperous citizens of the United Arab Emirates, a country that is not only an American ally but in love with American commodities and culture? A country where Twin Towers and World Trade Centers continue to be built, looking now like the growing children of a fallen parent?

Whatever the reasons for their unseemly cheering as the events of 9/11 unfolded on television, the shoppers of Dubai were not manifesting anti-American sentiments because of their economic deprivation, nor out of hatred for the west. They were not even motivated by Arab or Islamic politics, since that now familiar entity, the "Arab street", does not in fact exist in Dubai. Like other members of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), this wealthy principality has a resident population that is overwhelmingly non-Arab, also possessing therefore a substantial non-Muslim component. So perhaps what happens in Dubai should be judged by the city's very lack of Arabs and Muslims, which is perhaps why its citizens celebrated 9/11 in the way they did, as the vicarious members of a virtual community. Indians are the real national majority in Dubai, accounting for some 66 percent of its population, and are alone in occupying every rank in its society.

Emiratis themselves only comprise some 10 percent of their country's populace, though by law they dominate all public-sector enterprises there. Yet even the Arab domination of Dubai's public sector is due to an unusual policy of "emiratization" or affirmative action for the ruling minority, whose standards of living have been in relative decline over the last few years. Lacking the educational background and professional qualifications of the foreign experts who manage their country, let alone the skills of the laborers and technicians who make it function, Emiratis are now being reserved positions in private sector enterprises as well. Though they do not possess the numbers to displace foreigners from either public or private sector, Emiratis can no longer afford to live on state subsidies or on fees paid to be the local partners of foreign companies. It has also become clear that the presence of many successful businessmen among the Emiratis is no substitute for a ruling race, one whose dominance must be secured by quotas, and whose purity safeguarded by restrictions on intermarriage.

While the travails of this ruling minority are curious enough, much more interesting is the society they are part of. What does it mean that the most vibrant part of the middle east, in economic terms at least, is not in fact middle eastern? This paradoxical situation, or rather the novel society it brings to light, makes Dubai far more intriguing than its wealth or vulgarity might suggest. For it reveals to us one of the few societies not founded upon nationality. With a small number of locals outnumbered many times over by a large number of outsiders, most of whom are barred from becoming citizens of the UAE, the nation-state remains nothing but a mirage in Dubai's desert. The implications of this astonishing fact are far-reaching, and inform everything from the role of Islam to that of global capitalism in the region.

The spirit of capitalism
Dubai's cosmopolitanism rivals that of New York or London, the difference being that it is the local who's an exception here rather than the foreigner. But the privileges of Emirati citizenship can never become grounds for nationalist hysterics and xenophobia, as they sometimes do in Europe and America. Being itself a minority phenomenon, nationalism here cannot pitch itself against other minorities. Despite its huge numbers of immigrants, therefore, immigration as such is a non-issue in Dubai. However strong local feeling might be against the role that the United Kingdom and United States are playing in Afghanistan and Iraq, for example, the tens of thousands of Englishmen and Americans who live here have never become targets of general hostility. This is because nationality does not provide the basis for society in the UAE (see Faisal Devji, "Welcome to Dubai, the society that capitalism built", Financial Times, 5 February 2007).

Despite the regulations it imposes to give the impression of a national culture, Dubai plays host to what is possibly the most diverse society in the world. This was brought home to me on my frequent visits to Jumeirah Beach, whose clear waters get saltier by the day as desalination plants providing the city with its water continue to dump the salt they extract back into the Gulf - which is also where the fresh water thus produced is held in submarine reservoirs. All day until late afternoon the beach is populated by white-skinned sun-worshippers from places like Europe and North America. From about five in the evening it draws increasing numbers of Indians and Iranians, Pakistanis and Filipinos, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans and Arabs who're more interested in maintaining a lighter complexion. Women veiled in black from head to foot mingle with those in the skimpiest of bikinis, while Frenchmen in thongs bob alongside Afghans dressed in tunics and baggy trousers. Egyptian youths form human pyramids in the water, as if from some atavistic impulse, and Russians chat to each other while floating in circles. And in all this no language or ethnicity predominates.

The Arab culture that is meant to give national form to a place like Dubai exists mostly in the form of advertising and commodities. It is to be found in the guise of leisure and entertainment, from shisha bars to desert safaris, whose designers, builders and consumers are generally foreigners. Similar is the use of Arabic in public life. From announcements on Emirates Airlines to street signs, Arabic serves as an exotic backdrop to the babble of Urdu, Russian, Persian and Tagalog that are the true languages of Dubai. Though it is possible to make one's way in the city using Hindi alone, there is only one common language here, English, which even local Arabs must use in their daily interactions with Chinese shopkeepers, Indian teachers and Iranian dentists. And rather than being diminished by the foreigner's length of residence in Dubai, this diversity is only compounded there, since even schooling is provided the children of migrant workers and expatriates according to British, Indian, Australian or Pakistani standards.

Given the fragility of national culture, it is Islam that lends moral and legal substance to the UAE. This is manifested in disparate ways like banning alcohol and pork products for Muslims and pornography for everybody, forbidding the missionary activity of religions other than Sunni Islam and legitimating certain legal decisions by reference to the sharia. Rather like the Church of England, Islam is the state religion of the UAE, though professed in its official form by a minority of the country's residents. Unlike the Anglican church, however, Islam replaces rather than defines national history in Dubai. This is evident from the city's religious architecture, with so many of its mosques built to imitate those from other Muslim lands, that I'm inclined to think the emirate's only distinctive religious environment is the shopping-mall. To hear the call to prayer broadcast amidst the glass and marble of upmarket European shops, with American fast-food outlets set alongside prayer rooms, is surely a distinguishing feature of the Gulf.

State-supported Islam functions like an iron mask meant to conceal the lack of a face, which is why not a single refinement in religious thinking, culture or practice has emerged from the UAE. In this respect Dubai is not the successor of medieval Baghdad, Cairo or Cordoba. There are, however, many attempts to make money from Islam in a global market where Dubai competes with countries like Malaysia, which is trying to corner the global market for halal food by patenting its standardization and certification on the model of kosher food. While Malaysia is rushing to become a "halal hub," Dubai is competing with London to become the hub for another moneymaking enterprise called Islamic banking that is estimated to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars. This offshoot of a mythical discipline called Islamic economics emerged during the dictatorship of Zia ul-Haq in Pakistan, as part of his effort to legitimize his rule in Islamic terms while gaining Saudi backing at the same time.

Founded by Pakistanis but now disseminated by big business the world over, Islamic banking is motivated on the one hand by perfectly genuine concerns over ethical investments and market practices, including abstaining from deals involving the manufacture or sale of alcohol and pork products. All this is quite in tune with the kind of ethical investment schemes already available in the West. On the other hand Islamic banking means abstaining from usury, incorrectly but popularly defined as interest. Of course it is impossible to operate in a capitalist market without either taking or giving interest at some level, so a great many euphemisms and often tortuous evasions are required to hide this fact, often to the financial detriment of those purchasing such sharia-compliant services - though of course to the benefit of its vendors.

Islam is in fact as modern as anything else in Dubai. Or rather Islam is more modern than anything else in the emirate, because like other religions it is the first institution to adopt new technologies and make itself at home in them. But of course it will survive long after these novelties have disappeared. One needs look no further than the veil that has fascinated and repulsed the west for so long to see how this happens. Unlike the burqas and chadors worn by poor women in other parts of the Muslim world, it is clear that its various forms, like the abaya, worn in the UAE are statements of fashion as much as anything else. Not only is there a plethora of changing styles for what might appear at first glance to be a standard garment, but veils are also very obviously part of an economy of seduction.

Emphasizing as they do the body's visible extremities, such clothes are often worn by women with heavily made-up eyes, painted lips, bright nail polish, hennaed hands or feet and eye-catching footwear. Veils allow these parts of a woman's body to become fetishes, and indeed there is nothing so overpoweringly feminine as the heavily perfumed, painted and bejeweled Muslim woman to be found strolling the corridors of Dubai's many shopping malls. But then veils have been the garments of seduction for centuries, with a vast literature dedicated to their allure. It is this, rather than any misogynist prescription of modesty or invisibility, that accounts for their enduring popularity in certain quarters.

In any case the habit is a sign of modernity not tradition, because it has put an end to the physical segregation of the sexes by allowing women to move about in relative freedom enveloped in their own cocoons of privacy. Indeed the veil permits its wearer to do things that many unveiled women would find impossible, like holding hands with their husbands in public or mingling with half-naked men at the beach. And of course what lies under the veil is often the most daring of European fashion. Instead of the familiar western distinction between a secular appearance in public and a religious one in private, we find the reverse in Dubai, with tradition signified in public and modernity in private. Instead of being kept at arm's length or reserved for the outside world, the west becomes the most intimate part of a Muslim woman's inner life.

Love's labor lost
Rather than seeing all this as some failure of modernity, the elimination of nationhood as a basis for identity, as well as the capitalization of religion as a replacement for it, might be viewed as the portent of a global future. For Dubai is the closest thing to a society organized by relations of capital. It is the nearest approximation of the urban and island communities that served as models in the early days of capitalism, from Thomas More's Utopia to Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Unlike these model communities, however, Dubai exists as a temporary home for most of its residents, who therefore repatriate the money they earn from a country that will rarely grant them citizenship. New laws giving permanent residence to those who buy property have been designed to lure a certain class of person and investment here, but these are the very people who will flee Dubai at the first sign of trouble, and who are unlikely in any case to invest in the public welfare of its residents. The emirate's financial success is built, paradoxically, upon capital flight not capital investment.

Because it is temporary, investment in Dubai is about short-term exploitation without much regard to social or ecological consequences, as so many of the emirate's grandiose building projects illustrate. What has resulted is the façade of a city, the urban version of a Potemkin village, much of which seems to be made out of cardboard. It is only in the older and poorer parts of Dubai that a genuine urban life can be glimpsed, in which pavements exist on which people walk and local businesses rather than international chains operate. Not that there is anything traditional about this, since old Dubai is as temporary as its younger sibling. It's just that the world of the clerk, laborer, petty merchant and shady operator has more autonomy and therefore creativity than that of the professional linked to an increasingly homogeneous corporate culture. The new city is a kind of Disneyland, full of pretend urbanity and even pretend infrastructure like the enormous and expensive system of roads, which are not only choked with traffic and populated by maniacal drivers, but also badly designed despite their beautiful quality.

Befitting a capitalist paradise, the UAE has a reputation for bad labor practices, with maids from the Philippines immured by their employers, and construction workers from Bangladesh laboring under harsh conditions. Recently there have been a number of disruptive protests by laborers who block highways, destroy company property or hold a manager hostage when they are not paid wages or deprived of water and electricity in the stifling desert camps where they are housed. These latter tend to be made up of hundreds of flimsy cabins, each one crowded with three or more workers, which have a tendency to burn down taking the lives and possessions of their inhabitants with them. Conditions at the workplace tend to be just as bad, with many injured and killed in accidents.

In these situations the government steps in promising to check conditions and impose penalties, though what they in fact do is act as mediators between management and labor. Companies are rarely if ever prosecuted even when they forcibly detain and beat their workers - who are rescued by police only to be deported. The UAE's labor regulations are routinely flouted and insufficiently policed. So even when companies do observe the law requiring a three-hour rest period for those working outdoors during the intensely hot summer, they sometimes release their employees onto the streets, where they may be found lying on grassy verges in their hundreds, as if stupefied by temperatures soaring well above a hundred degrees.

While strikes are forbidden the "temporary" workers who form the overwhelming majority of Dubai's labor, they seem to be occurring more and more, and now even among white-collar workers. The days of cheap and unregulated labor may in fact be coming to an end, because of a more assertive workforce as well as rising wages and opportunities in their home countries. But if labor practices in the UAE are still bad enough to drive the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to distraction, this has little to do with any local tradition of exploitation. Indeed most of the companies involved in violations are based in countries with strong workers' rights, and the managers in charge of laborers in Dubai are rarely locals. Even when it is a UAE company in charge of one of the gigantic, some would say megalomaniacal, building projects in the emirate, the actual work is sub-contracted to European or South Korean businesses, so that it is very difficult to determine where responsibility lies. From management to labor, everything here is outsourced.

It remains to be seen if government plans to create some kind of collective organization representing laborers to address the mounting problems that it recognizes in this sector of the economy. But whether they are for labor or for capital, laws and rights in the city are not phrased in the terms of national unity. Freed from cant about the greater good, workers and management here have recourse to a language beyond citizenship. It is not the greater good of the nation, but the good of the individual, as much as of humanity, that is invoked here. The kind of language that characterizes relations of all kinds in Dubai is one that is private instead of public, particular instead of general and religious instead of secular. Even when the state intervenes to affirm the right of one or another of its subjects, it does so not to represent some national will, which indeed it cannot, but as an arbiter possessing its own very particular judgment.

The state's judgment has little to do with neutrality, not because it is biased in some way, but because the emirate is unable to function as a third party at all. It is instead the first among equals as far as the great interests of Dubai are concerned. As owner, partner or large investor in almost all the big private companies that make their home here, the state acts as one owner, partner and investor among others. While this is not a phenomenon unique to Dubai, it has achieved an unprecedented success here, such that it is difficult to tell where the public sector ends and the private begins. This means that the state actually ends up competing with its own subjects - undercutting rival businesses or buying them out, rather than providing a congenial site for their work. It is, therefore, predator as much as protector of its subjects.

As the most powerful private interest in a society of such interests, the state presides over a marketplace rather than a country. It is not surprising, then, that this city should be the capital of other societies without states. Somalia, for instance, which has been without a government for more than a decade, is even more of a marketplace than Dubai, though obviously a much poorer one. Like other African cities, Mogadishu is supplied with goods largely through the emirate. More than this, Dubai actually provides the base for Somalia's airlines and banking, so that we might say Somalia itself has been outsourced to the UAE to become a business like any other.

Dubai functions as a technocracy rather than a democracy. To call it a monarchy is anachronistic despite a powerful ruling family, which exists as the simulacrum of monarchy. Having been granted their titles by imperial Britain, the rulers of the UAE derive their glamour from the vanished world of the Raj, while in fact working like presidents of corporations. Democracy is misplaced in Dubai, since it is only possible in a community of citizens. But if confining democracy to the small minority of Emiratis is nonsensical, offering citizenship to the country's majority is absurd, as it would entail the creation of a national culture and therefore proscribe the very diversity that makes Dubai possible.

In today's international order democracy means citizenship, citizenship means nationality, and nationality means the creation of a majority. But there is no ethnic, linguistic, religious or even political majority in Dubai, and nor can there be one given its lack of political representation. This makes for a bizarre situation in which demographic majorities and minorities do not translate into majority and minority interests or even consciousness. Though they are the largest national group in Dubai, for example, and probably the only one to occupy every rung of Dubai's class ladder, Indians neither think of themselves as a majority nor behave like one even in ways that are strictly non-political. One finds fewer signs in Hindi or Malayalam here than in London.

Tempests in a teapot
If democratic representation does not characterize political life in Dubai, public opinion certainly does, in the form of newspapers, radio and a welter of professional and community associations. The lively debates through which public opinion in the city are registered are not of course regulated by national interest, though they do sometimes include national loyalties from elsewhere - thus the many letters in the local media by well-paid American expatriates complaining about anti-United States bias. But unchained from the politics of citizenship, even these everyday loyalties luxuriate into strange growths. So the terrorist attacks on Mumbai's commuter trains in July 2006 were followed by at least three letters in one of Dubai's English-language newspapers pointing to the remarkable assistance that the city's residents rendered each other - but only to disprove a Reader's Digest poll some weeks previously that had named Mumbai one of the world's rudest cities.

Pakistani and Egyptian taxi-drivers will tell you of the bigotry they have started to experience following the arrival of the most recent group of expatriates: whites from Britain, Australia or South Africa. And highly educated professionals of Indian or Pakistani origin, often themselves British or American citizens, express their shock at the overt racism they face from their new compatriots. But then many of these white expatriates have been imported to Dubai precisely because they are white, and come to hold jobs and enjoy lifestyles here that their class and qualifications would bar them from at home. Their contribution to the city is their color, which fetches a high price in the bazaar, as white slaves always had in the region because of their rarity. They are, in

I can’t believe it’s real snow

Palms in space