The giant inflatable duck that appeared on Dubai Creek this week has caused a stir after it emerged it is not a piece of art that has toured the world – but is in fact a replica bought in China. 7DAYS reported on Monday how people went quackers for the 18m rubber bird that was launched on the creek on Sunday. It was part of a campaign […]
Just a few days after being chosen to host the 2020 World Expo convention, the glittering city of Dubai was also named the world’s leading destination at the 20th edition of the World Travel Awards which took place in Doha over the weekend. The city of superlatives, home to some of the world’s most impressive architectural and engineering feats and holder of several Guinness records, now also boasts the […]
Middle East crude for immediate delivery traded at its biggest premium in two years to later shipments last month after Royal Dutch Shell bought an unprecedented number of cargoes. The price gap between the earliest loadings of the benchmark Dubai grade and those for two months later climbed to $2.82 a barrel on Nov. 21, the widest spread since 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The […]
Saudi Arabia seems to have few viable options for pursuing a more independent and forthright foreign policy, despite its deep unease about the West’s tentative rapprochement with Iran. Upset with the United States, senior Saudis have hinted at a range of possibilities, from building strategic relations with other world powers to pushing a tougher line against Iranian allies in the Arab world and, if world powers fail […]
The Palestinian poet and filmmaker Hind Shoufani moved to Dubai for the same reasons that have attracted millions of other expatriates to the glitzy emirate. In 2009, after decades in the storied and mercurial Arab capital cities of Damascus and Beirut and a sojourn in New York, she wanted to live somewhere stable and cosmopolitan where she also could earn a living. Five years later, she’s won […]
The United States on Friday congratulated the United Arab Emirates on landing the 2020 World Expo trade exhibition — the first time that a Middle Eastern nation will host the event. The UAE on Thursday won its bid to host the six-month event in Dubai, beating out Russia, Brazil and Turkey. “This is a significant first as the UAE serves not only as the region’s business hub, […]
A maritime services company that had millions of dollars in contracts suspended by the U.S. Navy this week says the action stemmed from a billing dispute probed by the Justice Department several years ago, and it hopes to resolve the issue quickly. The Navy said on Wednesday it had suspended all contracts with British-based Inchcape Shipping Services Holding Ltd, a unit of Dubai World, because of questionable […]
Dubai’s benchmark stock index rallied the most in more than two months after the emirate won the right to host the World Expo 2020. The DFM General Index advanced 4 percent to 3,015.65 at 10:02 a.m. in the city, bringing the gain for the year to 86 percent. Emaar Properties , builder of the world’s biggest shopping mall by floor space, jumped 3 percent and Dubai Investments […]
Dubai’s success in bidding to host the 2020 World Expo will trigger billions of dollars of investment in the emirate, but it may risk a repeat of the boom-and-bust cycle which nearly caused financial collapse just a few years ago. After competing against three cities, Dubai was awarded the world’s fair by the Bureau International des Expositions on Wednesday, setting the seal on a dramatic economic recovery. […]
The RAK Hospital marathon diabetes campaign targeting to screen at least 2,000 people as part of its World Diabetes Day programmes started off with overwhelming public response. The three-day campaign is the biggest such event in the Northern Emirates. The campaign that began on Thursday would screen children as well as adults to detect both type 1 and type 2diabetes. The screenings are held at the RAK […]
U.S. lawmakers said they aimed to tighten sanctions on Iran to prevent Washington giving away too much in a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program that diplomats said was still possible despite the failure of high-level weekend talks. Their comments reflected widespread Congressional skepticism about a rapprochement between Iran and world powers and coincided with renewed lobbying from Israel against a proposal it sees as leaving open a […]
Merlin Entertainment, the Madame Tussauds and amusement parks operator, in which Dubai International Capital once held 28 percent stake, is setting up a Legoland park in Dubai along with other potential sites in Japan and South Korea. This is part of the company’s plans to expand globally, which will see the setting up Madame Tussauds in San Francisco and Beijing next year. Dubai had sold its stake […]
A surge in passenger car sales across most Gulf Arab countries underlines the momentum behind the region’s consumer spending boom, and sales are likely to continue rising strongly for at least a few years, automobile sector executives said. Car sales are an important indicator of business activity in a region where official macroeconomic data, such as gross domestic product, is often unreliable and released with delays of […]
Some merchants and dealers were found to have exploited the ‘24 hours’ facility extended by the Dubai government whereby some major shopping malls were allowed to remain open day and night during Eid Al Adha, according to a statement released by Khalid Al Boom, Senior Director of Promotional Events Control Section, at the Dubai Department of Economic Development (DED). The outlets announced false promotional offers and this […]
Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT), a global insurance provider, has entered into a strategic partnership Insure Direct, a Dubai-based insurance brokerage, by acquiring a stake in the UAE firm. The strategic partnership adds considerable international and specialist expertise to Insure Direct’s capabilities and will enable Insure Direct to satisfy significant and growing demand from clients in several key sectors, a statement said. Insure Direct’s operations in Dubai, Bahrain […]
The 2013 Dubai Airshow is expected to be one of the most popular in the show’s history, with more than 1,000 exhibitors and 60,000 visitors already registered.The five-day show, which kicks off November 17 this year, will be held for the first time at the city’s new $32 million Al-Maktoum International Airport — set to be the world’s largest on its 2027 completion. “The days where air […]
Now that the foundation of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s statue – to be the world’s tallest – has been laid, a small rocky island in the middle of the Narmada riverbed and facing Gujarat’s Sardar Sarovar Dam is seeing a lot of activity. The first phase of the project, for which bids have already been invited, is estimated to cost around Rs 2,063 crore. This phase will involve […]
Dubai is far from ready to relinquish its status as home to the world’s tallest tower. Emaar Properties Chairman Mohammed Ali Alabbar has once again reiterated that a new tallest skyscraper in the world will be built in Dubai. “Emaar plans to build the tallest skyscraper in the world in Dubai,” Alabbar was quoted as saying in an interview to CNN, on the sidelines of launching of […]
Passenger traffic through Dubai International Airport, one of the world’s busiest, rose 13.1 percent from a year earlier in September to 5.4 million people, airport authorities said on Tuesday. The September clip is well down from August, when passenger numbers jumped 23.8 percent to a record 6.0 million, partly because of travel related to the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. In the first nine months of this […]
Doubts are growing over the viability of Dubai’s recently announced plan to build a new oil refinery in the emirate with China Sonangol. The region’s top financial hub last month signed a memorandum of understanding with China Sonangol International, a joint venture between Angola’s state-owned oil company, Sonangol and Hong Kong-based New Bright International Development, to build what will be its second oil refinery. The hope is […]
Tehran’s municipality has torn down billboards in the Iranian capital depicting the U.S. government as dishonest and an untrustworthy negotiator, saying the campaign was “unauthorized,” the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. A cultural institute installed the posters without seeking consent from the municipality’s cultural council, IRNA cited Hadi Ayazi, a municipal spokesman, as saying yesterday. Ayazi didn’t say who was responsible. Billboards in Farsi and English […]
The UAE financial adviser study, conducted by the Durable Portfolio Construction Research Centre of Natixis Global Asset Management (NGAM), one of the 15 largest asset managers in the world based on assets under management, concludes that the UAE is one of the strongest markets for advisers globally, with great potential for further growth if current challenges are successfully overcome. Forty per cent of UAE advisers say their […]
Emirates NBD, Dubai’s biggest bank, raised its estimates for economic growth in the United Arab Emirates this year to 4.4 percent, aided by an increase in oil output. The forecast was raised from 3.8 percent, putting the second-biggest Arab economy on track for a higher growth rate than Saudi Arabia for the first time in at least four years, according to the bank’s quarterly economic report released […]
Mehmood Patel still wakes up early, just as he did when he was a popular heart specialist seeing patients who waited hours for minutes of his time. Instead of surgical scrubs, he climbs into the khaki drabs of the Federal Correctional Complex in Oakdale, Louisiana. He leads health-conscious inmates on a morning walk, then cracks open one of the medical journals on his prison-approved reading list. Counseling […]
