bbc: Dubai opens world's tallest tower

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The world's tallest building is set to be opened in the Gulf emirate of Dubai.

More than 800m (2,625ft) high and clad in 26,000 glass panels, Burj Dubai has 160 floors and more than 500,000 sq m of space for offices and apartments.

Construction began in 2004, at the height of an economic boom. The opening comes after a financial crisis which has seen Dubai bailed out by Abu Dhabi.

The exact height of the $1.5bn tower is secret, but it far exceeds that of the previous record holder, Taipei 101.

It will also lay claim to the highest occupied floor, the tallest service lift, and the world's highest observation deck - on the 124th floor. The world's highest mosque and swimming pool will meanwhile be located on the 158th and 76th floors.

Technical challenges

Though not complete on the inside, Burj Dubai will be officially opened by Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, at 2000 (1600 GMT) on Monday, 1,325 days after excavation work started.

At a ceremony to be attended by 60,000 guests, Sheikh Mohammed will also reveal the exact height of the tower that dwarfs the 508m Taipei 101 and the 629m KVLY-TV mast in the US, the tallest man-made structure. Its spire can been seen from 95km (60 miles) away.

"We weren't sure how high we could go," said Bill Baker of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the building's structural engineer. "It was kind of an exploration... a learning experience."

Mohamed Ali Alabbar, chairman of Emaar Properties, the developer behind Burj Dubai, told the BBC that the building's design had posed unprecedented technical and logistical challenges, not just because of its height, but also because Dubai was susceptible to high winds and was close to a geological fault line.

"We have been hit with lightning twice, there was a big earthquake last year that came across from Iran, and we have had all types of wind which has hit us when we were building. The results have been good and I salute the designers and professionals who helped build it," he said.

BURJ DUBAI IN NUMBERS
# 95 : distance in km at which its spire can be seen
# 504 : rise in metres of its main service lift
# 57 : number of lifts
# 49 : number of office floors
# 1,044 : number of residential apartments
# 900 : length in feet of the fountain at the foot of the tower, the world's tallest performing fountain
# 28,261 : number of glass panels on the exterior of the tower

The design incorporates ideas from traditional Islamic architecture, while the open petals of a desert flower were the inspiration for the tower's base.

Burj Dubai will be home to 1,044 luxury apartments, 49 floors of offices and eventually a 160-room Armani-branded hotel. Around 12,000 people are expected to live and work in the tower, which is part of a 500-acre development.

However, investors are facing losses even before the tower is completed because property prices in Dubai have slumped amid the global economic crisis.

Some apartments were selling for $2,700 per sq ft, but are now going for less than half that. Analysts say it will be particularly hard to lease office space because few companies can justify paying premiums for luxury.

Emaar's government-owned parent company, Dubai World, meanwhile recently had to request a suspension in debt repayments, and Dubai had to turn to Abu Dhabi last year for bail-outs worth $25bn.

The BBC's Malcolm Borthwick in Dubai says developers are holding back on new flagship projects, so Burj Dubai could mark the end of an era for skyscrapers in the Gulf - at least in the short term.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/8439618.stm

Published: 2010/01/04 13:43:04 GMT

The boundaries of Brand Obama

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The boundaries of Brand Obama

Mark Mardell | 17:17 UK time, Friday, 2 October 2009

Comments (175)

The president's home city has been knocked out in the first round of the vote to choose the host city for the 2016 Olympic Games, even though he and the First Lady travelled to Copenhagen to push the bid.

A humiliation, a moment of moment or a fact devoid of political meaning? I have no doubt some hostile commentators will argue the former.

The argument had already been doing the rounds that he should concentrate on the big stuff, and not on such trivia.

But that position has already been undermined. He used his European trip to have a meeting in the front of Air Force One with Gen Stanley McChrystal, the top military man in Afghanistan. So not a wasted journey.

It is surely the president's duty to push as hard as possible for an event to be held in his country, when most think it will bring jobs and regeneration. It would have been a dereliction to have sat in the White House, leaving it to his wife.

But it perhaps reveal the limits of charisma, the boundaries of Brand Obama. There is no doubt he is still hugely revered in the rest of the world, even if his support has slipped at home. If he is still a spellbinding superstar, this time the magic touch did not work.

You could argue the president has a history of relying too much on his own personal intervention to solve problems, rather than using it as the final touch on top of a detailed political strategy. That certainly seems to have happened with the healthcare debate.

But perhaps the Olympic judges are not swayed by the last minute arguments, and this reality TV with world leaders is just so much showbiz.

The winning city itself may be more compelling than passionate pleading from a superstar.

US health bill gets Senate boost

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US health bill gets Senate boost

The US Senate Finance Committee has completed its work on a health bill, bringing healthcare reform in America a step closer.

The committee is expected to vote on its bill on Monday.

The bill will not include a government-run insurance option for people without employer-provided coverage, unlike other panels' bills.

But it will mandate all Americans to get health insurance, and offer subsidies for the less well-off.

For decades, health reformers have tried to set up a universal healthcare system in America.

But if the finance committee votes to approve it on Monday, it will be the first time that a healthcare reform bill has been passed by all five of the congressional committees with jurisdiction over healthcare.

President Barack Obama welcomed the completion of the finance committee's work.

"We are now closer than ever before to finally passing reform that will offer security to those who have coverage and affordable insurance to those who don't," he said in a statement.

More hurdles

The bill still needs to negotiate a number of congressional hurdles before it can become law, however.

Once the bill leaves the finance committee, it will be combined with the senate health committee's bill, and go before the full Senate for a vote.

If it passes the Senate, it will be combined with the House of Representatives' version by a conference committee and go back before both houses for final approval.

All of the different versions of the bill are broadly similar in the scope of their reforms.

They would all toughen up regulations on health insurers, mandate all Americans to get insurance, offer subsidies to the less well-off and set up health insurance exchanges for people without employer-sponsored coverage, to help them choose between different options.

Lawmakers are divided, however, over whether people with access to the exchanges should be allowed to choose a new state-run scheme - the so-called "public option".

All three House committees supported the proposal, as did the other senate committee with jurisdiction, the health committee.

But moderate Democrats and Republicans are opposed to the public option, and joined together in the finance committee to block amendments to include it in the bill.

Centrist Democrats are attempting to come up with a compromise proposal, and some form of public option could still be included in the final Senate bill.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/8287739.stm

Washington diary: Jobless recovery?

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By Matt Frei
BBC News, Washington

Ben Bernanke may be cautiously declaring that the recession is over.

Barack Obama
Mr Obama will be judged on his ability to improve the economy

But New York City is ahead of the curve.

In the Meatpacking District, you need to beg and bribe to get a restaurant table. Lower Manhattan was knee-high in supermodels, who had flocked to town like an exotic breed of storks for Fashion Week. The paparazzi hovered like vultures.

If President Obama can look through the tinted windows of his armoured limo on his way to the Letterman Show next Monday then this is the recovery he will see.

The epicentre of the financial earthquake that shook the world is behaving as if the last 12 months have been a nasty dream.

Bonuses will be paid out and the survivors of Wall Street - bigger, more judicious (we hope) and more bloated (thanks to all that surplus talent out there and the thirst for capital after last year's drought) - will loom ever larger.

In Lower Manhattan, the gilded era of the last two decades may well continue for a smaller number of uber-banks.

I asked Allen Sloan, the senior Editor-at-Large of Fortune Magazine, how the bankers and hedge fund managers will respond to the president's stern warning that the old ways must stop and new rules are coming.

"They will laugh into their Martinis", he scoffed. "Wall Street will be Wall Street!"


Matt Frei in the BBC World News America studio
If the jobs do not come back soon, their absence could well define Mr Obama's first term

The nascent period of recovery is fraught with political danger for Barack Obama, unless employment growth follows swiftly on the heels of banking profits.

America needs to create millions of new jobs just to get back to pre-crash levels. That is a very tall order.

But the employment landscape is not the only thing that has changed. Until the recent Great Recession, even the most outrageous pay packet on Wall Street was not viewed as an affront on Main Street.

This is odd when you consider the reality of the so-called boom. Despite the ballooning wealth of recent decades, middle class incomes have actually stagnated, the number of people living in poverty has increased and the mega-rich have grown richer.

By 2007, the average corporate CEO was earning around 400 times what his average employee was bringing home. In 1967 that ratio was about 20 to one.

The gulf had become a chasm. And yet few seemed to mind.

Expectation bubble

Rising property values and unending credit became the opium of the people, creating delusions of wealth.

During the 2004 presidential election campaign, Democratic candidate John Kerry wheeled out proposals to increase taxes for those earning more than $200,000 (£121,280) a year.

The proposal never caught fire because even Americans who were earning half as much considered themselves to be potentially rich.

This was the era of aspiration, in which the much-touted American dream became a fantasy fuelled by sub-prime mortgages and underwritten by a cast-iron sense of entitlement.

If a truck driver earning $60,000 a year could live in a small mansion in Orange County worth $600,000 on a 100% mortgage, keep a posse of five maxed-out credit cards and a stable of leased cars, it is hardly surprising that he felt rich even if he was not.

The asset bubble was complimented by the expectation bubble.

Courtesy of Lehman Brothers, the era of aspiration has become the era of resentment.

These days, ordinary Americans no longer feel a connection between them and the high rollers.

The rebirth of success on Wall Street merely underlines failure at home and "bank" has become a four-letter word.

First, there was their staggering incompetence, then they were bailed out by the tax-payer and - adding insult to injury - they are already able to pay back their loans to Uncle Sam while millions of Americans are struggling to cover the next mortgage payment.

Meanwhile, unemployment is nudging perilously close to 10%. In some swing states, like Michigan and Ohio, it is well above that, and every day the fear grows that these jobs may simply never return.

The fears about unemployment will trump the frustrations over healthcare - and if the jobs do not come back soon, their absence could well define Mr Obama's first term.

graph

Matt Frei is the presenter of BBC World News America which airs every weekday on BBC News, BBC World News and BBC America (for viewers outside the UK only).