Category: World News & Politics

Burj Dubai World’s Tallest Building

Burj DubaiBurj Dubai, the supertall tower designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill for developer Emaar being built in Dubai, is now the tallest building in the world.

A year and a half ahead of completion and already 512m tall, the skyscraper known as Burj Dubai (Dubai Tower) has become the world’s tallest building, according to its developers.

It is is now taller than Taipei 101 in Taiwan, which officially held the record for being the tallest tower since 2004.

The final height of the Burj is a closely guarded secret. Emaar, the state-owned development company, is only willing to say that construction work will stop sometime after the tower reaches 700m.

Once finished it will have an estimated 160 floors, lifts whizzing up at speeds of 40 miles per hour, and a total of 344,000 square meters of floor-space, housing residential, commercial and retail property.

The $1bn skyscraper is being constructed in the heart of central Dubai, a 500-acre development project worth $20bn.

Eventual completion of the tower is set for December 2008.

Zimbabwe Wants Black-Run Firms

After farms, it’s now the turn of firms…

President Robert Mugabe’s government has published a bill to move majority control of “public companies and any other business” to black Zimbabweans.

The goal is to ensure at least a 51% shareholding by indigenous black people in the majority of businesses.

Zimbabwe’s official inflation is 4,500% but independent economists and retailers say it is really above 11,000% and picking up speed. With inflation levels that high and the country suffering from shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency; this really isn’t the time to make things even worse by applying the same policy that got the country there in the first place on its firms.

When the government seized control of land owned by white farmers, in its crazy effort for land distribution, no good came out of it, and all it did was trigger a sharp drop in production and exports of agricultural goods, thereby bringing the economy crushing down to its knees.

I’m not against land and farm redistribution, in fact I am all for it, and I too think it was unfairly distributed before, but such a move should be approached with much caution and years and years of planning; you don’t just wake up one morning, start kicking white zimbabwean farmers out of their homes and off their farms and giving it to people who mainly have no experience or resources to run a farm. Maybe a better way would have been to reorganize and redistribute as partnerships between the black and white zimbabweans, plan it through different phases, test it slowly and carefully on a small group and see how it affects the output of the farms, the quality, everything and then take decisions based on it.

But apparently some people don’t learn from their previous mistakes and want to go on applying them in other areas, further damaging the country and its dead economy.

Zimbabwe has a special place in my heart; I grew up there and made my first friends there; I lived some of the sweetest years of my life there; and I hold the dearest of memories of the country and its people; Somewhere deep inside of me, I still consider it a home to me.
This is why it pains me so much to see a country that was so great, beautiful and vibrant with some of the happiest people I’ve ever met, no matter how rich or poor they were, in a situation like the one it is in today.
I’m not one of those people who only looks to the bad side of things, Mugabe did some really good things for Zimbabwe over the years, but he and his government are obviously taking the wrong approach in all of this.

I truly wish for a better brighter future for Zimbabwe.

US Increases Military Aid To Israel

The United States will increase its military assistance to Israel and sign a new agreement securing American aid to the country for the next decade, President George W. Bush announced Tuesday following his meeting with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
(…)
Israel asked for a gradual increase in the aid over a 10-year period at the tune of $50 million per year. At the end of the 10 years, Israel will receive $2.9 billion annually in military assistance from the U.S.
Olmert told the president that an announcement on the increase in aid would be an expression of American support for Israel against the growing threats to its existence in the region.

[Source: Haaretz]

No Comment…

[Via: Houblog]

Ontario’s Alternative Energy Push

My respect for Canada has just gone up another notch…

A raft of subsidies and other incentives is making Ontario a hot spot for solar panel manufacturers and others in alternative energy.

This week, the province’s government announced a $610 million fund to develop a green technology industry and attract carmakers and solar panel makers. Municipalities will also be able to dip into a separate $206 million fund for retrofitting buildings.

Additionally, the province has unfurled programs that eliminate sales tax on Energy Star-rated lightbulbs and appliances for a year, offer homeowners up to about $4,689 to install energy-efficient appliances, and set a goal to see 100,000 homes go solar. A pilot program will also extend zero-interest loans to homeowners who install renewable energy systems. These build on other programs designed to increase solar power demand.

Overall, Ontario wants to reduce greenhouse gas levels to 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2014, 15 percent below those levels by 2020, and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

[Source: CNet News]

And just across Canada’s southern border… Oh well, we all know the story…

Miltary Spending Rose 37% Over 10 Years

Military spending worldwide has risen by 37% over the past 10 years, reaching 1.204 Trillion dollars in 2006, according to the annual report published by SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) on June 11th.

The United States, with a spending of 528.7 Billion dollars in 2006, accounts for 46% of the total military spending worldwife, way ahead of all the other countries.
Right behind the US are the UK and France that both account for 4 to 5 % of the worldwide miltary spending in 2006.
The top 15 countries in the list alone account for 83% of the global budget.

Arms sales by the 100 top arms manufacturers in the world rose by 3% over 2005, reaching 290 Billion dollars.

I bet all these countries explain that all these arms are for security and safety reasons; what’s truly ironic is that over the past 10 years that military spending has risen by 37%, safety and security has dropped by so many times more than that!
The world is certainly not getting any safer!
So isn’t it clear yet that the more weapons we have, the less safe we become?

Imagine if a sum as big as that or even a fraction of it was invested in development projects, education, fighting poverty, building trust and better international relations, spreading understanding, or mediating between conflicting sides for example; I’m sure the world would be a much safer and better place for us all to live in.

The only people who win from this all are the arms manufacturers, but the loss is that of the whole of humanity!

[Via: Je Blog]
[Source: Le Monde]

Global Peace Index Ranks Countries By Peacefulness

The first study to rank countries around the world according to their peacefulness and the drivers that create and sustain their peace was released on May 30th. The Global Peace Index studied 121 countries from Algeria to Zimbabwe and its publication comes one week before the leaders of the world’s richest countries gather for the G8 summit in Germany to discuss issues of global concern.

According to this Global Peace Index, Norway is the most peaceful nation and Iraq is the least, just after Israel and Sudan. The survey places Israel at the bottom end of the scale at #119.

The United States is also among the least peaceful nations in the world, ranking 96th between Yemen and Iran.

Tunisia comes in at #39 right after the United Arab Emirates and before Ghana.

The Index aims to provide a quantitative measure of peacefulness that
is comparable over time, and that will hopefully inspire and influence world
leaders and governments to further action.

The main findings of the Global Peace Index are:

– Peace is correlated to indicators such as income, schooling and the level of regional integration
– Peaceful countries often shared high levels of transparency of government and low corruption
– Small, stable countries which are part of regional blocs are most likely to get a higher ranking

Full list & more: First Global Peace Index Ranks 121 Countries
[Via: Sabbah]

The Clash Within

(…) Until the spring of 2004, its parliamentary government was increasingly controlled by right-wing Hindu extremists who condoned and in some cases actively supported violence against minority groups, especially Muslims.
(…)
If we really want to understand the impact of religious nationalism on democratic values, India currently provides a deeply troubling example, and one without which any understanding of the more general phenomenon is dangerously incomplete. It also provides an example of how democracy can survive the assault of religious extremism.
(…)
The real “clash of civilizations” is not between “Islam” and “the West,” but instead within virtually all modern nations

Nicolas Sarkozy Wins French Presidential Elections

So, yesterday was big presidential election day in France, and Nicolas Sarkozy won; he got 53% of the vote.

I was expecting this, and it came at no surprise to me; I haven’t followed the campaigns closely, because after all it is not a story that is of any special importance to me, but I caught some bits and pieces of debates or talk shows here and there, and Sarkozy is simply put a better salesperson and speaker than S

Fascist America In 10 Easy Steps

An interesting article by Naomi Wolf in The Guardian:

… If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy – but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

[…]

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a gulag
3. Develop a thug caste
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
5. Harass citizens’ groups
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7. Target key individuals
8. Control the press
9. Dissent equals treason
10. Suspend the rule of law

[Source: The Guardian]

[Via: Hou-Hou Blog]