TheRealTalker
Banned
wait the Japanese entered the race too now LMAO
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Dubai is getting another tall building higher than the current world's tallest
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wait the Japanese entered the race too now LMAO
Cjdamon042
Member
I personally think it looks cool.
Razorback
Member
Jesus at that Tokyo tower. I hope I live to see that.
Why does that graphic end with an arrow pointing up to 5000m? Yes, up into the sky there is a 5000m point. So? Why not 10000? All I wanted to know was how tall the Tokyo tower is. Now I have to count all the lines to find out what I want to know. Ok it's 1600m. You had one job graphic!
Alebrije
Member
It seems will be a telescopic tower so you can adjust its height depending of Godzilla's attack
Pamplemousse
Member
Hmmm. Seems like they're trying to compensate for something.
Diprosalic
Banned
not gonna lie, that thing looks cool.
Lactose_Intolerant
Member
That seems like a colossal waste of space.
yep. literally wasting money on posturing.
like, that building is dope as fuck, but wow. It's going to be a nice headstone on that grave of a city in the future :\
TheRealTalker
Banned
I mean if your going to try and make it big what is the pint of it still being smaller then the one being build in Jeddah Saudi Arabia
Messofanego
Banned
Whenever Dubai shows up in the news about making some skyscraper, I just have this image of Spec Ops The Line in my head 
There's also this longform article that is a worthy read about how it's all a big con job.
The dark side of Dubai
There's also this longform article that is a worthy read about how it's all a big con job.
The dark side of Dubai
I doubt any of the South Asians know what's in store for them when they come to Dubai. Propaganda is high, has to be if you're gonna get people to come to your place where nothing grows but "oil and buildings". The agencies come to your country, offer you the world and when you arrive, take away your passport. It's not like this is widely known, it's just some tiny things on the internet. A lot of this is kept secret. It's a big con job.
Sahinal Monir, a slim 24-year-old from the deltas of Bangladesh. "To get you here, they tell you Dubai is heaven. Then you get here and realise it is hell," he says. Four years ago, an employment agent arrived in Sahinal's village in Southern Bangladesh. He told the men of the village that there was a place where they could earn 40,000 takka a month (£400) just for working nine-to-five on construction projects. It was a place where they would be given great accommodation, great food, and treated well. All they had to do was pay an up-front fee of 220,000 takka (£2,300) for the work visa a fee they'd pay off in the first six months, easy. So Sahinal sold his family land, and took out a loan from the local lender, to head to this paradise.
As soon as he arrived at Dubai airport, his passport was taken from him by his construction company. He has not seen it since. He was told brusquely that from now on he would be working 14-hour days in the desert heat where western tourists are advised not to stay outside for even five minutes in summer, when it hits 55 degrees for 500 dirhams a month (£90), less than a quarter of the wage he was promised. If you don't like it, the company told him, go home. "But how can I go home? You have my passport, and I have no money for the ticket," he said. "Well, then you'd better get to work," they replied.
Let's not forget the expats who go into debt, so they get their accounts frozen and are forbidden to leave the country, then are sent to prison. Sleeping rough around in cars, airports, wherever.
I try a different question: does Sohinal regret coming? All the men look down, awkwardly. "How can we think about that? We are trapped. If we start to think about regrets..." He lets the sentence trail off. Eventually, another worker breaks the silence by adding: "I miss my country, my family and my land. We can grow food in Bangladesh. Here, nothing grows. Just oil and buildings."
Sorry for the "anti UAE sentiments"
A Human Rights Watch study found there is a "cover-up of the true extent" of deaths from heat exhaustion, overwork and suicide, but the Indian consulate registered 971 deaths of their nationals in 2005 alone. After this figure was leaked, the consulates were told to stop counting.
Tourists know well enough not to question any of this, they just keep their head down.
I approach a blonde 17-year-old Dutch girl wandering around in hotpants, oblivious to the swarms of men gaping at her. "I love it here!" she says. "The heat, the malls, the beach!" Does it ever bother you that it's a slave society? She puts her head down, just as Sohinal did. "I try not to see," she says. Even at 17, she has learned not to look, and not to ask; that, she senses, is a transgression too far.
Here is how some Emiratis try to dismiss Sonapur and the slavery, which you can already notice in this thread as people comparing it to other places or using fear by saying Dubai would become a fundamentalist islamic state if it wasn't like this. "Don't judge us".
I pause, and think of the vast camps in Sonapur, just a few miles away. Does he even know they exist? He looks irritated. "You know, if there are 30 or 40 cases [of worker abuse] a year, that sounds like a lot but when you think about how many people are here..." Thirty or 40? This abuse is endemic to the system, I say. We're talking about hundreds of thousands.
Sultan is furious. He splutters: "You don't think Mexicans are treated badly in New York City? And how long did it take Britain to treat people well? I could come to London and write about the homeless people on Oxford Street and make your city sound like a terrible place, too! The workers here can leave any time they want! Any Indian can leave, any Asian can leave!"
But they can't, I point out. Their passports are taken away, and their wages are withheld. "Well, I feel bad if that happens, and anybody who does that should be punished. But their embassies should help them." They try. But why do you forbid the workers with force from going on strike against lousy employers? "Thank God we don't allow that!" he exclaims. "Strikes are in-convenient! They go on the street we're not having that. We won't be like France. Imagine a country where they the workers can just stop whenever they want!" So what should the workers do when they are cheated and lied to? "Quit. Leave the country."
I sigh. Sultan is seething now. "People in the West are always complaining about us," he says. Suddenly, he adopts a mock-whiny voice and says, in imitation of these disgusting critics: "Why don't you treat animals better? Why don't you have better shampoo advertising? Why don't you treat labourers better?" It's a revealing order: animals, shampoo, then workers. He becomes more heated, shifting in his seat, jabbing his finger at me. "I gave workers who worked for me safety goggles and special boots, and they didn't want to wear them! It slows them down!"
And then he smiles, coming up with what he sees as his killer argument. "When I see Western journalists criticise us don't you realise you're shooting yourself in the foot? The Middle East will be far more dangerous if Dubai fails. Our export isn't oil, it's hope. Poor Egyptians or Libyans or Iranians grow up saying I want to go to Dubai. We're very important to the region. We are showing how to be a modern Muslim country. We don't have any fundamentalists here. Europeans shouldn't gloat at our demise. You should be very worried.... Do you know what will happen if this model fails? Dubai will go down the Iranian path, the Islamist path."
Sultan sits back. My arguments have clearly disturbed him; he says in a softer, conciliatory tone, almost pleading: "Listen. My mother used to go to the well and get a bucket of water every morning. On her wedding day, she was given an orange as a gift because she had never eaten one. Two of my brothers died when they were babies because the healthcare system hadn't developed yet. Don't judge us." He says it again, his eyes filled with intensity: "Don't judge us."
Any dissidents, even lawyers, are tracked by secret police and have everything taken from them. You can't talk about this stuff in the news media.
In the sudden surge of development, Mohammed trained as a lawyer. By the Noughties, he had climbed to the head of the Jurists' Association, an organisation set up to press for Dubai's laws to be consistent with international human rights legislation.
And then suddenly Mohammed thwacked into the limits of Sheikh Mohammed's tolerance. Horrified by the "system of slavery" his country was being built on, he spoke out to Human Rights Watch and the BBC. "So I was hauled in by the secret police and told: shut up, or you will lose you job, and your children will be unemployable," he says. "But how could I be silent?"
He was stripped of his lawyer's licence and his passport becoming yet another person imprisoned in this country. "I have been blacklisted and so have my children. The newspapers are not allowed to write about me."
Already, new media laws have been drafted forbidding the press to report on anything that could "damage" Dubai or "its economy". Is this why the newspapers are giving away glossy supplements talking about "encouraging economic indicators"?
But it's easy to ignore all this negative stuff. I mean, you got maids to do everything for you. Ok maybe not a Filipino one since the recession cause they're now a bit "expensive" but hey an Ethiopian woman will do. Just take their passport away and dictate what and when you want them to work.
One theme unites every expat I speak to: their joy at having staff to do the work that would clog their lives up Back Home. Everyone, it seems, has a maid. The maids used to be predominantly Filipino, but with the recession, Filipinos have been judged to be too expensive, so a nice Ethiopian servant girl is the latest fashionable accessory.
It is an open secret that once you hire a maid, you have absolute power over her. You take her passport everyone does; you decide when to pay her, and when if ever she can take a break; and you decide who she talks to. She speaks no Arabic. She cannot escape.
In a Burger King, a Filipino girl tells me it is "terrifying" for her to wander the malls in Dubai because Filipino maids or nannies always sneak away from the family they are with and beg her for help. "They say 'Please, I am being held prisoner, they don't let me call home, they make me work every waking hour seven days a week.' At first I would say my God, I will tell the consulate, where are you staying? But they never know their address, and the consulate isn't interested. I avoid them now. I keep thinking about a woman who told me she hadn't eaten any fruit in four years. They think I have power because I can walk around on my own, but I'm powerless."
The only hostel for women in Dubai a filthy private villa on the brink of being repossessed is filled with escaped maids. Mela Matari, a 25-year-old Ethiopian woman with a drooping smile, tells me what happened to her and thousands like her. She was promised a paradise in the sands by an agency, so she left her four year-old daughter at home and headed here to earn money for a better future. "But they paid me half what they promised. I was put with an Australian family four children and Madam made me work from 6am to 1am every day, with no day off. I was exhausted and pleaded for a break, but they just shouted: 'You came here to work, not sleep!' Then one day I just couldn't go on, and Madam beat me. She beat me with her fists and kicked me. My ear still hurts. They wouldn't give me my wages: they said they'd pay me at the end of the two years. What could I do? I didn't know anybody here. I was terrified."
One day, after yet another beating, Mela ran out onto the streets, and asked in broken English how to find the Ethiopian consulate. After walking for two days, she found it, but they told her she had to get her passport back from Madam. "Well, how could I?" she asks. She has been in this hostel for six months. She has spoken to her daughter twice. "I lost my country, I lost my daughter, I lost everything," she says.
Dubai is a land of abandoned projects and unchecked capitalism. If you've read JG Ballard's sci fi novel High-Rise (now made into a great film!) or played Spec Ops: The Line, all of this will sound very familiar.
All those rich resorts and golf courses, thank the oil revenue to pay for those millions of gallons of water.
Dubai is not just a city living beyond its financial means; it is living beyond its ecological means. You stand on a manicured Dubai lawn and watch the sprinklers spray water all around you. You see tourists flocking to swim with dolphins. You wander into a mountain-sized freezer where they have built a ski slope with real snow. And a voice at the back of your head squeaks: this is the desert. This is the most water-stressed place on the planet. How can this be happening? How is it possible?
The very earth is trying to repel Dubai, to dry it up and blow it away. The new Tiger Woods Gold Course needs four million gallons of water to be pumped on to its grounds every day, or it would simply shrivel and disappear on the winds. The city is regularly washed over with dust-storms that fog up the skies and turn the skyline into a blur. When the dust parts, heat burns through. It cooks anything that is not kept constantly, artificially wet.
Dr Mohammed Raouf, the environmental director of the Gulf Research Centre, sounds sombre as he sits in his Dubai office and warns: "This is a desert area, and we are trying to defy its environment. It is very unwise. If you take on the desert, you will lose."
Sheikh Maktoum built his showcase city in a place with no useable water. None. There is no surface water, very little acquifer, and among the lowest rainfall in the world. So Dubai drinks the sea. The Emirates' water is stripped of salt in vast desalination plants around the Gulf making it the most expensive water on earth. It costs more than petrol to produce, and belches vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as it goes. It's the main reason why a resident of Dubai has the biggest average carbon footprint of any human being more than double that of an American.
If a recession turns into depression, Dr Raouf believes Dubai could run out of water. "At the moment, we have financial reserves that cover bringing so much water to the middle of the desert. But if we had lower revenues if, say, the world shifts to a source of energy other than oil..." he shakes his head. "We will have a very big problem. Water is the main source of life. It would be a catastrophe. Dubai only has enough water to last us a week. There's almost no storage. We don't know what will happen if our supplies falter. It would be hard to survive."
Just don't go to the beaches, they're slightly toxic
The next day I turned up at her office. "If you reveal my identity, I'll be sent on the first plane out of this city," she said, before beginning to nervously pace the shore with me. "It started like this. We began to get complaints from people using the beach. The water looked and smelled odd, and they were starting to get sick after going into it. So I wrote to the ministers of health and tourism and expected to hear back immediately but there was nothing. Silence. I hand-delivered the letters. Still nothing."
The water quality got worse and worse. The guests started to spot raw sewage, condoms, and used sanitary towels floating in the sea. So the hotel ordered its own water analyses from a professional company. "They told us it was full of fecal matter and bacteria 'too numerous to count'. I had to start telling guests not to go in the water, and since they'd come on a beach holiday, as you can imagine, they were pretty pissed off." She began to make angry posts on the expat discussion forums and people began to figure out what was happening. Dubai had expanded so fast its sewage treatment facilities couldn't keep up. The sewage disposal trucks had to queue for three or four days at the treatment plants so instead, they were simply drilling open the manholes and dumping the untreated sewage down them, so it flowed straight to the sea.
Suddenly, it was an open secret and the municipal authorities finally acknowledged the problem. They said they would fine the truckers. But the water quality didn't improve: it became black and stank. "It's got chemicals in it. I don't know what they are. But this stuff is toxic."
She continued to complain and started to receive anonymous phone calls. "Stop embarassing Dubai, or your visa will be cancelled and you're out," they said. She says: "The expats are terrified to talk about anything. One critical comment in the newspapers and they deport you. So what am I supposed to do? Now the water is worse than ever. People are getting really sick. Eye infections, ear infections, stomach infections, rashes. Look at it!" There is faeces floating on the beach, in the shadow of one of Dubai's most famous hotels.
"What I learnt about Dubai is that the authorities don't give a toss about the environment," she says, standing in the stench. "They're pumping toxins into the sea, their main tourist attraction, for God's sake. If there are environmental problems in the future, I can tell you now how they will deal with them deny it's happening, cover it up, and carry on until it's a total disaster."
Oh but I guess the situation there isn't black and white like I try to make it out. It's great for the Emiratis! Although keep any concerns on the down low, or they'll take your passport away and now you're stuck there for years just like the rest of the peasants!
"This is the most terrible place! I hate it! I was here for months before I realised everything in Dubai is fake. Everything you see. The trees are fake, the workers' contracts are fake, the islands are fake, the smiles are fake even the water is fake!" But she is trapped, she says. She got into debt to come here, and she is stuck for three years: an old story now. "I think Dubai is like an oasis. It is an illusion, not real. You think you have seen water in the distance, but you get close and you only get a mouthful of sand."
it's an amazing use of space. it's a horrific use of labor
Cosmic Schwung
Member
Hoping for a stupid buildings news update on the next episode of The Bugle.
Messofanego
Banned
I'm surprised people haven't vigorously tried defending the slave labour stuff saying Dubai is young, why does every UAE thread become negative, blah blah blah. Oh wait, Phat Michael is banned.
titiklabingapat
Member
Isn't the urban environment in Dubai more like a suburb in its feel than a real city,despite all the tall buildings?
And they seem to be having problems with skyscraper fires.
And they seem to be having problems with skyscraper fires.
NekoFever
Member
1,600m, so the scale is right. They just bizarrely chose to put 5,000m at the top instead of 1,500.
1,600m is approximately a mile.
DOWN
Banned
That pic says its 5577 Meters
Whenever Dubai shows up in the news about making some skyscraper, I just have this image of Spec Ops The Line in my head
Oh thank god I thought I was the only one doing that.
I really do not like Dubai. It's a disgusting hole of corruption and human rights fuckery.
NekoFever
Member
Ah, missed that. You're right. So the scale of the silhouettes is correct but presumably they confused metres and feet there.
Elitist1945
Member
Don'tBeWeird
Member
i'm sure phat_michael's account is spinning in its grave because they can't rush to defend this
RustyNails
Member
That is incorrect bit of reporting. Jeddah Tower is being built in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Fox Mulder
Member
But it's still Dubai, so why should anyone really care.
Overpriced, delayed, impractical projects all over the world.
rokkerkory
Member
why should we even be doing this?
Cameron122
Member
I like the idea of big buildings and other megastructures, but I don't like poor conditions for workers, de facto slaves.
Every thing he said is true though.i'm sure phat_michael's account is spinning in its grave because they can't rush to defend this
Don'tBeWeird
Member
Hm, interesting.
I've always been a huge fan of his work. His bridge designs, in particular, are quite stunning.
Perfect Blue
Banned
lol fucking Dubai. It would be comical if it wasn't so sad.
formasymphonic
Member
I feel like they could at least do something useful with all this "world's tallest building" dick measuring by instead focusing on building materials and technologies for building a space elevator
Next time you go be sure to take a dip in the shit infested ocean. Hope the slave built hotel you stay in doesn't crumble while you're in it.
If I was a slave building stuff there, I'd make it my mission to do as poor of a job as possible, while not getting in trouble and doing my best to ensure that building can't stay standing longer than 5-10 years with out major repairs. I bet they watch the welders like
Alebrije
Member
Unless you basically have tons of money and do not know what to do , do not find Dubai attractive to visit, there are tons of places so much better when you can enjoy vacations. On Dubay you practically go to be inside a building most of time.
If you want to go to a luxury mall, there are on Paris or UK , biggest mall in the world? go to Edmonton and you get free real snow everywhere.
If you want to go to a luxury mall, there are on Paris or UK , biggest mall in the world? go to Edmonton and you get free real snow everywhere.
True, between Galeries Lafayette and Harrods there's no way I'm flying to a desert to shop.
Yep, Dubai is really just an empty fashion item. Its only claim to fame are that its owners are very, very rich and very, very immoral.
Hate to interrupt your dogpile on all things Dubai, but just mentioning that the Jeddah tower is in ..Jeddah
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