Tag Archives: Dubai

Dubai — long champion of all things biggest, longest and most expensive — will soon have some competition from neighboring Saudi Arabia.

Posted on by
Reply

Սաուդյան Արաբիա, ամենաբարձր երկնաքերը

Saudi Arabia to build world’s tallest tower that will reach one kilometer into the sky

Dubai’s iconic Burj Khalifa — the world’s tallest building — could be stripped of its Guinness title if Saudi Arabia succeeds in its plans to construct the even larger Kingdom Tower in Jeddah — a prospect looking more likely as work begins next week, according to Construction Weekly.

Consultants Advanced Construction Technology Services (ACTS) have recently announced testing materials to build the 3,280-feet (one kilometer) skyscraper (the Burj Khalifa, by comparison, stands at a meeker 2,716-feet, or 827 meters).

The Kingdom Tower, estimated to cost $1.23 billion, would have 200 floors and overlook the Red Sea. Building it will require about 5.7 million square-feet of concrete, and 80,000 tons of steel, according to the Saudi Gazette.

 

 Անկախ

Take the stairs… all 3,000 of them: Dubai developer threatens to turn off the lifts in the world’s tallest building in dispute over unpaid fees

Posted on by
Reply

dubai-Burj Khalifa-122

If you live in the world’s tallest building, there is one thing you almost certainly cannot do without – access to the elevator.

But for the residents of the 160-storey Burj Khalifa in Dubai that has become a very real possibility.

They have been threatened with having to haul themselves up as many as 2,900 stairs after the developers warned it might cut off the lifts in a dispute over unpaid fees.

 

 

դուբայ

Emaar Properties, which runs the 2,722ft tower, says some residents have failed to pay their service charges – which can be as high as $25,000 (£15,000) a year – since 2012.

It has not yet unplugged the air conditioning or the elevators, but has threatened to do so, according to CNN.

The Burj Khalifa contains nearly 1,000 apartments from floors 12 to 108.

One-bedroom flats fetch around $55,000 (£33,000) in rent a year, while service charges can add a further $25,000 (£15,000) to the total.

 Անկախ

Norwegian woman who reported being raped in Dubai is jailed for 16 months

Posted on by
Reply

DubaiA young Norwegian woman has been sentenced to 16 months in jail after she reported a rape in Dubai.

The 25-year-old was in the United Arab Emirates on a business trip when she was raped and reported the assault to the local police.

Dubai police did not believe her, and instead took her passport and jailed her on suspicion of having had sex outside marriage.

The Norwegian woman reported the sexual assault in March this year, after which she had to spend days in a cell before she was allowed to use a telephone.

With the help of family members, the Norwegian consulate was able to negotiate a release and she has been living under the protection of the Norwegian Sailor’s Church until her sentencing this week.

‘I received the harshest sentence for sex outside marriage, harshest sentence for drinking alcohol and on top of that I was found guilty of perjury,’ the woman told Verdens Gang.

‘It is a terrible situation she is in,’ said Gisle Meling, the priest at the Norwegian Sailor’s Church.

‘We are very surprised and had hoped it would go another way, but we live in a country which has a justice system which draws its conclusions with the help of Sharia law.’

She was sentenced to one year and four months in jail but as Norway has no extradition treaty with Dubai, her future is uncertain.

 

The height of annoyance! Millionaire homeowners in world’s tallest block of flats forced to walk 97 floors to top after lift breaks down

Posted on by
Reply

Princess Tower1Homeowners living in the world’s tallest residential skyscraper are having to climb up more than 1,300ft of steps – the equivalent of walking one-third of the way up Ben Nevis – after all the lifts broke down.

Princess Tower in Dubai, which stands at 1,355ft tall with 97 above-ground residential floors, has been named the tallest residential building in the world Guinness World Records.

But residents living in the luxurious tower block – many of whom are British – have been told they have ‘no choice’ but to walk up to their flats, some on the 97th floor, after all eight lifts in the building broke down last week.

The building, which has six levels in the basement and 101 above ground level, opened in September last year, with two-bed flats on the rental market for £140-a-day and penthouse flats selling for more than £2million.

Princess Tower boasts 763 luxury apartments as well as eight giant stores and overlooks the Palm Jumeirah, the manmade ‘palm island’ where David Beckham and Brad Pitt are said to have bought luxury pads.

Emergency repairs are ongoing after the problems began last week – leaving penthouse owners who paid £2millio plus for their flats forced to take the stairs.

Flat owners have today been told that a solitary ‘service elevator’ is available for ‘limited’ trips to the 50th floor – but anyone living above that level will still have to walk the rest of the way.

Bosses at the skyscraper – owned by Tameer estates – say the flooding was caused by water from the ‘fire protection system’ and that a ‘faulty fire hose’ was to blame.

Water from the hose got into the residents’ lift shafts, flooding them and causing them to be shut down.

One resident, who lives on the 78th floor, said: ‘I came home after a hard day of work and was told I’d have to walk to my apartment on the 78th floor.

‘I truly couldn’t believe it – there was no way I was walking all that distance so I just booked myself into a hotel.’

A spokesman for Kone Elevators said: ‘We have had engineers on site 24-hours a day since the water leak occurred.’