Fireworks exploded during the opening ceremony for the $1.5 billion, 200-story Burj Khalifa building in Dubai yesterday. Dubai is opening the half-mile tall tower in the midst of a deep financial crisis. (Charles Crowell/ Bloomberg)
"Dubai names world’s tallest building after benefactor" by Associated Press | January 5, 2010
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Dubai is opening the $1.5 billion, 200-story tower in the midst of a deep financial crisis. Its oil rich neighbor Abu Dhabi has pumped billions of dollars in bailout funds into the emirate as it struggles to pay its debts....
Related: Dubai's Debt
Abu Dhabi, which controls nearly all of the UAE’s oil wealth, provided direct and indirect injections totaling $25 billion last year as Dubai’s debt problems deepened....
I'd kiss the sky (and probably some other things) for a $25 billion dollar bailout.
The developer of the tapering metal-and-glass spire said it cost about $1.5 billion to build. Billed as a “vertical city’’ of luxury apartments and offices, it has four swimming pools, a private library and a hotel designed by Giorgio Armani. An observation deck on the 124th floor will open to the public today...
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From where they can view the devastation:
"Dubai World might sell assets to pay debt" by Adam Schreck, Associated Press | December 8, 2009
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Dubai World, the cash-strapped conglomerate at the center of Dubai’s debt crisis, appears set to retrench. Yesterday, the emirate’s top finance official said the company may need to change course and unload assets as it struggles to pay lenders.
What gets sold remains uncertain. Clearer is the city-state’s position that the government won’t be responsible for Dubai World’s debts, renewing questions about its backing of other state-run companies. “These are assets of a company, not assets of a government,’’ said Dubai Finance Department director-general Abdul Rahman al-Saleh, adding later that the restructuring was aimed at keeping Dubai World viable.
The comments appeared to cement concerns that Dubai was washing its hands of debts racked up by companies it created and backed during the city-state’s boom years earlier this decade. Easy money and unbridled ambition transformed the tiny sheikdom from desert hamlet to pulsing Arab boomtown. The sale of any major Dubai World holdings would mark a stark about-face for the conglomerate, which repeatedly downplayed talk it might need to unload pieces of its empire....
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