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HenryTo
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Joined: 06 Aug 2004
Posts: 11734
Location: Los Angeles, California
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 Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 12:35 am Post subject: |
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Here is another example. Maybe Mr. Gere could've "behaved" himself much better - but this guy was using his time to promote AIDS awareness in New Delhi, darn it:
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Bollywood's Rai targeted in new Indian kissing row Sat Apr 28, 12:14 PM ET
PATNA, India (AFP) - Bollywood megastar Aishwarya Rai has been summoned to explain an "obscene" kissing scene, Indian officials said Saturday, just days after a similar row engulfed Hollywood's Richard Gere.
Rai, who married into the Indian film industry's most famous family last week, was ordered to appear before a district court over a scene in which she is kissed lightly on the cheek.
Her "Dhoom-II" co-star Hrithik Roshan and the owners of a cinema which screened the action film have also been summoned to Muzaffarpur court in the eastern state of Bihar on May 30.
"The court also sent notices to the Bihar government for allowing screening of the film despite its 'obscene' content," a court official said.
He said the judge handed out the orders after a lawyer argued the film "offended public sensibility."
The 33-year-old Rai, who was crowned Miss World in 1994 and married Bollywood heart-throb Abhishek Bachchan last week, has not responded to the court order, government officials said in the state capital Patna.
The summons came after a district court in another state issued arrest warrants for Gere and Indian actress Shilpa Shetty, whom he kissed enthusiastically at an HIV/ AIDS awareness show this month in New Delhi.
The incident triggered a public storm in India, known for its chaste public behaviour despite Bollywood's sexually suggestive song-and-dance routines.
Radical Hindus burned effigies of the 57-year-old Gere in India's entertainment hub Mumbai and organised street rallies in several cities.
The 31-year-old Shetty -- winner of Britain's Celebrity Big Brother reality show this year -- appealed for calm after the kissing incident.
Gere later offered a "sincere apology" for any offence he caused.
"What is most important to me is that my intentions as an HIV/AIDS advocate be made clear and my friends in India understand it has never been nor could it ever be, my intention to offend you," he said in a statement.
"If that has happened, of course it is easy for me to offer a sincere apology," Gere said.
In both cases the celebrities are accused of indulging in "obscene acts" which carries a penalty of three months imprisonment, a fine or both.
Public acts of endearment are banned in India under the British-era Obscenity Act. |
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nodoodahs
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Joined: 06 May 2005
Posts: 2408
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| Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 7:15 am Post subject: |
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Apparently the nouveau riche are the same all over the world.
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I haven’t seen a beatin’ like that since somebody stuck a banana in my pants and turned a monkey loose. |
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rffrydr
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Joined: 30 Oct 2005
Posts: 16932
Location: Sunny California
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| Posted: Thu Apr 26, 2007 6:51 am Post subject: |
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You may be able to control climate but you can't control culture. There is a problem with this world-beating city--it's not really part of the world:
| Quote: | MANAMA, Bahrain -- Leonard Mucheru, a world-class long-distance runner from Kenya, agreed four years ago to change his name and his nationality in order to take a prized job: a place on the national athletics squad of this tiny Gulf kingdom.
A churchgoing Roman Catholic, he began competing under a new Arab- Islamic identity as Mushir Salim Jawher, to "improve my career," he says.
At the Asian Games in December, the 28-year-old won a silver medal for his new country in the 5,000-meter race. He finished just ahead of a Burundi-born athlete running for Qatar and behind a fellow Kenyan, who won gold for Qatar, which hosted the event.
The unusual trifecta for a region not generally known for its sporting prowess highlighted a quirky feature of the global economy: Wealthy Gulf states, long conspicuous consumers of fast cars, have become a big market for another status symbol -- Africans who run fast.
But winning isn't everything, as Mr. Mucheru has discovered. He has spent the past three months on the run from accusations of betraying both Arab solidarity and African pride. "I'm not a criminal. I didn't kill anyone or steal anything," he says. "All I did was run."
His ordeal began in early January after he added what he thought would be another feather in Bahrain's sporting cap: He won an international marathon, a first by an athlete representing Bahrain. He beat out a Kenyan in a sprint finish. The catch is that the race took place in Israel, which the Arab kingdom shuns.
Bahrain went ballistic. The Bahrain Athletics Association, headed by a member of the royal family, issued an angry statement saying Mr. Mucheru would be kicked off the team and stripped of Bahraini nationality.
Bahrain's Society for Resisting Normalization With the Zionist Enemy denounced Mr. Mucheru as a national disgrace.
"We are in this business to give Bahrain a good name, not a bad name," said Sheik Talal al-Khalifa, president of the Bahrain Athletics Association. Mr. Mucheru's trip to Israel, said the sheik, "was a big embarrassment for us, and we are not going to take that."
The furor flowed from an increasingly common dynamic in this part of the world: the tension between the grand global ambitions of Gulf kingdoms and their conservative local moorings. Eager to shake off their image as rich but sleepy backwaters, they have poured money into expensive status-enhancing ventures. That has led to creative and sometimes uneasy juggling.
Bahrain has a state-of-the-art racetrack to host Formula One auto racing, but in deference to Islam sprays the winner with rose water instead of champagne. Abu Dhabi, the richest part of the United Arab Emirates, this year signed a deal with the Louvre in Paris to rent art treasures for a new museum. The arrangement raised a ticklish question: Will Abu Dhabi, a devout Muslim land, hang paintings that feature nudes or Christian motifs? The Louvre contract stipulates that works of art won't be banished on "unreasonable" grounds.
Before the African runners, the biggest sporting imports to the Gulf were camel jockeys, mostly impoverished children from the Indian subcontinent. This trade has waned since Qatar and the U.A.E. raised the minimum age for camel jockeys to 18, under pressure from the U.S. and human-rights groups.
Countries from the U.S. to Europe to Japan lure foreign athletes. But the deep pockets of Gulf nations have turbocharged the market. Mr. Mucheru, who was put on the payroll of Bahrain's military, declined to discuss his salary, saying only that he earned more than he did in Kenya. More than 40 Kenyan athletes have decamped in recent years, many to Bahrain and Qatar. But Kenya still has plenty of talent. In today's Boston Marathon, seven of the top 10 seeded male runners are Kenyans who haven't swapped citizenship.
Alarmed by a rash of defections, the International Association of Athletics Federations, the Monaco-based governing body for track and field, tightened its rules two years ago to require those who switch countries to sit out competition for their new nation for three years. "We have to avoid a situation where athletes are being bought like mercenaries," says Nick Davies, an IAAF official. Mr. Mucheru made the switch before the new rules took effect.
Though lagging far behind sporting powers like China, which has more than a billion people, Qatar and Bahrain ranked ninth and 14th respectively out of 36 nations in the December Asian Games -- not bad for countries with a combined population of barely 1.5 million. To celebrate, Bahrain's crown prince invited Mr. Mucheru and his fellow medal-winning runners -- more than half of them from Africa -- to his palace.
So, when Mr. Mucheru went to Israel and beat 850 other competitors in the Tiberias Marathon around the Sea of Galilee, he figured that would only win kudos in Bahrain. After the race, he told the Jerusalem Post that he was "very proud" to be the first Arab national to compete in the event and hoped "to come back and compete next year." Elated, he flew back to Kenya to be with his family.
He first realized there was a problem when he started getting calls on his mobile phone during a church service. Kenyan journalists wanted to get his reaction to Bahrain's decision to revoke his passport. "I had no idea Israel was such a big deal," he says.
He turned off his phone and went into hiding. His German manager and coach, Dorothee Paulmann, called the athletic governing body in Monaco for help but was told there was not much it could do. She appealed for mercy to officials in Bahrain. They gave her the brush-off. Kenya offered little sympathy.
"He abandoned his country, so he is on his own," said Isaiah Kiplagat, chairman of Athletics Kenya, a body responsible for developing Kenya's deep pool of great runners. "For us he is a nonperson."
As the storm rumbled on, Mr. Mucheru got word from Bahrain that officials would like to talk to him. He hesitated at first. "I was scared. I didn't know what would happen." But he finally decided to go and plead for a reprieve. After a series of abject apologies and promises not to run in Israel again, he awaited news of his fate.
"I now know I made a big mistake," he said in an interview at a small apartment where he had taken refuge in late January not far from a big U.S. naval base here. He kept the curtains drawn and rarely ventured outside.
In late January, Bahrain partially relented: He could keep his passport, sports officials told him, but his banishment from the national squad stood. Mr. Mucheru then flew back to Africa, where he and other defector athletes still do much of their training. It's way too hot in the Gulf for running.
In Nairobi, the runner ran into a new crisis. Kenyan authorities confiscated his Bahrain passport, saying they couldn't figure out what his nationality was and demanding back his old Kenyan documents.
Early this month, Mr. Mucheru finally got his passport back. He left Kenya to return to Bahrain. Yet more squabbling ensued over whether his soon-to-expire Bahrain passport would be renewed. The issue, he says, has now been solved, and he hopes to run in Hamburg at the end of the month.
His coach, Ms. Paulmann, isn't amused. Gulf countries, she says, "have money and oil. But they have no idea about sport." |
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Today is the Tomorrow you worried about Yesterday! |
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HenryTo
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Posts: 11734
Location: Los Angeles, California
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| Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 9:04 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Versace and its business partners, Sunland Hotels & Resorts and Emirates International Holdings, have announced the development of a second Palazzo Versace Resort in Dubai, to be opened in 2008. It will feature climate-controlled private beaches, a scuba lagoon, spas, boutiques, an indoor cinema and recording studio, labyrinth gardens, and waterfalls. Rooms go for $410 per night and up. |
How do you control the climate of a beach? |
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rffrydr
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Joined: 30 Oct 2005
Posts: 16932
Location: Sunny California
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rffrydr
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Joined: 30 Oct 2005
Posts: 16932
Location: Sunny California
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rffrydr
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Joined: 30 Oct 2005
Posts: 16932
Location: Sunny California
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HenryTo
Site Admin
Joined: 06 Aug 2004
Posts: 11734
Location: Los Angeles, California
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| Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 12:02 pm Post subject: |
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So essentially, it's a currency backed by crude oil and natural gas reserves - subjected to market fluctuations which are in turned subjected to fluctuations in extraction technology, global GDP growth, and potential developments in the alternative energy markets.
With Dubai thrown in as a grand tourist attraction and the "gateway" to the Middle East - similar to Hong Kong's and Singapore's roles in Asia during the 1980s.
And I am only looking at the bright side of the picture... |
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rffrydr
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Joined: 30 Oct 2005
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Location: Sunny California
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rffrydr
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Joined: 30 Oct 2005
Posts: 16932
Location: Sunny California
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| Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 10:12 am Post subject: |
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ThIron, steel and copper imports increase by 211 per cent since 2002 in Dubai
UAE - 2006 October 29
Dubai spends Dh12bn on copper, steel and iron imports last year
Dubai accounted for more than a quarter of all steel, iron and copper imports into the GCC in 2005, according to a report released yesterday.
The study by DMG Media found the emirate spent nearly Dh12 billion on the three metals last year, compared to nearly Dh17bn for the whole UAE and Dh48.19bn in the GCC during the same period.
For Dubai, this was a 23 per cent rise on 2004, while the continued construction boom has seen iron, steel and copper imports increase by 211 per cent since 2002.
Construction Boom
According to the report, more than 2,100 projects worth more than a trillion dollars have been announced in the region, with Gulf states making up $880 billion (Dh3.2trillion).
This breaks down into $560bn (Dh2.05trn) of planned projects and $320bn (Dh1.17trn) of construction work now at various stages of development. Of this Dh1.17trn, the UAE accounts for 55 per cent, Kuwait 19 per cent and Saudi Arabia eight per cent |
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rffrydr
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Joined: 30 Oct 2005
Posts: 16932
Location: Sunny California
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| Posted: Mon Aug 14, 2006 11:02 am Post subject: |
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Wow...nothing like a little money to fire the imagination!
Makes Irvine look like child's play--but, then again, it's built. |
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