BlogCatalog
Dubai’s Top 8 Shopping Malls
Dubai Festival City
The landmark 2.8 million square foot urban retail resort combining Festival Waterfront Centre and Festival Marina forms the epicentre of Dubai Festival City and is shaping itself to be one of UAE's most exciting retail, dining and leisure destinations.
The retail resort has close to 600 shops, including 25 flagship and anchor shops – the largest collective number in the Middle East – as well as many new-to-market specialty boutiques and international brands. There will be over 100 international restaurants, bistros and cafés throughout the resort including 40 Al fresco dining venues along the water.
Deira City Centre
While other shopping centres are still trying to carve out a niche amid Dubai's crowded shopping scene, the Deira City Centre has stuck to its tried and trusted eclectism. From a postcard to a Persian carpet and from Massimo Dutti to Mexx, you can buy anything here. The jewellery and textile courts as well as the Arabian Treasures for local furniture and textile courts are a big attraction. If you are hunting for designer labels, you should head for the Bin Hendi Avenue and for gadget gurus, please look out for electronics goods on the ground floor. Kids have their own magic planet and is well known for all taxi drivers and many hotels provide shuttle buses straight to the door.
BurJuman
Renowned in the city for its blend of high-street names and designer brands BurJuman will help you give a complete makeover from clothes, to shoes, makeup and perfumes, accessories. Having undergone massive renovation, it's a slick and stylish mall –thanks to the Saks Fifth Avenue the legendary New York department Store. Prada, Ralph Lauren and Paul Smith is too high, then you can try Zara, Mango and Next. There are plenty of options in homeware, jewellery and entertainment. There are coffee shops galore where you can spend a leisurely evening or slump after sightseeing at the creek. Specialised play areas and the food court is particularly effective.
Madinat Jumeirah
It is the recreation of a traditional Middle Eastern marketplace. Lining its long alleyways, you'll find the largest selection of specialty shops with a wide range of art and photography, among them the outstanding Gallery One. Elsewhere there is an emphasis on the more unusual brands like Tommy Bahamas, Celine Fashion, once you are done with shopping, it's the Madinat's range of impressive waterfront bars and restaurants that are taking the strain.
Ibn Batuta Mall
It's huge with six pavilions and you need to go through a navigated guided tour. It's part shopping, part history lesson, part scientific exhibit, part food. Each court is themed on a pattern or a region that was visited by Ibn Batuta, a 14th century Arabic traveller. You can scour through the Egypt Court for a new pair of Adidas trainers, look into the India Pavilion with a Daniel Hechter shirt and then settle down for a three courses dinner at the China court. Andalusia will help you seek your life's essentials while Tunisia will help to keep the kids occupied. And that's only for starters
Wafi City
The Egyptian Pyramid-themed Wafi has exclusivity written on every wall and painted glass décor. Inspired by the great
pyramids of Egypt, Raffles Hotel, Dubai's latest attraction radiates an opulent blend of Middle Eastern and Asian decor. Under the apex of the pyramid, 11 distinctive restaurants and bars feature culinary delights from all over the world. For successful meetings and events, Raffles Dubai offers a choice of 11 private rooms with state-of-the-art audio visual equipment and the latest wireless technology. The one-hectare masterpiece Raffles Sky Garden is Dubai's most luxurious venue for outdoor celebrations and events.
A wide range of jewellery and couture awaits shoppers at the Wafi City, Versace, Nicole, Farhi and Tag Hueuer, to name a few. For more down-to-earth goods, the large section of the Mark's and Spencer should not disappoint. It is part of the bigger, Wafi City complex and it is significant : it is good for kids and so is the Encounter Zone.
Mall of the Emirates
Here you can shop for a brand new shoe from the ‘Walking Society', enjoy the latest Hollywood blockbuster, enjoy a mouth-watering meal with family and friends, enjoy an exhilarating ride on the brand new Magic Planet, slalom down a real ski slope inside the world's first indoor snow dome and shop from myriad brands from around 400 retail outlets. Some top brands include River Island, Debenhams, Harvey Nichols, Harvey Nichols, Zara and the Paris Gallery
Mercato
Mercato and its Renaissance style architecture is hard to miss. With over 90 restaurants, cafes and shops, it is one of the biggest malls in Jumeirah. Spinneys, Home Centre and Virgin Megastore are some of the big players here, Armani, Hugo Boss, Top Shop Susan Walpole that sells silk paintings and the Pride of Kashmir constitute some of the rest. There is also the Barbie Avenue, a whole shop dedicated to Barbie dolls. You can also relax at the Fiesta Café.
Source: Go Dubai
Obama names senior science team
Barack Obama, the US president-elect, has signalled climate change and genetic research will be among his top priorities when he takes office in January.
Obama named four key members in his administration on Saturday to help drive the campaign.
Leading his list of nominees is John Holdren, who would become director of the White House office of science and technology policy and co-chairman of the president's council of advisers on science and technology.
Holdren, a professor of environmental policy at Harvard University, led the Pugwash Conferences on science and world affairs, an international organisation of prominent scientists that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995.
Holdren is not new to Washington, having served as science and technology adviser to then president Bill Clinton in the 1990s.
Obama called Holdren "one of the most passionate and persistent voices of our time about the growing threat of climate change".
Genetic research priority
Underscoring the importance of genetic research, Obama named Eric Lander and Harold Varmus as co-chairmen of the council of advisers alongside Holdren.
Lander is founding director of the Broad Institute, which played a leading role in the Human Genome Project which in 2003 succeeded in mapping the location of about 20,500 genes on the 23 pairs of human chromosomes.
Lander and his colleagues are using these findings to explore the molecular mechanisms underlying the basis of human disease, a field that could hold the key to curing many incurable diseases, Obama aides said.
Varmus, a co-recipient of a 1989 Nobel prize for studies of the genetic basis of cancer, has been serving as president and chief executive of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York since January 2000.
Obama expressed confidence that together the two men will "remake" the "group into a vigorous external advisory council" that will shape his thinking on scientific aspects of his policies.
Radio address
In a weekly radio address, Obama said: "It's time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America's place as the world leader in science and technology.
"Today, more than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation."
From landing on the moon, to sequencing the human genome, to inventing the Internet, America has been the first to cross that new frontier, he said.
Obama said that government had played an important role in encouraging those breakthroughs and could do so in the future.
Commenting on Obama's science and climate appointments, Todd Kent, a professor of political science at Texas University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera: "He doesn't want the continual focus on the economy [which is in recession]. I think he chose a Saturday address to focus on something else. One is policy and one is politics.
"President Bush used stem cell research and and his anti-abortion stance to really keep the right wing of his [Republican] party in check, and I think what Obama is going to do is to use environment issues to keep the left wing of his [Democratic] party in check."
Article Source http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/12/20081220142419153305.html
Shoe-thrower sorry for 'ugly act'
n Iraqi journalist arrested after throwing his shoes at George Bush, the US president, has reportedly sent a letter to the Iraqi prime minister to apologise for the incident and seek a pardon.
A spokesman for Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, said on Thursday that Muntazer al-Zaidi had acknowledged his shoe throwing during a news conference in Baghdad as "an ugly act".
Yasin Majeed, al-Maliki's media adviser, told the Reuters news agency that "al-Zaidi said in his letter that his big ugly act cannot be excused".
According to Majeed, al-Zaidi asked the prime minister to recall the kindness al-Maliki showed him during a 2005 interview when he invited the journalist to his home.
"I appeal to your fatherly feelings to forgive me," al-Zaidi was quoted as saying by Majeed.
However, Dhargham al-Zaidi, the journalist's brother, questioned whether the statement was genuine.
And an Iraqi judge said on Friday that al-Zaidi was beaten and had bruises on his face and around his eyes.
Dhia al-Kinani, the magistrate investigating the shoe-throwing incident, said the court has opened an investigation into the alleged beating.
Instant fame
Al-Zaidi shot to instant fame when he called Bush a "dog" in Arabic at a joint news conference with al-Maliki in Baghdad on Sunday and threw both his shoes at Bush in a gesture that is a deep insult in Arab culture.
His whereabouts remained unknown four days after he became a hero to those who blame the American president for the tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths that followed the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
His family says he suffered a broken arm and other severe injuries after he was tackled by Iraqi security officers and US secret service agents and dragged away struggling and screaming.
His family says he is in a hospital in Baghdad's heavily guarded Green Zone.
On Tuesday, al-Zaidi was brought before an investigatory judge and admitted to committing "aggression against a president", a crime that carries a 15-year prison sentence, judicial officials said.
He could face trial soon on the charge.
Vocal support
Al-Zaidi has received vocal support from fellow Iraqis who have demanded his release, and similar support was shown from Bethlehem to Montreal on Thursday.
In Bethlehem's Manger Square, in the West Bank, several dozen Palestinian journalists took off their shoes to protest against al-Zaidi's detention and carried signs saying "Bush deserved it".
And in the Canadian city of Montreal, Block the Empire, an anti-war protest group that regularly criticises Bush's foreign policy, invited Canadians to hurl their footwear at the US consulate in the city on Saturday in solidarity with al-Zaidi.
Article Source http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/12/200812182353218656.html