Dubai tower is now 'world's tallest building

Developers of the Burj Dubai say it has become the world's tallest building.   1,680-foot skyscraper still under construction; finished height a secret.   Building expected to be finished by end of 2008.   Taiwan's Taipei 101, at 1,667 feet, has been tallest building since 2004.

 

22 July 2007 DUBAI , United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Developers of a 1,680-foot (512 meters) skyscraper still under construction in oil-rich Dubai has claimed that it has become the world's tallest building, surpassing Taiwan 's Taipei 101 which has dominated the global skyline at 1,667 feet (508 meters) since 2004.
The tower has become the world's tallest building, say developers.

1 of 3 The Burj Dubai is expected to be finished by the end of 2008 and its planned final height has been kept secret. The state-owned development company Emaar Properties, one of the main builders in rapidly developing Dubai, said only that the tower would stop somewhere above 2,275 feet.

When completed, the skyscraper will feature more than 160 floors, 56 elevators, luxury apartments, boutiques, swimming pools, spas, exclusive corporate suites, Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani's first hotel, and a 124th floor observation platform.

After North American and Asian cities marked their 20th century economic booms with skyscrapers, the Gulf grew eager to show off its success with ever taller buildings. In Dubai, long an oil-rich Gulf symbol of rapid economic growth, the building reflects the city's hunger for global prestige.

"It's a symbol of Dubai as a city of the world," said Greg Sang, the project director for Emaar Properties. Mohammed Ali Alabbar, chairman of Emaar, said it will be an architectural and engineering masterpiece of concrete, steel and glass. Dubai has "resisted the usual and has inspired to build a global icon," he said.

"It's a human achievement without equal."

The $1 billion skyscraper is in the heart of downtown Dubai , a 500-acre development area worth $20 billion. Construction, which began just 1,276 days ago, has been frenzied -- at times, one storey rises every three days.

The tip of the Burj's spire will be seen for 60 miles, developers say. But Sang knows it will not dominate the world's skyline forever. "It's a fact of life that, at some point, someone else will build a taller building," he said. "There's a lot of talk of other tall buildings, but five years into Burj Dubai's construction, no one's started building them yet," he said.

Previous skyscraper record-holders include New York 's Empire State Building at 1,250 feet; Shanghai's Jin Mao Building at 1,381 feet; Chicago 's Sears Tower at 1,451 feet; and Malaysia's Petronas Towers at 1,483 feet.

The Burj will let the Middle East reclaim the world's tallest structure. Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza, built around 2500 B.C., held the title with its 481 feet (147 meters) until the Eiffel Tower in Paris was built in 1889 at a height of 985 feet (300 meters), or 1,023 feet (312 meters) including the flag pole.

The company says the Burj will fulfill the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat's four criteria for the tallest building: the height of the structural top, the highest occupied floor, the roof's top, and the spire's tip, pinnacle, antenna, mast or flag pole.

For now, the unattractive brownish concrete skeleton jutting into Dubai 's humid skies lacks any aura of a masterpiece. Rising 141 floors with a mass of surrounding cranes and girders, it has no windows, glass or steel yet.

The architects and engineers are American and the main building contractor is South Korean.

Most of the 4,000 laborers are Indian. They toil around the clock in Dubai 's sizzling summer with no set minimum wage. Human rights groups regularly protest against labor abuse in Dubai , but local media rarely report such complaints.

Remember Those Who Serve

In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, a 10 year old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him.

"How much is an ice cream sundae?"

"Fifty cents," replied the waitress.

The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied a number of coins in it. "How much is a dish of plain ice cream?" he inquired.

Some people were now waiting for a table and the waitress was a bit impatient. "Thirty-five cents," she said brusquely. The little boy again counted the coins. "I'll have the plain ice cream," he said. The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away.

The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and departed.

When the waitress came back, she began wiping down the table and then swallowed hard at what she saw. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were two nickels and five pennies - her tip.

A positive attitude is everything

It's the Attitude rather than the Aptitude which helps us reach the Altitude
It's our attitude which helps us grow or fall. The main purpose of this article is to help you achieve the correct attitude to achieve anything in life. A positive attitude is everything.

Attitude is everything in life. It's a state of your mind at which impossible is nothing. Your mind releases abundance of energy and strength in your body to achieve anything that you desire.

Having a right attitude is not an easy task. Many people spend years gaining the right attitude. They end up reading self help material and attend seminars, it works for them for the first few months and then they are back to where they started from.

Why does this happen? Reasons are many, personal and psychological. I would like to touch base on the psychological reasons.

Psychological reasons why attitude training does not work

1. Recent Failure

For some failure is the end of road and for some it's a new beginning, it's how you look at failure. When things go wrong, we start to blame ourselves and other people. That is why we lose our positive attitude. If we start to think that the failure was for our good and may be the forces of universe wanted us to learn an essential lesson before achieving success, then we are thinking from a positive frame of mind.

2. Loss of Focus

This happens to many people. We aim for something and then we lose focus. Could be that we have something else that is interesting to achieve or we don't find our goals interesting any more. Therefore, if we don't find anything interesting to achieve, no matter how hard we try using our positive attitude, we aren't going anywhere.

3. Procrastination

This is the number one killer of positive attitude. The more you procrastinate, higher the risk of losing your self-esteem. With low self-esteem it is not possible to set a positive attitude. Take up a diary and jot down all the tasks that you have to do and allocate sufficient time for it to be done and remember to always plan your week instead of just the day.

Above were the psychological reasons why our positive attitude training fails. We are all humans and in recent times with pressure from our clients, bosses and home we have an urgent need to perform and achieve. Only a right and positive attitude can help you to achieve your goals and desires. Having a positive attitude not only helps you grow, but also helps you emit positive energy thus making you more likable.

-Jeff Keller

Piece Of Cake

Sometimes we wonder, "What did I do to deserve this?" Here is a wonderful explanation!

A daughter is telling her Mother how everything is going wrong - she's failing algebra, her boyfriend broke up with her and her best friend is moving away.

Meanwhile her Mother is baking a cake and asks if her daughter would like a snack, the daughter says, "Absolutely Mom, I love your cake."

Here, have some cooking oil," her Mother offers. "Yuck" says daughter. "How about a couple raw eggs?" "Gross" Mom!"

"Would you like some flour then? Or maybe baking soda?" "Mom, those are all yucky!"

To which the mother replies: "Yes, all those things seem bad all by themselves. But when they are put together in the right way, they make a wonderfully delicious cake!

Life works in the same way. Many times we wonder why we through such bad and difficult times. But when everything is put together, the result could be very different! We just have to be patient and try to piece everything together.

I hope your day is a "Piece of Cake"!

Feelings and Emotions Energize Your Thoughts

Most of you have probably heard or read about creative visualization. Some of you have perhaps tried it. The idea is that by visualizing a mental image of a desired object or situation, you can attract it into your life. In this way you can change and shape your life, behaviour and circumstances.

This technique utilizes the power of thoughts, but thoughts alone are not enough to make things happen. Some additional ingredients are required to energize the thoughts into action. These ingredients are your feelings and emotions. What makes you take action, a cold uninteresting thought, or one charged with emotion?

What kind of lecturer rivets your attention, someone who talks in a boring, listless manner, or a lecturer who talks with zest and emotion?

People, actions and thoughts charged with emotion make a stronger impact. This is why it is important to add emotions to your thoughts, if you wish to manifest them. Feelings and emotions put life into thoughts and make them produce effect in the external world, the same way that electricity make electrical appliances work. Both electricity and thoughts require some sort of energy to make them work and produce results.
How to use the power of feelings and emotions in a practical way?
In order to make your thoughts come true, you need to charge them with emotional energy. Thoughts that are charged with emotional energy have greater affect and can drive into action.

This is one of the secrets of using successfully the techniques of creative visualization.

If you want to achieve anything through creative visualization you need to energize your thoughts. You can do so by producing positive and happy feelings of success and happiness, and associating them with your goal.

All of us have experienced at least some sort of success or happiness in our life. Even small manifestations of success count. Think and find out such past moments. Remind yourself of that success or happiness and relive it in your imagination. Visualize the event as clearly as you can, and let the positive and happy feelings you experienced at that time become alive again. Relive and relish the happiness, exhilaration and feeling of success that you have awakened.

While in this mental and emotional state, start visualizing your current goal, while at the same time continuing to relive in your imagination the feelings and emotions you have awakened. Associate those feelings with your present goal. Feel as if you have already accomplished your goal, and you are feeling great, happy and satisfied. This action will inject energy into your thoughts and make them stronger.

In time, you will be able arouse feelings of success and accomplishment, without the need to use this method.

By charging your thoughts with emotional energy you can accomplish wonders. You set powers into action that will bring you the opportunities, tools or people necessary to accomplish your goals.

-Remez Sasson

Donkeys with Nappies?

Anger at Kenya donkey nappy plan

Limuru : A kick is often the answer to putting a nappy on a donkey.
Donkey owners in the Kenyan town of Limuru are up in arms over an order from the municipal authorities that their animals must wear nappies. The council said the measure would come into effect on 16 July to ensure the town's streets are kept clean. But recent press coverage and outrage from the town's residents has led the authorities to put their plans on hold.

"If we have to put nappies on our donkeys, soon they will say our cows need them too," one donkey owner said. Limuru's mayor, James Kuria, says: "We must come up with a way to make sure that the droppings are not a nuisance." Another donkey owner, Kimani Gathugu, who lives in the town some 50km north-west of the capital, Nairobi , says the measure is not practical and the council would do better to employ more street sweepers.

Fatal kick

Noting the vital role played by donkeys in the community, he says: "Donkeys are very important. Not many people have cars in the area and the donkeys serve as a mode of transport."

The council itself has workers. They can do the sweeping

Another resident, John Kinyanjui, says: "The council itself has workers. They can do the sweeping. We are paying taxes." Water trader Simon Kamau, who uses donkeys to transport water to his clients utters: "In all the three years I have been in this business, I have never tied a nappy on a donkey. "The problem is that the donkey can give you a fatal kick. I was once kicked by a donkey and it broke my leg.

"What the council should do is come to us traders and show us how to tie the nappies on the donkeys," Mr Kamau says Mr Kuria though seems determined to push on with his plan. "I have heard that in some areas where they keep donkeys, they also have nappies," he said. "We will go to these areas and see how they do it and come back and show our people how to do it. We want the people to earn a living but at the same time we must keep our town clean."

-Michael Kaloki, BBC News

The Other Side Of The Hill

A man lived at the foot of a hill. For a long time, he heard tales of the other side of the hill. Stories of fertile land and prosperous crops, great weather, beautiful women, breathtaking scenery and crystal-clear springs.

One day, he decided he was tired of his current life and felt it was time to improve it. So, he packed his bags, left his home and started climbing the hill in search of greener pastures.

The climb was extremely trying both physically and mentally. The man stopped and rested many times. At some points, the hill was very steep indeed, and many times, he really felt like giving up. But the thought of a better life kept him going.

One day, the man came to a very steep part of the hill - it was almost vertical. And at the top lay some very thick vegetation. It wasn't the first time he had come across such an obstacle. Perhaps this one was slightly more daunting than the rest, but it was certainly well within his capability.

But he was really tired. All those days of climbing and bashing through vegetation had taken their toil on him. And, all this time, he had no results to show, no fruits to enjoy. He was sick and tired. To some extent, bitter. He decided all this suffering wasn't really worth it. So what if he got to the other side of the hill? There was no guarantee that it held what the tales promised. His old home wasn't that bad anyway. So that was it. He decided to give up. He turned around and set off for home.

Little did the man know, that beyond that steep slope and thick vegetation, was already the peak of the hill. After that, it was to be a smooth journey downhill. And, indeed, on the other side of the hill, was exactly what the tales had promised. In fact, even better than what they claimed. He had already done the hard part, but he chose to quit just when things were going to get much better.

"Defeat never comes to any man until he admits it."

Josephus Daniels

"Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go."

William Feather

"The only time you don't fail is the last time you try anything - and it works."

William Strong

"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."

Calvin Coolidge