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The heritage of the first world exhibition in France in 1889 was the Eiffel Tower. The Dubai Expo 2020 left the shopping center obsessed with the car with its first 15 -minute city, connected to the city blocked via Metro Link.
However, the most transformational result was simply to provide the 192 nations rally during the coronavirus era. After a year of delay forced by the pandemic, around 200 pavilions opened in October 2021, making 24 million visits before the exhibition of the exhibition in March 2022 – The month in the United Kingdom raised the last of its travel restrictions. The successful management of Dubai of COVID -19 – from one of the most strict locking in the world to a rapid opening and a deployment of rapid vaccine – has supervised its growth of the regional hub in the world metropolis.
Today, Dubai is an essential destination for billionaires, fueling the prices of record properties. The conservative Muslim state has not spoken anachronistic legislation to make foreigners more comfortable, such as the decriminalization of alcohol, and has deployed a long -term residence program to persuade newcomers to tell. Although social liberalization has not gone to the rights of LGBT, an underground gay culture thrives through an informal policy “do not ask, do not say”.
“The cocovated pandemic was a decisive period for Expo – and for the world,” writes Reem al -Hashimy, who directed the event, in When the ground changes. “It has accelerated world trips and exposed the fault lines along which the world is reshaped.”
A new generation of expatriates has joined oil workers and financiers who had long been descended on the emirate as a launch ramp in the rich region. Legions of influencers, managers of hedge funds and crypto-milliards fled global locking to party through the current winter of Dubai. Many stayed.
The first -hand story of the longest minister of the United Arab Emirates recounts her experiences in the delivery of the 2020 Expo, starting by contrasting modern Arab Emirates with the famines from the 1930s to 40 years.
In the early 2000s, she had planned a career in teaching before the sovereign of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, parachuted her in the Washington DC embassy, where a crisis broke out when the United States blocked an agreement involving Dubai port operatorquoting the fears of terrorism. Spokesperson articulated for water, it has repercussions against the “colonial look” and the preconceived ideas of Dubai and Arab women. The characterizations of the emirate as a “vulgar” failure wish its economic model which, she argues, confused the stereotypes of the Middle East.
Its history – a rare outing for the functionality of Dubai – is “on message” but contains revealing and personal vignettes while it organizes the event for three pregnancies. Living a visit abroad, a Minister of Foreign Affairs asked him to underline the head of the delegation. She “loves her moment of embarrassment” but it was her turn to blush when the exhibition played the bad hymn during an official event. Aside from the misadventures, a central objective was for “crops displayed on an equal footing”, explains Hashimy. Dubai covered the costs of US 60 million dollars to guarantee its participation and financed individual pavilions for all developing nations.
The complicated diplomacy of the reception of Israeli and Palestinian pavilions reflected what it describes as the “difficult choices” of water in the promotion of dialogue. In 2020, he had become the first state of the Gulf to agree on diplomatic normalization with Israel. This neutrality continued thanks to the invasion of Russia on a large scale of Ukraine in 2022, when the water refused to take into account Western calls to take sides. Dubai, in particular, harvested the financial award as a comfortable outpost for the Russians who escape war and sanctions. The COP28 climate summit was held on the exhibition site in December 2023 raised Dubai. Hosting the conference in an petostat was controversial, but the water was successful when the final text for the first time recognized the need to pass fuels to fossil fuels Reach zero net greenhouse gas emissions.
Expo was an upcoming party highlighting Dubai's ambition to attract even more the richness and talent of the world. Numerous arrivals, in particular the subclass of migrant workers, are still faced with difficulties, but never before the city has been such an ambitious target for millions of the world of world – as well as billionaires fleeing the British tax.
When Ground Shifts: The story of Dubai Expo: Create hope in time of upheaval by Reem al-Hashimy Profile £ 25, 208 pages
Simeon Kerr, the Scottish correspondent for the FT, covered the Gulf of Dubai between 2001 and 2024
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