A single model home sits amid the World's unfinished islands off the coast of Dubai. Photo by Jorge Ferrari / EPA.
"I want to see the world," I told a boatman in Dubai Creek, and pulled out my map. He waved me on board his little wooden boat with no hesitation. I could have told him I wanted to sail up the river Styx, and he would have agreed. Times are tough in the Persian Gulf emirate, and my Bangladeshi boatman had spent hours chugging up and down the creek looking for a fare. It was his bad luck that his passenger appeared to be crazy.
"The World," I repeated. Again he nodded, this time rolling his eyes slightly. He tried distracting me, asking me if I wanted to visit the Ali bin Abi Taleb mosque or ogle the colossal white yachts lining the waterfront like beached Moby Dicks. I pointed out our route — down the creek to the harbor and into the Arabian Sea. There, three miles offshore, was a cluster of 300 man-made islands shaped like a map of the globe. Each was named after a country or a city. The massive archipelago stretched across six miles and supposedly had been constructed with more than 5,000 tons of coral, making it the largest artificial reef on the planet. "See?" I said. "This is the World."
The boatman shook his head madly. "Not possible," he muttered. With sign language — the universal drawing of the finger across the throat — he made it clear that no matter how much money I was offering (and frankly, it wasn't much), he wouldn't sail into the maze of islands.
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European Bank Dubai Exposure Estimated At $40B
European banks face potential losses on an estimated $40 billion in exposure to Dubai after the city state's largest corporate entity, Dubai World, asked creditors for a six month standstill on debt repayments, raising fears that recent signs of improvements in banks' bad debt levels could reverse and Dubai's problems could weigh on the global recovery.
Most banks on Thursday said their exposure to Dubai and Dubai World is small or wouldn't comment. Dubai World accounts for about $60 billion of the city state's $80 billion in liabilities, of which half is estimated by Credit Suisse analysts to be held by European banks.
The city state shocked investors Wednesday by saying it would restructure Dubai World and wants creditors to hold off on demanding interest or repayments until at least the end of May. After several years of rapid and debt-fueled growth, the Dubai economy has suffered in the past 18 months as the global recession took hold and foreign investment in its ambitious infrastructure projects dried up.
[read which banks are involved] -- WSJ
Dubai, Abu Dhabi, UAE: cold, hard debt figures
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