e pur si muove

Amidst the political ferment about the news that DP World, a Dubai government-linked corporation GLC, has tendered a bid to run six American ports, this NYT article, in particular, has caught my eye. Eerie parallels. Just replace Singapore for Dubai and tweak the appropriate names and see how much of the essay could have just as well been written about Singapore. (Emphasis below mine)

Many here readily admit that as Dubai emerges as a power on the global economic stage, it has much to learn about the “soft” aspects of business, from politics to public relations.

“We don’t have qualified people to speak,” said Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, a professor of political science at Emirates University, speaking of the government. “They don’t have experts and commentators. There’s no political discourse in this city, and it showed.”

[...]

With native Emirati citizens accounting for only about 15 percent of the population, Arab may be the last word that comes to mind in describing this city. Indeed, the average resident here is more likely to speak English than Arabic, and more likely to be Asian than Arab. Many Indians jokingly refer to Dubai as “the best-run Indian city.”

Set across the Persian Gulf from Iran and just east of Saudi Arabia, Dubai is the financial capital of the United Arab Emirates, a federation of seven sheikdoms that won independence from Britain in 1971. But in stark contrast to many of its neighbors, Dubai more than two decades ago turned its back on oil and focused on diversifying its economy.

Today, the city derives less than 15 percent of its revenue from oil, but greets more than five million tourists a year, many of them from Europe, and is the Middle East headquarters for more than 800 American companies. Like Singapore, long a model for the city, Dubai has also become a regional trade hub and a magnet for Arab, Iranian and Asian investors.

“Dubai has been trying to prove to the rest of the Arab world that there is life after oil, and that in fact it’s a better life,” Mr. Abdulla said. “The good news is there is room for a second and a third Dubai, just like there was room for a second Singapore in Asia.” The city is lucky in that its long-term strategy has come to fruition at a moment when other Arab states are flush with billions of oil dollars and seeking places to invest their newfound wealth.

[...]

Modernity, however, has not come easy. With 85 percent of the population made up of foreigners, many of them second and third generation, the city faces a simmering demographic and identity crisis.

Dubai is likely to confront numerous other questions as a 45-day investigation of its port management program gets under way, possibly illuminating the emirate’s struggles with money laundering and other illicit activities. A spotty human rights record regarding foreign workers could also be a sticking point, along with its participation in a continuing Arab boycott of trade with Israel.

I’ve somehow become immune to the array of bizarre items available on eBay. For example, these Brokeback Mountain PEZ dispensers.

Then again, if a woman can give birth to fraternal twins of different skin color, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.

Nor should I be alarmed to discover that a domestic cat can keel over from bird flu in Germany, only for the federal Friedrich Loeffler Institute to discover that it was infected with the most deadly form of the H5N1 virus [de press release] [Google en translation] from eating a tainted bird.

Or even that Salman Rushdie, author of the infamous Satanic Verses, put his head on the chopping block again by signing off on a manifesto against Islamic totalitarianism.

How about uses of nanotechnology in the form of paint that can selectively block cell phone signals? NaturalNano claims to make use of halloysite nanotubes, which unlike carbon nanotubes are made out of aluminosilicates (i.e. fancy rock and clay).

Oh, and by the way, Microsoft claims the leaked Origami video is too old to be accurate. Which makes me wonder if this isn’t a clever marketing research tactic to “accidentally” let slip what The Origami Project is about, and then work voraciously on the collective reactions of the blogosphere and other media channels.