LONDON: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has the “vainest” skyscrapers in the world, a report measuring the extent of spires and other height-boosting additions to the top of buildings said on Thursday.
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) said unusable space at the top of the UAE’s 19 tallest buildings was an average 19 percent of their total height, a measure it called the “vanity height.”
The building with the largest vanity height is the 828-meter Burj Khalifa in Dubai, of which 29 percent or 244 meters is unusable — which would rank on its own as the 11th tallest building in Europe, the CTBUH said.
The top three was completed by the Zifeng Tower in Nanjing, China, and the Bank of America Tower in New York. China and the United States were also second and third respectively for the average figure across all of their tall buildings.
Developers typically get higher rents on upper floors, but in developing economies where land and labor is cheaper they can more readily use tall buildings to spark nearby development and make wider schemes viable, said Steve Watts, a tall buildings expert at construction consultancy Alinea.
“You can have towers that are loss-leaders but catalysts for regeneration and iconic structures can sway decision-makers,” he said.
Despite the trend being less prevalent in more expensive markets, London’s Shard skyscraper, which was bankrolled by the state of Qatar, has a vanity measure of 20 percent, CTBUH said.
“There can also be an ego element with these things with developers wanting to go higher than each other,” Watts said.
The world’s tallest tower is set to become the one-kilometer Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which will surpass the Burj Khalifa if it opens as planned in 2017.
The tower is expected to cost around SR4.6 billion ($1.2 billion).
UAE has the world’s ‘vainest’ skyscrapers
UAE has the world’s ‘vainest’ skyscrapers
In southeast Pakistan, Ramadan brings Hindus and Muslims closer
MITHI: Partab Shivani, a Hindu in Muslim-majority Pakistan, has fasted on and off during Ramadan for years, but this time is different as he practices abstinence for the entire holy month.
Every year, he and his friends in the southeastern city of Mithi arrange iftar, when Muslims break their daily fast, to foster peace and solidarity between the two religions.
“I believe we need to promote interfaith harmony. First, we are humans — religions came later,” Shivani, a 48-year-old social activist, told AFP, adding that he also reads the teachings of the Buddha.
“His message is about peace and ending war. Peace can spread through solidarity and by standing with one another. Distance only widens the gap between people,” he added.
Ninety-six percent of Pakistan’s 240 million people are Muslim. Just two percent are Hindu, most of them living in rural areas of Sindh province where Mithi is located.
In Mithi itself, most of the 60,000 inhabitants are Hindu.
Many of the city’s Hindus also observe Ramadan and iftar has become a social gathering where people from both faiths happily participate.
“This has been a wonderful tradition of ours for a very long time,” said Mir Muhammad Buledi, a 51-year-old Muslim friend who attended Shivani’s iftar gathering.
“It is a beautiful example of harmony between the two communities.”
Like brothers
Discrimination against minorities runs deep in Pakistan.
Following the end of British rule in South Asia in 1947, the subcontinent was partitioned into mainly Hindu India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.
That triggered widespread religious bloodshed in which hundreds of thousands were killed and millions displaced.
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, freedom of religion or belief is under constant threat, with religiously motivated violence and discrimination increasing yearly.
State authorities, often using religious unrest for political gain, have failed to address the crisis, the independent non-profit says.
But such tensions are absent in Mithi.
“I am a Hindu but I keep all the fasts during this month,” said Sushil Malani, a local politician. “I feel happy standing with my Muslim brothers.
“We celebrate Eid together as well. This tradition in the region is very old.”
Restaurants and tea stalls are closed across Pakistan during Ramadan.
Ramesh Kumar, a 52-year-old Hindu man who sells sweets and savoury items outside a Muslim shrine, keeps his push cart covered and closed until iftar.
“There is no discrimination among us if someone is Muslim or Hindu. I have been seeing this since my childhood that we all live together like brothers,” he said.
Muslim shrine, Hindu caretaker
Locals say Mithi’s peaceful religious coexistence can be traced to its remote location, emerging from the sand dunes of the Tharparkar desert, which borders the modern Indian state of Rajasthan.
Cows — considered sacred in Hinduism — roam freely in Mithi city, as they do in neighboring India.
At two Sufi Muslim shrines in the middle of the city, Hindu families arrange meals, bringing fruit, meals and juices for their Muslim neighbors to break their fasts.
“We respect Muslims,” said Mohan Lal Malhi, a Hindu caretaker of one of the shrines.
Mohan said his parents and elders taught him to respect people regardless of religion or color, and the traditions pass from one generation to the next.
Local residents said both communities consider their social relationships more important than their religious identity.
“You will see a (Sikh) gurdwara, a mosque, and a shrine standing side by side here,” Mohan said. “The atmosphere of this area teaches humanity.”
