Stories about Dubai, and the UAE 

WORLD'S TALLEST TOWER - The race to build the biggest skyscraper long ago moved from America to Asia, then the Middle East. In the process, buildings have grown breathtakingly taller. Still, nothing ever seen before prepares skyscraper spotters for the towering Burj Dubai.

SPROUTING ISLANDS  - If the world seems too small, all you need to do is rebuild it; the universe too. That's the plan in Dubai, where the Palm projects have sprouted a popular - and profitable real estate scheme: artificial-island creation.

SOARING SKYSCRAPERS The battle to build the world's tallest tower, once essentially an American obsession, is now a worldwide craze, with much of the biggest erections in Asia and the Middle East. As buildings reach higher and higher, there is seemingly no upper limit to the quest to claim the world's tallest highrise.

Death in Dubai - Scores of young children from South Asia are kidnapped or stolen, then sold as slaves to work within the camel-racing circuit of the Middle Eastern oil sheiks. An exclusive look at the shameful practice.

HONG KONG OF THE MID-EAST? That's the hope of Dubai, among the most progressive of the United Arab Emirates, which has invested its oil wealth in hotels, an airline and other infrastructure in an effort to become the top trading center of the Arab world

DESERT BASHING  - Four-wheeling up and down desert dunes is only part of the fun in Dubai, a sunny but small and long-reclusive Middle Eastern kingdom that is beginning to open up to tourism.


Photos: Palm courtesy of Nakheel; rest  by Ron Gluckman

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