DATES: OCTOBER 1-MARCH 31
As three colossal shape-shifting gateways swing open on the Middle East’s first Expo, finds out whether the desert edition of ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ will live up to its Eastern promise.
P
icture a garden city powered by solar trees and watered by smart rainfall extracted from desert air; a place nine tenths the size of Gibraltar, with robots instead of British Bobbies to give visitors directions in a polyglot of languages.
Welcome – or in the traditional Emirati greeting, Hayyakum – to Expo 2020 Dubai where, one year later than scheduled, 191 countries of the world will put pandemic woes and political differences on hold to share their visions for creating a better world. Dubai’s billionaire ruler Sheikh
Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has promised that the 35th World Fair, themed ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’, will ‘astonish the world’. And the sustainable city that has grown up ‘Expo-nentially’ on Dubai’s border with Abu Dhabi certainly looks like a miracle. ›
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