Tourists watched in amazement as Base jumpers leapt from Burj Khalifa in Dubai on Tuesday.
Families and children clapped and cheered as the Base jumpers plunged from the world’s tallest building. People filmed and shared photos and video as a steady series of parachutes opened and the jumpers landed safely in a cordoned-off area in front of the 828-metre steel and glass tower.
Chris Smith, a tourist from Toronto, Canada, told The National: “It’s not something I thought I was going to see today. It's very unique, especially for me, coming from Toronto. We have the CN Tower but you would never think of anybody actually jumping off the CN Tower. It's pretty cool that they have the platform here so that those guys can jump.”
Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, had posted a video on Instagram showing a platform suspended from Burj Khalifa, and stamped “Exit 139 Burj Khalifa Base Jump”, late on Monday.
X Dubai said the jumps were part of a “groundbreaking extreme sport spectacle” that brought together 30 elite Base jumpers in Dubai.
“Over the next few days, the full story of this unprecedented feat will be revealed, showcasing the spirit of innovation, ambition and adventure that defines Dubai,” the action lifestyle brand said in a statement. The event is being held in partnership with the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism, Emaar and Skydive Dubai.
Adventure sport
Thessa and Daan Jansen from the Netherlands were among clusters of people craning their necks to watch the parachutes unfurl and the Base divers land safely.
“We just saw them jumping from the Burj Khalifa and it was amazing,” Ms Jansen said. “I don’t think I would ever be able to do that because I would be too scared.” Her son Daan disagreed, saying: “I want to do that. I would come back and learn that.”
Base jumping is an acronym for the four types of platform that jumpers can leap from: buildings, antennas, spans (or bridges) and earth (such as cliffs). Dubai and the city’s soaring skyscrapers have been the backdrop for adventure athletes who have set Base jumps records and performed gravity-defying stunts using parachutes and wing suits.
In 2014, two athletes broke a Guinness World Record for the highest Base jump from a building when they leapt off a specially made platform at the top of the Burj Khalifa.
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COMPANY PROFILE
Emergency
Director: Kangana Ranaut
Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Milind Soman, Mahima Chaudhry
Rating: 2/5
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The biog
Name: Sarah Al Senaani
Age: 35
Martial status: Married with three children - aged 8, 6 and 2
Education: Masters of arts in cultural communication and tourism
Favourite movie: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
Favourite hobbies: Art and horseback ridding
Occupation: Communication specialist at a government agency and the owner of Atelier
Favourite cuisine: Definitely Emirati - harees is my favourite dish
Heather, the Totality
Matthew Weiner,
Canongate
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*Annual tuition fees covering the 2024/2025 academic year
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There’s increased scrutiny on the tricks being used to keep commodities flowing to and from blacklisted countries. Here’s a description of how some work.
1 Going Dark
A common method to transport Iranian oil with stealth is to turn off the Automatic Identification System, an electronic device that pinpoints a ship’s location. Known as going dark, a vessel flicks the switch before berthing and typically reappears days later, masking the location of its load or discharge port.
2. Ship-to-Ship Transfers
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3. Fake Destinations
Signaling the wrong destination to load or unload is another technique. Ships that intend to take cargo from Iran may indicate their loading ports in sanction-free places like Iraq. Ships can keep changing their destinations and end up not berthing at any of them.
4. Rebranded Barrels
Iranian barrels can also be rebranded as oil from a nation free from sanctions such as Iraq. The countries share fields along their border and the crude has similar characteristics. Oil from these deposits can be trucked out to another port and documents forged to hide Iran as the origin.
* Bloomberg
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Family reunited
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was born and raised in Tehran and studied English literature before working as a translator in the relief effort for the Japanese International Co-operation Agency in 2003.
She moved to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies before moving to the World Health Organisation as a communications officer.
She came to the UK in 2007 after securing a scholarship at London Metropolitan University to study a master's in communication management and met her future husband through mutual friends a month later.
The couple were married in August 2009 in Winchester and their daughter was born in June 2014.
She was held in her native country a year later.
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In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
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Landfill in numbers
• Landfill gas is composed of 50 per cent methane
• Methane is 28 times more harmful than Co2 in terms of global warming
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