DUBAI // A man has fallen 10 metres from the region's tallest rock-climbing wall, at Dubai World Trade Centre, witnesses say.
One witness said the Lebanese man, 25, suffered serious injuries in the incident at Dorell Sports. He said a number of climbers came to the man's aid as he lay at the bottom of the 15-metre wall.
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"We heard a loud crash and looked over to see that someone had suffered a ground fall," said Brian Coones, 26, a personal trainer and climbing coach from the US.
The man was reportedly on his first climb. Mr Coones said the man had a seizure while awaiting the ambulance, which arrived about 45 minutes after the fall.
Maurice Dorell, the owner of Dorell Sports, denied the man's injuries were serious.
"There was a minor accident in which a climber was not seriously injured," Mr Dorell said.
"The incident is under investigation and beyond that I cannot say much."
Members of the Dubai climbing community were shocked that a "ground fall" had occurred in a controlled environment.
"Any accident that happens in a controlled environment is something that should be taken seriously," said James Falchetto, the founder of Traks, an industrial and recreational climbing company and equipment provider that trains search and rescue teams in the UAE.
"My sympathy goes out to the victim and his family."
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Profile of Bitex UAE
Date of launch: November 2018
Founder: Monark Modi
Based: Business Bay, Dubai
Sector: Financial services
Size: Eight employees
Investors: Self-funded to date with $1m of personal savings
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
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